181 days away

So looking back on the last entry, I would like to deeply apologize for the neglect in updating over the past 6 months. Truth be told, there wasn’t much to report regarding wedding plans and in May, Mark and I moved to a bigger apartment within our complex after dealing with numerous issues regarding our smaller one.

Now though as the wedding approaches closer, 6 months to the day, we would like to share with you the many wedding plans and accomplishments since my last update in March.

First, I would like to take this opportunity for those who are coming to this blog for the first time that we have moved and set the wedding date to March 27th, 2010. Some of you may have recalled March 20th as our date but when we looked at the calender we realized that the 20th falls very close to Spring Break for many people. When we realized that the organist at my church was going to be away on vacation that weekend we decided to check the schedule in addition to our photographer and DJ if the 27th was available.

Secondly, I would like to also share that I finally got my wedding dress in! I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this or not but I made my deposit in April (ironically on my 23rd birthday) and I got the gown about 2 months ago. It’s a good thing I placed the order when I did because the dress was discontinued July 15. Unfortunately at this time, it’s a little too tight on me but I’ve been vigorously working out at the gym and hopefully will be able to fit in it without requiring alterations.

Also in other news, I’ve secured my wedding photographer! She’s one of my best friends and her name is Cat Hoffman. For examples of her work her site can be found here:
http://photos.cathoffman.com/ or if your a facebook user you can check out her business: Cat Hoffman Photography LLC
A lot of people have asked me why I’m choosing a person out of state rather than choosing someone locally. To be honest, I’ve looked at vendors in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and their services are astronomical and ridiculous not to mention average. Since Mark and I are on a tight budget I’d rather choose someone I can trust since I’m extremely picky not to mention her rates are affordable even with travel expenses included. Wedding photos are the most important aspect of the day and I want a story I can tell my children 20 years from now.

Later this week, I’m going to try and talk to the clerk of session in getting approved to use my church and family center to hold the wedding and reception. My pastor said I should easily get approved but I need to have it taken care of sooner than later.

Also, for those interested, here is the save the date card we are sending out in the mail to all our guests. Much thanks to my maid of honor, Lana for designing them.

Last, we encourage our guests to bookmark our wedding page: as we are consistently updating it with news and information. Since I tend to go MIA when writing journal entries, I tend to update the site and as always I’m available on facebook.

Website changes

As a note, the new layout for our engagement/wedding site is now up!

Lindsay and Mark

Although the pages are all set up the current pages are currently empty:

Media

Registry

As soon as I get to feeling better and get more information, these pages will be updated!

Changes (part 2)

So today there was a bridal convention that was in town that I had been meaning to go to. I had received 2 free tickets to go through The Knot sometime ago and had printed off the tickets to go. Well unfortunately I woke up feeling unwell so I ended up bailing but considering the amount of shows the Dallas area has it wasn’t a big loss.

Anyway in regards to all the wedding plans that are going on (who are following me or interested) here is the latest:

• You know how people say they know when they find the one, when they refer to their wedding dress? Well I guess it finally hit for me when I went to a bridal boutique in Lewisville. I admit their organization level is somewhat to be desired but the sales lady helping me was AMAZING despite it being busy. If your looking for an unique dress this is definitely it. It was also the same place my matron of honor bought her wedding dress 7 years ago so it definitely brought back memories. Anyway…I can’t show a photo of the dress unfortunately right now because they have a rule against taking photos but it’s gorgeous. It’s got beading on the front both on the top and bottom of the dress in addition to the train. It’s also got color in the dress too so that’s a plus too.  No timeframe yet when I plan on putting down a deposit even though they said to allow 5 to 6 months for delivery.
• I have a cake vendor finally. An old friend of the family who used to babysit me and my sister agreed along with her daughter  to help out. I’m supposed to be searching around for inspirational photos and since my colors are navy and pink primrose I’m not sure how I’m going to work this in. Possibly white buttercream with navy and pink flowers? I like the idea of a japanese tree with like tree vines with flowers attached or flowing away but its just a vision.
• So my matron of honor and I had the chance of doing some bridesmaid shopping this past week to get some ideas of layouts and dress samples. Since my bridesmaids are so different in terms of wanting what they want I decided to make the dresses non-strapless and floor length. We were looking at styles, and this is what me and my MOH came up with:

  Bridesmaid dress

  (of course this will be different according to the theme but the 2 MOH will wear pink with navy accents and the rest will wear navy with pink accents.)

• And finally, I’ve decided on a cake topper for the wedding. Since I love the Willow Tree collection and they represent Christianity as well, I think this would be very elegant:

One year out

I’m officially now one year out…actually now 363 days until I go from Knapp to O’Leary. In a way its no big deal as people  get married every day and some legally change their names but at the same time, its symbolic as it represents a new chapter.

People like my mother and father, may roll their eyes when I say I’m becoming Mrs. O’Leary but oh well, Mark and I are the ones paying for this and I have a right to be happy after dating for almost 2 1/2 years.

Another surprise!

I apparently received another surprise this afternoon when my mom called me and informed me that an old family friend who used to babysit me and my sister agreed to do our wedding cake for us! I almost started crying because I always wanted her to do it (because of a long-standing tradition that and she makes the most outstanding cakes) so I’m forever grateful to my mom for asking Pam and for her saying yes.

In other creative news, my maid of honor yesterday created a rough draft of the Save the Date cards. She put it together in 5 minutes and I’m really liking the colors since Navy is going to be the main color with the overlying accents be pink and white.

Also, within the next few weeks, I’m hoping to get the website changed around. Currently, the layout for Lindsaymark.com is too informal and although I designed the layout myself, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted. So instead now, I created a mock draft of this. Obviously it still has changes like moving the lower photos and having the text fit within the page but as you can see, it looks more personal and reflective of our personality.

Bandwagon

So after switching the date TWICE, we have FINALLY set the date. No more moving it around…no more “if’s” or “temporary”.

March 20th, 2010

I spoke with my cousin tonight (who runs a DJ service in his spare time) and he wanted to make sure that we were on the same page and that if some major catastrophic event forces us to change the date that we’ll be sure to let people know. As it stands, my photographer, has also booked the date and my church is aware although I have to get the session committee to approve it.

Due to the economy, we’re choosing to have the ceremony and reception at my church and the family center because it is free to members (not to mention it holds tradition with my mom, and 2 aunts getting married, along with the baptisms and my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary so it holds a lot of symbolic memories.)

I think to cut on costs, we’re skipping the engagement party since most people who know us know we really don’t want one.

Engagement Ring

So I decided to create a separate post to post the photos from our Christmas Engagement.

Apologies….

Many apologizes for a lack of update in 2 months. I’m usually more active on my Facebook and Livejournal accounts. The biggest news is that Mark officially proposed with the ring on Christmas Day. We had been engaged for a few months prior to the ring but had had some financial problems. For anyone interested, we put the engagement video up on Youtube. It’s about 5 1/2 minutes long but definitely cute since he went all out in regards to creativity. Most of his friends and family were in on the secret which made it more special.

The website still is partially completed. Due to school obligations I haven’t had a chance to update our wedding page but will try to do so within the next few weeks. We’re also planning on having our official engagement portraits done soon within the next couple of weeks compliments to Mark’s parents who are professional photographers in their spare time. Details to follow.

So instead of going with David’s Bridal I’m going to go with this bridal website instead. The cool thing about this site is that the dress is the same exact style and I can custom-choose the sash all for a $100 cheaper! I was a little hesitant at first because everything is done online (which is how they have such low prices) but they said they can custom-fit gowns for no extra charge which relieves any costly alterations at least what they told me.

Anyone interested can view the link here:
http://bridaloutletworld.com/item_314/Ivy.htm

I think I’m going to go ahead and order it in about March or April and they said it takes about 2-3 months to make the dress on top of that giving me about May-June timeframe.

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