Update...this is what's going on this week!

This is the agenda for this week:

Tomorrow-we get our engagement photo taken! Jim was gonna wear an argyle polo shirt and I was gonna wear black. I emailed the photographer asking what he thought about our choices and he says actually mid tones look better in B&W portraits. Guess we were horribly wrong, but crisis averted! Now I have to figure out what to wear! Jim will just revert to a solid polo shirt. Easy. Dang him.

Jim's mom says we have to register ASAP as she is throwing me a bridal shower while my mom is in town at the end of June. SO this weekend we get to hit 2-3 places with the scan gun. Should be fun (at least for me) :)

I need to call and figure out how many dress places to make appointments at. David's Bridal for sure, but maybe at least one other place just incase nothing works out at David's Bridal. (and for the fun of it)

We need to get serious about finding someone to marry us. That is like the last big thing that we have to schedule. (unless I am leaving something out)

We need to check into hotels to see what kind of block rates we can get for people for friday and Saturday night.....hopefully something downtown can be affordable.... :)

I feel like we are doing pretty darn good so far. Tackling a few big things a week....it is working for me right now. The invitations are like 60% done being designed. The address list is 90% done.....we even went wedding band shopping last weekend. I have it narrowed down to two choices!

CAKE TASTING!

We just got back from the cake tasting and boy oh boy is Jim a happy guy! In all we tasted 6 different types of cake with different frostings and fillings. We decided on breaking up the cupcakes so we will have 5 different flavors (marble, chocolate, lemon, red velvet and confetti) with buttercream frosting. Yummy! The cupcakes are the perfect size for you to eat some cake and not have too much (it is rich!) I couldn't eat all my cake samples, but someone else didn't have any problems putting them all away.

:)diet starts next week!

Center pieces idea?

Even though Jim and I will not be hosting a sit down dinner, we will have some tables set up so that if people want to sit while they are eating, they can. The caterer will let us have plain white tablecloths and we can rent pieces of orange and hot pink fabric to make an x across the circular tables and add some color without too much cost.

I don't want to leave the tables bare, but I don't want to spend a ton of $$$ on it either. I was thinking about getting one of these for the center of each table and putting an orange or pink pillar or tea light candle inside (whichever looks better). Then it would be minimal and I could possibly even add a little something else around it (maybe mini picture frames with our photo booth shots from our engagement in it???

Thoughts?

Caterers/Bar....RESERVED! (and tasty!)

Jim and I met with the caterers last night and they far exceeded our expectations. They were very professional, organized and friendly (which is always good). They had everything all set up so we could try a bunch of food and make notes about what we like and don't like (we basically liked it all!) and we got a great deal for signing with them last night (which we were going to do anyway, but hey, always nice to get a discount and some freebees!) 

They make all their own food fresh just before our event and bake/cook it at the Eisner museum so it is all REALLY fresh and VERY tasty! I won't spoil the menu (we need to make final decisions anyway) but there will be plenty of variety, plenty of filling food (concern since we are not having a sit down dinner) and there will be an open bar (beer, wine, soda, water) so no worries about having to pay for drinks. Jim and I think that their stuff is A+++ and have gotten many recommendations from other people who have used them before with great results...hopefully our wedding food will impress and delight the guests!

In a sudden twist of events, our cake tasting that was scheduled for tonight is now bumped to friday....guess Jim will have to wait one more day for his favorite part of the planning!

Photo booth....RESERVED!!!!

Yay! I called and reserved the LAST photo booth that this company (the best company in my opinion) had available for October 3rd! I even got a discount when I told the guy that Jim and I got engaged in the photo booth at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh! 

This photo booth not only looks cool with its retro styling, but it is roomy (nice bench versus the little stool that is hard to get two people on) and it has lighting and stuff to make the photos look vintage, but also make the people look their best! Every strip prints within 20 seconds, and there will be two copies of each strip, one for our guestbook and another for the people who were just in the booth. After the wedding, they will host the photos on their website and you can go on there and look at all the photos and order any that you might want copies of. They also will give Jim and I an event CD with all the photos on it for us to use in our wedding album or to email to our guests that request them!

I am working on making a "props" bin with funny hats and glasses and whatnot for people to use in the booth. If you have anything that you want to bring, feel free!

I am SO EXCITED!

Bridesmaid dress decision....

I have decided! The bridesmaid dresses will be this style! It is available at David's Bridal and is on sale until May 25th! $99 instead of $135!

Since I now for sure have all four bridesmaids.... (Yay! Jen said yes despite her having two other weddings that she is in this summer!) it is time to get serious about the dresses!

I think this style will flatter all four girls (which is important! No one wants to wear a dress that is not cute!) 

Since Cary is the maid of honor (obvious choice since I have known her for OVER 20 years! whoa!) and her favorite color-like mine- is orange, then I thought she could get this dress in the tangerine color they have and Whitney, Jen and Nicole can get it in the watermellon color. I think having two different colors will add interest to the wedding party and since I am doing minimal decoration, it will reinforce the pink and orange color scheme.

As far as shoes, silver would be cool, but I am not one of those crazy brides that wouldn't let my bridesmaids wear shoes they might already have in another color...so girls, if you see some cute silver summer shoes, this gives you the permission to buy them! :)

Wednesday is the caterer "tasting" where Jim and I basically get a free dinner full of tasty things that you may be able to eat at our wedding!

Thursday is Jim's big day-the CAKE TASTING! He is super pumped! After we finish this week with all the yummy food, summer slim down camp begins for Jim and I. Personally, I would like to lose about 10lbs (which is very do-able before october)....not sure if Jim has any goals, but he promised to "work out" with me... which probably means we can play "Wii fit" after work. :)

Invitations idea....

Since we are having the wedding and reception at a museum featuring advertising and Design, I thought it might be cool to make the invitations and stuff look like vintage newspaper ads. I like the looks of this kind of ad... I am using it as a model for the invitation concept I am working on.....

Tonight we meet with the potential photographer! Yay! Exciting!

cake ideas!

Jim and I decided we don't wanna do a normal cake....and to avoid cake cutting fees and stuff like that, we thought it would be fun if our cake was "self-serve". We could cut the very top and smash that in each other's faces (or eat the cake) and then our guests could help themselves to cupcakes galore! 

another possible bridesmaid dress

This one is cute, I think it will flatter all my bridesmaids and it comes in pink AND orange!!!!!

Dresses

So my colors are going to be pink and orange...I found a few bridesmaid dresses I really like (Cary, I found one that comes in Orange!!!!) and also a gown for myself that I think is BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Any thoughts on these?

So we have a spot....and a date!

Jim and I toured the Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design and we fell in love with the space. Not only is it affordable for us, but it is a great space and they still had a saturday this fall open! We reserved Saturday October 3rd and will have both the wedding and the reception in the museum. It is SUCH a cool space filled with great photo opportunities, cool stuff on display and is so very unique just like Jim and I. We both agreed immediately that is was perfect!

So, MARK THAT DATE!

SATURDAY OCTOBER 3RD!!!! :)

In the meantime, visit the website for a virtual tour and see what it is all about!
http://www.eisnermuseum.org/

Gotta Have One!

Ok, so if you are an artsy person like myself and you get engaged in a photo booth, then you surely need one at your wedding reception. I am looking at this company in particular:

http://www.thetravelingphotobooth.com/

I am thinking that if we have both of our wacky and fun families and all our friends around, what better way to have them leave us memories of our big day than in a photo booth! I don't like posed photos anyway, the true character of someone really comes out after they have had a few cocktails and a stint in a photo booth.... :)

I like this company in particular because the photos come out really fast and they print two right away so the guest gets one and they leave one for the guest book. You can also pick black and white or color. How fun is this?????

WE ARE ENGAGED!

So the Friday evening that we arrived in Pittsburgh to see Nicole and Mike, we all decided to go to the Andy Warhol Museum because I had been talking it up so much and telling Jim how much I like that museum and how I wanted to go in their vintage 1960 photo booth. We ended up getting there at 8:30 pm (they closed at 10pm) and looking around at their Darth Vader helmet installation (which was really cool).

So it gets to be about 9:45-15 minutes till the museum closes and we still hadn't gone to the photo booth. Jim was asking "do you wanna go now? Do you wanna go now????" So we headed down to the booth. Jim and I hopped in first and started taking pictures. Right after the second photo, Jim says "look over here" and I look down at his hand and he is holding the MOST beautiful ring I have ever seen! Then he said "will you marry me Kate????" and I said "Really?" and I screamed really really loud and then said "YES!". I was screaming so loud that all 7 floors of the museum heard me and wondered what was going on. The staff came running and Nicole and Mike told them what happened. I was shaking and crying and Jim said that he called my dad and asked for permission to marry me (my dad said, "good luck, it is her decision.") and I couldn't believe that Jim called him because my dad has always intimidated my boyfriends in the past. We took another strip of photos that was more posed once I calmed down, and the whole way out of the museum people were congratulating us. What a perfect story that we have about the day we got engaged!

I am so in love!