Water Bottle Labels & Unity Candle

So I ran some errands today and spent my afternoon doing a few WR things. My first stop on my errands was to Office Max to pick up full sheet labels. Knottie LauraR posted a great step by step instruction guide on how to make DIY water bottle labels last week and while our ceremony and reception are both indoors, I thought making my own personalized water bottles would be a nice touch for our OOT bags. So with her template she emailed me last week, the instructions, and my full sheet labels I made about 48, enough for 2 cases of water and about how many OOT bags I will be making. Here's my final product, I still need the water bottles though, but those will be bought in Vermont the week before the wedding most likely.
I also stopped by my favorite store Michael's and picked up a nifty new pair of craft scissors called Honey Bee, I used them to cut my monogram squares for my belly bands for the invitations and I am super pleased with my purchase. They were a little on the pricey side, $10.99, but I had a 40% off coupon and figured $6 or so wasn't too bad, supposedly they are stick resistant, so we'll see if they do the trick when I cut all the labels. Speaking of the monogram squares I finally got them all taped to the backing and cut them all, so now I can officially start the last phase of the invitations, the belly bands and then I will be done! All I will have left is addressing them all, although that may take me forever.

Finally, I made our unity candle. I had bought the classic linen white pillar candle and the two taper candles from Michael's forever ago, I think total they cost me like $6 all together. I then got a sheet of 12 x 12 velum paper from the open stock, about $0.59 and a spool of the $1 ribbon in pink, kind of a satin and organza. I made my layout for the velum on Publisher, knowing that the paper would be cut down to 8.5 x 11, I then measured and knew I would need the width to be about 6.5 inches instead of the 8.5, so I adjusted the margins, made my printable area 6.5 x 11 on landscape, and cut and pasted in my cherry blossom graphic and my monogram and found a good bible verse that was short and sweet to put on there. I made everything in our colors and fonts and made sure everything was centered on the page, and printed to the velum in my home inkjet printer. I let the paper dry overnight though because I have heard that it will smear if it isn't completely dried before handing. Today, I cut down the velum about an inch or so on each top and bottom and then wrapped it around the candle and taped it to itself and the candle with some regular Scotch tape. I then took my ribbon and wrapped it around the top and bottom of the velum and taped it to the velum and candle. To finish it all off I tied the same ribbon in bows around each taper. And voila! Unity candle for about $8 for the set! I also got the holder at Michael's too with a 50% off coupon for $8 a while back, so the whole set up came out to about $16, not bad if I do say so myself!

Done so far...

So as we have 4 months and 1 week left to the wedding day extravaganza, I keep thinking of all I have left to do, yet at the same time I realize all that is already done. The florist and the cake baker are the last 2 vendors I have to hire. Everyone else has been contracted for forever. Big things left to do are finish the invitations, make the programs, escort cards, table numbers, get some extra decor/details, and find someone to do my hair and make up. We're headed up to Vermont a week from tomorrow for a whole week of wedding planning. I can't wait! We're also going to take a little side trip to Boston and take our e-pics with our photographer!

My to do list for this weekend includes:
-making the belly bands for the invitations (image to the right)
-finishing the monogram squares for the belly bands
-making our unity candle
-printing our water bottle labels
-getting everything ready to go to Vermont next week

I have Fridays off, so I try to do a lot on my 3 day weekends, but today I just felt like being lazy, the only WR things I did were go to the post office and get my sample invite weighed and printed my velum for the unity candle. The good news is the wedding $0.59 stamp is what we need, so I went ahead and bought the 3 sheets so I now have them on hand when I finish the invitations and drop them in the mail April 1st.

My first post

Hi everyone! I decided a little late to start this, but hopefully it will chronicle my wedding planning journey for the next few months!

So, about us, Tony and I met on MySpace back in March of 2006, after a few messages back and forth I decided to give him my AIM screen name, we chatted on AIM for a couple weeks, and the night I was packing to go home for my grandfather's funeral he asked me in an IM if I wanted to go out with him on a date sometime. I gladly accepted but told him it would have to be after I got back, we planned it for a Saturday lunch the weekend I would come back and I gave him my phone number. He called and we talked on the phone every day for about a week before our Saturday lunch date arrived. He came to my apartment and picked me up, we went downtown to have lunch at a Cuban restaurant and all in all had a nice time. I didn't know if there was a future there or not, especially knowing that I would be moving to Orlando in a few short months for grad school and him active duty in the Navy, but we continued on.

Fast forward to July 2008, after dating for over 2 years, surving long distance, a deployment, PCS, and me moving again, we went to visit my family for the 4th of July weekend. Sunday July 6th we decided to go down to Miami Beach and enjoy some of the wonderful Florida summer weather. We were walking along the beach when all of a sudden Tony drops to his knee, pulls out the ring I had been pining over for months, and asked me to marry him! I of course said yes! And so began our wedding planning journey. We set the date for July 4, 2009 soon after, it was important to us as it was the only holiday we had always spent together in our years of dating, and it was my grandparents' anniversary. We then decided to do it in Burlington, Vermont, where Tony is from. So this Florida girl is trading in the beach and opting for the mountains of VT to set the scene of our Independence Day wedding. Hence Florida meets Vermont.