etsy shops – Xapa to the World

We were able to get a lot of things done this past week.

Monday, my sister took her daughters, my two junior bridesmaids, to get their dresses. I was able to meet up with them and give my input on styles and such. They are going to be so lovely, I can’t wait to see them when the dresses are altered and they have their hair done up.

After we left the dress shop, I stopped at Hobby Lobby to see what kind of stands they had for Unity Candles. Let me tell you, they were just pitiful. There was nothing really beautiful. I’ve got a more earthy turn and the ones they had were either glass with gem embellishments or metal with big random hearts all over. Definitely not my style at all. I shared my dismay with Matt who immediately began searching online for one that would be a better fit.

He found something so suited to what I wanted, it was fabulous. I ordered a set and it should be here by the beginning of May! I don’t want to share it, but here is the shop on Etsy. She has some other lovely things.

Matt and I both had Thursday off and so decided to spend the day getting some other shopping done together. The plan was to find his clothes for the wedding (I’m fairly taken care of) and then find some cheap rings for the ceremony. We went to JCPenney for the clothes and found just about everything we needed! Our bridal party are wearing/alternating of sorts, the wedding colors, and the thought was that to make Matt stand out more, we would have him all in red and then tan khakis. We easily found a red bow tie, but could not find a good fitting red shirt to match. So, Matt decided he’d rather stand out more by wearing a white shirt with the red accents. There’s nothing more frustrating than looking at wedding pictures and not being able to tell the groom apart from the rest of the guys. This would’ve been a problem because the best man (Matt’s brother Adam) would’ve been dressed almost the same as Matt. This will definitely keep him distinguishable.

Did you know that suspenders are hard to find? I didn’t think they would be, what with the hipster culture going on right now. We are not hipster, but you plan on things being easy to find and when they aren’t, that’s frustrating. So, I went to my default problem-solving website to find what I needed. And, voila! Etsy pulled through again. Albeit, a little more pricey (more than half what the rest of Matt’s outfit cost!!), but I found what I was looking for.

The shop owner is currently on vacation until the end of April, probably sewing up Matt’s suspenders! 😀 I can’t wait to see them in person. I hope they look as wonderful as I think they will.

We finished up with the clothes and on a whim, stopped by the jewelry selection. We found just what we were looking for, probably cheaper than we could’ve found elsewhere too! It took some convincing, but we finally got the lady to understand that we weren’t looking for anything spectacular. See, Matt’s job requires him to be jewelry-free, including wedding bands. He needs something he can easily take off and put back on. He also needs something that isn’t so expensive that if he loses it, we’re devastated financially. We are willing to pay for certain aspects of this wedding, but other parts are just not a big deal to us. For me, we found a simple, narrow sterling silver band that will sit beautiful next to my white gold engagement ring. Maybe for our anniversary, we’ll spring for the matching band to my engagement ring, but it’s not essential. We just need something for the wedding. What we found cost us just over $75 together! I like that kind of spending.

Might not be valuable to the world, but they’re precious to us!

While I’ve got you, I’ll let you in on a secret.

I was at Target and found this lovely little glass pitcher, the kind with a spigot on the bottom for easy dispensing. It is very sweet. I wanted to add it to our registry, but I didn’t have time to go all the way back to the counter to get a scanner gun configured and go back to scan it and then leave again. It would’ve been a pain. But recently, I added the Target app to my Android. I signed in to my registry on my phone and found this handy-dandy bar code icon at the top of the screen. I touched it and amazingly, I could scan the barcode of the pitcher through my camera. In just a few moments, the pitcher was now on our registry! Remarkable! I was so excited that, had I had more time, I might have run around the store to add some more things on it, but I’m so glad to know that I can do this in the future. You can also manage your registry from there (increasing item counts and such. It’s a great tool. The only thing I couldn’t do was remove an item, but when I got to a computer, I could do that. Anyway, take that knowledge and go with it, m’dears! Oh, and remember that you have to scan the barcode on the actual item, not the one on the shelf with the price. Why they can’t work that out to be the same, I don’t know, but it’s ok. We still love them.

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I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

My Pinterest Wedding Board

Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

Getting Married: Countdown Post (xapatotheworld.wordpress.com)
Getting Married: 10 Weeks – Fitting in Lithuanian (xapatotheworld.wordpress.com)
Getting Married: 11 Weeks – DIY Invitations #3 (xapatotheworld.wordpress.com)
Getting Married: 12 Weeks – Missing Week (xapatotheworld.wordpress.com)

70 Days and 10 Weeks. Wow! The time is getting so close!

This past Sunday, Matt and I met with and booked an awesome DJ! I’ll have some more info up for you after the wedding about DJ B. We are pretty pleased with our pick. He was very organized, detailed, and personable. And he could laugh. That’s always a good sign.

Tuesday night, Mom and I lugged my wedding dress and accessory clothing to David’s Bridal for my first fitting! It was pretty fun and informative. My dress is so gorgeous and detailed…that means alterations are going to be a bear. We actually have to go back at the end of April for a Part Two because she could only focus on the top part and not the hem. That’s right. I might be long-waisted, but I’m still short and the back was way too loose. The dress looked so pretty when I first tried it on, but it felt wonderful after she clipped it up to the right dimensions on the top.

Who is this she? Her name is Grazina. From Lithuania and bearing a thick Eastern European accent – she was just what I wanted in a seamstress. When we bought the dress, we also bought a slip to go under it. It had tulle and a couple layers to make the dress poof out a bit more. When I tried it on for the fitting, Grazina decided that it was too much and found one with tulle only towards the bottom. It fit so much better. Alas, that one was also too long, so she will probably have to alter that as well. But, at least we didn’t have to pay for the second one; she let us swap out the first one.

I have been putting the finishing touches on the design for some of the favors. We are having a couple different favor choices and I love the variety of the reception so far. We have several cake flavors, different favors, and the decorations are going to be cockamamie – just my style. The music too, will exactly suit our taste, spanning a few decades. I absolutely can’t wait!

I got a text from both my bridesmatrons. My MOH, Lanna, found her dress and it is so lovely! Amy sent me a picture of the dress she found for her daughter who is my flower girl. Both of those dresses are in yellow and Amy found red shoes to match. I know she is going to be so amazingly adorable. My sister is going to take my nieces out, who are my junior bridesmaids, to find their dresses hopefully this week.

Things are starting to come together and the RSVP’s are coming in too! I am so excited for all of this and hope that I don’t get too stressed out throughout the next 70 days. I’m so glad that Matt and I decided to stay home after the wedding if only just to be able to relax and recoup from all the planning and the day. I know that I will be exhausted.

Oh, I bought a necklace to wear with my dress. I won’t post which one it is, but here is the link to the shop. I think her jewelry is darling!

I will leave you with another shop to peruse. I’ve been following this Meg Duerksen’s blog for about a year now. She has creative women come to her done-up barn once a month for a crafting weekend and they get crazy! She is a Christian and inspires me in so many ways. She just reopened her online shop, so I think you should check it out.