My Dress is in! My Dress is in!

I just got the BEST NEWS ever! I just checked my personal email account and I had a few emails from David's Bridal. This is a normal thing because they're always sending me ads, that is until I came across "Your Special Order Has Arrived". Low and behold, they have my dress!
I know a lot of people are really against DB. I had a great experience with them however (well my first saleslady quit, but that's okay because she sucked). Not only was my new saleslady super helpful and didn't pressure me, but all of my orders have come in really early, fast, and beautiful. I've ordered my flowers for my hair, my daughter's dress, my champagne shoes, and my wedding dress from them. My dress has come in over 6 WEEKS earlier than they said it would.
I can't wait to pick it up now and start the alterations (maybe wait a few weeks for that and see how the weight-loss goes). Now I just have to figure out where to hide the dress from Mr. S until I take it in for alterations.
In your planning process, what have you been most excited about?

Disappointment

I received some disappointing news a while ago that Mr. Snowflake's mom, sister and her husband, maternal grandparents, and other family members from that side are not coming to our wedding. She's been flaky about our wedding for a while, but I didn't actually think she'd decide not to come and completely remove herself from the process. I'm just really disappointed. Let me back up and explain how this all came about. Mr. S's parents were divorced when he was a teenager and it was a really messy divorce. There was a lot of fighting between FMIL and Mr. S's dads side of the family, that eventually escalated to FMIL getting slapped by Mr. S's aunt. So basically FMIL and FSIL have not spoken to that side of the family in about 16 years. When FSIL got married two years ago, no one on that side was invited. Mr. S has always been the bridge, he's friendly with both sides. When we have any holidays or b-days, we have to do everything twice.
When Mr. S's dad passed away 6 years ago, it drove another rift in the relationship because Mr. S inherited money and FSIL did not (they had not spoken in several years and refused to come and see him before he died). Anyway, FSIL and FMIL thought it was wrong and have always given Mr. S a hard time about it. Even this Christmas when we begged to celebrate X-mas at our house, FMIL gave us a hard time, we thought it was perfect because we have a bigger space for everyone and then since we're the ones with kids, we wouldn't have to lug all of the toys home. FMIL kept insisting it would make FSIL uncomfortable because of the money (which was not much and we have a seriously large mortgage - actually we have three mortgages with our three houses). In the end he confronted his sister and she said she had said nothing about being uncomfortable and thought it was a great idea, so we got Christmas at our house.
When Mr. S got married before his mother came for the ceremony and then took off. Now that we have the kids, I figured she'd come to support Mr. S and to hang out with the kids. I would have totally kept the families separate to make her comfortable. We would have had our friends run interference all weekend (confidentially of course). We've even had some of his aunts and uncle's from his mom's side RSVP, will they pull out now? His dad's side of the family has asked no questions whatsoever about his mom coming and they've been super supportive of the whole wedding, I'm sure they're just assuming she'll come and they'll be civil. They know that my FH will not put up with any drama at our wedding.
I know that her reason for coming is not my fault in any way, she is just still not over the events that happened in the past. Mr. S says it doesn't bother him that she's not coming, but I still can't help but feel really bad about the situation. I'm still going to send an invitation and continue to encourage her to come, we'll see what happens. I think she'll really regret it later if she doesn't, but I guess I could be wrong too.
(Us with FMIL at FSIL wedding)
Have you had any disappointments with family members you thought would come and then didn't?

4 months to go!

I'm really excited, only four months to go from today. Yes, I still have a lot to do, but I've accomplished a lot in the last month and feel really good about where I'm at.
In the next few weeks I'll complete my invitations and of course post them here, I have a couple of DIY projects that I need to work on, I'm going to the lake to finalize a bunch of things, so I'll have stories to post about that and of course I have my weight loss to work on.
Here is one thing I got done this last month that I did not post yet. I did a book on Shutterfly (free with the purchase of my dress at David's Bridal). Originally I thought we'd use it for a guest book, but part of our photography package is a signature frame for our guests to sign, then we'll either put an engagement picture or wedding picture in it and hang it in our home. The book has pictures of us from the beginning of our relationship, during our engagement ski trip, and other pictures over the last year and a half. The cover says Mr. and Mrs. Snowflake, so I thought it'd be cute to still display at the wedding. Especially since right now (could change in the future) I'm not planning on doing a slide show or anything.

What would you use the book for? Where are you in your planning?

My Plan

Yes, this is another "plan" blog. My weight is back up and I worry that my plan to look like a beautiful bride:

will be in reality more like this:

I have been seeing a personal trainer for about 3 years now almost every week. He helped me lose my previous 50 pounds - I was ONE HOT MAMA! By no fault of him, but because of my traveling and lack of willpower, I gained 34 pounds back. I had lost 10, but with work and home getting stressful again, I'm back up to 30 pounds, which pushes me into the "obese" level. I have found it a lot harder this time to lose the weight, I don't know if it's because my body has changed because I'm getting older or what, but something is not the same. I would love to be down the 30 by August, but my current goal is for 20 by July 4th (this will take me out of the overweight category). We decided yesterday that if I don't lose 2 pounds per week up until then, my "punishment" is that I have to go for a second training session that week. I have to note that I LOVE AL. After Mr. Snowflake, he's the most important man in my life. So it's not that I don't enjoy my time with him, it's just kind of an inconvience to have to schedule a session with him in the middle of the week when I have so many other things going on (I see him on the weekends normally). To have to juggle my work schedule and kids schedules would be a real pain, so I need to start doing things on my own and making some progress and meeting that goal. I have the tools at home and even have a gym close to work, I've just been really bad about utilizing them.
So here's my plan for the next month. In addition to seeing Al once a week (twice if I don't meet the goal) I will follow this plan and also attempt to not eat like I'm travleing anymore:

Weeks #1 and #2
* 40 minutes of aerobic activity at least three times a week
* 3 sets of 10 stomach crunches
* 2 sets of 10 push-ups
* 1 set of 10 squats

Weeks #3 and #4
* 40 minutes of aerobic activity at least three times a week
* 3 sets of 10 stomach crunches
* 3 sets of 10 push-ups
* 2 sets of 10 squats
* 2 sets of 10 bicep curls
* 2 sets of 10 tricep curls

I'll let you know how it goes. Are you trying to lose weight? What plans work best for you?

First Dance

We've had a hard time picking a first dance. We don't have an "us song". We have completely different views of music too. We need to pick something so that we can start practicing the dance and not look like complete dorks on the big day when we dance to it. These are the ones I've narrowed it down to.
Can I have this dance?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meOLzqtrqKM
I'm Yours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHnJGXwr-HU
The Day Before you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5jY7HPv5ao&feature=PlayList&p=62C1B1F98E4B4F49&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26
Which one would you chose?

My STD

Save the Dates (STD) were important to Mr. S and I from early on. We knew we needed to know how many people might be interested in coming and we also wanted to see how many people were willing to travel for our wedding. I knew I wanted to do magnets, because what better way to continue to keep our event in people's mind than on their refrigerator's (actually ours is on the microwave since we have stainless steel appliances)? We got a lot of really great feedback from the people we sent them to and although we did not recieve as many replies to our wedding website RSVP as we would have liked, I still think it was a really good idea. I ordered our magnets from http://www.magnetstreet.com/. They have a lot of options and I think they came out really nice.
This is the template we used (I'm retarded and didn't save the proof):

Basically, ours is exactly the same, except for the information. We used a picture from our trip to San Diego last fall of us on the beach. The turn around was really fast and I mailed them out in December to give our guest the "heads-up".
What did you do for your STD?

My Inspiration

The inspiration for our wedding comes from the lake we're having it at. When we orginally were going to have the wedding at the Inn, I planned on doing more of an ocean theme since that's what the hotel was decorated in. When we switched to the Lodge, I thought a more lake theme would fit better. It now means that I have decorations I won't use, which kind of sucks, but I think what my planner and I have picked out will look really beautiful in the Lodge.
First of all I'm lining the aisle with shepherd hooks and mason jars. We'll probably move them and switch out for candles later, but this is my inspiration:

For the tables indoors for the reception, we're going to sort of copy this picture:

In this picture the lines on the tables are part of the table cloth. We're actually going to use fishing nets. Instead of floating flowers, we're going to put sand and the sand dollars that Mr. S and I collected on a vacation together in the bowls. We're going to rotate tables, one with this and the others with mason jars from the hooks with flowers in them and the submerged flower with candle (the DIY project that dodn't go well).
My favorite flowers are tulips, but they're not in season during our wedding and I didn't want to pay a premium for the greenhouse ones. So for flowers, I thought I was just going to do calla lillies, until my wedding planner sent me this picture:

Now I'm going to have calla lillies and roses.

What do you think, do these things fit in with our lake theme? What else would you add to our lake theme?

Shoes

I need help with shoes. The thing about having a wedding in grass is that you have to either wear wedges or flat shoes. I want some height, so my only option is wedges (I'm not a wedge person). I guess I could always hope for rain and then I could wear my heels :) I can't decide which ones I like best of the ones I've bought - so far. I guess the hardest thing is that I don't have my dress yet, so I'm not sure how they'll look.
Here are the ones I purchased:
Ivory Wedges (I like them, but I don't really like that they're closed toe)
Champagne Wedges (I like these and since they're dyeable I could change the color later to something else.)
Which ones do you like best? Did you have trouble picking shoes?

My DIY Projects

I'm really not a DIY-er. I'm not crafty in any way at all. Usually if I want something crafty, I'll spend more just so that I don't have to do it and buy something pre-made in the store. So I don't know what hit me, but I decided to do a couple of DIY projects for the wedding. One came out great, the other is a work in progress (I lost interest so it's still sitting on my kitchen counter).
My first project was pomander balls for my daughters to carry (since I'm not about to spend $130 on their bouquets). I had seen tons of great balls, so I was a little worried about how mine would come out.

Step One: Take the styrofoam ball and attach a ribbon. I had trouble attaching the ribbon, so I improvised. I made a loop out of ribbon and then attached it by wrapping string around several times to secure it to the ball, then hot glued it with a low heat gun for an extra measure.

Step Two: Start attaching the flowers. I was surprised by how many flowers I used to create these. I ended up having to do it in two days because I had to go back to the store for more flowers. Basically, cut them off the bunches (if you use bunches) leaving at least 1-2 inches of the stem. Insert into the ball to make a hole and then pull back out. Squeeze some hot glue into the hole and then reinsert the flower. Repeat like a million times.

Step Three: Continue inserting flowers and filling in holes as you go. I went with a well-packed ball, if you wanted you could do it more loosely.

Step Four: Finish and hang by the ribbons. If you leave them on a flat surface one side will get flat.

A pretty easy project, if I say so my self.

My next project was creating the submerged flower with floating candles for some of the tables. This did not turn out so well, so I'll have to try something else. Like I said, for now it's sitting on my counter being ignored.

What DIY projects did you attempt?

The Dresses

I didn't really have a plan for the girl's dresses, I just knew I wanted them to look like pretty princesses and be comfortable. I picked my wedding color from the dress my sister picked. I guess I was pretty laid back about things last summer - not so much now.The first dress we picked was Little Miss Snowflake's. My sister and I went to bridal fair and they had some little dresses on clearance, so we jumped on this one:

When we went to pick out Miss Snowflake's dress and Sister Snowflake's dress, they didn't have anything in this color, so we're going to improve and add a sash to Little Miss's dress.
This is the dress we ordered for Miss Snowflake and the bridesmaids:

The BM's dresses are sleeveless, but otherwise they look the same.
For me, the girl's dresses were the easiest decision for me, I guess choosing a color was too.
What were some of your easiest decisions?

It's raining, it's pouring...

What if you woke up on your wedding day and looked out the window to this:
Would you:
A) Enjoy the nice spring rain - yeah you'll have to hold an umbrella and hike the dress up to keep it out of the puddles, but it's no big deal; or
B) FREAK OUT - this is the worst possible thing that could ever happen.
I haven't really put too much thought into rain on my wedding day, except for the fact that we reserved the Lodge early on. If it rains, we move the party indoors, oh well. My dress isn't that big of a deal and the kids aren't wearing super fancy clothes that I care whether they get a little muddy or not. Heck, maybe we'll do a trash the dress sort of thing. But for me, I enjoy the rain, and if it rains, it really won't dampen my mood.
For other women, I know this is completely a different case. I knew someone getting married this past weekend (not a friend - actually someone that really bothers me) and this is what we woke up to on Saturday. So the devil in me just had to chuckle a little inside about the fact that I knew only a few miles away there was a woman FLIPPING OUT about the weather ruining her day. She would be pissed about getting wet, even the slightest bit. She'd be angry about the mud her boys were going to traipse through all day long in their tuxedos. And she'd be livid about the HUGE mud bog around both her ceremony and reception sites, because she didn't think ahead about her cheesy venues. She and I share no love, so the vindictive side of me came out and I was REALLY happy about the weather on Saturday morning.
How would you react to bad weather on your wedding day?

Finally! I have invitations!

As I've mentioned before, I have really had a hard time deciding on invitations. I don't care about fonts, letter press, and paper types...I know, GASP! It just wasn't as important to me as many other details in the wedding.
I know I haven't shown you the STD's yet (this was something I did care about), but here are the invitations I finally ordered just because I have to have them, according to Emily Post and my mother.


I picked a really simple invitation that had a "lakey" element. I'm only ordering 100 of these babies since I plan on sending announcements to people I defiently know are not coming. I'm also going to include a card to explain how to rsvp on our wedding website and list the events we have planned for the weekend.
So, there. My invitations are FINALLY done and I can cross another thing off of my to-do list. YAY!
What aspect of your wedding planning did you drag your feet on?

I'm sick :(

I hate being sick. On top of it, I'm blind today. Don't tell Mr. S because I'm supposed to be laying still for the next 24 hours with my eyes closed and NO READING! Seriously, how can I function without work and email and reading?! I scratched my cornea by leaving my contacts in overnight. It was stupid, but I've been doing it for years. Now I'm paying for it. Ugh! I'm so bored and can't even really do anything, or work on the computer or anything unless I want to be laid up longer or risk worse injury. Sorry for the vent, but I don't do well with not functioning like normal and it;s even worse because I have to completely depend on other people to help me with things. Hopefully I can be more myself tomorrow.

What do you miss doing when you're laid up sick?

Our wedding party

This last week my sister came out and spent some time with us. She used to live in Omaha, but last fall she moved back home (Arizona). I can't believe how much I miss her being around. When we started wedding planning I told Mr. S that I wanted her to be my MOH and gave the kids "jobs" and told him he needed to start thinking about who he wanted on his side of the altar. He has fought me on this, then conceded, and then retreated, it's been very hard on me since I really, really wanted a wedding party. He had the big wedding before and felt that this was nonsense. I finally decided I didn't care if he wanted one or not, I was having one. He will not have anyone stand up for him.
Let me introduce you to our wedding party:
First of all, there's my sister and my sister in law that will be my bridesmaids. I really wanted my sister to be my MOH, but I decided since there wasn't a "true" wedding party, I'm removing ranks.

Sister Snowflake (on the left) SIL Snowflake
Jr. Miss Snowflake and Jr. Mr. Snowflake (they're exactly the same age) will be our jr. attendants. Funny story, when we first announced the wedding Jr. Mr. S volunteered to make sandwiches for the reception for everyone to eat - so cute.
Jr. Miss Snowflake Jr. Mr. Snowflake
Little Miss Snowflake and Twin Snowflakes (who said there's not such thing as snowflakes exactly alike?) will be our flowergirl and ring bearers, except without the flowers and rings - basically they're walking down the aisle and sitting with the rest of the "wedding party".
Little Miss Snowflake (She's not a ham at all!) Twin Snowflake 1 Twin Snowflake 2
So this is our "wedding party". How is your wedding party different than what is traditional?

Lucky

As much as I complain about Mr. S's tactics and ideas, I am very lucky.
-He's a go-getter, most of the time I don't have to sit around and wait and nag about him doing things. When my job pulled me away from him and our life for two months last fall in the midst of getting our wedding planned, he picked up my slack and worked with the wedding planner and got a whole lot of our contracts arranged, hotel block booked, honeymoon booked, and many other things that I owe him a lot of credit for.
-He thinks about my needs and desires all of the time. When I need something, he always fulfills that need. He puts my desires ahead of his most of the time, like buying my sister and I spa day for this weekend while she's in town, pestering the lady at the Orpheum for tickets to Wicked even before they were on sale, keeping me well stocked in beautiful flowers for our house, and many other thoughtful things.
-He loves me, even when I don't deserve it. I've done some pretty dumb things in our relationship and through them all, he has loved me.
-He loves me when I'm not at my best. Whether I'm sick, or over-weight, or let's just say I've had too much "Kool-aid", he loves me.
-He loves me for me. He tolerates my girls, even when they're really big pain in the butts. He tolerates my freak-outs and bad moods. He celebrates with me when I accomplish something. He supports my decisions, even if he doesn't think they're the brightest course.
So, yes, I'm very lucky that Mr. Snowflake found me and decided to be with me. I love you honey.
How does your lucky man show you that you're special to him?

The Dress - Finally!

Like I said in my last post, I thought I had found "the one". Boy, was I wrong about that. Ladies, once again: please never, ever ask your fiance for advice on your dress.
We were going to hit the 6 month mark soon, so I figured it was time to go in and be measured even though I had not lost all the weight I wanted. A few nights before I planned on driving out to the bridal store, I decided to show Mr. S the dress to get his opinion (I blame it on the wine I drank that night). Wow - did that back fire. As I was quickly flashing through the pictures on my laptop he was making comments about the different ones popping up and before I could announce with great gusto that "This is the one", he blurted out "Ugh, that's horrible". Wait - what? Did he just say "horrible"? Yes, he did and that's when the tears started flowing. After all of this searching and stressing and everything that girls go through to find that one dress, he blurts this out.
Now, I know most of you are thinking how could you possibly want to marry this man after he said that? Between you and me, I wasn't in love with the dress, and I knew he wasn't saying I looked horrible, but it still stung. However I knew that even though his comment was thoughtless (although he did apologize immediately and profusely over and over again) he was right and he had my best interest in mind. This was actually freedom to pick what I wanted and knew would look best on me.
So, that Sunday I walked into David's Bridal with a mission. I was trying on three dresses and I was going to walk out purchasing one of those three dresses. I went in alone (no mom, no sister, no kids - and NO Fiance) and I was going to make this decision myself. And you know what, I did. I fell in love with a dress I had completely passed over before. I literally stood there for an hour in the dress loving the way it looked and felt on me.
So without further ado, let me introduce you to my dress...The front...

The back - the laces will be peridot, we tied a sash on so that I could get the "feel" of it. (sorry for the bad picture - I promise I'll take better ones when it comes in)
So, that's my dress story. My advice, go with what you're comfortable in and what you love, you'll never please someone else and yourself at the same time.
What was your experience like? Did you have en epic search or find one and fall in love right away?

The Dress - Part 3

Yes, there is a part 3. My search was hampered by an endless business trip, but once it finally was over and I was back home, I picked up the wedding planning again and focused on finding "the one". My mom came from AZ over the Christmas holiday, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to let her get involved in some of the wedding planning. I decided to try some smaller boutiques I had heard about and to be honest, I was much more impressed by the experiences I had at David's Bridal - I know - gasp! I guess that's just how we roll here in the "fly-over" state of Nebraska.
My mom and I went to one boutique and while they had some cute dresses, I was really annoyed with the sales lady. First of all, it was a Tuesday and no one was in there, yet she still couldn't get off her butt to help us. Secondly, she PRACTICALLY REFUSED to let me try any of my dresses with the "poof" underneath - I know there's a real name, but I like calling it this :) When I did bridal modeling I LOVED the poof and I was determined to have a dress that I wore one with. Eventually she gave in, but said she never sold these to girls, just rented them. Eww. Yeah, most girls will only wear them this one day, but I go to a Ball at least once a year, I'm sure I can find an excuse to wear mine again. Plus, I was determined that I could find one cheap (I did - $10 on CraigsList - Score!). Anyway, needless to say, that girl did not make a sale to me that day.Our next stop was at another boutique in town. This is where all the brides were. The parking lot was so crowded that I had to park in another lot and then we couldn't get any service here either. Ugh!
The final stop for the day was where I thought I had finally found my dress. I tried on many and I was trying to find a compromise between what I wanted and what I thought Mr. S wanted. I did not buy the dress that day, the saleslady suggested I come back in a few months and get measured since I had planned on trying to lose at least one dress size. Here is the dress:

What bad experiences did you have while searching for your dress?

The Dress - Part 2

My next search for dresses was even more unsuccessful than the first. As you can see in the pictures I was very unhappy about the whole experience. In two hours I tried on over 20 dresses! Yes, 20! I completely did not follow the rules about trying on only a few dresses so they're fresh in your mind and I just went nuts. I really, really did try to give Mr. S's idea of a wedding dress the benefit of the doubt, but they looked HORRIBLE on me. I should have saved the pictures as proof of how bad they looked, but I didn't think that far ahead and deleted them. Here were the final contenders after that trip:
#1 - Does it look familiar? It's one of the dresses I had picked before. I thought it looked good against my skin tone.
#2 - When i polled my family and friend this is the one they chose - I actually didn't like it at all.
#3
Anyway, this was another unsuccessful day and I felt like I was never going to find "the one".

How many trips did it take you before you found "the one"?

Mr. S's idea of a "wedding dress"

The Mr. and I have completely different views of what should be worn at our wedding. When we first got engaged, he would tease me about our wedding attire being swimming suits.
Seriously girls...swimsuits.

Eventually, I weaned him off that idea and convinced him it should be a bit classier. Here is where I went wrong, I asked him what he envisioned for my dress. Below are SOME of the pictures that he sent me for ideas. Believe me, there were some that were WAY OUT in left field.

His idea was "sleek and slender". Normally, I'm in no way a "fattie" (my recent weight-gain aside), but even on my BEST day, I'm not a "sleek and slender" girl. I have CURVES and BOOBS, and I've also had TWO KIDS. Yes, there are lots of women out there with the same circumstances and are able to pull off the look, but I'm not one of those women.

As you can see from my last post, none of the dresses I tried on met his idea of a dress. Back to the "drawing board" for me...

How have you and your Mr. differed on opinions about attire?

The Dress - Part 1

I did bridal modeling as a teeneger (it's actually how I met my ex-husband) so I know a lot about dresses, what works on my figure, etc. Needless to say, searching for my dress was one of the most painful things I have ever done (granted I have two kids and even birthing them wasn't this painful).
A "large" part of my pain was my larger body. I mentioned before that I had started traveling for work and not having my gym and eating horrible every day had totally ruined everything I did two years ago when I dropped from over 200 lbs to my nice, fit 150 lbs. Now I'm back in between those numbers, but no where near my "goal".

My other pain was that I had one idea of what kind of dress I wanted, but Mr. S had a seriously different view of what he wanted to see me in. Here's my advice-he may totally love you, but you know what is best for you-do not listen to him! However, I didn't learn this until MUCH later.

So, on to looking for dresses. I tried on probably 6 or 7 the first time. These were the contenders:
#1
#2

#3
At the end of the day, I decided that none of these were "the one" so the dress wasn't picked that day.

How hard was it for you to find a dress?

The Plan

I'll be consistent and stick with the "plan" theme today.
I know I left off at the beginning stages, but let's skip ahead to where we are 7 months later. We have a pretty well-rounded plan for our weekend of events and I'll share them here.
On Wednesday, we'll leave Missouri Valley and head to the lakes. We're renting a cabin at Camp Okoboji for a few days so we have more room to spread out and the free boat docking. (A picture of our cabin - sorry the sun was at a bad point)
On Thursday, we'll hold a bbq at our cabin to welcome our family and friends to the lake.
On Friday morning, we'll have breakfast items at the cabin and then boat for the majority of the day. We're hoping everyone can kick-back and relax with us, rather than stressing about wedding details (that's what Brandy is for, right?).
(yeah! I love boating!)
On Friday evening, we'll have our wedding rehearsal and then boat over to our rehearsal dinner/party at the Barefoot Ball and Grill. I'm really excited about this venue and it should be really fun for our guests too.
(I love the huts!)
Saturday is the big day. I'll spend the day relaxing and getting pampered. I'm not sure what Mr. S and the boys will do, I'll have to put them to work or something so they stay out of trouble. We'll meet at the Lodge at 3 and do our pictures. Then we're having a cocktail hour with passed hors d'ouvers prior to the wedding. After the ceremony we'll have a buffet dinner in the Lodge and our live band will start playing after that.
On Sunday morning, we'll have a breakfast buffet so that we can say good-bye to all of our guests, also because Mr. S loves him some breakfast food :)
How have your plans shaped up over the course of your planning?

The Planner

I'm a very hands on person. I want things a certain way and I'm the only one that can do them that way (a little bit of a control-freak: yes, but at least I admit it). So, I never planned on having a wedding coordinator, not even a day of coordinator (DOC). Looking back now, that was CRAZY talk because I love, love, love my planner. How did I decide to get one? Well, it all started with the business travel I mentioned.
Technically, I was not supposed to travel with my job description. A train project changed all of that. Last June/July, I had to travel for a month. Really sucked being away from Mr. S and the kids, but at least I got to come home on the weekends and got to meet them in Okoboji for the 4th of July. Then, right when Mr. S wanted to make a BUNCH of decisions about the wedding and needed vendor research done, I was getting pulled out of town again for an indefinite amount of time. He's not the type to wait for things (notice: he proposed just three months after we started dating) he's not patient at all. He was also getting pulled away to travel for work at the time, so we needed someone else to do the "leg" work for us.
This is where Brandy comes in. She had done weddings at almost every place around the lake area and has a lot of experience with many of the vendors there. When we needed to figure out the block of hotel rooms, she called them all for rates and gave us her opinions about the rooms available at each hotel. She ran around talking to caterers and found us a great price for what we're getting. She's helped us figure out flowers and where to get my hair/makeup done. She's given us tons of decorating ideas. She'll do the coordinating of all of the vendors and all of the decorating on the day of the wedding. I may even control my "controlling" behavior and just stay away the day of until it's all put together (we'll see). She has completely changed my view of wedding coordinators and I'm SO GLAD I have her.
Did you change your mind about Wedding Coordinators or DOC's at your wedding once you got into the "weeds" of planning?

Planning..Planning..and more Planning

When Mr. S and I first got engaged, we had completely different ideas about what we wanted our wedding to be. His idea of the wedding would be me, him, an officiant, and a beach...that's it. My ideal plan would be to have the BIG wedding with all of our family and friends in our hometown (well, Omaha since there's beautiful venues all over). At the very least, I wanted our kids and our immediate family there. I excluded my whole family the first time I got married when I just went and eloped, it hurt them very much that they were not a part of this very important day. My daughters are the main reason I got through the whole divorce and landed on my feet to be in the emotional position to meet Mr. S, I really wanted them to share in this celebration of this next phase of OUR life.

Since Mr. S let me include the kids, family and friends, I compromised by not having a hometown wedding because he didn't want all of the additional people that might come if it was close and "the fuss". We had many, many options, but we narrowed it down to a few. We thought about still doing a Destination Mexico wedding, but then that would require getting 5 children's passports. Then we thought about San Diego: nice weather and beaches. But, having a wedding there would make it hard for planning because of the distance and our un-familiarity with the region. We considered Keystone or Breckenridge since we enjoy skiing and the mountains, plus it's special because that's where we got engaged, but I didn't want to have a two-year engagement and I was worried that the high-altitude may affect some of our guests health.

Our final option was to do a wedding at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. It's a beautiful blue-water lake and has a special significance to Mr. S because he spent summers there fishing with his dad and grandfather. Although I had never been there, it sounded beautiful so I started researching where we could have the wedding and started planning a scouting trip. We decided to go the weekend after Memorial Day last year. The weather was gorgeous, but the water was still really cold!

Again, we had many options for where to hold the wedding and reception and even got to see a few in action at the venues we considered because they were holding weddings there at the time. I won't bore you with all of the places we visited and the venues we talked to. At the end of our trip, we decided to hold the wedding ceremony at The Inn at Okoboji on the lakefront and the reception in their room overlooking the resort. We also decided to book a state park lodge on the lakefront on the other side of the lake in case of bad weather. Mr. S really wanted to get married on the lakefront and the Inn did not have a facility on the lake that could accommodate that.

But the planning didn't end there.

After many months of trying to get the contract from the coordinator at the Inn and her telling me that they'd get to it after all of the 2008 weddings were over and coordinated, I began to get frustrated. I understood that these brides needed their deserved attention to detail and etc., but I wanted my contract and deposit paid so that I did not have to stress about losing "my spot". Call it being a bride-zilla or whatever, but this lady and I just couldn't work together on MY wedding, so Mr. S and I started exploring the possibilities of our "back-up plan".

We decided the state park did fit our idea of a classy-yet-fun wedding and canceled with the Inn. So, we're getting married lakeside at the Lodge and still have our back-up plan to get married inside there should the weather not cooperate.


Did you have to go with a back-up plan for your wedding ceremony/reception site?

Just a few ideas...

One of the reason's I would like to be a Bee-blogger is because I want to share my ideas and other great things I've found in the process of planning my wedding.

While this is not related to my wedding, this weekend I was at a Shriners Ball (yes - my fiance is a Shriner, and no - he's not a senior citizen, it's actually full of late 20-somethings and early 30-somethings). They had a really beautiful location at the Embassy Suites in Downtown Omaha. The ideas I'm stealing for others are the arch and table decorations because I see people ask about how to decorate things all the time.
Here is what they had at this event:

Pretty cute, simple table decoration

The arches near the entrance to the room

So what ideas have you taken from others that you're incorporating into your wedding?

How we met

I guess I should start with how me and mr. met.
We were both married before and also have children from those marriages, so when you're that busy and too old for your old dating ways - you turn to the Internet. We were both on match.com the summer of 2007. On September 4th, he winked at me and then followed up with an email. We chatted back and forth that first day and he asked me for a date, which we planned for two days later. Actually, he wanted to meet up that night at a bar, but I had to play it cool, plus a girl has to get ready for these kind of things :) The next morning we emailed again and he pushed for a lunch date that day. I was crazy and went ahead and said yes. We met at a bar for lunch and ever since then have not been apart (well except for work traveling, but that's another story).
He says it was love at first sight - I walked in the door, the wind blew my curly blond hair and he was hooked. It took me a little longer, but eventually he woo-ed me over. We were engaged December 14th on a ski trip to Keystone Colorado. That's where the nickname comes from - I'm his "pretty snowflake".
We've planned a small wedding at Lake Okoboji in Iowa for this August. I would have picked the anniversary of the date we met (Sept. 5th), but since it's Labor Day weekend, the lake would be too busy and I felt bad taking up our friend's and family's holiday weekends (well not every one's - there will be a lot of people traveling for us).
So, that's the story of us. I never thought I'd find my next husband on the Internet, but I let my fingers do the walking and I found him (saved the wear and tear on my high heels at least).
How many others found their love on the computer?

My Blogging Starts Here

To be honest, I've only just gotten hooked on actually blogging myself. I've LOVED reading a million other people's blogs, but the bug finally bit me. Why do you ask? Weddingbee. Oh how I LOVE that site. I've laughed and cried with those girls as they have gone through the process of planning their weddings. I absolutely love when they come back and post all about the fun they had and things that went well/not so well. They have TONS of great ideas that I've stolen...I mean incorporated into my own wedding. Now, with less than five months to go and most of the planning done, I need a new outlet, plus this way I can recap all of the exciting things I did for my upcoming wedding in August of this year.
Let the blogging begin :)