he popped the question!

So we are engaged! Best day ever, super romantic, and fantastic. Let the "real" wedding planning begin!

wedding dress fabric....

I found my dress fabric.... its cotton swiss dot! A little something like this dress picture....Matt's mom will be sewing my dress, and she found the fabric in Denver, its just beautiful! The little dots should give a beautiful subtle texture to the dress and the cotton will be so airy and summery...the dress pattern is a beautiful, simple, empire-waist, floor length summer dress...it just all feels so right...its the one! :) I have tried on the mock-up dress to see if I liked the pattern and how it fit...it was absolutely gorgeous, Matt's mom did a great job!!! I believe in April I will have the final dress fitting...yay!!

backyard inspiration....

Croquet...YES. Matt and I will be attempting to make our own, thanks to Tracy's Gopher Downs Game.

wedding accessories....

I love both of these looks.... it will be cold enough at night to wear a bolero right?!

Rings Part 2....

Some new ring ideas.... Aren't they pretty all together? Recycled silver, very organic, fun texture...they may even look nice with my tappered fingers. Maybe thats pushing it?

the colors and house inspiration...

Here are some of our favorite things in our house that show the colors we are planning our wedding around. There is also a picture of our IKEA plates we bought, and the paint swatches we picked out.

green - yellow - white - brown

boots 'n flowers

...I think I will be making these for the boys.... groom, best man, groomsmen, and our dads.


Maybe something like a flower for the hair for the girls...bride, maid of honor, brides maids, and moms? I love these silky- DIY- flowers...

Plates...

When shopping at IKEA 3 weeks ago Matt and I saw plates to buy for $.59 each. (Cheaper than renting plates, and we'd get to re-use them) They were off-white, simple, and cheap. Just this weekend we went back after thinking about it for awhile and they were still there! So we bought 120 plates, already packaged up so that when we move it couldn't be easier. We are not sure on the final guest count yet.... but 120 should cover us. What we will do with 120 plates after the wedding we do not know... matt suggests skeet shooting.... there has to be a better idea...

JARS!

Matt had this great idea that our guests could drink out of pint mason jars for the beer, sangria, and water. We just so happened to look on craig's list and respond to a posting "12 mason jars for $4." We called. We drove out to the columbia gorge and found a gold mine! TONS and TONS of jars in an estate-type sale. We came home with 124 pint drinking jars, 12 mason jar vases, 2 old glass bottles, a bike, a huge serving speckled pan, rustic old pale, and a tin bowl for serving.... all $45!!! Fantastic!! We came home and washed them all, dryed them and just loved starring at them. Hopefully it will look like this...

...just like the jars at the pickle barrel in Fort Collins to serve beer...

signs

love these signs!

photography

The idea of having our friends and family take photos throughout the wedding is great! Candid, personal, fun, and priceless. So maybe having a bunch of disposable cameras sitting on tables would be awesome.... or maybe these kid's digital cameras?! You can upload them, smaller file sizes, easy to use, and it cuts down on developing costs later. $19 for this one. Fun idea, Matt.

pic: adorama

save the date cards

I love these ideas for a save the date card. I want to have unique cards that show our personalities, as well as giving an idea as to what kind of a wedding we will be having. We are a ways off from making them, but it doesn't hurt to plan.

pics: abackyardwedding , $2000 wedding , manolo brides

Location...

California? Colorado? Idaho?...It's tough to choose a location for the wedding with our families living in different states, and us in another. We really want to have an outdoor wedding during the summer. Idaho would be easier for us to plan and prep for. But...there seem to be an absence of trees in the lower quadrant of the state, which makes me very sad because I can picture our wedding with lots of trees around. We won't be getting married in a church- it's just not a part of our life, but we do feel very close to nature and want that incorporated. We also really want to have a great wedding weekend to spend with our family and friends. If we could find a place that most of our guests could stay at for a few nights, cheaply, comfortably, and easily we could all be together! Breakfast, dinner, wedding, drinks, bonfire.... maybe a game or two...cranium anyone?! Sounds perfect. So maybe a lodge, summer camp, or just a vacation home. We also need it to be reasonably close to a major airport, because most of our guests will be flying in I assume.

Some runner-ups:

-Knotty Pines in Idaho City, ID- 35 minutes from Boise.

-Eagle Eye Ranch in Granby, CO -93 miles from Denver.

bridesmaid's dresses

I got this idea from "a lovely morning's" wedding, she pulled it off so beautifully. Instead of choosing a dress for your bridesmaids let them choose! What a great idea. Our colors will be green, yellow, and white. So they can all choose a shade of a green dress and together it could look really sharp and lively.

Hair...

I love her hair-do! Perhaps I should start growing mine out now...

wedding dress

I love these dresses, but I am struggling with the idea of an outdoor wedding being a little more casual- but I really want a white, long, dressy wedding dress. So this one in white, with an ivory sash?! It would be great made out of cotton... maybe eyelet/swiss dott, with little linen ribbon straps. Matt's Mom has offered to sew the dress...it will be so beautiful!!

...some inspiration...

The whole idea behind setting up our own blog is that there are so many great ideas out there we want to pull it all together! So here is a bit of the feeling we'd like to have at our wedding... an outdoor/backyard/self-catered/ DIY wedding. We will be recruiting friends and family to help us, and a lot of prep work to have it run smoothly and just have a ton of fun uniting two families.

I love...wildflower bouquets, buffet tables for appetizers/desserts, ribbons hanging from the trees, outdoor string lighting, mason jar candles, mason jar vases, chalkboard menu.

pictures: a backyard wedding, pottery barn book- outdoor spaces, martha stewart, buffet table

Rings!!

We fell in love with these rings after trying on countless rings at jewelry shops that really just didn't feel like us. We weren't finding the craftsmanship that we had envisioned until we found green lake jewelry works out of Seattle, WA. We will be customizing these rings further and my ring will incorporate some family diamonds to make it that much more sentimental. Matt's will probably be palladium, in a matte finish. They have been a joy to work with so far, I can't wait to see the finished product!

Our First Blog

So...we aren't bloggers but we thought this would be a great tool to centralize all of our wedding plans, ideas, and get comments from others. So please let us know if you have any suggestions! Thanks!