Make Up

Oh, Makeup. I think I've worn it maybe twice in the last year. I think my complexion has definitely improved for it, and Opie's not particularly fond of the stuff. Even when I did wear it on a regular basis, it was generally just a little bit of concealer, eyeshadow, mascara, and occasionally lipstick and/or lipgloss.

That being said, although my acne wasn't and isn't as bad as many suffer from, I do have some mild insecurities about my acne and acne scars. That was actually a very small reason I considered waiting to get married (but obviously it wasn't enough impetus to actually do so). I figured my complexion would clear even more a few years out than at the 20.5 I'll be when I get married.

So am I going to spend a gazillion dollars on the services of a makeup artist? Heck naw. I'm spending a smallish amount (or, hey "figurehead".. wedding present? eh? eh? I'm a subtle one, I know.) for the services of my dear buddio who happens to be going to school for costume design, wherein she takes makeup classes. Woot. While I don't feel the need to be turned into a character from Xmen or Pirates of the Caribbean for my wedding, I know this little foxy lady is sure to make me look a little more polished on my big day.

The Foxy Lady herself, in one of her bridal portraits I shot last year

So, wonderful makeup lady of wonderfulness. I've been browsing shots of folks all glammed up. What I want is pretty simple, methinks. I want something really clean and simple. Nothing with much color particularly.. just enough to play up my features and conceal some of my blemishes, but otherwise, remain moderately unnoticeable. Like so:

I'd say lip color is one of the things I'm most unsure about. This is maybe a little too far toward brown or something, but I find that many of these are too far toward pink. It's something I need to play with.

Lip gloss seems to be a reappearing theme in these photos. Also, I don't have crazy beautiful big blue eyes, but I really like my green eyes and would like to play them up some.

Maybe a little heavy on the eyeshadow here but otherwise nice.

Again, I don't have bright blue eyes, but the idea here is still in sync with mine.

With this look, I probably wouldn't want the eyeliner to extend past my lid, but I otherwise really like it. Also, Natalie Portman, why are you so flawlessly beautiful?

The eyeshadow's maybe a little dark for me here, but on the other hand, the contrast it lends her eyes behind a veil similar to my own is nice.

Can't see a lot of detail here, but I love it.

Too heavy on the blush, but otherwise perfect.

This is pretty much perfect in a lot of ways. My only complaint would maybe be that the shade of pink on the lips is a bit too.. pink. Otherwise, I love that her freckles are still visible and the otherwise subtle makeup.

source for all of the makeup shots

I know a large percentage of brides go for a -lot- more makeup than I'm hoping to wear, but then I'm sure they'd be appalled by my going out in public without any makeup 99% of the time.

Also, on a pretty well completely unrelated note, I was watching that "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" show on MyStyle, and felt a distinct urge to track down and kill one of the wedding planners. Her clients were this really cool, moderately quirky couple with a quick witty (and sarcastic) sense of humor who were looking to buck a few of the traditions in lieu of things that better represented themselves and their relationship. The wedding planner, hired by the mother of the bride, could not even begin to comprehend why someone would want to do anything remotely different from every established tradition. She was downright rude, scoffed at all of their ideas and suggestions, ignored and disregarded every request of the bride and groom, and then got incredibly indignant and stormed off like a child when they finally expressed their frustrations with her manner of doing business. The show even tried to paint the planner as the one in the right. Ugh. I'm normally amused by the ridiculous nature of the wedding shows on TV, but this time I was just disgusted.

Whee. Here I am today, after a few medically difficult days. Here's about as blank a slate as you'll see. Hopefully I'll be far less tired, stressed, and under the weather on our wedding day. I'm not used to posting pictures without retouching my complexion. Oh well. I love you guys, you 4 or so readers out there.

The Cake Situation

The Bride's "Cake" is one of the things I'm most excited about for our reception. See, I really don't like cake. I mean, sure, I'll occasionally stumble across a cake that tastes good and has redeeming qualities, but I far and away prefer other desserts, particularly pies and cobblers. Growing up, I probably had peach cobbler on my birthday for a minimum of five years in a row. I don't recall having a true "birthday cake" after the age of maybe 5 or 6. If I did, it was probably Angel Food Cake or Pineapple Upside Down Cake or something similarly non-cakey. Soooo after a little convincing of the groom-to-be, ("Hey, it's not fair that you're kind of choosing both the Groom's and Bride's Cake! Wah wah wah!") we've decided to have pie instead of cake! Yaaaaaay Pie!

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I don't know what percentage of my guests are as fanatical about pie as I am, but I mean, really.. who doesn't like pie? And in many ways more importantly, I love how pie is so key to our relationship. That sounds silly if heard without explanation, but it's true. Opie likes to say he won me over with pecan pie. While I'm pretty sure he'd already snagged me for good by the time he started trying his hand at baking, his amazing pecan pies sure didn't hurt. While we've cut down our pie consumption now, there was a time when we always had a pie in the fridge (and sometimes two!), all homemade by Opie (and at times made together). A lot of bonding happened over those pies, and though it may be super-cheesy, it seems right to celebrate our newly declared lifelong-bond over pie too!

As for the Groom's Cake, Opie gets to pick whatever kind of cake he wants. He's not crazy about chocolate (crazy man.. mmmmm chocolate) but loves a good Carrot Cake or Rum Cake, not to mention the family recipe Hummingbird Cake my mom made us recently. I trust him to choose something tasty.

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One of the other nice things about the pastry route we're taking is definitely the price. The very bare minimum I've been quoted for a relatively undecorated tiered wedding cake is $3 per serving. So, say we can get 8 servings from a pie in the price range of somewhere from $5 to $15, that's a per serving price of $.63 - $1.88. Yes please. I don't know what sort of price we'll be looking at for the Groom's Cake, but presuming we don't order it with the title "Groom's Cake" I'm sure we'll avoid a lot of the wedding inflationary pricing that drives me nuts.

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I feel the need to reiterate YAAAAY PIIIIIIIIIE!

Progress or Something Like It

I've got my Save the Dates all designed. Now I need to buy some ivory cardstock, print, cut, stamp, emboss, address & mail them. Wheeeeeeeee!

I just realized I've never posted anything on here about our actual ceremony & reception location: The Firewheel Golf Park Pavilion. I have more photos that still need to be downloaded from Opie's camera, but here's a photo or two from the venue's website to tide you over for now:

The view walking up to the building isn't stellar, but I think it makes what you find "inside" all that much better.

This photo doesn't even begin to do justice to the space. It's an open-air "pavilion" with about 2/3 of the very ample space covered, and then a big semi-circular patio with two huge bur oaks coming up through the patio. Weather permitting, we'll say our vows under the limbs of the two trees. If that's not possible, we'll just bring the ceremony back in under the cover but still overlook the scenic view. This overlooks a more secluded section of the golf course, with trees galore that will be wearing pretty colors at the time of our wedding. No houses, no telephone poles, no roads in sight, and very few golfers going by in the times I've been there.

The reception will be held under the covered portion, with a buffet set up in one of the long side rooms that comes with our rental. I'm so excited to have a venue I'm.. well, excited about! It's the perfect compromise between our desires for proper amenities, nature, beauty, simplicity and cost. Opie was actually best man at his best man's wedding at this same location. He just forgot about that until we visited, silly boy that he is.


-EDIT-
More photos, hooray!
Note that these were taken in the middle of the Texas "winter" so the trees are bare, whereas our wedding will be in October.

Here's the covered portion of the venue. I imagine trash cans can take a slightly less prominent role in our decorating.


Here are the super fancy chairs and tables we'll be using. Chiavari or whatever the heck those chairs are called would be nice, but I'm perfectly fine with our white plastic lawn chairs.

One of the two big trees shooting out of the patio. If we can figure out how, I'd love to put christmas lights or lanterns and/or ribbons or something in these trees. Nothing too fancy, but just something to make the trees still be part of the decor after dark. Also, the railing around the trees isn't super attractive, so we may want to put something in front of them. My mom's thinking big ferns, but I'm not sure about that.

The other tree.

This gives you an idea of how big the patio is. It's a pretty big venue really. It supposedly seats something like 500 - far more than we're hosting, but at least we'll have plenty of room to move about and dance and such.

Here's my Dad dancing or showing the scale of the building or something. Hey there Dad!

I should've gotten a better shot of both the trees together, but this gives you an idea of where the 2 possible ceremony spots are - between those two trees at the edge of the patio, or brought inside, probably between the two center-most columns (I believe that's right behind where my dad's standing), facing outward. If we are able to (ideally!) do the ceremony between the trees, we'll set up the chairs for the guests out on the patio, and then move them in to the tables under cover after the ceremony. If we have it under cover, we may just have our guests sit at the tables and arrange some sort of aisle.

In each of those doorways lies entrances to a side-room we'll be using for the buffet. It's a very long and narrow room that I think will be perfect for this purpose.

It's very much a blank slate to decorate, with a lot of natural beauty going on. I love it.

Dad poses some more. I spot my shadow, silhouetted by the light coming in through a big opening in the wall behind me.

See the hole? If we end up having a DJ (I hope!), (s)he'll probably be set up on that stage under the opening. The stage is where the site coordinator suggested we have our poor-weather ceremony, but I much prefer to look out toward the view of the golf course.

This pond is right below the patio. I imagine we'll take some of our group shots and such down on the golf course.

Again, the photos don't truly do justice our venue, but hopefully it'll come out better in photos on the day of.

I found my shoes!
O Gee was nice, but these are even dandier, presuming "dandier" is a word.



Meet the Madden Girl "Beckey".

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She's super cute peeking out from under my floor-length gown. It's the non-traditional very "me" shoe I was looking for, and while I had to talk myself into it in the store a little bit since red is definitely not in my so-called "color palette", I don't think it matters. The pop of color will be fun. I wasn't 100% sold on them for the wedding until I tried them on with the dress, but I really think they're perfect.