Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Two Awards, One Pug

I had a super lucky award day today! My gal pal Bustie McGoo gave me the Kreativ Blogger award!

This is my second Kreativ Blogger award... I guess that means I've got a creative gene! Or I'm freakishly annoying and in your face. Either/or!

I also got this great award from Stacy from You Can't Take it With You.

The directions are to post the award on your site, write 10 interesting things about yourself, and then pass it on to 10 other bloggers. Like Stacy, I asked my fiance Mr Pug to pick the ten things! He may have gone a little TMI, but... enjoy!

Miss Pug...

1. Purses her lips when looking in the mirror
2. Is afraid to try steak, but loves hot dogs?
3. OBSESSED with anything tiny (especially if its pug related)
4. Loves cheese
5. Nicknames everything she owns (Bernie, Bruce, Eddie)
6. Loves photography
7. Enjoys putting away the dishes but not doing them
8. Has a permanent pug bodyguard (Harles)
9. Sighs with satisfaction after a fart
10. Loves to make parodies for pop songs (pug related is a common theme)

HAHA! Yep, all true. I actually didn't notice the fart thing until he called me out on it. The tiny things? Mini wine bottles, mini candy bars, PICCOLINI FARFALLE!?! YES! And the names- Bernie is my Mac, Bruce is my car, and Eddie is just a normal stuffed animal.

Now I've gotta pick 10 fabulous ladies!

1. Stephanie from I Do at the Zoo since she rocks my socks!
2. Morgan from Handcrafted Hitching Post because I love her hair and her SWANNNN reference!
3. Busty McGoo because she's an award-giving machine and also a pumpkin-lover :)
4. Danielle at Small Town Bride because she had some GORG engagement pictures!
5. LauraLou from Lucky in Love since I am in AWE of her photo editing skills... come visit and teach me, thanks!
6. Miss Mojito... I mean do I really have to explain how fabulous she is?
7. Crystal at My Carmel Wedding because I too am a Jim Hjelm obsessed bride!
8. Jill from Once Upon a Dream because of her amazing pumpkin carving skilllllz (yes, with a z!)
9. Jen from A Girl in Pearls & a Boy with Toys since due to a recent post I think I'm not alone in losing out to the video games sometimes :)
10. Ali aka Miss Frenchie from His Birdie's Nest because she may have inspired me to try spaghetti squash!!!

I apologize if you guys were also nominated by someone else... consider yourself EXTRA lucky then. Thanks for being such amazing blog friends!

I'm not into foot binding but now I might consider it...

One of my most major blogger obsessions is Stacy from You Can't Take It With You. She just posted about her shoe dilemma and included these beauties:

These shoe clips are $30, "Annette." And I thought, hey, I should check out the site, maybe some of those can go with these shoes that I posted about before. I could take off the bow and cover it with a clip! VOILA!

Wow, everything is coming together. Let's go to their site see if they have my size.

Yea that's right... child sizes... "Perfect for First Communion..." THESE ARE KID SHOES. FOILED! I would need to do some ancient-style foot binding to fit into these pre-wedding.

So I'm back on the search for shoes 2 inches or under. I'm glad I can do shoe clips though to dress them up. I really like this site that Stacy posted! I think my favorites are these:

The "Ilyana" are white enamel, crystal, AND pearl... and $25. NOT BAD! I think I'm in love. It ties together the flowers, crystal and pearl of my jewelry, but also the bold white, sort of retro/vintage Hollywood I'm going for.

These pearl and crystal ones, "Melina", are also pretty, and $25.

And if I want to go fabric...

These "Dahlia" shoe clips are only $12!

There are a TON of affordable options on the site. They would be a nice easy something borrowed for a future bride friend. There are multiple colors, so maybe if you aren't wanting full-color shoes, you can get a small colored shoe clip! Which is your favorite?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Dem Jewelzz

Ahh, I guess I'm in a ghetto mood. I apologize in advance for the MAJOR CHEESE self portraits you will be viewing!

I am happy to announce that I got my necklace and earrings as well as my bridesmaids' necklaces! Here are my bridesmaids' necklaces, bought at none other than New York & Company.

I got them the day they came in (I was doing the shipment!) and it was the last day of 40% off jewelry. On top of the 40% off I got my discount, making these necklaces just over $7 each! They're not the perfect green but I know they'll really tie it in, I love the varied green colors in it.

Onward to my jewelry! Check out these blingin' earrings!

Gosh I wish I could've gotten a great picture of them on.

They are perfect, and less heavy than I imagined. I got them and my necklace (which I blogged about) a few weeks ago but neglected to photograph them because of...

Yea, the necklace is pretty tight. More choker-ish than it should be. If I flex my neck muscles at all, the pearl jumps and the necklace near strangles me. Remember the sausageneck comment? Self-fulfilling prophecy! This is how it is supposed to look:

(From Luxe Deluxe's etsy page) Luckily, the shop owner is happy to send me an extender. It'll only take a few inches to make it look more like this:

I think that will balance more with my sweetheart neckline dress. It's personal preference, but I hate chokers with strapless dresses, and more importantly, hate all chokers on me! Sausageneck syndrome!

Here are some great portraits of the earrings... I'm seriously in love with them! Watch out Mr Pug... they're also perfect for me!

Anyone else have some snafus on the way to jeweled perfection? And ps- can you believe that I found my bridesmaid necklaces!?

The Dingo Ate Your Baby

Anyone else feel weird saying fiance? Mr Pug and I feel sort of weird saying it sometimes to others. Condescending, sort of. Like when I went to pick up Mr Pug some RedMango (my obsession) I had to ask him about how to save it. It's simple... "My fiance isn't going to be home for an hour or two, would you put it in the freezer?" Such a nothing question with such a fancy word in the middle. It seems out of place. Boyfriend or Husband would make that sentence so much less presumptuous! (In my opinion anyway.) Personally I can't wait to use husband and wife. What do you think?

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Blogger Meetup! (Sort of?)

Hey blogosphere! I had an amazing day today! Mr Pug went to Chicago for the weekend, so I decided to make some super fun plans! Stephanie from I Do at the Zoo drove up the 2-ish hours from Louisville to Indianapolis to hang out! A few days ago I picked up an extra bottle of one of my favorite champagnes for her and Rick to congratulate them. I couldn't find a pug or husky congratulations card, but Bostons are also cute!

Stephanie gave me an AMAZING gift she made... a silhouette picture of us with our name "The Pugs" (I feel horrible having to blur that!) our wedding date, and a guy, girl, and 3 pug silhouettes!

Here's a picture from a little farther so you can see how truly gorgeous it is! Who are those girls in the flowers??? You'll find out.........

So after we exchanged our fun gifts we headed out to eat! We went to Scotty's Brewhouse, which is where I worked after I got laid off. We are both pretty picky eaters (YAY for others like me!) and Scotty's menu is so massive that you can't go wrong.

We also had two friends join us...

Yep, that's Miss Mojito (aka Laura) from With this ring, I thee blog and Katie from Random Reflections of a Perfectionist!!! I wish I could have "taken" all our blogger friends with us but these two are my only facebook friend bloggers- thus I got to steal their photos from their profiles. PS- you all should friend me!

We were sure to share our drinks with them.

After our great lunch we went to a cupcake place by my house. It's called The Flying Cupcake and their Red Velvet Elvis is to die for- red velvet cake with chocolate chunks in it... yummmm! I love their cupcakes but when I called to book a tasting, they said they were "pretty busy" and to call back in a few months! I asked for pricing information and they said they'd send me a packet. Well, I never got the packet, solidifying my decision to go with Holy Cow! Cupcake and their lovely bacony flavors :)

Katie really liked the Halloween styled cupcakes!

Laura thought this cake was boo-tacular!

Stephanie and I got a picture! Yes, we had to ask a random to take it. "Hi, do you mind taking a picture of the, uh, four of us?"

Look at the great flavors offered today! I got Red Velvet Elvis and Stephanie got Pretty in Pink (a strawberry cupcake). I took home a cinnamon/spice one that isn't on the board, and Stephanie brought her hubby a peanut butter chocolate one. I guess not all flavors were on the board!

Sophie stared down Stephanie as she ate her cupcake... trust me, these pugs have no manners! Poor Stephanie learned that the hard way.

Stephanie had to get going for a party this evening, so we said our goodbyes. It was SO fun to hang out and talk weddings and families and girl stuff! We had so much fun (all four of us!) and agreed we need to do a meetup with some REAL people at some point too! Who else is a Midwestern bride?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Be a Princess... No, REALLY.

Growing up, I worshiped a group of strong, beautiful women. Pre-SATC. They were the original Disney princesses.

Source

Don't even try to give me Pocahontas or Mulan. These six: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, and Jasmine are THE Disney Princesses.

I had a massive obsession with mermaids growing up, so Ariel was always my favorite. Besides that though, I didn't go all out with the princesses past a certain point. (Ha... replaced that with pugs I guess!) But I know lots of gals who held onto that obsession (including one of my wonderful college roommates!) So for those who can't get enough... designer Kirstie Kelly brings these:

Yep, rings inspired by each princess!

Thoughts? First, I think they honestly fit each princess perfectly. I also realized... I don't rank the princesses and the rings similarly. I'd probably rank the princesses Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Jasmine. But I'd rank the rings Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Ariel! First and last are reversed. Definitely not anticipated.

TresSugar writes up more information about the rings, and asks "love it" or "leave it" - I voted LOVE IT! I don't think it's cheesy or anything, since they're not too "obvious" (like a fish for Ariel, etc.) How perfect would it be if you were obsessed with a specific princess and found out right after saying "YES" that it was "her" ring? Too cute!

What do you guys think? And which is your favorite?

note- the TresSugar article says Kristie Kelly but it is actually Kirstie. I corrected and thought I'd let you all know.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Get A Grip!

I follow Bride Tide on twitter, and the other day they posted a great link- How to Hold a Bouquet!

I thought this was great because I hate seeing pictures when bridal party members are either guarding their nether regions or sniffing their flowers down the aisle (or both!) You'd never get a car without a license, why pay hundreds or thousands on flowers and hold them wrong! And then look back at the pictures and cringe! I realized I need to learn how to "drive" my bouquet and "get a grip" on my flowers.

I thought this bouquet was very similar to what I want, except slightly more tropical/exotic.

Picture from Dusty Brown Photography

Check out the link to the article for the great suggestions, which is a post on the Modern Day Floral blog. Perhaps a good thing to send along to your 'maids?

First Encounters...

My six best friends from high school and I have been emailing on an email chain for years. They were first with our college emails, but once we switched over to gmail I started archiving the old ones. Yesterday I thought to check if I had any saved from when I met Mr Pug. And yes- I DID! I briefly mentioned that we had gone out for our first date but there was a cute one following about our second date:

Updating- my date was amazing! Like I said we met Friday, hung out for like hours… it was awesome. So he tells me he's going to Louisville Saturday night for a bachelor party but he'll call me when he gets back Sunday. So he does and we go get some Chinese for dinner and then talk so much through dinner that we missed the movie we wanted to see! So then we go to my place to watch one instead, and my DVD player in the living room won't work. I mean, seriously. So we have to watch in my room- I thought it would be hella awkward but it wasn't. We end up talking through the whole movie, and long after, and before I know it, it's one in the morning. I was like ohmygosh I have to go to bed! I was like 98% sure he was somewhat into me at least after Friday, but now it's obvious we're both into each other. We're going to the movies tonight and he's taking me to lunch from work on Wednesday! Gahh! To describe: (guy from our high school)-ish, maybe a little taller. Suchhh a cute lil mischevious smile. If any of you were still on MySpace you could see the comment he left me. But yea he's absolutely adorable and I'm crossing my fingers.

Cute right? It brought back all those butterflies I got when I met him. Oh, and the pic? It is our first-ever pic together! We met out at a local bar one night and I snapped a few. Gosh I was skinny. The only con about being so tiny? I'm all nose! Yikes!

I'm glad I archive the email chain with my friends because of moments like these! I also save all the emails from Mr Pug. What mementos do you have from early-on in your relationship? I challenge you all to revisit and post something- a first picture, a love note, a yearbook signing, anything- to share with the other bloggers!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Mandy Leonards Photography

Ok so you all know my crazy obsession with photography. I want to be a dog photographer, I stalk multiple photogs via RSS, etc. Well guess who's lucky day is today? MISS PUG'S! First, a little background.

I moved to Indianapolis in January 2007 and knew, well, no one. I got myself a random roommate, and while it didn't work out for us as roomies, she introduced me to a lot of great people along the way. One of those people was Mandy. She and her husband had a beautiful baby a year ago- Isabella Rose- and Bella awoke the photography genius in Mandy! She started with photos of Bella but now has done shoots of other babies, families, and (my fave...) WEDDINGS! Check out the teasers from her shoot in French Lick, Indiana last weekend:

This bride sure can smile! I love Mandy's talent of really capturing the emotion in a person's face. You can't teach that!

The below picture reminds me of Cinderella... the pumpkins and the discarded "slippers," LOL!

This veil picture makes me HARDCORE WISH I was having a veil. Le sigh.

The wedding party:

And yea, because I nearly died of cuteness overload when I saw this, I have to include it- Mandy did a husband and wife shoot which included the couple's pug, Charli. SWOON!

Clearly, she can do it all. I have never seen so much talent from a newer photographer and am so glad to know her! Mandy is up for anything and that is always a great attribute in a photographer. Please go visit her site, Mandy Leonards Photography, to see all her pictures. The babies nearly put me into full-on baby fever mode, I'm serious. And- if you are in the area, or even if you just have to have her, please contact her! If I don't sell my dress, I might have to set up a Trash The Dress session with her next summer.

ps- You can also fan her on Facebook!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Five Months! And Things I Do Different

Today is the 20th which means it's that time of the month again- COUNTDOWN TIME (yea, not that OTHER time of the month, no TMI's here!!)

I really can't believe we only have five months left. I'm freaking out a litttttle bit! There is still so much to be done!

Anywho, one of the things I may have mentioned but haven't shown you yet is my wedding day nail color. And... here it is!

Yea I just took that at my desk, don't judge.

The color is Vixen by Revlon. You can find it here, in the berries/wine section. It is more of a deep berry color- not really as black as it looks from my awesome cell phone camera. Although I will say the final product is a little more "Bewitching Bordeaux" (yes, more plum-like) than the color for "Vixen" on my computer monitor. I love how it looks with my ring... very vintage/old Hollywood glamor.

Whenever people compliment the nail color I tell them I'm wearing it for the wedding. Some people like this, others... not so much. But I really don't care. I might have been a french manicure girl in high school but even then I was edgy (one formal I got silver nails with a black french manicured tip!) and want to stay true to myself. This is the only nail polish color I wear and I adore it! I'll also be giving it to my 'maids for them to wear for the wedding. Living in North Carolina for college gave me my affinity for preppy argyle, polos and pearls, but nothing will take away that New Jersey edginess.

One other thing I realized that I do "different" by some peoples' standards is wear black to weddings. The dress I wore to my friends' wedding on Saturday (as you saw in the pictures yesterday) was this black dress from New York & Company. Love that discount!

While the grey version of this dress is slightly more casual, I think the black did a great job being semi-formal. It was also massively comfortable... as in I wasn't dying to get out of it by the end of the night. A rarity! I loved wearing this dress and will wear it again. However, when I went to pay, one of my managers (who happens to be the rudest one) was chatting with me about the dress and was SHOCKED to find I was wearing it to a wedding. She said "You'd wear BLACK to a wedding?" And yes, she spit the word BLACK out like I said I was wearing mud. (This, my friends, is coming from someone who wore a long, casual jersey-material maxi skirt with a embellished beater tank to a wedding this summer.) I replied, shocked, "Uh, yea, why WOULDN'T I?" She tried to laugh it off but I went on, "It's not like I'm wearing a funeral veil... I'll add colorful accessories." She still seemed put off by my decision. I feel like I see people wearing black to weddings all the time, especially evening ones. What gives!?

What are all your thoughts on color: Nail color for your wedding? And are black dresses wedding appropriate? Did I (or am I?) making any wedding etiquette poo-poo's? (Not that it would stop me!)

Monday, October 19, 2009

Wonderful Wedding and Poor Bernie

A few orders of business... first, this is my 100th post! Hoorah!!!!

Second- my Mac (who I named Bernie, which seemed fitting since it's a black Mac just like THE Bernie) took a tumble on Sunday. Meaning the screen broke. And who knows what kind of internal damage. The Mac people who I visited this evening quoted me a beautiful $755 to fix. Um, I'm sorry, but my two year old MacBook isn't worth that, they don't even make it anymore. So I will be using Bernie until he either dies or until I have enough money to replace him post-wedding. Hopefully the latter!

Onwards to Saturday's wedding! Our good friends got married in a beautiful Catholic ceremony. The Priest was great- he was personal but brief, it felt really appropriate for them. The church was beautiful and modern and both bride and groom got choked up at the altar!

Post wedding ceremony we headed to the reception, which was extremely close to our house- jackpot! This wedding was the first I had been to with a large number of my close friends in attendance. Usually it's one of Mr Pug's friends I don't know very well, or coworkers of ours. This was like a normal Saturday night on crack.

Yea, we cheesed it up!

We also managed to get a few amazing photos! This is one of my favorites! I'm in the pink wrap with Mr Pug right behind me!

And here I am with the beautiful bride!!!!!!! (ps- notice my necklace? Familiar? And headbands hurt- my PSA for the day.)

After we closed down the reception we went out to a bar in town for some awesome dance parties. By the end of the night we were kind of lookin' like this...

And it's bedtime! It was a great night. Our friends altered their centerpieces- half floral, half flowers- and it looked great. They also did not have any appetizers and you know what- I didn't notice until now! There was a great full open bar, and a DELICIOUS buffet. And amazing red velvet cake with what seemed to be an almond-y flavor in the icing. The favor was a donation to Breast Cancer Research. The music was great and somehow my request of Ice Ice Baby started up a dance circle that I found myself in the middle of. Amazing. And now... our buddies are off to TAHITI!

What things do you love about attending friends' weddings?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Dreaded Venue Meeting

So, Thursday was the day. The day we banged out the details with our venue. Anyone ever see that one episode of Say Yes to the Dress where a girl comes to get her dress and claims it's not the right dress? I was afraid that it would be a case like that. We remembered thinking we could do some things and then not seeing them in the pre-meeting packet they sent us. We booked in January, so there have been months and months for our memories to evolve. I comforted myself pre-meeting with some bacon white cheddar mac! YUM!

That only helped for so long since we fought in the car about the situation. About what we remembered... and how much it cost. About how we would do it all differently if we knew then what we know now. About how we would pay for it all. It was miserable... we don't do well with uncertainty. Luckily we arrived and Anita, our Palomino Ballroom consultant, was chipper and super kind. She has 7 or 8 dogs and so we obviously connect with her.

We luckily found out that we didn't have to commit to anything that night. We would go through her list and give her information (what time we'd arrive, number of wedding attendants, who our vendors are, etc) and pick things (linens, do we need appetizers, what type of table set up, etc) from their options. She will be sending us the print out in a few weeks, that she warned would be 14, 15, maybe even 20 pages! That will have the total and we can cut/add as necessary in the privacy of our own home.

Something nice was realizing that Anita was pretty much our DOC but just for the venue. She frequently asked what drinks we like (alcoholic and non) and what type of cupcakes we'd like- so she could arrange for us to have them. No asking the MOHs or Best Men to take care of us! She also sets up everything. They were all set up for today's wedding on Thursday, minus a few items. Check it out:

It was great to see it set up. Those table # holders are free! Now we need to think of what we want on there! We are also doing these chairs... covers or nicer chairs are out of our budget. We took the pictures in full light for photo purposes, but with the lights dimmed and candles (and black linens) the chairs are less noticeable.

There's that gorgeous window! I think she said each candle in it is only $1... much less than I thought. They did a head table, but we'll do a sweetheart table with our family and wedding party members at the rounds around us.

Below shows a table set up.

Ours will be black tablecloth with a damask table runner made by 'maid H's mom. The napkins will lay flat and spill off the table for color- they'll be green! Our centerpiece will be from the florist as mentioned, but we'll also rent votives. They rent for 50 cents each. We'll then lay our menus on top of the napkins. Voila!

What, no champagne with the pugs picture like I planned? Nope. Turns out Indiana is pretttty strict on a lot of laws. They needed names of wedding party members under 21 (sorry MOH R... looks like you'll be scroungin') and GM brother J. No alcohol can be put out because of that liability. We also found out that our dessert buffet is o-u-t OUT! No food from non board of health approved sellers. Our cupcake lady is fine but nothing homemade. To remedy these, we'll probably do the pug sign on the table #'s, and then we added fruit trays for each table and a chocolate covered strawberry display to our proposal. The strawberrys would be the first thing to cut if we're over budget, but the fruit will be smart for some healthy and delicious late-night snacks in addition to the cupcakes. Plus, some people aren't that into sweets.

Other great news? The venue previously told us that cabs wouldn't come that far north. Still true. But now the bus/van company that you can rent from also can be "reserved" to be like a taxi. AKA, our guests would pay instead of us! We couldn't afford a shuttle so this adds a great option for people who might drink too much.

Speaking of drinking, the bar was our biggest issue to discuss. Food is a great price- the entrees we chose were under $20 each. But the bar options are so endless. We were pretty much set on doing wine and beer with a cash bar for all else. Unfortunately, we realized that would mean if we want to offer free soft drinks, we'd need to pay the fee per person for that. So while 90% of our guests wouldn't get a soft drink, we'd have to pay for them all. Kind of poopy. (Note: they do provide lemonade, iced tea, and coffee for free!) Anita suggested doing a host bar. We put down a dollar amount and set our limitations (ex: no top shelf, no shots, etc) and it's an open (yet restricted) bar until our money runs out. When it's close, Anita would tell us and we can choose to add money and extend it. We would have to pay by the end of the night though. And how do you guess/know the cost before hand? The pro of beer and wine is that we know what we're paying. But- there could be leftovers, plus the soda costs, which would be a waste of money. (We'd purchase the kegs and wine cases of our choice.) However we could always add on a case of wine if necessary. The host bar would be nice but I think it could get pricey fast- and I'm not sure that providing liquor drinks will be that smart, or necessary really.

We had Anita put both packages on the pricing, so we could compare their cost.

We are also able to decorate the area outside the ballroom. Above is the left side when you walk in. There are two of these tables, and we thought we could add some photos of us, the pugs, and on one table, memorial photos of our deceased family members. The table in the hallway area will be our gift table. The mirror above it can have a monogram of our names put on it- another thing we added to the list that can be cut if necessary.

Below is the view of the more right hand side. The room with the buffet things is a small additional fee. It's used for buffets where there are more than 200 guests or for a cocktail hour if you get married and have your reception in the ballroom. We aren't doing either so we are not renting the room.

The door to the right is the coat room. The table to the right will be decorated like the one above. The glass table will have some sort of guestbook and a floral arrangement. There will also be easels with the seating assignments. Anita suggested splitting it in 2 easels at least (A-M, N-Z) for traffic flow.

Having everything laid out in front of us actually made us feel better! Have you had this kind of meeting with your venue? What plans didn't work, and what things did they offer that made you excited?

Also- we got our photo request cards this week!

I love getting those little Vistaprint boxes!

Like my convenient finger coverage?

I'm really happy with how they turned out! Now I just have to figure out how to distribute them...

Now, off to a wedding today! I'll update you all tomorrow!