Proof That The Wedding Industry Has Gone TOO Far!

Or what the E! network calls "Bridalplasty"...

This is a show designed around this insane idea that you must be "perfect" on your wedding day. Including and up to breast implants, tummy tucks, nose jobs, and any other plastic surgery you can think of. 

Now, I'm not a super model by any stretch of the imagination but this has gone a little TOO far. Every woman deserves to be beautiful on their wedding day and I realize there is only so much that make-up and shape wear can fix but where do we draw the line? I watched this show and I thought to myself that all of these women were beautiful and none of them seemed to really NEED the surgery, they didn't seem to have any heart wrenching disfigurements but they were still competing for these surgeries none the less.


Am I wrong here? Have you seen the show, do you feel that it's a sign that our culture has gone too far in it's obsession with perfection?

The Holiday Tug Of War

    Ahhh...the Holidays. A time for; family, friends, peace on earth, happiness, and playing tug of war over where to spend the holidays. This year in the Fishie household has been a particularly brutal battle.
    This will be FI Fishie and I's 3rd Christmas together, the last 2 have been spent with his family. This year, we decided that it was only fair to spend it with my family. Seems fair and reasonable right?
     Did I mention we'd also spent the last 2 Thanksgivings with his family too? As of this Thanksgiving I hadn't spent a holiday with my family since we'd gotten together. So we spent Thanksgiving Day with my family up north, where I spent most of the day cooking but that's beside the point, then the next day we traveled south to FI Fishie's aunt's house to have another Thanksgiving with his family. This is the Thanksgiving that I would like to forget, why you ask? Because it turned into a nice little battle between me and FI Fishie's family over Christmas and when would work for everyone. I almost wish I would've had some Rock'em Sock'em Robots for us to fight it out with, that way might've been a little more fair.

 

    Here's what happened, we'd already eaten dinner and our bellies were full. I was enjoying playing a rousing game of Spoons with a couple of FI Fishie's cousins and his aunt when FI Fishie came over and asked about Christmas. We'd already agreed to spend the 25th with my family and figure it out from there. Well, FI Fishie's family decided to get together on the 25th. I kindly reminded FI Fishie that we'd already agreed not to drive on Christmas as a rule. Well, that must've made some of his family members upset because next thing I know I'm getting the proverbial middle finger and being told that "Christmas is going to be on the 25th and if Fishie Bride can't make it then oh well." 

    Umm...excuse me? Way to make me feel welcome to the family huh? I stewed about it and then promptly forgot about it. Until today...

   So what happened today you ask? Well, I recieved a copy of an email that FFIL Fishie had sent to FI Fishie. 

This isn't the whole email but you can get the gist of what he's saying...

"Frankly I think you need to consider how you can  compromise more over your Christmas plans.   I have stated that I also don't want to travel on Christmas.  [T]raveling more that a couple of hours is hard since nothing is open.  The final reason is that I want to reserve Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to spend with [FI Fishie] and [FSIL Fishie] and your families.  None of these apply to you.  You don't need to be up late on Christmas Eve, and you don't need to travel that far to either family.
Both [FMIL Fishie] and I are rather hurt that you want to spend the weekend in [fishie bride's hometown] and only a couple hours with us.   We also feel like we are being taken for granted."

Ok...anyone else feel as disrespected by that as I did? I have a few things I want to clarify on this-1) on a good travel day, it's at least 2 hours from the Fishie Parent's to my dad's house; in winter this can take upwards of 3 hours, 2) over the last 2 years I've spent many holidays with them, while I was working 3rd shift so I'd either be working the night before and then going to there place for whatever or I'd be there and then go to work, this is the first year I am not working 3rd shift, 3) The original plan was to spend the 25th with my family and the 26th with his, this isn't "the whole weekend in [fishie bride's hometown] and only a couple hours" 

The solution we came up with? I'm spending the holidays with my family and FI Fishie is spending them with his, which made FFIL Fishie enormously happy since apparently he doesn't want to spend the holidays with me.

What do you think? Am I overreacting to be hurt and offended by FFIL Fishie throwing his weight around and insisting the the holidays be spent with that family? Did we come up with a viable solution or do you have a better one?

Inspiration

I just had a brief moment of clarity and realized that I forgot to share with you guys the vision for this wedding.

 

Going clockwise from the top left; our bridal party men's tuxes, an idea of the boutineres that I want for them, inspiration for asile decorations for the church (christmas lights wrapped in tulle), our current color scheme, my bouquet's inspiration, and an idea of what I want the bridal party girls to look like (black dresses with different colored sashes)

So there you have it-I really don't have much more then that. Except I'm toying with the idea of throwing some polka dots in there somewhere but other people around aren't digging the idea.

What do you think? Do I need to do some more googleing to find more inspiration pictures?
 

Rethinking Our Colors...

Remember back when I told you about our "theme" for this wedding? It boiled down to the fact that we have no theme just a mish mash of colors...these colors to be exact;  Neon Purple, Hot Fusha Pink, Glodenrod Yellow, Lime Green, and Electric Blue.  

Well, we've decided to change it up a little bit...

 

The biggest change is the removal of the yellow color and changing the green from a lime green to more of a hunter green and the blue went from a teal to a cobalt/navy blue. 

But, being the indecisive bride that I am I can't give up on my initial vision of bright colors in favor of the more muted jewel tones. So I'm asking my loyal readers for their help once again; what do you think? Should we stick with the original colors or should we embrace our newest idea for jewel tones?

Please Take This Magnet and Stick It....

To your fridge that is. 

I've completed my second attempt at wedding related DIY projects and I have to say they turned out fabulously! Not to toot my own horn but BEEP-BA-BEEP-BA-BEEP! They were fantastically easy in addition to being fantastically inexpensive.

Aren't they adorable? We couldn't decide on just one picture for our cards so we decided to have three different ones! As we told our guests, if they don't like the one they get then they can just trade with someone else-like Pokemon cards.

I know you're all DYING to know how I made these things, and although it felt like it sucked the life out of me making them it really only took about 8 or 9 hours total to make 40ish cards. It just felt like longer because it was a little boring watching the Cricut cut, over and over again.

Watching Jeff Dunham's Christmas special made the Cricut cutting a little more bearable.

 Fishie Kitty supervised from his perch over by the Christmas tree that we'd just put up, which also makes the BEST kitty toy EVER!...
















 
and FI Fishie vacuumed the apartment, or at least he pretended to.

Meanwhile I ran 45 photos through the Xyron machine to make them into magnets. Which, by the way, is easier said then done-you have to give enough space in between the photos otherwise you wind up with one photo on top of another and then you have to throw both photos out...not that it happened to me or anything, I've just heard it happens to other people-sometimes.
 



After I'd run about a million of them through the xyron machine and wound up with a nice little pile of magnets on the floor...









 It was time to cut them out...I tried using my straight paper cutter first but soon found that the rotary cutter I use for quilting worked MUCH better...

Even FI Fishie decided to help out, after his "vacuuming" of course.

Next it was time to babysit the Cricut and let it do it's thing...although it was boring sitting there watching it cut, I've gotten enough compliments on the cards that it was completely worth it.

 Being the indecisive bride that I am I couldn't decide on one photo or one color so we wound up using 3 different pictures with 4 different colors on the front...making for 12 different combinations.







 Another overlooked detail was the cute little polka dot edge that I meticulously hand punched out with a cute little punch I found at Michael's for 40% off.









We'd budgeted $200 for these cards and by mostly using supplies I already had on hand (xyron machine, hole punch, etc.) I was able to complete the project for a little over $100. The most expensive thing I bought was the refills for my Xyron Machine which were normally priced for $34.99 and I bought all of them on sale for 40% off.

Xyron Magnet Refills	$89.65
Cardstock	$3.98
White Cards	$5.99
Photos	$8.55
Total:	$108.16

Did I make this project harder then it needed to be? Should I have just stuck with 1 photo and 1 color? 

DIY Project Number Two...

Now that I've got one project under my belt I'm ready to begin tackling the million other ones I have left. First up...our Save The Date magnets.

We're going to keep this project super simple, have the picture printed at Wal-Mart's photo center run them through the Xyron machine to get the front side laminated and the back side gets the magnet. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Take a look at what I've managed to come up with using this wonderful free software called Photoscape and the way I look at it, it's like Photoshop for poor people.

What do you think? Are any of these good enough to be printed or should I just go back to the drawing board and come up with something else?

One Down...Only About A Thousand More To Go

 Remember when I showed off all the cool toys in my toybox? Well a few weeks ago I finally got a chance to play with them! I whipped out my little Cricut and created some "Will You Be My Bridesmaid?" cards. I wanted to wait until all of my bridesmaids had received their cards and given me their answer before I showed the project off. 

It's a pretty easy DIY project, mostly because I tried making it more complicated and just wound up getting frustrated and gave up after countless numbers of tries and failures. Finally I realized this was a simple project and I shouldn't dwell on it too much. Although it was difficult for me to give up and keep it simple I realized my sanity was more important then the fancy project I'd envisioned.

So how did I get from this...







 
 








 To this? 







Well it's elementary, my dear Watson...first I opened up my fabulous Cricut Design Studio

 I laid out the 3 dresses and one tuxedo I needed for my 3 bridesmaids and 1 bridesman on the screen and after several attempts and even more explicatives screamed at the Cricut I figured out the way the mat is laid out on the screen is not identical to the way it goes into the Cricut. And when I was using 8 1/2" x 11" paper on a 12" x 12" mat it was verrrry frustrating when the paper and the designs weren't perfectly matching up. 

When I finally got it to work...

the dresses came out beautifully...this just reinforced my love of the cricut (oh by the way, please ignore the date stamp on the photo-I forgot to reset the date on the camera I didn't make these cards last year before I was even engaged I promise) after I cut the dresses it was a matter of figuring out how to get them off the mat, which incurred more cursing and I almost needed a little liquid calm. But I did manage to get them off the mat and ready to be put on the cards...

 
 But I couldn't decide how to mount the dress onto the card...

So I looked through my stash of craft supplies and found my foam pop dots...score!!! 

Now the dress would be slightly above the card giving it the cool shadowy effect underneath.


But now I was confused as to how to incorporate "Will You Be My Bridesmaid?" onto the card since as you can see, the dress took up majority of the front of the card. Then I remembered I had this cute little font I'd downloaded from dafont.com called Jellyka-Love and Passion
















A quick little type into the wonderful little Microsoft Word and I wound up with 4 neatly written "Will You Be My..." plaques for my cards... 2 bridesmaids, 1 maid of honor, and 1 bridesman. 


 

I added a couple more pop dots to the
back of the plaque and stuck it on the inside of the card.












After countless tries and fails, and finally four victories I wound up with some wonderful cards that I like to believe my bridesmaids will treasure for ever and for always.

The best part of the whole experience? I got a card from one of my bridesmaids with a simple word on the front...

I'm glad to finally have one DIY project checked off my list, the journey of a thousand projects begins with single one.

They're Here...

When you read that I like to imagine you're using the creepy voice from Poltergeist

 But this isn't about ghosts coming out of the TV, this is all about the wonderfully fabulous gift I got in the mail not too long ago. It arrived in a plain envelope just like any other piece of mail except for one teeny little detail...it was from Brianna over at Simply You! Photography you remember her, she was nice enough to follow us around like a paparazzi and snap our pictures a while back. Well, I'm happy to report that the Fishie engagement pictures are safely in my little hands and I'm pleased to share them with you.

Coming Soon....

Since I have an injured back today I didn't go to work which left me free to check out Simply You! Photography's Facebook page and want to jump up and down (which obviously I can't do with an injured back) and scream that Brianna posted our preview shots from our engagement session with her last week!

First off, I wanted to introduce you to the one of the nicest, funniest, most awesomest (that's not a word, I know) photographers I have met... Brianna from Simply You! Photography!

Mission Accomplished

This past Saturday FI Fishie and I were able to channel our inner supermodelquins...

(admit it-you watch those Old Navy commercials and wish you could be one too, no judgment here)

How do you FEEL about that?

The Fishies have begun pre-marital counseling...and frankly it stinks worse then the kitties' litter box. As we've discussed before, I was born without several important "girlie" genes; one of which is the desire to tell someone else how I'm "feeling" for an hour. In the logical side of my brain, I realize that pre-marital counseling is important and it'll be better for our marriage in the long run but the illogical side of my brain is acting like a spoiled little three year old stomping it's feet and screaming "But, I don't WANT to go!" 

E-Pics Outfits...HELP!!

Oh loyal readers, in case you haven't noticed I was distinctly born without any of the girly genes which make shopping, hair styling, make-up, accessorizing, etc enjoyable.Therefore, I'm turning to you and asking you guys to help me decide what the h-e-double hockey sticks I should wear next week when FI Fishie and I go and get our picture taken.

I Don't Wanna Grow Up...I Wanna Be A Toys-R-Us Kid!

Things around the fishbowl have been busy busy busy lately. So I apologize for the lite posting. But, I had to pop in and tell y'all about the FABULOUS new toys I have now. Which are either going to make my wedding planning infinitely easier or more complicated, not sure which yet.

Our Wedding Genie

I'd like to introduce you all to Melinda...otherwise known as my saving grace.

The Dress Saga Has Ended...

Since I know you're all absolutely RIVETED by the vast amount of drama surrounding my search for the PERFECT dress starting with my laid back approach here to the failed attempt at trying to involve my family and friends here and the latest installment here involving a love affair with a dress that wasn't destined to have a happy ending, unfortunately. I looked and thanks to my wonderful cousins' wifeys I found a store that had the dress I wanted but I just couldn't motivate myself to make the trip to the Twin Cities to go look at it-but I think that everything happens for a reason and I just wasn't destined to have that dress.

Friday versus Saturday

Lately I've heard from certain people that a Friday night wedding would be "inconvenient" for guests. Although I can understand this idea I've found compelling arguments for having a Friday night wedding, along with it being my personal preference.

Wedding Dress Designers Should Be Shot...

Now, I'm not one to be prone to bouts of self-doubt and self-loathing. I have a pretty healthy sense of self-esteem, I'm not overly inflated with myself but at the same time I'm able to look in the mirror and say "hey, I'm one hot sexy girl". However, all that self-esteem flew right out the window when I started trying on dresses. I turned into a crying ball of self-doubting goo.

Dress Love...

Alright well if you've been following the saga (here and here) that has been my dress hunting. You have probably realized that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing or what in the world I want. However that has all changed. I have found my dress...it's gorgeous, it's sleek and sophisticated, it's fitted but still allows me to move. In a word, it's PERFECT! I can hear the choir of angels singing the hallelujah chorus

Sometimes you just have to shake your head...

Some days you get an email message that just makes you shake your head and ask "Why?" well, today I got one such message. I opened my email and found a message from projectwedding.com titled "Do you Hate your Engagement Ring?"

Now, I'll admit I was a little intriqued...someone please tell me what I should do if I hate my engagement ring. What should I tell the person who spent a large chunk of money on something that he thought would be perfect for me? Something that he lovingly thought about and picked out for me to wear as a sign of his love and devotion and desire to spend the rest of his life with me. Oh please Project Wedding, help me out of my dilema! Ok, so maybe I'm being just a tinge over dramatic here. But I did click over to the article, more out of morbid curiosity then any genuine interest. And I'll admit, some of the "common complaints" actually make a little bit of sense. I mean, what should you do if he presents you with a family heirloom piece that is really not your style? Click over to Project Wedding to find out.

If you hated your engagement ring would you tell him? Or would you just suck it up and say that it may not be your style but he put lots of thought into this and wear it anyway?

The Wedding Dress Shopping that Almost Wasn't

This is the story of my latest adventure into wedding dress shopping or, as I like to call it..."Help Fishie Buy a Dress so she Doesn't Walk Down The Aisle Naked-extravaganza" the poor consultants at the dress shops never knew what they were in for when they agreed to take my appointment. Unfortunately, this fun adventure almost never happened. Between work schedules, school schedules, and health issues it was down to the wire and people started backing out left and right. As any good fishie would, I was understanding and told everyone it was fine that it was OK that they were backing out on me. Inside was a different story, I was starting to get frustrated and throwing a temper tantrum that would make a 3 year old jealous. It was enough to make even the most even tempered, laid back bride loose it. My party went from having over 8 people a week earlier to now it was down to me, MOH Fishie, and FMIL Fishie. Which, although fun, wasn't what I was expecting. So what's a frustrated, angry, fishie to do? Call in reinforcements of course!

Bridal University?

OK so I realize I'm being a hypocritical fishie here since the main tag line for why I want all the fabulous readers I get is that there's "no college course on the “Art of Wedding Planning”" so read about me bumbling my way through this without trying to loose my mind. And now, I'm writing a post called "Bridal University" y'all must think I've officially lost it-all those nummy fried foods have finally fried my brain. But I beg you, hear me out before you write me off as coo-coo for cocoa puffs.

Technology...Fail (UPDATE!!!)

So if you remember a few days ago I lemented my misfortune over the untimely death of my external hard drive. Well, ladies and gentlemen I stand before you today a much happier fishie.

Technology...Fail

I love technology, or at least most of the time. So when it came to wedding planning I carefully constructed elaborate spreadsheets detailing the comparisons between different reception venues. I had a nice budget spreadsheet, documents with inspiration for the readings, downloaded way too many tutorials and I had folders of pictures and inspiration. All of these wonderful, time intensive, irreplaceable (for the most part) items was securely stored on this little guy...

Theme? I thought "Wedding" was a theme!

So I was catching up on some of my wedding blog reading and I started noticing something which had, up until this point, not even been on my radar-a theme. Stupid me I was under the impression that a wedding didn't need a theme since, well this isn't a high school prom. I have spent the last 22yrs of my life living under the assumption that "wedding" WAS a theme!

Shh...Be vewy vewy quiet...

Shh....be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits venues!

Source

When we were deciding on a venue we had a very distinct no idea of what we wanted…what we did know was:

• It had to be in the Eau Claire/Chippewa Falls metro area, FI Fishie had it set in his mind that he wanted a certain church and I didn't want to make our guests drive from the church to the reception and spend hours upon hours in the car.

• It had to accommodate a LARGE number of people, since “the blob” is only getting bigger and bigger

• In a perfect world, we wanted a venue where we'd be the only wedding there that day, I mean who wants to be walking down the hall and see one bridal party after another? I wanted my special day, not mine plus however many others the venue decided to book that day.

So without further ado (and some help from FI Fishie’s mad photography skillz) I present The Fishie's Venue Search!

First up...The Avalon Hotel


Nestled 2 miles away from our church The Avalon is Chippewa Fall's only full service hotel.

Fortunately MIL Fishie was willing to come along and provide some much needed guidance to the process

The banquet hall was already set up for a wedding taking place there that day

The dance floor for our reception would be a little bit bigger but you get the idea

I LOVE light fixtures, not entirely sure why but that’s what drew me into this place was the interesting light fixtures…mock me if you like.

Like I said FI Fishie has mad photo taking skillz I would’ve never been able to figure out how to take a panoramic shot of the whole shebang

Pros

• Located in Chippewa Falls, 2 miles away from the church

• Only hosts 1 wedding per day, no guarantee that since it is the only hotel in town that there won’t be another bridal party “staying” at the hotel though

• When we were there it was set up for about 180 and looked like it could accommodate more (“The Blob” would be contained)


• Gotta love that light fixture!


• Bar on site so we don’t have to worry about paying for drinks…if you want a drink just walk across the hall to the bar and pay for it yourself

Cons

• Not loving the maroon banquet chairs but thankfully I have sewing fairies who could help me dress them up a little

• Buffet is served out in the hallway…not very appetizing

• China pattern isn’t the prettiest

For being the first place we looked at The Avalon was great! We didn’t know exactly what we were looking for so it was a little awkward to go into the tour and not know what questions to ask. Kirsten, the sales manager, is AWESOME! The woman typically emailed me back within an hour if not sooner even if it was after hours.






Next up? The Ramada Inn


In the heart of downtown Eau Claire, the Ramada Inn is the only full service hotel in the downtown area and located 20 miles away from the church…

Once again FI Fishie’s mad panoramic photography skillz at work, this is the upper ballroom at the Ramada that can hold up to 600 people

Did I mention my fascination with interesting light fixtures?

Can you just imagine how romantic and elegant this room would be when they turn down the lights? OMG!

Now for the lower ballroom that the sales manager suggested based on the size of “The Blob” we weren’t big enough for the upper ballroom and would feel more intimate in the lower one…for a lower price too!

Oh, and make note of the amazing light fixtures…

I can already picture us dancing the night away…ahhhh

Pros

• Located in Downtown EC convenient place for guests to stay to be near to everything the Chippewa Valley has to offer

• Buffet served in the ballroom itself

• Awesome light fixtures…mock me if you must but for some reason that’s what I notice

• Large enough to not feel crowded but small enough to still feel intimate

Cons

• With two ballrooms that means potentially two brides…me no likey seeing another bride

• It can be a little difficult to navigate downtown EC’s one-way streets

• Parking can be “interesting” to say the least…we had to pay $1 before we could even park but the sales manager assured me that parking would be free to our guests

• No bar across the hall from our lower ballroom

The Ramada is amazing but I'm worried that the distance from the church to the reception may be prohibitive...opinions?

The Next Contestant…Westgate Sportsman’s Club

Don’t let the name fool you, although we did see a sign that said no shooting on the premises except for members but I was assured that there wouldn’t be any gunslingers there the day of the wedding…

See what I was saying about the shooting by members only?

Seculuded in the woods overlooking EC the Westgate Sportsman’s Club is a hidden jewel in the crown of the Chippewa Valley...

This is a good case of never judge a book by its cover, non-descript building holds a gem of a banquet room

Well it’s a gem except for the dead animals on the wall…please ignore the goofy look I have on my face, I blame getting up at 5am and going to school for about 6 hours

see what I mean about it being a gem?

The bar itself would be closed to the public so no worries about people cashing my party

The hall is a little separated so we could just put the people we don’t want to look at back here maybe? Just kidding…sortof

Ok so maybe they aren’t the most interesting light fixtures but…

I’ll overlook it in favor of this view out the dining room windows

Gorgeous! I can forsee some interesting photo opportunities on the lawn

Remember I said there are dead animals on the wall? Yeah, that includes a deer butt…hmm I think I can work with this though maybe give it a face or something?

Pros:

• Secluded out in the middle of nowhere I’m not worried about seeing other brides on “My” day

• Hello gorgeous view of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers

• Goodie closet of leftovers from past weddings we can cannibalize and use if we’d like

• The dead animals provide for an “interesting” decorating dilemma but I’m up to the challenge

Cons

• The seclusion could equal lost guests and tired drivers trying to navigate windy roads on the way home

• Metal folding chairs…need I say more?

• “Eh” looking overhead light fixtures, but gorgeous side lighting

• 3 separate rooms could make acoustics difficult

So there you have it…our first attempt at hunting venues, and like Elmer I don’t think we caught any just yet, so we’ll have to keep looking. Did you find your venue right away or are you like us and had to learn on a curve what you wanted? And am I really crazy for my “appreciation” of light fixtures?

Which Venue Do You Like?