The Party After the Party

With time flying by, we are rushing to get all the details for our wedding day lined up and in order. At this point, we are still trying to figure out what we want to do after the reception. We will be making our grand exit around 10:30, so it won't be too late. At this point, we have no set plans for a day-after brunch and we won't be leaving for our honeymoon until the following week. Taking all this in to consideration, I'm wondering how tired we are going to be, and whether we want to hang out with each other or enjoy the company of our friends and family from out of town. Then if we do plan a little "after party", where do we have it?
Mr. Beagle and I are pretty laid back, so I think we can pretty much agree that the downtown scene is out, but I wouldn't mind have a little gathering at our home or the neighborhood bar. A casual, relaxed atmosphere seems fitting.
Then, today, I read this exerpt from A Practical Wedding, about the pros of having a morning wedding:

"Afterwards. The strange thing is that when people voice concern about morning weddings, they normally ask you, "Well, what did you do afterwards?" Here is the scoop. Afterwards is *the best part.* We drove away from our venue, waving like crazy, at 2:45 pm. You know what we did? We went back to the hotel room we'd splurged on. We lounged around. We talked about the wedding. We giggled. We looked at our wedding rings. We blissed out. We went shopping at a used bookstore and bought books for our honeymoon flight. We went out to a really nice dinner, and I wore my wedding hair flower. We drank mojitos. We went to sleep. We woke up not-hung over. The after-the-wedding is the best part of getting married in the morning. Think about it this way: you're marrying your partner because you like spending time with them. Morning weddings give you lots of time to hang out together, married, on your wedding day. And then you wake up sober and happy. What could feel better than that?"

Although we won't be having a morning wedding, I'm torn between continuing the festivities with our loved ones and spending time with my husband :) on our wedding day, the day that only comes once.  Hmph. 

Are you having an "after party" or are you leaving the party to hang out with your new Hubby/ Wife?  Newly weds, what did you do and do you regret it?

And Then There Were Three

Or I guess it would be four if you count my other ring.

About a month or so ago, Mr. Beagle and I finally completed our shopping for wedding rings. His requests were simple: inexpensive, no diamonds. We browsed through some jewelry stores, but the white gold rings were more than he wanted to spend and the tungsten/titanium rings seemed overpriced. After I saw Miss Lab's post on online ring shopping, I decided to peek around on Amazon to see what I could find. Finally after an hour of searching I placed an order for a titanium ring. A few days later, Mr. Beagle's (<$100) wedding ring arrived in the mail. :)

Unfortunately for Mr. Beagle, shopping for my wedding ring was a little more involved. I wanted a white gold ring to match with my engagenment ring.  I was really unsure about what other requirements I was looking for in a ring.  After many trips to jewelry stores, we finally ended up at the same store where we bought my engagement ring.  An hour later, we left with my ring and by the time we got in the car to drive home, I was pleading with Mr. Beagle to let me wear it.  Alas, he said no. :)

And now for some pictures:

Will your rings match?

The Invitations: Part I- Lessons Learned

As I write this post, our invitations are on their merry way to our guests, anxiously waiting to be opened (or maybe that's just me that is anxious). In the mean time, I thought I would fill you in on our invitation deets:

I ordered the invitations and rsvp cards, and respective envelopes, from the White Aisle. Rebecca was really sweet and was super easy to work with. I'm extremely happy with the way they turned out. To save some $$, I decided to make the remaining enclosures... and this is where my problems began.

Lesson #1:
Originally, I had planned on drawing a cutesy map like one of these:

Laura Hooper

Pantomime Papers (aka Snappy)

This turned out to be a big fat fail and was not coming together the way I had originally hoped. Although I'm not really sure what my original hope was. I went into my invitations with little idea of what exactly I was trying to put together, it was very hard for me to come up with a design that really meshed. Finally, after many hours of trial and error, I designed a mini-map using a combination of Autocad and Photoshop. On a side note, I would like to add this: these two ladies are tremendously talented. Map making = lots of time consumed.

Lesson #2.
I had the mind set that, once I finally received my invitations, putting them together would be easy as pie. This was wrong. I think part of this stems from the fact that I didn't really want to put that much effort into the invitations in the first place. In the beginning, I really didn't see the importance of spending lots of $$ and time on something that people would most likely discard. However, once I received my big box of invitations and rsvp cards, they seemed too neatly packed to just stuff in an envelope and send. (I may have also felt to live up to since my paper was going to be streamed live on the Internet). Thus, a vision was created and molded. Something that took a long while to perfect.

Lesson #3
The assembly process was extremely unorganized. Because I had taken so much time designing a map and a vision, I was rushed to get these puppies out the door. In fact, most of my Labor Day weekend was spent assembling them. Instead of pre-cutting all my supplies, I intermixed cutting and matting and stuffing- making the process much longer than it should have been. I also underestimated the amount of supplies I needed, which meant I had to take several breaks from the assembly process to get more.

And so, after many trips to Joanns and Hobby Lobby, hours of cutting and matting, an entire Friday spent addressing, my invitations were born. Stay tuned for later this week/early next week for the final result!

What lessons have you learned from your DIY projects?

Letting Go

Confession: I have a really hard time asking for help. I think I can do everything on my own (and by "everything", I mean everything) and even when help is offered, I usually, politely, turn it down. I would like to think that this is because I don't want to burden anyone with mindless wedding tasks that I'm scrambling to get done (thank you, procrastination). However, I think the underlying issue is this: somehow I think that my projects will only get done "right" if I do them myself. All by myself. Alone. (Now that I've put that out there, I'll admit, I feel a tad bit embarrassed).
Maybe I think they'll be less DIY if I don't actually do them alone, maybe it's genetics (hehe...I've noticed Papa Beagle has the same tendencies :) ), either way, if I don't learn to "let go" asap, I'm going to enjoy many sleepless nights over the next 6 weeks. I'm working to get over the fact that not everything may come out perfect (or at least perfect in my mind) because these people that are offering to help, my friends and my family, actually want to be a part of this big party we're throwing next month. And when I think about it that way, it kind of softens my heart a little; it makes it just a tiny bit easier to hand over a project to someone else.
So this past weekend, when FMIL Beagle, offered to help me assemble our invitations, I let go of my need to do it alone, and accepted her offer. As it turns out, we actually had a good time- we got a lot done, we chatted, and it wasn't as painful as I anticipated.
Am I alone on this boat? Is anyone else having a hard time asking for or accepting help from their friends and family? Any tips for a newbie?

Honeymooning

source

Cabo, here we come (in 8 weeks :))!

Mr. Beagle's parents (my future in-laws!!!!) have graciously gifted us use of their timeshare.  After the mister and I browsed through a few different locations, we decided on the timeshare in Cabo.  Mr. Beagle expressed interest in going somewhere outside the U.S. and somewhere with beaches, so this seemed to fit the bill.  Although I have been yearning to visit New England, or somewere with mountains, or the entire state of Washington, I'm compromising on this one.  And actually, Mr. Beagle's excitement that has spawned from choosing a local is quite infectious.  I'm sitting here with a big fat grin on my face just thinking about it.  :)

Some other reasons that contributed to our decision are these: I know that after the next two months of rigorous planning/creating/DIYing/organizing/last minute projects we will need a week where we can do absolutely nothing.  With our funds depleated from this big party we're throwing, we also needed a place that was economical.  As much as we would love to vacay in Europe (or New England, mountain-land, or Washington), I would feel really guilty and upset if we didn't have the energy to sightsee and thuroughly explore.  For some reason, I don't feel like we will need to do this in Cabo.  I think the scenery along with a white sandy beach at our feet will keep us occupied enough during our honeymoon.  We'll save that adventurous vacation for another time*.

What factors are you using to decide on a honeymoon?  Are you taking your dream vacation?

*and thanks for all your suggestions, I definitely look forward to visiting more than one of these in the near future.

The Hair: Part 2

I went in for a second trial and Jeanie was as lovely as ever.  On the actual day of, the curls will be set longer so that everything doesn't just fall out as soon as I take my hair down (which was kind of the case after the trial... well that and Texas weather).  Please note, it is really hard to take pictures of the back of your own head.

I'm going to play around with it a bit between now and the wedding to figure out if I want it all down or if I want some up/ some down.  (I figured I could just throw in some curlers and try out a few different styles... it won't be perfect, but it's better than paying for a third hair trial).  Jeanie also suggested that if I decide to trim my hair between now and then, to also add in more layers because it will accentuate the curls.

Remember that hair piece I was going to work on?  This is what it looks like (hmmm, that pomander looks familiar:)):

It's actually a flower-type fabric thing connected to a really cheap headband.  I'll post a tutorial about it soon, promise!  In the meantime, you can visit this tutorial by Heart of Light, my inspiration!  Although I love the headband, and the fact that it will keep my hair out of my face, I'm concerned that it will be too much with the bolero I plan on wearing and my chunky necklace.  And , I just realized I never posted about it so here you go:

I ordered it from Etsy seller Pendred Keller and I luuuurve it.  Alot.  I can really see myself wearing it after the wedding- yay!  Here's a close up (please excuse my skin imperfections):

I think I'm becoming obsessed with all things purple.

If I don't end up wearing both at the reception.  I will end up wearing them for our day-after photo shoot (which I decided to do instead of bridals).  I think it would look cute if I wore the headband with my hair up in a bun.... sort of like this.

So what do you think, are both items too much?  Is anyone else having a hard time figuring out their accessories?

Hair & Make-up: Part 1

I'll warn you ahead of time, this post is filled with lots of pictures of moi.  Last Friday, I had my hair/make-up trial.  Even though I had plenty of time to prep for this, I went in uncertain of exactly what I wanted.  I showed Jeanie my inspiration pictures and after a few minutes of deliberating (and taking in to account factors such as the Texas humidity), I decided to go with an up-do.

Obligatory "before" picture sans make-up and hair style:

I washed my hair the night before the trial and learned that I should have washed it the morning before.  My hair was still too soft/ not oily enough, which required more hair spray.  After an hour and a half of Jeanie working her magic, I headed home to take some pictures of the result.
The back of my hair:

 

The right side is a little messier because after I looked at it when she had finished, I decided I didn't want the side areas coming out as much (I would have rather had them go back).  The problem I ran into is that I have so much hair, and it's thick, that this style didn't seem to look as good on me as it did in my inspiration photos.

The left (pretty) side: 

Looking at these pictures now, I like the soft look of it, but I still don't think it's the right hair style for me.
With the veil:

And now onto the make-up.  I didn't give Jeanie very much direction on the make-up portion of the trial, other than telling her that I don't wear much of it.  I hadn't found any inspiration pictures to bring her either, so I was a little nervous.  Luckily for me, Jeanie is so fabulous she came up with a look that I absolutely loved!!!
With the hair still up:

I ended up taking my hair down about 30 minutes after I came home because the back of my head started hurting, really bad.  I'm not sure if was because of the weight of my hair all in one spot or the pins or both, but for this reason alone, I would recommend that everyone get a trial before their actual day so they can be sure it's going to be comfortable.
Now, more make-up pics:

 

Closeup of the eyes, I love how they turned out:

 

7 hours later:

All the make-up is Aveda.  I wish I had a list of all the specific products she used, but at the moment I don't.  I'll try to get a list for anyone that is interested.  Everything except for the lip color stayed on for pretty much the whole day (I had my appointment at 10:30 and took my make-up off around 11).  I'm planning on picking up the lip products she used so I can reapply and avoid the dry lip look I'm sporting in the above pictures. :)  The only thing I'm going to ask her to do differently is go a little easy on the mascara.  I don't usually like wearing it and she was putting it on before I could say anything.  I'm hoping on the actual day of my wedding, I'll be able to forgo the mascara and just do a little lash curling.  Stay tuned for part 2 of my hair trial soon to come!

Do you have any advice for the hive, if you had a hair or make-up trial?  What is your favorite make-up product that you would recommend?