A Peachy Wedding

Mission Accomplished

2009-09-19T15:52:00.003-06:00

We did it! All I have right now though is a quick teaser by our fantastic photographer,

PSA: Beverage Containers

2009-06-09T09:25:00.008-06:00

I know I just said I won't be around much anymore, but this is too good to not mention.

Like most everyone else out there, I really wanted the beautiful glass containers in which to serve our nonalcoholic drinks.

Mrs. Cherry Pie

But I didn't want to spend a ton of money on them either and all of the bigger ones were at least $50. I finally resigned myself to the plastic ones from Bed Bath & Beyond for $20.

Currently out of stock

That's when my aforementioned wedding soulmate (WS) displayed her brilliance. Who needs that little spigot anyhow? And really, don't we want our guests to be able to scoop out some of the fruit to put in their glasses?

Genius! Enter a new search and a thrilling realization that the perfect jars (well, I wouldn't mind if they were 3 gallons, but close enough!) were $20 and glass! With free shipping! Amazon.com never fails to provide!

Amazon

I quickly added two to my cart and headed to check out. Crap. They would even ship until after WS's wedding! Since we're planning on sharing them there's no way for that to work. Back to square one. I start searching around and low and behold, there they were waiting for me at my local Target! And for a whopping $13.50! (It says they're out of stock but click on "Find it at a Target Store")

I was thinking it was too good to be true but immediately headed over to check it out. Sure enough! There were two of them in the size I needed and at a better price than I could have ever hoped for.

Success!

Anyone else snag some great steals they want to brag about? :-)

A Letter to Blog

2009-06-09T09:08:00.002-06:00

Dear Blog,

You were started, as most are, as a place to gather inspiration and document my journey from engaged to espoused. However, I've met someone else. I met my wedding soulmate (who is not my fiance as he so adorably and hopefully guessed). We've practically been planning the same wedding and now we're joining forces to make both celebrations better.

I'm sorry I just disappeared on you. You deserved better. I promise I'll still be keeping an eye on you and of course I'll tell you all about how everything went afterwards. But really? I think we should see other people.

Sincerely,

C

A Rose is a Rose?*

2009-04-29T14:25:00.010-06:00

I've struggled with what to do with my name once I'm married for longer than I've know my future husband. I know I want to have the same name as any future children but I didn't want to give up my identity either.** Additionally, all of my cousins are female and all of the older ones have already taken their husbands names so any continuation is up to my sisters and I. That held me up for a long time until I realized that my mother's maiden name was in the same situation. That added on yet another name I wanted to "save" so I went with an all or nothing approach. I'll be honoring both sides in a multitasking, in the moment, who cares about future generations sort of way. (It's not like hyphens typically last for more than a generation anyways.)
I am going to replace my current middle name (Rose - which I've never been especially attached to) with the same middle name as my grandfather and mother (St Clair). Add to that my maiden name as a second middle, which will hopefully be used socially, and fiance's last name and I'm all set!

First Middle Maiden Last.

I'll be honoring both my mom and dad's side of the family while still having a very simple and normal two word name when I want it. (Even if the explanation was anything but simple.)
The Mister will also be adding my maiden name as a middle name but I don't expect him to try and use it socially. :-)
I breathed a big sigh of relief once I got that figured out. Whew! No more stressing about it!
Hah. That lasted right up until a saw a post about signing your new name at the DMV. Crap.
I didn't want to just sign FirstName LastName because I would really like to use my maiden name socially in a faux-hyphenated sort of way but First Maiden Last is entirely too long! We're talking 7 letters, 7 letters, 5 letters which could certainly be worse but it really wasn't going to cut it compared to my current "CatCa" signature. So I got creative.
I tried "F Maiden Last", "F M Last", "Maiden Last" and even "F M M Last". None of them felt remotely like ME. So I left it for a bit before trying again a week or two later.
While I was never really called "Cait" growing up it's much more common now. I tried "Cait Maiden Last" which wasn't exact but I was getting closer. Then I realized that if I signed "CaitCam" (Cam being the first 3 letters of my Maiden name) it really looks quite a bit like my first name! Problem solved! And it only took a few attempts and one piece of paper!

I know I'm not the only one to have struggled with this. Anyone else come up with unusual solutions or compromises?

*This is a bit more amusing if you know that my middle name is Rose.
**There is also the slight possibility that I'm not a huge fan of his last name. It's rather common and he's no longer on speaking terms with his biological father whose name he carries. I suggested dropping his current last name and both taking on his "real" (step)father's name but he has too much of a career built upon his current name and he didn't want to lose the connection to his grandfather.

My Dress: Final Answer!

2009-04-22T14:58:00.009-06:00

So after I blogged about how I got so lucky and found my dress for $50 I decided it's really not what I want.

source

I've never been one to dream about being a princess but remember that whole never-say-never thing? I realized that this dress, while very pretty, wasn't special enough to me. Thanks to my grandfather I have gotten to go to some very special events and this dress wasn't any more interesting than some of the dresses I had worn before.

In 2000 my grandfather was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and he brought his family along. (I wish I could dig the photos up for you. They're pretty entertaining as I was at the wonderfully awkward age of a late blooming 17.) The awards ceremony and banquet were probably the fanciest events I will ever attend in my life.

source

(That's the King of Sweden handing Grandpa the award.)

I wore a long black dress that laced up in the back and even had a little train. It's basically the equivalent of the bridesmaid's dress I found for $50. And while I don't remember what exactly they wore, I was most impressed with the princesses. They were stunning.

source

(You can just see her to the right of the Queen.)

That's when I realized that I don't want to look like a Disney princess, but I wouldn't mind having the presence of a real one and a $50 bridesmaids dress just wasn't cutting it.

I logged on to bravobride.com just to see what was out there when I saw that a dress I had wanted to buy earlier was still available. Not only that but the price had dropped. It had originally been listed for $500 which was a little more than I was comfortable paying. I had decided I would offer $400 but it wasn't accepted. Lo and behold, there it was, down to $400.

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Casablanca 1831. Ivory. My size. Unaltered except to add a french bustle.

I practically stalked this dress when I was visiting bridal shops. If a store carried it I ended up trying it on. It always made it to the top two.

Despite all this I wasn't sure enough to buy it. I was embarassed that I wasn't making myself go with what I had originally decided and it's pretty flippin' hard to argue against a $50 wedding dress. I showed my mom and sister/MOH and they convinced me that I wasn't crazy to want it. I emailed the seller and said that if she still wanted to sell it to me despite my earlier flakiness I would buy the dress. She said I was just in time. Another girl had emailed her that same day but since I was first it was mine for the taking. I took that to be a sign and sent her the money. It should be here on Friday and I haven't stopped grinning about it since.

**Photos by my mother if not otherwise credited.

A Breather

2009-04-08T10:46:00.002-06:00

It's not like anyone has noticed, but I still wanted to apologize for being absent. I've noticed that our wedding planning definitely happens in waves and there's been a bit of an ebb lately. Actually, I think the best part of it is that I didn't even notice we were doing much until it started picking back up again! I'm going to tell myself that means I'm not obsessing about the wedding too much.

This last week the Peachy Groom's uncle was in town and we got to discuss our invitations. You see, in yet another lucky stroke we were able to utilize the talents of our family and friends yet again. Uncle Adam just happens to be an artist and graphic designer! I'm so excited for our invitations to come together! Things have really been falling into place for them and I can't wait to show them off!

2009-03-30T12:03:00.006-06:00

I'm not sure when I realized that it wasn't marriage I was scared of, it was the wedding itself. It really can be a royal pain in the ass.

People understand budgets, but they don't understand why you would skimp on *their* aspect. Actually, the rental and food people have been awesome. It's mostly when you start talking wedding dresses that people go off the deep end.

"What do you mean? $800 for a wedding dress isn't bad!" (And it's not. The dress was worth that much.)

Or my least favorite, "Just keep looking. You'll know it's THE ONE when you put it on." They basically say that you're going to hate the way you look unless you find a dress you're absolutely head over heels in love with. (I had one wedding dress consultant tell me that she hates her wedding pictures because she doesn't like her dress.)

Ugh. The scary thing is that you hear it so often that you start believing it yourself.

I'm pretty stoked that I found a bridesmaid's dress on sale for $50. I'm not head over heels in love with it, it needs some work and it's two sizes too big and so on, but really? I'm going to make it mine and I'm pretty flipping stoked. Did I mention it was $50? I may or may not be bragging about that for the next fifty years.

(And in case you're curious, here's a sneak peek:)

Watters #9952 from their website

Ok. I'm done ranting now. My apologies, I didn't realize I was so fired up about it! :-D

**This isn't to say that some people shouldn't spend a lot of money on a dress. It's all about what your priorities are. Mine just don't happen to include putting a few house payments into something I'll wear once. So I'm going to wear my ridiculously cheap dress and drool over everyone else's stunning gowns.

Man down!

2009-03-25T11:03:00.002-06:00

My fiance lost his Best Man last night. (Not LOST-lost, just a won't be in the wedding-lost.) The Mr. hadn't talked to D in a little while and finally got a hold of him last night. Turns out he's been in France for the last month, has (presumably) fallen in love, decided to sell his Nowhere Ranch and move to France on July 4th.

Not surprisingly, my boy is rather saddened. He's very happy that D has found someone but was extremely surprised and has realized that perhaps they're not as good of friends as he thought. If the situation was reversed, there's no way he would miss D's wedding.
Me, being the obnoxious optimist that I am, pointed out that things could always be worse.

At least we didn't decide to get married there.

How the Most Important Decision Was Also the Easiest

2009-03-18T16:51:00.012-06:00

The venue is actually the first wedding decision we made (I'm having a terrible time going chronologically here.) I have always known that I would get married outside. There weren't really two ways about it. The closest I ever came to considering a church was driving past a cute, white, one room, clapboard church with wooden doors and a green lawn and thinking a small afternoon lunch reception under the cottonwood trees would be amazing. Of course, even then I knew that if we did go that route I'd still want to get married outside, maybe in front of the beautiful wooden doors.

Moonlight Cocktail Photography

Ever since I was little and first thought of weddings in a distant abstract way, I thought I would get married in Breckenridge, CO. My family has a history there. It was a second home when I was growing up. Perhaps it's the reason I have always felt at home in the mountains.

My aunt was married there before I was born and then my cousin got married on Boreas Pass. It's still one of my favorite weddings.

mharoldsewell on flickr

Of course, I'm not the only one getting married here. My groom had also known for a very long time exactly where he wanted to get married as well. Welcome to Nowhere Ranch:

(Oh, and this was taken on a cellphone.)

It's his best friend's ranch outside of Steamboat Springs, CO. It is breathtaking. How could I not jump on board? We started fanatsizing about what an amazing wedding it would be. Then we realized it's 20 miles of dirt road to get there and it really would be a logistical (and expensive) nightmare to pull off. We decided to look a little closer to town, at Fish Creek Falls specifically.

(If it looks familiar go check out your beer bottles. It's on the Coors Original can. And yes, Golden and Steamboat are hours apart from each other, but that's apparently besides the point.)

The Mr. and his best friend used to run this trail until they puked. On a regular basis no less, but they're crazy like that. It is absolutely gorgeous and easily accessible. However, besides marrying each other the location was the most important element. We really wanted a close connection to the land on which we would be standing. So we moved closer to home, all the way back to childhood in my case. Welcome to Rancho Durazno:

(Also taken on the FI's cell phone. It makes me sick that it sometimes takes better pictures than my camera.)

My dad is an organic fruit grower in Palisade, CO. I grew up climbing on the rocks and trees, tearing around and raising hell on my sorrel mare. It's home. Fortunately, the Mr. is also very fond of the place even though he hasn't gotten so spend much time there. Then I wondered what my poor dad would think of his farm being overrun by 200 people. I was nervous to even ask, but we were excited. To our absolute delight, so was he! My dad was absolutely touched that I would want to get married on the farm and jumped right on board. We didn't need any other encouragement. We had found our venue.

(Of course because I'm slightly neurotic and logical like that, I had already made up a spreadsheet that generated a score for each location so I knew it made sense from that angle as well.)

The Year

2009-03-17T13:57:00.009-06:00

We talked casually of weddings before we ever officially broached the subject. Slowly the discussion of weddings began cropping up more and more and hypothetical questions that never addressed who the other party would be turned into planning out little details like making sure the location wasn't above 8,000 feet so that our grandmothers would be comfortable. Without ever really saying anything we had made the decision to get married. Since he already knew my answer, the only real question left was when to do it.

In our previous long term relationships we noticed that things had changed or started to fall apart right about the two year mark so we decided we wouldn't do anything before that point. I also wanted him to realize that he could be happy and successful in a non-bull riding career. As is the case for many athletes, sometimes rodeo cowboys just don't know when to let go and keep nodding their heads on long after they should have hung up their spurs. I wanted to make sure my intended wasn't one of them. Turns out I'll just be taking him on his word as he's still rodeoing, but you can't win them all.

The Mr. had mentioned a few times that he didn't want a long engagement while I told him he'd better give me at least a year. I had just discovered the world of blogging and was quickly realizing there was a whole lot more work that went into planning these things than I had previously thought. Based on comments here and there I pieced together an expected timeline for myself. I figured he would probably propose near our third anniversary and then we'd set the date for the fall of 2010. Have I mentioned the theme of my life is "never say never" which is closely followed by "expect the unexpected"?

Turns out he started plotting in the fall of 2008 and asked me to marry him in January of 2009. We knew we wanted our wedding to be in the fall but didn't know if we should go for it in 8 months or wait at year to save up and and have a longer 20-month engagement. (To be honest, he was ready get married this fall while I needed a little time to wrap my head around the idea.) So true to form, I made up a pro-con list:

2009 Pros
- Wouldn't have a super long engagement
- Would have to keep things simple
- Would be better for Babcia

2009 Cons
- Doesn't give our parents much time to get used to the idea
- Doesn't give us much time to save
- Wouldn't be able to buy a house right after the wedding
- Not sure it gives us enough time to clean up the farm
- Doesn't give much time to plan the food if it's going to be homegrown
- Better start blogging!
- Save the Dates are supposed to be sent 6-9 months out so the guest list would have to be finalized ASAP

2010 Pros
- Would have a long time to save up
- Parents would prefer
- More time for ME to wrap my head around the idea
- Full moon is on Sept & Oct 23rd

2010 Cons
- LONG engagement
- More time to be indecisive
- Cool [wedding]bee icons might be taken ;-)

Despite the fact 2010 was more logical, we decided we really didn't want to wait that long and jumped in head first. It didn't take very long to realize I would become completely neurotic if given 20 months to plan everything. Especially since sometimes I think 8 months is too long.

Was your engagement a surprise or had you discussed things thoroughly? Did you immediately agree on when to do it or were you like us and expected completely different timelines? How did you decide?

A proper introduction

2009-03-10T09:47:00.009-06:00

Maybe I should back up just a bit and start at the beginning, perhaps with how the Peachy Groom and I met:

There was a PRCA (that's the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Associaton) rodeo in town and my friend and I decided to go.

(Not from that night)

Afterwards we were invited to the after party which I skipped but my friend went to. The next night my friend and I were having a good time at a Shooter Jenning's concert (that's Waylon's son) when she turned around and said, "That's the cowboy I wish I had given my number to last night!" I sneaked a peek and congratulated her on her good taste. (She was notorious for being attracted to dubious types.) I decided to facilitate things and so I snagged his arm, brought him over and told the two of them that they should dance.

(This one's not from that night either.)

The concert ended and I started chatting him up hoping to get him to hang around long enough for numbers to be exchanged. They weren't, but it was determined that we would all be at the local country-western bar that Tuesday for Halloween and that we should meet up then. After the concert my friend and I got to talking and I realized that I rather liked the cowboy that caught her eye. I told her and she laughed and said that was fine because she liked his friend better! Halloween rolled around the cowboy and I ended up dancing all night long and then some.

We had both just gotten out of long term relationships and were straight up with each other saying that we didn't want anything serious. We managed to kid ourselves for a couple months that it really was just a casual fling even though our family and friends all knew better. Two and a half years later and we're still here and getting married in the fall!

The dress: How much is too much?

2009-03-09T08:26:00.006-06:00

When I first started thinking about what I would wear I decided that I would aim for $300-500. I knew that number was a little low for a wedding dress but it was important to me that I bought a used dress, or at least a sample. It's still more than I have ever paid for an article of clothing, or even an entire outfit, but it was a number I was comfortable with. Additionally, it's really important to my fiancee and I to make our wedding as environmentally responsible as we can. Not having a dress made just for me that I would wear on one occasion was one way I would contribute. I had already been introduced to preownedweddingdresses.com and then later bravobride.com. I was sure it was doable.

I told my mom and she wanted me to completely happy with my dress and thought I should consider going up to $1000 (which she would so generously cover). I was blown away. I also thought there was no way I was coming close to that, but it was nice to have a higher ceiling. I decided I could look at more expensive dresses and then find a used one later.

I thought it was a stellar plan and so we started shopping. But of course, things can never just go according to plan. I'm currently unsure about what to do and you know misery loves company. Have you hit any snags, especially in regards to dress shopping? Did you fix it or are you still stuck?

Hello!

2009-03-08T09:32:00.002-06:00

I'm a relocated farm girl getting married to a professional bull rider this September.

If you feel like it, you're welcome to follow along. If not, that's ok too. I have a tendency to talk to myself regardless. And so I officially welcome myself to the blogging world! Here's hoping we learn something from it.