Couples Outing 1st QTR – 2009

This year, my couple friends (aka The Crew), decided that each couple would plan an outing throughout the year. My hubby and I ended up with 1st Quarter and we chose to go to the AJC Car Show. We have gone to this show at least twice and we had so much fun taking pictures and just dreaming about driving various cars. We thought that our friends would have a blast doing the same. I like to make a big deal out of things, so I plan to make my own invitations and magazine paper envelopes. I also found some vintage car stamps and I am so excited. The invites are collage photos that I purchased for 9 cents at www.snapfish.com (Thanks to www.2000dollarwedding.com because that is where I got the idea). I used pics from that took at the 2007 show and created a collage from that. All of the details will be placed on cardstock or something. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.

Coasters with Atlanta Landmarks

Speaking of Atlanta things, I saw the cutest little coasters in the AJC last week and I can’t wait to get a set. These coasters are sold at Taste, a gift shop in downtown Decatur. The stone drink coaster has images of popular Atlanta or Georgia landmarks. You can also have your photos put on the coasters. Taste is located at 416 Church Street in Decatur, GA.

budget save the dates

As I was browsing for ideas for budget save the date for the party, I came across a website that suggested Wordle.net. Wordle is site that creates these unique word clouds in an array of colors. They are so neat. The only problem is that I don’t know how to get a good copy of my creation. So here is what I did: I screen print a copy and paste it in MS Word, then I made rectangles and filled them with my chosen color and placed them all around the image. I removed the rectangle lines and then printed it. From there I took a picture of it and uploaded it to computer and there you have it. Now I can use the image for anything that I wish to create. I am not the best photographer so the lighting is way off, but I did my best. You all get the point. Go to Wordle and create your own word cloud. www.wordle.net

DIY Invitations

I have been struggling to find inexpensive invitations for the party and since I am on a budget, I have had to be pretty creative. First, I checked out VistaPrint and I created a lovely elegant invite and then I lost it. Just as I finished making my card, the computer shut down. I took that as a sign that maybe I should not use it. Over the weekend my hubby and I went to Office Depot and they had boxes of invitations kits on sale but there was only one box that we liked. We needed two boxes. Deteremined to get my invitations, I finally went to Michaels where I found invitations that I like.

VistaPrint: 50 Oversized Postcards – Free, Color Printing on Backside – $9.99, 50 Envelopes – $4.99, plus shipping costs and double the order because we need about 75 invites =Total Cost $30 + Shipping

Office Depot: 50 Invitations and Response cards with matching envelopes – $10.00 =Total Cost $20 (cost vary from store to store)

Michaels: 100 Invitations and matching envelopes – $14.99 = Total Cost $14.99

Day 1

Today is the first day of our church wide fast.  We will all be doing the Daniel for 40 Days (excluding weekends). That means that our fast will end on Friday, April 3 (11:59pm).  My hubby and I actually started preparing a couple of weeks ago.  We started eliminating meat from of our meals as well as using less meat.  For the fast we can’t eat any meat during the week, only fruits, veggies, beans and whole grains.

Over the weekend as I started writing my grocery list, I really took the time to think about some of the things that we could eat.  I took all of my cookbooks and looked for vegetarian/vegan style meals.  I came up with a few things, but I wanted to share two recipes that I used. The first is Succotash Supreme from the Patti Labelle Light cookbook and the other Beef & Veggie recipe came from my Campbell’s soup cookbook.

Succotash Supreme

Ingredients: 14 oz bag of lima beans, small onion (chopped), 16 oz corn, paprika, 2 Tablespoons of fresh parsley, 1 cup of chicken broth, then season to taste

spray skillet with cooking spray, sauté the onions in a skillet, add the lima beans and chicken broth, cover and cook for about 5-7 minutes, add the corn parsley and paprika, season to taste

Beef & Veggie

Ingredients: 1 bag of Morningstar Veggie crumbles (this is the beef substitute), 26 oz can of tomato soup, 16 oz of mixed veggies, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce

spray skillet with cooking spray, pour in the crumbles, heat for a couple of minutes, pour in tomato soup, mix in the veggies and Worcestershire sauce, cook until veggies are tender, season to taste ( I used salt, pepper, oregano, basil and red pepper flakes)

The first thing that I did before I left the house was drink a cup of lemon water.  I squeezed a whole lemon and added filtered water to equal about 8 oz total.  It is said that lemon water cleanses the body including the kidneys, liver, and colon.  It is also supposed to help you get energy from the food that you eat.

During this fast, I expect to get a closer relationship with God.  I also expect for him to show me some things about myself.  There are some things that my hubby and I are believing God for and I believe that those things will happen.

Including Family & Friends

As I was browsing for ways to include family and friends in our vow renewal, I came across several great websites such as indiebrides and others that I can’t remember. However, 2000dollarwedding.com was the most inspiring to me. I love the blog. With their ideas and inspiration, I was able to complete my “day-of” timeline and organize the order of the event. I was even able to make a list of all of the people that I plan on asking to help us out. I will personally call them and then put something in writing later.

For including our family and friends, we will have my hubby’s father do the opening prayer and my father do the ending prayer and marriage blessing. We two friends and a niece taking pics. Church family acting in every capacity. We will choose two people to make special presentations by of a poem, memory, scripture or whatever they choose. Hopefully, we have all  bases covered.

Color Scheme/Theme

As I have been looking for inspiration for our special event, I have decided to go with a Lemon & Lime theme with touches of pink. Yellow is one of the colors traditionally used for a 1st year anniversary and since our event is in the spring, I thought it would be nice.

Being that I love the Word of God, I had to find christian references to my chosen colors. Yellow will represent the God’s glory and how he desire to reflect it in our lives. The green symbolizes a healthy spiritual growth so that we can produce the fruit of the spirit of God.  And I just thought that pink would be cute – my sorority colors are pink and green so there you have it. I have figured out ways to incorporate the colors in just about everything.  So we are going to have lemon cake and key lime cake (my favorite).  Strawberry cake would be a nice touch too, but we shall see.  Of course our favors will be yellow and green.  I have seen pics of brides with their white dresses and yellow shoes so I may try that.  I am thinking yellow and pink roses maybe.  Definitely flower petals.  It’s cool because my vision is clear.  Yea!!! I have a theme.

Planning Binder

I finally started my planning binder.  I’m working on a budget so it’s homemade, but at least all of my papers are in one folder together.  I had a talk with my pastor and she is willing to officiate our vow renewal.  She commented that she was glad that we decided to do it. As a matter of fact, several people have told me that I will be happy that I am doing this.  Anyway, she is requiring that we buy a marriage workbook since we did not go through a formal pre-marriage counseling.  So we will get the book and meet with her twice and go on our merry way.  I am feeling good because I can now start checking things off of my to-do list.

Looking for a dress

I’ve been looking at dresses.  Before we had to cut our budget, I really want a dress by Two Birds Bridal.  I think those dresses are so nice.  They come into a variety of colors and best of all, it can be re-worn.  Nordstroms is a good place and I have been glancing at different dresses on their website, but I haven’t seen anything that I am in love with.  David’s Bridal is having a great sale right now and I would like try out some of their pieces.  Also, I have looked at shoes.  Right now I have my heart set on yellow satin. 

Blah Blah Blah

Today I put in a few phone calls – one to my pastor so that I can book the church. I also scoped out a potential photographer just to see if they may be open to doing what I need.  I haven’t really talked specifics though.  There are so many things on my to-do list, for example:

Get organized – start a wedding folder

Settle on head count

Book the date and venue – Cornerstone of Faith Church (May 30, 2009 @ 5pm)

Book the officiant – Confirmed, Pastor Dukes

Organize vendor list

Book the entertainment

Purchase a dress

Launch a website

Select and purchase invitations

Plan a quick getaway

Meet with Pastor Dukes to map out the ceremony

Send save-the-date cards

Photographers/Music/Flowers/Food

We had an amazing photographer when we eloped and I would love to use him again.  I just don’t know if we can afford him again.  So I have started to think about friends that wouldn’t mind taking pics at our event.  For the music, my mom has some ideas but there’s always the trusy IPOD.  Since it’s at the church, the sound guy will be in place so we don’t really need a DJ.  I am going to ask a lady at the church to assist me with decor and my friend to do my bouquet.  My mother and aunts are handling the food.  So…I believe that I have a lot of main things covered.

Guest List/Head Count

This is a work in progress.  Hopefully we can finalize the list this weekend.  My and hubby and I have had some serious conversations about this.  He is a bit more low-key and I love to entertain.  However, I put a lot of people on the list because I felt obligated.  It’s funny that our budget went down and the guest list went up.  We will see what happens.

Menu

So my mom and I have been discussing various menu ideas.  She and my aunts will be taking care of all of the food details. I want a cocktail style menu, you know small plates and all.  My first thoughts went to chicken wings and meatballs and various salads and such, but that’s not what I really wanted.  It seems as though most non-catered cocktail menus have that same food.  We decided to go a totally different route.  As of now, here’s our menu:

 

Carved Ham & Turkey

Garlic Shrimp

Veggie Wraps

Pasta Salad

Broccoli Salad

Cheese Tray

Fruit Tray

Bruschetta

Favors

For the party favors, we are going for lemonheads (my hubby’s favorite) and coupons (like love coupons). The coupons will list about four different things that we can offer to our guests for years to come.  They will of course be printed in our colors.

So how did I come up with this idea? I was looking at a list of paper gift ideas for the 1st year wedding anniversary and I saw that love coupons were listed.  I thought how cute would that be to make up some and print them out for our guests. 

 I love this idea!!!

Event Logistics

Our church sanctuary is rather small, but I believe that all of the guests will be comfortable.  However, the fellowship hall is even smaller.  It will definitely be too tight for the amount of guests that we plan to have. I would like to see if we can have the reception on the parking lot because it is the most level. 

Venue for Anniversary Celebration

Immediately after we changed our budget I knew exactly where our vow renewal and celebration would be held – at our church.  Since we are members, it will be free for us to use.  I am so excited.  Even though there are a few challenges, I know that everything will work out just fine. 

Budget

One of the first things that you are advised to do when planning anything is to figure out your budget.  My husband and I set a budget and I started looking for a few venues based on that. Then later we realized that there were some other things that took precedence financially so we had to adjust the budget accordingly. I realized that I didn’t have the money to do the extravagant event that I envisioned but I am bound and determined to do this.  I don’t want to have to put this off until the next year or the next year after that.  We will have a celebration this year.  We will enlist the help of family and friends and keep it moving.

Starting to Plan

So this is the year that we get to celebrate our 1st anniversary and we are making a big deal of it because none our family and friends witnessed our union.  We eloped and decided that we would celebrate later.  Now that later is about 4 months away, I have to start planning and figure out the course of action.  I want to have fun and I want this process to be stress free.