I had posted a while ago speaking about my perfect wedding shoes… I had found them… but the heels were a bit on the high side.  Meanwhile, I’ve been casually searching about hoping to one day come across the perfect pair.  Well, it seems that this past monday was the day of fate!  I don’t even remember how, but somehow I stumbled upon a pair of red 2.5 inch peep toe pumps with a rosette on them at AnnTaylorLOFT.com.  They were absolutely everything I was looking for in a pair of shoes just gauking at me from my screen.

Even better… they were on sale for $39.99 with a 25% discount on top of that, for a grand total of $23.99 plus shipping.  Only problem?  I’m a size 6.5 and the red color was only in size 6.  I ordered them anyway, knowing that sometimes 6 does fit, and then thinking I’ll probably just suffer on my wedding day if they don’t because I just couldn’t pass them up!

Then, last night, I decided to show one of my bridesmaids what I had ordered, and noticed that miraculously, 6.5 had popped up in the color red!  It was 10 pm by this point, so customer service had gone home.  So, today, after work, I called them asking if they could do a switcharoo on my order.  Unfortunately it’d already been processed and placed in a ready-to-ship area, so the operator said he could send me another pair in 6.5 and waive the shipping (since I wouldn’t be refunded that when returning my shoes).  Of course, my 6.5 red shoes had also disappeared, and so did the sale.  So he located them in several stores across the country, and said he’d have them shipped to me from a store instead, charging me the same price I’d paid on Monday!  And then I could just return whatever shoe I don’t want to any Ann Taylor store!

All I have to say is that I LOVE Ann Taylor right now!!!  They are amazing!  They went way above and beyond to get me my dream shoes for a great price!

Geeze, I feel like I’m posting this super late… but better late than never, right? Anyway, I’ve been procrastinating on this post mostly because I’ve been waiting for the high resolution photos of my engagement pictures to come in… and after they came in, I spent forever editing them because the memory on my computer sucked… although, I finally got that upgraded! Woo hoo! So now I can actually use photoshop without doing chores at the same time in between loads.

So, without further ado, check out the photos! (link) To see the slideshow of all the photos, just hit “slideshow”.

The pictures were taken by Jaime at A Photographic Memory. She did an awesome job. And I just spruced some of them up a bit playing around in photoshop, mostly by editing out zits and the like. But I also made some of the photos fancy schmancy! So, enjoy!

Okay, can I just tell you how difficult those three little words are for me? I am a born shopaholic. Just watching a commercial makes me want to spend money (maybe that’s why I don’t watch TV very often hahaha).

Anyway, I was set with the idea of a budget videographer, if having one at all. I’d hire someone just to film the day for Mr. Red and me so that we’d have it all on video to watch later and relive those memories. After all, there’s so many better things to spend money on than someone using a high definition camera and making all the perfect edits. That is, until I saw the amazing masterpiece on WeddingBee of Mrs. Milkshake’s Same Day edit (link). Ever since I watched that I’ve been thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to throw down a thousand or so… you know, for an artistic vision of the best day of my life. *Sigh*.

On top of that, I’ve fallen in love with yet another pair of expensive shoes! These ones going for $300! But, but, but they’re just sooo beautiful and pretty and gorgeous and ivory and they’d look so cute and pretty and perfect on my feet!

Yes, I am a sucker.

There’s been lots of great finds this summer for my centerpieces! So I’m getting very excited as everything’s getting pieced together! To start, here’s some inspiration photos:

Now for what I’ve bought and the cost so far:
- 68 votive holders at Christmas Tree Shop: 4 for $1.00 = $17
- 72 votive candles at A.C. Moore – on sale: 24 for $2.50 = $7.50
- 24 round mirrors (10″ dia.): $1 each + $11.40 shipping = $35.40 (found on theknot planning boards!)

So, so far, I’ve spent about $60 on centerpieces. But I still need the vases and flowers. I’m looking to spend about $1-$3 a vase (for about 15 vases), and then I’m also going to need something to hold the head table centerpieces. And I’m also considering getting LED lights for the centerpieces to give them that GLOW that the second picture has! Anyway, it’s nice to see that I’m on a roll with finding some good deals!

I’m so super-excited! I entered a contest the other day on polyvore.com that’s in connection with my favorite wedding blog site Wedding Bee, where you make an inspiration board and enter it into a contest to get $300 credit towards invitations on minted.com. Of course, even with the credit, I still probably won’t be able to afford those crazy-expensive invites… buuut…

I am just mostly excited because TODAY one of my inspiration boards that I entered into the contest was featured on Wedding Bee! Check it out!

Mine’s the second one down that’s called “Grapes, Limes, and Something Red”. As I am an aspiring bee, I am very honored! Hehe. Of course, I haven’t won the contest (yet?) but I’m just excited that I got featured!

My dad is way too funny with this wedding planning stuff! Mostly because he has no idea about anything to do with pricing! Apparently he missed the number one wedding rule where every price is quintupled when the word “wedding” comes into play.

Today I was on the phone with a cake baker, trying to figure out when I could do a tasting with them. Afterwards, my dad says, “Oh, the cake? Don’t even worry about that! That’s not going to be a huge part of your budget… it’s such a small thing.” And I was like, “What?! We need a cake that feeds at least 150 people!” And he says, “That’s going to be, what? $100?” My mouth just dropped, and I replied, “Try more like at least $400… part of the reason I’m considering cupcakes!”

That reminds me of the time when I was panicking because DJ’s in the Boston-area think that $1000 is “affordable” for 5-hours of switching CD’s. Meanwhile, my dad was in his own world, and while I was contemplating laptoping my event, he says to me, “A DJ is only going to cost about $300 tops! I’m sure I could find much cheaper than that too… there’s a lot of competition!”

Geeze, I should just hand over the vendor-hiring to my dad! He seems to have quite a few cheap connections! Add the caviar that he wants at my wedding on top of all that!

So I have somewhat of a surprise. Mr. Red came home on leave recently, and we went up to the white mountains. And, of course, I dragged him to the North Conway outlets to look around. There, we went into the Zales Outlet, and I found a ring that fit PERFECTLY with my engagement ring. The only problem was that it didn’t contain pink sapphires like the over-priced band I’d liked at Tiffany & Co.

So, the lady behind the counter said that that wasn’t a problem at all, and she could easily get their jeweler to replace some of the diamonds with sapphires! And then have the band shipped to my house! All that for a very cheap price (plus no sales tax — even better!). And since Joe didn’t know when he’d be back around to buy the band, and didn’t want to pass up on the great deal, he bought it for me!

Anyway, the ring arrived a few days ago… and I took it for a few test drives around my house hehehe. I didn’t have the guts to actually wear it out though… just a bit over a year and a half now! (The sapphires are pinker in real life.)

The lady who helped us out also attached a lovely hand-written thank you letter for shopping with them! So if anyone is ever in the North Conway area, I definitely recommend the Zales Outlet there.

AHHHH! So I have found them! My dream shoes! The perfect red peep-toes with the red rose on the side… I’m about to have a heart-attack from cuteness!

(click picture to go to shoes’ originating site)

But… there’s a problem. What is the problem, you ask? No, it’s not the price… they are very decently priced at only $17.99 plus a grand shipping cost of $10! Making them even more perfect, being under $30! The problem is the 4″ heel height. Now, let me make this clear, I WILL suffer if I have to. I have always believed the phrase, pain for beauty. You can even ask my friend who lives in New York… the one who I hiked quite a many blocks to meet after a trip on the horrible Greyhound, to end up with bloody feet from my shoes. Everyone was going crazy, asking me if I was alright… and I basically just said, “Oh, it’s nothing… I always get stuff like that from my shoes…” A woman in her father’s work building had to FORCE me to take the heels off and put flip flops onto my feet! On top of that, my dress is a bit too long, so it would only help having shoes that are taller, making less of a need for hemming!

The true problem is that Mr. Red is 5′7ish, and I am 5′3ish. So, the true problem is that I don’t want to be the same height as him… I want him to be taller than me! If those heels were one inch shorter, they would be perfect!

If the wedding were maybe a month away, I would bite my tongue and purchase them, and tell Mr. Red to get some man-heeled dancing shoes… but being over a year away, I just can’t justify purchasing shoes that are not absolutely perfect in every way, shape, and form! Especially since Mama Red has decided to budget my shoes at $100! I almost fainted at that, considering both my parents are the stingiest people I’ve ever met!

I think it’s official! I have gone crazy bridal and made myself an insane organization tool. I think I’m going to name it my “Bridezilla Binder”. The only problem with it is that CVS didn’t carry more than 8 tabbed dividers! And I definitely need more LOL! I may just end up having to buy a second set. We’ll see!

Basically, I’ve been organizing all my contracts, information, and ideas I find in magazines. I also went through all my stuff I’ve received at wedding expos, and threw away the random crap, and put the useful crap in my binder. Then I went through my stacks of bridal magazines and threw away the unhelpful ones. Note to self: Bride (magazine) sucks! All ads, and not enough info for such a heavy thing!!! On the other hand, I found some other very helpful ones, especially the ones oriented towards the Boston area. Of course, most of the articles were oriented towards the summer bride, so maybe if I buy some during the winter, it’ll be different!

Today’s the day!!! ENGAGEMENT PICTURES! I’m actually pretty nervous, especially since I got my friggin’ wonderful time of the month today… that came a week or so late! Never mind that I’m wearing a white dress… or that my bloated self will be having professional pictures done today! I’m thinking the solution is to just drug myself up, and hope that I don’t take anything out on the photographer hehe. Well, if I’ve learned one thing in life, the thing you can always count on the least, and always comes at exactly the wrong time, is my dear Aunt Flo.