Welcome Letters

When Gregg and I visited his younger brother Kevin in Washington, D.C. (technically, really Alexandria, VA) in March, I was very excited to see an actual Paper Source store.

I was drooling over all the great stuff they had. I couldn't stay too long because I didn't want to bore Gregg and Kevin. But I did get to buy some paper for my welcome letters that I will place inside the OOT bags. Printing them didn't take too long. The twine I used to wrap around it was very difficult to tie, though, so this was yet another time-consuming project.

Maracas!

I also received my maracas last month. I was debating on having favors for the wedding. I already knew I wanted to have maracas for people to shake when they wanted us to kiss. I figured I'd just use the maracas themselves as favors. It also took FOREVER to print out these tags, remove each one from its sheet via their perforations (this was the hardest part because the perforations weren't very perforated at all), and then attaching the tags to each maraca.

Fortunately, my mom, Rich and I all had facials at my apartment last week. So mom helped me out and I finally finished it all that same day.

My OOT Bag and Survival Kit

I have been so busy doing wedding things that I haven't had too much time to update this blog and write about what I've actually been doing.

I received my OOT bags more than a month ago and it took forever, but I finally printed the tags that go with it, removed each (barely) perforated tag from its sheet, and then attached each one to a bag with a ribbon.

I've also printed out and cut to size the tops of my survival kits. Now all I have to do when I get to Isla Mujeres is fill up each biohazard ziploc bag that I got from work with items and then staple the top label to look like this:

Pashminas are on a roll!

I'm finally in the process of rolling up my pashminas and tying them up. As I mentioned in the last post, I spent an inordinate amount of time deciding on the tags to put on them. I bought a 2" circular puncher but originally thought it was too small. So then I was either going to buy a larger circular puncher or buy 2 1/2" circular flat cards and glue the 2" circle with the saying onto it. But I didn't want to go downtown to buy all this stuff and I didn't want to wait until it arrived in the mail if I ordered online. So I sucked it up and fiddled around with the design of the tag and just used the circular puncher I already had. Looks good enough to me.

I bought butter yellow and light gray pashminas from a wholesaler downtown at a great price. Here's a close-up of the saying on the pashmina:

I've only done about 12. 36 left to go! It's taking FOREVER!!!!

Less than 2 months!

Thank God. I can't wait until this is over. It really is pretty stressful. And most of the time it's the little things that I can't help but stress about. Take today for example: I just spent 3 hours trying to figure out what font I should use for my place cards. 3 HOURS. Googling place card images for ideas. Checking out fonts on dafont.com. Downloading fonts and trying them out using our guests' names. Printing out mock place cards. I now have a headache. But I think I've also finally chosen a font which is the font that we used for our names in our invitation.

Other little things that are taking up TOO much of my time:

1. Trying to figure out how to do my tags for the pashminas. They're going to be rolled up and secured with a ribbon and tag like this:

So I spent about an hour trying to figure out how I was going to design the tag, poring over people's Planning Threads on the bestdestinationwedding.com website (which is my new best friend/worst enemy) to see if I get inspired by other people's ideas. I think I'm going to end up with the simplest design, but whatevs. I bet people won't even look twice at the tag.

2. Wondering whether to have a menu or not. And if choosing to have a menu, what that design will be like.

3. Trying to figure out the program design.

4. Trying to mentally divide all the things I have to bring to Mexico amongst several people and wondering who will bring what and if it'll be too heavy and printing out receipts just in case they get searched by customs.

5. Getting people's itineraries. While I really do want to know when people are arriving and where they are staying, this is also a devious little method I'm using to find out who has or hasn't booked yet. I know people have RSVP'd "yes" but it's not final for me until they have their tickets! With the bridal entourage being the exception, of course. So far, I've encountered at least 2 couples who have retracted their "Yes" status by using this method. It works!

Other things to think about:

1. First dance choreography

2. Buy the veil and shoes

3. Get the maracas

4. Groomsmen and fathers gifts

5. Dresses for shower, welcome cocktails, rehearsal dinner

And many many more!! AAAAGGHHHH!!!

My Precious

Gregg and I had our rings made through the same jewelers that made my engagement ring. Since my wedding ring has to have a curve due to the engagement ring's low setting, I had to leave my engagement ring with the jeweler. I didn't know how much I'd miss that ring. My left hand felt like something was missing.

We finally got our rings today. Ah it felt nice to have my engagement ring back on my hand. And the wedding rings were pretty nice too.

I'm happy with our rings. I wasn't so sure how they'd turn out. But I think they look great.

Nightmare #3

This isn't a dream. I am officially over the guest limit. I'm just hoping those who haven't RSVP'd yet say no!

The butterflies in my stomach are back with a vengeance.