The Mailbox Reaction

I've had a couple encounters with a mailbox recently, something I never thought would be so...exciting? Heart pounding? Nerve racking? All of the above actually.

My first encounter with a mailbox occurred last week when I headed to Home Depot to buy light bulbs while Mr. Honey was out of town (seriously, I had 4 light bulbs go out the first week he was gone. What the?). As I stood staring at the enormous selection of light bulbs I thought I should take a look at the mailboxes. Why? Because I wanted something like this:

Image via Bridal Musings/Photo by Kreatid Photography

A mailbox to display at the reception for cards. I'm smitten with the "Up" inspired mailboxes like Mrs. Lioness and Mrs. Snowcone created, but we have actually never seen the movie (I really really want to though!), so it wouldn't really make sense. I also wanted to be able to use the mailbox post wedding, so I needed something a tad more practical. After picking out my light bulbs I was directed towards the mailboxes and was surprised to find them so reasonable, $17.99! Why I expected them to be more expensive, I don't know.

I had briefly mentioned this idea to Mr. Honey before he left, but I wanted to have this completed when he got home...I had the idea of having the mailbox sitting on our table with a love note inside, so when he got home he would have a note and simultaneously see just how darn cute the idea was; so I got to work.

I got a shiny white mailbox:

$17.99 from Home Depot

and pretty alphabet stickers:

$2.99 from Hobby Lobby

My biggest decision came down to if I wanted to go with Mr. & Mrs. Honey or The Honey's. Decisions, decisions. Mr. & Mrs. seemed to proper; so I went with The Honey's. I stuck the stickers on (I chose to go with all lower case letters) and wham bam I had an official mailbox.

It looks better without my horrible attempt at photo editing!

It's simple and sweet, and REAL. Woah. Seeing my future last name in stickers, as a plural, made me smile extra big; it was also the first moment that I got little butterflies in my stomach and really reinforced that there is going to be a marriage after the wedding. We will really be Mr. & Mrs.! I didn't get the love note in the mailbox before Mr. Honey returned, but I was okay with that because in a couple months, that mailbox is going to be filled with important (and not so important) things addressed to "the honey's".

Okay, okay so I took a mailbox and slapped some stickers on it, sure it wasn't the most exciting tutorial ever but the effect- a mailbox, made a helluva impression. A mere three days after completing this project, another mailbox made an impact. I headed to the real post office...to a real life mail box...with a box of stamped envelopes. Our invitations. I always go to the drive-by mail box, it's just easier than parking, and luckily I happened to be in the lane all.by.myself.

There I sat, thumbing through each envelope, like I was mentally making sure each of the 90-some envelopes were actually addressed, or making sure a flap wasn't coming undone. I dropped a stack of ten or so at a time, and my heart pounded as each stack got dropped into the abyss slot. I was not expecting this reaction, I was expecting a huge wave of relief.

Nobody told me how strange it is to drop your wedding invitations in the mail! I had put so much time and energy to making them, I felt a bit sad. On the other hand, mailing the invites means that the wedding is just around the corner, so that made me feel quite excited. Then there is the amount of people that will be looking at our invitations, and that made me a little nervous. I drove away (and not because the three cars behind me were honking), then the wave of relief hit me. I told Mr. Honey I had dropped them off and he asked how it went, I told him my thoughts and said "I kinda wanted to just kiss each one as I dropped it off". That sounds weird, but there was a whole lot of thought poured into those and there is a lot of significance tied to those pretty 'lil packages!

I've already received a couple texts from friends saying they got their invitation, so I will now be obsessive about checking our (soon to be replaced) mailbox for RSVP's. And you know what that means- I will soon be able to share them with the Hive!

How did you feel when you dropped your invitations in the mail? Has something that is usually pretty insignificant really made an impact on you while wedding planning?

Salsa to Sparkle

I discovered glitter jars and literally that next weekend I did a trial run to see how I liked them. I used glitter I had on hand, and even with hot pink and lime green glitter, I loved how they turned out. I started collecting glass jars, and maybe even started buying things at the grocery store because I liked the jar. Okay, yeah I totally did that.

My biggest obstacle with this project was finding the right color of glitter; it tends to come in bright, flashy colors which doesn't jive with our wedding palette. Thankfully on my recent trip to Hobby Lobby I came across the perfect pack of glitter titled warm combo which included a dark blue and gray. I also bought a pack that had various whites and silvers, and one that was as close to peach as I could find. I have been dying to do this project and have finally knocked out a big portion of the jars and am ready to share the details with you all.
Here's what you need:

- Jars in any shape or size of your choosing (removed of all labels, hooray for Goo-B-Gone)
- Glitters in your choice of colors
- Double sided tape
- Glue (oops forgot to include that in the pic)
- Bowls for the glitter
- I found a sheet of paper to be beyond helpful

I made two styles of glittered jars, striped and full on sparkle. For the striped jar, you will use the double sided tape; fortunately the tape comes off and re-sticks without issue, so it's okay to take more than one two three times to get the tape straight. I found it easiest to pour the glitter in the bowl and while holding the jar over the bowl, drop the glitter on the tape and then run your fingers over the tape to get the glitter to stick.

After I had glitter all the way around, I tap-tap-taparooed to knock off the excess glitter onto the sheet of paper and then would pour the excess back into the bowl. For the full on glitter, I used the Elmer's craft bond dual tip glue pen and squeezed the glue, using the wide tip, onto the glass and then spread it around and thinned it out (I eventually learned that using a paper towel was efficient because then the glitter didn't end up sticking to my gluey fingers). This way obviously takes more glitter, and it was tricky to get enough glue without it being too thick.

Once you have the glue covered, do the tap thing again and suddenly you've transformed an Alfredo, pickle or salsa jar into a beautiful sparkly jar!

I spent the later part of a Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning doing this, I'd say a total of 3 hours, and ended up with 23 sparkly jars:

I will probably do one more session of glittering, I'm sure the holidays will provide plenty of glass jars, plus I've got my friends saving all of their glass jars.

When I first came across this project, I had no idea what to expect to use in glitter and tape. The little vial of glitter in the packs are 9 grams each. Using one whole vial of the blue glitter, I got 9 jars; 4 solid and 5 striped. I went through one whole roll of Scotch's double sided tape, and maybe a quarter of a second roll to do stripes on 11 of the jars.

I was curious how the glitter jars would look with the twine wrapped jars, so I did a super mini, aka half ass, mock up. I only had two jars with twine, I didn't have the burlap runners (both of which are being stored at my parent's house) or a table cloth but even without all of those important details, I still liked the way they looked together.

I don't think the jars will be alternated so strategically between glitter and twine, but I didn't have much to work with here. I envision them to be more randomly placed, fitting with our perfectly unmatched, whimsical and rustic 'theme'.

What DIY project have you been dying to do that you have recently completed? It's always risky business taking on DIY projects...were you as happy with the results as you expected?!

Yarnograms

Between my spheres and the pom pom's I'm (still) making, yarn is ending up with quite the presence in our big day. We aren't doing a monogram on our cake, so when I came across yarn wrapped letters, I knew it was the perfect way to incorporate our initials, and yes, more yarn.


Image via Aim High Photography

I bought some whimsical wooden letters at Hobby Lobby for $2.99. Where they promptly sat untouched for a couple months, until this last week.

I plopped in front of the TV and put on an episode of Law & Order SVU, expecting to knock this out in an hour or so...how difficult could it be to wrap yarn around a piece of wood?! I'll tell you, it was a P.I.T.A. My one episode of SVU turned into four or five episodes, and lots of cursing. See those pretty little curly details on the letters? I didn't think they were so pretty when I was twirling yarn for hours. And the D? Trying to put a bundle of yarn through the middle of that was a headache.
The tutorial is pretty straightforward, and I failed to take pictures of the steps (blogger fail due to annoyance) but for a detailed step by step check out this one. Basically it goes like this: start wrapping the yarn, wrap a little more, then a lot more, tie off the end and secure with a little glue. Sounds simple enough, and not that it's actually hard, it's just tedious. That being said, I am really in love with the final product:

Now I have these super cute initials but I have no clue what I'm going to do with them! I guess I didn't think it through too thoroughly. I'm envisioning them either being hung on the wall above our gift table or even setting on the table. I'm more confused, though, about how to make them work together. I think it's because the letters are so close to each other in the alphabet that I'm being thrown off.

Here's a few options I've come up with. In true monogram fashion, I would need to find (and re-wrap...) a larger initial for our last name, and then I could display all three initials like this:

Image via Somewhat Simple

Or, I was thinking of getting hearts and wrapping them in yarn as well, to place between the three letters: 

Image via Woolly Wotnots

I could also implement an ampersand, but that leaves me with an extra letter:

Image via Sarah Ortega

Maybe hang them individually inside a wreath or frame?

Image via Violet Paper Wings


I'm at a loss...so, I'm coming to you for help, Hive!
Option A: Wrap a bigger last name initial, it will be worth it
Option B: Yarn hearts would be perfect
Option C: Ampersand all the way
Option D: Hang individually inside something cute
Option E: You are overthinking this, setting them on table will be fine

OR leave me your suggestions in the comments, anything helps!

When The Man's Away...

Mr. Honey and I have been fortunate in our relationship that we haven't had to spend many nights apart from each other, much less endure a long distance relationship. While it hardly compares to being in a LDR, I'm currently alone for sixteen long nights while Mr. Honey kayaks with four of his friends in the jungles of Ecuador. This is by far the longest we've spent apart, and while he doesn't have phone service he thankfully emails me daily with updates; usually starting with "I'm Alive", which is appropriate considering the dangerous nature of his adventure.
This is not the purpose of the post, though, for me to whine about being alone. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been alone (aside from my amazing girlfriends who call regularly to see if I need a beer, wine or dinner - or all of the above) but I've managed to become extremely motivated with wedding tasks. It's not that Mr. Honey doesn't want to help contribute or even purposely distracts me from wedding stuff, it's more that when he's chillaxin' on the couch next to me I'd rather chat with him than be sitting in my craft room by myself.
I tend to do things better by myself anyway; like cleaning the house. I'd rather him be gone the whole entire day then to be there getting in my way trying to help vacuum or dust. I have a routine and an end goal in mind, and sometimes it's just easier to do it my way. Control freak? A little bit.
I was reveling in how much I had gotten done in a short few days, and I started to think that how just two weeks prior I had a minor meltdown. I panicked about food, I worried about my mom's dress, I couldn't find a necklace or cardigans and I definitely couldn't imagine seeing the final product that is our invitations. There's just.so.much. Yet here I am, with each of those things checked off the list and feeling rather accomplished. It's easy to get caught up in everything we have to get done, but somehow, someway, things do in fact get done. And, go figure it's usually when you aren't having a bridal meltdown that things happen. It was hard for me to see it all coming together, finishing little pesky tasks, and I had a hard time believing other bees/brides when they would say "It will all come together". Well, here's another bride stating that it does.
In case you missed my hint above, here's a little teaser of something I've been working very diligently on:

That's right, the Honey invites are very near completion and will be getting mailed out next.week! I can't wait to share them, along with everything else I've been crafting/buying/finishing, with you.

Was there a moment when it felt like everything started falling into place? Did it take your significant other leaving to get some things accomplished?

A Two Dress...Mother of the Bride

My mom loves shopping, but she loves shopping for me and not for herself. Every once in awhile she'll find a cute top or a new pair of PJ's, but that's usually for every ten things she finds that is intended for me. When it came to what she would wear for the wedding, as expected, she was pretty casual about her expectations. Until one day I sensed in her voice that she was slightly worried, and then she told me that she had my aunt searching the Internet for her because she "just couldn't find anything". My aunt sent her links to some Nordstrom dresses, I search David's Bridal, but nothing was standing out. I decided that Internet shopping was not going to work. 

Knowing how much my mom dislikes trying on clothes and spending money on said clothes, I knew it was going to have to be a sneak-attack. The opportunity was perfect this past weekend when we took Saturday to drive over to New Mexico to get some wedding tasks accomplished...I had a full list of things and on that list I didn't mention one time we were going to look at Dillard's for a dress for her. She probably wouldn't have gotten in the car, plus she was just getting over a horrible cold and wasn't feeling her best that day. We ran the first few errands and then I casually mentioned that we should check out Ross for some baskets, knowing that to get to Ross, we had to walk through Dillard's. It was perfect, within the first few steps of the store, I spotted a cute dress, grabbed it and demanded we look around some more. I'm so clever!

Next thing you know, we had a good 10 dresses and my mom was getting into the spirit. Once we had the selection and she began trying them on, it was easy peasy lemon squeezy. There were very few requirements for her dress; nothing too formal, flattering, comfy, and the option to wear tights and other warm accessories.

She didn't even come out of the dressing room if she didn't like the dress on her, so the first one I saw was one I pulled, this cute black number:

Heyy Mama Honey!

I think she was ready to just buy this one and call it day, it fit her so perfectly. The skirt is a lot flouncier in real life, and the neckline is just beautiful. She loved the cut of the collar. As she tried on a few more, she kept saying "I just love the black one!" but I urged her to try on the others. Plus, there was one I was really excited to see. 

Seriously, with that waistline, I don't think a dress could look bad on her! We both really liked this one, too, it was SO flattering on her without being to over the top. This was a royal blue color, though, and I feared that it would look like we failed miserably at trying to match my mom to the wedding party; the blue was too close to navy but so far at the same time. As if it could be even more perfect, they had a pretty royal purple:

This color looked great on her skin tone, and it coordinates with the rest of our color palette. Now we had to decide which of the two she wanted; we walked away and got an Icee, came back and she confidently declared she was getting both! She had planned to spend around $150 for her MOB dress, and instead she got two for $150. The black dress was $99, and the purple dress was on sale $54. One she may wear for the rehearsal and the other for the wedding, but she hasn't decided that part yet.

I bet if we had declared that day that we would find her MOB dress, it wouldn't have happened. Isn't that the way it always goes? Instead Mama Honey found two perfectly gorgeous dresses, making this one of the easiest tasks to date. Now we are on the lookout for suede boots and jewelry to round out her outfits.

Was shopping for your mom's dress easier or more difficult than you expected? Anyone else have to plan a a covert-op?!

All About Anemone's

I've been pretty nonchalant about wedding flowers and bouquets throughout most of my planning. It's really a direct result of not having a very big budget, so florals were placed under the importance of food, beer and music. And, my wedding dress.

I'm drawn to the more expensive bouquets consisting of succulents, and bigger blooms like peonies. If I couldn't have what I wanted, then I just didn't care that much. As snooty as that sounds, it was more that I just accepted that our flowers weren't going to my dream flowers. I was perfectly content going to the local grocer and buying whatever flowers were available and arranging our own bouquets the night before the wedding. Mama Honey and MOH Stac, however, weren't having it. They envisioned more perfect flowers for my wedding day.

A long, long time ago I fell in love with this shoot featured on Style Me Pretty. I adored all the elements but what really caught my eye were the flowers, I had never seen them before. Suddenly I was enamored with Anemone's.

Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Jessica Claire / Styled by Jesi Haack

Those pretty white pedals against the dark, almost blue looking center is just the perfect flower for a winter wedding and it also happened to fit perfectly with our color palette. I wrote them off immediately, though, because my quick research proved them to be too expensive. But the dang things kept popping up everywhere and I couldn't get them out of my head. My mom didn't forget them either and each time I mentioned my plan for cheap and easy flowers from the grocery store, she always referred back to the Anemone's. We were both dreaming of them. Mama Honey has made numerous phone calls over the past couple weeks to price out these beauties. They were coming in around $4 or $5 a stem, equating to way more money than we had for florals. My mom, however, did not give up and called recently with some news; the florist at our grocery store would give them to us for $2.50 a stem. *Squeee*!! She will order them for us and then we will still create the bouquet, which is a-okay with me.

Here's how they will work for the Honey Wedding. The bouquets will consist of all white Anemone's:

Image via Southern Living/Photo by Q Weddings

The guys will wear a single Anemone for their boutonniere's:

Image via GoodWeddingInvitation/Photo by Binita Patel Photography

To save money, our bouquet's will double as centerpieces at the reception, placed amongst our twine wrapped and glitter decorated jars. We will also scatter a few single stems in cute vases throughout the tablescapes as well:

Image via Ruffled/Photo by John Schnack /Designed By Lollipop Events & Design

As much as I tried not to care about flowers, making this step in the right direction has gotten me very excited about visualizing them on our wedding day. I always knew I'd carry flowers, but the bouquet was blank in my imagination, and now it's filled in with the perfect Anemone's.

What kind of flower do you just have to have in your bouquet? Any other Anemone lovers out there?

Finger Lickin' Good

We did it, we finally decided on our food. Yes, we waited until just over two months before our wedding to do so, but it's done. I'm sure you are wondering why in the world we waited so long, especially when we've been engaged for fifteen months now. We've actually known for quite a few months what we would be doing, it just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list, until I couldn't take it anymore- I needed to get this checked off!

Food is very important to Mr. Honey. He really enjoys food he likes; I call it picky, but he doesn't like that word. We both agreed that we wanted it casual, tasty, and plentiful. We love prime rib and roasted chicken as much as the next person but between our budget and the feel we are going for, we knew a simple meal would be more fitting. We tossed around a couple of ideas, looked at some of our catering options in Durango and ultimately decided on BBQ. Enter Serious Texas BBQ.

Image via Buzztown

We started talking with our neighbor one day a few months back, who happens to be part of the Serious Texas empire and it just made sense that we serve a local staple at our wedding. We are both big fans of Serious Texas BBQ and considering that their pulled pork sandwich was voted the best by Regis & Kelly in 2009, we know our guests (who aren't already addicted!) will agree that it's delicious. Serious Texas offers a variety of smoked meats, divine sauces, and perfect sides. This has the Honey's written all over it.

This past Friday Mr. Honey and I headed to Serious Texas to chow down some Texas Tacos and sip Corona's with the goal of finally figuring out our menu. I was a bad blogger and failed to take any pictures; my fingers were covered in sauce, what can I say!? We met with our neighbor who offered great advice and insight, and told us that we have plenty of time to officially nail down our menu. That's right, he said plenty of time. You see the meat is so freshly smoked that even for a huge order, Serious Texas only needs 24 hour notice to prepare it. While we certainly won't be waiting until the Friday before our big day to place our order, this does allow us to get all the RSVP's in place before submitting the order.

Here's what we loosely decided:

• 50 pounds of smoked meat spread across pulled pork, beef brisket and smoked sausage. Mr. Honey was sold once he heard "fifty pounds of meat", that my friends, is music to his ears.
• Beans and to-die-for cheesy potatoes as sides. We are hoping to add a pasta salad as well.
• A baked potato bar! I'm pretty darn excited about this. Guests can stick with the traditional baked potato with toppings of butter, bacon, chives, sour cream and cheese, or they can go the Serious route and do the loaded Tater which is a potatoes topped with pulled pork and queso.
• Cherry chipotle and pineapple jalapeno sauces, along with their traditional BBQ sauce will be offered to up the ante of the deliciousness.
• Buns and tortillas will be available to make sandwiches or Texas Taco's (pulled pork and cheesy potatoes)

I realize I just did a whole post on food without any pictures to back me up so to make up for it, check out this hilarious video appropriately titled the Ultimate Dog Tease.

From You Tube

Now that you are done laughing from the video, would you consider eating BBQ in your wedding dress?! What are you serving at your wedding that you are especially excited for?

Tactless

People loose all tact when it comes to anything wedding related. From the acquaintance who expects an invite to the relative who thinks they should decide how your dream day should be. It always astonishes me, how people forget to filter what comes out of their mouth when speaking to a bride-to-be.
I've had to handle the "Am I invited?" question more than I thought possible. It's always awkward; there isn't an easy way to break it to someone, that "No, you are not" and what I'm best at is avoidance. They can probably tell they aren't invited when I quickly look away or find an excuse to step away from the conversation; avoidance at it's best. I find it hilarious that some people think they would be invited but at the same time it's appalling that someone would even ask that question. I guess it could be taken as a form of flattery, that everyone and their mom really wants to attend your wedding. Nah, it's still what I deem as tactless.
In the last few month's, I suppose as the wedding is getting closer, I have had what I consider to be the worst of tactless acts. After running into an old friend (who was sitting with someone I didn't know) and catching up for a minute the conversation suddenly turned into this:
"When is your wedding again?"
"It's in January!"
"Thanks for inviting me..." followed by a brief silent moment "Good luck with marriage, not that it lasts anyway."
"Gee, thanks."
"Well, hey we are both divorced, so we speak from experience"
At this point, I quickly wrapped up the small talk and returned to my table where I vented to my recently married friend, who also experienced this in the month's leading up to her wedding.

Okay, so the two were a bit cynical. Their wives left them and now they are lonely, single men in their late 30's living in a small town with an even smaller pool of women. I'm sorry that's how your cookie crumbled, but clearly I'm entering into this marriage with full faith that it will in fact last. And, thanks for being Donny Downer while I'm basking in my "I'm about to be married!" state of mind. Your opinion is certainly not going to change my mind about marriage and the commitment that accompanies it.
I thought (and hoped) this would be the only time I encountered such poor taste of opinion. Unfortunately, it was not. It happened the weekend of my bachelorette party, where it doesn't get any more obvious that a girl is really stinkin' excited to be getting married. The bride-to-be sash, the flashing weenies, the penis straws? That isn't normal weekend accessories, I'm very publicly celebrating my upcoming nuptials. As I stood outside with BM Hogan, a stranger approached us, a young male in an over-sized yellow shirt, and stated something sarcastically along the lines of "Good luck with that, it's never gonna work.", turned around and walked away. I remember yelling something at him about his poor choice of clothing, something like "Screw you and your stupid-huge yellow shirt!", which was definitely influenced by the two or twelve drinks that I had consumed throughout the evening. I'm sure me calling him out on his ridiculous attire didn't phase him, as he continued to strut up the street. And his tactless opinion didn't phase me, because again, I'm not changing my view on marriage based on his drunken statement.
It's sad that people are so jaded about marriage, and even more sad that they feel the need to rain on the parade of a bride-to-be. The silver-lining to the negative opinions is that my man doesn't feel this way. He does believe in marriage and the commitment. He does have faith, like me, that it will work.  When the Nay-Sayer's throw around their unwelcome opinions and speak without tact, I will be thankful that I found Mr. Honey who is ready to be my husband.

Have you been on the receiving end of a snarky opinion? What opinions/remarks/advice do you find to be tactless?