Yes, the wedding is still happening even though I haven't posted about it in almost 2 months! I've been a little busy, as you'll see below. Budget is limited, and everything is on the two of us, so this is what we've been occupied with to make this shindig happen:
Whew! Details to come, just let me catch my breath-
xoshayox
If you know Ted and I, you know we love all things cooking and eating!
From shopping for food and growing food
To entertaining with binge/purge-worthy feasts 
To by-any-means-necessary tactics of getting food
Special occasions are always a treat no matter which one of us takes on the cooking tasks.
For our three year anniversary, and the last of our dating anniversaries (which is a good thing cause we made the date up since neither of us could remember the actual date of our first date...July 1 sounded good enough), I came home from work to the most amazing smells of potent garlic, pungent cheeses, and creamy butter sauces. Voila!
Home-made hummus, my favorite triple creme cheese, seared scallops, blue cheese-bacon risotto, and plenty of Founder's Cerise, Sauvignon Blanc and Prosecco to wash it all down.
Oh yeah, and he gave Penny a bath so she didn't smell too bad either!
Back off girlies, I've got this one locked down.
Sincerely,
The luckiest gal in the world (shay)
I love all things ephemeral: clippings from magazines and newspapers, postcards, note cards, labels, photos, etc. Our living room is cluttered with shelves and stacks of old novels, atlases, how-to books, you name it. I guess I'm a sucker for visual inspiration in the physical form, which is why it totally bums me out to not send actual invitations to everyone.
Due to our financial situation, I long ago gave up on doing what other people expect from a wedding, so we're going digital! Email invitations felt tacky to me at first, but after looking at a couple of different sites that offered such services, I met my new friend, Pingg!
It's probably similar to all of those other sites, but Pingg's site design is so clean and crisp, it made me feel less cheap about the whole idea.
You can design your own invite, or use one of their templates. We ended up using the same graphic of our mugs that I stamped onto the coaster save the dates.
Pingg lets you email, text or snail mail the invites, which I thought was pretty cool. And they track all of your RSVP info and send follow-up emails to folks who don't respond. Oh yeah, and it's FREE!
My favorite thing about their invites, is when you receive the email and click on the link, it takes you to a site with an envelope on the screen. When you click on the envelope, the invitation slides up! Fun!
In an effort not to confuse people, we're only sending these out to the masses that are invited to the reception, not the small group invited to the ceremony and reception, to whom we already mailed invites. I'm totally over thinking this, and I'm super worried that people who received our snail-mail invites are going to be confused about not getting the Pingg invite...Should I just send the Pingg invite to everyone, or leave it as is? Am I starting to lose my mind? Maybe a little....
xoshayox
We've been thinking about how we want our ceremony and reception to look, and how we can accomplish the look DIY style. These are our inspirations thus far:
Images clockwise via 100 Layer Cake, Once Wed, The Wedding Chicks, a desert fete
Images clockwise via Martha Stewart Weddings, Oh Happy Day, Design Sponge, Inspired by This
Images clockwise via Style Me Pretty, The Wedding Chicks, Ruffled, Oh Happy Day, {ritzy bee blog}
Images clockwise via Lola's Room, Ruffled, Style Me Pretty, Green Wedding Shoes
Images clockwise via Junebug Weddings, snippet & ink, Style Me Pretty, The Sweetest Occasion, Lucky and Lovely
Images clockwise via Veiled Vows, The Sweetest Occasion, 100 Layer Cake, Tanja Lippert, 100 Layer Cake
xoshayox
Look what arrived in the mail the other day!
30 yards of guinea feathers!!! I was so stoked I actually got motivated to hammer out more of the dress.
When I started this project back during Memorial Day weekend, I had a pattern, lining material and twice as much fabric than I would actually need. The pattern didn't translate into what I envisioned the dress to look like, so I scrapped it and went at the lining with nothing more than some newsprint and my dress form.
After multiple "prototypes" of skirts and bodices, I finally came up with one that would work, so I went at it with the satin.
Middle section is basically done. I added an interfacing to the back of the fabric to give it more stability, but now I wish I could start it over... It just didn't sit right with the seams, but I don't have enough fabric to start it over and there's NO WAY I'm going to find the bolt of fabric I got this from at the warehouse.
So I made the shell of the top without using the interface, to hopefully avoid the problems I had with the skirt. I finished the lining, but I'm not sure the two fabric will lay together properly.... Luckily I've befriended an AWESOME gal at Hancock Fabrics named Dorothy, who told me to call or stop by anytime with questions. I think I'll be dialing her up very soon. The BIG problem is folks, I'm a serious novice when it comes to sewing. I was too busy taking all of the science and math classes my high school had to offer to even bother with home-ec. I've taken one sewing class in my entire life, and my ex-boyfriend had to show me how to thread my first machine. I've read tons of sewing books though. But, when you sew as seldom as I do, that wealth of information isn't at the forefront of your mind. I should have done a more thorough refresher course before tackling this beast.
But I sunk my teeth into the bottom skirt anyway. After 4 attempts, I finally got it right! Then I started to pin my pile of feather trim on to make sure I had enough, and found out the trim is sealed with glue!!! I'm going to have to hand sew 30 freaking yards of feathers onto the bottom skirt! OY! Good thing I still have 3 months left.
xoshayox