Maggie Sottero trunk show in Montana!!!

So as any bride to be should be, I am constantly searching the internet for my dress. Besides that fact that I am going to be able to spend the rest of my life with my best friend, finding The Dress is one of the special moments of getting married. Here in Great Falls, we have limited options. With two dress shops in town and only a small amount of time for my mom to be in attendance to this very special event, I am getting a little nervous.

However today, I found a little light at the end of the tunnel. Maggie Sottero, my absolute favorite wedding dress designer, is having a trunk so here in Montana in April. It may be 3 hours away but you better bet my butt is going to be there!

Check out the trunk shows in your area here.

Save the Date!

I am a very DIY kind of girl. If I could make everything for this wedding myself, I would. But being 2500 miles away from where we're getting married doesn't exactly make that an easy task so I am looking for less costly alternatives. One of the things that I was really adament about was making was my save the date cards. 

I have seen so many great looking save the dates...like this one:

And then I have seen some not so good ones...like this:

Both were quite helpful...and no, our guests won't be receiving a "date" getting saved from the train...and I saw the goods and the bads of the Save the Date spectrum.

When I was researching, I remembered how we used to have postcards printed for sorority events through VistaPrint. They always came out great and best of all it was CHEAP! I knew that it was my best option and at $35 for 100 5" x 7" cards with envelopes, I knew I wasn't going to find anything better. Now I just needed to come up with my design...

I wanted something that spoke to who Griff and I were and the life that we had here but wasn't throwing it in your face. I also didn't want something that looked like a tribute to our stunning photos : ) After visiting the ski hill one day, my soon-to-be-sister-in-law took an awesome picture of us on the ski lift. I played around with it and viola! I had our Save-the-Dates. There was still something about it though that I just didn't think was right.

So when Emily was here last weekend, I had her take a few shots of us where this wedding journey began: the spot where Griff proposed. I played around with the pictures all week and this time, it felt like we had gotten it.

Stay tuned for the final product : )

(C'mon, you didn't think that I was going to reveal them before our guests got them did you?)

Who knew there were so many shades of green?

It's interesting to think how different it is to plan a wedding in 2010 than it was for say my mom and dad to plan their wedding back in 1980. In thirty years, we have created an entire industry around wedding planning. Styles have evolved and people are loosening the purse strings for a variety of new fads...custom photobooth anyone?

I really started to think about the evolution as we ventured out to the bridal shop to go hunt for bridesmaids dresses this weekend. I have had in my mind for a while an idea of what I wanted--short and green. Green is my favorite color and I have been planning this whole wedding around that one fact so that wasn't the tricky part. What was tricky was what color green I wanted.

The bridal shop boasted that the designer dress I wanted comes in 55 colors. Of that, 9 of those colors are some shade of green. You've got your Shamrock, your Kiwi, your Celeadon, and the list goes on and on. So how do you choose?

Back in my mom's day, there weren't many choices. You had the simple 8 colors of the rainbow, black, white, and if you were really brave, a pattern that came from going to the fabric store, picking out a patterned fabric and making the dresses yourself. I am no where near brave enough to take on the task of making these dresses so I needed to buckle down and decide.

The decision was actually easier than I thought. When I saw the green color that I originally wanted, it was too bright and loud and didn't seem like it would really fit into my theme. So we went with a more subdued, but very pretty green...Clover to be exact. Although you might think that the amount of color variations that are available these days are outrageous, I almost feel bad for the women who had to choose between a simple red and a simple pink and never got to see what their maids would look like in fuschia.

Who knows maybe decisions were easier when there was less to choose from but I was happy that I was able to make my decision with a little help from my sisters and Emily.

My dress however, might be a different story...

Blogging Newbie

So I decided to start up this whole blog...something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time now. I know, I'm a little late to jump on the bandwagon but I thought that a personal blog might just be the perfect start to something in the future.

So why am I doing this? Well one, I live about 2500 miles away from my friends and family. Number two, I'm about to embark on one of the biggest events of my life. And three, well its simple...I want a simple and easy way to keep people updated on our lives. Of course, I'll back track a little bit and bring people up to speed but from here on out, this will be my way to communicate.

Writing has always been something that I love and enjoy. Griff loves it too. Of course its my dream that we can both write on here. Our stories are always better when you hear both sides. Naturally, this is going to be totally wedding focused until we move onto the new part of our life so I'm sure that his posts will be few and far between for now.

So sit back, enjoy, and bear with me as I embark on not only this whole blogging thing, but this wedding, marriage,and life thing : )