Ok, I’ll just put it out there….I LOVE MY INVITATIONS!!!!!! And obviously, am so excited about them! A friend of mine did a stellar job designing them. She is insanely talented. Now, I have friends/family who read these so I don’t want to put everything out there but here is a little sample of the great work that she has done. My vision was that I wanted it to look like it was hand-painted on there. I want lots of flowers and color—and she did exactly that! Here is a sneak peak:

A sneak peak of our invitations! Aren't they pretty?!

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That’s right, girls! I have a wedding dress! I just cannot believe it.

I wasn’t originally planning on going wedding dress shopping so soon. In fact, I wanted to put it off as long as possible. You see, the very idea of trying to organize this big outing with all of my bridesmaids and mother in tow so I could parade about in different dresses stressed me out to the max! And after watching so many wedding shows, I thought that was how it was just supposed to be. I am beyond delighted to report that my experience was not the least bit stressful!

Grandmother Dandelion was in town and because I don’t get to see her often, I really wanted to do something wedding related while she was staying with us. The original plan was to take her to tour the venue with us. However, the venue wasn’t open for touring because of an event so that was out. At home just a few days ago, I was watching “Four Weddings” with my mom and grandmother. Dandelion Mom brought up the idea of going wedding dress shopping the next morning. At first I was totally against it because it gave me such anxiety. But, I really did want to do something for my grandmother and I knew she would love to see me trying on the different gowns. So I agreed. And after sending my M.O.H. a quick text asking if it was okay if I somehow by the grace of God found The Dress without her, we went to a bridal shop called Azalea Bridal & Formal located in Snellville, GA. I just canNOT recommend this shop enough! I had gone wedding dress browsing before and it was not fun; the store was super uptight (to the point that I was not allowed to touch the gowns and the employees had to dress me with my arms stuck out to the sides) and I left feeling incredibly discouraged at the prospect of ever finding a gown that both spoke to my style of traditional & unique AND within my tight-tight budget.

My wedding dress good luck charm!

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Hello there garden! I’m one of the newest bloggers here on BridalBuds and I’m so excited to document my experience and trade ideas with you guys. Let’s start off with just a little bit about me and my fiance:

Mr. Lion and I!

(not the best photo, but the only one I could find on this computer!)

Well Mr. Lion and I will have been together for five years next month!  I was 16 and he was 19 when we met, and we are now 21 and 25 respectively. For the bulk of our relationship it’s been semi-long distance, since we attended different high schools and colleges. Mr. Lion graduated with an accounting degree and now works in the accounts payable department of a third-party logistics company (yeah, I don’t really know what that means either…). I’m currently in my senior year of college, studying art and set to graduate in December 2012. I’m a photographer, running my own portraiture and wedding photography business (www.rachelkathrynphotography.com). Mr. Lion is a self-taught guitar player and pretty incredible, if I do say so myself!

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MMMMMM CAKE TASTING.

I basically could leave it at that… but it makes for a boring read.

The venue we are having the wedding at has their own pastry chef, but unless they’re doing a wedding they aren’t baking cakes, so they don’t do a tasting. I’ll give them that it’s probably a good cake. But how can I know which of the many flavors I want to choose if I’m not sure what they end up doing best? However, our venue does offer one great option. They’ve partnered with a cake shop down in the valley (because our venue is up at a ski resort) And with this particular baker they don’t charge a plating or cutting fee. (Yeah–look out for that charge, and find out if they partner with someone to avoid that fee). So, we opted to use their out of house cake vendor, as she does cake tastings ,a bit more for the decor, and we avoid the plating fee. She plans all of her cake tastings for Tuesdays so that she has fresh cupcakes for tasting once per week and can do one big batch.

So, we came in and looked at pictures and planned a bunch of things with our cake. And for the ENTIRE time that we were planning there were two plates each of eight delicious looking cupcakes covered with delicious looking butter cream frosting.

So we still don’t get to taste yet, we talked about decor and cake set up.

Instead of having a big tiered wedding cake we’re having an eclectic set of cakes on different stands and different flavors. And we set it up in foam to see how it would look and feel.

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Poppy Dude and I are very much in love with the simple rural surrounding that we were raised in. It was important that our wedding really reflect those values. I wanted to find a way to get Poppy Dude really excited about the wedding planning process because I know sometimes the groom just smiles and says “whatever you want, honey!” when it comes to picking and choosing wedding details. I had an idea that fit the ticket for both wishes – a touch of country.

Poppy Dude is a “country boy” when it comes down to it. He was raised on his family’s farm/ranch where three generations of men come together to make the operation a success.

When researching and coming up with ideas for centerpieces – it struck me. What’s yellow and plays a huge part in our agriculturally centered lives? Corn and Wheat. I ran my idea by Poppy Dude and his eyes lit up. We decided to incorporate corn and wheat grown right on the Poppy Dude family farm. Corn would be easy to get – Poppy Dude’s family has some stored in bins on the yard. The wheat on the other hand only presented a certain window of time for cutting at the perfect golden color. That’s usually around the 4th of July here in south-central Nebraska, but because it’s been so wet this year it was a little later – even better for us!

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I was so tore about what to do for our unity candle. I didn’t want to spend $$ for a candle that, although very symbolic, was only going to be lit for a few minutes. To add to that, I had no idea how to make this project DIY. Numerous times had I looked up ideas online, but nothing really caught my eye. Then the other day when I was writing a post about making my wedding stationary and continuing the same fonts and decorative elements throughout all my wedding items it hit me like a ton of bricks. Use the items that you’ve already picked out because you like them so much! In a matter of seconds I had a design to place on the plain ivory candles I had purchased. Here’s the finished product:

unity candle

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Or stocking the bar rather.

There are many different types of wedding bar options ranging from dry weddings to full open bar options. Ours is somewhere in the middle. All sorts of soft drinks as well as beer are provided by our hall. However the bartender will serve anything else that we provide, so we set to the task of stocking the bar.

{Image from: chiqweddings.com}

To save some on the booze, we visited a local bulk-shopping club to find some of our stash at better prices. There we found our wines, champagne and a couple of pre-mixed cocktails (we opted not to provide tequila so margaritas will still be available this way).

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Let’s be honest! It is expensive to be a bridesmaid or a groomsman in a wedding! Because of the cost & the stressful moments our wedding party will endure, I want to make sure we get them the best gifts ever!

Poinsettia Dude & I have thought long and hard and we finally have the gifts for half of the wedding party figured out.    We plan on getting the guys some items to finish off their wedding day look – 1. skinny black tie 2. Black watch  & 3. Black Chuck Taylors

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We just mailed out our invitations at the 6 week mark and let me tell you, paying postage sucks. We seriously spent $20 more on postage than we did on our invitation and that includes  not stamping 50% of our response cards and hand delivering the invites to our college friends who won’t be at their homes.

Wait! The Lilacs didn’t stamp response cards? What a wedding sin!

{from usps.com}

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