this is why i need to live in a building with a doorman...

This is what sits behind me at my desk at work. 20+ pounds of wedding supplies! they're sitting here patiently waiting to be picked up in the car this weekend and driven home. all those boxes=centerpieces.
we weren't going to even have centerpieces, but the man saw something at hobby lobby that the thought was funny/cute. we bought ONE. thinking, we'd put it on the cupcake table. well, somehow it was decided that we needed them for each of our 10 tables. we hit hobby lobby again and cleaned them out. sent my sister in texas on hobby lobby searches too. 3 hobby lobby's cleaned out of this particular item. then of course we had to order the glass bowls in which to accommodate these items. that's what hiding in the huge boxes. 10 giant glass bowls!

as previously mentioned, all invites are out and we're starting to get our RSVPs back, slowly but surely. the man gets all giddy when we get an RSVP- it's cute. it's also quite funny that people we were pretty much 100% thinking they weren't coming have RSVPed with a yes. like i told the man- you can never count anyone out. our website is up and running too www.mywedding.com/rodneyandjamie simple, practical and functional. no friggin slide show of 38945039845039 photos of us (though if you request one be sent to you personally, i could perhaps arrange that)

the projects currently on deck are a card box, cupcake stands and cookies. we bought partial supplies for all of these last weekend. the dining room looks like a wreck. why do i have a feeling that the apartment will be in complete disarray until somewhere around mid-september?!?!
as far as the cookies go... i'm going with chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, sugar cookies (still have yet to find a recipe for this) and some toasted coconut cookies.  i may throw a few other choices into the mix, but i'm trying to keep it basic. i've got killer recipes for 3 of the 4 above. tested and approved!
i'm not looking forward to all the space this dough is going to take up in my freezer, and i'm praying it's cool come august when i have to bake them all in like a day!

lastly we got our first present from our registry! YAY! i didn't really expect much off the registry (we originally weren't even going to do one!) since we weren't having a shower. though, apparently now we are. as of yesterday i was asked for names and addresses. so i guess it's a good thing we went ahead and registered. of course, the 20% off coupon for buying whatever is left on the registry after the wedding is reason enough to do it. HELLO discount! i am a fan.

i'll leave you now with a completely unrelated announcement. as of today... i have officially lost all the pounds i gained since i started dating the man! it was a LOT! but they're gone... never to return again! YAY!

and suddenly... life is turned upside down...

but in a totally good way!

a few months ago, my betrothed was making comments about the wedding costs (way too many thousands of dollars!) and how we can't afford to do so many things we want to do at the moment because we're stashing about hundreds every month for this wedding. so, i made a suggestion to him: nix the whole big wedding, elope and just have a party afterward. he thought about it  but shot down the idea because my man, he wanted a wedding!


when the 1 year point until our wedding date creeped around, i made a list of everything we had to do between then and may 2011. the list was obscenely long. seriously... L-O-N-G and i'm sure it was in no way 100% complete.  i google doc shared that monster and told him this is what we have to do. WE as in, you must help me because there's no way i could do this alone!

a few days later when i came home from work, the man sprung a surprise on me. he came to the realization that the thousands that we were spending on just 4 hours of our lives was insane and frankly not worth it, nor is all the sacrificing we have to make on a daily basis and lets not forget the endless hours of work that we'll have to do. basically, putting all our wants on hold for an entire year, all for just a few hours (and a huge burden on those who have to shell out to travel to see us- nevermind all those that wouldn't even be able to attend because of the distance!). he now sees things my way! someday he'll learn that i'm ALWAYS right and he'll just do whatever i say, when i say it... but for now, he's still learning.

while we aren't eloping... we are going to have a private little ceremony with our parents to make things official. we'll then have not one but TWO outdoor casual receptions. one in his hometown and one in mine. this way, we get to celebrate with all of our friends and family, no one has a huge travel burden and no one is left out! i figure the private ceremony is best as having as it would be unfair to have the ceremony with my family  and not his and vice versa!

oh and did i mention that we changed the date? oh yeah... we bumped it up almost 9 months!
private ceremony and his hometown fiesta: August 21, 2010
my hometown festivities: Sept 4, 2010
and NO before you ask...  i'm not knocked up! we just decided, why wait? and also, i may have been a tiny bit afraid that if we'd waited, he'd change his mind! HA!

so what this all really means is that i've been a man woman for the last 3 weeks trying to get all the plans squared away!!!

most of my energies have recently gone into invitations. these babies are supposed to be out the door 2-3 months before the event (earlier if a holiday is involved). i really didn't see a reason to spend $500 on invites when i didn't even see anything that "spoke to me" though honestly, i think it's a pretty fat chance that would ever happen because it is paper and it ends up in the TRASH. so... i set out to find some print your own type of invitations. i wanted something simple. perhaps even a solid shade in my color choice. i spent days looking. nothing really appealed to me. i thought about trying to just buy paper and a paper cutter and cut it myself but NO, i'd almost rather shell out the $500! i ended up somehow stumbling upon this site. I found a lovely shade of card stock, chose a paper cutting service and matching envelopes and VIOLA! problem solved! i was able to get exactly what i wanted. something simple on which we could print our own design/wording! i designed our invitations: simple and clean which is totally my style. i drew inspiration from a bracelet the man bought me for christmas and incorporated it into our invitations and even made a custom rubber stamp to add a little personal touch to our envelopes. i designed some RSVP postcards and had them printed via vista print, but something odd happened and they look sorta jacked up. oh well. i'm pressed for time and really couldn't be bothered to re-do them. because seriously... it's a postcard!

i am happy to announce that as of today... all invites are OUT! I'm sure somewhere in the madness of it all, someone got an invite to the wrong party, someone got multiple invites and someone got left off the guest list. only time will tell...