Not sure I can do this...

I'm tired. Just plain tired. Seriously. My wedding is one month, one week, and four days away. I am currently teaching summer school M-TH, and taking master's classes Tues. & Thurs. from 4pm - 10pm. I feel like every moment of every day is planned. I have four papers due (2 for each class) that I haven't even started working on. I have escort cards to make, table cards to make, a seating chart to make, chocolate daisy suckers to make, chair signs to make, my veil to make, an aisle runner to order (or make?), a wedding arbor to buy or rent, music to select (I have not even thought about ceremony music), dance lessons to schedule, and I'm sure much more that I've forgotten. Yes, I know I can enlist my bm's, mom, and fmil to help me, but it still seems so overwhealming. When do I get time for me? How am I supposed to finish my master's classes?

The good news. I hired a day of coordinator to help me the day before the wedding and day of. She is the most organized person I've ever met. Hopefully her help will keep me from getting one of my stress migrains or stress ulcers. However, this still does not change the fact that I still have to get all this other stuff done.

Other good news. My fh seems to be getting interested in all of this. Today I got him to help out with a few things and finally get on his friends for not RSVPing.

I need sleep.

I'm a flake...

Okay, yes I know I have not posted my shower pics yet. I will, soon, I promise! In the meantime, last night my fh and I went to the Death Cab for Cutie concert last night at the new Nokia Theater at LA Live. We are using their song, Soul Meets Body during our wedding ceremony. Two of my former students are singing an acoustic guitar version as a duet! I think it will be beautiful. The concert sounded amazing, and I highly recommend the Nokia Theater as a concert venue! It is a little smaller than Universal, and with better accoustics and parking. If you are interested in the lyrics to the song click here!

It's all about the bm's...

Bridesmaids! I think it is odd that being a bride suddenly changes the meaning of "bm" to something wonderful, pretty, and fun! :-)

Where to begin? Well, first I found these amazing robes on sale at potterybarn.com (thanks to weddingbee) for only $20.00 each and free monograming -- so I immediatly bought one for each of my bm's (I decided to only use first and last inital because one of my bm's hates her middle name [it is Olga] and her initals would be NOB, which looks strange).
Left: The robes have arrived!

Once they arrived I had to figure out how I would present them to each bm, so I went to Target (the best store ever!) and bought some supplies, dug out my sicker maker and any other artsy supplies I could find, and walla -- I had a mess on on my living room floor. My fh made fun of me all day long; apparently it is "crazy" to diy all day but "normal" to play computer games all day -- go figure!

So, I decided to personalize each bag for the robes using my computer, some card stalk, a daisy punch, and my sticker maker. The final results:


Then, I decided that the robes just were not enough, so I went onto designhergals.com and created a gal pal for each of my bm's. I purchased the one day pass for $9.99 and printed away! First I made each of them a small note card/stationary set:


The note cards are on the left. Then, I decided that I would use the same gal pals to make their invitations to my bm's "brunch". Instead of a brunch, we are doing a breakfast and spa day 3 days before the wedding. (The basic invite is on the right). I'm doing breakfast at my house and then going to my favorite local spa Total Woman Gym and Day Spa to get pampered. I got each of them a swedish massage (my moh gets a maternity massage) and I am getting a massage and body scrub. I used all of the same supplies I used to decorate the gift bags to make the invitations. Here is the final product with all of the embellishments:

Left: Front of Invite ~~~~~~~~~~~Right: Back of Invite with their Spa Appointment Card

Whew! Okay. I'm going to eat lunch now and then I will post about the bridal shower!

Happy happy, joy joy!

My bridal shower is today! I will post pics tomorrow. I had a diy day yesterday and I can't wait to post the pics for that as well -- but today I am busy, so it will wait. Honestly, I can't believer this shower is for me; this is way better than a birthday party! I drank a glass of wine before bed last night so I would sleep. My alarm went off and I had no problem getting up. After the shower my seamstress bm is going to pin me in my dress so she can begin alterations. It is all too exciting. I must say that today is the first day that any of this has felt real...

All curls...

I had my final hair and make-up trial on Monday night and I must say that I am very happy! The hair looks great in the photos, but we didn't get a chance to photograph the make-up in natural light because we didn't finish until it was dark outside. Trust me that it looks beautiful! She did my hair half up first and then all up; I think I like it all up better, but I like the idea of being able to take it down for the plane flight to Jamaica. I had my hair cut on Saturday and she cut the bangs too short, so the front isn't exactly the way I wanted --but it will be for the wedding. Also, she will add a little more height on top --in the photo it looks flatter than it really is because she took the photo looking down at me. Okay, that is enough rambling, here are the pics! I went to Y Beauty Studio in West Hills (the Valley); Diona Rhynard was my make-up artist and hairstylist.





Up vs. Down



Bottom right picture, me sans make-up -- don't look too close!

Wedding bands are ready...not!

When we ordered the engagement ring I asked for diamonds and sapphires in the band. We set it up so that my fh would pick up the ring and I wouldn't get to see it until he proposed. So, when he proposed I was shocked to see that my ring had no sapphires in it! We discussed it and decided that it looked beautiful the way it was and that I could get sapphires in the wedding band. So, I went today to pick up our wedding bands... and no sapphires! Again! Ugh. The jeweler promptly apologized after remembering that we talked about the sapphires for over an hour. It is a custom ring and it will need to be recast, but luckily they still have the mold so it will only take a week or two this time. The funny thing is that the ring without the sapphires is worth $200 more than we paid, and he thinks it might be tough to sell because it is a size 4 1/2. He is going to engrave our rings for free to help "make up" for the mistake. Our first dance song is "Baby it's Fact" by HelloGoodbye. So, we will have our rings engraved with...

His Ring: 08.09.08 Baby its fact My Ring: our love is true

The date won't fit on mine, but I think it is cute that combined our rings will have the chorus of the song and our wedding date. :-)

Shower anyone?

My moh is the best! I've been wanting to post my bridal shower invite for awhile now, but I didn't have a way to edit out the addresses and names, but now I think I have figured it out. My moh made the invitations herself and, from what I understand, the entire bridal shower is diy. I can't wait to see everyone dressed up in their sundresses and hats! Double click on the image so you can see the cute poem she wrote.

Four facts on my fh...

Here are my four facts on Mr. Calioc

1. Mr. Calioc was one of those bright kids that knows they will go to college and become a lawyer, and that is exactly what he did. He went to UCLA and studied political science and then went to Boalt School of Law, where he promptly decided that he hated law. He decided to finish anyway so he could work long enough to pay off his student loans. He floated through Boalt playing video games and ditching class. After giving up on law he decided to become a teacher -- middle school history.
2. He has issues with eating food that "sounds" strange to him. It is difficult to define what "sounds" strange to him, but here are a few: Anything with the word "bake" in it -- like "Fish Bake" or "Clam Bake", foods that are casseroles, and a whole list of things I just can't think of at the moment (I will update as soon as my brain turns back on).
3. Mr. Calioc loves cats; he even talks to my cat. He used to do it when he thought I couldn't hear him, but now he does it in front of me. He has entire conversations with him and he has a different voice when he pretends to be the cat answering back. I hope this isn't tmi!
4. He loves cookies. This is not a normal liking of cookies, this is almost an obsession. If I don't cook, he will eat cookies instead, and they aren't even good cookies -- He likes the basic chocolate chip cookies from Chips Ahoy! Cookies for breakfast is his favorite. This morning I wasn't able to make his lunch because we are out of lunch meat, so he packed a baggie full of cookies!

Ladies in blue...

First, I have to give credit to Lady T for giving me this idea. The picture is from David's Bridal "dress your wedding". The dress the bride is wearing is NOT my dress, but it was the closest one I could find to mine in David's Bridal. Yes, each of my bridesmaids is wearing a different dress. They will all be wearing silver shoes, and I will be wearing shoes the color of their dresses. The two dresses that are strapless in the picture, won't be strapless for the wedding. One of my bm's is a seamstress, so she is doing all of the alterations and adding straps to the dresses that need them. Two of my bm's are redheads, one is a very dark brunette, and the other a light brunette. Each bm has a completely different body type, not even close to the ones in the picture. Picture them each carrying three yellow gerbera daisies with silver ribbon. My moh will be about 5 months prego on the wedding date and she looks so cute in her dress!

I'll write more later...

Nothing out there for mom?

I just spent the entire day shopping for mob dresses with my mom. We went to two malls: South Coast Plaza and Main Place, and found NOTHING at either! Seriously, the only dresses that Nordstrom's had were over $650 (that's how much my wedding dress was!) and all the other stores only had overly sequined evening gowns or prom dresses. It was horrible. If mom was 35 and a size 8 it would have been no problem, but my mom is 57 and a size 16. We did find one dress at JC Penny, but it was cheap polyester that itched and looked cheap. Ugh. We finally got home just over an hour ago and started looking online. It seems as if the stores carry a lot of stuff online that they don't have in the stores. My mom ended up purchasing the dress pictured below from Nordstroms.com. She isn't in love with it, but she figures it is better than nothing and she can always return it if she gets lucky and finds something she loves later. Ugh. Anyone else having the same issue? (David's Bridal, Alfred Angelo, Macy's, Ann Taylor, etc... no luck!)

Can't sleep alone...

It is 1am and I am wide awake. My fh is at a conference, so I am spending the night alone (not exactly, Poe [my cat] is here with me). I was hoping that checking my email, stalking my registery, and posting on weddingbee would make me sleepy, but no luck. So here I am, posting on my blog with really nothing to say. I am also stressed about work, school, and the wedding right now, so that is not helping either. Summer classes for my master's program just started last week, and they are already killing me -- what was I thinking?! I had my first day of Promethean Board training today, so that is just one more thing to add. Okay, I am totally going off topic. The point is -- I don't like going to bed without him. Simple as that. Okay, I guess I am going to try to curl up with Poe now. Good night.

Stealth Settings...

I really wanted to post this last night, but there was just no way around my fh seeing the pictures, so I am being a very bad girl and posting from work! Stealthy... I have the dress... I went on Sunday with my fmil, moh, and one bm to try it on for the first time and it is amazing on me!!! I love it!! I cannot express enough how happy I am. I ordered a size smaller than what was recommended, and I am glad I did because even the size 6 is a little big (in the bust area). I am by no means a small busted woman, but I do have very narrow shoulders, so I am sure that is the problem. The veil I bought won't work, so I am going to have to rethink that one -- there is no way I'm paying $200 for the veil I tried on at the bridal shop. My moh took a gazzillion pictures, and I look very strange in most of them because she never warned me when she was going to take the pictures! So, I will do my best to give a small blurb for each picture posted.




1. Front of dresss (no shoes on) 2. Back of dress 3. "Haute Couture" pose -- this is me making fun of the stupid hunched bridal poses in all of the wedding magazines. 4. Close up of beading detail - if you look closely you can see how the top doesn't fit.