Ice cream sundae bar

I love ice cream.  I was thinking of doing an ice cream sundae bar at the wedding but, for the moment at least, have decided to go with something a little less complicated.  Anyway, Eat Drink Chic has created the most opulent sundae bar I've ever seen, along with lots of pictures.  It's a great idea source to get your imagination rolling.

MmmMmmmMMmm....

More non-matching bridesmaids

More non-matching bridesmaid examples, all in green...

::from here & here::

Love it

I don't think I need any words to explain why I love this.

But allow me to add, so that you may understand why I am SO taken with this right now, that I was in love with the wildflowers in Minnesota this summer.  During my visit back, that's one of the things that stood out the most.  Which was kinda weird, because here on this tropical island we have flowers in bloom everywhere and all the time.  Many days I'm overwhelmed with the scent of flowers in the air.  But I was still struck by the beautiful wildflowers growing all over in Minnesota.  I don't much care for fancy arrangements of roses and other fancy flowers but you can give me a hand-picked collection of wildflowers any day.

Loveliness from ::here::

Canning lemonade

How come I've never seen lemonade served in mason jars with the lid on before?

Perfect!

Photo from ::here::

Masking tape makeover

I stumbled upon this Japanese washi paper tape the other day and now I need a reason to buy some. I’m thinking I could set out a roll for guests to seal their candy buffet bags…

Any other ideas?

Find it ::here::

Planning a wedding is like teaching first grade

Hear me out on this one.

All the wedding mags and websites like to point out the average person’s inability to plan a party as large as a wedding. Because most people don’t have experience planning and carrying out huge shindigs, they need to hire a wedding planner to do it for them. That way they can just say “yes” and “no” and leave the details to someone else. I see the point. Some people just don’t think of all the details, and there are a lot of details involved in a wedding. And many people just don’t want to. But there’s no way on earth that I will be hiring a wedding planner to do everything because a.) I don’t have the money for that and b.) I am a huge perfectionist and cannot relinquish that sort of control.

I really do think, however, that I have a huge advantage as a first grade teacher. As a teacher, I think about ridiculously trivial details every day. How am I going to distribute these papers? What will be most efficient? How can I keep them occupied? What will this group be doing while I am working with the other group? How do I make my directions simple and clear? How do I maximize space yet still allow space for traffic flow? How can I involve them in this lesson? What jobs can they perform?

My brain does not overlook much when in teacher mode. When I think about the wedding, I see so many of these details. My mind focuses on the guests’ needs and comfort more than getting my make-up done or posing for photos. In reality, I’ve spent the past year o.d.-ing on details. My sister told me “I don’t really have anything to share…you’ve already thought of everything.”

I’m not trying to bill myself as a professional wedding planner. Just sharing my thoughts. Hopefully my theory pans out and I won’t be thinking of the things I missed after the wedding.  Now if only we were having kids at our wedding (no little ones in either families) ... I would be able to plan a cute kids table!  Darn that generational gap.

Photo from ::here::

If I had a million dollars

…and/or oodles of craftiness, thriftiness, and hours upon hours to kill…

I would get me some of these. I think they are so cute. I would give them to all of my wedding guests with favors of quaint little herb pots. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Of course, I don’t have any of the aforementioned skills or assets, so this is a no-go. It was a nice daydream, though.

Garden markers from ::here::

Overwhelmed

The word of the day today is overwhelmed. As in overwhelm. You know…

o · ver · whelm

1. to overcome completely in mind or feeling: overwhelmed by stress.
2. to overpower or overcome, esp. with superior forces; destroy; crush: the independent and distant budget wedding planner was overwhelmed by the stalwart wedding industry.
3. to cover or bury beneath a mass of something: wedding magazines, ceremony scripts, and other items in the wedding pile have completely overwhelmed the coffee table.
4. to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything: she was overwhelmed by the hundreds of wedding blog posts amassed in her Google Reader.

I have been a very bad blogger. But, as blogging excuses go, well…life just got in the way. I went home to Minnesota this summer for the first time in two years. Blogging was not my top priority. The wedding was pretty high up there, though. I returned to my island only to leave again within the week for a soccer tournament in Taiwan. The internet in our hotel was slow so I didn’t even get to read wedding blogs. And when I got back, school started. I have entered the black hole of the school year, when time is no longer my own and every day of the week is burdened by my classroom to-do list. So, you see, it wasn’t until yesterday that I even had the heart to open up my Google Reader.

I feel so behind and so far away. This summer, wedding planning was real. We actually got to walk through the ballroom and picture everything. I bought fabric and frames and centerpieces in person. Mike even started to get involved. But now I’m back to long-distance planning. Which was okay when I was just brainstorming ideas last year. But now it’s go time. And choosing paper, apparel, and a photographer from thousands of miles away…sucks!

Photo from ::here::