A Huge Dress Mess

I was dress-less and restless for a long time during my process.  It's really not a good way to be as all the opinions, pros, and cons begin swimming through your mind and cause one to become VERY, VERY, VERY confused.

I can has Indecision (source)

Who doesn't like a place card?

I have a confession to make.  I'm not really a fan of those big, giant generic centerpiece table numbers that many venues allow you to use.  I knew from the beginning of planning that I wanted something a little cooler.  At first, I thought I could use the idea of the Mad Hatter's hat and put the table numbers IN the hat...

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OK, yeah.  Maybe not such a good idea.  But don't worry, a few weeks later I came up with a GREAT idea.

Venue Vents

Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about finding a venue.  This was pretty difficult for me.  Before I was officially engaged, I had my heart set on getting married at Fallingwater, a home designed by the awesome architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

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                                                                             *swoon*

Hark! A Theme Awaits!

So what's the first thing you did when wedding planning?  Instead of doing all of those practical things, like picking a date or a church, I decided to pick a theme.  And then another.  And then another.  Since we're just starting to get to know each other, I'll quickly show you the themes that could have been...

1.) Originally, I fell in love with a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme.  The colors: Tiffany black, blue, and silver.  I wanted the emphasis to be black, with the blue and silver VERY sporadically sprinkled in so it didn't look like too much.  At this point, I also wanted a very sleek sheath instead of a gown, which probably would have looked HORRID on me.  Here is a perfect inspiration board I found to illustrate the theme:

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I know you're thinking, "So beautiful and tasteful!  How did this plan go awry? " Well, I was browsing on modcloth.com, one of my favorites store for gorgeous affordable dresses, and I discovered...

The Attendants

I figured in these next string of posts I'd start writing about what I already have nailed down for the wedding, in the order I arranged them. I've read some places that you should wait until 6-8 months before the wedding to choose your attendants, but Mr. B and I wanted to choose ours ASAP.

The Bridesmaids...since we have 7, I have given them appropriate pseudonyms:

About Me

So who is this person who is going to be rambling on this site three to four times a week? Well, my name is Natalie and I am a 24 year old third year dental student at WVU. I was raised in Morgantown, WV, then went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH for undergrad to get my degree in Biomedical Engineering. At Case, I joined the sorority Delta Gamma, which is one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm currently back in Morgantown, learning how to drill and fill teeth. I enjoy running in my spare time, and have a disturbing obsession with almost anything that is sold by Anthropologie.

My fiance, let's call him Mr. Bicycle (I don't think he wants me divulging our names via the interwebz) is a 25 year old chemist at a large pharmaceutical company in Morgantown, WV. He grew up in Fairmont, the town next to Morgantown, and he went to WVU for undergrad. He's hoping to get into dental school and is applying this year. In his spare time he bikes. A lot.

Though Mr. B and I grew up 20 minutes away from each other and had mutual friends, we never met growing up. In early 2009, I was having trouble meeting new people/dating prospects. This wasn't an issue in undergrad, because my school was smallish and had a lot of greek events/activities, so I met new people all the time. But in dental school, I was in school for 10 hours a day, then studying my brains out. No fun extracurricular activities=no way to meet an awesome guy. Anyways, I joined a dating site in hopes that maybe I'd meet someone interesting. Luckily, Mr. B was having the same issue and also joined the same site. He sent me a message, we went out, and have been almost inseparable since. We also own a yellow lab mix named Tsali, who occupies much of our time.

Mr. B decided to seal the deal last March. He asked me what rings I liked, and then tried to act like he didn't buy one after we went and tried some on. I was able to get it out of him, so the proposal was no surprise. I'm not really big into romance/surprises so that was fine with me.

We're getting married July 30, 2011 so I have plenty of time to get everything together. Right now it looks like we'll have between 300-350 people, so it's going to be pretty large. This means that I can't incorporate some of the elements I'd like to, but it should be fun to have such a large affair.

First Post

So, I never thought I'd be starting a blog, but here I am! I'm getting married next July and wanted to start this blog to:
1.) Help organize my thoughts
2.) Give family and friends some insight to what I'm up to for the wedding
3.) Swap ideas with other bloggers...I've been lurking on many blogs for months and I think it's time I finally come out of the woodwork.
4.) Hold myself accountable for the DIY projects I'd like to do for my wedding. I'd like to make my wedding as unique and DIY as possible, but since I'm a full time student I know that I need to put things together well in advance and take some shortcuts where possible.

I'm excited to update this blog and get feedback for the next year. Later, I'll write a post about the two of us and how we met.
-Natalie