Opposites attract

He's a lot rock n' roll and I'm country. I'm Catholic and he's Jewish. I heart the Red Sox and he's suffering from ABTRS syndrome (anyone but the Red Sox). He's always hot and I'm always shivering. Actually, he doesn't mind visiting Boston but he LOVES leaving!

Still we do have a lot in common. We met at college, both majoring in some form of communications and we both work in media. Pizza, sports and random adventures always make us happy. And we created the most gorgeous, precious little man in the world. Oh, and we're crazy about each other. Ever hear the song"I'm Only Me When I'm With You" by Taylor Swift? I'm pushing for that to be our first dance song. The two lines really stick out to me: Well you drive me crazy half the time;
the other half I'm only trying to let you know that what I feel is true.
And I'm only me when I'm with you. Short, sweet, simple and honest. I know I drive the poor man up the wall, but its mutual sometimes. Isn't that the way of love? You grow and change together, but accept each other flaws and all?

Say Cheese!

I can totally picture me and the Baby Cheese posing like this!

Its so much fun finding poses that I can't wait to try at our wedding.

I love this. Don't know why, but I do. I hope we can recreate this at our wedding!

Colors

I've been thinking more about getting my projects started which means I definitely have to settle on a color palette. Or a theme? Anyway, I'd really wanted to get married at my favorite winery back in MA but since Mr. Cheese wanted to get married close to where we live in VA my wedding winery dream ended.

I know I could have found a great winery in VA, but what was the point if it wasn't going to be at the winery I truly adore?

I love wine. I adore vineyards (my dream job is to work PR at a winery). So . . . why not use wine/grapes/vines as my starting point.

Golds, greens and creams are all summery, and grapes are deliciously summery! Mmm!

Inspirational thoughts.

Ok, so I've bought my wedding dress. Well, ordered it at least. And its great, I love it but it wasn' the dress I thought I'd end up with. This was the dress I'd wanted: But my body had other ideas. See, I forgot that by having long legs and a short-ish torso, this gorgeous confection of a gown wouldn't actually look good on me. So Vineyard designers from Priscilla of Boston, I love your work, but it just didn't love me back.

Its ok, I'm happy with my wedding dress. If I wasn't positive Mr.Cheese would look at this and see my dress, I'd probably post pictures. But since he's way more technically superior to me - and since he'd look - I'm saving a surprise for our wedding day.

My ideal wedding band? Simply amazing craftsmanship. I'd love a band of diamonds, but since my engagement ring looks almost identical to the ring in the picture, a solid band would look good too. I love jewelry!

Besides, half the fun of all this planning is finding out what's out there!

Baby Cheese Got Married!

So my little man is a ladies man. Monday morning he and his preschool sweetheart got married on the playground. They honeymooned "at the store." Mr. Cheese and I are very happy for the couple, but I've got to admit that I'm surprised I only found about it yesterday. "Mama, you didn't ask me if I got married," said Baby Cheese when asked about his new bride. "But its ok, she's only my pretend wife. I might marry someone else next week."

Ohhhh, from the mouths of little ones!

Panic (a kind of confession)

I'm thankful for the life I lead. I have an amazing family, a great job with wonderful coworkers and a roof over my head at night. Sometimes I can't listen to the radio or watch the news because all the negative press on the economy makes me feel ill. The wedding is on track, our planning continues, but I'm really concerned that we shouldn't be spending money on a wedding when there's so much uncertainty in our economy.

A little backstory: my fiancé, let me just call him Mr. Cheese from now on (its a family joke), and I are parents to a gorgeous little five year old boy. He's in preschool and loves every minute of it. As I've mentioned before, Mr. Cheese works in media. Unfortunately because of a very recent, very high profile merger his company was part of, he has absolutely no job security. He's confident he'll have a job until October 31st . . . but after that we have no clue. Not knowing his job status is incredibly stressful for both of us and we're shielding Baby Cheese from any and all knowledge of the situation. Why scare him with information about a situation we really can't explain?

So, we're hoping and praying that everything works out for the best for our family. Unfortunately thousands of other families across the country are in similar situations and its a scary scenario to be facing. Fortunately my job is secure. Fortunately Baby Cheese's schooling is secure. We're together, happy and well loved. I'm trying to focus on the positive, but every now and then the panic sort of takes over.

Make the cut

Some people are not making the invitation list. Its inevitable that coworkers, acquaintances and in some cases friends will not be invited to our wedding. Extended family members are welcome additions but their kids aren't necessarily welcome.

Fiancé and I went to the same college and knew a lot of the same people. There's maybe one girl I'd want to have at our wedding while he has a lot of people on his list. Basically we thought that we'd look at a master list of people and weed people out based on whether or not we think they'll be in our lives in 5 years.

This is really hard because it makes you look at friendships/relationships and take a long look at their strengths and weaknesses. And its made me second guess myself. Its that knowing if I can weed some people out, can they cut me out as easily? Yes, some people can and will. We'll hurt some feelings, and I'm sorry for that. But I really get those 'hard choices' other brides have mentioned to me-and I get how the cuts still have to be made even if others aren't happy about it.

Invitations

Now that my inner Martha has been unleashed, I'm getting excited (and nervous!) to create my wedding invitations. Our wedding colors are sage green and cream with gold accents. I've been thinking a lot about whether or not we'll have a theme and I'm leaning toward no theme. I adore calla lilies, so I'm thinking that I'll use that as our image and color inspiration. Luckily calla lilies are in bloom in June so I shouldn't have to worry about ordering them for an additional cost. Also, I can find a good calla lily stamp that we can use on the invitations which will be a good starting point for our 'wedding image.'

(Source: flower-arrangement-advisor.com)

Last week I had ordered samples from Anchor Paper and they came in the mail yesterday. Since I don't know a lot about paper I'd wanted to see and feel the different cardstocks so I can figure out which colors and paper weights I like. I'm so glad I ordered samples since the paper looks a lot different in person than they do on the internet. Of the samples I ordered I only genuinely like the Classic Linen, Classic Natural White. Its creamy, not bright white, which I love. I'm ok with the Spring Larch green (Aspire Petalics), but the other green I got is not at all what I want. At least I'm figuring out what I don't want!

This weekend I want to go Paper Source and check out their stock of pretty, printed paper. Right now I'm deciding between a pocketfold invitation and a standard, matted invitation - I like the pocketfold for its convenience and unique design none of our friends have used, but for the matted invitation I like the idea of presenting everything in a box to our guests through the mail (its a different presentation, almost present like). Either way I'd like to have a printed paper to line the envelopes and I know the Georgetown store has a good selection. On their website I saw the Mint with gold flowers paper, which I think would be fabulous as an envelope liner.

I've made a decent start on the papers for the invitations. And I've seen some helpful websites that will give you a template for DIY invitations. The good thing but looking around I found a website that finally mentioned that getting 19" x 25" paper will yield at least 3 invitations (with paper left over). Hopefully I can get my paper custom cut so I won't have to worry about crooked lines!

Focus . . .

Sometimes I have an amazing ability to tune out everything that goes on around me. Its a talent that I've had to develop since I work in an office where we generally work with an open door policy and each of my coworkers has a different sound coming out of their room. Close my door? Nope, I don't have a door. Why? I work in the main lounge/reception area. Its great because I'm in the middle of everything, but 'everything' includes a lot of clashing sounds.

I'd mentioned that I'm campaigning to be a blogger on my company's website (I work at a media company), but I'd forgotten to take into account that when I can't tune out the background noise it can be hard to think. Or think things through. Tell a story that has a beginning, middle and end? I have to remember the story before I begin. I've been starting to write my 'test' blog to show my boss and I've got to say that I've been writing more of the song lyrics I'm hearing than actual original thoughts.



That's me - I'm the Pam Beesly of this place. (I totally love the Dunder Mifflen image on the desktop.) And I love the look on her face - you can almost picture Al Bundy's sigh of defeat coming next.

I love being so easily entertained. Adding pictures to this makes me so happy! I figure I'll end up having some pointless, boring blogs like this one every so often. I'm entertained though! And after some thought - actually it just came to me - I can totally use the constant noise in here as something to write about. Now I just have to make it less boring.

First ever blog of mine

Since I'm campaigning to blog on my company's website I thought it might be smart to practice writing what I think. Obviously I get to write about me and my life here, which is just fabulous, but I guess this blog is going to be great training for corporate internet. (Is there a such thing?) So wish me luck!

Anyway. I'm currently planning my wedding, which will be in June 2009. My inner Martha Stewart has been released and I like it. I love the idea of creating my own wedding stationary - knowing that it will be exactly what I want just thrills me. Honestly, having creative control sounds kinda bridezilla, but it means that I have no one to blame but myself if the finished product is awful. Lots of pressure, but I think that I'm up to the challenge!

I'm going to be doing 90% of the DIY stationary projects with a little help from my sisters. (My fiance works in sports media and the MLB playoffs are going on while the NHL season opened tonight. This is a good thing since it means he's occupied while I geek out over paper, stamps and all my other fun toys.) My sweetie is super creative when it comes to the media - press releases, radio spots, tv ads, etc. Not so much the crafts. He tries, and I love him for it . . . but is it bad that I really want to make this my baby and have him step in only during emergencies?

Tomorrow I'm planning to create a few mock ups in Illustrator, and if they look somewhat decent I'll be glad to share my creations!