Yes, Finally!!!

Okay, so I completely disregarded staying away from wedding stuff today.  As a matter of fact, right after I read my Bible this morning, I checked my emails, and guess who emailed me?!?!  Sharon from the showroom of Bari Jay! (I don't know this woman from a can of paint but, she made my day).  She listed a store here in Atlanta that carried all three styles of dresses!  Yes, the store was one of the 20+ stores I called, however, the number given on the designer's website was wrong and inactive.  Clearly, they needed to update their website, and normally the slacking off would've got under my skin, but I was way too excited to let it get to me.  So, I googled the store to find the correct number, called them up and sure enough they had all the dresses!  Later in the day, after confirming with all of my bridesmaids, I called and left a voicemail to book an appointment for the ladies to try on the dresses.  Oh yeah, and get this.  I told my mom what the prices were and she said, "Oh, that's not bad."  All I needed was her approval, now everybody else has to be cool with it.

In addition to getting my bridesmaid dresses squared away, I created the coolest style board.  I decided to do this to make it easier for me to figure out what type of flowers I wanted for the decor and the color combination.  After finding the perfect combo (hopefully Danny approves), I searched a website that carried silk flowers then found some gorgeous flowers that matched the colors and complimented my dress.  If you haven't figured out by now, I've decided to make my own bouquets, boutonnieres and any other floral decorations.  We're spending more on the venue than we budgeted, so we're cutting the cost in other areas.  Plus, I think it'll be a creatively fun project to bring all the bridesmaids together.

Okay, a few more wedding accomplishments today... I found my flower girl's dress!  It's beyond adorable and beyond inexpensive... So... I may have to find something else.  *sad face*... We shall see though.  (Lord, work it out for me, please!)

Tomorrow we're going to sign the contract to officially book the venue.  I spoke with the caterer today.  She's going to mail me her business license and my sister is going to give me the template of the insurance waiver form she uses.  Since our caterer does not have insurance, I was able to talk the venue into waiving it.  (Talk about a headache trying to find a place that allowed an outside caterer and one that didn't have insurance... geesh!)

Alright, enough with the wedding stuff for awhile... (I can't take it!) But, I have to in a few hours, so I need to rest my brain a little first.  Danny hasn't seen the venue yet, he's only seen a video of when I toured the facility.  He wants to look tonight while they have an actual event going on... then we're going back tomorrow to book it (Lord willing... Please God!  If this doesn't work out, Vegas here I come!)  On another note, I think I'll make lasagna tonight...

Photo from: www.therecipedepot.info

Bridesmaid's Dress Deal or No Deal?

I accomplished a lot today.  After searching a trillion websites for the perfect bridesmaids dresses, I finally found a few in my wedding color that will look great on all the ladies and that will compliment my dress!  Now the price... is a little... uhh... high.  But, all of the dresses I saw that were about $60 less, looked $200 less!!!  I spent the majority of the day checking different websites to see if I could find the discounted version of the dress somewhere... and let's just say, I thought the discounted prices were the friggin' designer prices. 

Another concern of mine besides the price, is that the stores may run out of selling them.  After looking on the designer's website I decided to see which stores near my bridesmaids carried the designer and the style.  What I learned today... Don't trust those websites.  I mean really, I literally called 20 stores that were listed as carriers of the dresses.  Maybe 4 had 1 out of the 3 dresses and 1 store carried all of them.  What the heck?!  I'm gonna need them to do some updating.  I will be calling the main line tomorrow to see what the problem is...

On that daily note.  I'm out of here.  May step away from the planning tomorrow.  Got some outside things I need to take care of like... sleeping.

My First Wedding Blog!

Yaay!  So this is my first blog for my Wedding Website!  I have to say, my desire to create one of these just sparked today.  I mean, Danny proposed in March which was... one... two... over six months ago.  So, why now, you ask?  Well, because we just started planning… again.

Our wedding was initially supposed to happen 3 months after he proposed on March 28.  I am so grateful to God for His divine intervention.  I mean, my family despised the fact that we were rushing to get married… some even had curiosities that we were trying to hurry and get hitched because I was knocked up.  However, in spite of their disliking, we continued to plan and they quickly succumbed to our spontaneity.  Sort of.   And, that's when the Lord stepped in, did His thing and everything that we wanted to be possible... became impossible.  I started getting stressed out and was not enjoying the planning at all… So, we stopped.  We just stopped... just like that.

Then came the pre-marital classes... the never-ending pre-marital classes.  These free six-week classes that we began in April are still going on... 'til this day.  As a matter of fact, our last class is at the end of this month.  It would've been last week had our marriage counselor not suggested we take another class.  I mean, I enjoy the classes and ere’thang but, talk about something dragging on and on.  But… knowing how to communicate is vital to any relationship and… reality is, we both sucked at communicating with each other.   I recommend pre-marital classes for any couple that’s thinking about marriage.  There’s nothing wrong with counseling and Danny and I love each other enough to want to get it right, before the wedding.  We were going to pick the wedding planning back up after our last class, however, God’s peace led us (well, me) to start a little earlier.  I guess my baby was just patiently waiting for my doubts to pass.

So, here we are.  I am beyond excited now.  The stress of finding a venue that allowed outside catering, completing a budget based on prices we know nothing about and threatening that we would elope days are officially over!  More frustrations of planning lie ahead I’m sure, but I just want to bask in this feeling of progression right now.  Down with the venue and guest list, on with the invites! 

Oh, yeah... and some of you may notice the change in how my name is spelled.  Well... surprise, surprise.  That's the spelling on my birth certificate.  Hey, I'm an artist.  I needed something a little more creative, something that sounds a little more cooler and just down right looks better  Hence, the change in the spelling of my middle name as well connected by a hyphen (Tiffani-MiShelle).  Kinda sucks though because the "y"'s in Tiffany and Danny are so much more in sync than an "i" and "y".  Yes, I put a lot of thought into these types of things.  I've been doing this since 2nd grade... So, why stop now?