Pretend diaminds are a girl's best friend.

Sometimes I make a big deal out of nothing. Unfortunately, my wedding jewelry turned into one of those things.

I guess the real problem is that I was very torn about what kind of bride I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be all glitz and glamour. I also didn’t want to be boring. A friend of ours who got married in New Orleans wore a beautiful purple necklace and it was a very fun and refreshing part of her wedding attire. The problem with not doing something classic is that you run the risk of looking back at your wedding photos and saying “What was I thinking!” I was nervous that I would regret my decision later... as we've discussed before, I am not very brave. I found something that I thought was a perfect balance of glamour and simplicity at Ann Taylor.

Source

Source

It seemed too soon to buy it and I wanted to wait until I had a coupon or something. Then, out of nowhere, Ann Taylor pulled it from their stores and website. 

Cue the bridal mania.

I looked everywhere to find a replacement. I looked over hundreds of pieces of jewelry on the internet and went to Bloomingdales and Nordstrom countless times… I found one (just ONE!) bracelet and one pair of earrings that I thought I liked. It turned out that Wes didn’t like them together. I know it shouldn’t matter what he thinks, but it does. So, I returned a bracelet and kept these earrings.

I really wanted a specific kind of bracelet and in my head I could imagine what I thought it should look like. I found similar things, but nothing was quite right. That would be the only time that Etsy sellers have ever failed me. So, I decided to make it myself. I bought beads from China which took a month to get here. Then, I taught myself jewelry making. But, all the effort was worth it because it came out beautiful. See?

I used 8mm and 10mm beads on Eightjewelry's shop on Etsy. I purchased the jewlery tools from Artbeads.com. I bought silver wire (half hard, 22 gage) with a coupon at Michaels. And finally, I used this tutorial from Artbead.

THEN, the original jewelry I loved came back to Ann Taylor. I was pretty aggravated about it. I had to order the jewelry because I had a 20% coupon and more importantly, I would never be able to relax if I didn’t see them in person. I got them in the mail and… they weren’t what I expected. They were much more glitzy than the website lets on. I returned them and the good news is that it made me feel that much more confident about my DIY bracelet.

I also found another pair of earrings to wear during the ceremony because I want something simpler with my veil. My veil will come off during the reception and I will change into my party earrings.

So, here it is all together.

I don’t know why, but the things you least expect to drive you crazy during the wedding planning process always end up being the “thing”. I care too much – that’s my problem. But, I guess I wouldn’t be Megan if I wasn’t like that.

If you need me to make you some jewelry, let me know! Because I have some crafty wire curling skills now. J

Crafting with wire

Speaking of being crafty with wire, look what I made!

One of the things that is often forgotten is to bring a nice hanger for you to hanger your dress on while the photographer is taking pictures.

So, these things cost $30 on etsy and I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money, so I decided to make it for $12. The wire is from amazon and I bought a 5 pack of hangers at target. I used a small drill bit on my power drill and used super glue to hold the wire in the holes.

I may have had enough hangers and wires left over to make some more as presents…

Another ceremony accessory

If you remember, I am wearing 4 inch heels. I have been wearing them from time to time around the house and I am fairly confident that I can spend at least 5 hours in them. However, I am not so sure that walking in grass is going to be very easy. Mostly, I am concerned that my heels are going to sink down into the grass and I can just imagine me falling over or losing a shoe while I trying to walk down our grassy aisle. Just as a reminder, here’s where we are getting married:

So, I decided that I should invest in some heel protectors. Have you heard them? I hadn’t until I started reading wedding blogs. There’s a few different kinds and today I ordered two different pairs to compare and contrast:

Starlettos, Picture Source

Solemates, Picture Source

I think this is going to be a good investment. I don’t know how discreet they are, but luckily my dress is long and it won’t show. I will definitely take them off when my photographer is snapping pics of my glorious 4 inch purple sexy shoes. I will let you know what I think about how “obvious” they are. If they don’t look too bad, I might suggest to our moms and the bridesmaids to get some.

For reference, I purchased them here:

Solemates, Size “small classic” in the color clear (they come in size narrow, classic small, and a wider size called classic medium), http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CWYCQW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

Starlettos, One size fits most shoes in the color clear, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0070RUXU8/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01

Anyone else have a pair of heel protectors? Do you like them?

Maybe I lied about being obsessed with weather...

Usually I frequent weather.com for my weather forecast, which will only give you a forecast 10 days ahead of time because beyond that who knows. However, I just came across accuweather.com... they tell you the weather a whole month ahead of time... oh man. Now I know this is not accurate because the 22nd is so far away still, but...

From accuweather.com

Again, this probably means nothing, but if that ends up being the case then I will take it! What scares me, though, is now I have the ability to check on the weather everyday starting now. I was calm earlier this morning knowing I wouldn't know a thing until 10 days before the wedding. But now, I think I may have just become a weather obsessed bride.

Any ideas for how to distract me from hoping that the 23rd's weather doesn't shift into the 22nd?

It's June!

I thought this month would never come! So, I have officially 21.5 days left to pull this all together!

It is such a beautiful day in Piscataway, NJ today as well.  Planning an outside wedding does something crazy to your brain so that you always think of the weather and daylight in terms how it would fair for a wedding.  For instance, as I was walking into work, I thought, now this is dream weather for a wedding – whoever is getting married today is lucky!” The high is 77deg F, just a light wind to make sure you aren’t too warm, partly cloudy. Amazing. One can only hope and dream for a day like today on their wedding day.

I like to think of myself as realistic so I understand that I cannot control the weather and I definitely have a plan B in case there is a crazy thunder/lightning storm at around 6pm June 22, 2012. However, I do find myself making deals with mother nature. For instance, I’ve thought, “Mother Nature, I can live with some rain, but please please please don’t give me wind over 20 mph the day of my wedding.” Or, “Dear Mother Nature, if you promise to make sure we don’t have a heat wave where the temp is above 90deg F, then I promise not to complain about it being cloudy.” Overcast days make for even more beautiful pictures, in my opinion.

While I am being silly about the weather, I am by no means obsessed. Seriously. What happens, happens. Wes and I are getting married that day regardless, so it is going to be a lovely day. J Plus, in the case of a tornado, it should pass fairly quickly…

What I have been obsessed about is daylight. I have been tracking where the sun is in the sky and how long the shadows are for two months now to try and extrapolate what is going to be like on June 22. Assuming the sun will be out. One of the nice things is that June 22 is one of the longest days of the year so the sun doesn’t set until 9:15pm. During the ceremony, it should still be very bright but with long shadows. Slowly over cocktail hour, the shadows will get longer. We will move inside to the reception well before sunset but during dinner yu should see the first stars coming out. You should be finishing dinner right as the sun is setting when we have our first dance. Did I plan that good or did I plan that good?

So…hooray for June! And, let’s all cross our fingers for no heat wave and no crazy wind storm 22 days from now.