When it rains, it pours!

Shower number two is tomorrow at a winery. Should be fun!

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this pretty phone. I finally am eligible for an upgrade and this green machine will be my new companion starting next week. Holla!

My eff it moment (in a good way)

It happened today. I was looking at a wedding blog I love to hate (a smidge tightly wound, but such pretty pictures!) and saw a series of pictures from a wedding that was so pretty and sincere, I felt like I was there. I knew that was what I wanted and no amount of micromanaging or information sharing would make that happen. So, I e-mailed my photographer and let him know that I was letting go. He has the schedule and you know, the creativity, so I'll stop fussing and just get ready to party hardy.

Let me tell you, this. feels. awesome. We picked some delightful vendors who are talented and trustworthy, so as long as they have the logistics down, I'm just going to step back and let them make their part shine. Let them do what they do best. And me, I'll be doing what I do best - smush me-ness and HTB-ness and us-ness all over the wedding in the next few weeks and then just soak up all the fun.

Only 46 more days of being a fiance, so I better get to soaking up that fun, too.

Buh-tay-duhs

Last night, wandering the aisles of the grocery store, I spotted a huge crate of speciality pumpkins (i.e. whites ones I am trying so very hard to grow on my own). Alas, at $5 a pop, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Spurred by my find and the need to gussy up our reception table, HTB suggested we consider using butternut squash instead. Similar color and still a very fall-ish veggie. I concurred and decided that if my pumpkins fall short of my goals, I'd be running to the supermarket the night before the wedding for some gourds.

Could have stopped there, right? Problem solved with butternut filler squash.

No. I was determined to squeeze one more good idea from the produce section. And so was born the idea of a potato and onion centerpiece. I was half-way joking, but HTB seemed to like the idea and the more we talked, the better it sounded. Pretty piles of russets, yams and fingerlings, all softly lit by a sea of tealights - earthy and harvest-y, right?

See, I'm not alone!

I'm not sure this idea will ever make it to my wedding, but it really put my mind at ease to know that last-minute centerpieces will be just blocks away if my tables are looking nekkid the day before the wedding!

What are some of the more unconventional centerpeices you've seen?

One down, nineteen-ish to go!

Oooo, ya all. Check out these seven mini pumpkins, as grown by yours truly! These, plus some tealights nestled in rice in vintage glasses will make a lovely centerpiece for one of our reception tables.

We're doing different centerpieces on each tale and I hit the jackpot this weekend. A local greenhouse/pumpkin patch/Christmas tree farm, Howells, also dries flowers. A short drive from Des Moines, I climbed up into the loft of a barn and picked out about ten pounds of perfect dried flowers. I also met this guy:

Needless to say, I was one happy lady! Flowers: check. Pumpkins: check (and more on the way!).

Bridal showers = muy awesome

The bridal shower was a raucous success. We had fun, delicious food and someone named me got amazing presents! I know it's "just stuff," but I was moved by how much everyone did. Lovely gifts from the registry, amazingly thoughtful and sometimes handmade presents I'd never think of asking for. Plus, my heart was warmed knowing that in years to come, I'll look at all this stuff and tell people, "Oh, LaDiDa got that for me for my bridal shower."

Place settings (please, don't judge us for our economical beverage choices. )

TP brides and me!

Hedge clippers! (note to self: at next bridal shower, cross yo' damn legs!)

Mom, me and Ms. B, one of the shower hosts. How awesome is this picture?

Grocery list of a mad woman

HTB and I are having our bachelor/bachelorette parties on different night because mine requires about a dozen people to travel, so schedules were wonked like whoa. His is going to be a pretty full day from what I hear, so I am relishing the thought of all that alone time in a few weeks. To fully embrace the solitude, I'm planning a big trip to the grocery store (because the highlight of any day is the food). Here's what you might find in my shopping cart pre-My Big Solo Day of Fun:

• EZ Cheese (Cheddar and Bacon flavors)
• Hot Dogs (normally Oscar Meyers would do, but HTB got me hooked on Nathan's, so an upgrade is in order)
• Butterfly crackers
• Buns
• Keebler sandwich cookies (sweet baby James, I hope they still make these)
• Stouffer's lasagna (for four, not eight. I am working on my girlish figure, after all)
• Busch Light
• Sweet pickles

And that my friends, is a peek into my super secret, trailerperson soul. I have no idea how I developed such a love of processed food and the Charlie Daniels Band, but here I am.

Long gone

Happy three-day weekend! I’ve got quite a bit of fun in store (as well as a three-day blog hiatus) – my first wedding dress fitting, my first bridal shower and a family BBQ. As if all this wasn’t good enough, I’ll do all this sporting a mani (OPI’s Tickle My France-y) and pedi (OPI’s Crepes Suzette), delicious new perfume (Marc Jacobs’ Lola) (if I could spray some directly up my nose without doing serious damage to the old sniffer and, possibly, gray matter, I would. It’s that good) and one of those hip circle scarves all you fashionistas run around in (clearance rack at Target - less than $6!).

Hope you all have fun, too! Catch ya next week.

Like Christopher Columbus, I am.

Dear fellow November brides,

We are going to be OK. I just discovered a fifth weekend in October I didn't know existed. I thrust a flag in it and proclaimed it as a time to get a hair and makeup trial, organize boxes of decorations and finalize the seating chart. Standing on the brink of this brave new weekend, I knew that these 48 hours would be what separated us from harried savages. No, this extra weekend is what will deliver us to the heights of bridal calm and organization. Rejoice, dear friends, rejoice! A fifth weekend in October will save your behind and you know it.

Yours,
a

P.S. On the reals, this revelation made me super happy. Here I was thinking I only had three weekends without travel/house guests before the wedding. WRONG! I've got four blissful weekends! Huzzah!

Signs I Might Be Crazy, Installment Two

I was reading a fitness article that had a call-out about "high knee kicks." And I giggled. Heiney kicks? Bwahahaha

A glow of my own

A while back, Mrs. Peep Toe on the Weddingbee (do you know the Weddingbee? You should. Trot over and meet the delightful bridal bloggers they found!) did a series of posts about finding her bridal glow. She defined the glow as a true physical attribute, but I'm finding the glow is more about your mindset and less about your look.

I do believe I found my bridal glow yesterday. A few wedding-related things went down that made me feel "like a bride" (something I thought was cheesy until it all hit me) instead of a girl who is damn lucky to get to hang out with her favorite person the rest of her life.

To start, local people got my wedding invitations yesterday! I got a few compliments on the little darlings, which made my day. Literally everyone in my family (including Nana, the little workhorse) helped with the invites. HTB and his parents, along with two of my sisters friends, and my bridesmaid also got in on the invite action. They were such a labor of love. I'll show them to you sometime.

Then, I got the invitation to my bachelorette party in the mail! My sister is known far and wide for her poetry prowess, and these invitations did not disappoint. Again, maybe I will share sometime.

On top of all this, my bridal shower is this weekend! Four super gals are throwing me a luncheon and I can't wait to celebrate with them.

So, all this has me feeling quite bridal. BUT, not in a cheesy way. Not as in, I'm-stressed-and-striving-for-perfection-and-running-millions-of-errands-and-ahhhhh! As in, people are doing amazingly thoughtful things for HTB and I and I'm so excited to sit back and soak in all this love! Being surrounded by my nearest and dearest is what I look forward to most about the actual wedding, so doing it before hand is what's making me feel bridal.

How 'bout you? You feeling the bridalness?

Exterior decorating

I won my first blog giveaway today! Ms. Shawna Coronado at The Casual Gardener did a post about these lovely Incredible Spirit hydrangea (proceeds benefit The Breast Cancer Research Foundation) and I won a hydrangea and Rose of Sharon bush! Yippeee!

Now, I'm reading up on what these lovlies need to thrive and trying to decide on the perfect spot for them. I've got a huge, flat yard and it lacks some visual interest, so I was thrilled to win this prize. We planted a willow and dogwood two weekends ago to spice things up and these two bushes will add some lovely color.

In other news: my first bridal shower is this weekend! Not only is this MY first bridal shower, it is also my FIRST bridal shower (you follow?). As in, I've never been to one before and this will be the first (of two) for my own wedding. I don't know what all is in store, but the invitations were precious (they matched my wedding invites and as a branding-obsessed gal, I was quite happy)! Any advice for a bridal shower noob?