100 Days and Counting....

Last week we officially hit 100 days out and things are happening at the Cotton Candy house! Projects are being finished to-do’s are being crossed off and money is being spent. One of the most satisfying check mark on our list has nothing to do with DIY, décor or attire and everything to do our budget.

In the many months since we officially began planning our wedding, Mr CC and I have been diligent with our budget. We have spent many evening reviewing our budget and discussing our saving plan in hopes that come our wedding all the need funds are in place to pay all our vendors. This month all of our discussing and planning paid off because we officially booked our final vendor and now know how much money we’ll be shelling out to vendors in the weeks leading up to our wedding and more importantly we know how much money we need in the bank to pay all our vendors off.

Thankfully for us our money saved out numbers our money spent and we are officially on our way to paying off all our vendors with a little wiggle room for any unexpected expenses along the way! I’m not going to lie to you Hive I was a pretty scared to start crunching the numbers but once we did it was time for a happy dance! Relieved doesn’t even being to explain how we feel to know all our careful planning had paid off! Now we can get back to more important things like finding a bracelet and convincing Mr CC that he indeed needs to buy a new suite.

Have you hit any planning mile stones? Has anyone else felt the relief of knowing you’ll actually be able to pay for your wedding?

Dressing My Entourage

I have a confession to make Hive. When it came to picking out bridesmaid dress I gave girls zero input into what they would be wearing on our day. Now before you go thinking I’m some crazy control freak bride let me plead my case. See about a month before me and Mr. CC officially started planning our wedding I stumbled upon and purchased this pattern by Cynthia Rowley.

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It’s safe to say my love for this pattern runs pretty deep. Originally I had planned to use it as a base for my own wedding dress but as time passed and my vision for my dress evolved I decided that the Cynthia Rowley pattern was no longer a fit for me and filed it away for the future. It wasn’t until I was discussing possible bridesmaid dress options with my mom that I remembered my beloved sewing pattern and dug it back it.

I decided then and there that this would be the dress my girls would be walking down the aisle in. The dress is a wonderful mix of modern with a bit a girly fun in the ruffle and since we’ll be having them made by the same seamstress contracted to make my dress the girls will be able to alter the skirt and bodice to flatter their unique figures. win win all around!

The seamstress is still digging up fabric swatches for us to choose from but as of now my heart is leaning towards a rich silk shantung in gun metal gray.

Oh and for Mr CC little sis who’ll be standing with us as a junior BM she'll be rocking this skirt also by Cynthia Rowley in the same fabric as the older girls. I'm not exactly sure what type of top she'll be donning on the day of since a cardigan may be to hot for our June nuptials and a tank maybe to casual.

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So tell me ladies am I forgiven? Has anyone else picked their BM dresses without any input from their girls? And what the heck is Mr CC little sis going to wear with her skirt because I sure as hell can’t send her down the aisle half naked!

Damn You Kate Spade!

The other night I was casual browsing Nordstrom.com for potential wedding day accessories when I stumbled upon this vision of perfection-

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Pearls and sparkle in one bold package I was in love! Than I saw the price and almost cried. At over 200 bucks is about 4 times what i had budgeted for jewelry and no amount of fudging the numbers will make spending that money on a bracelet possible. I even went as far as checking www.bagborroworsteal.com and renttherunway.com to see if it was available for rent but alas no luck.

I guess I'll have to admire this beauty from afar but if any of you know were i can a pearl and sparkle bracelet like this let me know because a bride with a naked wrist is just sad...

Do Us a Favor...

...and help us fancy up our favor boxes! The boxes for our favors arrived on our door step this week and although I’m not quite ready to share what will go inside them I need the Hive’s help with the outside.

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Our boxes are 4x4x2 plain craft boxes alone their pretty plain and I’ve been trolling the internet for the past couple of days in search of some possible ways to pretty them up. I’ve narrowed them down to these 6 but can’t decide which one I like the best.

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A.Take advantage of my new found pom pom making skills and top them off with a poms

B. Go the simple route and tie them up in a bow

C. Bite off Mrs. Penguin and top them off with a tissue pom

D. A fanciful scroll

E. Bite off Mrs. Sprinkle and give them the Faux Bois treatment

F. Make use of all of the leftover yarn from our pom pom garland and seal them up with yarn

So tell me hive which one should we go with? Do you have any cleaver ways to fancy up our boxes?

Stringing Our Guests Along

I’m a big fan of bold table numbers that add to the tablescape rather than blend into the décor. Table numbers like these really inspired me to create numbers that would not only guide our guest to their assigned tables but also add to the overall design of our reception.

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I took inspiration from the last 2 images above and Todd Oldham's string art project in Handmade Modern and mocked up these.

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Although the design is more 70’s inspired, I’m really happy with the overall look of them and think they would fit in nicely on our tables. My only concern is the overall height of the numbers. When placed on the easel the numbers are taller or equal in height with our vases. If I want to remove the easel I need to come up with a way for them to stand up on their own since frame stand is covered by fabric.

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Hive I need your help! Should I keep them on the easel or get rid of it and have them stand alone. Any idea how I can get them to stand up without the easel?

Holiday, O, A Holiday!

The Cotton Candies have officially booked our honeymoon! When we first started discussing possible honeymoon destinations we both agreed that long waits in airports and cramped flights was not what we wanted to experience on our first time away as newlyweds.

We both agreed that ideally we wanted to road trip someplace that we’ve been to in the past and loved, a luxurious room and plenty of amenities at our hotel in case we never wanted to leave our room. Unfortunately luxuries and amenities don’t come cheap and we wanted to keep our hotel costs down in order to have a larger chunk of money for excursions and nights out. After knocking around a couple of local destinations we finally landed on Palm Springs.

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Since June is technically considered Palm Springs off season we were able to score a super deal at the Parker Palms Springs.

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For about half the usual nightly rate we booked one of the Parker’s Estate rooms and will be able to partake in all the amenities the Parker has to offer.

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If you’re interested in heading out to Palm Springs for your Honeymoon or even a Bachelorette party the Parker summer rate special runs from June 1^st till the end of August.

Are any of you planning to stay local for your honeymoon? What’s your destination of choice?

Yummy Yummy In My Tummy!

Finding a caterer has by far been the most difficult wedding task we’ve encountered. We knew we wanted simple comfort food preferably of the Mexican variety. Easy peasy right? Yea, not so much. Many of the catering companies we reached out to either declined to work with a small party like our or required a minimum order that we were unable to reach. I quickly became discouraged and handed the task to my mom and proceeded to ignore it for next month.

Lucky for me I have a resourceful mother. She managed to get me a referral for a local restaurant that specialized in food from the Yucatan region in Mexico which just so happens to be the region that my mother’s from and they offered special events catering! Now before I go on allow me to share with you the tastiness that is Yucatan food. The food is a delicious mix of Mexican, Lebanese and Myan cuisines it is unlike any other Mexican food and it’s the cuisine that I grew up enjoying. Needless to say we were all excited at the prospect of finding a caterer that could provide food authentic Yucatan food for our wedding.

Since the restaurant was local we decided to head over for a Sunday lunch with the family to see if the food was authentic and get the seal of approval from mom. The food was amazing we feasted on Cochinita, Pibil, Kibis and Panuchos and everything was perfect.

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I called up the catering manager the next day and had a pleasant conversation with her regarding our event and possible menu options. She seemed more than willing to work with our small guest count and budget and was genuinely excited about our event. The catering weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I was doing a happy dance! I ended my conversation with the caterers with the understanding that I would follow up with her the following week to nail down menu details and sign a contract all was good in the Cotton Candy household we had a caterer!

I never talked to the restaurant again. Call after call on my part went unanswered and none of my messages were ever returned. Sad doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt after being dissed by yet another caterer. They weren’t just another caterer they were the perfect caterer for us and they dissed us they dissed us hard.

I’m not going to lie to you friend’s ugly tears were shed over our lost caterer and I was less than enthusiastic to begin my search again but I did and we eventually found another caterer that we both love. Hive say hello to Soho Tacos!

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Soho Taco isn’t what you would typically consider wedding food which is ok in our book. They are a gourmet taco catering company that specializes in Mexican tacos catering with a gourmet twist. For our wedding we’ll be going with their premium package which includes our choice of 2 meats and 2 seafood’s, grilled vegies, beans, rice, assorted salsa and guacamole. We’ve also added mine burritos and chile rellenos for our cocktail hour, an assortment of aqua frescas and Mexican sodas, and bartending service.

I’m really happy with our final catering decision, the caterers will be serving tacos for a total of 3 hours which we hope will contribute to the party atmosphere to our wedding and the cost per person is just right for our budget!

Tell me Hive did you get burned by a vendor only to end up with a better deal?