Old Soul, Young Heart

While looking for something old/new/borrowed/blue, I asked Joy (Philip's mom... my mother-in-law... ha!) if she had any great ideas for what I could use for any of those things. She knew that I was looking and bought me this beautiful hankerchief for the day of to use as my "something blue." It's very similar to our logo and it's got little crystals on it. Beautiful. This is when she was giving it to me right before the ceremony. She's so sweet. I love her to pieces. I'm so glad I had it during the ceremony and just held on to it because I definitely needed it to wipe my tears and runny nose! The perfect "something blue."

Get it... meow-ied? I had started to write a big ole blog about the wedding right after we got back from Punta Cana. I wanted to add photos to it to correspond with every part of the day, but it proved to be too big a task for what I really wanted to take on at the moment. I let it sit and didn't finish it and then it all started to feel irrelevant, so I decided to delete it today. Suffice it to say that it was a beautiful, wonderful day. The honeymoon was pretty awesome too. Here are a few brief updates: I'm working on changing my name to Sara Bourque on everything. The blog has the new name as the link! It's quite a process, but not as big of a deal as I thought it might be. I feel as though changes are coming to the blog. I have new fonts! It's a start. And with November around the corner, I'm going to start the 30 Days of Lists that happened in September that I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with. So get excited for that, y'all...

No pictures this week, so kind of a boring post... sorry! Dad got his suit. He even got his tailoring done. He looks super cute! I met with the guy from Casey's on Friday about flowers. We've firmed up the details and I'm so excited! They will be very pretty. I picked up my wedding gown on Saturday! It's beautiful and fits me like a glove. I can't stop looking at the pictures of me in it that my aunt took. It is very me . I can't wait to wear it alllllllll day. I didn't want to take it off! Joy (Philip's mom) and my aunt Peggy picked up their dresses on Saturday too. It was fun to have a little trying-on party at the alterations place. I still need to get my dress steamed. There are a few tiny spots on it (it was a sample, so lots of other girls tried it on before me), so I need to get those cleaned too. I'm really scared to take it to the dry cleaner's, but I gotta have faith! I need to do this soon since I don't know how long it'l...

Centerpiece saga: Simple Elegance finally called me back on Wednesday (after I posted last week's Wedding Wednesday). I emailed back and forth with a girl there about what I'm looking for, but haven't heard from her since last Thursday. I randomly got an email from I Do Events, so if they're more responsive, I'm going to go with them instead! My aunt and I took my dad to Men's Wearhouse on Saturday because he's in dire need of a new suit. My pops is a big guy, so I was concerned that we wouldn't find something to suit him (ha!), but we found two that will possibly work. They are ordering one into the store in his size so that we can compare the two different options and choose one. Finally heard back from the musician ( Heart Strings ) for the ceremony after giving her a call at home. We met on Monday and I have to say that I am unimpressed by this person's professionalism. I feel as though I am generally not too demanding of customer service, but ...

I should really do better about posting things sometimes that aren't wedding related, but alas... Wedding Wednesday See previous post about my bridal shower that aunt Peggy hosted! I forgot to take a picture of Grandma Bean's shower invite from a few weeks ago. It's this weekend! Candle holders for reception centerpieces arrived from ebay. They're alright. I recruited my dad to spraypaint them silver (instead of black) and I definitely like them better now. I'm not totally thrilled with them, but they're good enough, I guess. Still plugging away at that direction sheet for the invitations. I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out, but I'm honestly just annoyed by it at this point! Invitation assembly line to commence shortly. I feel like I'm behind on this, since I want them to go out on Monday. I'm having trouble falling asleep because I'm thinking of all the details that still need to be nailed down. I also had my first wedding d...

This is a wedding related post that is being posted on a day other than Wednesday. This one merits its own, though! Today was my bridal shower that my aunt Peggy hosted. It was so cute and perfect. She is 100% amazing! Do you remember what the invitation looked like from a previous post? You don't have to, because the cake looks exactly like it. Nicely done, Janet's (minus spelling his name wrong, but we'll ignore that). This is a little poem about our new lives together, featuring words such as "era" and "dove" and "secret" and "snuggle," which were represented here by cleaning supplies/personal items for us to keep. So clever! We are so incredibly lucky. And we have another one next weekend, hosted by Grandma Bean!

Sash news: I got the two sashes from ebay on Friday. I liked both, but one definitely stood out to my dad and I. I'm returning the one we know is a "no." I did order another one from Amazon, just to see. So I am down to the final two. I'm just so indecisive and have to know what all of my options are! The custom sash girl was surprisingly gracious when I told her that I'm going a different direction. Definitely use her if you ever need a custom bridal sash ! I ordered purple shoes from Von Maur and they are the perfect color! They aren't as dressy as I would like, but Philip reminded me that the boy shoes aren't dressy, either, so I guess it makes sense that mine are also pretty casual. And no one will really be seeing my shoes, anyway! I left work a little early on Friday to visit the rental place. My goal was to nail down centerpieces. I spent like an hour in the showroom, looking and thinking, thinking and looking. I'm sure the woman working th...

Wedding Wednesday I did some craftin' this weekend (while listening to the "Cocktail Hour" mix that I've created). I still feel as though it's a little early to be working on all the small projects that I have, but I'm bored right now and I'm sure I'll be thanking myself later for doing these things now before I have so many things to think about and work on. I was at a standstill with the invitations because I was waiting for the paper to go on sale at Hob Lob, so this is what I did instead. Expect to see this goodies in some capacity on 09.22.12! These are pomander balls and  the colors are more  pretty in person. I'm going for the ombre look. Not done yet, clearly! The flower girl dresses are going to work! Yahoo!!! I bought two sashes from ebay. I'm hoping they arrive quickly (got an email saying tomorrow!), because the girl from Etsy is waiting to hear back from me about creating a custom sash. She'll just have to wai...

Wedding Wednesday We were in the Pantagraph this weekend. The actual picture in the newspaper turned out bad, I think, but the internet link is nice. Here it is:  Sara & Phil in z Pantagraph . It's so cute when people mention to me that they saw it. :) Went to Champaign this weekend and could only find one bridal store that had a lot of sashes that actually weren't that bad in price. The salesladies didn't know if the one I liked the best could be sold separately from a dress, so whatever. (Then why have it hanging up as if you can?) If they would've looked into it more for me, I might have bought it, but they didn't seem that interested in helping me, so whatever. Wishing I could find one and just order it because it makes me nervous getting one custom-made. Which brings me to... Custom-made sash info: I'm seeing if a girl on Etsy can design one for me that looks similar to another one that I loved. She said she can, but now my concern is that her whit...

Can you believe that this is the fourth edition of Wedding Wednesday? I can't believe I've been doing this for a month already! Wedding Wednesday We were in the Farmington Shopper--front page! We were also in the Peoria Journal Star, but I haven't seen it yet. This weekend I ran around to five bridal stores (two here in Bloomington, two in Morton, and one in Peoria) to see what types of belts/sashes they had. I found one that I really liked at a store in Morton and would have bought it if it were the right color. It was even on sale! Did you know that Diamond White exists as a color? Oh, it does. And it's in between the colors of white and ivory. My dress is white and the sash that was on sale was Diamond White, so it didn't work out. Poo. There was another one that I loved, but it was $330. Yeah. I'm researching websites to see if I can find it any cheaper. The bridal store in Peoria had sashes that started at $350 and went up to $650. For a sash! T...

Philip reads my blog regularly and I asked him if he thinks Wedding Wednesday is nerdy and he said, "kinda." Ha. Wedding Wednesday! I've been DIYing the invitations quite a bit. I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like. Right now I'm like one-fourth of the way done with them and even that has taken a long time, so I hope I don't regret making them myself haha. I've run out of the paper that I need, so I'm feel like I'm running to Hobby Lobby like every other day. I made my first fitting appointment for my wedding gown. I have to admit that as I was making that call, it all felt really real to me. The appointment's not until August 4. It'll be fun to put that dress on again! Michele and my aunt have both gotten their bridesmaid dresses. Here's Michele in her's! Lovely. The color is so pretty! 108 Days Until Our Wedding!

Wedding Wednesday! I now think that the Pantagraph is a bargain. It's $40 to submit your engagement announcement and $45 to submit your wedding announcement. The Peoria Journal Star can be up to $43 for engagement (I spent $30) and up to $125 for wedding, which includes all the same things you would get for the Pantagraph announcement. Kiiinda crazy. We'll see what the Farmington Shopper costs. We (me, Joy, and the girls) went flower girl dress shopping on Saturday. We found a $40 one at JC Penney that's super cute. Our concern now is that it doesn't come in the right size, so we need to do a little more research on that. I really hope it comes in their size, because I'm honestly kind of over the whole flower girl dress thing. It was fun the first two times, but I just want it to be chosen at this point. We also went around to a whole bunch of bridal stores in Peoria looking for a sash/belt for my dress. I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm too p...

Wedding Wednesday! I got the right color of pocketfolds in the mail, so I can start DIYing the invitations. I started to, but realized I needed to change something in the wording, so I'm glad I caught that before I printed all 65 of them. I did a little crafting this past weekend. I made a few pomander balls, which will jazz up the chapel by adding some color and interest. I also strung some beads and pearls; I'm maybe going to try to make my own hairpiece, but we'll see! I made an appointment to talk to I Do Events in Washington next Tuesday. I wish I could afford for them to pimp out the entire chapel and reception venue, but obvs that's not going to happen. I'm going to see what they can do within my budget in terms of centerpieces for the tables at the reception.  That's it for now. 122 Days Until Our Wedding!

I just saw something on Pinterest called Wedding Wednesday and I feel as though I should incorporate this into my blog somehow. Wedding Wednesday isn't anything in particular from what I can tell; it's probably just a catchy theme from a blog or website. But I like the idea of it, so maybe I should make wedding-only posts on Wednesdays? Or maybe the only time I post anything wedding-related should be Wednesday? Maybe the latter with all of the updates from the previous week. We'll see how this turns out. So... to kick off Wedding Wednesday ... here's an update! After the "I almost chose the wrong wedding dress" debacle, I decided to try on my dress. It was the first time I've had it on since I bought it and I really do love it. Chloe was like, "What is with all of this material?! How can I hide in it?! Can I lay on it?! It's so comfy!!!" Next weekend when we go to look for new flower girl dresses, Joy and I are also going to some bridal ...

This past weekend was just lovely. Philip came over after he got off of work on Saturday. He came up the stairs with flowers in his hands, for no reason other than he is a very sweet fiance! I was putting the flowers in a vase in the kitchen while Philip was looking at my wall calendar. I came over to look with him and he pointed to Sunday, May 13 and said, "I'm gonna come over and stay on this day because I start work here on that Monday. Is that okay?" I said, "Of course that's okay," while not quite understanding why he would come over on a Sunday if he had to work in Peoria on Monday. Not a very long visit! And then he goes, "You didn't hear me. Because I start work here on that Monday." It didn't take long for it to register that he meant HERE, as in Bloomington. I was so excited! I hugged and squeezed him and just couldn't believe it, because it feels like we've been battling the distance FOREVER. Well, we have, really! A...

I'm having trouble coming to the realization that the tables at our wedding reception probably won't look like this (with our colors)... ... but rather something much more boring. Up until this point I've felt good about the decisions I've made. I feel like I'm getting something good and worthwhile for the money I've shelled out. The conference center will look nice, but not as nice as I want it to because spending a lot on linens and table decor just seems to me like a bit of an extravagancy that's unneeded. Do you ever leave a wedding remembering the centerpieces? I don't. Maybe it's because they're always easily unforgettable?

Wedding-related news to report! Save the Dates are out and on people's fridges! People seem to like them. I'm such a perfectionist and they aren't quite perfect, but they're pretty close! I bought a new printer yesterday for the sole purpose of printing wedding stuff (invitations, envelopes, programs, menus, etc...) and I am quite pleased with it thus far. There she is. She's an HP Photosmart 7510. Someone on Weddingbee said that it's good for envelopes and that recommendation was really the only reason I got it. I'm always scared to buy new gadgets because I don't know if they'll live up to my expectations. This one has so far, minus a little initial frustration over it printing crooked. (It seems to be fixed now, though!) I made a little mock-up of our invitation and it looks really professional, so I'm pretty excited about it. Hmm... what else? I decided to create an ebay account because there have been quite a few thin...

Just FYI... I deleted our wedding blog. I wasn't writing in it and I don't think it's that important or necessary. I wasn't enjoying writing a diluted version in that blog after I'd written every detail in this one. I doubt anyone was reading it or would read it anyhow. It was a cute idea at the time, but I'll just continue to chronicle every little step of the way in this one! Yay... 197 days ! Also, I need to do better about taking pictures of wedding-related things. I'm so sad that I forgot my camera when my aunt, Brooke, and the girls were trying on dresses. I would've liked to have a photo of them in the dresses that we actually chose. I guess it's not that big of a deal because we'll see them in lots of pictures in their dresses on the actual day, but still.

Well, I'm already behind on my lists, but I couldn't help it because the person I'm following didn't post her's until after I left for the day yesterday and I just got home from spending time with my boooyfriend. I also went to David's Bridal (again!) yesterday so that Brooke could try on bridesmaid dresses. She chose the same one as my aunt! So all of the girls will be in the dress that I posted a couple of weeks ago. I love that dress! They all will look so beautiful and elegant--I'm so excited about it! We also picked the flower girl dresses and it's also super cute. I'm wondering now, though, if the style is discontinued because it kinda says that on the website. Brooke's not ordering them until June, so I guess we'll find out then? They tried on shoes and headbands and they looked so adorable! Anywho... here are the lists! Yesterday's List (Day 3): Recipe for a Perfect Weekend Sleeping in : Until at least 9:30, ot...

(Okay... I wrote this entry last night and apparently it didn't save, so here we go again!) My aunt got her bridesmaid dress yesterday! I love it and she looks so great in it! I'll go with Brooke and the flower girls in a couple weekends to choose their dresses. It's all coming together! And I finally got pictures of ME in my wedding dress!