Put on your dancing shoes.....

Since I have been to a million weddings, I try to file away the really good, unique ideas that I have seen. This past September, I had a bride that was DIY crazy (like me) and had some amazing ideas. I decided I must use one of her ideas since I had never seen it......

She had bought Old Navy flip flops to save the women's feet from heels during the dancing! How thoughtful!

I receive points from my credit card and happened to score a $25 Old Navy gift card. On top of that, I went to oldnavy.com and signed up for their offers via email. I was immediately emailed a $10 off coupon on a $50 purchase. Also, what makes the deal even sweeter is that Old Navy offers free shipping on orders over $50. I always love a great deal and have to brag about scoring 20 pairs of flip flops (in my wedding colors of course) with tax, shipping, and all that jazz for a whole $17.70. A little less that .50 cents for a flip flop, or should I say a flip, or a flop! haha


Now I just have to remember to tell my Mom why she will be receiving 20 flip flops in the mail next week!

Get ready to dance and celebrate!! And don't worry about your feet-they'll be taken care of! : )
~A.
Amanda + Scott

Suit Up.

aI'll be honest with you. I'm not a perfect fiancee. I give terrible gifts. Awful, regrettable gifts. I can't recall the last time I cleaned my kitchen floor. I have, in the not too distant past, made Amanda watch a seven o' clock Liverpool game with me. I have even tried to get her to pretend to care.


But I have my good points! I wash dishes pretty regularly. On occassions, when I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I'll even make dinner. And, on the very rare days when I'm required to present myself to polite society, I can usually clean myself up and dress in a fairly respectable fashion.


So when Amanda asked me to write another wedding blog, I figured I'd help out with only the really worthwhile information I have stored inside my head that doesn't include the starting eleven of Liverpool's 2005 Champions League winning squad.* I thought I'd write a few tips for the guys out there who are looking a suit to look their best for the wedding. Because I care. And because Amanda won't watch another Liverpool game with me until I'm finished.




1 - The Fit Is Hard. The Fit Is Everything.


Buying a suit isn't easy. Most of us have absolutely no idea what we're doing. They all look a little bit alike, and they're almost unbelievably expensive. And, unless you're lucky enough to be an actively playing cornerback in the NFL, they are unlikely to fit you straight off the rack.
Don't believe me? Go to nordstrom.com. Click on the search box. Type in "42R". This is a pretty popular suit size. Count how many results you get.


Now type in 38L. I wear a 38L. How many do you have now, sucker?


I know. This is why I drink.


But we digress.


The point of this is not to depress you. The point is that no one gets the suit they want straight off the rack. The same goes for men's dress shirts, which are made by a secret cabal of easily annoyed Frenchmen and universally have sleeves two sizes too small.


So take a deep breath, and find a tailor. It's easier, and cheaper, than you think! And it the difference between a suit that fits you and a suit that looks like it was made for you.  Not a bad deal for about fifty bucks.


2 - Cheap Isn't Worth It


I am not a snobbish guy. Frankly, if I could convince WalMart to open a store in my living room, I would be a deeply satisfied human being. But the nasty, horrible, inconvenient truth of men's formal wear is this: You can tell when it's cheap.


Your wives and girlfriends will probably scoff at this, but it is almost universally more expensive to be a well-dressed man than a well-coiffered woman. And what's worse, cheap suits don't hold their shape well. They start to look a bit like you've wandered into your father's closet to dress yourself to work. It's not a good look for a guy.


And sure, you might look fine. But you don't want to look fine. You want to look like Matthew McConaughey, only with moderately better sex appeal. You want to look good enough that, if you were to happen to hang out in a bar with James Bond, and you and James met some women, they would later refer to you as, "James Bond’s much better-looking friend."


If all of this seems hard, don't worry. You know the best part? You don't have to pick it out yourself. Stores like Nordstrom pay a small army of sweaty, desperate, barely employable college graduates who would love to help you pick something out. They have better taste than you, they are more fashionable than you, and they work on commission, which pretty much guarantees they'd like to help you pick out something nice.  So go ahead. Leave this stuff to the professionals.


Which brings us to my third, and most important, point.


3 - It Is Not All Right To Let Your Wife Tie Your Tie


Sweet fancy Moses, man. I cannot count the number of people I've met, from highly skilled construction workers to ACTUAL NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS, who cannot manage a simple four-in-hand. I have met professional sailors, people who will voluntarily pilot a ten-foot skiff across the Pacific Ocean with a butter knife and a spool of bailing twine, who cannot face down a double windsor. I have spoken to rock climbers who trust their knot tying abilities to strap their bodies to the face of inverted cliff faces at heights that seriously endanger passing airplanes, who balk at the site of a double-knot. It boggles the bloody mind.


Man up, men. Teach yourself on Google. Download the app. Because, honestly, the only time someone should ever tie your tie for you is if you are five, or if you are currently being prepared for your funeral. Other than that, it's up to you.


*Dudek, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Traore, Alonso, Garcia, Gerrard, Risse, Kewell, Baros. In case you were wondering.

January Progress

Well January was a bit of a blur for wedding planning (along with all the other festivities)!

We managed to do the following:

• I took my calligraphy class which was about a 6 hour class on the second Saturday of the month. I have yet to practice but will do so soon-or that is what I keep telling myself : )
• We recovered nicely from the Bridesmaid dress hiccup. All of them are ordered and are due in April 7th. I picked up the color swatches from the wedding dress shop last week. For those of you who don't know, these color swatches are vital for the rest of the planning to pick out linens, shoes, tuxes, etc. : )
• I ordered my dress finally! I am thrilled and can't wait for the 5 LONG months it will take to get it here but it will be worth it.
• After a 2 day marathon, we are registered! More to come on that.
• The save the dates are in and we bought our stamps and envelopes. These will be going out very soon.
• Started getting bids on invitations.

And there is our wedding progress report! ~A.
Amanda + Scott

Hiccup...Hiccup...Hiccup....(hold breath)

We had a case of the hiccups this past week. The ever so dreaded "wedding hiccup." This what I like to call "an unforeseen event or situation, that pops up no matter how well you have planned that presents itself as a severe problem at the time."

I would like to state for the record that I did not act like a Bridezilla at all during this whole time : ) Honestly, I didn't. You can ask Scott. I was the perfect Bride.

Now during my years in the wedding industry I have encountered and solved many wedding hiccups.
Here's a list of a few that were seared into my memory:

• The one where the bride was pretty tipsy but at the end of the night, one of the bridesmaids blurted out in front of the MOB (Mother of the Bride) the secret information that the bride was pregnant.
• Or how about the one where the cake had gumpaste lilies falling off of it? Or better yet, the cake that was made by a close family friend of the bride that had these tiny little hairs covering it? Perhaps the lady had got a haircut that day? Or that's at least what I would like to think. I didn't eat cake that night!
• Lights going out during the reception
• Divorced parents acting like kids and refusing to sit in the same row during the ceremony
• The Groom being caught on fire by a sparkler (He was okay)
• The Maid of Honor forgetting the Groom's ring and I had to get the ring to the last bridesmaid so she could pass it down.
• Or my personal favorite, having a 200 person wedding in pouring rain and no tent and no where to put the people. This day I seriously questioned my career move.

In the end, I made it through each and every one of those hiccups. Every wedding has at least one; it's the Golden Wedding Rule. Some are bigger than others, but they are all part of the process of planning a wedding.

We had our first hiccup (and hopefully our last) this past week. Our bridesmaid's dresses were being discontinued and we only had a few days to get them ordered. This may not seem to be a big deal but here's the back story on the bridesmaids dresses. We weren't supposed to order the bridesmaids dresses until April 15th still giving us a 2 month cushion before the big day. All the bridesmaids were told this and knew it but bumping up the order 3 months earlier does present some type of problem. In the end, we put in the order today and we will get the ones that Scott and I choose. : ) They are beautiful and ironically, scheduled to be here April 15th.

A special thank you to my dear friend, Orison, who will be standing by my side when I marry Scott. She's the one who sent me a text at 7am on Monday morning saying that the bridal shop in Dallas said the dress was discontinued. She saved the bridesmaid dress : )

Now, if it just wouldn't rain our wedding day.......
~A.


Amanda + Scott

Obsessions & Wedding Progess Update

I have to admit, I have a few obsessions when it comes to weddings. More when it's OUR own wedding! I have already had 2 nightmares about the wedding day and don't even get me started on those. haha Let's just say it was short of heavy sweats and waking up, jolting up and screaming in sear terror. Now that those are out of the way, I am sure I will sleep peacefully from now on.

Obsession #1: I love paisley anything. I love the design, I love the way it looks, I love the way it makes me feel, yada yada yada. If it's paisley, I am instantly drawn to it. Now with that being said, paisley will not be making into the wedding theme. Or at least it hasn't yet. Scott has let me but I am working on breaking that down. : ) jk

Obsession #2: DIY projects. And for those of you that are clueless, DIY= Do It Yourself. I am crazy about crafts and since the engagement I have found myself submerged in DIY wedding projects. They are really fun and believe it or not, a stress reliever for me. I take joy in creating something and have a deeper appreciation for it afterwards. I have already completed a number of projects for the wedding. Bridesmaids boxes filled with chocolate asking them to be my bridesmaids, customized wedding day wooden hangers for Scott and me, etc. Some of the projects I won't be able to mention until after the wedding : )

Also feeding this obsession is a book I received for Christmas. The DIY Bride Crafty Countdown. Thanks again Jo and Vicky!

I love this book. You must buy one for any bride you know! I haven't officially done any of the crafts in it-mainly because I already had a long list of my own ideas but I plan on it. Also, it helps feed the creative pool too.

Obsession #3: Wedding ideas. I have dozens of wedding ideas a day. However, this was something that happened ever before we got engaged but has start spreading like wild fire now. Scott cringes on the inside when I turn to him and say, "I have a new wedding idea!" Of  course I say it so enthusiastically and vibrant it's hard not to smile at it. : )

Wedding Progress Update

This month we are going to finish the following:

• We are going to go register! I know this will be one of the most fun things Scott and I get to do together as part of the wedding process. I have always wanted to be able to hold that scanner gun and run around the store zapping everything in sight. The real trouble begins when we start fighting over "who gets scan" but I am sure we manage it. Also, I think we have decided since we both have so much household stuff from living on our own, we will be registering for the honeymoon as well. It's a modern invention to the wedding world but I think we will give it a try. Place is still being determined so if you have any suggestions, send them our way,
• Order my wedding dress! I LOVE my dress and can't wait to have it. The only problem is that I will want to "try it on" several times before the big day.
• Save the Dates-they have arrived! We got them from the printer and they look great. Scott did an amazing job on the design. We will be sending them off hopefully at the end of this month.
• Calligraphy-I took an all day class last Saturday and I am in love. More on that later though : )
• Wedding bands-We are going to start looking this weekend. I am looking forward to buying Scott his ring and can't wait to see which one we pick out!

Well, that's all for now but be sure to check back as more news will be coming! ~A.

Amanda + Scott

That Holiday Feeling

Well, the holidays are almost over, so we thought we'd write a quick few lines to tell everyone how it went. It was a busy season - like everyone's - but enjoyable.

I think we set the bar with getting our Christmas cards out as early as possible. Amanda thought it would be a great idea to showcase a couple of our engagement pictures my Dad took. We have to admit, the cards caused quite the stir!

Next, we went to go get our Christmas tree at Eaton Creek Farm. This was our second year to partake in selecting and chopping down the "perfect" tree. I was more selective than Amanda in this part-I think she was just ready to go because in true Washington fashion, it started to rain.

We celebrated with our 3rd annual tradition of seeing the Nutcracker. We'd hoped to attend the top class production in Seattle, but apparently the tickets were made out of solid gleaming platinum, for that is the only way I can possibly describe the price. Instead we opted for the Tacoma Ballet, which was charming and pleasant, and also featured the smallest theatre seats known to the history of man. It was an opera hall built for a race of ballet-enthused leprechauns. Really, if I have trouble fitting in a seat, you know you have a problem. Anatomically, I don't even have hips. We buy a Nutcracker ornament every year to add to our tree.

As if we hadn't done enough for Christmas sake, Amanda decided we should make our first ever  gingerbread house starting from scratch. It was fun for the first five hours. We managed to get all mixed together, rolled out, cut, baked, and constructed. We didn't have the energy to decorate it. Besides, I was eating the candy while working. The gingerbread turned out nicely and afterwards we appreciated all our hard work.

Amanda was kind enough to stay in Washington for Christmas, in spite of a shocking lack of warmth and vitamin D. She's doing all right, but I'm going to have to fly her out to some sort of island, soon. The wet, Washington winter is not kind to Southerners.

Christmas was wonderful. Like most of you, our family gets a bit more numerous each year. There are nieces and step nephews and parents and friends to visit, so it's tough to get everyone under one roof. We chose to solve this problem by celebrating for a solid three days. There's no problem with scheduling that making Christmas longer can't solve.

So we spent Thursday the 23rd with my sister Becky and family, Christmas Eve with my mother and her best friend Vicky, and Christmas day having brunch at my Dad's. Then back to my mother's. I'm sure she was at least a little tired of us at this point. Wine helped.

As you've heard, Amanda got a rather nice Mishe bag (if I do say so myself) and I got a set of sterling silver collar stays. If you've never thought of buying collar stays, then trust me. You should. Mine have nice things inscribed on them, like "You have a big heart," and the wonderfully inaccurate, "You share your dessert."

We hope you enjoyed your holiday season as much as we did! ~S.

Amanda + Scott

Miche Bag

Have you ever heard of a Miche Bag? It might just be the greatest invention in purse history!

It's a basic purse but then it has all of the different "shells" which are the outside of the purse. The shells  magnetize to the base purse. It's great because now when you change purses you don't have to dump everything out and re-organize it again. You simply, just take the shell off and then add a new shell. It's really as easy as the 1-2-3 macaroni and cheese!

I got one for Christmas, thanks to Scott! : ) I absolutely love and adore it.





My first Miche Bag-Wendi

 
I have been wanting one for a long time now but they only had a small purse available, but now have expanded and have a large purse. If you know me, you know I love large purses. You have to have enough room for everything you may need, right?!?!

The shells even have names to them which I think is a good marketing tactic. When I worked at David's Bridal, I thought the coolest thing about the shoe department was that they all had women names. And nope, they didn't have an Amanda when I was there. They had it a few years back but currently don't make it anymore : ( Apparently, having a shoe named Amanda isn't a top saler. lol

I am already picking out my next shell I plan to get-Lauren! Besides being the name of my fabulous niece, it's a great looking purse!




Isn't it adorable?

Things like this always make me excited to be a woman! : ) There are some perks to being female for sure. ~A.
Amanda + Scott