Right now I’m in a bit of a wedding planning lull.  My law school semester has just started, Mr. Peach has graduated and received his MBA and started working and summer is slowly saying goodbye.  However, the past 72 hours have been wedding madness!!

So remember when I wrote about my bridesmaid dress change of heart? Well earlier in August, we travelled back to Priscilla of Boston to show my Aunt my wedding gown.  While there our AMAZING bridal consultant told me she had good news.   Priscilla would be coming out with a bright pink fabric for bridesmaid dresses this season!!!!!!!!  Bright pink was exactly what I wanted I just couldn’t find it.  Great.  She told me to touch base with her at the end of September when the full collection was in stores.  Fantastic right?

So this past Wednesday, news broke that David’s Bridal would be closing Priscilla of Boston.  I freaked.

Photo: weddingbee.com

After several freak out phone calls to Peachy Mom and Peachy MOH the news finally went online on Priscilla’s actual website.  In its released statement, Priscilla pledged to completed all orders already placed with them, all dresses would arrive in store before it closes on Dec. 31^st, but alterations would have to be the bride’s responsibility and done elsewhere.  Still not calm yet.

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I currently live in Texas but Mr. Cherry and I will be tying the knot in Media, Pennsylvania. We are so excited to be getting married where all of our family can be present. However, it has been very tough to plan things with out seeing them! I have been so blessed to have AN AMAZING Mother-In-Law (MIL) to-be! She has been so wonderful. The first task we had when planning the wedding was choosing where to hold our reception. With her help we selected the Townehouse in Media, Pennsylvania. (I plan on doing a post about how wonderful they are VERY soon! Amy at the Townehouse is fantastic!!) My MIL went to the venue and took great pictures for us to decide. When I tell people that I chose my venue without seeing it they are shocked! I probably would not have done this but I was lucky to have someone who knew me so well! My MIL knows exactly what I look for in things! (She did help him pick out my engagement ring as well!!)

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Dear wedding guest who used invisible ink on your RSVP card, I wanted to personally thank you for adding on some stress to the already stressful process that is wedding planning!

How in the world am I supposed to know who is/is not coming when I sent out 70 RSVP cards? It could be anyone! Believe it or not, I’m not psychic, people!!

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Shortly after arriving in Atlanta, Georgia for our layover we called the parents to check-in and let them know we were safe on the ground at least for awhile. That’s when my mother-in-law broke the news. Her morning Facebook browsing uncovered that our aunt, uncle and co. would be leaving on the same cruise with us the next day!

I was originally seriously pissed, and here’s why: the family joining us on the honeymoon hadn’t bothered to RSVP in anything close to an official manner and didn’t show up at our wedding… but they were going on our honeymoon!

{Our personal photo}

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I can’t believe it’s been a year since Aladdin and I have been engaged! We opted for an extra long engagement, partially by choice, partially by necessity. Right before we got engaged, my wonderful future sister-in-law was proposed to. Unbeknownst to me, it is a Filipino superstition that two siblings cannot be married in the same year, which means Aladdin and I would have to default to 2012. Truthfully, I love being engaged – it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me! In retrospect, I’m thrilled that we’ve had so much time to truly map out the details and how we want this wedding to reflect us as a couple. With what seemed like ample time, I’m beginning to feel the tick..tock.. of the days flying by and our wedding nearing quickly. I’m relieved to say that we have had our venue for quite some time, so that has stress has been alleviated. We fell head over heels for  the Spanish architecture of the breathtaking Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. Doesn’t it just transport you from the US to some European Villa?

Boy was I wrong!  It seems like lately the easiest part of all of this was finding Mr. Peach! I’m a perfectionist who is very detailed oriented, so every decision turns into a list of pros and cons, should I or shouldn’t I, is this right or wrong etc…  Choosing the bridal party wasn’t any different.  Mr. Peach knew how concerned I was with this decision and agreed to only ask his groomsmen once I decided who I was going to choose and how many bridesmaids I would end up with.  MOH was a no brainer, but after that things got harder.  I started with a list of contenders for the remaining spots.  If that list stood, my bridesmaids would have looked like this:

So I had to start really narrowing the list down which was very hard as like most brides want to include as many people as possible and not hurt people’s feelings.  Especially when those people are some of my closest friends who will know every detail about my wedding planning.  I asked Mr. Peach and Peachy Mom and Peachy MOH and all of them said-remember this is your wedding and your choice.  Your friends will understand and still will have a blast sharing this special time with you.  And they were right I guess, but that didn’t make this decision any easier for me.  So here’s how I made my decision:

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So we had our engagement pictures taken (finally) last week. First of all- let me just say that is was an absolute blast!!! Our photographers are amazing! But one of the most stressful things I had to do was decide what in the world Apricot Dude and I were going to wear! Let me share what we decided to go with, then provide some tips on how to pick and show you how they turned out!

I knew I wanted two different types of pictures. First, I wanted to do some more traditional, formal pictures that I know my Grandma would love. Secondly, I simply wanted some that were us. In jeans and comfy shirts, flip flops….just being ourselves! I was fortunate to find a dress for our more formal pictures that I LOVED. So I had one outfit down. Now onto number two- and I had no idea. I seriously think I bought 5 or 6 different shirts. I knew I wanted something solid, light colored and that sort of matched our wedding colors (peachy/corals/greens). Finally, I made a decision. Well, I thought I had. The day of our pictures, I had a few minutes to kill before my hair appointment so I ran into Banana Republic. Just browsing, I came across this fabulous shirt that I knew I wanted to wear for our pictures. It was like it was just calling for me! So I bought it and it turned out to be perfect!

Now for Apricot Dude….he was pretty open to basically whatever I thought would look nice. We settled on his favorite yellow button down shirt and khakis for our more formal pictures and jeans and polo for the others. It did take us quite a few stores to find a light green polo that we thought would look great with mine. (Quick word of advice: we found the EXACT same Tommy Hilfinger polo at TJMaxx for half the price of Macy’s!)

Here are a few tips that I have when looking for engagement outfits because there certainly are LOTS of decisions to make:

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Hi Garden!

Remember me?

*sheepish look*

I’ve just been a little bit busy. And kind of feeling like this:

Is it our honeymoon yet?

I’m finishing up the end of the school year with my students, working on my Masters (and the class this session is super intense), still renovating our new house, and uh… not wedding planning.

We’ve had the house for five weeks now and I just realized that I haven’t done anything in terms of decisions since. Okay, that’s not quite true. We’ve ordered Mr. Magnolia’s wedding band! More on that later. But, I still haven’t talked to my florist. I still need to order ceremony programs. I still have a bunch of DIY stuff to do. And we still haven’t chosen a song. Or made a playlist for dance music. 45 days to go… but somehow none of this is stressing me out… I figure, it’ll get done. Right?

Time sure does fly when you’re NOT planning your very-soon-to-be wedding!

Anyone else fall off the planning boat, only to wake up and realize it’s time to sink or swim?

Indiebride is a blogger that I follow on Twitter and one day she shared this opinion piece by Peg Fisk that was featured in the New York Times. I suggest you give it a quick read before I go on.

…

OK. For those of you that didn’t read it, the gist of it is Ms. Fisk, who apparently is divorced, is sometimes invited without a guest to weddings. She rants about being the single person, sitting at the “loser” table, forced to make conversation with other singles. Halfway through the article I thought, “Jeeze, if you’re going to be bitter about it, don’t go to the wedding.”

I was relieved when I read the last paragraph.

“So whenever I get invited to a wedding and can’t bring a guest, I send a generous present, show up at the church and then go home to a nice glass of chardonnay. I toast the happy couple, and perhaps do my own version of the hokeypokey in my living room. ’Cause that’s what it’s all about.”

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After about nine months of being incredibly unhappy with my day job, I put in my two weeks notice.

It will probably turn out to be the best and worst decision I make this year. I’m not completely unemployed though. I have started working as a tutor at the same tutoring center that Orchid Boy works at and I will have a fairly steady stream of writing assignments coming from the Raleigh Public Record and Long Beach Patch. I was recently sort-of promoted to covering the city government beat, so I’m guaranteed plenty of work.

Despite my employment if we thought we were broke before, we’re dead broke now. While there isn’t much left to sacrifice in our everyday lives, we’ve been going through the wedding budget like a scalpel happy surgeon. Even with our wedding there isn’t much left we can cut, but things are going.

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