Busy busy busy Fishie

Things have been very busy around the fishbowl now that we're down to only 118 days until THE day! Individual posts are forthcoming but I've been working on invitations, bouquets, centerpieces, and a lot of littler projects behind the scenes. For now, I leave you with these photos

I'm running out of hair...

Mostly because I've been pulling it out for the last umpteen days trying to figure out how to finish our invitations! 

And what you ask is the frustrating part of this whole process? The WORDING! Gone are the days of just simply filling in the blanks on an invitation...

Oh how simple it would be to just fill in the blanks and send them off into the universe. But, unfortunately that's just not possible for us-mostly because filling in the blanks on all those invites would probably give me carpal tunnel syndrome. So where does that leave me? We're not your traditional couple asking for the "honour of your presence" but we come from traditional families who want us to write that. Heck, they'd be much happier if we wrote "Mr. and Mrs. Smith invite you to join them in a celebration of love as their daughter, Bride, is united in marriage to Mr. Groom, son of Mr. and Mrs. Brown." a sentiment which makes me want to blech!  and there was no way in h-e-double hockey sticks I was going to write out two thousand and eleven. Umm...that confused me even as I was typing it-I'd hate to think what it would do to our guests. 
Not to mention the fact that finding a way to incorporate my dead mommy was proving very difficult. All the etiquette books I found said your not supposed to mention dead parents since it's considered bad taste. But she's still my mommy even if she's no longer living. And I decided I didn't care what Emily Post said about it-my mommy raised me for 18 years and deserved to be mentioned on my wedding invitation.

The whole ordeal made me start examining when exactly it was that FI Fishie and I suddenly became British Royalty or started talking like our wedding was as important as a state dinner. We would never request the "honour of your presence" anywhere no matter how badly we wanted you to come. 

Thus, our invitations went from this...

To this...

Obviously, I like option 2 better (especially the Font it's called Katy Berry on dafont.com) but what do you think? Should I go back to requesting the "honor of your presence" or leaving it how it is?

Dashed Dreams...

Remember my brilliant idea of having desserts instead of cake?
 

And my worries about the amount of time involved, the money involved, the traditions involved, and oh yeah the part about if the reception site will let us? Thankfully, I have a fabulous friend who went to culinary school and offered to make our desserts for us-that took care of the time and money involved. Fishboy and I were pumped about this idea-we thought it would finally come to fruition...until I heard back from the reception site. And they gave our idea the big thumbs down. Making me a very sad fishie... 

And now it was back to the drawing board-a very restricted drawing board. Our reception site said that we could bring in cake or cupcakes, anything else would have to be ordered through them. Their list of desserts consisted of: cheesecake (yay!), cream puffs (boo), and chocolate dipped strawberries (yay! and boo)...and dashed my dreams of having a dessert buffet. 


Every cloud does have a silver lining though, and our venue does offer a build your own sundae bar which may be possible except for two things 1) I'll be wearing white, and I'm the person who ALWAYS manages to spill SOMETHING on myself-I can just imagine having chocolate sauce all down the front of my white dress and 2) it's a little cost prohibitive at 4.99/person, which doesn't sound like much but when we're planning on having 200 people that quickly becomes almost $1000 on a sundae bar-in addition to the $3000 we're already spending on food.


For the time being, our tentative plan is cupcakes-and although we're a little turned off by the trendiness of it since it's something that EVERYONE seems to be doing right now, it seems like our only viable option right now. But, I'm still a sad fishie for having my dessert bar dreams dashed.


I turn to you my faithful readers, do we serve cake, cupcakes, or find the money for the build your own sundae bar?

Shoes Fit For The Dudes

Fishboy has had very few requests in the process of planning the wedding. And since it's not just "my" day but "our" day, he's gotten every one of his requests filled. For example, he had a very specific idea on what he wanted for a tux.

While it isn't what I had in mind, and not what I would have picked it made him happy and that's what matters. The way I figure it, I got to pick out what I'm wearing, why shouldn't Fishboy get to pick out what he's wearing? Which brings us to his latest request... 

Converse Shoes! Now, I know it's becoming uber popular on the wedding blogs to see the groomsmen wearing Converse shoes with their tuxes but let's face it Fishboy isn't one to be stalking wedding blogs like you and I do. When I asked him why he wanted him and the dudes in the wedding to wear Converse he told me the simple truth...because their comfortable. Not because it's trendy, or cool, and not because he's a huge Converse wearer. But because he wanted all the guys to be able to be comfortable, or at least their feet. Did you let your groom get his way every once in awhile?

It's HERE!

Fishboy! Turn Around and Step Away From THE COMPUTER! This is not for you eyes! K, thanks love you!

 

Is he gone? Ok, good! Remember back 6 months ago when I told you all about the "perfect" dress that I'd found while I was shopping by myself? Or if you need a  refresher click on over and read all about it. 
  

  

I plopped my money down for the dress and walked out of the store, a happy fishie. I've been in an out of that store too many times to count in the last 6 months and never gave the dress a second thought so I'm not entirely sure what made me think of it when MOH Belle went shopping for her dress but as we're standing up at the counter paying for her dress I casually asked the nice lady if my dress had even been ordered yet. Her response? "Didn't they call you?" Alright, I'm not normally one to overreact but this sent shivers down my spine my brain went into chaos mode and started thinking crazy thoughts like 'they lost my order...', 'my dress has been discontinued...', or even worse 'the company went out of business...' now, I know that last one was a stretch but I was panicking. When I was finally able to mumble out "no, they didn't" the nice lady at the Bridal Shoppe told me "it just came in..." and then she said the best 7 words in the English language at that time "do you want to try it on?" Heck ya I wanted to try it on! And then the bad thoughts started creeping in, it'd been 6 months since I'd seen it what if I didn't like it anymore? What if, it's not the right color?, What if...what if...? 

And then I tried it on and all the "what if..."s went right out the window! I loved the dress, even more then the first time I tried it on. The color was perfect, and everything was fine in my little world.

Fortunately the dress really doesn't need much alterations...the strap is a little long and the hem needs to be shortened and the bustle needs to be added but that's all very doable so I'm super excited! Oh, and what's your opinions on the veil...I'm leaning towards the one in the last picture or none at all. But I'm not entirely sure!

Being City Slickers...

I'm a small town girl, born and raised. Fishboy on the other hand lived in the suburbs of the big city of Chippewa Falls his whole life. Neither one of us is big city kind of people so when our photographer Tricia suggested we have our engagement pictures taken in downtown Eau Claire, we were understandably skeptical. But, we were pleasantly surprised by the results! Who knew that we had some serious city slickers hidden under our small town, suburban exteriors.

Who knew those dance lessons would translate into some FABULOUS photo shots!

Tricia told us to walk down the middle of the road...in the middle of traffic! The instructions we were getting from her were too funny; "walk faster, now walk slower" ,"look at eachother not at the traffic", "look out there's a car coming".

If you look closely in the background you can see the cars coming towards us...we had to quick get in and out of the middle of the road to avoid getting hit!

The best part of this photo is fishboy's face, he's trying really hard not to laugh as there was a car coming towards us and Tricia kept us standing in the middle of the road to get the shot!

 I call this one the "Eskimo Kiss" since Tricia told us to "rub noses"

 

Another shot standing in the middle of the road, it's a great shot and avoiding cars was getting to be a game!

Tricia told Fishboy to look at me affectionately and I was supposed to look like I was taking a nap, which was fine with me since I was getting exhausted from dodging traffic.

The bench that we're sitting on, almost didn't make it into our shoot. There was a little old lady sitting on the bench when Tricia wanted to take these shots and after she got up and moved Tricia was telling us to "quick, run across the street before someone else sits there"

  

 
Tricia almost started crying she was laughing so hard after I popped my leg up on this shot. I can't remember her exact instructions for the shot but after I popped my leg up, she started laughing and telling me that's not what she meant.












There you have it, the two sides of the fishies! The outdoorsy country type and now the city slicker side. Which side do you guys like better? I like our outdoor shots in Irvine Park a little better then the shots in downtown EC but I'm glad we got the chance to hang out with Tricia since she'll be shooting the wedding photos!

It's The Quiet Ones You Have To Watch Out For..

I realize I've been a little quiet around here lately. I promise it's not because I have nothing to talk about! It's been a crafting marathon around here in the last couple weeks and I promise you that full disclosure is forthcoming! Just hang in there!

Guest Blogger: Fishboy

Editor's Note: Fishboy was getting jealous that he hadn't had a chance to tell the story of how we met so I decided to give him the chance to tell his side, even though we all know the REAL story can be found here

The very first time we met, my father and I were dropping of a ladder at the neighbor’s house. And a friend of mine introduced us. The funny part of this is Fishie remembers my father dropping off the ladder, but not me.

Probably a year later, Fishie texted me for something; what I don’t remember. That’s not the important part though. Well we got to talking then Fishie invited me to her apartment. I sat and chatted with her and her roommate for a couple hours while we watched a couple of movies. We continued to talk, off and on, for months after that. One night we were chatting while I was in Rice Lake for school and she was at her apartment in Chippewa Falls. She wanted to see a movie, so we did a little arguing about which theater to go to and eventually Fishie ended the argument by saying “Get in your pretty little car and drive!” So I met Fishie at the theater in Rice Lake for our first official date. We went to see “The Dark Night.” And yes I know what you’re thinking that’s a very appropriate movie for a first date. But I think it went great. We said good night and I headed back to my apartment. No kiss, yep I know I wimped out.

A month or so after that, we started making the trip to each other’s towns to meet for dates few movies, dancing once,and Irvine Park in Chippewa once or twice. What triggered us to say we were really boyfriend/girlfriend officially one night we were sitting at my apartment watching movies with my roommate, Alex, he was on the phone with someone, then stopped and said “I don’t know let me check.” He proceeded to ask Fishie and myself if we were boyfriend/girlfriend. I looked at Fishie and said “do you want to?” Fishie said “sure”. There you go its official we are boyfriend/girlfriend.

That brings up a pretty funny story. If you ask me I said the date above was Wednesday August 20th 2008, but if you ask Fishie she thinks the date was Thursday August 21st 2008. We’ve argued over this fact numerous times. Fishie’s reason for Thursday was on every Wednesday I headed to Chippewa to mentor at my church. Don’t tell Fishie but I think she is right after thinking about it. But shhhh don’t tell her, super secret.

This also brings up how we picked the date to get married. Fishie said I had to pick the date; I did some serious waffling on this. I didn’t know when to pick it I proposed why should I have to pick this one too. Anyway after arguing again on what day we started officially dating on. I happen to notice my day August 20th was on a Saturday in 2011 so thus that’s the date I choose to get married. But then, we changed the date later for a number of reasons to August 19th.

The proposal is a great story, I had all kinds of all ideas, some of which were hinted from Fishie. But anyway I hear about a good one of putting a ring on the cat’s collar. Right away I had a thought run though my mind of our cat jump up on the bed and show her the note and there be no ring, and then we spend the rest of the night looking for the ring. So that one is a no go. So I had this thought of making Fishie dinner and get her sitting down and watch a movie and then propose to her. But Fishie shot me in the foot with that one by starting supper on me, so all I got to make was the easy part the instant mashed potatoes. Then we started watching the movie Fargo, just because it was on the TV. Also being nervous I just handed her the box. If you ask Fishie she says I threw it at her, but she’s crazy like that. Anyways then I asked her if she would marry me. Again if you ask her, she says that I threw the box at her and said “you have to say yes first.” She responds with “you have to ask me a question first.” Then I asked her the question “will you marry me”. But as we all know Fishie remember this funny. So believe whatever story you like. Just remember that I’m right.

While  I was proposing to Fishie, my parents were in New York City on vacation. Right after I proposed we called the parents. Well Fishie called her parents and family, I texted mine. Anyways my mom runs to my father, all excited, and said “Andrew proposed!” my father’s response was “he proposed what?” To be honest if my mother ran to me and said the same line I would probably say the same thing.

Side story that just happened in January 2011, Fishie is a big Katy Perry fan so I was going to get her tickets to a concert in Michigan in June. Well we were sitting here at her dads place and all of a sudden she start showing me Katy Perry tickets to a concert in the cities in July. So I kind of make it look like I didn’t want to go, to throw her off the trail. Well I ended up buying the tickets right in front her then tell her that was going to get her tickets for Valentine’s Day. Well she felt horrible after the fact because she egged me on for not wanting to go with her. I find this story funny thought I just throw it for you reading pleasure.

You Drove HOW Far?

I admit it; I drove almost 2 hours to buy...wait for it...PAPER! 

 Saturday morning, Fishboy was kind enough to indulge my desire for pretty paper. He woke up at the crack of dawn (otherwise known as 8:30am) and drove over 100 miles to Anchor Paper in Plymouth Minnesota (btw Minnesota/Wisconsin brides if you want pretty paper I highly recommend driving out Anchor Paper) first we stopped at Paper Depot, a scrapbooking store in Minneapolis, but since our invitations are going to be a little larger it wasn't going to work just using regular 12x12 paper which is what Paper Depot sold. 

  We ventured onto Anchor Paper where we wandered into their craft supply storefront first and then...we hit the motherlode! Otherwise known as Anchor Paper's warehouse! Fishboy and I wandered back into the warehouse looked at the paper and told the lady what we wanted and she cut the paper while we waited. We walked out $200 poorer with gorgeous paper and envelopes. 

Added bonus? Since we had the paper custom cut we were able to keep all of the scraps from the cutting so we have enough paper to last us throughout any paper projects we could possibly come up with.

Did we go to far? Yes, we could've ordered the paper online Anchor Paper does sell their paper online. However, A) we saved money going to the warehouse and picking it up and B) I thought I was going to get 80# paper and wound up with 105# paper and since they don't allow returns I would have been up chocolate creek without a popsicle stick.

Cakes Vs. Desserts

I have a confession to make...I don't like cake. There, I said it. I do not like cake, in fact I'm not a huge sweets fine at all. Fishboy on the other hand has a pretty decent sized sweet tooth. In comes the new trend hitting weddings, dessert bars!

I love me some cheescake, brownies are yummy, rice krispy bars don't stand a chance around me, and if you add scotcheroos mmm I'm hooked. Fishboy likes almost all the same things except for the cheesecake, plus he loves pie.

Now, here's the problem. I'm torn between the dessert bar and cake. Mostly because cake is traditional and our wedding could use a little bit more tradition, plus with my family there are certain things you don't mess with and their traditions are one of them. I love love love the idea of serving a bunch of our favorite desserts but at the same time I have a few reservations...

1. Time; will I have time to cook up enough desserts for 200 people before the wedding?
2. Money; can we afford to have a bunch of different desserts?
3. Legal; will the reception site let us bring in our own desserts?
4. Tradition; how can I still have the cake cutting without the cake?

What's your opinion? Should I go with my gut and serve desserts or stick with tradition and serve the cake?

Shhh...be vewy vewy quiet...(part 2)

Alright so when we last left off Fishboy, and I along with his parents for one session had traipsed around the Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls area looking for the "perfect" venue for our kick ass reception. What we found was bad 1980's flowers on the wall, crowded basement banquets, and deer asses on the walls.

Need some visual reminders?

 Make note of the flowers hanging from the lights-yeah, bad 1980's flowers on the wall.

 It's not encouraging when they can stack the chairs almost all the way up to the ceiling-crowded basement banquet.

This one is pretty self-explanitory-deer ass on the wall, and from the looks of it I think it needs to go to the bathroom.



What do bad flowers, crowded basements, and deer asses mean for our kick-ass reception? Well, Fishboy and I had to go back to the drawing board and do some more internet searching. I don't have many pictures from the other sites because well, Fishboy's camera needed to be used for work and always wound up with a dead battery.

We looked at 2 other golf courses, a historic ballroom, and finally gave up on the Eau Claire/Chippewa area and decided to look closer to home. 

Where we found a diamond in the rough-the Off-Broadway Banquet Center which is attached to The Stout Ale House here in Menomonie. The Stout Ale House is home of some of the BEST burgers I've ever tasted and even better they serve Macaroni and Cheese with 3 different kinds of cheeses...mmmm my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Our families will tell you, the Ale House has quickly become one of our favorite restaurants. There was one week that we ate there at least 3 or 4 times. How did we eat there 3 or 4 times in a week? Well, the first time was because it was Monday and they have 2 for 1 burgers on Monday, then we ate there for fishboy's birthday, and the next day we ate there with Fishboy's parent's for his birthday and finally we ate there with MY family to celebrate my little bro starting college. Can you tell we LOVE the Ale House? When I found out they have a banquet center I figured it would be PERFECT for us.

Fishboy's mad photoskillz strike again, panoramic shot of the site. The green walls aren't really doing it for me but I can deal with a paint color.

 
 Way in the back you can see me talking to the site manager Jay, who's been incredibly awesome by the way. But, more importantly we're standing by the bar-in the room! No having to leave to get drinks but since it's attached to the restaurant the guests can still go out and grab a special drink if they want.




 



I love love love, the light fixtures. I think the tulle was taken down after we toured which is fine with me.






 

 The dance floor is on the opposite side of the room from the bar, which I like just because then I don't have to worry about drunken guests trying to boogie down and spilling their drinks everywhere.

Another example of Fishboy's photoskillz, panoramic shot from the back.




Well, let's hear you're opinion of our venue. Granted the pictures don't really do the place justice. No one really liked it in pictures but once the families got to see it in person they were loving it. 


Pros

• Very self-contained. Bar, buffet, dancing, everything happens in this one large room
• There's our own private bathrooms
• They'll serve their fabulous burgers on a build your own burger buffet

Cons

• Ceremony is in Chippewa Falls, 40 minutes away from the reception
• Sorry, but I can't think of any other cons for this place!

Yes, we're serving burgers and fries at the reception. I've already cleared it with the reception site! What's your opinions of this place? Is a 40 minute drive too much or just enough?