Wedding Thursday 8/54

Good LORD these past two weeks have been KILLER!
I made it though - I made it through the meeting with my ArchEnemy.
It was actually kind of sad - today I realized that what she really is is not particularly evil or nasty or bitchy - she is totally and completely insecure. That's what makes her so unbearable. It's weird because she is actually smart, totally knowledgeable in her field, she scares the CRAP out of people, and hell, if her paycheck can buy some Donna Karan boots, she must being doing well for herself. Inside though, I think she might be scared as hell.
Of what I don't know, it's certainly not of me. Maybe she has a mean boss or maybe she lives in fear of losing her job. Whatever it is, it's making her a terrible person, and for that I only have pity.

Oh don't worry, I still intensely dislike her ;)

For now I have a few weeks that stretch ahead of me with nothing stressful scheduled beyond my usual inane conference calls and the occasional donation of platelets. Oh, and I have to bring a snack to book club on December 3rd. Don't let me forget that! I just seriously paused blogging to envision my snack - who does that? I was thinking about pie bites and Christmas cookies and maybe cake pops for about a minute there, when I realized I had stopped typing. WOW.

Of course there's Thanksgiving too. If there is one thing I love about the holidays, it's the visiting. Jamaal is coming up to visit and we've made plans to catch up with some friends we haven't seen in a while. So nice. Love having an excuse to get together with people. I also love any excuse to make a pie, so I will definitely be recreating last year's Grandma Ople's Apple Pie,

sans overdone crust, hopefully a new and improved pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream and no cracking on the top,



AND I really want to make this apple blackberry pie, though maybe substitute the apples for pears...or probably some of the apples for pears, as pears can get mushy. Of course I am doing this almost solely for the purpose of using my leaf and turkey cookie cutters on the crust. Yes lame, but also DELICIOUS!
Ok enough about food. Wedding stuff. I don't have much to add this week since things are moving at a snails pace lately.

We finally had a wedding success: the photographer. Did I mention meeting with him already? If not, he's a family friend who first photographed my sister and I in 1987...then I landscaped for him in high school and did some work for him in the production room, stuff like putting together, in order, stacks of hundreds of bridal proofs, putting proofs in album order, etc. We're pretty tight and he would impart little bits of photographic wisdom upon me from time to time. I can't believe that I've remembered it all these years (9? 10 years?) later, but for some reason, it still occupies a part of my brain. This will make working with James so easy - why? OK for example, I know that lighting is important and that the best light of the day is either morning or later afternoon light. So I didn't even make a tentative schedule of the day until I talked to James. He was like 'wait. what? you waited to make a timeline?' I'm sure most brides go in and tell him how things are going to go, but I knew it's best to wait for his OK, especially since the photographs are so important to me.

Besides helping me with all things photography, he also perused the Barns brochure to help us come up with a decorative scheme. Last week I was bitching about the paper lantern thing, how we'd need our own ladder etc (still mildly irritated about this) He flipped through the pages, came to the last photo and said "This. This right here. This is what you need to do. I LOVE IT." Luckily Jam and I totally loved the setup too - it's just that an outside opinion confirming the awesomeness of a decorating scheme is kind of nice...we need the validation.
So here it is:
I am not so sure how the orange-y thing will look with navy....but I think I kind of love the orange. The bridesmaid dresses will be navy, my dress is ivory, and the bouquets are going to be a bright mix of fall dahlias. It works, right? The centerpieces are totally neutral. I notice these are green - ours will be glass jars with ivory votives and fall colored details. I like the idea of sparkly/embossed mini pumpkins as our centerpieces...so basically, I am getting comfortable with this set up. I wish we were rich and could rent the chiavari because they are gorgeous, but alas, I'd rather put the $1200 we'd have to spend on chair rental towards a honeymoon on the beach and a spa treatment a day because I am selfish like that!

Anyways, this will save us some time and effort, and I think some cash, with which I can't exactly argue! So here's what we'll have to do to decorate this:

String lights, wrap poles in chiffon, set up centerpieces, set up just married banner (so cute), set up guest book/card/escort card table, set up candy bar. I really love how this sounds as opposed to "make 50 LED throwies, string up 50 paper lanterns from barn rafters" Sooo much better. This also means that I can sneak over to the Barns to help with the initial chores and be back in my hotel room around 10 am or so. Here's how the day should go:

ass-early: wake up and do the sh*t that I will have inevitably left to the last minute
8:30 am: head to Barns
9 am: help with initial set up...of course I will have a team of 20 people to do this. LOL.
10 am: get kicked out of Barns by Jam/family
10:15 am: get back to hotel room, pop bottle of champagne, shower (with champagne in shower with me ha ha ha)
11 am: hair done
12 pm: drinking. makeup.
1 pm: mill around. drink.
1:15 pm: put on dress, start to head out
1:40 pm: leave for church
2 pm: music starts
2:15-2:30pm: head down aisle, try not to faint
3pm: ceremony ends
3:30pm: receiving line ends
4:00pm: get to Barns after church pics
4:45pm: photog promises formal shots will be done, catch the last 15 mins of cocktail hour with bridal party
5pm: get the party started
You get it!

So yeah, very good stuff this week. As for this coming week (THANKSGIVING! YAY!) Jam promises to have his guest list modifications complete and to help me pick out an invitations suite. I am still heavily leaning towards this one, though I told Jam that he obviously has a say and that you really can't go wrong with Printable Press:
I am falling in love with this one too though, so a change is entirely possible:
Jam also loved my favorite invite format from the DIY Wedding Invite class I went to at the Paper Source over the summer, so that works too. It's nice when we just agree.