clicks of note: she knows she's found a keeper.

get your week off to a colorful start...

LISTEN.

• The band is Charleston-based Shovels and Rope, the song is "Keeper," and with honey-sweet harmony from a husband-and-wife team and lyrics about loyalty, it's perfection.  Fans of The Civil Wars and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes will love this one.  Once again, I'm linking up to Musical Mondays at My So-Called Chaos!

SWOON.

Troy Grover Photographers via Bridal Musings

• I think you'll love this stylish outdoor engagement session featured on Bridal Musings.
• Camille Styles shares summer shower inspiration from Antiquaria.
• Style Me Pretty features a gorgeous watercolor-inspired shoot in shades of peach.
• For our currently-planning brides, Southern Weddings offers sound budget advice.

INSPIRE.

• The brilliant Jonathan Safran Foer's "How Not to Be Alone," from the New York Times:

"We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes. Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life."

FLASHBACK.

• Two years ago, I recapped the bridal shower my friends gave me, my final hair and makeup trial, and my bachelorette party.  I also shared a sneak peek of our townhouse.  Last year, I shared a few of my favorite blogs, an al fresco Sunday Simplicity, hot pink fashion inspiration, and a round-up of braided bridal hairstyles.

Thrift Store Roundup

In which I evaluate the potentially wedding related contents of local thrift stores:

Cave Spring Goodwill

Findings: clear glass vases for .25-.50, a copy of Offbeat Bride by Ariel Meadow Stallings for .79. Book score!

Westlake Goodwill

Findings: MY FIRST MILK GLASS (okay, not real milk glass but it's white and pretty) SCORE! Two large vases for 3.99 each and a pedestal vase for 1.90; an Andrew Greeley book. They have two other small vases I'm thinking about going back for...

Daleville Goodwill
Findings: LOTS of really cool books including "When You Marry" from 1953. No milk glass- the "wares" section was pretty picked over.

460 Goodwill
Findings: My mom picked up a beautiful pedestal vase for 1.50, a bud vase and several books.

My growing collection of white vases!

Vinton Goodwill

The books were disorganized and there was one piece of milk glass in the store... that didn't match my hobnail pattern.

Rocky Mount Goodwill

Findings: Two books. The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks and another called Eat Cake.

My centerpiece books... a combination of blue and purple covers and books with cool wedding and love-related titles. We will need about 30 for the wedding, I think.

STUFF I have for my wedding centerpieces:
- 2 large "milk glass" vases
- 3 pedestal "milk glass" vases
- 2 "milk glass" bud vases
- 12 hardcover books

David Tutera @ Jo-Ann Fabrics

I am a frequent customer at all of our local arts and crafts supply stores: Michael's, A.C. Moore, Jo-Ann Fabrics, the craft sections of Wal-Mart, Target, and K-Mart... all nice in their own ways, all convenient to different shopping areas in town if I feel the need to grab a few scrapbooking supplies, spools of ribbon, or rubber stamps while I'm out. Which, if you know me, you know is at least once a month. I loves me some crafts.

Last week, I received an e-mail that bumped Jo-Ann up a few notches, despite the fact that our local store has moved and the new Jo-Ann won't open until April.

Jo-Ann has new line of products designed by wedding planner David Tutera. I kind of became addicted to David's amazingness due to a habit of watching We's My Fair Wedding on Sunday evenings- at first, it was to make fun of the crazy brides. That's what I told myself. Over time, my purpose for watching the show transformed- I was doing way less mocking and way more mental note-taking. David knows how to "make it work," to quote another favorite tv style guru, even if "it" is a Wizard of Oz, pirate, or "bling-blau" themed wedding.

My favorite item from the collection is the cream birdcage veil. A stylish veil for 14.99! Pair it with a flower or feather fascinator and it would be practically indistinguishable from haute couture.

p.s. I am loving the slightly retro hair and makeup of the model in the picture!  I love seeing a birdcage veil paired with long hair.

Time to Slash the Budget: UPDATED

For a while there, my nightly habit was signing on to the Knot and zeroing out my budget.

After putting in the estimates we've gotten so far, we're more than $3,000 over budget.

Time to slash!

- On Monday, I will be calling some alternative florists to set up meetings. The florists I met with will be e-mailing me an itemized lists. My mental plan right now is to have a pro do the personal flowers and ceremony arrangements and to DIY the reception centerpieces using a $200 gift card for Growers Box that I won in a blog contest.

- I will also be e-mailing my Mary Kay consultant to find out how much she charges for wedding day make-up.

- I may be looking for an easy hairstyle I can DIY/have a friend do for me.

- I don't know if we'll be able to afford favor boxes. Might just have to do old-school escort cards. Would not be the end of the world because our guests are already getting tons of dessert!

- Speaking of the tons of dessert, I think it will be much more affordable if THAT's all DIY as well, so I'm going to ask my caterer for an updated budget without the mini desserts.

- Cut the champagne toast. Champagne isn't very tasty; our guests can toast with whatever liquids are in their hands at the time.

- Just realized we can register for some things, like toasting flutes and a cake serving set, and even cake stands for the dessert buffet! Although I guess we don't really need toasting flutes if we're nixing champagne... maybe we could have special wine glasses? My BM Penguin kind of specializes in DIY frosted/bejeweled glass. Otherwise, check out these Crate and Barrel toasting flutes under $3; super modern platinum stemmed glassware or etched floral glassware for $3.48-$9 from Pier1.

- DIY enclosure cards and thank-you notes (picture postcards are cuter than plain ol' matchy-matchy notecards anyway, right?)

ETA: The dress shop called this week and I now have to add $80 to the cost of my dress to have it rushed. Otherwise, it would arrive... the last week of June. My wedding is in July. Clearly, the folks at the bridal salon have not been reading this blog.

What Things Cost: Favors and gifts

Favors - We want our escort cards to double as wedding favors - we would like to do a little ribbon-tied box with candy on it. The boxes would have tags with the guest's name and table number.

Packaging

2 Piece Square Favor Boxes - Ivory

.80 @ Beau*Coup 

Square Embossed Favor Boxes - Ivory

.70 @ Beau-Coup 

Square Favor Boxes - White

.10 @ Oriental Trading

Square Pearlized Embossed Favor Boxes - White

.33 @ Oriental Trading 

Square Favor Boxes - White with Ivory Swirl Design and Scalloped Edge

.03 @ Dollar Tree 

Rectangular Embossed Favor Boxes - Ivory

.65 @ Beau*Coup 

2 Piece Rectangular Favor Boxes - Cream

.70 @ Beau*Coup

Candy

There's always the DIY option if our budget can't allow for candy. I am pretty good at making truffles :)

Fudge Meltaways

6.75/lb @ MetroCandy

Asher Truffles

7.90/lb @ MetroCandy

Lindor Truffles

.32 @ MetroCandy

Chocolate Foil Hearts - Silver or Purple

9.39/lb @ CandyDirect 

Chocolate Gems

5.89/lb @ Candy.com

Bubbles

.11 @ Dollar Tree

Attendants' Gifts

DIY Personalized Tote Bags - tutorial here at The Handcrafted Life; 11x9" totes are 2.99 @ Jo-Ann Fabrics

back to the drawing board on flowers! - UPDATE with some new ideas & incpiration

Yesterday morning consisted of: receiving the estimated cost of our flowers, hyperventilating, my mom reminding me that I can't really remember what the centerpieces at most of the weddings I've been to, further reminding me that filling, good tasting food is MUCH more important at a Southern wedding than pretty flowers, and deciding that we are going to DIY the centerpieces. I will still use a professional florist for the bouquets and other personal flowers because they will be in so many photos.

Goodbye, beautiful centerpiece FI and I fell in love with after seeing on Style Me Pretty...

and back to the drawing board. When I mentioned my love of milk glass and feasibility of finding lots of vases at thrift stores, Mom raided the cabinets and we have a lot of milk glass vases already. So now I'm thinking of doing something like this:

but in these colors (and imagine that the tree stump becomes a mirror or tray and the camera becomes one of our table numbers, which are going to be in picture frames)...

Project Wedding

I totally think that my FI, mother, MOH and I, even our complete lack training as florists, could still pull these off, with a little help from our friends. It might even be fun, and I think that FI and I will feel more ownership of our wedding if we can look at our centerpieces and know that we designed them, found the supplies for them, and created them together. Mr. Spin is going to check out the "discards" room at his workplace (he sells interior design products) to see what treasures may be found there.

Ruffled blog has a tutorial on how to diy vases that look like milk glass with regular glass vases and glossy white spray paint. Ebay may also prove to be a valuable resource - a search for "milk glass bud vase lot" turned up a lot of 17 vases for just $25!

I may incorporate a Mason jar into the centerpieces... even though our venue is elegant ballroom, Mason jars are so Southern and Mr. Spin got so excited when he saw them in the vase aisle at Michael's. I think we could make them look classy next to the milk glass, maybe with some submerged hydrangea heads and a floating candle? Weddingbee's Mrs. Labrador proved that Mason jars can look elegant in the right setting! I think our friends & family would love seeing them on the tables, too- a little nod to our country upbringings and especially Mr. Spin's home county (which has a noted history of MOONSHINING!)

We can do this. I know we can. I'm so inspired by bloggers like Weddingbee's Mrs. Tulip and Mrs. Cola who have done their own centerpieces... they prove that do it yourself flowers can be done, and done beautifully.

Today's tasks, then: pricing out wholesale flowers online. While watching Bridezillas and My Fair Wedding, of course (it's becoming my Sunday ritual).

And a task for the rest of the week: having our florist send us an ITEMIZED proposal (she just left me a voicemail with the grand total for the wedding), and perhaps shopping around for other potential florists who may be able to truly give us what we want for less money.

FI's task for the week: talking to our potential officiant, his family minister.

Joint task for the week: figure out who from our list will be invited to the wedding and decide how many out of town guests we will invite so we can start blocking hotel rooms.