The Panel

I'm horrible at making decisions. I think about them too long and change my mind constantly. If I didn't have my panel, I probably would have bought 10 pairs of yellow heels before I actually made a decision -- on the day of my wedding. When I was designing our invitations, I made 6 different variations of the same design and couldn't pick between them until my panel stepped in.

The only permanent member of my panel is my friend and old roommate Katie. She and I lived together (and barely survived) grad school in Manchester, England. We did almost everything together. She has great style and is now working at Echo in New York. I trust her to tell me the truth and I trust her style. We do everything by email and the arrangement works great.

The second person on my panel is my sister and maid of honor. She and I have totally different styles and for the most part, that's the biggest reason she's not consulted on every decision. Well, that and the fact that she lives in Italy which makes instant feedback hard.

My sister is on the left

The third person on the panel is my Mom. Like my sister, my Mom and I have totally different opinions on style. I rely on my Mom for etiquette questions, food decisions and other opinions that don't have anything to do with fashion.

The fourth person on the panel is my friend Jeremy. He's the man on the panel who I turn to when I need to know if my choice of wedding color or invitation is far too feminine. I don't want the wedding to be to girly, that's not our style as a couple but sometimes in the heat of the moment, the girly options are the cutest! Jeremy is great because he too is in the middle of wedding planning and understand me when I'm neurotic!

Jeremy as a cow and his lovely bride Dani!

The last person on the panel is of course Mr. Papaya Dog. His opinion matters the most, but obviously he can't help with wedding dress and accessory decisions. On more than one occasion we have had to compromise. We like totally different invitation designs and in the end went for the design that fell in the middle.

Do you have a wedding panel? Who is helping you make your big wedding decisions?

Here today, hair tomorrow

I've been going back and forth for weeks about my wedding veil/hair piece. I decided that because I'm not wearing a long traditional dress, and because the dress has a high neckline, I wouldn't do a veil. Now the question is the hair piece. So these are the ones I was going back and forth about.

I bought this beautiful brooch (circa 1920) to use as a hair piece (maybe as a clip or as part of a veil) but now I really want to wear it on my winter coat. I won't really see my dress in person until late May so I won't know if it will work with the dress until then. What's a girl to do? It may be a little too much for the dress though.

I think I like this better for my wedding hair. If I felt like I could pull it off, I'd buy a couple and wear them everyday! It's from Giantdwarf and you can find her stuff on Etsy. I love the color and this gorgeous hair piece will match my shoes! I wonder if this can be made with silk or a cotton sateen. The felt seems like it's too causal for a wedding.

After a lot of consultations with the panel, I finally decided on a piece based on this beautiful green number for the wedding. I just custom ordered it and paid for it. I'm so excited. I might just have to wear it around the house! It was only $45. This is a picture of what the hairpiece is based on and this is the description of the custom made piece from House of Telsa who's making it for me.

"I think the style of the speckled green fascinator would really complement your dress quite nicely. The rosette lends that feminine touch and the lines created by the tulle would mimic the structured lines of your dress. The rosette part of the piece measures approximately 3.5" x 3.5", which is not too large and since the tulle is translucent, it creates a soft subtle effect that does not overpower. I know I will find the perfect pale gray dupioni and I already have the gray tulle I'd like to use. The look would be subtle and the swarovski crystals (not black, but a color called "crystal") added to the tulle would be the perfect touch. Also, vintage rhinestones in the middle of the flower instead of swarovski crystals would add a much nicer touch given the special occassion. I'm loving all the tone on tone contrasting that will make up this piece and I think you will too!"

P.S. I kept the brooch and it looks great on my winter coat.

Buried in fabric

So I found out a few days ago that I'm probably going to go a on a few work trips in the next few months which is always exciting. Unfortunately for me, when this happens, I don't really get more than 10 days notice before I go and I usually have plans already in place and have to cancel. With the wedding next year and several weddings we have to attend already scheduled, I know I need to get as much planning done now as I can. This week I've been obsessed with table setting/scapes.

I found some really cute yellowish bulb vases from West Elm on sale and a smoky cooler glass and fun flat stem vases from CB2. My idea is to do table runners with fun fabrics that have black, grey and yellow, and then put a few of the vases on top. I've had to add black to the color palette because it's impossible to avoid.

Looks at the fun fabrics I bought for table runners!

I also bought this but then realized it was too casual for the wedding. It's not a huge piece, so I'm going to keep it.

While I was at it, I got this one to put in Mr. Papaya Dog's mom's Christmas stocking. She's always complaining about the lack of fun fabric in Myrtle Beach.

I need a few more fabric pieces since some of the ones I bought are fat quarters or about 1/2 yard. Those I can use on the round table and in the booths, but I need longer pieces for the 6 foot long tables. These are the ones I'm thinking about.

I found all these fabrics on ebay! I can't decide which ones to get. I really need some yellow prints. I wish I could find more fabric that just had the yellow and grey combination. I'd buy all these fabrics if the budget allowed for it. I can see how people have huge fabric collections. They have some great stuff out there.

I have a great project for these fabrics after the wedding. I want to save which ever table runners have not been stained or ruined and use them to make a wedding quilt. I've been thinking about learning to quilt for some time, and I think this could inspire me to actually get off my butt and learn. A friend of mine is an amazing quilter and said she'd teach me. If I get too lazy, then I could pay someone to make the quilt. I also thought that if a quilt was too ambitious, I could also use the fabric to make throw pillows.

Are you planning to use any elements of your wedding to create gifts or keepsakes in the future? What DIY projects do you have planned? I love Mrs. Green Tea's invitation ornaments. I have plans for my extra invitations and Save the Dates but I'll have to save those projects for another post.

The other kind of planning

Mr. Papaya Dog and I have always been open about our incomes. We've had to. When we first moved back to Seattle, I was partially supporting him as he looked for full-time work. We split the rent but I covered most of our grocery expenses and most of our utility bills. He helped out as much as he could by doing temp work while he was working part-time as a history teacher. Apparently, not all teachers are in high demand. Finding work as an English or History high school teacher can be hard.

Mr. Papaya Dog has been full-time for 2 years, so we now split all the expenses evenly. We've talked about our financial future before, but only briefly and only when talking about how we'll never be able to retire or buy a house.

Recently, my parents told me that they wanted to give my sister and I part of our inheritance before they passed away. My Mom had breast cancer last year and while she was recovering, she decided that she wanted to see her children enjoy their lives and what they were set to inherit. My parents have a double lot in a neighborhood in Seattle that is up and coming. They want to split the lot and give each one of us one a piece.

This is a HUGE gift. I'm not sure Mr. Papaya Dog and I could afford to buy or build anything in Seattle on our incomes. This is our chance to actually own something. We were ready to undertake this huge gift and project over the summer but then before we knew it, the country was in a mortgage crisis and we decided we probably needed to wait and see how things developed.

Even though the economy doesn't look like it's doing that much better, we think we need to actively start thinking about building a house. We've set up some meetings with some friends who are architects and one who is mortgage loan officer to see where we are and if we have a chance in the next few years of actually getting this project off the ground.

Setting up these meeting have made Mr. Papaya Dog and I think about our bigger financial future. How do we merge our limited assets? Once we're married, what's the best way to save for retirement and those big expenses in life like a home, children, etc. In addition, Mr. Papaya Dog still has grad school loans where as I have paid all mine off. How does that work? Should I be helping him pay that off? We have so many financial questions that we think we need to talk to a professional. I always read that money and financial problems are two of the most common reasons marriages fall apart.

We're asking around for referrals and hoping to meet with a financial counselor in the next few months. Have you and your fiance discussed your financial future together? Did you see financial planner together before getting married? Was it helpful?

Pieces of us

I've been to some weddings with some really amazing themes. One wedding I went to a few years ago was completely red and teal...down to the straws. It was obvious the couple thought long and hard about how to incorporate their wedding colors into every aspect of their wedding.

Our theme? Us?! So we decided that WE would be our theme -- traditions and wedding protocol aside. One of our first us themed decisions was the cake. Neither one of us are really cake people (I know, we're weird), so we decided to go with an after dinner treat we both love, cream puffs. Mr. Papaya Dog used to live in Brooklyn and whenever I visited, we'd go to Beard Papa for a delicious cream puff. My favorites are vanilla and green tea.

So it only made sense we went with cream puffs. People have cupcakes instead of cake why not cream puffs? I told my friend Mary, who's a baker in Washington DC, about the cream puffs and she thought it was a great idea. She even volunteered to make them if we provided the supplies. Perfect!

Speaking of making cream puffs from scratch, that leads me to the second theme that inspires our wedding decisions -- home/handmade. We wanted our wedding to be special and full of elements you couldn't just buy pre-made on a wedding website. Elements of our wedding can definitely be replicated, but it requires a little work. Yes you can buy limoncello, but it's not the same as making it in a 5 month process, creating personal labels and bottling it yourself. We don't have a lot of money to spend on the wedding but the time we put into the details will be worth it.

Besides the limoncello, my dress and hair piece are being made specifically for me by hand. I'm making all the table runners for the centerpieces, and I've designed and will be silk screening all the invitations by hand.

What themes are you working with in your wedding? Are you building it around a central piece (wedding invitations, venue style)? Maybe your honeymoon destination is your theme?

The land down under

So I did it! I bought our honeymoon tickets today. I've been monitoring ticket prices to Sydney for a few weeks now and slowly they have been going up a few bucks everyday. Mr. Papaya Dog and I were talking about it last night and he suggested that I just buy the tickets now. We know we're going and we know the dates, what's stopping us? So I did it. I bought the tickets.

Actually, I think I got a pretty good deal. I was told tickets to Sydney from Seattle usually run about $1300-$1400 each for a round trip ticket. I found a great deal on Expedia that will get us there for a little more than $1300 each and includes a 3 night stay at a 5 star hotel in Sydney. It's going to be winter when we're there in August, but it's shouldn't be colder than 50 degrees in Sydney and up north it will be in the 80s.

Now that I got the big purchase out of the way, I can just sit on the honeymoon planning until April/May or until I'm sent away on another work trip and need something to do as I pass time in the airport.

We are on a budget but I don't want to scrimp too much on the trip. We've been doing a little creative money making to pay for the trip. We've been making all our online purchases through ebates. I know other bees have mentioned it before, but they have dozens of stores they work with and if you enter a stores website through the ebates site, you get a certain percentage of your purchase back in cash every quarter. It's only a few dollars here and there but it adds up. We have almost $200 already.

We're also selling stuff we don't need on ebay and craigslist and putting that money towards the trip. It's amazing how much stuff we've found laying around our apartment that we no longer use or have never even taken out of the packaging.

The last place I've been earning money is through my per diems. I travel a lot for work and on average don't spend all the per diem I've given. I usually have about $100-200 left over after every trip. Last year I went on 4 trips for work. That could be $400-800 towards the honeymoon.

How are you raising extra funds for the wedding? Part-time job?

Yum, Lemograss!

I love Vietnamese Lemongrass chicken. I was on the West Elm website cruising around and the description of lemongrass accessories peaked my interest. Thank goodness it did! I found little bulb vases in a lemongrass color (on the very right in maroon below) for $3.99 each. I bought 20 of them. Turns out shipping is free and there was no sales tax. Score!

I'm also trying to decide on the grey and clear/white vases to complete my look. So far, I think I like these from CB2.

These are going to go on top of the different fabric table runners. Since I'm doing all the flowers myself (I know I'm insane), I decided that instead of huge arrangements, I'm going to do the a vase with a single flower on top of a fun fabric. I'll still need about 75 stems, but that's easier to manage than hundreds. Also this way, I can mix and match different varieties of white and yellow flowers.

My big problem will be the round tables. I didn't realize that I'd have to decorate 5 round tables. For me, they are harder to design because of all the space in the middle.

Are all your reception tables the same shape and size? If not, how are you adapting you centerpieces to fit the dimensions of your different tables? I need ideas!

Weekend fun!

A few weekends ago, Mr. Papaya Dog and I completed the last steps in the Limoncello making process. A friend gave us 20lbs (no joke) of lemons over the summer and we needed to come up with a project that would use most of them. It was all a blur between the zesting and the zesting.

I hope this turns out well. We want to make and bottle more (yikes) to give away as wedding favors. We also have limecello (with limes) that we made. We got pounds of those too.

Here's the recipe

Ingredients: 15 lemons, 2 bottles (750 ml) 100-proof vodka, 4 cups sugar 5 cups water

Prep:Wash the lemons with a vegetable brush and hot water to remove any reside of pesticides or wax; pat the lemons dry. Carefully zest the lemons with a zester or vegetable peeler so there is no white pith on the peel. NOTE: Use only the outer part of the rind. The pith, the white part underneath the rind, is too bitter and would spoil your limoncello.

Step One: In a large glass jar (1-gallon jar), add one bottle of vodka; add the lemon zest as it is zested. Cover the jar and let sit at room temperature for at least (10) ten days and up to (40) days in a cool dark place. The longer it rests, the better the taste will be. No stirring!

Step Two: In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water; cook until thickened, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Let the syrup cool before adding it to the Limoncello mixture. Add to the Limoncello mixture from Step One. Add the additional bottle of vodka. Allow to rest for another 10 to 40 days.

Step Three: After the rest period, strain and bottle: discarding the lemon zest. Keep in the freezer until ready to serve.

Are you DIY-ing non-paper elements of your wedding? Anything edible? 

Searching in a field of yellow

So I've been searching for the perfect yellow shoe to go with my dress. Unfortunately, nothing in my price range comes in my size or is something I can walk in. All the cute shoes in yellow have 4 inch heels. I tried walking in them, and it's just not possible. 3 inches is as high as i can go. I had just about given up when I found these saviors from J.Crew. The best part is that I found them on Ebay for $35.00! The yellow is soooo perfect! I think Ms. Peep toe has the same pair in green.

I'm doing everything backwards. I have my dress and shoes, but I don't have a photographer. We picked out our honeymoon destination but haven't thought about which hotel we're going hold a block of rooms at for our guests. Are you working off a set schedule, accomplishing wedding tasks in order or our you checking off tasks in what ever order you feel like?

A dress just for me

When my sister was getting married, we went with my Mom to try on a billion dresses. 3 stores and 8 hours later we found her an amazing dress. I wish I had pictures of it and how great she looked trying it on. Sadly, she hasn't worn it yet and she's been married 2 years. Her husband is in military and found out that he would be deployed a few weeks before their scheduled wedding. They ended up getting married at the courthouse. My sister still has hopes of having a real ceremony and reception where she can wear her beautiful dress.

When I got engaged, my Mom suggested I wear my sister's unworn dress. While I love it on her, I don't think it's my style. Besides, I could tell that she really wanted to keep it for herself though if I wanted to, she'd let me wear it. I passed and everyone but my Mom seemed relieved.


My Mom kept asking me what kind of dress I wanted. She sent pictures and links to dresses online. I looked at all of them but all it made me sure of was of what kind of dress I didn't want and how much money we didn't have to spend on a dress.


I was at home working one day and decided to take a break to see what was new on Etsy...and there it was. I didn't hesitate. I contacted Liza Rietz and asked her if the material of the dress was dressy enough for a wedding gown and as soon as she said yes, I was sold. The material is a cotton sateen that is a really pale grey.

I was a little worried about having a custom dress made for me in August 2008 when the wedding wasn't for another year. Liza said that once payment was made, she'd cut and put the material aside and that in Feb/March I could contact her with my measurements or come down to Portland for a fitting. Done! I paid for the dress right then and there. Liza even sent me a sample of the material so I could match accessories to it.

I've made decisions like this before. It's not the first time leaped before I looked. I did a study abroad in Russia and didn't speak the language and twice moved to new cities and took an apartment without seeing them first. It's always worked out. What part of your wedding are you taking chances on? Using a photographer you never met? Bought table decor without seeing it in person?

Money, Money, Money

Ah the budget. What can I say but ARH! We're working with a very small budget -- $15,000 for the wedding AND the honeymoon. An intimate wedding for $10,000? Doable right? What about an intimate wedding with 130 guests for under $10,000? A little crazy? That's what I thought.

We saved a lot of money on my dress since it's pretty simple and hand-made. In total, it only cost me $265! We're committing wedding blasphemy and not doing engagement pictures and not really having a professional photographer for the ceremony or the reception. I have a couple friends and friends of friends who are amatur photographers and looking for work to beef up their portfolio. I'm meeting with a few of them next week and hoping that someone would work within our measly budget of $400. We're really just not picture people.

Like many of the other bees, I'm DIY-ing the invitations myself. The invitations require a separate post, so I won't go into the details. I made the Save the Date postcards with Photobooth on our Mac and InDesign on my work computer. They came out pretty good and only cost $26 to produce. We've gotten a lot of compliments about them. We're trying to do our part to save money where we can.

We got hit hard in a few places. Mr. Papaya Dog works for a Catholic high school in the area and we were told we could use the chapel for free since the wedding is in the summer. When we met with the priest to discuss details, he let us know that he wasn't charging us for his services but we'd have to pay the teacher discount for the chapel - $500. We're trying to see if we can get around that. We also didn't plan on paying for the mandatory premarital counseling. I heard it was between $200-500.

We also planned on using my frequent flyer miles for part of our honeymoon airfare and my Aunt's timeshare for one of our weeks away. We couldn't get reservation for any of the 10 properties in Greece we wanted to stay at so we change our honeymoon plans to Australia (the Joey's -- get it?). That seemed OK until I realized I didn't have enough miles to get even half of one of our tickets to Sydney covered. We could pick somewhere else but we both have our hearts set on Australia and you only live once right? So instead of saving money on the moneymoon, I mean honeymoon, we're using everything we budgeted. It may be time to come up with a budget cutback plan.

Some of the first things to go would be the favors and the music. We plan on making limoncello and bottling it for our guests. While we can get the lemons for free and the Vodka at a reasonable price but it's the bottles that wouldn't come cheap. Actually, they aren't too expensive but getting them shipped would be.

I have a little money budgeted for a band, but in the end we may have to go with the trusty ipod. Not as exciting, but it's better than nothing. We're still hoping one of Mr. Papaya Dog's many musician friends will "gift" us their services.

I'm trying to come up with other places to save money. In the end, I think it will come down to turnout. We've invited 150 people. If 25 of those people don't show up, it will be a huge help. We've got a lot of family members we were asked to invite.

What elements are you will to change or scrap to stay within budget and which ones are considered no fly zones?

Pass the turkey please....

I was reading Ms. Cheese's post about establishing new holiday traditions and wished we had thought of doing something similar. I think our problem is that we merged our family traditions together a few years ago and not celebrating the holidays the way we normally do would seem strange -- like something was missing.

Christmas is a huge deal in my family. My Grandma's birthday was on December 24th and we always threw a merged Christmas/birthday party on the 24th. My mom has 4 sisters and 2 brothers, so that makes for lots of people (including lots of cousins), lots of food and lots of noise. When Mr. Papaya Dog came to his first Christmas with my family, well, let's just say he was more than a little overwhelmed. He celebrates Christmas with just his parents, his brother and his sister-in-law. They have a nice Christmas breakfast followed by presents and gingerbread house making, then a huge Christmas dinner. It's a lot different than 30 people yelling (in a nice way) in 2 or 3 different languages across the room.

Mr. Papaya Dog has adapted nicely. He loves the food and is getting used to the noise though he always points out he was the tallest person at the party. Filipinos are not known for their height. I love his family's Christmas. It's such a nice contrast to what goes on in my family. I wouldn't trade one tradition for the other but can't imagine one without the other now.

Mr. Papaya Dog's parents moved to South Carolina a few years ago and our new tradition is spending Christmas Eve with my family and then hopping on a plane early Christmas morning to get to South Carolina in time for Christmas dinner. It's hectic, but totally worth it.

Besides the merging of Christmases, Mr.Papaya Dog and I have started are own special holiday tradition around Thanksgiving. Every year we prepare a themed thanksgiving meal. The first year we made all the traditional dishes, the second year we had Chesapeake inspired dishes (Virginia spoon bread, Old Bay Turkey), last year we did Hawaiian food (Kalua turkey, spam fried rice) and this year we had New Orleans on the table. Hawaiian was the easiest and the tastiest but they were all really great. Next year we're thinking Chinese or New Mexican. Thanksgiving is my favorite of "our" traditions.

What traditions are you merging and what traditions have you developed as a couple? Are there any you wish you could get rid of or change?

Bursting with color!

One of the first issues we tackled was wedding colors. I love color. I could look at paint chips for hours and if I had my way, every room of my apartment would be a different color. One of my favorite books is about the history and development of color. Yes, I'm a nerd.

Knowing how I feel about color, Mr. Papaya Dog said he'd be fine with any palette I selected as long as it wasn't too girly and was a color he could wear (no red, no pink). I thought about it for a few days and then it just came to me, yellow and grey with sprinkles of black and cream.

I presented my idea to Mr.Papaya Dog and he loved it. He thought it was classy and modern. I told my friend Katie who's on my wedding panel (I'll explain later) about it and she loved it. She works for Echo and she sent me some great pictures of how they used those colors in their designs.




Turns out I'm not the only person who loves grey and yellow. I'm my searching I found a great blog about all things Black, White and Yellow. There are some really great designs I've been using for inspiration.

5 months later I still love my color choice though it's been a little rough finding ties and shoes that match exactly. Actually, ties have been a real struggle. I originally decided that one of my determining factors in selecting a color was my ability to find flowers in that color. I hadn't thought of shoes, ties or other accessories. I'm hoping that since yellow is the big color for next year (see linked article), I'll find more to work with.



If I had to make the choice again, I think I'd still go with grey and yellow, but I might throw in a color like teal. There were a lot of teal ties. Would you change your wedding colors knowing what you do now about the availability of supplies, clothing and accessories in those colors? Would you just add a color to the palette?

Engagement night contemplation

After we popped open the bubbly and called our parents, we both sat at our places at the dinner table and fell into deep contemplation. Something big just happened and I think we both needed a moment to take it in. After a few minutes of joyful silence, I suddenly wondered, what is this going to change? At the time, we had been dating for 3.5 years and living together for 2 of those years. We established a separate joint account and were even on a shared cell phone plan. We spent Christmases with both families and knew each other parents pretty well. We even took one another into consideration when accepting our current jobs. I wasn't sure what would change. My last name? Maybe, but I'll save that for another post.

So I asked Mr.Papaya Dog what would change. He thought for a minute and said, "in our everyday lives, probably not much. In the grand scheme of things, probably a lot but I'm not sure what that change is." I still am trying to quantify what will change. The one change I do notice is talking about kids isn't a someday daydream but suddenly something that will happen one day. Anyone notice any immediate changes besides the wedding planning?

Papaya Dog is getting married!

It all happened so fast, the proposal that is. Mr. Papaya Dog and I have been dating for almost 4 years. It's all a blur but here's what I remember.

I came home one day from work, June 24th to be exact, and noticed a bottle of bubbly on the kitchen counter. I didn't really think anything of it and after I put down my stuff and said hi to Mr. Papaya Dog, I went to work on dinner. Later, as we were finishing up our meal, Mr. Papaya dog asked me if I'd like to open a birthday present early. Of course I said yes. He brought out one of those cute gift boxes shaped like a Chinese takeout box. I thought I knew what it was but of course I was wrong. A few months back, I was eyeing this cute top at J.Crew that I thought I saw him buy as I was headed towards the dressing room.

It wasn't the top. I opened the gift box and all I saw was tissue paper. I pulled all of it out and at the bottom was a little square just big enough to fit a small pair of hoop earrings or a ring. But of course I thought I was getting earrings. Nope. I unwrapped the square and there in my little hand was this gorgeous vintage diamond ring. I looked over at him and he managed to muster out, "Will you marry me?" and my answer wasn't yes, it was, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Not quite the answer he thought he'd get but it meant the same as yes.

Mr. Papaya Dog told me later he planned to ask me when we went down to Portland for my birthday the following week but he couldn't wait. He bought the ring a week before at an antique jewelry store and the thought of having to hide his gift for another week was more than he could bare.

In the end there was no getting down on one knee (he could hardly keep from falling out of the chair) and no elaborate plan. Just plain and simple and perfectly us. How did your Mister pop the question? Was there fireworks and sandy beaches or just a little Chinese takeout box after dinner?