Wedding Wednesday: Save-the-Dates

If you've been invited to a wedding in the past five years, chances are you received a pre-invitation, called a save-the-date, months before getting the actual wedding invitation. As a bride-to-be, you may be unsure whether or not this newer tradition is really a necessary expense. In my (totally unprofessional) opinion, there are only a few circumstances where sending a save-the-date would be important. If you are having your wedding over a holiday weekend (around July 4th, around Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, etc), sending out a save-the-date ensures that your guests have as much time as possible to prepare for the event, since they may normally have other plans during those times. Additionally, if you are having a destination wedding, or even just if many of your guests will need to fly in order to attend your wedding, sending them a save-the-date allows them ample time to shop around for airfare and hopefully find a good price to ease their burden of travel.

However, even in those circumstances, a save-the-date can still be bypassed, and information about your wedding date/location can be shared via word of mouth, email, or other social media outlets. Of course, sending a save-the-date tells the person that they will definitely be receiving a formal invitation later; a generic Facebook or Twitter post does not indicate to people who read it whether or not they will be invited.

That being said, many brides still opt to send save-the-dates, even if their wedding doesn't fall into one of the above situations, because they can be a fun way to get people excited for the wedding (having a magnet on your fridge is certainly a frequent reminder of the event), plus they allow the bride and groom to get a little bit more creative with the presentation than they may be comfortable doing on the formal invitation.

A save-the-date allows couples to showcase their wedding location,

to share some information about their love story,

to showcase their passions (and possibly the theme for the wedding),

and of course, it's a great way to share some of your gorgeous engagement pictures.

If the budget is tight, save-the-dates are an easy place to cut expenses (rather than a photographer or caterer, for example), since by the time they are designed, printed, and mailed the cost can get pretty high. However, they are a good way to share some of the important details of your wedding day and get people excited for the event, so the final decision is up to you!


All images found at Style Me Pretty.

Cornbread and Chili

Fact: The last time I blogged about something that I actually cooked (not Darrell) was back at the end of July (Grandma's Monster Cookies). And they were so delicious that I made them a second time a few weeks later. But then pregnancy hit--and not only did I have no desire to do any baking or cooking, but eating also became a low priority (especially things like oatmeal and peanut butter and nuts and other things that dried my mouth out. Basically everything in monster cookies). So poor Darrell got stuck finishing off most of the batch.

Thankfully, that phase has passed. And just in time for holiday baking (you can bet I have a lot of pent-up baking energy, so I might just go a little overboard this year). But first--fall. And with fall comes soup season. And you can't talk about fall comfort soups without talking about chili, and nothing goes better with chili than some cornbread. Drowned in honey. Mmm....

Cornbread Muffins
(found on the back of the cornmeal box--a surefire place to find great recipes!)
Yields 12 muffins

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup flour
2-4 tbsp sugar (I only used 2 tbsp since I knew I would be drowning the final product in honey)
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425*. Combine corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add milk, egg, and oil; beat until fairly smooth, about one minute. Pour into greased or paper-lined muffin cups and bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Can also be baked in greased 8x8 pan; increase baking time to 20-25 minutes.

Darrell thought these were a little dry, but I contend that he just didn't use enough honey. Matter of opinion :)

The Beginning

So I've already had a handful of requests to get pictures of "the bump" up here, but there's a few issues with that.

A) The pictures we have are not edited and in jpeg format yet (surprised? Don't be).
B) There really isn't much of a bump to speak of.

That being said, I do intend to get what few pictures we have up by the end of the week because, well, I'm excited to share them. Even if it does look like it's just the same picture of me taken six different times. In the meantime, I'm going to do some back-tracking on posts and start sharing some of the posts I've been writing over the past six months as we started this journey to parenthood.

(Written May 7th, 2012)

Whelp. Today makes it official. I dropped a little morning habit that was helping to prevent a little Darrell or Jess from making an appearance. The timing on a little rugrat's appearance is now all in God's hands (not that it wasn't before, but we're just interfering a little less than we had been). Whenever we see other little ones we get really excited about the prospect of having our own, but when we have busy days or want to do something spontaneous we're equally afraid of what we are getting ourselves into (we're no fools--a kid is a HUGE commitment).

We are, however, both (foolishly) expecting that we'll have no issue getting pregnant--we know that infertility is a major issue and fairly indiscriminate--but for whatever reason we have this assumption that since we both fall within the "normal" realm of healthy and have no previous issues to worry about, making a baby will come easily (I'll be honest--even though doctors say that it usually takes people three months to get pregnant after stopping the pill, I'll start to get upset/concerned if we aren't pregnant in those three months, even though I'll know that it's totally normal).

Miscarrying is something that we are both fairly concerned with, though, so even once we do find out we'll definitely be keeping the news a secret for a good while (miscarriages run in both of our families--although maybe only the family history of my mother matters in an issue like this? Who knows). Which--for the record--keeping things hush hush will be a challenge, especially with as frequently as we see my family (and subsequently drink booze). Heck, it'll even be hard to keep from them that we're trying, because as soon as I cut back on drinking people are bound to get suspicious. But don't worry, Darrell and I already have some clever plans up our sleeves.

Here's to the beginning of a new chapter in our lives! Cheers!! (with sparkling grapefruit juice, of course!)

BIg Day!

It's been awhile since I've posted on a Thursday, but today is such an important day that it couldn't wait until tomorrow. As of today (well, technically like midnight-ish tonight), Darrell and I will have been together for seven (!!!) years. Doesn't that seem like a lot? More than one-quarter of my life has been with Darrell. I remember so many things from those first years so vividly that it's hard to believe they've been that many years ago.

And the excitement doesn't stop there--after being boyfriend/girlfriend for 3.5 years, engaged for 1 year, and married now for 2.5 years, Darrell and I have decided to add a new set of titles to our repertoire--Mom and Dad! We are expecting a little bundle of joy to arrive mid-April next year, and are looking forward to messing it up in our own special way :)

I've got lots of details to catch up on, and lots of posts that I've been typing but haven't been able to share yet, so look for those things coming soon! I'll try to keep this blog from being consumed by all things baby, but, well, we'll see how that goes. We're just a little excited about this new development :)

Wedding Wednesday: Getting Organized

Whether you are two weeks or two months into your wedding planning, chances are you've started quite the collection of paperwork. You might already have signed contracts from your reception site, perhaps you have receipts from your dress purchase, and of course there are all of those little bits of paper that you've been jotting ideas down on. Many stores have "comprehensive" wedding planning binders that you can purchase (usually for a sizable chunk of change), but I found that it was much easier (and much more cost-effective) to make one myself. This way I was able to customize it for what I needed, and wasn't paying money for stuff I wouldn't get any use of.

All you really need is a three-ring binder with pockets, a handful of sheet protectors, and some loose leaf paper. Here's what mine looked like:

The pockets were great because I could stick stuff there that was a "top priority" so I would remember to get it done, plus they served as a nice catch-all for miscellaneous papers that didn't fit anywhere else. I then had about fifteen pages of loose-leaf paper, labeled for different aspects of my wedding (reception, bridal party, ceremony, etc), and keep notes on the appropriate sheets throughout the planning process. Looking back, I realized that there were lots of ideas that we had written down that we never ended up doing, but I'm still glad we wrote so much down so that we had options when it came to the finalization of the details. I also included in my binder a wedding planner workbook that I was able to print for free from eleGALA.com; although I didn't utilize all the pages, it had some nice budget and planning sheets and was easy enough to three-hole punch to include in my binder.

Next came the sheet protectors. This was probably the aspect of my binder that I was most grateful for. Most of the papers and documents you get from vendors isn't uniformly sized and often can't be easily hole-punched. So each vendor got its own "sleeve" where I was able to store brochures, business cards, copies of the contracts, etc.

I also had a sleeve that I used for storing general receipts (paper plates for the rehearsal dinner, candles for the centerpieces, etc) so that I made sure to track those expenses and also so that I had the receipts available in case a return or exchange needed to be made.

It was also helpful that I bought had a purse that my binder would fit into. I could easily carry it with me anywhere so I always had some place to jot ideas, no matter where they came to me (like songs that I did/didn't want being played). Plus whenever we met with vendors I knew I would have the documents from our previous meetings as well as easily be able to file away new information.

Even if you aren't normally an organized person, planning a wedding is a good time to start improving your organization habits. Or at least enlist in the help of someone who is well organized. Because by the time everything is said and done, you'll have likely acquired quite a bit of paperwork. And some of it you may even want to have around after the wedding, in case a vendor does not fulfill one of their contractual obligations and you want to get your money back (this may sound petty now, but trust me, you'll feel differently if your photographer ruins your wedding photos and/or does not take the photos he/she had agreed to. Getting that money back won't fix the issue, but it may ease the pain).

101 in 1001 Update

Whelp, we have just under six months to get through our "101 in 1001" list. And, well, it's looking a little bleak. We've only completed half the list, and many of the items will probably be a lost cause (because honestly, some of them require nice weather, and we're pretty much at the tail end of that between now and April). There are a few "winter" items left on the list (cross country skiing, snowshoeing) that hopefully we'll be able to get done this winter, but definitely not the whole list. Maybe 75 of the 101 items? That's my new goal.

Brrr Cold

Came home from work today and put sweats on over my work clothes.





I'm so not ready for winter.

Wedding Wednesday: Dress Shopping!

Now that you've started to create an mental image of your big day, complete with location and colors and season, it's time to add arguably one of the most important details--the dress! Many designers can take six to eight months to ship their bridal dresses, plus you'll want to leave at least a few months for fittings and alterations, so it's important to tackle the dress shopping early. Plus, you may find yourself falling in love with a dress that you would have never expected, and it may change a few of the elements of your wedding day (I definitely went back and started adding silver into my bouquets and decor after buying a dress with a silver sash). It's never to late to make those kind of changes, but they are generally cheaper to do early on (like, before you buy yards of white ribbon only to end up buying an ivory dress and wanting to change everything to ivory), so the sooner you can find "the dress", the better. Besides, isn't shopping for the dress one of the best things about getting engaged anyway?

There can be a lot of factors that go into selecting "the dress", especially if you don't exactly have an image of what you want in your head. However, I want to first tackle some of the preliminaries of dress shopping--what to expect at your appointments, what you can do to be prepared for them--and we'll worry about making the final decision a little bit later.

One of the first things you can do even before you have your first appointment is look at a variety of dresses online to help give you an idea of things you do or do not like. Maggie Sottero, Alfred Angelo, and Allure Bridals are some popular designers. Most bridal stores will also include links to the dress designers that they carry, so if you know where you are going to be shopping the bridal salon's website is also a good place to start. A few things to keep in mind though: Most stores do not stock the entire lines of dresses that the designers they carry, so if you fall in love with one off the website there isn't a guarantee that it will be available in the store (if you are brave enough, most stores will order for you off the designers website, though). Also, don't get pigeon-holed on the type of dress you have to have. Most bridal consultants have helped hundreds of brides, and they might be able to recommend a dress that will be super flattering on you, even though it may not have been a style you were initially looking at. Open-mindedness is key at some of your first appointments--and besides, you will hopefully only be doing this once so you might as well try on all the dresses you can!

If you are like my sister and are traveling from out of town for your appointments, there is nothing wrong with scheduling appointments at multiple stores in the same day. However, keep in mind that you will want to space your appointments out a little bit so that you can allow time to travel between the stores and also give yourself some wiggle room if an earlier appointment runs a little long. Trying on dresses can also get exhausting, so a little down time to grab a snack can be a good energy booster. You'll also want to have a camera along; not all bridal salons allow photos, but you'll want to get plenty of pictures at the ones that do because by the end of the day, it can be hard to remember all of the details of all of the different dresses. Plus it's always fun down the road to have a picture of you in the dress to stare at while you are waiting (impatiently) for the dress to ship.

There are a few clothing considerations that you'll want to make on the day of your appointment. For starters, you will likely be getting in and out of your clothes multiple times (at least once at each place you have an appointment), so wear something comfortable (but nice). Also, you'll want to make sure you have neutral undergarments and a comfortable bra; if a strapless bra is necessary most stores will provide one for you (and one that is likely to have the same cut as the dress so you aren't distracted by your bra when looking at yourself in the dress).

There is one final thing to think about while you are out searching for "the dress". In many instances, the store you purchase your wedding dress from will be the same store you purchase much of the other apparel for your wedding--bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, flower girl dresses, etc--as well as the place that will likely work with you during your fittings and alterations. So it isn't just about finding the perfect dress, but finding a salon that has consultants that you are comfortable with, that treat you well (be a little selfish, you are the bride and deserve some special treatment), and who genuinely care about making your wedding day the best it can be. This definitely came into play for me; I had narrowed my selection down to four dresses between two stores, but was always a little bothered by the service at one of the stores (it always felt to me like they were trying to push their own personal agenda instead of listening to what I actually wanted), so I went with one of the dresses from the other store (and was soooo glad I did; we got nothing but exceptional service and every time I walked into the store I felt like they were genuinely excited to see me and hear how the progress of my wedding planning was going. Shout out to The Bridal Gallery in Sioux Falls--they're so awesome, in fact, that when we were there looking for dresses for my sister they still had the wedding picture I had sent them up on display!).

Next week we'll talk a little bit about keeping all this wedding stuff organized--you likely already have quite a few documents started and idea jotted down, and once you start meeting with and selecting vendors you'll want to make sure you have a place to store and organize your contracts and payments.

State Champions!

I'm proud to announce that our girls brought home a State Championship this weekend!

They sure tried to keep it interesting by taking the semi-final game into a shoot-out (which, for the record--way more nerve-wracking as a coach than when I played in them as a keeper), but were nothing but solid after that, with a decisive 6-0 win in the championship game. Super proud of all the hard work the girls put in this season and excited that they were able to bring home some hardware for their efforts!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this free time now that I'm not coaching soccer any more.... Maybe I'll actually start helping out around the house, although it was really fun having Darrell do all the work :)

My Patriot!

So I finally got a chance to catch Darrell in his uniform for one of the Shrine units he is in (for those of you unfamiliar with Shriners, it's like an adult male fraternity that is divided into a lot of different "units" so that members can join groups that interest them. Darrell is in the photography unit, and also in the Fife and Drum unit--which is a unit my dad has been in since I was a kid). Darrell doesn't usually march with the Fife and Drum unit because he is usually busy taking pictures for the Shutterbug unit, but this past weekend marked the second time he stepped into uniform. And unfortunately, I still haven't actually seen him march (carrying the flag--no way he can play either a fife or a drum), but I did meet up with him after the parade last Saturday and snagged a picture before he changed (we'll say the weather was to blame for us missing the parade; nothing to do with the fact that my mom and I were running late).

Isn't he so cute?!?

Happy Friday and have a good weekend!

Wedding Wednesday: Colors/Theme

Once you have some of the boing preliminary items out of the way--budget, guest list, wedding date--it's time for the fun stuff to begin. And yes--this does include wedding dress shopping. But before we can get to that, there is another important element to decide: the wedding theme/color scheme. An elegant, traditional wedding will call for a completely different wedding dress (among other things) than a fun, upbeat, modern wedding. So, let's look at a few ways to find the perfect color scheme/theme for your wedding.

The first thing to take into consideration is the season in which you are planning to have your wedding. Summer weddings are great, but it might be strange to use rich, fall colors like burgundy in the middle of July. Likewise, light, soft pastels might get lost in the snowy background of a winter wedding. Use inspiration from nature--and possibly even the venue if you have that chosen--to help guide your selection. And don't be afraid to keep an eye out everywhere you go--you might see a pattern on some fabric that you like and could incorporate into your invitations and maybe onto your cake. You could see a color combination on a mannequin in a store that resonates with the image you have for your wedding. And of course, the internet abounds with sites that offer suggestions of color combinations and have a plethora of images of real weddings so you can see how the shades come together (Style Me Pretty was visited almost daily while I was planning my wedding). 

Sometimes selecting a theme will help you focus on the color scheme that you want to use. A modern theme could incorporate bright, bold colors and geometric shapes; an elegant French or European theme would be more likely to use soft pastels and possibly accents of gold or silver. Darrell and I both love the outdoors, and both have fond memories of childhoods near water, experiences that we plan to pass on to our children (freshwater for me, saltwater for him), so I wanted to incorporate that into our May wedding. I also love spring and the brightly colored flowers, so we decided on a predominately blue wedding (with lots of water being incorporated in our centerpieces) with bright pops of colorful flowers throughout. Easy-peasy. 

One last thing that we did with the color scheme that was helpful was go to a hardware store and look at paint samples. I know this may sound strange, but it gave us a basis for what shades of the colors we were looking for (because trust me, you tell a baker you want blue piping on your cake and you might get a totally different shade a blue than what you wanted). So, not only were we able to mix and match colors to find shades that complemented each other, but I then had tangible color samples that I could carry around to show our vendors so they had a better idea of exactly what I was talking about. This method might be equally helpful if you are stuck on accent colors to use--I know my sister is leaning toward an orange wedding since that has always been her favorite color, but isn't sure what to do with the orange. So, I suggested that she go look at paint samples, find an orange that she likes, and figure out other combinations that go well with it.

Of course, sometimes decisions on theme/color scheme aren't finalized until after you find "the dress"; you may fall in love with lace and decide to incorporate an old-fashioned feeling into your wedding or perhaps a gorgeous, poofy dress with feathery accents calls for the incorporation of feathers throughout your wedding. This happened even to me--after choosing a dress that had a silver sash I decided to incorporate silver into my blue, brightly colorful wedding (and it ended up being the perfect accent to our bright cobalt blue!) So, without further delay, let's head to the bridal salons next week!

Long Overdue

I'll pretend like I'm really delayed in posting this picture since I didn't want to jinx the (surprisingly) successful season that the Vikings have been having, but in reality, it has just taken that long for Darrell to edit the picture (and me to remember to get it off his computer). But, since this picture does date back to the first home game of the season (September 9th in case you really care), and the Vikings have been undefeated at home since then, it's only reasonable to assume that we played some role in getting them started on the right foot. And, for those of you who don't remember (or didn't care about) the details from the Vikings game against Jacksonville, here's a brief summary of the awesomeness that we got to experience in person.

After scoring a field goal with five minutes left, it seemed pretty certain that the Vikings had the win in the bag (so certain, in fact, that my brother and his girlfriend left the stadium to beat the rush to the bar we were meeting at afterwards. Joke was on them!). However, after forcing Jacksonville to punt on their first possession after the field goal, the Vikings gave the ball back to them with 1:18 to play and allowed them to score a touchdown--and two-point conversion--putting them up by three. With only twenty seconds to play, the Vikings drove the ball down the field, and put their rookie field-goal kicker in position to hit a 55-yard field goal with time expiring to tie the game--and he nailed it. Cue overtime. The Vikings scored a field goal on their first possession in overtime, giving Jacksonville a chance to counter. Thankfully, the defense stepped it up and shut them down, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Okay, enough of the rambling, here's the picture already. We had (nearly) the whole crew there, after scraping together tickets from a variety of sources. So while we didn't all get to sit together at the game, we had fun hanging out together beforehand (and afterwards!).

Shrimp Etoufee

Well, even though we actually made this recipe two months ago, this is actually perfect timing for posting it. Fall is trying to take a quick turn into winter here in South Dakota (no snow for us though--yet), and it's definite comfort food season. While creole cuisine may not be seen as "traditional" comfort food (especially in the Midwest!), and while it certainly isn't as easy to throw together as a batch of macaroni and cheese, this recipe definitely hits the spot on a chilly day. Especially if you like to amp up the amount of Tabasco sauce like Darrell does. And truthfully, the recipe isn't really all that bad, despite the lengthy ingredient list--90% of the work is in the prep of the ingredients (chopping vegetables, peeling shrimp, etc) and once that is done everything goes together easily. And trust me, once you sit down to enjoy this dish, all the prep work and effort will have been totally worth it!

Shrimp Etoufee
(from Mama Shirley!)

3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp flour
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped (we usually just do the whole pepper)
3 ribs celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/4 cup beef broth
1 cup dry white wine
2 bay leaves
1 tsp whole basil leaves (we usually just use crushed)
1 tsp whole thyme leaves (again, we usually use crushed and dried)
Approximately 1 tbsp Tabasco
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
4 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Cooked rice

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven and add the oil and flour. Toast to a peanut-butter colored mixture. Stir often and be careful not to burn. This should take about fifteen minutes over medium heat. Add yellow onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic. Saute for about ten minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in tomato paste, followed by beef broth and wine. Stir constantly until mixture thickens. Add the remaining ingredients, expect for shrimp, parsley, and rice. Simmer covered for forty-five minutes. Add shrimp and parsley and simmer for another twenty minutes, uncovered. Serve over cooked rice (and, if you are like Darrell, additional Tabasco sauce. He has to put less in the pot than he would like because I can't handle my food as spicy as he likes it).

And I realized the other day that I usually just take pictures of our main dish since, well, that's usually what I end up blogging about. But just to prove that we actually eat more than just an entree, I decided to take a picture of our whole meal this time. Plus it was just a super photogenic (and tasty!) meal, so I couldn't resist.

I love recipes that only use partial bottles of wine--all the more excuse to have a glass of wine with dinner!

Wedding Wednesday: First Things First

In honor of my sister's upcoming nuptials, I've decided to start a blogging series on weddings and wedding planning (because I heart weddings). I tried to journal during the planning of my own wedding, but was marginally successful at best, so this is my attempt to remedy that. Plus, I now have one wedding under my belt, so I feel more confident in sharing advice on things that did (and didn't!) work. I hope this can be kind of a "behind the scenes" look at wedding planning; I plan to gloss over a lot of the basic timing guidelines and tips because, well, you can go about anywhere on the internet and find a variety of guides and timelines and other things (The Knot is a great resource with a timeline customizable to your wedding date; eleGALA has a nice, printable workbook that you can use as well as another customizable timeline). Instead, I hope to give you some tips and tricks to make the whole process go a little bit more smoothly--because looking at a to-do list with 284 items on it can seem pretty overwhelming!

Where I want to start today is the basics, the first considerations to make after saying "yes". While the thought of planning a wedding may seem daunting to some, you can't get anywhere if you don't know where to start!

First Things First

The first three things that you and your new fiance need to roughly determine are, in no particular order:

--Budget
--Guest List
--Approximate wedding date/season

The order in which you will determine these will mostly likely depend on which is the most important element. If you know that the budget is going to be limited, that will likely affect the number of guests you invite (more guests = more expensive) and the timing of the wedding (traditionally, peak season weddings--summer in most places--are more expensive than non-peak weddings). However, if you are dead set on having a massive party with as many guests as you want, then the budget will have to be increased adjusted accordingly. And obviously, without a wedding date, it will be near-impossible to secure the other vendors that you will need for your wedding. Plus, knowing the season will help you determine what we'll be talking about next week--the theme/color scheme!

Glitter Woes

I could never be a kindergarten teacher. Ever. Glitter drives me CRAZY. It just gets everywhere and sticks to everything and is a general nuisance.

And unfortunately, I get to have a close encounter with glitter all day today. You see, it's Homecoming this week, which means fun dress-up days. Today's theme is "Movie Monday", so a bunch of the staff decided to dress up like the pageant contestants from Miss Congeniality. Totally an awesome idea, but the sashes that we're wearing are decorated with glitter. And it's getting EVERYWHERE. I'm going to be finding it around my desk for months. I even had some inside the lid of my chapstick--no idea how that happened. Glitter woes aside, it's still super fun. Because how often do I get to wear a fancy dress and sash all day at work?

Proudly representing my husband's home state in my mom's awesome bridesmaid dress from the eighties (you might remember the dress from here). You know you're jealous