Wedding Weather

Now that my wedding is less than three weeks away, looking at the weather has become a bit of an obsession. I know they never give real predictions further than 10 days out, but I can't help it. I'm obsessed.

I remember talking to Mrs. Sunhat (who lives in Indiana, not too far from me) a couple days before her wedding and lamenting that she wouldn't have the snow she desired. I want snow for my wedding, but I'm trying to be realistic. In this weird Chicago winter, I really can't be sure of anything.

I happened to go to weather.com and look at their 10 day forecast, and their forecast finally included February!! February 1st was on the forecast. That's so close to my wedding and I'm super excited that it's so close.

I don't know about snow, but I now have an obsession with how each day's weather lines up with the average weather for that day. I guess I feel like doing all this pointless analyzing will give me a firmer idea of what kind of weather I can expect.

All I know so far is that it will likely be very very cold with temperatures in the low 30s or upper 20s. Thank God my wedding is indoors in only one location.

Screenshot of January Joliet weather from The Weather Channel

Did you worry and hem and haw about the weathe leading up to your wedding? Did your predictions prove true?

And The Dress That's No Longer My Enemy

When we last met, my wedding dress and I weren't agreeing. Things have improved since then. My second dress fitting made me feel like slightly less than a fat ass. Slightly.

It didn't take two women to zip up my dress. I could breathe in my dress. I didn't get bruised ribs!

But the dress was still too tight. The seamstress thinks that if I lose another 1-3 pounds, I should be fine. Seeing as how I didn't get back into exercising like I should have, I could probably squeeze in 1-3 yoga sessions and accomplish the goal the seamstress set for me.

It's such a relief to know that I may get into the wedding dress without any alterations. They're steaming the dress, and I'll pick it up next week.

To celebrate a dress that finally fit, I went shopping. I bought a great hat for the honeymoon and a beautiful hair flower/fascinator for the wedding reception. I've always wondered about the difference between a fascinator and a hair flower. Is is the feathers that make it a fascinator?

Well, what I purchased has feathers, a tulle, and a flower. It will be perfect for my hair for the reception when I take the veil off. Speaking of veils, my lovely wonderful Etsy shop of choice, Joyous Illusions, and the angel behind it is currently working on my veil!

My veil will be done by next weekend, and then I will be ready for the big reveal of my whole wedding outfit. There will be dress, veil, fascinator, shoes, stockings, jewelry, and undergarments. So many details went into choosing the whole ensemble.

How long did it take to put together your entire wedding look? How many dress fittings did you have?

Over-Achieving My Dress Goal

My final dress fitting has happened and once I order my veil, every part of my wedding ensemble will be in place. I can't wait to tell you how the fitting went. After that, I will share the entire outfit.

But first, I have to tell a tale of woe. A story about a petite girl who ordered a dress and then feared that dress would be too big.

That girl is me. When I first picked out my wedding dress, the sample size was 10. That dress swallowed me up. They took my measurements and found I was a 6-6-8. You know, size 6 boobs, size 6 waist, size 8 hips.

After the initial shock of feeling extra huge because the wedding sizes run extra small, Momma Kettle and I decided on the size 6. The dress had an A-line ball gown skirt, so we'd rather fit the boobs than the hips in this case.

I worried about the dress fitting too loosely. The top has 3D flowers all over it and wouldn't be easy to alter. I didn't want to risk ending up having to fidget with dress all night long or having a saggy tube top dress. If you've ever had a saggy tube top, you feel my pain.

Well, I didn't do much exercising because I was terrified of losing weight. The size 10 was huge on me, the 8 would be too big, and the 6 might even be too big. At least that's what was going through my head after we ordered the dress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened next. I got to my fitting, eager to try on my dress.

I got into the room with my consultant. She tried to zip up the dress. It wouldn't zip. She called for help from the front of the store. One woman had to hold the dress together while the other one zipped. I was almost tipped over several times.

And my dress has buttons. Those little buttons that require a special little hook to get closed. Again, one had to hold it closed while the other buttoned. Then the consultant pulled on the skin of my back. It hurt. When I said ouch, she replied, "I just want to make sure you don't have a back ass." That's a verbatim quote.

I had back booty, Oprah arm, and side boob everywhere. I had achieved my goal of not gaining weight. I had over-achieved it. The consultant began assuring me the dress could be taken out all would be fine.

Momma Kettle told her no. She said I would go back to yoga and I'd be tiny again in a few weeks. Then she had me walk, sit, dance, and twirl in my dress so she could make sure it would stay up (that dress wasn't going anywhere!) and see how it looked.

She took some pictures and I loved the photographs. But I couldn't breathe, and my ribs got bruised, and I was sure there was no way I could eat and dance and breathe all night if I wore that dress that way.

I firmly believe in not forcing myself to conform to some image of how I'm supposed to look, but it's not like we have the time or money to rush order some other dress. So I will take my butt back to yoga so I can wear my wedding dress while eating, dancing, and breathing all night long.

I care more about my health than my appearance, and if I'm honest with myself, I honestly haven't been behaving as if I cared about either since we ordered a dress I was afraid would be too big.

Since I'm Miss Kettle, I had some images saved on my computer of kettle in case I need them. Remember Miss Potts from Beauty and the Beast (on 3D in a theater near you, woot!)? Yeah, I feel like her right now.

Image via Disney Wikia / Happy and loved, but overweight is she.

How did your first fitting go? Did you dress have to be altered?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Wedding Vows Edition

Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own, I don't. We're like the opposite of Miss Doily. Mr. Doily didn't want to write their own but she did.

Mr. Kettle is the king of compromise and taught me an awful lot about the beauty of compromising. My main issue with with the vows is that I've felt a bit on display with all the pre-wedding events. I know, I know. I'm a bride. And with a large wedding, I will definitely be on display. But I just didn't want to have to write those vows to him and have to feel like every one was watching and listening, and yes, maybe judging.

Hive, I know this is probably a ridiculous feeling, since everyone there is there to support the start of our marriage, but I just couldn't get past it. But Mr. Kettle really really wanted us to write our own vows.

So we came to a compromise.

We wrote our own vows. Together. We will say the same vows to each other. Mrs. Eggs Benedict is the one that first gave me the idea. I liked the idea so much that I included it in a Weddingbee post.

Mr. Kettle and I sat down the other night and wrote our vows. I won't share them until after we say them at our wedding, but I can say that they were ridiculously easy to write.

I was surprised at how easy they were to write. We focused on our tripod foundation for our relationship: Love, Trust, Communication. We knew we wanted to include lots of Jesus/God stuff as well. Since we talk about those four things a lot, the vows pretty much wrote themselves.

Also, Mr. Kettle is wonderful with words when he thinks them through first. After 20 minutes, we had 8 lines to say to each other. Well 9 lines. We're starting with a line we joked about including in our vows almost a year ago and decided to go ahead and put in just for us.

I didn't put a lot of thought into our vows before we wrote them, so it didn't add to my stress. Checking it off the to-do list, however, did relieve a lot of stress. Every little thing that gets checked off lifts weight off my shoulders.

Did you write your own vows? Did you write them together? Was it easy to choose what to say?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Father/Daughter Dance Edition

Daddy Kettle isn't a dancer. He doesn't seem to enjoy dancing very much.

Image via

Okay, Daddy Kettle isn't quite that bad. He can dance. I know this for a fact because we danced at my cotillion when I was a debutante. He just doesn't do it often.

For my wedding, I expect things will be even better. It's not a church event, so Daddy Kettle will probably have had at least a beer or two and will be more relaxed. Also, my dress is tea length and we won't have to do special maneuvers to avoid tripping and falling over a dress that's too long.

There's only one problem: we haven't picked a song yet. I've asked him at least three times. The first two times, he didn't even respond. Literally nothing. No looks, no words, no nothing.

My Daddy and I have a great relationship, so I don't take the avoidance personally. I just feel that it's a decision he's probably not sure how to make. The song selection is very important. I haven't been pushing the issue because I can't even think of a good song myself!

There's always My Girl by the Temptations. There are several others that are popular choices, but none seem perfect. We're down to 4 weeks, and we need to let our DJ know in just 2 weeks.

I'm at a loss here and I need help from the hive. Any good song suggestions?

The Kettles Approach The Finish Line

My wedding is less than a month away now. Yikes!! It's so exciting and so nerve-wracking all at once. I'm so excited to marry Mr. Kettle and I can't wait for our wedding day. But on the other hand, there are a million and one things left to do that I likely don't have the man hours to complete.

There are big things that happen around the 30 day out mark that any bride should be aware of. These things were not on any of my checklists!

1) Make final payments to vendors. Unless your vendors are magical elves who will take a credit card payment over the phone or internet, you'll need to schedule time to make these payments. Between Momma Kettle, Daddy Kettle, and myself, we've been running around the Chicago/Joliet area like chickens with our heads cut off delivering certified checks to all our different vendors.

2) Confirm all details on all contracts. Again, unless your vendors are magical elves who have Ivy League or Oxford proofreading skills, check your contracts. There were errors we caught in contracts from our florist, our venue, and our photographer. They were small fixes, but they were details that were important to the vision of the wedding.

3) Make sure your wedding party knows their schedule for the next 30 days. This is especially true if you have wedding party members who live out of town or have a hard time taking off from work. They need to know when and where you expect them in town. If you need to send out a newsletter or make 20 phone calls, make sure they know, otherwise you'll be missing a bridesmaid from your wedding rehearsal, and you don't want that.

4) You will have a lot of final details to decide, keep a list!! This one is important. You don't want to leave things like assigning someone to pick up grandma from the airport until the last minute.Sort out these final details and decisions as soon as you think of them, and keep a list so you know who is responsible for what. You will thank your self later when you aren't nearly as stressed as you could be.

These are things I picked up in the last couple days I just wanted to share with you. I climbed from underneath a pile of ribbon, satin, and tulle to keep you in the know. I'm looking forward to sharing posts soon about the frame I made for the sweetheart table, the (finally finished) ring bearer pillows (again!), and the flower girl baskets.

But before I go, I also want to share one of out final details. Mr. Kettle and I had a mini photo shoot with our wedding photographer. She was amazing and I'm so excited to work with her in a little under one month. The photos that she took will be used for our Poster Guest Book and also our personlized photo order cards that the photographers gift to the guests at the wedding. Want to see the photos we picked? Of course you do!

Image via Jolie Images

This shot will be for the poster. They are going to de-saturate the color so that the guests can sign all over the whole page. I've purchased purple, black, and gold permanent markers for them to sign.

Image via Jolie Images

This photo will be used at the photo card. This will go at every guest's seat at the reception so they know where to go to order photos from the photographer after the wedding.

Any tips for getting through the last 30 days before a wedding?

Configuring The Kettle Tea Party: Wedding Favors

Hi hive. I know I've been missing for a while...

Image via ishqinabackpack blog

Twenty days to be exact. I'm sorry about that. Really, truly, I will do better. But the holidays were a rough time. I can't even remember the last time I uploaded the pictures from my camera into my computer.

I've been keeping up with your activities, commenting here and there as I found a lone free minute at work. I promise to be a better worker bee from here on out.

I've been up to a lot. I finished the ring bearer pillows (finally). I finished purchasing the gifts for the bridesmaids, and picked out the gifts for the men. We started getting RSVPs back in (and only one family said no, yikes!!). There's been a lot.

But this post isn't about any of that. As the title says, it's about favors. Our favors had to fulfill a number of purposes. 1) They had to fit our theme. 2) They had to fit our color scheme. 3) They had to do double duty because we weren't having place cards on some table at the entrance to the dining hall. 4) They had to be pretty and/or shiny.

That being said, there was really only one option: gold picture frames!

Image via depositphotos.com

Momma Kettle bought samples of several frames. After comparing for price, durability, and checking if it was the "right" gold, she landed on the perfect frame. She ordered them in bulk and now we have our favors.

We just have to find the time to fill them all in with the place card names we'll make for each guest. Thank Gawd we have a day-of coordinator. It will be the job of her and her team to get those tiny little frames to the right spots for the 20-30 tables next month.

Next month! It's getting close now.

What did you use for favors? Did you go useful, tasty, or just plain pretty?

Invitation Celebration

Our wedding invitations are done!! They were mailed out last week, and I'm quite certain everyone has received them. Well, everyone except my cousin who live in Mexico. Hers was returned to my parents' house.

There were some hiccups on the way to getting these invitations all done and ready to be sent out, but this is a celebration, so we're going to focus on the positive. A group effort between me, Momma Kettle, Daddy Kettle, and a couple family friends got the job done.

The invitations were designed by an amazing photographer/graphic designer who's dating one of Mr. Kettle's friends. She did amazing work and I'm super excited about how they turned out. They perfectly fit my vision of the wedding of being a quirky twist on a classic. So enough talking, on to the pictures and captions!

Personal Image: I took this without the flash, so you could see the more ivory cream color of the outer envelope



Personal Image: Return Address on the back!



Personal Image: You open the outer envelope to reveal an inner envelope just for you.

Personal Image: You open the inner envelope to reveal the cutest liver EVER and a wonderfully purple invitation.

Personal Image: A shiny envelope with a satin belly band held together by our monogram.



Personal Image: Open it to reveal the invitation suite. My favorite part is how the design at the top of the inserts coordinate to make a complete design element.



Personal Image: Directions page with the cute map the venue provided for us.



Personal Image: Accommodations card which makes the best use of white space ever.




Personal Image: RSVP card. Hive, you can bring 3 people with you!



Personal Image: The whole suite all together. I love the sheen on several parts.

I was so impressed with how our designer took into account my suggestions and decor desires and made this lovely suite. It took us... days... to put these together, but it was a labor of love. I'm so happy these have gone out. I can't wait until the RSVPs start rolling in!

Did you go with a non-traditional source to get your invitations? How long did it take to receive your first RSVP response?

It's So Fluffy!!

Hive, I've been a tease. I talked about all these DIY projects I had coming up, and then I immediately started talking about everything else but that.

While I did have my bridal shower this past weekend, I will give you at least one DIY post before I get to re-capping that loveliness. If my title wasn't obvious enough (everyone hasn't seen Despicable Me, although they should!), this screenshot should help.

Image via Hello Again Girls / Screenshot from Despicable Me

What's fluffy, but not a stuffed animal? A pillow of course! For my first DIY project I've (mostly) finished, I made the ring bearer pillows. Okay, okay, so I've only made one so far, but I wanted to share it. And the other will be identical, so there will be nothing new there.

I first learned to make pillows as a girl scout at age 10. I do have my beloved sewing machine that belonged to my grandmother, but I preferred to make these pillows by hand.

Step 1: Get fabric, thread, needles, pins, scissors, and other sewing supplies.

Personal Image: thread, needles glue, rings

Personal Image: fabric, stuffing, possible ribbons

Step 2: Fold your fabric over on itself to cut out the pattern for the pillow. Figure out the size pillow you want and trace onto the fabric. I was using slippery satin, so I pinned the two sides together (inside out!) to ensure a smooth pattern. I wanted a size similar to a box I had in the house, so I just traced that and cut around it.

Personal Image: I used a sketch pencil to trace the shape I wanted.

Step 3: Pin the fabric together at intervals around the line you've traced. I wanted a ribbon to go across the front of the pillow, so I pinned the ribbon also to keep it in place.

Personal Image: Pins all around with a ribbon for flair.

Step 4: Begin to sew along the line you traced. Take extra care at the corners to ensure a tight stitch. It's easy to just go around the corner and end up with loose stitches that won't hold their shape. If you don't know how to sew, Google it, and watch one of the videos.

Personal Image: See how the stitches get even tighter at the corner?

Personal Image: Kitty Kettle thought trying to eat the thread was helping. She's so sweet.

Step 5: Leave a bit open on one side to stuff the pillow. turn it inside out and make sure the stitches are strong, if there are any weak spots, re-sew them. I chose to leave the side with the other end of the ribbon open so I could hand sew it after I knew how full the pillow would be stuffed. If I hadn't done this, the ribbon on the front might pucker.

Personal Image: See how sharp those corners are?

Step 6: Begin to stuff your pillow. Start with the corners, making sure they'll stay stuffed and keep their shape. Don't overfill the pillow or you won't be able to hand-sew it shut. Also, make sure not to pull on the threads you've already stitched. No tearing seams, especially if you are using delicate fabric.

Personal Image: Just when you think you're done stuffing, you should probably add a bit more to the corners.

Step 7: I added gold rings here that I'll use to tie through the ribbons that hold our wedding bands. Pin the other end of the ribbon to the fabric and sew really small stitches to close the pillow. This uses a different stitch and might require another Google search to confirm your stitch before you begin.

Personal Image: Fold the extra ribbon end so it's tucked into the finished pillow.

Step 8: Have a glass of wine and admire your work!

Personal Image: Wine not pictured.

I do wonder if I should jazz up the pillow some. I wanted a very simple clean look, and that's what I got, but I anticipate concerns of it being too plain. I'm using sparkly ribbon when we actually tie the rings to the pillow and the ring bearers are 6-year old twins who are guys' guys. What do you think?

Personal Image: Too much ribbon?

Have you ever sewn by hand? What was your first DIY project you'll actually use at your wedding?

Last Friday Night (TGIF)

No dancing on table tops or maxing out credit cards, but I'm sure at least one person woke up wondering if they had a hickey or a bruise. This post is all about partying without having a truly good reason to do so.

The one benefit of having such a large wedding party that's comprised of people I spend a ton of time with already is all the extra hanging out that takes on a wedding theme. We already have 5 official wedding-related events. But this post is about the unoffical events. We had a bridezilla pizza party, we're coming up on Part 2 of our three part makeup-for-the-chicks party. And last Friday night, we had a signature drink party.

Purple Signature Drink Image by Wedding by Color

Our venue has a number of drink packages to choose from for the reception. The one we went with includes a signature drink. They had several options we could choose from or we could develop our own. Mr. Kettle and I quickly decided to develop our own.

We also quickly decided to include a good number of our friends who will be in/at the wedding. BM Law's birthday was Saturday and we went to dinner on Friday to celebrate.

Personal image: BM Law after she was crowned birthday girl.

The after party for her birthday was the signature drink party. By the way, how many times can one use the word "party" in one post?

Earlier that day, I went to a liquor heaven store with BM Milk and BM Libra and we bought what felt like one of everything. I just wanted to be sure we had options for everything I might want in a drink, and it happened to be a lot. Just look at the picture.

Personal image: We certainly had a lot of options to choose from for mixing.

We had those bottle, a blender, a bag of ice, and a measuring cup. Everyone took turns making drinks. The funniest part was trying to keep track of recipes. Measuring in ounces instead of  "a splash of this and a drop of that" proved quite amusing. We all had tiny tiny shot glasses we used to try tiny tiny samples of each drink. The ones that were good were up for a vote. We asked, "would you drink this all night?"

If more than half the group voted yes, the drink became a contender. There were about 20 of us there, and after a couple hours, we were all tipsy and had three really strong options for our signature drink.

Eventually, Mr. Kettle and I will make all three for our parents and then we'll pick one and name it. I have to admit that I'm making this decision waaaay more complicated than it should be. But it's worth it because we had a lot of fun with our friends, and we won't have to worry about stocking our bar for at least another 6-12 months.

Did you have a signature drink at your wedding? Any suggestions for a cute drink title? Do you spend a lot of time with your wedding party?

Ideas Borrowed From Weddingbee

I've gotten a lot of great ideas from Weddingbee over the months. I know it's my job to put out inspiration and give the details of my plans for others to read, but I've gotten as much out of it as I've put it.

I decided to put in a sampling of some of my favorite posts that have given me some amazing ideas for my wedding, for posts, or hell just for everyday life. These are my top 9. I guess I could have found one more, but I figured I'd just stick with the ones I've been saving up for months now. If you're new to the hive, I suggest you read these. They may give you inspiration anew!

Mrs. Hyena's idea to put the garter on the football was genius. We have a ton of young un-married people coming to our wedding (at least 50 on the guest list). I am looking forward to the garter and bouquet tosses. But most weddings I've been to feature reluctant catchers. If he puts my garter on a football, they guys will actually want to catch it. Plus, it's a great reminder of the day we moved into together and an inside jokes amongst all our friends that our football belongs to me and not Mr. Kettle.

Mrs. Macarons idea to use Nailtiques for nail growth changed my life. If you've read any of my posts, you can tell I have a flair for, ahem, dramatic language But seriously, the Nailtiques was amazing. Seriously, read my post about it. And it turns out Mr. Kettle loves long nails. Like, really really loves them. So I'll be using Nailtiques long after my wedding to give my man what he wants.

Mrs. Swan's Natural Hair information is super useful. My locs aren't as long as hers were when she got married, but if you are looking for unique hairstyles or natural hairstyles, check out this post. They can be done even with hair that isn't locked, and they're just so pretty!

Mrs. Eggs Benedict gave me a great idea for doing the same wedding vows even though we've written our own. Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own vows, but I'm not so comfortable with that huge display of affection coming from me in front of all of those people. Somehow, the thought that we'd be saying the same thing makes me more comfortable. I hadn't thought of it until I read her post.

Mrs. Hyena's name change suggestion. One thing about getting married I'm dreading (I know, I know, there should be nothing to dread) is all the paperwork involved in changing my name. If you have a ton of things your name is on (license, bank account, insurance, credit cards, cell phone bill, lease, etc.), check out this post for a tip on how to make the process go easier.

Miss Cannon's post on trends was dead on for the summer. If you want to know what was all the rage in the summer, check out this post. It's interesting to see which trends are still popping up and which ones aren't. Are you embracing or shunning any of her mentioned trends?

The comments on Miss Sunhat's post about the guest book had amazing ideas! I've already done a guestbook post myself, but the comments on this post were some of the most unique ideas I've heard.

Mrs. Waffle's illustrations inspiring me to pick up a sketchbook and colored pencils. I've put a couple of comic strip thingees that I've drawn in posts. They're meant to be funny or cute. I don't know if I've accomplished my goal, but the idea came from Mrs. Waffle. How cute is that pic of her in the bee costume?

Miss Fox and her great idea about wedding bands influenced my rings. I just linked to this in a post yesterday, but in case you missed it, here it is again. There are a lot of halo engagement rings in the hive, and if you're looking for the options for your ring, this post covers most of them.

Have you found any great ideas on Weddingbee you'd love to share with someone who may have missed it?

Bands On Our Hands

Alternate post title: He went to Jared! Again!

I love my engagement ring, and I've never regretted the choice for such a unique ring. There's only one issue: I want to wear my engagement right and wedding band on the same finger, and I didn't want a gap between the rings.

Ms. Fox wrote a post that perfectly describes my problem.And to show my version of these issues, some ring porn.

Personal image: My ring hanging out with my new natural long nails!

Personal image: My ring being all shiny and distracting from my skin (not a fan of my hands)

 Personal image: I got all artistic with these shots at one of Mr. Kettle's last outdoor gigs. I can't wait for next summer already!



Personal image: My ring hanging out at a club. That girl likes to have fun (the wall behind her was advertising Absinthe!).

Now that I've shown you the ring, perhaps you can understand my dilemma. But when I saw Ms. Fox's post, I was so happy. She's the first person to ever talk of a ring with criss-crossed bands.

I admit I had my head in the sand about wedding bands. I didn't want to face the inevitable contoured band that we'd have to pay to get made since the ring was made. But a light emerged and I shook off the sand and headed to Jared's website where I figured we'd purchase our rings from.

Image via Jared

 They didn't seem to have a lot of options, but I didn't give up hope as they always have a larger selection in store. Mr. Kettle and I stopped through one productive weekend and tried on bands. I found several bands that were perfect.

They criss-crossed once, twice, even three times. So many diamonds. They were so shiny! They were actually a bit too shiny. They just didn't really look right. Mr. Kettle and I aren't shiny people. Unless you count carmex for him and occasional glitter eye shadow for me.

We took a break from looking at my rings to look for his. He tried on a band with diamonds and confirmed we are NOT shiny people. He ended trying to decide between two bands. He was going to pick one that matched one of my earlier rings options, but I could tell he wasn't happy about the choice.

When I mentioned it was too bad the one detail (black bands on the ring) couldn't be matched in my ring, the jeweler took us to another case. It was like that list bit of sand still left over keeping from imagining other options finally shook off. I saw the perfect ring and it matched his perfectly!

Mr. Kettle and I are shiny people, but we are unique-twist-on-a-classic look people. So, after much talking, here are our wedding bands!

Personal image: They wrapped them up pretty for us to take home!

Personal image: Our individually boxed rings.

Personal image: Okay, now I'm just being a tease.

Personal image: Our rings!!! Black and white diamonds in white gold for me and black banded white gold for him.

Personal image: Just his ring getting a solo shot.

Personal image: Just my ring.

Personal image: My two rings together. As Stacy London would say, "it doesn't have to match, but it goes."

Personal image: The two rings together. There's still a gap, but it's a gap with attitude!

How did you pick your wedding bands? Are you wearing your engagement and wedding rings on the same finger?

A Honeymoon That's Perfect For Us

Hive, I've talked about my honeymoon way waaay more than I ever intended. It's like a bar joke that won't ever die. "Two newlyweds walk into a bar on their honeymoon..." Or, you know, something more clever and memorable than that.

I have good news to share and then I won't speak of the honeymoon again until recaps. Our honeymoon is booked! Woot!

It's not at all the honeymoon I imagined and wrote about before. There were just too many obstacles in our way. Mr. Kettle has taught me so much about compromise since we've been together and that really came in handy when we were sorting out the details of our honeymoon.

To refresh your memory: I saw our honeymoon as a wonderful holiday triple threat. We were going to do Carnival, Valentine's Day, and Mardi Gras. We were going to Panama and New Orleans and it was going to be wonderful.

The price ended up being more than I expected, so we waited to re-assess our funds before we booked. The day I was going to book the trip (to make sure the New Orleans hotel wasn't full), something major changed. Mr. Kettle got word of a great opportunity for his music. He's a musician and a teacher and he's damn good at both.

The only thing about this opportunity it is was the week after our wedding, when we were supposed to be in Panama. Being the awesome almost-wife that I am, I reasoned that we could go to Carnival another year. And maybe with more advance planning, we could actually go to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Trading in a warm beach hotel for a hotel in the city of Chicago in February isn't what I was thinking, but it will allow us to be in the city the week after our wedding.

We are going to stay in a hotel in the city, so we'll still be honeymooning, we'll just also be working on Mr. Kettle's music opportunities. And we'll be going to New Orleans still for Mardi Gras. Searching for hotels in Chicago was a lot of fun. I compared options and found an amazing deal on a wonderful hotel and spa right smack in the middle of downtown.

Image via hotels.com / Dana Hotel and Spa

Image via QuikBook / Do you see that view?

Image via concierge.com / I could see having dinner there!

They also have in-room couples' massages. I'm thinking a relaxing week followed by a big party in New Orleans will be perfect for us. It makes sense for the Kettles that a big part of honeymoon includes Mr. Kettle's music. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Are you going/Have you gone on a honeymoon? How long did it take to secure your plans?

It's Time To DIY!

After breathing a huge sigh of relief that all the big decisions were made for the wedding, I realized I still had a ton to do. But I felt good about this y'all. I had a lot o' DIY projects to get started on. I had checked a good number of things off my huge list, but nothing from that first column, the DIY column.

Personal image: Checking more off each day, but I've got to do better on that first column!

My DIY projects are numerous. And there are less than 75 days to my wedding. But I think I can do it! The nest several posts will detail my attempts at:

Table Numbers
Flower Girl Baskets
Ring Bearer Pillows
Place Cards
Ceremony Programs
Reception Menus
Seating Chart
Frames for the Theme Decorations
Out of Town Bags

I started with my idea for table numbers. I've searched high and low for what I was thinking of. I didn't find anything similar to what I had in mind. The luck I had with my guestbook idea was not to be repeated. Oh well!

For your entertainment, a cartoon to explain my efforts.

Personal image: I thought and thought of exactly what I wanted.

Personal image: I searched all over the internet, but nothing was just right.

Personal image: I went table number shopping and got a lot more than I intended.

Personal image: So about those table numbers. Yeah, a bigger project than I intended. Do It Yourself Plus Your Father And His Power Tools!!!

And just what did my trip to Hobby Lobby yield?

Personal image: That's everything I need to make everything listed above except the OOT bags. Don't even ask how much it cost, but I think it is less than what I'd pay someone else...

Yup, that's a lot of stuff. Looking at it makes me excited though. I can't wait to share with you how I've tackled that large pile of stuff and turned it into usable stuff for my wedding!

Are you doing DIY projects? What's your best/favorite/hardest one?