Back in the Wedding Spirit

Have you ever worked on a project for so long that the excitement of the finish line somehow gets lost? I’ve been planning this wedding for nine months and sometimes I think, “Eh. Whatever happens will happen. Maybe I don’t really need all those cake flags I originally had. to. have. Or, if all of the pomanders don’t get finished, it’s not going to be the end of the world.” Basically,—long paragraph short—living out here with Kenny has made me realize that the wedding is really about the marriage, not about the hubbub of “stuff” that goes into the wedding.

So, yeah, the essence of that paragraph is that I get in these moods where I just don’t care about all the stuff. Heh. Which leads me to this weekend when I actually accomplished some DIY projects. And now, ladies and gents, I’m back in the game and more excited than ever!

I’ve always been terrified of things claiming they’re “easy” and that I can “do it myself.” Sure, the instructions always look simple, but I’m the girl who accidentally puts salt in sugar cookies instead of sugar (I’m not kidding). I get this irrational fear that I’ll find the one way to screw up a simple instruction, because most of the time, I do.

But not this time! This weekend I worked on not one, not two, but three different do-it-myself projects!

1) I mentioned that our invitation suite came in, but what I didn’t tell you was that as soon as they came in I stashed them in another room so I wouldn’t have to look at them. What was I so afraid of? I had to actually put them together, which involves cutting precise lines and attaching everything together. Do you know how much room for error there is? A LOT! Well, this weekend I took the plunge, busted out the paper cutter, and spent a good two days full of cutting and sticking tape to everything. They’re not completely ready to go, but they’re completely cut, matted to the pocketfold, almost all stuffed, and a heck of a lot closer than they were sitting in the other room.

2) Pomanders. Tutorials to make these sweet “kissing balls” are all over the ‘net, and everyone who has made them say they’re “so easy to make.” Uh huh, right. But on my last trip to Michaels I got inspired and picked up the tulle and floral wire needed to make those bad boys (with a 40% coupon, thankyouverymuch!). I sat down with a plan, two movies, three different tutorials, and got to work. And you know what? Two aching fingers, and hours later, I had something amazing to show for it! One down, seven more to go.

3) Last month I alluded to all the things I needed to work on out here, one of them being our favors. Well, I’m not going to make our favors yet, because I want them to be fresh—and I don’t want to travel back home with them—so I did the next best thing. I created the favor tag! This may seem like a small feat for some, but when I wasn’t making my pomander or working on invitations this weekend, I was creating a tag in Word. I used all sorts of different elements, and even downloaded a new font to create it. Right now I LOVE the way it came out and it makes me excited to actually make the favor. This isn’t the final draft, because I’ll have to tweak it based on the cocoa we get, but here’s a semi final/rough draft:
So there you have it. My wedding spirit is back and I’m more excited than ever! I think being around Kenny and having him actually help me with these things has made the excitement grow. Seeing him help me fold baby pink tulle and cut baby pink cardstock really makes me feel like he’s taking part in our wedding.

Since I’m starting to have tangible items, I’m starting to go from visualizing how the wedding will look to actually seeing it in action. And you know what? It looks damn good 🙂