Ladies, gentlemen. I am desperately looking for these shoes in white (so I can dye them like this):


They are Manolo Blahniks, I don’t think they are made any more and I can’t find them any where. I wear a size 38, and ideas? I found a pair of regular sling backs that are cool, and I’m going to another designer’s trunk show Saturday. But before I pick up anything else I want to make absolutely sure I can’t find these. I cut this out from a wedding mag years ago.

So I’m not one of those people who likes to do things like everyone is doing them right now. I know lots of people like to be unique, but I see it as kind of an extreme sport, and when it comes to my wedding, its the Olympics baby. So I’ve only been saving wedding magazines for 10 years, but with supplemental research material (movies, classic novels, stories, even music) I’ve come up with some must haves for our wedding. The thing is I’ve got this tight schedule, so I should just let some of that go right? HELL NO. Bring it ON. I’m going to use the invitations as an example here. They are being printed at two separate places because I want two types of printing. I am not writing the addresses on, they are going to be done with calligraphy. The calligrapher is also going to write out my address and I’m making that into a rubber stamp for the reply cards. But none of that is really that difficult, so I had to make it MORE difficult for myself by deciding that none of the stamps currently being issued by the post office suited my taste (don’t get me wrong I love the Gee’s Bend stamps, but I already used those for my save the date cards). So I decided to go vintage. This involved contacting stamp collecting societies, and a bunch of stamp shops in my area. Well today I finally hit the jack pot. I need a lot of stamps to make up the 52 cents for the outer envelope and 39 cents for the RSVP card. I put a big dent in that as you can see:


The best part? These suckers cost 95 cents to the dollar. That’s right a dollar’s worth of perfectly good (but older and cooler) postage costs 95 cents. I had budgeted for it to be more than face value. Sa-Weeeet. I still have a meeting with another collector in Portland Saturday and I should be able to get the rest. I was so giddy I had to stamp one envelope:


Making up these combos specifically for people is going to be way too much fun, and I can’t wait!!!

I’ve also made meetings for cake people, flower people, and got a chunk of Violet’s dress knitted last night. Dawn emailed me to ask how I do it all, Dawn my head feels like it’s going to explode right now, but I’ll go into details of the organizational strategy soon for you.

I wish I could go back to this weekend and just lay around like this some more, but I really think my "lay around time" is going to have to wait until after the wedding, which is um, exactly two months away (but less really when you think about how short February is). Throw in the bridal showers (is it wrong to be so excited about all the gifts?), trips up to Portland (seriously getting to an insane amount), and work and man am I a busy girl. A lucky girl, but a busy one. I had the care of my little sister for five days. Two of those her BBF came over to hang out with us as well. I moved all my furniture in the living room and set up a prime Veronica Mars watching station, complete with in door campfire activities such as marshmallow roasting (toasting?). I am so the coolest big sister ever. Oh, but not for all that wonderful stuff, for schlepping Emilie back and forth to her poor invalid boyfriend (OH MY GOD he must get better by SWEETHEART!!!). Seriously these 15 year olds could not have been cuter or nicer. I really think if you take time to see what teenagers are interested in and really listen to them they are not the animals society makes them out to be. Maybe I’m too close in age (eleven years removed) or maybe it’s because they’re not mine. But I actually like teenagers.

I also like new friends, and Bj and I had some over this weekend. We invited down a friend of his from work and her boyfriend (hi Courtney and Jim!). I only met them the first time at the company party (which I do have a picture of this year, instead of a drawing, but I need to get it from Bj). Not only does Courtney read my blog, which obviously makes her first rate, but they like to play games! And they brought some! We even got my sister in on a nice round of Scattagories. We stayed up way too late to make it to Sue’s crop on time, but we did drop in for a bit. I got more paper (because I so need more paper, right?). And Sue said something about me not scrapbooking anymore. And it’s weird because I think about scrapbooking, and I use some of my supplies, but I guess it has been a while, and I got this pang of guilt. But my plate is so full right now, I mean I have like 16 unwatched Baby Stories on my TiVo right now, and I don’t think that’s ever happened before!

Other than that it’s all wedding stuff. We have the reception place, Dj, band, photographer (oh ya, we need to have engagement shots taken, don’t know if that’s going to happen), dress (it’s a surprise!), wedding bands picked out (but not bought) and… no church. I have a clear line on one, it’s so spendy, but there aren’t a lot of options. The list of stuff I still need to do or get is huge: chandeliers/ other lighting schemes, pick out trees, knit Violet’s dress, table settings, flowers/florist, shoes, which then have to be dyed, invitations, cake, dessert bar, mini champagne, calligrapher, stamps, gifts (bj, my girls, parents, etc), magically loose 10 pounds with out working out or sweating or stopping eating the candy. And can some one tell my why there isn’t "Amber green" as a general choice on various wedding related things, like table linens? Sage is so last century people.