43

Yup, it's my birthday today and I'm proud as hell to be 43!

Since it's my birthday I am going to ask all of you to do me a huge birthday favor. Go to GAC's Top 2o countdown and vote for Radney Foster's latest video, "Angel Flight" for the GAC top 20. Proceeds from the song and the video support the Texas National Guard Family Foundation so share this amazing video with all of your friends and family. We need at least 900 votes to get him on the countdown.


A message from Rad
"We have so many things to be thankful for this year and as we begin the holiday season, I would ask that all of us remember those who are not able to make it home to their families, especially those military men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I wrote this song to tell the story of the "Angel Flight," the aircrew who fly fallen soldiers home to their final resting place.
I hope you'll take a moment to watch the video
and pass it on to your friends.
Proceeds from "Angel Flight" benefit the Texas National Guard Family Support Foundation, which provides assistance to military families beset by tragedy. Please have a safe and joyous holiday, and hug your loved ones close."
Radney

I love pretty sparkly things....

Finding a necklace to wear at my wedding was such a pain. All of the ones I liked were, of course, too short. Chubby girl = chubby neck.
There is a great little Etsy shop called Whimsy Beading that creates beautiful handmade necklaces that are actually long enough to fit a plus size person.
Kelly the owner of the shop had sent me an email a while back and said....

Hi there!
I came across your blog while looking for plus size wedding options. My husband and I have been married for 15 years this year, but boy do I remember the horrible feelings I had as a size 12/14 trying to find a decent dress. I had one old bat look down her nose at me and sneer "We don't cater to chunky girls here" and the "XXL" size was a size 10! I can't imagine what they'd say about me now, as an "extended size" person. (32W and up) I can't thank you enough for setting up a place where other plus size people can go to be inspired by the beautiful weddings and happy couples.I've been a plus size person most of my life, so being able to find pretty things in a size and scale for a bigger person is very important to me. We want the same options and fashion choices as a so-called "standard" size person, but sadly, retailers have been slow to react. Even in the handmade movement, there just aren't that many options for bigger folks, which is why I started making my own jewelry. That eventually led to my husband and I opening a shop on Etsy for plus size beaded jewelry, including bridal jewelry and beaded collars.I don't know if what we do will be of interest to you, but if it is, I would be happy to share links to our Etsy shop and pictures of our work. If it's not, then please accept my thanks for giving plus size folks one more voice in the internet and inspiration for all the lovely, plus size brides out there.
Best,
Kelly Graves
Whimsy Beading


Go and check out her beautiful jewelry here and here! She is also working on some Steam Punk pieces which are pretty cool.

Happy Saturday gang.

While I'm gone go and check out the giveaway over at Privledge.

Halloween brides? Or maybe Winter brides?

We were giggling over Grandin Road's halloween decorations over here and I stumbled across the COOLEST cape I've ever seen!

I tried to share a picture of it but it won't let me but check it out and let me know what you think!

As for the Halloween decorations I really want this one! And these.

IGIGI

I've been pretty impressed with the styles on IGIGI's website. The wedding dress is only $275 and my favorite lace dress (too bad my BM's were too skinny for these) is only $148

Drop in and check them out! They have lots of cute stuff!

Howdy!

I've been a little under the weather and a lot worn out the past few weeks but I haven't forgotten about you all! I'll be posting again soon. In the meantime tell all your friends to send in their wedding pictures, DIY pictures, whatever strikes your fancy pictures, that I can share with the rest of the group.

Carla

Anne and Chad's Wedding continued....

Sorry kiddos! I've been buried up to my neck in end of the month stuff at work. Pesky work...don't they know I would rather play with pretty pictures instead!

Here is the second round of pictures from Anna and Chad's wedding. It's such a sweet wedding and I love that little bit of "sassiness" that Anna has.

SASSY!

This is such a sweet wedding and I love Anda's photography style. Be sure to check our her website and her blog for more inspiration!

Anna and Chad's wedding

Oh I LOVE the pictures from Anna and Chad's wedding! It reminds me of my own laid back wedding I guess....

Anda Marie Photography was so gracious to let me share these pictures with you. Tomorrow I will post the second half. In the meantime go visit her blog...or if you are like me and love flickr you can check out a bunch of her work here!

An easy afternoon project....

Or so the magazine claimed. A week and a half later I've almost finished the top. Yeah, I got a little obsessed over finishing it. There are about 3 squares I should rework but ya know what. Screw it! I think it looks just fine.

I have to put the border around it and then the batting and back but I think it's going to look really nice in the spare bedroom.

So what have you all been up to?

Cheryl and Doug

I love the black lace on Cheryl's dress! What a cool touch. Cheryl and Doug's wedding from Jennifer at Buckley Studios.

As a hobbiest photographer who would like to take it to the next level, I would love to follow Jennifer around for a few days to learn how to get some of the great pictures she takes. I love how Cheryl and Doug's wedding turned out but there are LOTS more great pictures to drool over at her website. Go check them out!

Are you ready for some new wedding porn?

Tomorrow I will share pictures from Cheryl and Doug's wedding from Jennifer at Buckley Studios.

I swam all the way to Houston

Well actually it just felt like it! We drove down Friday night to my best friend's house for a quick visit and to take her back a bunch of stuff that she had loaned me for our wedding. It was pouring rain all the way down and then when we drove back on Sunday it followed us home again. Not that I mind too much. It's been nice to have a break from the heat.

I need some help from all of you on a table decoration project.

It's a work thing but I thought there might be some really creative folks out there that wouldn't mind chiming in. We are having our annual meeting and we need to come up with several table displays, each table holds 8 people and they don't know if they will be round or long. Their only requirements are that it be something "sun" related and fairly easy to transport. The only thing I can come up with is to make a display out of sunflowers but they really aren't my favorite for a business type meeting....even if they are trying to make it "fun". Does business and fun EVER really go together?

Any Night Ranger fans out there?

David Zaijcek is a former member of the band from the mid 90's. The boy can still rock it out!

Lakeside Wedding

Need some help with that ring?

The flower girls were watching the cake cutting VERY intently

Every Labor Day Weekend one of the bands that my husband plays with is booked to play for a large group of people from two small towns in our area.

This year there was a wedding too.

John and Erin who just had a baby a few months ago (look for the red headed sweety) decided to get married at their annual get together.

Jim, who performed our wedding, married these two crazy kids. It was kinda cool to see him perform "our" ceremony again...right down to the happy dance and vows of "Abracadabra and Fried Green Tomatoes"

All pictures were taken by me on my brand new camera so pardon some of the quality issues I'm still learning how to use it.

ENJOY!!!

Chellie and John

Our engagement pictures (all the ones where I'm wearing the tan jacket) were taken by our wedding photographer: Rachel Terry of Stellar Photography in Grand County Colorado. The picture of us at the top of Pikes Peak (right after the proposal) was taken by some stranger :) LOL

John & I met on myspace (yep, that's right) LOL. I was moving from Colorado Springs out to Grand Junction, CO for an internship & was looking for people who knew the area so I could make friends & get some advice on what neighborhoods to avoid living in. John and I emailed & IM'ed for a few weeks and then he drove out to Colorado Springs (about a 5 hour drive) to meet me. We went on our first date at a pizza place & then went to see a movie. He drove us to the movie theater but since we were in my hometown I was giving him directions. I was telling him he needed to turn left & he said "nah, I'll go up one more stoplight"..well sure enough he realized he needed to have turned where I told him to and said "you were ABSOLUTELY right". I joke that that moment was when I knew he was the one for me. He says he knew I was the one during one of our long roadtrips. There is something about being able to be in a car with someone for hours on end & not get sick of one another or get irritable.
After about a year & a half of dating we started talking about getting married. We went & shopped for rings & I had a hard time finding something that I liked. Being a plus sized girl I have large fingers & the rings that I'd been trying on all seemed too "dainty" for my larger fingers...but I finally found a ring that I loved (a center stone with a halo of smaller diamonds around it which added to the size of the ring (making it look more substantial on my finger)... w/o adding significantly to the price of the ring b/c we could still go with a smaller/affordable diamond. After our shopping trip, I didn't know when it was going to happen & it seemed like forever (but it was really only a couple of months)... He proposed to me at the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs & after the proposal we went & had lunch at the same pizza parlor that we went on our first date. He did good :)

We've been engaged for just over 1 year and we're planning a small wedding at a ranch in the Rocky Mountains at the end of September.

This is totally off topic

but I feel it's important to take a moment to share this with all of you.

One of my co-workers was telling us this morning about how his mother had been scammed with the granny scam. They told his mother (73 years old) that her grandson was in jail and they needed to have her send money to get him out. They even got someone to get on the phone and say Grandma this is Z I need you to help me but don't tell mom and dad cause they will kill me!
They scammed her for $2000. The poor thing was so upset when she found out it was all a scam.
Please talk with all of your elderly relatives, maybe have a code word in place incase you really DO have an emergency and need them to send you money.
My co-worker said the hardest thing he's ever had to do was tell his mother she had just been scammed.

In other news.

I will be posting a wedding later tonight. The power cord to my laptop died on me this weekend so I didn't get to play much. I've got a new one now but I'm at work and not supposed to be playing on the internet.

Spring/Summer 2010 Color Trends

Have you ever noticed that you only see certain colors each season? Growing up in an extremely small town I was rather oblivious to that fact for a long time, until I got my very first job in retail when I was in my 20’s

I never knew that people spent months and months researching which color of blue was going to be “the one” for that season. Thank goodness there are people out there that like doing that because I’m NOT that detail oriented and I’m defiantly not very good at putting color combinations together. I tend to take the path of least resistance. My entire wardrobe is either navy, black or dark brown pants with white, black, teal or tangerine tops. I will occasionally buy a dark purple blouse if I’m feeling particularly frisky.

I’ve been out of retail for a LONG time so I’ve gotten away from watching what colors are “hot” but I was really excited to stumble across Artful Wedding Ideas . Michelle Mospens is the artist behind Artful Wedding Ideas and has been featured in The Knot magazines, Elite Wedding Collection, Modern Bride and Better Homes and Gardens. She has a posted about the color trends for spring 2010 I wish it had the names of the colors on there but having the pantone color number is VERY helpful. When we were working with Hatch Show Prints in Nashville for our wedding invitations, we were able to tell them what pantone color we wanted and they knew EXACTLY what we were talking about which was very helpful since I couldn’t just drop into their shop and check it in person.
Drop by her blog and check it out then let me know what colors you are planning on using for your wedding.

PS - she also does Custom Hand-painted invitations like these.

Are you a bargin hunter? SHOPPING ALERT!!!

Pictures (sorry they are so small) are off JCP's website.

I was walking through JC Penney's (Parks Mall in Arlington Texas) and noticed that they had just marked all of their summer decor stuff down to 75% off. Their Vibrant Garden collection really caught my eye. They still had lanterns in orange, green and a few reds. There were really fun candles and other cool stuff so I thought I would let you know.

Wouldn't those would be a great color combo for a spring/summer '10 wedding. Or shoot, if you live in the south, where it's WARM most of the year you could use them year round!

Let me know if your favorite stores are having a great sale that we can pass on. This is a great time to start stocking up on clearance items for weddings!

Heather and Jens

Heather sent me a few photos of her wedding to share with everyone. Their photographer was IQ Photo San Francisco Wedding Photography



She says....



My friend fowarded me a link saying that you were looking for some plus size bridal pictures.The look I went for was far from traditional but here you go :) A size 28 bride in a corset!There are tons more pictures on the photographers website http://clients.iqphoto.com/p371492929



Best Wishes-

Heather Powers Olsen.

Oh my GOSH!!!

THE Dude

Dave (L) and Walt Wilkins (R) are both rocking the Dude vibe

I finally saw The Big Lebowski for the very first time and......I really AM married to "The Dude". It was so strange. Some of his mannerisms were SOOOO much like Dave's that it was a little freaky.

Now I understand why people are always taking his picture and yelling "DUDE!" at him.

And the winner is!!!

We did a good ol' fashioned name drawing and the winner is

Jamie!

Jamie said...

"We would love to have the save the dates. Our wedding is 10/10/10. Most of our guests are coming from far away, though, so we need to send the save the dates soon after the first of the year. We're having an magical garden/ breakfast for dinner event filled with music and board games. We're also avid Vista Print users, so this would be perfect. Thanks so much."

Congrats! Email me and I'll get you set up with your prize!

For those who did not win. Vistaprint is giving you a nice consolation prize in the form of deep discounts on a variety of their products! Follow this link www.vistaprint.com/theplussizebride to check them out.

Just a few more hours left to enter the drawing!

We are home now, and I'm exhausted. I just started unpacking and washing clothes but I wanted to send out one last reminder about the drawing!
Good Luck and I'll post the winner in the morning!
Carla

I'm a happy happy girl!!!!

'Cause I am going to see Radney Foster at Gruene Hall (THE oldest dance hall in Tejas). We will sing at the top of our lungs, get to really sweat like crazy with my fellow Radpack buddies, and then usually afterwards we'll stand around sipping a little tequila with the band in the parking lot.

I will try not to embarrass myself by sharing endless stories of road trips from one end of Texas to the other to see the man play, or tattle on myself about the duct tape I put on the floor of Gruene Hall, or brag about the Sharpie abused walls of said historical building. But you can bet I'll have some fun!

Oooh and I just found out that my second favorite songwriter Walt Wilkins will be playing at The Texas Theater in Waxahachie tonight! I asked the darling husband if we could go and he said. "Just think of it ....seeing your two HEARTTHROBS in a 48 hr period......doesn't get any better does it????"

So you all behave and send me some wedding/engagement/diy porn to post when I get back and recover from the heatstroke (and hangover)

What are you doing for your Save The Date?

This was my first draft for our save the dates. I thought it was funny but only my family would have gotten the joke. (I was married very briefly when I was 20 and spent the next 20 years being single. Nobody thought I was going to get married again including me.) I did send it to a few of them just for giggles but everyone else received a slightly tweaked version that looked a little more like a real concert ticket. She even put a picture of a little trailer that looked like our teardrop on there! It must have worked because people were calling Dave to find out what show the tickets were for.

I had them printed at Kinko's. I cut them down and put a business size magnet on the back of each of them and mailed them out. I hadn't planned on doing STD's but we had so many guests that are musicians that we needed to let them know what date to keep open. If I had known you could send your own artwork to Vista Print that would have saved me a lot of time and stress. Oh well, you all can learn from my fumblings.

4 DAYS LEFT.....

On the contest! Be sure to sign up for it here!

Engagement pictures!

Ok, I know this is a little out of order but we have ENGAGEMENT PICTURES to share!

Vikki, who's wedding I shared with you a while back, was kind enough to share a bunch of her engagement pictures with me.

Her photographer, Aurora Photography from New Milford CT, did such an amazing job!

A Fat Bride's Survival Guide

I just love Natalie's story! Thanks to Kathryn and Lesbian Bride for sharing this link with me. I have copied just a snippet of her sage advice...enjoy and then go over to axis of fat for the rest of this story and more.

"I wanted to share a few things that helped me survive as a fat bride, because if you’re not used to speaking up it really can be intimidating and upsetting. I had a crystalline vision of how I wanted to look on my wedding day and I wasn’t ashamed of my body, nor did I have plans to change it consciously before the date. Being somewhat blunt and quite confident, I had few real issues with the barrage of concerned but unhelpful people who just wanted me to look fabulous when I got married. I understood that they were coming from a mindset held by most brides, a world where a slimmer bride must be the more beautiful bride, but I was not convinced of that-"