Oh Daisy!

We spent most of the morning meeting with our new caterer, florist, and in general wedding guru. Her name is Donna Panatella who we met through Shawn Roberts and is absolutely awesome. We sat down down and she went through just about everything we need for the entire wedding. The main intent was to set up the wedding menu including, chicken and roasted prime beef. Lucky for us our caterer is also an inexpensive florist! Her family was in the florist business for 25 years and she recognizes that most florists are big rip offs. Basically she gives us the flowers at the whole sale price to her with just a little bit extra for her time. We decided on white hydrangeas and white roses for my bouquet and green hydrangeas with white roses for the bridesmaids. I was very happy with how she was able to look at my ideas and come up with a great inexpensive plan. She also gave me a lot of advice on the centerpieces and now I am up in the air with what we are going to do for them! She is also taking care of all the rental stuff like tables, chairs, real plates, silverware, linens at the cost that she gets them all at. We hit the jackpot with finding her! Here are some pictures of each type of flower even though they aren't all together like they will be!

White Roses

Hello lovely ladies! Mom and I spent the morning walking the mall, one of my favorite holiday hobbies, and I found out some insider information from payless. While we were paying at the register I told mom about the shoes that TeriAnn had went to try on and how they would have worked if they weren't so tall, so then the lady working started talking to us about bridal shoes. She told me then they are switching designers and coming out with a whole new line in January. This is why they only have 2 or 3 options right now. She also told me that if buy them from payless they will dye them for you at no charge. If we find some we like in January/ February then she suggested that we order them all together so they are in the same patch of dye and will turn out the same color and we can take advantage of the bogo sales. I am excited that this might be an inexpensive option (she said probably around $40 and then with bogo they would be $30 each)! Just wanted to update you all and let you know to keep your eyes out for them!

Even though most classes were finished up last week, I was still supposed to have one class on Monday morning and spend at least two days in my placements. Thanks to the worst snow storm to hit Portland in a long time I got to spend two days lounging around and got home a day early! Andy got the chance to drive to Portland with me on Sunday night which was really nice because it took us 3 hours! We got 6 miles away from home and got stopped at a hill that they were requiring chains to go over. Since there is no other way into Forest Grove we had no other options. There was no way of us knowing that it school would be canceled each day so we were stuck up there (which means that 3 hour drive was for nothing!) I did get a lot of work and some shopping done! As soon as I found out school was canceled for Wednesday (my last day I had stuff to do) we hit the road! Then I woke up this morning and came down to Medford. It feels great to be home with nothing to do.... just joking! I wish I had nothing to do, instead I have a ton of wedding stuff, Christmas presents to finish, and a work sample to write!! All this to let you all know that even as full grown adult I still get to enjoy snow days and made it home safe!

We have a new addition to the bridal party! Ashley is the most amazing person in my entire cohort this year. She has kept me sane during some very stressful months. Over the last 6 months in this program together, we have become very close. It is very exciting to me that she is willing to drive all the way down to Medford and be a part of my special day. She also has a very adorable family. In the picture is her husband John and their sweet 18 month old Maddy. This now means that Andy has 4 Groomsmen and I have 5 Bridesmaids but we are both very okay with that because of how much we love Ashley!

p.s. In case you didn't notice, I updated the blog again! I wanted to add all of your beautiful pictures on here somewhere. If you don't like the picture I picked then send me one that you do like. Also, what do you think about the shoes?

I was looking through another June 09 wedding persons website and saw these cute shoes that she dyed. They are $40 from payless. What do ya'll think?
http://www.payless.com/Catalog/productdetail.aspx?ItemCode=58944&ProductColor=White&Width=Regular&TLC=Womens&SLC=WomensShoes&BLC=WomensDressDyeableShoes

Just in case you don't live in the valley, don't have a trusty Grandma to send you the clipping, or are like me and don't see that you have to click on someone else's name in order to see yours..... here is our engagement announcement!!!! http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081130/COMM1804/811300332

Thankfully the Ducks pulled out a great game on Saturday! It would have been a long weekend if for some crazy weekend they would have lost. We got invited over to a house that Holly was house sitting for and got to watch the game on a 100 inch TV sitting in a home theatre with AMAZING seats! It was a great way to watch a great game! The victory was great because Andy wasn't angry all weekend AND since most of my cohort is made up of Beaver fans and alumni it gives me great bragging rights!

These last two or three weeks have been the exact reason why I wanted to start wedding planning super early! Well ok, I don't really think a 13 month engagement is long but some others, *cough*andrew*caugh* who think weddings can be planned in a couple hours (I think i've offically changed his mind) think so. Anyway, I have had absolutley no time in the last few weeks to even think about wedding planning. So the fact that I said the invites would be started months ago and now months later they haven't even been touched.... really doesn't bother me. I know that I have time to procrastinate and plenty of time to work on the invites. With all that said, last night I did make a little tiny baby step! I sat down last night and fiddled with the invites for the last time and then printed them all!! It really didn't take that long but was super nerve racking. I was so worried that I would print them all and then notice that something is wrong! I reassured myself many times that everything was perfect and then pressed print! Now they just need to be cut, embossed, mounted, put in envelopes, addressed, and stamped.... I told you it was just a baby step!

So this might not work because I haven't talked to the venue yet to see if they will let me have a fire BUT.... I think it would be really cool to have a fire pit and then have these cute little smore packets for people to make smores later in the night. What do ya think?

I'm not sure how many of you actually read my other blog (or this blog :( ) but I just posted over there about my classroom website that I just finished up. I re-created it THREE different times and finally gave into using iweb because it makes super cute websites very easily. I am super proud of how it turned out. I had to make it for one of my classes but really want to keep it up as part of my resume for applying to jobs at the end of the year and to use in my classroom next year! Take a look at it and let me know what you think!! (sorry that there is no new wedding news :( ) 

I've been playing around with stationary pieces like the reply cards and decided that the monogram theme didn't really work for them. So I created a new monogram. I think it will fit the flowery green feel of the wedding a little bit better. Let me know what you think!! p.s. this version of it is made in word and paint but I plan to make a photoshop version on a school computer so it will be more crisp!

The engagement pictures came in the mail yesterday!!! They turned out really good! We love them :) I'll post a few on here but i've posted more on our shutterfly account for the wedding. With all of the pictures she gave us she turned them all black and white, sepia, and played with them a little bit so I just picked my favorite one from that pose and posted it. I can show you them all when I see you all sometime! To log onto shutterfly go to http://www.shutterfly.com/, On the right there is a box that says sign up or already a member, click on already a member. Use the e-mail lynchduo@gmail.com and the password wedding (this is the account we created for the photo share cards we are going to use at the wedding). Then you can click on the E-pic album and there they are! (Mom, don't print these ones, wait until I come home and you can print the high resolution ones)

Of course one of the first questions women always ask me when they find out I am planning a wedding is "what are your colors?". I tell them green with accents of pink and ivory. Closely following that question is "what are your flowers going to look like?" I explain that the bridesmaids will be wearing black dresses and carrying green flowers and I promise you that not one of them has seen the vision! They all look at me like I'm crazy! Well just to prove that I'm not crazy (though sometimes that's negotiable) I thought I would share some of my flower inspiration pictures:

This is the very first picture that led me to believe that black dresses could be done at an early evening wedding and green flowers could work!

I might possibly let some pink in.... (but probably only for me. I don't think it would work with the girls green shoes. It really depends on which shoes we find.... if we ever find shoes.)

We had a very busy birthday weekend! Saturday morning we took the Engagement pictures. The weather was perfect!! Freezing cold but sunny and dry! They should be in the mail to me by Wednesday so hopefully by the weekend I can post some of them! We love our photographer and it was actually painless for Andy! Then we met with the catering company that we will probably go with. We have one or two more options but we have decide by the end of the week so it will probably be the one we met with. We are really happy with all of the services she can provide for us. Still more, we also met with the DJ on Saturday. The guy was really nice and seemed to understand the feel that we were going for. Andy was able to talk him down in his price some (thank you for his business degree :)) and I will drop off the deposit in the mail tomorrow! I am so excited to be checking things off of the massive list I have!

Just decided that things could use a little pick me up around here! It may be a day or two before I have time to get things set back to normal but procrastinating homework to change the background has now come to an end. Enjoy!

Remember how in my last post I said that I was going to type the EXACT wording that was on the invites? Well I didn't. I have no idea how I missed the fact that we were not using that wording at all. This is why I need you guys. I promise that this time it actually is the EXACT :) wording that we will be using. Does this still loook right?

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wallace and Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Lynch
invite you to share in a day of love and laughter
as they celebrate the marriage of their children

Tara Lorraine Wallace
and
Andrew Michael Lynch

Saturday, the thirteenth of June, two thousand and nine
at five o’clock in the evening
The Riverhouse, Shady Cove, Oregon
Reception immediately to follow

Update #1: As part of a class on Technology we are required to create a website and a blog through the Pacific website and I wanted to let all of you know what the address was for that one. Mainly it will be experiences from my student teaching but could include more as things flow. Anyway it's just one more way for you guys to keep updated on what is going on up here! The website is not up and running yet but the blog is: http://fg.ed.pacificu.edu/users/wall9376/


Update #2: It's time for some editing!!! I have finally found a stencil that I really like for the invitations and plan on buying all of the paper for them this weekend. I'm starting this super early because it is going to take a super long time to make so many of them! My plan is to work on 4 or 5 a week and maybe a ton in one weekend if I ever find the time. However, knowing me and my spelling and grammatical blunders..... I want to make sure that everything is perfect before I print them all. So I've added the pictures that I've taken of them and will copy and paste the exact wording that I am using. Some of it is specific format that I have found is what you are supposed to do on invites but for anything else please be SUPER critical of them. I want to make sure they look perfect!

I think that you can see the flowers better in this one than the last one:

A close up of the flower:


The entire invitation, the paper used in this one is not what the actual paper will look like but will have these same colors:

The exact wording that I used:

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wallace and Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Lynch

request the honor of your presence

at the marriage of their children

Tara Lorraine Wallace

and

Andrew Michael Lynch

Saturday, the thirteenth of June, two thousand and nine

at five o'clock in the evening

The Riverhouse, Shady Cove, Oregon

Reception immediately to follow

How many of you have ordered your bridesmaid dress? Let me know in the comments :)

Thanks to Kaitlin making fun of me for making fun of her I decided to update a bit :) No real exciting wedding plans have happened in the last two weeks. Student Teaching has been really good but has proven to be exhausting! Twice in the past two weeks I have come home around 5 and gone straight to sleep! All my students are really great though, i'm very excited for the challenge for getting to know them and then teaching them! On top of spending one day a week in each of my classrooms, I started my 6 classes for the term! Needless to say wedding planning has been the last thing on my mind! I have managed to get a rough draft of the big days schedule down and am trying to get all of the addresses in a spreadsheet. I'm still not sure what I should be working on now but am looking forward to October when I have a list of things that can't happen till then. A small piece of excitement to conclude with... final grades for the summer term have been posted and probably for the first time in my life I received straight A's :) !!!

All for under $20! I started looking at Chadwicks.com today and found a ton of shoes that I love (my new favorite shoe store!) I didn't spend much time on the site but very easily found these three options. Let me know which ones you like and that way we can get more of a feel for what everyone wants. I have no idea why Andy decides to have opinions on some things but he has requested that everyone wear the same shoe... This could be complicated trying to coordinate!

Pair #1
Pair #2 (my favorites but would they look good with the dress?)
Pair #3 (not my favorite but I would love to see you all in a full pump and Stacey and Clinton always say to go with the pointy toe)

Just thought I would share some pictures from my week in Central Point! As you all know I also got my dress this weekend but I refuse to post those pictures anywhere just in case! We took a trip out to the Riverhouse to show mom and the girls what we are working with. It was very helpful and gave me a good idea of what needs to be done and what is not necessary. Other than that we created a timeline for the wedding, i handed off the job of finding a DJ to Andy, and figured out that we have a little bit of time before anything else big needs to happen. I get to spend a bit of time relaxing (aka student teaching and taking 19 credits!)

They are now both obsessed with worms! Gross!

A very long and busy week!

Ok... I've changed my mind on these about 10 times so i'm not set in stone on these but right now they are my favorite :) I love the table setting of the first picture with the white table cloth, pink runner (it would probably be green) lots of candles around it and rose pedals around it. But i don't want the small square vase I would rather have a vase like in the second picture. What do you think?

I was talking with the girls about what I was planningn on doing with my hair for the day of the wedding. I thought I would put them up here just to share! Half way through my week off :( I'm excited to get into the schools but am enjoying sleeping in late and being lazy all day long! More updates on centerpieces later in the week!

We purchased wedding bands today!! Andy got a Tungsten metal ring which he is very excited about because it is un-scratchable! Definitely what he needs! It has just a little bit of detail around the edges. My band is the same band that my engagement ring is on. This isn't the exact picture of mine but it's close to it.

How does this sound? We are thinking about changing the pork to some kind of beef and one of the side dishes to fruit.

Dry Rubbed Barbecue Chicken with Housemade BBQ Sauce
Pulled Pork with Potato Buns
Smoke and Spice Beans
Red Pepper Coleslaw Green Salad with Buttermilk Herb Dressing, Roast Carrots and Herbed Croutons Roast Red Potato Salad with Basil
Fresh Rosemary Onion Bread and Butter

If for some reason you are interested, we are probably going to go through Helena Darling Catering.

The number one choice for favors is sugar cookies (homemade :) ) but the question is.... which packaging looks better?


Option #1: The original idea was to create these simple little bags with a monogrammed L on them and probably something that said thank you for joining us. These would be very simple and only require a few minutes of work on the morning of to put them all in bags. Then they would all just be sitting in a basket for people to take on their way out.










Option #2: I just found these cute easy to make boxes in a magazine this weekend. The boxes are very easy to make but are somewhat time consuming. All of the folding of the paper could be done months in advance but the sugar cookies wouldn't be able to go into them until day before/ day of the wedding and so it would take a lot of time to tie all of the ribbons. (yes, that means help from all of you :) ) Depending on the color of the table cloth the white paper might turn into a cool green printed paper and the ribbon turn into an ivory ribbon. These would be sitting at each place setting. The second picture is how they look opened up.




















Which one do you like better???? p.s. I know this is a very small detail that doesn't really need to be worked on for a while BUT I do want to be on the look out for the either the bags or the paper and ribbon so the materials can be gotten early.

Just an update for those of you in the Rogue Valley or who may be in the Rogue Valley the week that I am home (August 18th through the 24th). The plan is to take a drive out to the Riverhouse on Tuesday evening just to get another look at it and show it to mom. We will probably leave the house once mom gets rid of all the kids. Anyone who wants to come check it out is more than welcome. Then on Saturday the 23rd we are going to go look at dresses at Shirley's Bridal. Probably sometime in the morningish (10-11-12). Once again anyone who wants to join us just let me know! Other wedding plans for that week are to meet with the caterer, florist, and look into rental companies :)

The wedding this weekend was beautiful!! Absolutely amazing and the most lavish wedding I think anyone (besides the girls on platinum weddings) could ever dream of. Andy was excited because they had three different open bars running all night! Because there were to many pictures to e-mail out I have just created a page that has them all on it. Check it out: http://twallac3.googlepages.com/pictures Other than the wedding the weekend was very relaxing. I managed to spend 2 1/2 full days not thinking about school or trying to plan my own wedding! Now back to the realities of class :(

It's been a week since I've posted anything on here!! So sorry! I started a very reading intensive class this week and will probably not be doing much wedding related stuff until this class is done in two more weeks! This weekend is Duane and Joannas wedding in San Fran so I will make sure to tell everyone how it goes when we get back. Another non-wedding related update, I just found out my placements for student teaching. I will be in a 5th grade classroom at Heiton Elementary and a Kindergarten classroom in the private (brand new!) Pacific Early Learning Center! Very exciting!

I had lunch in town with Kaitlin today and on my way out decided to kill a little bit more time and stop by the Craft Warehouse. Turns out they were having a huge sale! I got this wonderful frame that is going to be our guest book for only $15!!! I had my heart set on one from Target but it was much smaller and over double the price. I love this one and it was much more budget friendly! We will need to buy a mat for it but then it's ready to store for a year!

We met with our photographer this weekend! She was really nice and takes really amazing photographs. We have scheduled to do our engagement pictures sometime in October. Here is the link to her website if you want to check it out. http://www.impressionsphotograph.com/index.html
I also updated our website a bit so check it out if you have time! The next big tasks are to find food (!) and a DJ. Any recommendations??

It seems like everyone likes the bridesmaid dresses! Since only 1 out of the 4 of you got to try them on the plan is to order them and see how they look. Be honest, if you don't like it when you get it then we can go to a plan B, or plan C, all the way to Z if we need to. I want you all to be able to wear the dress for a long time so that it is worth the money. I found a coupon online that you can use to get %20 off. This website explains it, http://www.retailmenot.com/view/jcp.com . If you click on the coupon code it will open up a new JCP window and you can find the dress. Then proceed to check out. The coupon website also says that you can get $5 shipping if you give them a call and they change it for you. It's worth a try. Hopefully this works to get a good deal on them! Let me know if it works and especially when you get them!!! TeriAnn's should at mom's house this weekend so I will have her try it on and post pictures! So excited that this is all out of the way!

What do you think of this dress?

http://tinyurl.com/6xqsgm

It's at JcPenny's so everyone would be able to look at it. The only issue is that it's on sale now so they would probably need to be gotten sometime in the next month or so. Truly what do ya'll think?