Color board

I attempted to put together a color board of inspiration for a color scheme that I may or may not choose for our wedding. The FFG is really fine with whatever, has a few ideas and preferences, but really just wants it to look good, so he'll go along with anything I come up with. I showed him this color board this evening when I finished it, and he really liked the scheme.

It's different than what we originally had in mind, but I think it's pretty, and it's at least a) something physical [well, digital, but visible] that I can actually see, not just in my head, and b) a starting point to get my creative juices flowing about this. Maybe tweaking a few things here and there will help with finding the right venue to hold it.

My inspiration came from a few things, but mostly my love of all things Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen as a whole. I'm not the type to go so crazy over a cliche like this and make my bridesmaids all wear Edwardian period dresses with cap sleeves and empire waists that make them look prego.

I'm in to inspiration, not imitation.

But, as much as I *heart* Colin Firth, I've been known to say that the newer P&P on screen with Keira Knightly is like a moving art piece. With it's visually stunning use of color, and (sometimes unneccesarily impressive) staging and scenary, as well as a soundtrack to melt one's stubbornly Elizabeth Bennet heart, it always seems to bring out the romantic in me.

Like I said: I may or may not make use of this color board for my wedding. That being said, regardless of what I choose, I encourage anyone who may find this to be inspirational to them to go ahead and use some (or all) elements of it for their own. Someone ought to get some use out of it.

I will, of course, be working diligently on my next color board: Pride and Prejudice... and Zombies.

Venues

Finding a rental hall is next to impossible in this area.

Oh, don't get me wrong - it's not that they aren't available.

But, even if they weren't all booked up 2 years in advance, they're all way out of my price range.

About a year ago, long before we were engaged, I checked out a place called Windows on the River. It's an old converted powerhouse building. It's just the type of setting the FFG and I would like to have this little shindig - brick walls, city view, even a great spot on the river that spills out in to Lake Erie. It'd be perfect for an urban-jazz coffee house. Good news: they cover everything - food, rentals, bar, centerpieces, cake. Bad news: it's still out of our price range.

But, ever since my mother attended a wedding there about a month ago she's been obsessed. I mean obsessed. She spends every conversation talking about what a great deal this place was. I even diplomatically tried to direct her toward researching some other details for me before she drove me nuts. No dice.

So, I finally emailed them. And, sure enough - even after asking them if they can give me any breaks by excluding some of the extras or changing the menu - they can't budge much on the price.

So, after close to two months of engagement, I am no closer to having a venue booked.

So what's next? Well, we have a friend who is an ordained minister and has offered to officiate our wedding. We're going to talk to him in a couple weeks in our first pre-marital counseling session and see if his church has a place where we could hold a reception. That would kill two birds with one stone: ceremony and reception site (both of which are still in question).

Wish me luck... this is going to be tough.

Pretties!

Je t'adore! This jewelry from made by moe (coursety of something old, something new) is so refreshing! And at an average price of around $30? Makes wedding jewelry totally affordable, not to mention bridesmaids gifts! Still too pricey for each of your 10 bridesmaids? No problem - with at least a dozen pieces $15 and under, you can find something special for each of them, and still keep it Frugally Fabulous. I'm in!




In case you didn't catch it, that's a working compass necklace up top - how original! And I would totally wear these down the aisle, I'm not even kidding:




Wouldn't that look so fantastically quirky for pictures?




There's even a necklace that bears my name. What could possibly be more perfect? I think it's a sign...

Budget goodies for my lovelies!!!

If you are anything like me, you might find this helpful. I looked around at SOOO many websites trying to find a realistic budget to work from, and all I found were calculators that told me to plug in a grand total and they'd tell me what to do with it. This did make things easy since I:

a) wasn't planning to use many items they included
b) had no idea what was a sane number to use.

Never-the-less, as I researched, I found out how much some expenses would reasonably be in my area, and I kept plugging in figures until it gave me that number for that item. Here's a list of some of the calculators that I found most helpful. I highly recommend these - they're not law by any means, but they give you such a good place to start:

Our Dream Wedding
This tool is my favorite one because it has all of the features I could hope for: you enter a budget, total guests invited, total guests expected to show, bridal party size, AND your area code; you can eliminate any fields you don't want to include in your budget and it automatically recalculates the remaining balance in to the rest of your budgeted items; and if you want to spend more or less on an item, you can change it manually and it will recalculate the rest. It also has a fairly inclusive list, so you won't forget anything. I <3 The Knot
If you have an account with theknot.com, try their calculator. I'm not a huge fan of it - you can eliminate any items you don't want to budget for, but it won't recalculate the remaining money back in to your budget, and it doesn't let you manually change any of the figures - but you can keep track of your spending as you go along. Convenient, if you already use them for other features.

Out of the Ordinary
With this calculator, you can change the percentage that you want to spend on different items, instead of the dollar amount, but it can be a little frustrating to navigate sometimes. Still a worthwhile tool, though.

I could list a few others, but they're actually pretty lame-o.

So, I know I just told you that using budget calculators sucked, and led you to believe that I'd give you something more useful. Well, they do (kind of). And, I will.

Use the calculators... they are your friends once you know what the hell you're doing. But, in addition to that, I'm going to provide you with something to help you even more:

My own budget.

But, not today. I'm still working on a realistic figure, and I eventually have to present this figure (with the FFG) to our two sets of parents and see if they think we're sane. Then, once everything is etched in stone, I'll share all of the dirty details and let you in on every gruelling moment of trying to stick to it. If all goes well, I'll share a final total with you in about a year. If not, I'll share a much smaller final total with you in a few months, once the FFG and I get home from Vegas.

I'm kidding. He hates Vegas. We'd find somewhere more romantic to elope.

invitation station

This was posted at iDiY - isn't this brilliantly personal? The groom actually put this together himself. Holla for creative geniuses! The FFG and I are thinking about doing our own invites, and I'm pretty sure we could put something like this together if we tried. It'd totally rock our guests' faces off. Courtesy of Talda over at it's love actually....Go check it out!

More inspired ideas to come... stay tuned!

FFB

Sweet.. like candy

*unnecessarily loud intake of breath*

Pardon my gasping.

I could just DIE over the deliciousness of this entire wedding! Granted, the photography is half of what makes it... but isn't it drop-dead worthy?

Oh, wedding envy. Take thy dagger from out my heart.

Is it possible that these people had a budget under $15k?

What if I said "pretty please?"

*le sigh*

Sometimes, the Frugal Fabulous Groom says things that make me want to burst in to a million little golden pieces of light and scatter about the universe like marbles on linoleum.

Yesterday, while we're watching tv and just trying to relax after a stressful day, he says this to me: "You're very relaxing to come home to."

me: really??

ffg: yeah. It's nice to just bask in your presence.

me: *melting into a puddle* sigh.

***************

Edit (10:45 PM): I'm pretty sure, if I ever have a baby girl, I will design her bedroom around this painting by Edward Hughes.

Coffee? Tea? Me?

Have I mentioned our "theme?"

No, we're not having a "themed" wedding. But everyone needs a starting point.

Perhaps I'll call it our "vision" instead.

The Frugulous Groom and I are combining two things that are important to us: his love of coffee, and my love of jazz. He was a barista at Starbucks before he landed a job in the Plain Dealer's advertising department last month, and I majored in music for 5 years before I realized my talent was mediocre and I should do something I actually thought I could get good at (hence my returning to school as an interior design major this time).

It seems only fitting that we should crank out a wedding with an open espresso bar (in lieu of alcohol?) and a four-piece, live jazz band.

Now if only we could find a caterer who has an espresso machine...

She said "Yes!... but what exactly do I do with this?"

My engagement ring is a thing of beauty. Even more so because it was free.

Years ago, a married-couple-friend of mine from church came to me and told me that God had told them to give me a carat-and-a-half, princess cut diamond ring that the wife had lying around the house. Well, it wasn't exactly lying around the house. It was actually her favorite ring above anything else in the world (including her husband - now you see the problem), but... po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Hey, who am I do say "no" to God... especially when there's jewelry involved?

I promised myself that if I ever got married, that would be "the one ring." Not like Frodo's "one ring"... but close, when you think about my friend. Anyway...

Years later, my Frugal Fabulous Boyfriend-at-the-Time and I had a rough go of it at first. I had baggage like anyone else and was having trouble trusting this poor, honorable boy who just wanted to make me *deliriously* happy. (Was that so much to ask?) After about 2 or 3 months of indecision and gastro-intestinal distress (I have issues you're not prepared to deal with), I visited him at college and took him a care package with the usual stuff: homemade cookies, handwritten letters, a diamond ring, ramen...

The ring about floored him. But it was one of the best things I ever did. It took that big of a gesture on my part to let him know that I was taking a leap of faith on this one and I was willing to risk being hurt if it didn't work out, because - he was worth it.

Over two years later, he had it cleaned up and sized down a bit... and gave it back to me.

I'm thrilled to have it (and the promise that came along with it), but why didn't anyone ever tell me how awkward it is to live with? How you ask yourself silly questions about wearing it in the shower, or to bed, or when you wash your hands, put on lotion, do the gardening, pee... you name it, I've asked it. It's been over a month now, and I'm still wondering:

What exactly am I supposed to do with this?

Genesis

We've been planning this wedding for about 2 1/2 years.

We've been engaged for approx. 1 month.


Obviously, things haven't gone as we originally planned.


Now, with a ring finally on my finger (although the jeweler seems to have it in for that) and our finances in order, the Frugal Fabulous Groom and I are forging ahead at a steady pace!

But just because one of us has a new better-paying job doesn't mean we can afford to go broke on this wedding. With his father between jobs and my parents feeling the squeeze of an unstable economy too, it's going to be tough to pull off the wedding of our dreams with the budget of our nightmares.

But you know the old saying: when the going gets tough, the tough spend hours researching online to find the best deal.

And so begins my journey to plan a Frugal Fabulous wedding in one year. You're all invited to come along for this crazy ride.

Wish me luck!