The Dreaded B Word

You know the word I'm referring to.

B-U-D-G-E-T

Oh how I loathe that word. It knows just how to rain on my happy little wedding planning parade every time. It's also a word that certain people don't seem to understand. And by certain people I mean just about everyone (including myself sometimes).

For Mama Ticket it's wanting to do as little set up for the wedding as humanly possible and not always comprehending that paying someone to do set up isn't in our budget.

For Daddy Ticket it's constantly reminding Mama Ticket and I that we have a budget to stick to.

For Mr. Ticket it's telling me 'Who cares if it's in the budget if you want it that bad get it' (I love this man but that attitude does not help reign me in at all!)

For WC it's constantly wanting more money for linens and flowers and decor even when there is NO MORE MONEY and then making me feel guilty for it not being there (remember she's more friend than WC sometimes and she knows the guilt card works best).

For Me it's... well yes we have this designated amount we are receiving from our very generous parents but how much more am I willing to save up and put into this event to make it what I really want it.

It's no surprise with all this confusion going on that our budget has indeed fluctuated. From our original number with Mama and Daddy Ticket's help. To a new number when FFIL & FMIL Ticket most generously offered to help as well. To yet ANOTHER new number when I realized how much I had already spent out of pocket and how much more was needed to achieve the look I was going for.

Image via Jeff Vella

Anyone else not handling their exploding budget well? Were you strong enough to stick firm to your original budget or did you give in at the site of those luscious pin tuck linens the way I did?

Linens of Plenty

Mr. Ticket has been pretty kicked back about wedding decision making. He wanted input with food, drinks, music, etc. but as far as decorating goes he has pretty much given me the green light to go nuts. That being said I've been trying to not go NUTS and reign myself in a bit. I went into the linens appointment with WC planning on getting simple linens (you may recall I previously mentioned our caterer offered linens, unfortunately he didn't offer the colors we were looking for at the time) black table clothes and chair covers with pink napkins. I figured I had a solid realistic head on my shoulders walking into this meeting. I met WC at her house to go over our linen options. I was greeted with this...

Those are not black! Those are GORGEOUS and not black at all. Oh WC... she knows me so well. She KNEW when I saw these I would cave, darn her! Suddenly black table clothes magically turned into...

 

We will now be having orange pintuck linens on all the guest tables, black table clothes covered in pink organza on the head table and cake table as well as pink satin linens on the candy buffet, cookie table and guestbook table. I'm so excited to see how this turns out I could squeal! So yes I cracked, ironically it wasn't the fancy pintuck linens that set us over our budget, it was the chair covers that I WILDLY underestimated. Live and learn.

*All pictures are personal photos.

When faced with the choice did you get sucked in by luscious fabrics and pretty colors or did you hold strong with your original plan?

Parent Trap Anyone?

We last left off with my dramatic post about ear piercings. So lets continue on with that in mind.

Determined to get freshly punched holes in my ears before I came to my senses and change my mind I forged on to the mall. It's a pretty mall and I had other errands to do there anyways so it's not like it took lots of dragging or whining to get me there. As I walked down the sidewalk looking in the store windows I see Claire's in the distance. I know they do piercings yet as I walk closer visions of teenage shop workers dance in my head, there is no way I'm letting a 16 year old get anywhere near my ears with a piercing gun!

I would like to have the new holes punched over the light left over indentation of the old holes and it would be great if there were an adult nearby to do that. As I approach Claire's I see their piercing station is conveniently set up right outside their door practically calling my name, so I walk up and start looking at the earrings they have to offer. I nonchalantly glance over at the cash register to see a guy about my age behind the counter with earrings of his own and I find a bit more comfort in my decision to come. I mosey over to the counter (yes I said mosey I'm like 80 years old I know) and ask the guy if he's doing piercings now and he says sure. He asks which earrings I want and we walk over to the piercing counter where I'm given the 'paperwork' necessary to get my ears pierced. After signing my life away on multiple forms I sit and wait for him as he sterilizes himself with a prudence I doubt most surgeons use before cutting people open.

He swabs my earlobes with rubbing alcohol and points out where the new holes will be (right over the old holes even though they weren't totally even) and the moment of truth is upon us...

Image via QualityPiercingProduct

I prepare myself... it's been a while but I'm sure its going to hurt. Some random guys walks up and decides it will be fun to watch me mutilate my body and then THE PINCH!! Wait was that it? I hardly felt anything? I was half tempted to grab my ear and ensure he actually pierced it but I didn't want him to think I was nuts so I just waited as he moved to the other ear. Hey look done. That was easy. I think getting my eyebrows waxed the week before had hurt more. Yay new holes in my head!!! Now I just get to clean them 3 times a day for 6 weeks and I can start wearing pretty earrings. I vow to myself here and now that I WILL keep these holes open and earring wearable till October!

 I know you all just love these random pictures of my ears. (Personal Photo)

One more thing to check off the pre-wedding to do list. Anyone else find a major sense of relief when a task they sort of dreaded doing turned out to be total cake?

If at first you don't succeed...

...slam your head against the wall till you forget what you were trying to do in the first place.

Wait that's not how that saying goes at all, that is however how I felt about this endeavor once I realized what was required to 'succeed'. It's all rather silly really, I'm almost embarrassed to share... ALMOST.

This was something I did at the age of 12 and again at the age of 19 (out of sheer stupidity my own brand of 'rebellion') and I had surely hoped would never need to do again. I mean really who at the ripe old age of 24 decides yeah despite my inability to manage this task in the past I think I'll just dive right back in and do it again because clearly it went so well the first time.

Okay by now you think I'm crazy right? Wondering what the heck I'm talking about? Well here it is ladies and gents, I have to get my ears pierced again. That's right I had them pierced when I was 12, Daddy Ticket was VERY strict so it was a huge deal that I was even allowed to get them at that age. When I first got them it was all excitement and shiny pretty new things to wear in my ears. I finally fit in with all of my friends hooray for holes in my ears!!! As I got older I found them to be a bit more bothersome, talking on the phone with earrings on was never my forte and I loathed sleeping with them on but if I took them off at night I rarely remembered to wear them again in the morning.

Despite all this growing out of my 'Hooray holes in my ears!' phase I managed to keep earrings in them long enough to not let the holes close up. At 19 I even got a 2nd hole in both my ears how bold and daring of me! Take that mom and dad! That makes FOUR holes! (yeah they didn't care at all and I ended up letting the holes close up before my first six weeks were up out of irritation with cleaning them 3 times daily)

But when Mr. Ticket bought me a beautiful pair of diamond earrings for my 24th birthday I was quite excited. I didn't wear earrings often but hello... diamonds are pretty. I happily tried putting them on... for a while. Then determination set in, I was going to get these suckers on if it required me to re pierce my own ear there and then (the posts on these suckers were THICK) and low and behold after 30 minutes fidgeting with each ear I did it! Holy cheese did it hurt but I got them on and they were gorgeous. Now obviously I wasn't about to take them off any time soon after all that work getting them on!

 Please excuse the horrible blurry phone pic. It's the only camera that wasn't packed. (Personal Photo)

Well... after about a week of wearing them (we were in the midst of moving Mr. Ticket from PA to CA and I didn't want to lose them so I REFUSED to take them off) my ears were not so pleased with me... Lets just say once I took them off and gave my poor ears a well deserved break they refused to let me wear ANY earrings again.

So after a few months of further attempts to put my beautiful birthday presents back on I came to the inevitable conclusion, the holes in my head that I possessed for 12 years had finally closed up. Now under normal circumstances I wouldn't have minded so much, as I said I hardly wore earrings anyways. But then Mr. Ticket proposed....

Logic was out the window at that point. I HAVE to wear those beautiful earrings he bought me for our wedding day! I just HAVE to! So here we are ears... are you ready to tango once more? I'm not so sure I am but this is one pre-wedding to do that only I can check off this list so here goes nothing....

Anyone else in a predicament as silly as mine?

Operation Crazy Lady

Favors.

The Ticket's will be having them. And they will be EPIC! It's going to be a bit of a long messy road there but the journey will surely be a fun one. Despite the begging and pleading of Mama Ticket to not turn on the oven (we've been having a heat spell lately) the men overruled her with their desire for cookies! I would like to share with you our first official test run. But first! The inspiration behind this little endeavor.

My Sweet and Saucy

I saw these little beauties while surfing the net and instantly fell in love. I became determined to recreate their awesomeness as our wedding favors. And thus the insanity begins...

With a sugar cookie recipe in hand and an evening of Harry Potter watching I began. I didn't take pictures of the first few steps, as they were either boring or extremely messy. So just imagine me mixing the dough, refrigerating it for an hour, rolling the dough out in sections and then putting my BEAUTIFUL cookie cutters (in case you can't tell those cookies are in fact silhouettes of Mr. Ticket and Myself) to work. 

 Personal Photo

A batch of dough ready to go into the oven. Only took me 3 batches to figure out the best way to fit maximum number of cookies on the cookie sheet.

Personal Photo

 

Out of the oven and cooling off. There definitely weren't enough cooling racks...

 Personal Photo

Since I couldn't find any of my piping gear it was a bit challenging to outline the cookies with plastic baggies. Though I must say I LOVE the color of the icing.

 Personal Photo

So this step got significantly more messy. The goal was to slowly add water to the icing until you reached the perfect consistency of staying in the already drawn border and yet filling out the center evenly. However there was still tremendous progress from the first attempt to the second attempt. Most of the mess was created by the baggie I was using practically exploding because the hole I cut was too large.

So after my first attempt I learned:

1. Bake the cookies for at least 1-2 minutes longer than the recipe suggests.

2. Buy Piping Tools!

3. Be extremely patient as piping the border takes a LONG time per cookie.

And finally... obligatory Harry Potter picture.

Even Harry and Ginny are horrified by my DIY Projects.

Image via Harry Potter Wikia / From the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

P.S. The cookies did taste quite good despite their runny pink appearance! I might have helped Mr. Ticket test them... I mean I had to make sure they weren't poisoned before I let him have one! ; P

Are you making your own favors? Are they yummy too?

That Delicious Four Letter Word...

Food. That simple 4 letter word became the center of our universe for a few weeks early in the wedding process. Mr. Ticket and I knew we wanted good food and lots of it for our wedding guests (both our families will judge our wedding by the food we serve and we know that). That being said good food doesn't come cheap (or so we thought!) and with an estimated 85 guests coming we needed to find a caterer that both worked with our budget and had something tasty to offer.

I called dozens of caterers, including a few I had worked with in the past and the numbers we were getting scared me to my core. At $45 a head plus tax and service charge NOT including drinks, rentals or cake we were looking at over 40% of our budget going just for food.

Image via Dailymail.co.uk/ From the movie Psycho

This was a bit too much of a stretch for us since we had already decided to splurge on the venue of my dreams (25% of our budget) and the best photographers in SoCal (14% of our budget).

I went to our WC and asked for help. She gave me a list of caterers that were closer to our budget that she had either worked with or heard good things about. A few days later I sat down and started calling people. I liked the first one I called right off the bat, he seemed quite flexible and willing to work with us on cost and the type of food we wanted. We set up a tasting for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

He normally met with potential clients at their venue but since that wasn't an option for us he met us at my parents house. He came with enough food to feed a small army! I was starving and Mr. Ticket was holding back drool from how amazing everything looked. Attempting to behave like a rational adult I calmly waited for the caterer to present everything to us, but once he asked us to dig in all bets were off. He loaded our plates with a little of everything. From the first bite to the last everything we tried was AMAZING (okay we didn't like the green beans almondine but really everything else was superb).

This company provided all the flatware and dishes, linens, coffee and punch station, along with food for a price that was well within our budget. It was so in our budget in fact that we were able to choose to have a chicken as well as a beef dish AND spring for the package that included apple cider for the toast (which we had already planned on doing instead of champagne so as not to offend certain family members), cake cutting and serving and 2 hors d'oeuvres. And by hors d'oeuvres I mean potato skins and meatballs (and yes we are very excited about those rather non classy but extremely tasty options!)

Image via Closet Cooking  (An AWESOME cooking blog)

May I just say both Mr. Ticket and I are absolutely stoked to be eating this food again at our wedding! So we signed a contract within a few days and sent in our deposit. Our official wedding caterer is... Royal Court Catering! Oh and one more added bonus... because we signed our contract before the end of the year (2010) our caterer threw in a free Chocolate Fountain. The words FREE and CHOCOLATE in the same sentence?! I'm still in wedding caterer heaven.

Did you have a fantastic first tasting or did it take you a few tries to find the right caterer? How important was food to you and your Mr.?

The Dangers of Etsy

Every time I visit the mystical and magical site known as Etsy I want to buy something! Now if that isn't dangerous I don't know what is.

To date I have made nearly 20 purchases from Etsy since Mr. Ticket and I first got engaged. I figured now would be a good time to share some of the awesome little details with you.

 First Purchase from Amazing Seller BeachHouseLiving

My very first Etsy purchase, the Mr. & Mrs. forks. While they certainly weren't a necessity I couldn't be more pleased with them. When I first saw them online I was swept away with the wedding dreaminess of it all, I could just imagine Mr. Ticket and I eating our wedding cake with these and then using them each year on our anniversary thereafter (my absolute FAVORITE wedding details are the things you get to keep and use after the wedding). When these arrived in the mail I was in no way disappointed. They are beautiful! I can't wait to use them! I also might add this was not the only purchase I made from this particular Etsy seller...

 

BeachHouseLiving

PrettyParis

These beautiful spoons will be used in another little project for our wedding...the Candy Buffet! Many many more details to come on that later.

Am I the only one that goes a little crazy with the Etsy shopping or are you guilty too? Isn't it just amazing how many things you can find there?!

The Flip Flop Queen

None of my friends would define me as a shoe girl. I live in flip flops. I do have about 7 or 8 different colored pairs at any given time, but generally I just grab whatever is closest whether it matches or not. My feet are big, flat and fat. In other words they are not shoe friendly. Thus my obsession with flip flops. That being said... I have no intention of walking down the aisle in flip flops.

Image via BloomBoutique

I secretly love shoes. Just because my feet don't agree with most of them doesn't mean they are any less pretty. I have about a dozen heels in my closet just sitting pretty because one day I was in the store and saw the beauties and couldn't walk away. I have even been known to buy a pair of shoes and later have to buy an outfit to match because nothing I own matches the shoes, but they were so cute I bought them anyway. So of course I planned on buying wedding shoes!

I searched high and low for acceptable hot pink heels. I found quite a few pair that were nice but well out of my price range (think $100 or less) and none of them were quite perfect. First I tried looking at local stores DSW, Payless, Target, etc. Nothing in pink anywhere (it didn't help that I decided to start this search in Winter when all shoe colors are dark and drab). Then I decided to scour the web. I started searching google by typing 'pink heels' or any other variation I could think of. After a few weeks of searching I was beginning to think I would just have to wait till spring or summer and hope something popped up on the shelves then. But I still periodically checked stores online just in case.

Then one night I found them! They were beautiful and I was so excited I might have audibly squealed. The perfect color. The perfect heel. I could picture them under a giant white dress already. Then the price tag.... $149.00. Well I wasn't giving up that easily. I started searching the net for these shoes. I found multiple web sites that had them most in the $120-$150 range + shipping. Then my dear old trusty friend Amazon came along. $65 + $9 shipping. SOLD!

So excited I could have done a little jig, as I go to add them to my cart I find they are out of my size... Seriously I couldn't catch a break. Being a total fool and loving the shoes altogether too fondly I decided to risk it and go a half size up. If they were a little big I would put inserts in them. Plus wearing heels all day tends to make your feet swell a bit right? So this is a smart move right? Ha I would have convinced myself any way I could to buy those shoes. They were AMAZING. Well guess what... it payed off! Cause not only do the shoes fit perfectly with the little insert I put in the back (I told you shoes don't agree with me I blister easily padding is my only defense) but they are officially sold out of the size I bought on Amazon. Phew! Shoe crisis averted.

Oh I'm sorry did you want to actually see the shoes? Haha my bad... Oh just kidding here they are.

Image via Amazon

As if I could keep these babies from you! I'm way too excited to share my amazing find. They almost look reddish in this picture but I assure you they are pink and wonderful. I will take more pictures with them on my feet later but lets just enjoy them in their natural pretty state before we go adding my big, fat, flat feet into the picture.

And thus my amazing shoe journey is over.... almost. ;P

Anyone else find the PERFECT pair of shoes only to run into a few obstacles before you could get them? Anyone else wearing pink shoes?!

Flowers Flowers Flowers

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I am a silk flower snob. While I have seen plenty of weddings with exquisite silk flower arrangements where half the guests didn't even know they were fake, I simply hate silk flowers. This is not solely a wedding hatred, Mama Ticket LOVES silk flowers. They are all over the house in cute little vases and baskets adding pops of color everywhere. It's not so much that I think they are all ugly. I just don't like the feel of them and I hate that they seem to be magnets for dust. When I pick up a bouquet of flowers I want to take a giant whiff and breathe in that glorious fresh flower smell. Call me crazy but even on a tight budget I knew I needed real flowers for the wedding.

But I certainly was not expecting the gloriousness that is our florist.WC set us up and while I had heard good things about her nothing could have prepared me for the awesomeness that was about to ensue.

I had a modest budget for flowers (and by modest I mean WC cringed in despair when she saw our numbers) and even that was set just for our personals. So when I walked into her shop and we started talking flowers I figured we would just talk bouquets, boutineers and a couple corsages and call it a day. But I was very very wrong. I went in with what I considered to be pretty solid numbers of what things were going to cost (WC had warned me in advance this florist was not the cheapest but certainly did great work) and I was comfortable with paying as much for her services. She nearly cut my numbers in half! Even working with my one and only flower demand GERBERA DAISIES!

Image via TheKnot.com / Photographed by HinkleyPhoto / Bouquet by The Flowersmiths, Plymouth

After seeing the miracles this woman was working with our budget we decided to get a little brave. We showed her our budget for centerpieces and asked what she could do with it (okay honestly I was so embarrassed by how low the number was she had to coerce me into telling her so she could see if there was anything she could do with it --- we were planning on making the centerpieces ourselves with materials purchased from Costco.) Upon hearing our budget she informed me that not only could she make us some decent centerpieces but she would make them out of none other than GERBERA DAISIES! I was sold right then and there. Not only did I not have to worry about making flower arrangements 1-2 days before the wedding but its not going to cost me a dime over budget? YES PLEASE!

Extra bonus... the guys' bouts will be made with mini gerbera daisies. I'm officially in super duper like with our florist!

Since everything came in under budget we even splurged and decided to have our fantabulous florist line the ceremony aisle way with pink rose petals and mini gerbera daisies! I can't wait to see how all our flowers turn out!

Anyone else pleasantly surprised by coming in under budget on something they never expected?

Kid's Buckets!

So I don't know about all of you but I love kids, they are fun, carefree and know how to have a good time. Particularly the kids in my family (I might be a little biased but they really are awesome) and thus I knew I wanted to do something special for the kids attending our wedding. After much online searching I found the cutest idea, Kid's Buckets! What could be more awesome than a bucket filled with goodies with your name on it when you walk up to the place card table with your parents?! Surprise you are an honored guest and you won't have to be bored watching grown ups talk, drink and dance for the next 5 hours. You get to color, play cards, wear jewelery or play with cars because really weddings are all about fun and I mean fun for all ages not just the adults. So throughout several shopping trips to Michael's and with help from fabulous Mama Ticket we have officially accumulated enough to fill the buckets.

Girls buckets come with two themes; Disney Princesses and Disney Fairies.
Boys buckets also come with two themes; Disney's Toy Story and Disney's Cars

Notice a theme here? Yes I am a big fan of Disney (Mr. Ticket humors me on this note as he was NOT raised in a Disney family). I was raised on Disney, I love just about all things Disney. I also know that the kids in my family are big Disney fans as well and while I could have gotten adorable matchy orange/pink things to match our wedding decor. I ultimately decided it would be way cooler for the kids if I got them stuff they would recognize. So with that in mind I started out with basic orange and pink buckets (hey I had to include our colors somehow haha) and filled them full of goodies.

Pre-Assembly (Personal Photo)

Girls will receive a bracelet, sticker earrings (I always loved those as a kid as I didn't have pierced ears), a coloring book, a pack of crayons, a pen, an eraser (little weird since they get no pencil but still cute), a notebook, a set of paper dolls, a deck of cards and a lanyard. 

Boys will receive a coloring book, a pack of crayons, a pen, a pencil, 2 erasers, a notebook, a deck of cards, a hot wheel car and a lanyard.

Post-Assembly (Personal Photo)

Pre-Cellophane Wrappage (Personal Photo)

Once filled we (Mama Ticket and myself) wrapped each bucket in orange/pink cellophane and tied them off with orange/pink ribbon (I went a little nuts with the ribbon aisle at Michael's orange and pink argyle?! Yes Please!!!) Each bucket was then topped off with a lanyard (in Disney theme of course, thank you Party City for playing a roll in our Kid's Buckets) and attached to each lanyard will be a name tag with the phrase "VIP Wedding Guest" and then the child's name.

 All wrapped up and ready to be stored till the big day (Personal Photo)

An early mockup of what our VIP Guest Tags should look like (Personal Photo)*

I really hope the kids like them and the parents for that matter. Though I found many adorable things I was unable to add to the kids buckets I think they filled out quite nicely. I stuck to the following rules when filling these babies: No noise makers, no candy (we are having a candy buffet and I thought it was more appropriate to allow the parents to determine the child's candy intake than hand them loads of sugar myself) and nothing that could in anyway permanently ruin items in the reception hall (i.e. no markers, stickers, etc.).

*The cartoon drawing on our VIP Tags was done by the fabulously talented Lauren Draghetii from DeviantArt. I hired her to draw Mr. Ticket and I into Disney like characters. I'm still in awe of her work. Thanks again Lauren!

Are you having kids at your wedding? If so are you doing something special for them?

MOB Dress Lunacy THE FINAL INSTALLMENT!!!!!

After a couple weeks of cooling down from these rather nightmarish dress hunting experiences I came to a decision. Mama Ticket should buy the bright red dress. She loved it, she would be comfortable in it, everyone knows she’s my mom and most importantly I really didn’t want to argue with her anymore. I had expected dress shopping with her to be fun and exciting and it turned into constant bickering and exhaustion.

From my perspective Mama Ticket was in no way willing to budge. She was basically saying that her desires were more important than mine and that I was a terrible daughter for suggesting that I was unhappy with her choices (funny how we hear things differently than how people really say them). Her criteria for a dress were as follows;

1.     Under $250 (that’s totally fair).

2.     Not low cut (obviously not a problem though Mama Ticket’s version of low cut is a tad different than most people’s).

I thought something between J Lo’s Belly Button and a turtleneck would be ideal.

 

Image via Lily Boutique                            Image via Brown Girl Gumbo

However Mama Ticket still found these dresses to be too low for her liking.

Image via Dressity

3.     Absolutely no strapless (okay understandable).

4.     No one shoulder (okay fine).

5.     MUST have sleeves or a matching jacket that has sleeves (alright…).

6.     Needs to have a flowy skirt nothing too fitted (sure).

7.     Needs to come in her size (well obviously…).

8.     She must feel comfortable in the dress (I would say that’s a fair criteria to have no one wants to be miserable all night).

With all this in mind we headed BACK to David’s Bridal in search of bright red apple dress.

When I arrived Mama Ticket had already picked out a couple of dresses she liked and was headed for the dressing room. When it became clear we would need different sizes I headed back for the rack. Before I left Mama Ticket mentioned a beautiful dress she had seen up front and asked me to look for it. When I reached the dresses in question I found a super purple dress and a wine colored dress. I assumed she meant the wine colored dress as it was somewhat similar to other dresses she liked and the color almost looked… dare I say it?! Burgundy! Okay it’s not really burgundy but dang; it was closer than bright red apple. A glimmer of hope rose up inside of me.

I brought her back the dress along with the new sizes and she took it with surprise commenting on how pretty it was though it was not in fact the dress she had been referring too (apparently she really liked the SUPER purple one… oh Mama Ticket *sigh*). We both fell for this new dress, it was a little bit small but we decided we could just order it one size up. I felt like we had found a compromise! It’s wasn’t true burgundy but she would still coordinate just fine! I was getting super excited as it appeared the dress drama was nearly over. We walked up to the front of the store to order it and they told us… they couldn’t order it in her size. The largest size they sell is one size smaller than she is (just BARELY). But she doesn’t want to feel like she HAS to lose weight to fit into her dress (which I completely support that would be WAY to stressful) so we go back to the drawing board. She could always get the dress she wore to Sister Ticket’s wedding except in the Wine, that way she knew she would be comfortable and it would still be closer to the right color (I secretly still liked the small dress better darn it all). I go along with this plan till we find that they don’t carry the coverall she likes in Wine. They only carry a shrug that is ¾ sleeve with a frilly neck in wine (it would still match the dress perfectly) but she doesn’t really like the frilly neck so she shoots that down. 

The offending frilly jacket

Personal Screenshot taken from Davidsbridal.com

Bees… at this point I was on the verge of tears. I felt like I had caved and given in all I could. I had gone shopping with her for HOURS of constant bickering and I was just so very tired. We were on the verge of getting something we could both have admitted compromise for, the dress met 7 out of 8 of her criteria if you consider a frilly neck to be uncomfortable. I told her to get whatever she wanted. I didn’t say this out of bitterness or anger. I genuinely meant it. I could not spend one more minute in that store arguing with her. I needed her to pick a dress and for me to have absolutely nothing to do with it. After telling her this I could see tears welling up in HER eyes. My goodness we are quite the pair. So dramatic over such a silly over indulgent problem… the color of a dress! Of all the things to shed tears over. I reassured her that I was okay with whatever she picked but I had to get back to work and with that I left.

Later that night when I got home I asked Mama Ticket what she ended up ordering. And the dress Mama Ticket chose…

The dress and coverall she wore to Sister Ticket's wedding in Apple.

Personal Screenshots taken  from Davidsbridal.com Dress/Coverall

Upon hearing the news, I must admit against all my better judgment I was still upset. Apparently I had secretly hoped she would change her mind and choose the dress I wanted (the very same dress in Wine) but alas she had not. In an attempt to make her decision seem more pleasing to me she attempted to go into a long explanation about how she would fix a shiny portion of the dress (she was confused thinking I disliked the satin on the dress when in fact I had no problem at all with the satin it was the COLOR of the entire dress I was displeased with). And well… I reacted with a response akin to something a 13 year old going through puberty might say, “I don’t care mom that’s fine.”

I know what you are thinking! What a *itch! How dare she?! She told Mama Ticket to pick whatever she wanted and here she’s having a hissy fit over what she picked! Uncool! Yes. I know. It was an epic fail moment for me. Hopefully my last major meltdown in response to wedding related drama. I assure you I am NOT proud of my behavior. I tried to make up for it later, but in the end I’m afraid this will be something of a miserable memory for all parties involved.

Well I’m relieved to say this portion of planning is over. Did you have any moments of wedding planning that you expected to be really fun and turned out to be a total nightmare? I doubt any of you turned into a raging *itch over something as trivial as a dress color. I would like to point out that now after some time has passed I'm perfectly happy with Mama Ticket's dress. I think it took stepping back from the issue for a while to see just how trivial it really was.

MOB Dress Madness Part 2

So we decided to search the internet, surely burgundy dresses existed! Maybe we just needed to expand our horizons, so we checked out Macy’s, Nordstrom and JC Penny. Without much luck online we decided to go into the stores the following weekend. Mama Ticket decided to stop by a different David’s Bridal without me before in hopes they would have a different selection (they did not). But she insisted I see her in a dress she SWORE was maroon and looked great. So I rushed over to the David’s Bridal shop and saw her holding a bright red dress. I’m sure the look I gave her somewhere between confusion and disgust was more than enough to let her know what I thought, but my inner bridezilla was beginning to come out and I haughtily informed her that bright red (apple as they call it there) was in no way burgundy and an unacceptable choice.

This was my face upon seeing the bright red dress.

Image via Black and Right

So after my little b**** fest at David’s Bridal we booked it over to the mall to check out department stores. And wouldn’t you know it VICTORY! Nordstrom had a maroon dress. I hurriedly pushed Mama Ticket into the dressing room with the dress anxious to see how it looked. She vetoed it before it was even zipped up. Bummer. Getting more and more disappointed as the day progressed I suggested we admit defeat for another day and go home.

In an attempt to justify my *itchiness I looked up all the dresses we had seen online, I put them side by side to show the color difference. All the while knowing that even the picture of FMIL Ticket’s dress looked redder on screen than it did in person. This exercise really didn’t make me feel any better as it didn’t solve anything. All I wanted was for Mama Ticket to find a burgundy floor length dress.

And here’s why: I’m extremely close with my family. More so than Mr. Ticket is with his. I was raised an only child and at 25 years old I still live with my parents, so obviously there is some level of closeness in just that. But even if our situation was different and I weren’t living at home I know I would still be close to my family. They are very important to me and on such a special day as Mr. Ticket and my wedding I wanted to show people just how important our families are by making them stand out a little. As it stands Sister Ticket, PBLS and both FBIL Tickets are in the wedding party. Thus it was only the parents that needed to be distinguished. I wanted everyone to know (as if they wouldn’t already at a wedding of only 85 people) that our parents were as much a part of the wedding as our bridal party and I wanted them to see it in their attire. Daddy Ticket and FFIL Ticket were both to wear black suits with coordinating burgundy ties and Mama Ticket and FMIL Ticket were to wear burgundy dresses. I couldn’t have Mama Ticket in some other random color! She’s too important! I desperately wanted her to show that she was in fact part of the main event by matching the rest of the parents. This at least was what was going through my head, my reason for becoming a bridezilla was that I loved my mom. Wow Bride Brain really does make you crazy…

Image via Radio FoxNews

 

Have you ever found yourself in a moment of good intentions and horrible results?

MOB Dress Shopping!... Part 1

Going dress shopping with Mama Ticket was quite the experience. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that it was in fact the most painful wedding task we have conquered to date. That being said, it did not start out this way. We did things a little unconventionally with the Ticket wedding. Mama Ticket insisted that FMIL Ticket could pick her dress first and then she would find one to match (Mama Ticket wanted to wait as long as possible to find a dress while trying to lose weight and she didn’t want FMIL to have to wait on her). I was perfectly fine with this arrangement.

And thus FMIL Ticket went out and found (in my opinion) a very beautiful and perfect for the wedding dress. She will be wearing this beauty (minus the one awkward sleeve):

Image via Jasmine Bridal

It met any criteria I could have had (though I didn’t provide any) it was burgundy (despite what your monitor might show it is in fact a maroon/burgundy color in person) and floor length. And thus these were the 2 criteria I requested Mama Ticket stick to when choosing a dress. I wanted the parents to coordinate with the bridal party (not matchy matchy but a complimentary color) and burgundy was perfect, a darker shade of our fabulous pink.

So I excitedly prepped Mama Ticket to go dress shopping. I was anticipating a day of fun at David’s Bridal, choose a dress she was comfortable with and go home happy! Boy was I naïve…

Mama Ticket and I set up an appointment at David’s Bridal for a Saturday morning. We went in and quickly found that there were not many options in the color scheme we wanted, after Mama Ticket tried on a few dresses and I overheard our consultant tell her, “You don’t NEED to pick out the color she [read: ME] wants, you don’t have to match just get her to change her mind”. I decided that was enough of David’s Bridal and that particular consultant (who by the way was my first consultant in my own dress drama at David’s Bridal) and we left. From there we went to Alfred Angelos and waited a while to be helped (we didn’t have an appointment we just walked in) after about 20 minutes of not a soul in the shop acknowledging our existence (after the woman at the front desk said we would be helped shortly) and seeing they also didn’t have anything in our color scheme of choice we decided to try elsewhere.

We headed up the road to a little bridal shop (we knew was a little pricey BUT they carried the same brand as FMIL Ticket’s dress) and looked around. We found a few dresses in the color range we were looking for and an assistant walked up and offered to help us. We asked her to set Mama Ticket up in a dressing room with a few of the dresses we saw and she agreed to see if any other dresses came in the colors we were looking for (though it was a big red flag when she said to me, “red is red, there’s really no difference in any of these” uhm… excuse me? The dress wasn’t even red!). After trying on a few dresses that turned out to be no good by Mama Ticket’s standards the assistant brought in a beautiful dress that was exactly the same color as FMIL Ticket’s (not a requirement but would have been nice)! Except it was $425… which was a touch over the budget Mama Ticket had in mind (I certainly didn’t want her spending nearly as much on her dress as my own either). So we left.

Did you have sticker shock when shopping with your mom/girls?

Pretty Pretty Pictures

We had soooooo much fun shooting our engagement photos! We met our photographers (Carrie & Jim) at Knotts Berry Farm at 5:00pm on a Sunday (yay for twilight tickets only $28.50!) and we started walking around the park. At first we were a little bit awkward, Mr. Ticket hadn't met our photographers before (though he had seen them at work at Sister Ticket's wedding) and we weren't sure what to do. After walking around and talking for about 20 minutes we got much more comfortable and just started being ourselves and not worrying so much about the camera. We had a few awkward shots where Carrie or Jim tried to pose us (we aren't very good posers darn us) but generally we just had a LOT of fun. Our photographer's are totally awesome people and we love them. I can't wait to work with them again on our wedding day and I'm relieved to know that Mr. Ticket loved them too so hopefully he won't be nervous around the camera on our wedding day.

But that's enough talk... want to see some pictures?!

Mr. Ticket, Carrie and Jim made fun of me mercilessly for wanting to take pictures in the graveyard, but every part of that amusement park has fun memories for me! While these photos probably aren't for everyone, they were perfect for us. They weren't all staged or posed, a lot of these were just us being us! We love playing carnival games and crane game machines. Okay we don't generally feed each other... and if you notice the last two pictures you will see why! I couldn't stop laughing as Mr. Ticket attempted to follow Jim's instructions. I can't help but smile when I see these pictures because they remind me of how much fun we had that day. And that's what pictures are supposed to be in my opinion, awesome reminders of fun times in your life.

*All Pictures by the amazing Carrie James Photography

Did you have a total blast taking your engagement pictures? Were you happy to see some goofy shots along with the more traditional posed ones?