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So far, I’ve been back less than 48 hours, and while I’ve caught up on household errands, I’ve also managed to get into a minor fender bender.  A sideswipe really, my own fault.  I tried to get into the left turn lane and totally misjudged the width of my vehicle.  An error I don’t usually make, although…and here’s the bad news…it was my inlaw’s van.

I was lucky actually, all parties involved were unharmed, both vehicles are easily in driving condition.  And according to the cop, I probably won’t even get a traffic ticket.  My inlaws’ Winstar had some paint on it, along with some minor dents and scratches that are barely noticeable, and the other party, well, I hope there’s not too much damage either because I plan on picking that up on my own tab.

I guess that means this is one Mrs. that shouldn’t be driving a minivan

Anyway, we are starting to get photos back from the photog!  Here’s my favorite wedding picture so far, it was at our “first look”, where we got a moment to see each other before the ceremony and share our excitement and love together.

We’re about three months out from the wedding!  We still have one batch of invitations to send out, and then it’s off to the races.  So far, we’ve DIY’d our invitations, ceremony and reception favors, and reception centerpieces.  We also wanted to make our own cake, and so are in the process of figuring out the design.  We originally wanted to use fresh flowers to decorate the cake, but after reading so many warnings about pesticides and/or tiny insects messing up the frosting, I think we’ll steer clear of that.

I’ve also spent a good amount of time in front of a mirror playing with my hair and toying with makeup.  This is something I haven’t done since I was, oh…maybe 12?  It’s been fun, trying to achieve just the right windswept, casual, happy, look!

We’re also wondering right now, whether to pick our own songs and do an iPod playlist (we have a few songs picked out already), or hire a local jazz band.  I just sent out some requests for estimates, so we’ll see how those come back.  Either way, the brunch reception should be incredible.  A girlfriend and I had a private tasting a couple weeks ago, and the food was deeeelicious.  The chef saw we were thinking of offering french toast, so he did a couple variations for us, including one that was an off-the-cuff, spur of the moment creation.  And that one just about knocked my socks off, and I don’t even like french toast that much!  It had something to do with apples and caramelized brown sugar.  Dear goodness.  I hope I don’t pop out of my dress just looking at brunch.  Here’s a sneak peek…hopefully that’ll tempt you enough to RSVP!  :)

You know what…I think the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life is plan a wedding. Sure, the day “belongs” to Jeff and I, but the whole point of having a wedding ceremony and reception is to honor our friends and family. If we didn’t want to do that, it would be a lot simpler and cheaper to get married at City Hall and run off to Kauai for a honeymoon. But we actually want to celebrate with our family and friends, and because we love you all so much, we want the very best! We want the ceremony to be fun, we want the reception to be delicious, and we want the campout to be spectacular. But a lot of times, desire exceeds budget, and that causes a lot of frustration.

Luckily, Jeff and I both agreed that we wanted to make our own wedding invitations. Hopefully, this would save some cash, and add a personal touch to our nuptials. We took a class together, and just like in grade school, it’s easy to bond over paper cutouts and bowtied ribbons. It was a two and a half hour class, and we made four different “suites.” Each suite is tied to a certain design theme, like a fleur de lis. That theme is echoed through the invitation, the escort cards, the table tent, etc. While none of the suites we did really suited our style (say that ten times fast), we learned a lot of techniques that we will eventually apply to our final design.

After class, we spent an hour trying to figure out what elements we wanted to include. Did we want a pocket fold or a tri-fold? Did we want to do response cards with envelopes, or postcards? Embellished invitation, or clean and simple? Is this red too orangey? We ended up going home with a treasure trove of options. Piled it all on the dining table, and two hours later, we have a beautiful, unique invitation that carries a bit of both of us in it. It’s going to take awhile to make each one by hand, and in the end, it maybe only saved us $200 or so dollars, but I think worth it.