Getting ready for the Party

The engagement party is inching closer and closer, and it's in our sights! It seemed so far away when we first talked about it, but I guess that's how it goes. I'll be saying the same thing when the wedding comes around.

Can I be honest with you for a minute? Of course I can.

I'm just crazy with emotions and thoughts. I like to blame it on stress of everything going on in my life, and that does add to it, but a good chunk I think is that... well... I'm nervous.

And don't get me wrong. It's not the idea of spending the rest of my life with Travis, because he is the only one for me. If you've seen me and him together, you understand. Everything in him is everything I've ever hoped for.

Even when I was younger, when I said in middle school, "The man I marry, I want our first date to be going to church and then hanging out afterwords." In which everyone replied to, "You're getting your hopes pretty high for that, dear, you'll scare him off if the first thing you do is go to church." or some other negative comment.

Our first date, we went to church. We then went to the Cheesecake Factory (a relatively expensive restaurant, if you didn't know), which he paid for (I wasn't expecting him to).

What I think I'm nervous about, is if I'll be a good wife. I mean, I've spent the majority of my life being the child, living in my parent's basement. I know I'm ready to be out of here and on my own, but it's like I'm skipping a level of life.

Or maybe it's more like... I'm a growing balloon and about to burst into independence and I'm afraid if I'll be good at it. I'm just a bit scared, I think. It really has nothing to do with Travis and that "is he the one" crap, because that's never even crossed my mind as a serious question. I couldn't even say I was compromising anything for him. He has a heart for God, he's intelligent and creative, he is financially stable and capable, I'm attracted to him beyond all belief, and I still can't believe how lucky I am.

I just feel out of my element. It's like this whole "wedding" thing is just some big party and nothing more.

I'm going to cry at the engagement party. I really think it will be then that something inside me pokes a hole in the balloon of my emotions and I start accepting that my life -is- actually this perfect and I -am- worth it.

God is good, and I am blessed beyond all belief.

So yeah, glad to get that off my chest. A little scared of "growing up" is all, right?

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I drew this up for you all, since the majority of you won't be at the engagement party.

It's really bad, and done quickly, but it's a basic idea of what the tables at the wedding will be set up like. We'll have the tables at the engagement part set up the same way.

...the big grey squiggly thing is a mirror, haha. Beads are inside the bottom of the vase that match the runner linens.

And then the silver wear at the wedding will be gold. I think we're using some silver plasticwear at the engagement party, though.

My dress that I will be wearing also arrived. A couple alterations have to be made, but overall I'm very pleased with it :-)
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I took some awesome pictures at the Wild West Fest this past Saturday. I also had a new costume, but I didn't get any pictures of that. Anyways, here are some that I did:

 That's all for tonight! I'm going to go dream sweet dreams of Travis ;-D

Sorry for the wait...

Oh my goodness, so much has been going on!

Since school started, I've had so much on my mind, it's been crazy!

Ok... ummm... today we met with several wonderful ladies at Essenza Photography. They were super excited about the Steampunk theme! The three ladies we met were all really impressed with what we have come up with so far! Especially Jen, who has told me that if she tells her husband about me that he might leave her, haha. She basically ran into the room when one of the other ladies told her and screamed "I LOVE IT! YOUR THEME IS SO COOL!" it was awesome, my mom and I are stoked to be working with them!

It's really nice, and somewhat difficult, to find people that are willing to embrace and get excited about our theme. We've been blessed to find people that are interested in it or even already have experience with it.

Which brings me to my dress. It's going to look only slightly (or not at all) like my drawings. You see, we've found a fantastic, brilliant lady named Stephanie that has experience with making Steampunk garments. Basically, her awesome is as such:

1. She specializes in Plus Size clothing
2. She specializes in Period dress
3. She's owned a corset-making business and was bought out/shut down because she was too good and was impeding on another company's profit
4. She totally is excited about the Steampunk theme
5. She does a ton of embellishment work by hand (which equals super expensive, but I'm going to be wearing these outfits more than once).

I'm going to have a separate outfit for the rehearsal(EDIT: reception), which is a major secret from my fiance, since he is going to see my Wedding dress before the ceremony for the pictures.

So basically, she is awesome.

Goodness, what else... we are sending out the engagement invitations, or have sent them out already. I have a bunch that I will be handing out to some people, but if you are reading this - chances are you might be on the facebook event, and a lot of you won't get a physical invitation just because there isn't much of a point. There isn't anything special about them, so don't feel like you are missing out.

Engagement photos are taken, by the way! There are a few of my favorites throughout this post, so enjoy those!

My website is all put together! My portfolio pages are flickr slideshows, which I'm not incredibly umm... content with. So lame, but I needed to get something there before I applied to an internship that I hope to get.

It's doing basically what I do for the Student Union at NKU, but I'll be doing it for Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati (let me hear ya say "WOOT!").

I'm taking my Intermediate Photography class this semester, and it should be my last photography class. We are able to do our own project, so I'm going to aim for Steampunk. IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS, let me know. So far I'm doing still lifes, and the League of Cincinnati Steampunks is going to the Old West Fest next Saturday for their Steampunk weekend, so I'm going to try to make a new outfit. Hopefully, maybe. I'll be uploading those pictures as I can. I have a few right now, but I'll save those for when I have more (probably after the Old West Fest).

I'm afraid we've decided against having a wedding planner, and that's all I'm going to say on the subject.

All right, that's all I have for now! I think that's enough, haha.

Long Time No Write

I feel like I didn't post this before, so I'm going to now -

This is me talking about the venue and the menu.




OK, I've been super busy between my summer class, work, school coming up, and all of the projects I'm involved in - so I haven't gotten around to really talking about what's going on with the wedding.

We haven't done a whole lot of the decision-making recently - we did decide that we're going to get the Bridesmaids dresses from David's Bridal - they will be a brown color, and the girls can pick out which style they like. Then we're going to go antiquing for their jewelery.

Also that our centerpieces are going to be small-ish lanterns from IKEA - probably the silver ones. I'm not entirely sure how they will be decorated thus far.

So that is all that I have on the wedding right now.

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Travis finally got an outfit together, so I'm really excited about that! We got to go to another League of Cincinnati Meet-Up at Arnold's Bar and Grill downtown. It was a lot of fun, we had a really good time!

We'll be going to the picnic in Louisville in a couple of weeks as well! With even more friends! I have a few additions to my outfit, too, so I'm excited to show them off!

The next meet-up/salon is in September, where we will be talking about The Old West Festival and probably the Renaissance Festival. There are also several other events in the works, but I'm tired and will talk about them another time.

Presents for my Birthday

Take a look at the wonderful necklace my fiance MADE for me! :D I couldn't be happier! And to top it all off, he's buying me this awesome book! Does my man know how to please me or what?!

Finalizing the design

I'm currently contacting several people in regards to making my dress - these are the designs that I'm finalizing on -

This first one is, I think, the one that would look the best. These designs are all the same except for the neckline and shoulders, which my upper arms are currently my highest priority in hiding and making look good.

The difference with this one, is it has more of a sleeve and the neckline is convex around the neck.

All the designs maintain a sweetheart cut around the upper chest, since I'm kinda small chested and want to modestly make that look a bit better :-)







This second design was my "final" one before, but I'm unsure of the way I have the shoulder straps and the off-the-shoulder straps. I have round shoulders, and I feel like this will accentuate the roundness rather than add elegance.
















This is exactly like the first design, but the neckline is concave to the neck rather than convex - again, I'm a bit worried it will make my shoulders look more round than they already are.







Then there is the issues of gloves, veil, and the actual decor of the hat - but that will all be fixed when I talk to an actual designer rather than just my idea of what looks good on me.

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Other things of note -

Say hello to the engagement party cake. No, this is not a picture of it - it's a brown top hat. It will be covered in gold gears and surrounded in a natural setting.

 Also, there is a Steampunk festival near Cleveland, Ohio this weekend - I want to go really bad, but it's 5 hours away and it's kinda late notice.
The League of Cincinnati Steampunks is having a get-together August 6th at Arnold's Bar and Grill - http://steampunk.ning.com/events/august-salon-of-the-league-of

Anyone can (and is encouraged to) come!
 

Moving Forward

My mother and I met with Kay Nelson yesterday, who is a wedding planner. The first order of business was to decide on a location, and we've decided...

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We (and by "we", I mean "I") really loved the Cincinnati Club. It was the most reasonably priced with the most character out of all the places we visited. My mother has a few hiccups regarding it, but I think once she see's the final product, she'll understand what's in my head and love it. :D

Location: Cincinnati Club
Date: October 22nd, 2011
Time: 6:00pm

Countdown -
463 days
or
11,127 hours
or
667,626 minutes
or
40057000+ seconds


No time to waste!

I'm going to be uploading a bunch of pictures in the upcoming week regarding designs and notes. They will be mostly for the wonderful people helping my vision come to life, but I hope that the rest of you will also be able to enjoy them and perhaps offer a few opinions :D

***Note that pictures are thrown in because I don't like uploading posts without images of some sort. They have nothing to do with what I'm talking about, haha :)

The Cincinnati Club

Today has taken us to the Cincinnati Club.

It's in the same block of buildings as the Phoenix, so again it's downtown.


Pros: Beautiful, and very steampunk. The room I'd have the ceremony in - the Gold Room, has a compass on the ceiling and two-story high windows and mirrors. The Oak Room would hold the reception, which is right down the hall from the Gold Room (Litterally, [oakroom]----hall----[goldroom]). Those are the only two rooms on the level, and the bar is located in the hallway, which is awesome. And since we'd be getting both rooms, the whole level would be ours.
<--- Oak Room
                                            Hall----->
Cons: Parking, just like the Phoenix. Location. It's about the same price, also. I like it better than the Phoenix, honestly, but it has the same issues. Not to mention - the parking is complicated. They come in on the 5th floor of the garage, but it's the third floor of the building, and it's in a different part of the building. Other than that, it's perfect.

<---Gold Room
I loved it the minute I walked in. It was everything I thought it would be and more, besides the parking. I expected that as soon as I saw the address.

We're meeting with the Kay, our potential wedding planner, tomorrow. Hopefully she can shed some light on the subject.