Ahh, Moms

I love my mom.  I've been falling a bit behind on wedding planning, with the impending holidays, visitors, cleaning, and other general distractions.  But when my mom came to visit, she came with new excitement towards my wedding, and her energy gave me new energy towards my wedding.

For anybody reading this planning their own weddings, if you're trying to save money, you might consider asking for wedding-crafting supplies for Christmas or Birthdays.  Even without asking for it, though, my mom came laden down with a pair of toasting glasses, a wedding photo album, a simple white bouquet, and a spool of orange ribbon.  Of these things, I probably only would've bought the ribbon for myself, but I'm glad to have all of them.

This is Delicious Cake

Wedding cakes these days range from classic and beautiful, crazy and fun, and everywhere in between.  Personally, I like both ends of the scale, but for my wedding, I'm aiming more for a beautiful cake.  I love the drama of a tiered cake, but not the cost.  Even supermarket cakes can cost a lot, and those taste vaguely like overly sweet cardboard.

So easy, anybody could do it.

I love baking.  I'd like to think I'm pretty good at making cakes, cookies, and other sweets that are delicious.  I've even worked in a bakery (albeit a supermarket bakery).  However, my work at that supermarket taught me just enough to know that I can't decorate cakes worth anything.  I'm sure I could get better with practice, but I'm going to take a simpler, more foolproof method.

Procrastination Strikes!

I know that this will all come back to bite me in the butt, but I find myself procrastinating on several wedding planning type things.  It's not so bad in some places, but really bad in others.  Part of the problem is that we still don't have the money set aside for even our budget wedding.  It's hard to plan around what we don't have.  The other part of the problem comes from the fear that things might change from my original plans.

For example, I haven't properly contacted my venue to see how much it will cost and make our reservations.  It's a park, so I'm not too worried about the costs, nor am I really too scared that they won't have a single picnic pavilion available for rent on that day.  The reason I'm holding off on contacting them, though, is because I really wanted to give my mother a chance to see the venue first.  I don't doubt that Mom will love whatever I pick, but I'm wanting to make sure she doesn't think I'm crazy for asking guests to hike to get to our location.

Hairstyling

I'm not usually one to fuss much with my hair.  But I do fuss with it for special days and when I want to look especially nice, so it's a given that I'll be doing something special for my wedding.  I thought about growing my hair out for the wedding. It's actually a bit long right now, brushing my shoulders.  But I can't stand it at this length, and it's not really me.

Keeping my hair at a chin length bob, and getting the ends curled just slightly outward is totally me, though.  The website I got that image from says that that's Katie Holmes, and I'll have to take it's word for it.  (Sorry, I just don't care one lick about celebrities, normally), but I usually associate this hairstyle with Yuna.  Either way, it's cute, and the car spent in curling it and getting it to lay down smoothly will make it special.

Clueless Ceremony

Though I almost hate to admit it, the wedding ceremony just doesn't jump out at me as being particularly interested or important.  Don't get my wrong; I love Joshua and always will.  But in my own mind, I've already made my promise and commitment to stay together with him.  I made it years and years ago.  So maybe that's why performing stale rituals and repeating after a pastor doesn't appeal to me as much.

But, though I'm bored by the concept as a whole, I have started pinpointing just what I do and do not like about it.  For example, I do like being able to share this commitment not only with Joshua, but with our family and friends.  And I know that this is important to some of my family, though I doubt if anybody would complain much if we just eloped.

Grooms and groomsmen

Joshua still hasn't officially selected his groomsmen, but that doesn't stop me from dressing the men of the wedding up!  Now, though I have tastes that are a bit more laid back, I know Joshua loves the formal and ritzy and classic sort of things.  And he really, really loves a good, old fashioned tuxedo.  So I'm having to suck up my modern tastes for his sake, here.

So probably, for Joshua, we'll be renting him a good, classic sort of tux.  I'm only hoping that I can talk him out of the bow tie; they're cute on some guys, but I don't think it'd suit my sweetie.  I much prefer a regular tie, or even better, a cravat.  Something about them just makes me happy.  But I definitely want him in a silver/gray waistcoat.

Bridesmaids Dresses

I'm going to let my bridesmaids pick their own dresses, but that doesn't mean I can't get ideas for them, right?  And I see a LOT of cute dresses out there that I'd love.  Besides, I'm still giving guidance for my girls.  For example, I'd like them to wear either orange/gray/silver, and I'm going to heavily suggest something at around a tea-length or shorter.

One dress style I adore and will suggest to any of my girls who don't know what to do is the Infinite/Convertible dress.  It's a really simple, but really lovely little dress that can be worn in TONS of different styles.  You can dress it down for a day look, or dress it up for a super sexy evening look.  It's a bit expensive (the one I linked to is a little less than $100 before shipping), and would wind up costing more than my dress did in the end, but I think the sheer practicality of it is worth it.