Bouquet Inspiration

On to the flower portion of the wedding planning.  Last night I met with a florist to get an idea of bridesmaids bouquets.  There are so many pretty inspriation pictures on Pinterest that I'd printed off to show her so she could tell me what will be in season, what will wilt easily and what won't...all that good stuff. 

the one on the left, from here

from here

 

I love the crespedia (the little round ones), but heard they are hard to come by and fall apart easily.  Luckily there's a good altermative in these mini mums (I forget their proper name) but they have the same feel and I enjoy them so we'll have a few of those in there.



this picture doesn't want to center itself, but it's from here

I also L-O-V-E the look of the succulents tucked in the second bouquet from the top but can't imagine how they'd stay in there.  Maybe these are just magazine shots and not practical, actually used, bouquets?  But Darryl's mom used to work in a flower shop back in the day and she suggested using eucalyptus!  She found a generic grocery store bouquet (which, to be honest with you, I loved the look of on it's own anyways...can't I just buy those as our bouquets???  lol) that had some in it and I really like it... 

 

This is only a fraction of the bouquet, as I divided it between a couple vases, but the general tone/colours I love.  Nice and bright and sunshiny.  But see the sprig of eucalyptus in there?  I think it looks great and just may use that as an alternative to the succulents.  It has the same tones/colour and gives the bouquet that wilder, more scooped-up-from-the-fields look than a perfectly manicured bouquet.  And actually, the wall colour is looking quite similar to what the girls' dresses will be and I think it's a pretty backdrop  :)

And I haven't decided if I want to buy the boutonnieres or if I want to attempt to make some non-floral one, similar to these...

here

here

here

...or maybe throw in a teeeeeeeny tiny little brooch bling in Darryl's to go with my bouquet? Or maybe it will be less stressful to just have them made??  Decisions decisions...

Anyhoo, I hope you all enjoy your weekend!  I'm looking forward to a quieter, slower paced, drier weekend than the one we had last weekend!

Any fun bouquets/boutonnieres you've seen on pinterest or anywhere else lately?  How about plans for the weekend?

Saying Thank You

I was on the hunt a few weeks ago for some thank you cards for the brooch shower my sister hosted,  After not too long I happened upon these pretty little guys at Chapters which just happened to be in our colours.  Love when things work out like that!

So pretty!  I love me some nice stationery.

And since we're on the topic, the next piece of stationery we're dealing with are our invitations.  We decided to print them ourselves...but we can't get past the road block of having the cardstock feed through the printer!  It keeps saying there is no paper when there is.  I have a feeling it's because the top and bottom of the invites are not squared off, they are rounded so it's not registering that there's paper in there?  Anyways, it's our mission to get that figured out this week so that we can send them out in the next week or two!

Did you print your own invites for a wedding/event?  Was it easy peasy or would you not recommend it to anyone?  What are we in for...!

Wet N' Wild

I don't know where in the world you're located, but for anyone in the Toronto region, was that not the wildest weekend weather ever!?  Especially on Friday!  At the end of our street an old, old tree came down from all that wind and took out the corner of some crack house's someone's roof and was pulling down the power cables, it was all very dramatic with the police and fire blocking off the street for hours. 

But I didn't have time to snoop as I was off to participate in the Relay For Life cancer fundraiser.  An overnight walk from 7pm until 7am.  Yes, over night in that insane weather.  Luckily all overnight activities got cancelled because tents were being ripped apart and coming down, we were soaked to the bone and it was WINDY!  We managed a couple of laps before we left at least, and the main thing is that our team reached it's goal of raising $5000! 

On Saturday we helped Darryl's (brand-newly engaged!) sister move into her very first house - exciting!!  Sadly I don't have any pictures of that...I'm going to say that's because I was so busy being a big help  ;)

Then Sunday Darryl and I had our first Dragonboat Regatta to attend!  I thought it was very exciting and a wonderful way to spend the day...

We raced in 4 races throughout the day, two 500m and two 200m races.  Our first 500m we got third in our heat and in the B division and were EXHAUSTED!!  Five weeks of training (which really equalled only 4 classes as one was cancelled due to the weather) can not prepare you for the stamina you'll need to do one of those...nevermind the other 3 we still had to do!  ha! 

Our first 200m wasn't that great, and the second 500m was atrocious as we were all pooped...but the last 200m of the day we gave it our all and came in second in our division!  woot!  We got poured on with the rain that came during our last race, but luckily it was time to head home after that and warm up. 

PS. You'd think they'd at least give out participation ribbons.  But since we got a silver and a bronze, here we are with the trophy...



...that we wished we'd won

Our bronza and silver sound better than they actually are...There's the A division which is the best of the best (about 6 teams), then the A Consolation division which is next best (another 6 teams) and then our B division...but considering it goes all the way down to the D Consolation division, we're pretty happy with being in the top half anyways!


My wrists are throbbing from all that oar action as I type this so I'm going to leave it at that!

How was your weekend?  Did you experience any crazy weather too...were you able to keep out of it, or did you get drenched as well?

Bridesmaid's Dresses

Ok so this is the post that has been giving me so much grief with the pictures.  So I snuck them in over my lunch at work and finished up the text at home.  I guess until I figure out what is up with my computer that's how I'll have to be posting.

I had wanted to show our bridesmaids dress shopping experience from about a month ago!  Initially I was going to ask the girls to just pick a grey dress that they liked, but then we decided to go dress shopping to see if there was anything out there that we liked.  At the first 2 stores we didn't have too much luck and the selection wasn't great.  Here's the only one we said could maybe be a contender.  The picture looks much nicer than I remember thinking it was in person.  Very cute and flattering, but we weren't sure about the belt (and it wouldn't be in purple) and the side view wasn't as flattering as the front...

Thank you to my wonderful sister for being my model and trying on any and all dresses I threw her way...while my mum took care of baby Lily.

Off we went to the next store where we had so much more luck (we did stop at another store before this one and quickly walked back out again as all the dresses either looked like they were made from grandmothers-of-the-bride, or like they had been on the racks since 1992). 

We narrowed it down to two final dresses, this being one of them.  Again, not in this colour, but we loved the one strap look for a late summer wedding.  It also had good structure as we kept thinking we'd like a taffeta or some material like this because we've always found it to be more flattering/forgiving...

This one I remember I had tried on for my sister's wedding almost 3 years ago, so we thought it would be fun to have Kyla try it on too.  We loved the rouching (I have no idea how to spell that word) to the one side where the fabric bunches together, but there was just something that didn't make it stand out as much as the dress above...

Again, not this bright orange, although it is a fun colour.

Finally she tried on a dress that, on the rack we nearly passed over because of the material alone.  We had tried on many dresses in this softer, flowier material, and found that it only emphasized everything you didn't want to be emphasized.  But we were in good spirits and thought what the heck, what's the harm in trying it on!...

As if this girl had a 5 week old baby!

And then we fell in love...it was so flattering, so fun, so feminine and we thought it would be a style that most of the other bridesmaids would be comfortable in (what a task alone that is, trying to find something to appeal to 4 different girls!)  At first the sales associate said that if we didn't like it, the strap could be removed, but after more and more gazing, we really liked it.  This one also had the "rouching" above and below the waistband which is really quite flattering.  It was hard to try to picture it in a different colour, we even loved the colour as it was, but we're going with soft grey dresses for a lighter, more summery look.

So all the girls have ordered their dresses and now we wait.  I hate waiting.  I want to see them now!  They're supposed to be in by the end of July and then they'll have to be altered and such but I'm dying to see what they'll look like in the colour we chose!

So that's our wedding installment for the time being, I'll be sure to do more as it gets closer to the date!

Any bridesmaids dresses/shopping experiences worth sharing?  Dress from hell, or ones you loved? 

Help Part 2

Just when we thought everything was right as rain...my pictures are still not working!!  Janice can put pics in my blog posts no problemo, but for some reason I can't.  I'm pretty sure it's not just my less-than-techy-mind because Janice gave me such simple, straight forward step-by-steps, and yet?  No pictures!

So I'm thinking maybe it's my computer??  I'm going to throw it out there...does anyone have ideas as to why blogger isn't interpreting the html codes I'm copying and pasting (from Flickr) into my posts? 

In other news, one thing we're getting closer to settling on is what to do with the front porch.  For a while we were on standby because we both thought that our idea was the best (and probably still do lol) but the reality is that it's our house so we have got to compromise.  We chatted about some solutions last night.  I am willing to do the iron spindle thing, but the only thing I really really don't like is when a front porch looks like a back deck (with plain wood).  So I suggested what about doing the black spindles but painting the wood white.  He doesn't mind the idea look-wise (although I have a hard time picturing it myself, I need to search for some inspiration pics) but doesn't want to paint the wood because any water will cause it to bubble and peel.  But this is 2012, surely there's got to be weather-resistant paint out there somewhere, no??
Anyhoo, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  We got a little more gardening done, did some running around and generally had a more laid back weekend as next weekend is jam packed!! 

I'm off to search for some black spindled-white railinged front porches!

Have any computer tips to share?  Get any gardening done??  Have you painted outdoor wood and has it held up to the elements?

I Love Long Weekends!

Well after a weekend of pestering Janice who was so kind and helpful with my picture issues, I'm still having some trouble.  All of her tips and advice (and yes, even a little video tutorial!) and I still can't figure it out!  She's got one more way to try to help this non-computer-savvy girl out.  If all goes well I'll have picture-posts again soon...Thank you Janice!

We had such amazing weather this weekend I couldn't get enough of it, the sun really is an instant mood-booster, don't you think!?  We got lots of gardening done, which you'll just have to imagine for now.  But I swear we were hard at work!

We started a tiny veggie garden (tiny because I'm sure it won't survive the vicious squirrels we're housing back there and I don't want to waste money feeding those guys).  But we got some corn on the cob which I'm so excited about!  And a strawberry bush, watermelon, peppers, snow peas, tomatoes and some herbs.

Darryl's cousin was doing some gardening of her own and was kind enough to bring us some of her perennials (black eyed susans, succulent, hydrangea and lamb's ear...have you seen that stuff, it actually feels like a little lamb's ear!)  I still have 2 to plant, but hope they'll all survive the transplant from her garden to ours!

Our neighbours were also looking to get rid of 6 root balls of day lillies so we gladly took them and potted them (because I hear they can take over if they are planted in the ground so we'll see how they go). 

We also bought a little braided hibiscus tree.

Long weekends in general are fantabulous, but having such amazing weather was really more than we could have hoped for!

Sorry for the lack-luster post!!

Did you also get to some gardening?  Start/finish some projects?  Or did you just enjoy the weather?

Help!

I am trying to put together a post, for which I have all of the writing done but just need to add a few photos and then this message appeared...

"Whoops! You have run out of space. Purchase more storage.

 

Photos are stored in your Picasa Web Albums account and are included in your 1 GB free quota for photos. Additional storage that you purchase is shared between several Google products and is in addition to your free quota. Learn more"

 

What the heck!?  Has anyone else ever had this happen!?!?!

 

Anyhoo I'll have to fiddle around this weekend and see if I can come up with some solution (that does not require "purchasing more storage"). 

 

Enjoy your long weekend!  We hope to maybe get to some gardening and enjoying the warm weather that is coming our way.

 

What are your plans?