Honeymoon Dream Destinations

As you may know, I work in international development. It's really my passion and I'm one of those people who truly hope to make the world a better place. A very solid not-so-small side benefit is travel... I love to travel! Even better? I found a solemate who also loves to travel. Awe-some!

Some of my recent trips include:

(Rwanda... personal picture)

(Liberia... Also a personal picture)

(Personal pic from when I lived in Uruguay)

(Taken by one of my students in Costa Rica)

I have lots more visits scheduled with my workplace for the coming year or so, and am beyond excited. This means, however, that our honeymoon destination is quite the decision. Our plan is to go the honeymoon registry route to be able to afford a honeymoon (+ using  miles). Mr. T really wants to go to Europe, as he's never been. I, of course, want something a little less developed. Something like Mozambique, Indonesia or Thailand would be ideal.

We're working on a compromise, but for now I present to you my evidence of why I am right:

(Bridesmaid L's picture from her trip in Thailand)

(BM L and her man in Thailand)

(Their hotel room and private pool)

All of these pictures were taken by my Bridesmaid L and.. umm.... they're amazing. They epitomize my dream honeymoon: adventure+relaxation+privacy in one. Am I right or am I right? Now I just have to convince the Mr. of that fact.

Are you going on a honeymoon? How did you pick your destination?

Craft Supplies and Crosswords

Yup, those items pretty much characterized my weekend. Mr. T and I went to Michaels to buy some necessities: ribbon, glue, a paper cutter, and a hole punch. Then we got to work.

(Random side note - I wholeheartedly recommend investing $20 in a paper cutter rather than using scissors for everything. The lines definitely come out straighter, and the time it saves is soooo worth the moola.)

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at designing a crossword puzzle to get guests speaking to one another. We're hoping on making this a dual use to brighten up the tables, since the venue gives us white linens. While I like the computer design I did, printing it out made it clear they would not fit at the tables and just wouldn't really work in general. Le sigh. After numerous ways of cutting, folding, and organizing paper, here are what we came up with:

(All are personal pictures - thus the green paper that looks yellow for some reason)

And here's  how:

1. Create a crossword on http://www.armoredpenguin.com/ or a similar site
2. Create a .pdf of the image
3. Decide on a print layout, after lots of attempts (see below for ours)
4. Cut all pieces out of the main document
5. Cut the cardstock in half length-wise
6. Glue the 'Across' section on the bottom-most part of the document
7. Fold up directly above the 'Across' section
8. Glue the 'Down' section and the crossword directly above the fold
9. Glue the directions on the front flap (FYI - ours said "Try to answer these random tidbits about D&L... You may have to ask around!")
10. Hole punch (x2 on each) at the top of the cardstock
11. Tie a nice little bow on the top (easier said than done, btw).

12. Repeat, repeat, repeat. We've done 35... only another 175 or so to go :)

I really like how they're looking, especially with the nice new ribbon. Full disclosure - I'm wondering if it's worth all the time, given that I know how unneccessary they are and how many other things we need to do. Oh well - I've already begun!

Are you including any totally unnecessary items in your wedding? Are they worth it? (please say yes!)

Progress for the Kiddos

Remember how I talked about designing some bilingual kids' activity books way back when? Well, progress has been made! I found some paper I liked lying around the workplace (sshhh) and printed those babies out to do a mock-up.

We will be using a different color green for the real things; as well as a different twine/ribbon. This one looked much too thin, but did the job. We just poked 2 holes in the left side and put the twine through - easy peasy! (I was considering doing a spiral down the whole left side. Mr. T thought it would be too much work so this was the other option.)

Here's the inside of the book:

(All pictures were taken by my lovely cell phone... Sorry for the dark and blurries!)

Not too shabby, right? I figure this will be one of the easiest projects. We'll trim the cover, glue it on the cardstock, poke holes, and tie together. Even Mr. T can do that :) Any suggestions for what to tie it all together with?

Have you had any easy DIY projects? Are you putting something out to keep the kids entertained?

Choose the Shoes

Sounds like a TLC original show, right? Okay, maybe not.

As you know - I'm not much of a shoe or brand name or fashion icon. I wear a pair of shoes until they break, fix them somehow, and keep it going until they're totally destroyed. My BMs will likely be barefoot or in flip-flops; and I have not thought twice about my feet for the big day.... Until now.

Supposedly, your shoes should be picked out before your dress fitting, which means less time than anticipated. And surprisingly, I like heels even more than sneakers. Yup, it's all or nothing for this girl here. So it's time to buy shoes. Solemates will likely follow.

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I absolutely adore those cute pictures of bright colors popping out below a wedding dress. Sure, it's trendy now - but I liked it before it became big!

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The logical color choices would be green or purple but I haven't found anything that pops out yet, have about $0 budget for this, and want to be able to wear them again. Enter yet another DIY project: the 'Pretty Shoes'

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Are these not amazing? Basically, you take regular shoes and tie/add on chiffon fabric in a cute and funky way! They seem easy, too (watch me eat my words)! And, best of all, if I change my mind as I so often do - I can just change them to different fabric!

Are you going the traditional route with your shoes? Are fashion or comfort your priority for the big day?

Being Mean

I don't like being mean - unless it's to my sister :) So the whole 'you have to assert yourself to get your dream wedding' thing has not been my cup of tea. I blame much of my procrastinating on not wanting to be mean, but every once in a while you have to bite the bullet.

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Here's the deal: A group of 15 or so college friends decided to rent a house together. They finally added me to their email planning list.... and what do I find? Almost all of them are planning on bringing a +1! One even added another sort-of friend (who wasn't invited) to the list! Aaaah! This is my group of single friends - not one of whom have a +1 according to my list. And the invites aren't even out yet!!!

(Sorry for all those exclamation points in 1 paragraph. There's a lot of emotion in there.)

And thus blossomed my first 'being mean' wedding-related experience. I wrote the group an email, trying to be light-hearted, emphasizing my status as a poor bride-to-be. I think it worked for the most part, but 3 people have written back begging - crazy. I know I'm not an expert on wedding etiquette, but oh my goodness!

Lesson learned: clarify from the beginning to avoid being mean later. My RSVPs on the invites will definitely specify the number invited!

Have you had to 'be mean' during the process of your wedding? Does everyone have crazy RSVP stories?!

Non-Naked Bridesmaids

I've received confirmation: my bridesmaids do not want to be naked for the wedding. Darn. That means I have to get on the ball and find dresses for them.

As you may remember, my grand plan was to pick out a fabric and have each girl pick out a dress they wanted made. I had someone on Etsy who would sew the dresses and that way each girl would get the dress of their dreams. 10 dresses, all different, all what they wanted. Easy peasy, right? Not so much.

I couldn't find affordable fabric in the color I wanted and a decent material. Since we're now about the 6-month mark, I think I'm going to have to move forward with the alternative: Dessy dresses.

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The body shapes of my BMs range from 0 to 16. That's a big range, so I knew from the beginning one dress for everyone was not going to cut it. I've been told Dessy's 'Concord' color is right about what I'm looking for. I've also been told http://www.netbride.com/ is able to order them cheaply and reliably. They have lots of styles that the girls can choose from to flatter their body types and hopefully wear afterwards (a girl can hope!). It's a decent alternative, but not the dream.

Have you had to give up on certain aspects of your wedding? How did you decide on your BM dresses?

Engagement Pictures... Now what?

I know I've mentioned Groupon to you previously, but Mr. Tango and I just bought another one - this time for our engagement pictures! (Can't beat $49 for the session AND 35+ pictures). This of course resulted in me spending hours of work time looking at engagement pictures in D.C. Tangs wants to have the session in October with the changing leaves because athough it's not a novelty for this New England girl, he still loves them!

Now we have to decide:
1. What to wear
2. Where to have them
3. Theme/props/etc.

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I love this picture  - it's so classic and yet DC. And since D.C. is where Luis and I met and are building our new lives together, that holds an appeal.

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The first one is just so natural-looking and timeless. The second shows some passion and modernity. Mr. T and I are passionate people, so I want that to come out in our pictures. Of course - timeless and classic means we can hang it in our house, pass it down, and all that good stuff.

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And this one is just beautiful! But we also want some fun and funky pictures. Us kicking up leaves in our bare feet, us in front of brightly colored backgrounds, etc... I'm not sure how we can get all of these ideas in one: fun, modern, classic, and classy.

How did you choose your engagement location? Did you come up with must-have shots?

Oh, you want to SEE?

Mr. T and I walked into Buenaventura with Mr. Tango's parents, looked at each other, and said "One day, we're going to get married here". After becoming engaged, it was never a question where our venue would be. I mean, can you blame us?

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We can't use this area (the 'Club House') until 7pm, because the people who live here have access until that time. Lame. We finally convinced them to let us have a beach sunset ceremony a couple of hundred yards down to the right of this picture in an area that's not being used; and we'll use the Club House for the reception.

Now, everything is so beautiful I know I don't need too many decorations. That's good, since I can't do much from here and won't have tons of time to set up. The one thing I'm worried about is lighting. We're going to need something that looks decent in the daylight, but is really functional providing light - since most of our time will be spent after sunset. Something like this....

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...which would look something like one of these at night.

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Can you tell I love the white paper lanterns? Know what else I love? Candles!

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And string lights:

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We're still working out the details, but those are the ideas so far. Oh, and I want to take advantage of the pool so it looks something like this:

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So we can do this at the end of the night!

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It's all elegant and classy until we decide to have some fun!

Are your decorations functional as well as pretty? What types of lighting will you have?

Branching Out

I'll admit it - I like flowers. My mom used to be a florist, I like growing my own herbs, and I try to have a bouquet of flowers in the dining room as often as possible. While my centerpieces aren't particularly important to me, I know they are to my mom. And so begins the flower saga....

Mr. Tango's cousin wants to be a florist, and as such offered to do our flowers for the wedding. His mom accepted this offer before consulting with us, which is fine because we'll take any help we can get. So when we went to Panama to have one of our many immigration interviews, we set aside a few hours to meet with her and discuss our ideas.

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I love manzanita branches, but they're very expensive and not really available in Panama. Boo for that. But other types of branches would still add height, be relatively cheap, and fit with our desire of white/brown/green centerpieces. After some searching, I came up with some other inspiration pictures:

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We showed Mr. T's cousin a few ideas similar to these and this is what she put together for us:

(Personal picture)

While we're grateful for her help, neither my mom nor I are loving it. We think it lacks 'flow' - if that makes sense. The colors aren't quite right, either. We plan on having my mom, her friend, and myself all helping out the morning of to put together the centerpieces, so we'll have a bit more say. That said, I want to give her a heads up that we should look at buying some other flowers. Roses are some of the cheapest flowers in Panama given the country's proximity to Colombia, but they're just not my style.

I don't want to be rude or sound ungrateful (or worse - fit the bridezilla stereotype!) and am dreading calling her up to say we'd like some changes. It's especially hard, given she's family - and not on my side! Any advice?

Have you had to assert yourself during the wedding planning process to get what you want? How did you do it?

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Cake inspiration!

I've recently stumbled on my newest addiction beyond the Bee and the usual blogs - event planners' websites. Take a look, for example at these pictures from what I have deemed as my dream wedding (besides my own, of course). It's modern, elegant, and yet personal.

All pictures are from here

Even better? Look at this cake that the groom designed:

It has given me decoration inspiration in and of itself! As you know by now, Mr. Tango and I like food. A LOT. It was one of the most important elements of our wedding. What you may not know, however, is what a sweet tooth I have. I blame it on my parents not giving us junk food as kids. Because of this, everyone has assumed the cake would be a crucial component for us. Well - guess what? It's not!

You see, our venue gives us a free cake. It can be chocolate or vanilla, and with brown or white frosting. That's it. We said we'd go with white, and here's the picture they sent us:

(Personal Picture)

Yeah - pretty boring, right? We have lots of desserts in our menu, so we assumed that would be more important. And we also couldn't justify spending money on another cake when we had a free one. Thus, we decided to just, well, not care. But now I at least have a bit of hope. Look how simple and elegant and awesome the other cake is. If we can convince them to make a square cake instead, we could add some simple flowers (and branches?) and go with it. Right? I'm still not willing to put in too much effort to this!

Has there been any aspect of your wedding you haven't cared about as much as others thought you would? Where did your cake inspiration come from?

Dance, Dance, Resolution

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Mr. Tango and I love to dance. He's an incredible merengue/salsa dancer, and I can feel a beat. Dancing is actually one of the activities that brought us together initially, especially as we worked with a group of Latinos from all over the world. We'd go out dancing as a group and inevitably end up together at the end of the night. We even started dancing a little in celebration at our secret ceremony!

He's taught me a few moves in our living room; and I have taught him how to dance to hip-hop music - which is a totally different set of movements. Yet we're totally lost when it comes to our wedding music. We have a great band (salsa/merengue) and a DJ (English songs), but are very split when it comes to our first dance.

Mr. Tango loves the idea of a choreographed/fun first dance. He sent me this video and this one as examples. I have to admit to not being a fan. I love the idea of surprising people and having fun dancing, but I feel like we can do that without scaring the grandparents and making everyone stare at us for 6 minutes! And I do like the idea of having one song that we can hear for the rest of our lives and think of it as 'ours'.

So far, we're still undecided. We have agreed to take a dance class together, mostly so I can learn the 'real' salsa moves and not look like an idiot when his family dances with me. As great a dancer as he is, his teaching is not quite up to par. We bought a pass for 8 group classes and 1 personal lesson on Groupon (if you haven't heard of it yet - check it out. It's amaaazing) and will hopefully start in the next month or so. Maybe once we feel more comfortable with choreographed steps, I'll change my mind on this "first dance" thing... Or not.

What about you? Are you doing something creative for your first dance, or going the traditional route? What's your thinking on dance lessons prior to the big day?

(Personal photo - please excuse the sweaty hot mess look we have going on)

Involving the Groom.... Or Not

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Here's the deal: I'm an organized person. I like to have to-do lists, check them off, and move on. But with 6.5 months to go, there's a lot to do and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by where to start. And, like Miss Knitting, my groom is somewhat uninterested. I decided to have a sit-down with Mr. Tango last night to go over our plans, my feelings, and how to move forward with getting things done.

Mr. Tango will do what I ask when I ask him, but I hate having to ask for help with wedding stuff! Because of this, I've felt like I'm in charge of just about everything - which is much more difficult when the wedding is far away in a different country (that, not to mention, speaks a different language)! So here is what we decided to do, being the nerds that we are:

 

 

1. Organize 'wedding time'. Once a week, no TV, just us talking about plans, to-dos, and whatever else. I think this is really important as it means I'm not constantly asking him wedding questions (which kind of stresses him out); and he has to pay full attention to wedding stuff once a week (which will make me less stressed).
2. Excel Sheet Creation: I know, I have an Excel sheet for everything. But this one is a list of all the things we can think of that we need to do before the wedding: everything from finalizing the officiant and making our DIY cardbox to engraving our rings and making play/don't play song lists. It lists the task, who is responsible for getting it done (Him, Me, or Both), and the timeline it needs to be completed by. We walked through every item on the list to see what he was comfortable getting done, and what he didn't think was realistic for him. This way, I can take items off of my to-do list and not worry about them until he asks for input.... We both promised that we would be available for input on ALL items - just that one person is in charge for taking the lead to make it happen.

It's not much, but I do feel a little better now. It's nice to have some method to all of this madness, and to make sure we're on the same page. After all, this is one of the first of many projects we're going to have to tackle together!

How involved is your groom? Did you have to separate roles out, or did he take the initiative on his own? (It's okay to rub it in, really....). Any other strategies for involving the groom that you recommend?

Gifting the Groom

What do you get the guy (or girl) who has completed you, and made your dreams come true? What do you get this person when his birthday is a week before the wedding and money is tight from said wedding? I have no idea!

I love giving gifts and tend to be pretty good at making them personal, so with 6.5 months to go, I know I need to start thinking about the whole 'groom's gift' thing. Via some forum browsing (e.g. WB research), I've found that some of the most common items are:

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• Cuff links
• Boudoir Pictures
• Watch
• Love Letter
• Sports something

He has nice watches, and doesn't wear cufflinks. I brought up the idea of boudoir photos a while back and he didn't seem too interested - a shame, given how empowering they seem to be for women. Oh well, it's not a gift for me.

His sports team is FB Barcelona (soccer), but we're not going to Spain anytime soon nor can we afford tickets - and he's not into their jerseys. Hmmm. I guess this leaves a love letter.

I will write a love letter. I do that for him on random days anyway and I always assumed I'd give him one on our big day. But I want to give him more, especially with all he's given me. So my most recent idea is a saxophone. It's not the most typical gift (and it would be a cheap one!), but here's my thinking:

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Mr. Tango's mom told him as a kid that if he wanted to get girls, he should play sax. He never did. He has told me on numerous occasions that he'd love to learn now, and regrets not having listened to his mom. He loves music and learning to play is on his Bucket List. So I was thinking my love letter could say something to the effect of promising to help him fulfill his dreams as he's done so much for mine. (And maybe something about already having gotten the girl?) Those both sound cheesy - I'll come up with something better.

What do you think? Is this a viable gift? Too cheesy? What are you getting the man of your dreams?