Wedding Nightmare #2

Last night I had the pleasure of experiencing another wedding nightmare. (Zac says that the two words don't belong next to each other in a sentence and while I completely agree, for a lack of a better name, that's what I'm calling it.)

Much like my first wedding nightmare, a lot of the problem was that things weren't finished yet. This time around, although we were at the right venue, we were the only ones there! Apparently none of the guests had arrived because I had forgotten to send out save the dates or invitations. (This is probably my sub consious reminding me that I have a stack of save the dates sitting on the dining room table that need to be addressed and mailed. Oops.)

Next, the bridal party was MIA. We tried calling each of them but the calls either went straight to voicemail or said that the line we were trying to reach was disconnected.

Finally, the vendors hadn't arrived to start setting everything up. We made phone call after phone call and got the same story from each vendor. No one was going to arrive because we hadn't finished paying any of them.

So there Zac and I stood all dressed up at an emtpy venue....just me and him.

My mind is playing games with me in my sleep. I woke up and couldn't help but laugh. At least the stories my brain weaves for me while I try to get some rest are things that won't happen. (*knock on wood!* :P)

There was a little bit of truth in the dream. In the end it is just me and Zac. That's what the whole day is about. How could that make me anything but happy? Sorry wedding nightmare, but you're not shaking me up!

Deja Blues

As I've mentioned before, my friend Samantha is having a winery wedding. In addition to wine tasting and weddings, the venue hosts concerts during the summer. During the last Bridey night, we checked their schedule to see when the next event was taking place. It turned out that there were only two more summer concerts left and Samantha and I were determined to make it to one. So on Friday, Samantha, her maid of honor Michelle, and I headed to Sam and Matt's wedding venue, Appellation California, for a fun night of champagne and blues.

We arrived at about 6pm, found a table in the back, and ordered some champagne. After getting settled, and just as Deja Blues began their set, I saw a familiar face....my beautiful friend Kim! *No I'm not drunk, that's how I always great this awesome lady!*

Kim and I used to work together, but then she got a grown up job and moved away. We keep in touch through Facebook and texts and get together when we can. I absolutely love her and I was so excited to see her big smile!

As the sun went down we really got a chance to see how beautiful the venue is at night. Samantha is still undecided about where the ceremony will take place but one option is underneath the large oak tree covered in lights. Other options include on the stage where the band played or in front of the vineyards on the other side of the yard. Though all spots would be great, my vote is for the tree.

We met some fun characters throughout the night, including a firey red head whose name I believe was Lorlina.....or something along those lines. :P She was a seriously fun older lady that we befriended after seeing her glittery top shining on the dance floor.

She invited us over to her group to introduce us to her friends and even stopped by our table for a little photo shoot.

Early on in the evening, I saw this cute little older man with a fun hat dancing with his wife. They were the only two on the dance floor for a while and I thought that it was the cutest thing. I told the ladies that before the night was over, this man and I were going to dance. A little while later when the band took a breather, I headed to the restroom, and on my journey I passed by the man (whose name we learned is Joseph) and his wife. I told the two that I loved watching them dance and asked Joseph's wife if she didn't mind me cutting in for a song or two. She laughed and said that I could come dance with him anytime, that she would enjoy the break!

On my way back to my table I waved hi to the couple and Joseph called after me, "Don't forget!" Soon after, the band started up again and we saw Joseph stand and begin to walk through the crowd. Samantha yelled, "Oh my god, he's looking for you!" I stood up to meet him and Joseph grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor. That Joseph sure could dance. He took me for a spin....

....well a couple of spins! :P I had such a fun time out there dancing!

I have to send a huge thank you to Samantha for capturing those pictures because they're priceless! Here she is enjoying a little bubbly with her bestie Michelle.

Needless to say, the girls and I had a fantastic time. I can't wait for Samantha's wedding!



Save The Dates

According to my list of to-do's on theknot.com and projectwedding.com, our save the dates should be sent out by the end of September. Now that we have our engagement photos all picked out I started working on these important little pieces of stationary to send out to our guests.

When it came to save the dates, I didn't have any particular design in mind, I only knew that I wanted to incorporate our engagement photos. While I thought that using websites like weddingpaperdivas.com would be an easy and quick way to get our save the dates done, I decided that designing them myself would be a more fun and economical way to complete this task.

I was inspired by these calendar save the dates that I found on theknottybride.com :

I loved the way they looked and figured that it wouldn't be a difficult project. So I got opened up Microsoft Word (which I also used to design Zac's surprise birthday invitations) and created a save the date that I was pretty proud of:

Not too bad right? I printed out 99 of these babies, three to a page.

The next step (and the step that took the most time) was cutting each one to size.

When I was done I had a nice big stack of save the dates.

The save the dates were the perfect length to send in a standard white envelope. To jazz up the envelopes a little I decided to hand stamp each one with a feather stamp that I picked up from Michael's Craft Store for only $3.50. The feather went along with the vintage owl theme and I used a grey ink to tie in with our wedding colors.

I hand stamped 100 white envelopes and each one looked like this:

Now the save the dates are all in their envelopes waiting to be addressed. Before they go out, Zac and I have to go over and finalize our guest list (just to be sure that we aren't forgetting anyone) and make sure that we have an address for all the guests. I need to go get (or perhaps just make) an address book to keep all of the guest information in one place. The save the dates should be sent out before October 1st! I can't believe that its already time for these pieces of stationary to be sent out! Time flies, and before we know it the wedding will be here. I'm excited and nervous for that moment all at the same time. :)

100th Post....Thank You Readers!

The end of this month marks the 6 month anniversary since the beginning of this blog! Time has gone by pretty quickly, but I've had a lot of fun blogging all about my wedding planning with Zac and our other life happenings. This is the 100th blog post I've published. That's a whole lot of talking and sharing and I owe a big 'Thank You' to all of you readers out there for checking it out!

This blog started out as a way to reach out to family and friends (both close by and out of town) and keep them up to date on wedding related topics. Though it's still mostly wedding oriented, I've also talked about other things that I thought our family and friends would enjoy reading about like home projects, our pup Jim, and special occasions.

I am completely amazed and utterly excited that in just 6 months my little blog here has reached over 6,500 views! I knew that family and friends would be checking out my page but I had no idea that others would enjoy reading my posts as well. According to Blogger people are logging in and viewing Sparkles and Cheaterpants from over 20 different countries! Are you serious?! I was so surprised to see that people all over the world are reading my posts! (Puts a little pressure on me to make my posts interesting.) Second to the US, the highest views are from Malaysia, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. There are also readers in India, France, Germany, and the Philippines to name a few! (I'll admit that I had to google map the location of the newest readers in Azerbaijan. :P)

I was happy to see that a few of my friends (Annamarie who lives in Australia, and Tiana over at 'Clean up Isle 12....Brain Spillage' *you should go check her out!*) had become followers of my little blog, and extremely flattered when others began to follow the page as well. I now have 12 follows, which might not seem like much to some people, but for someone who wasn't anticipating having any blog followers, I find it pretty exciting. Thank you to all of you readers who decided to follow the blog!

One great thing about this blog (besides having a place to share wedding ideas and life happenings) is that I've been introduced to a wonderful community of other bloggers including a group of other brides to be (like Tiffany of The Bride-onicles of a Soon to be Bride, Stephanie of The Vintage Modern Bride, and Heidi at The Varner Wedding 9-24-11 *she's getting married today! Congratulations Heidi and Jeff!*,) and newlyweds (like Jasmine of Jasmine and Sean, Mrs. Janney of Adventures of Mrs. Janney, and Liz at explore.dream.discover.). It's so great to be a part of a comnmunity of such awesome ladies and read all about their adventures as brides and newlyweds.

I really appreciate all the people who check out Sparkles and Cheaterpants and find some interest in my rants and sharing! I hope you've been entertained and I promise to keep the blog posts coming. If you enjoy reading the blog feel free to become a follower and be sure to share the blog with others!

A Change In The Line-up

In yesterday's post I shared with you our shoe selections for the bridesmaids. In case you don't want to refer back to the post to see the beautiful shoes, here is a picture:

I'm very happy with the shoes we found, but right after we made our selections I had an uneasy feeling. Something just didn't seem right to me. At first I thought that it was the shoes, but I soon realized that it was dresses that I was unsure about.

We picked out the bridesmaid dresses back in May when all the girls were here for wedding dress shopping. The original idea was to have all of the girls in different dresses in shades of grey. David's Bridal only offers one shade of grey (pewter) so we realized that the girls would all have to be in the same shade but at least we could still have them all in different dresses. While selecting dresses we found out that Sarah's dress was not available in pewter so to keep her in color with the wedding, her dress was going to be in yellow (canary). It seemed fitting that she would be in a different color since it would make her stand out a little bit as maid of honor.

Over the last few months I've had second....third, and fourth thoughts about putting Sarah in a yellow dress. All my girls are blondies which is why I wanted to have them all in grey to begin with. I also wanted the girls to be in different shades of grey that all coordinated. David's Bridal's limited selection of colors caused that to change to the girls only being in one shade of grey. Looking at a color swatch of the pewter fabric and referring back to the pictures of the shoes we picked out for the girls I had reservations about how everything would look when we put it all together.

With my doubts about putting Sarah in a yellow dress and my unsure feelings about the shoes and dresses combined, I decided to put together the images of the girls dresses and shoes to see what they would look like next to one another....

....what a hot mess! No wonder I couldn't sleep. The shoes are all lighter than the dresses, the fabric on the dresses are just a little too shiny, and the combination of it all just does NOT go well together! It wasn't what I had in mind when I first thought of having the girls wear different dresses in different shades of grey. I wasn't about to have my girls spend a bunch of money on dresses that didn't look right, so I decided to change the dresses!

It's been four months since we picked out the bridesmaid dresses so in the wee morning hours when I made the decision to find new options for the girls, I was nervous that they had already ordered their dresses. Thankfully, after I got in contact with them, I was relieved to hear that the orders hadn't yet been placed! With that news, I went full force into looking for new dresses in various shades of grey.

I looked at over 500 pages of grey dresses on shopstyle.com (yes, 500...it's a sickness) and found many grey dresses that would look great on the girls. Here are just 20 of the dresses that I saved.

There were a few things that I needed to keep in mind while looking through images of grey dresses:

- While the dresses could be in different shades of grey, they all had to coordinate together and go with the shoes that we had already selected.

- I wanted the shades of grey to be closer to a slate color rather than having hints of purple or blue.

- Though the fabrics didn't need to be the same, they couldn't be drastically different (ex. cotton and silk etc.).

- Since the dresses at David's were $130 - $140 I wanted to save the girls some money on the new dresses and keep the price under $100.

After a long afternoon of searching for dresses, I came up with a combination that I absolutely loved! All the dresses are similar in length, have color tones that coordinate, and were well under the $100 mark. (The average dress/shoe combination would be $89.00.) Best of all they look really good together.

#1. Amy

Lily Boutique - Greek Goddess Grey Chiffon Drape Dress 

#2. Amanda

Lily Boutique - Falling in Love Strapless Chiffon Bow Dress

#3. Sarah

Dorothy Perkins - Grey Ruched Flower Dress

I was excited that in an afternoon, I had found new dresses for the girls that looked great together, coordinated with the shoes, and cut the girls' costs. It was a HUGE weight off of my shoulders and I felt so much better about the dress situation.

After putting together the images to make sure that everything went together nicely, I decided to send the girls links for their new dresses so that they could check out the styles and let me know if they liked what I had found. When sending Amanda the link for her dress, I was SO disappointed to see that her dress was no longer in stock. I had somehow missed that when I first found the dress. Just when I thought the dress search was over, it started up again.

This is the first taste of stress that I've had since we've started planning the wedding and I'll just say that I my tastebuds aren't having it! Thankfully the other two dresses are in stock and Amy and Sarah seem to like them but I'll have to continue to search for a dress for Amanda. I hope we find something soon.

Having dresses that aren't through a bridal website or a place that sells bridesmaid dresses, we'll have a more difficult time making sure that the dresses coordinate and don't clash. The girls will also have to order their dresses sooner than later for two reasons:

1) we don't want our current situation to happen again and find out that a dress is out of stock

2) if for some reason something is wrong with the dress (it isn't what we thought it was going to be, the girls don't like the way they fit, etc.) we will have time to send back the dresses and search for replacements.

Wish us luck on our search,!  If you have any suggestions for a grey chiffon dress that will go with the other two we've already selected feel free to comment a link on this page.

The Great Shoe Detective....Case Solved

Not too long ago, I gave my bridesmaid, and personal shoe detective, Amanda, the mission of finding shoes for the bridesmaids. We discussed options for colors and style (check out the thoughts on shoes here) before we started searching for the perfect shoes for the girls to wear at the wedding. After a few days of searching through pages of grey heels we found three shoes that the girls love. They are all in shades of grey, have cute details, coordinate without being matchy matchy, and (the best part) are all under $50 with tax and shipping!

Check out our picks:

Aren't they amazing?! I'm in love with all of them! Unfortunately I can't steal any of these beautiful shoes from my girls for a night out since they are all different sizes, none of which will fit me. I might end up having to order a pair (or two) for myself!

#1. Sarah

Anne Michelle - Essence 42 Ribbon Heel ...........$33.99 + shipping

I LOVE the bow detail on Sarah's shoes!

#2. Amy

Fergalicious Montage Ruffle Bootie ..........$38.47 + shipping

Another adorable shoe! I have a very similar pair of ruffle grey booties with a light brown heel that I purchased at Charlotte Russe back when I went wedding dress shopping for the first time.

#3. Amanda

Dorothey Perkins - Grey Jewel Feather Heel..........$38.69 + shipping

Our favorite heels from the beginning, we were bummed to find out that they were only available in one size which didn't fit any of the bridesmaids. Being only a half size too big for Amanda, she decided that she would wear shoe pads to fit into these because she loves them so much! I don't blame her. They're beautiful.

So glad that we were able to find three pairs of shoes that go together so well and that are so inexpensive!

Bridey Part 2

Bridey time is back! That's right! The brides have reunited for another session of Bridey time. (Not familiar with the term "Bridey"? Check out this post to get in the know.)

Holly, Samantha, and I got together on Saturday for a wedding catch up and planning sesh. We gathered together our wedding binders, a small array of snacks, and some Disaronno. We mixed up some Disaronno and cranberry juice (which funny enough tastes just like a cherry coke) and got to work. We had each worked a long day and were excited for a cocktail and wedding talk.

Deciding to make it tradition to take pictures of our rings each time we get together, we each grabbed a glass and lined up for a photo. From top to bottom: Holly, Samantha, me.

After opening our binders and sorting through our wedding papers and fliers, we laughed when we saw that each of us had the newest Oriental Trading Wedding catalog. It called for a photo.

One great thing about our Bridey dates (other than the fun of getting together with some great girls), is that we all have different styles when it comes to our weddings. It's nice to look through wedding ideas and talk about our weddings because we all have something different to bring to the table. It's also really fun to find ideas to forward to the other brides to be.

Holly and Ryan:

April 7

Holly and Ryan are having a purple and green, fantasy/renaissance style wedding.  Their ceremony will be on the beach with a small group of very close friends and family. Later the two with have their reception at another location closer to home. To go along with the reaissance theme  the bridesmaids will be wearing free flowing dresses and the cake will be complete with a fairytale castle topper. Holly is planning to have soft curls and will be wearing a veil and a circlet. It should be a beautiful wedding and ceremony!

Samantha and Matthew:

June 10

Sam and Matt are having a bright summer wedding at a winery. There ceremony will take place under a large shady tree between the vineyards and tasting room. In addition to having some wine touches (like corks in centerpiece vases with votive candles, and wine bottle table numbers) there will be fun pops of color (in the shade of malibu blue) and black and white polka dots. Samantha will be wearing malibu blue heels with a cute bow at the toe while her maid of honor, Michelle, and I will be wearing the same shoe in white. I'm excited to be a part of their wedding and I can't wait to see it all come together.

Teeny and Zac (Us!)

 May 4

I'm sure that if you've been keeping up with the blog you know that Zac and I are getting married at a venue by the lake. Our wedding will have a vintage vibe with ceramic birds, birdcages, lanterns, plenty of candles, and diy projects (including a candy and dessert buffet). Our guests will be entertained by games on the lawn during cocktail hour and photo guestbook complete with props.

As you can see, our themes and plans are all very different. I just love hearing about what the other girls are going to do for their weddings and the plans they have to make their days special. We plan to have a bunch more Bridey days before we each walk down the aisle. I love having time to hang out with these ladies!



Swamped!

Sorry to everyone for slacking on my posts! I'm usually pretty good about posting regularly, but this weekend has kept me busy. I've got lots of fun things going on and I'm looking forward to sharing with all of you! :)

Here's what I've been up to:

- Bridey date with Samantha and Holly
- Save the Dates
- Picking out bridesmaid shoes
- Rethinking bridesmaid dresses
- Ordering shoes for Samantha's wedding

Details coming soon! I'll leave you with a sneak peek of our save the dates:

 Hope everyone had a great weekend!



Good Morning!

Having a difficult time sleeping last night (I oddly had second thoughts about the shoes I was choosing for the girls.....more details on that another day) I stayed in bed a little longer this morning. Somewhere around 8:00 Zac came running into our bedroom and yelled:

"There's a hot air balloon crashing on our front lawn! I gotta go!"

Before I had a chance to ask any questions he was already bounding down the stairs and running out the front door, Jim hot on his trail. Since this is our sense of humor with one another, at first I thought he was just messing around and trying to get me out of bed. Realizing that he had actually run outside I decided it didn't matter if he was joking or not, I was curious to see what was going on. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time we've seen hot air balloons floating above our neighborhood. (We don't live too far from Valley Children's Hospital which is where the balloons take off from.) You might remember a post  from earlier this summer (found here) in which Zac and I climbed up on the roof of our back patio one morning to watch about five hot air balloons float along on their journey.

So I jumped out of bed and followed Zac outside and this is what I saw:

It hadn't crashed and it wasn't on our front lawn (what can I say, my Zac knows how to spin a story!) but a hot air balloon really had landed safely on our block just two houses away! It certainly isn't a sight you see every morning and our neighbors came spilling out of their homes to check out the balloon. The cutest spectators were three little children still in their pjs, who were very excited to see the balloon and eager to talk to the people in the balloon's basket. Zac said it reminded him of when he was little and his parents took him and his siblings to Valley Children's Hospital very early in the morning to watch the hot air balloons get ready and take off into the sky.

Just like the last time we saw hot air balloons there were several of them in the air. (If you look closely at the photo above you can see another one in the distance to the left of the balloon just under the streetlamp.) We didn't get the full story on why/how this balloon found it's way onto our street, but we figured that perhaps the balloon had been thrown off course by the morning breeze. Several vehicles eventually showed up on our street, including a van from the hot air balloon company (of which Zac and I can't remember the name...we'd be horrible eye witnesses) that came to take the balloon away.

The people started to lay out a giant orange sheet (it reminded me of the parachutes we used in P.E. in elementary school). The children who were watching were excited to hear that they could help lay out the sheet to prepare of the balloon to be deflated. Once it was all spread out on the street everyone backed up and they brought the balloon down.

Here they are bringing down the beast:

I've never seen a hot air balloon deflated in person and I was amazed that something that big could be taken down on a neighborhood street without any worries of getting stuck in a tree or landing on a parked car. It was also the first time that I had seen a hot air balloon in person at all and let me tell you that Zac and I were amped to go for a ride. We've decided to look up the cost for a hot air balloon excursion...it might be our next adventure....after the wedding of course.

So that was how I woke up this morning! Hope everyone has a fantastic Saturday!

The Great Shoe Detective

Now that I have my wedding dress has come in (and is hanging in my closet!), and the girls' bridesmaid dresses are all picked out, it's time to move on to accessories. More specifically, it's time to find some shoes! I'm fine with leaving jewelry until a little closer to the wedding if necessary. (I have no doubts that I'll find the perfect accessories for the girls to wear with their dresses with plenty of time to spare before the big day.)

For my own shoes, I've known since we chose our wedding colors, that I wanted to wear yellow heels. I was hoping for something with a fun detail like a bow, flower, or maybe a ruffle. Over the last few months I've been looking online at several different shoe websites, checking out pictures on Pinterest, and browsing through other yellow wedding photographs to get ideas. I think that I have finally found the shoes that I want to wear on our wedding day.

I found these shoes on Ninashoes.com. Aren't they cute?!

All the other yellow heels I found were either too mustard colored, too high (not that I'm afraid of a little height, I just don't want to kill my feet that day), or didn't have a cute detail I was looking for. These shoes look to be just the right shade of yellow and at 4" I don't think my feet will want to kill me by the end of the night. I haven't ordered the shoes just yet, but according to the website they are only available for pre-order at the moment so I've got some time to get my order in. (The soonest they'll be shipped out is 11/11/11.)

I've had more concerns with the bridesmaid shoes than I have my own. Shoes can really make an outfit and I don't want to stick my girls with anything they don't like or won't be happy to wear again. Also, since the girls are wearing different dresses, and there are two different colors to consider (canary and pewter), the process of finding shoes has become a little more tricky. There have been a few things to consider:

1. What color should the shoes be? Yellow? Gray? Should Sarah have yellow shoes to go with her canary dress? Should Amanda and Amy wear gray shoes to go with their pewter dresses? Should we flip flop and have gray dresses with yellow shoes and the yellow dress with gray shoes to avoid being too matchy matchy? What about a black or nude colored heel?

2. Since the girls are all wearing different dresses, should they also have different shoes?

Honestly I'm not really picky and I didn't think that it mattered if the girls had the same shoes. (After all, they have different dresses.) I would love for my bridesmaids to show off some personality and get shoes that they like. None of them would ever wear the same shoes on the same night when we were going out so it seems kind of funny to have them wear the same shoes as one another when they have over 120 people looking at them. As for color I think finding different shoes in gray will keep things looking interesting but not distracting.

I'm hoping to end up with a look something like this.....

Image from Style Me Pretty

...or this...

Image from Explore. Dream. Discover.

...where all the girls have some unity in color but aren't so cookie cutter.

Finding different shoes for the girls also makes the search a little easier since the girls don't all wear the same shoe size. Since the girls' shoe sizes range significantly, finding shoes that were available in all sizes limited the search. Eliminating the need to find the shoes in three different sizes has opened up our search to a much wider selection.

The two things we'll have to look out for in searching for different shoes will be unity and cost.

1. Unity- There are so many different shades of grey, finding three different shoes with similar tones of the color might be a challenge. Though we're not looking for identical colored shoes and don't need (nor want) the shoes to match perfectly with the girls' pewter dresses, we don't want the shoes to clash next to each other either.

2. Cost- Some of the shoes I found at the beginning of my search were very cute....but were upwards of $100. Since the girls have each already spent over $100 on their dresses I'm not about to suggest they buy shoes that rival in price. The less expensive, the better!

So the search is on....

Thankfully I have The Great Shoe Detective on my side!!!

Meet my bridesmaid Amanda:

Amanda has an incredible sense of style and (more importantly) a shoe obsession that shouldn't be joked about. (Look out Carrie Bradshaw!) I once sent her a photo of shoes that I thought she would like...

Exhibit A:

Amanda fell in love with the shoe! Unfortunately, I found the picture on Pinterest and there were no details tagged regarding the designer, stores where the shoe was available, or price listing. Have no fear, The Great Shoe Detective was on the case. Amanda googled the picture of the shoe until she could track down stores that sold the item. When she found out that stores were sold old she skipped the middle man and went straight to the distributor. It took a few months, but wouldn't you know it.....Miss Amanda is now the happy owner of these shoes!

I am so grateful to have Miss Amanda's help in finding the right shoes for the girls to wear at the wedding. I've started a conversation on Facebook with the bridesmaids and for the past two months or so we've been sending each other links and pictures in the hopes of finding the perfect shoes to go with the girls' bridesmaid dresses. Here are some of our finds:

1. SM Luxe Zesty Pump

So sad that these shoes are sold out in this color and nowhere to be found!

2. Neva by Nina

Really cute but at $99.95 they aren't an option.

3. Anne Michelle by Journee Women's 'Kylie-01' Ruffled Platform Stilettos

The grey was probably a good shade to go with the dresses but the closed toe didn't seem fun for a May wedding.



4. Grey jewel/feather trim shoes by Dorothy Perkins

Our absolute FAVORITE shoe. Unfortunately, it only comes in a size 9....which none of the girls are.

5. Cement Smooth Velvet Cluster Beaded Decor Peep Toe Pump Heels

Our newest faves! I think the other shoes will all be coordinated to this one.

Our search continues on for three fantasic pairs of grey shoes for the girls to wear. Wish us luck!!!