I will have my cake and eat it too!

So I got all these awesome shower gifts at my bridal shower two weeks ago. My sisters flew in to help and oh man was it amazing. All of Chances family came too! I love family. I never grew up with family close to Wichita. Everyone was spread out, and by the time I was 5, my sister was going to college....so we have always been separated by states and states! But getting grown up and spending time with my parents and with Chance's family has really taught me how important family is and how special it can be. It has pushed me to spend more time with my mom and dad and realize how amazing they are and how much I still need to learn from them. I am blessed to at least have my mom and dad in town! And Chance's family is within the state! So I am excited to get married, and get traveling! I want to see my sisters and their families WAY more. Like WAYYY more. I love my nieces and nephews sooo much and I am going to see them grow up dangit! Anyway, I didnt take any pictures of the shower because, well...I was busy smiling and trying not to look fat in other peoples pictures. HA! But my sisters took pictures so I will have to get those from them.

ANYWAY....My two sisters gave me a sweet themed gift for my shower. If you know me, you know I love themes. And putting thought into gifts. I mean, how fun! So they got me a couple cake pans off my registry, fun spatulas, my cupcake carrier, icing and cake of course....and I also got a beautiful cake displayer. That is SO not what it's called. Cake display? Cake holder? Glass cake display? Dangit. SO not a housewife yet. And I also got some fun decorating tools. So last night Chance and I realized we hadn't used any of our gifts! So Chance started finding random excuses to use things. We needed coffee so we could use our new mugs, then wine to use our electric opener, then I decided it would be fun to use all my dessert stuff to make a layer cake:)

So here are the goods:


My favorite part of cooking, which I thought I would grow out of, and have not....is the eating uncooked batter. Man I am immature. But I would rather have a spoonful of batter than the cake itself. Thought that was a "kid" thing. Turns out I'm still a kid or it is also an adult thing. The jury is still out. So here is me eating the rest of what's in the bowl. Totally on my wedding diet by the way.


And Chance and me taking our first "We opened shower gifts and used them!" picture together.


So I used the two cake pans to make a double layer cake. I went all fancy and used normal yellow cake mix and frosting from the store. I am soooooo desperate housewives;) Here is the order of events. Started with one layer, notice my cake display....then added frosting and strawberries to the middle, then doubled the cake, then frosted again, then sprinkles. DUH...of course sprinkles. Then cut, add more strawberries, and eat! Well Chance ate, I mostly sat and gave Harley some of my piece...Harley may or may not get fat before my wedding. I usually give her a lot of what I am eating so I don't eat it. That might explain her weight gain....I don't know for sure.










So yes I just blogged about a cake baking experience. I think this is what you're supposed to blog about before kids, right? ;) My sisters are going to laugh because they are such great moms and make like 7 layer rainbow cakes for their kids and I used um....Betty crocker and some strawberries for mine! I'm working on it girls! I'm taking baby steps! So shower gifts are being used....and I'm on the verge of freaking out because I have 8 weeks left! I should PROBABLY send out invites instead of make cakes tonight.

YIKES!

Ok so I promised myself I would keep up on this!Dangit! Last post was V-day??? Sorry about myself! I would like to please play my "bride" card and say that I have been busy working and neglected the blog. Please excuse my laziness. So my wedding has changed QUITE a bit. Here is the fastest way I know to do updates:

1. I found my dress!!! I won't bore you with the ENTIRE story, but basically it was straight from Jesus. I had a BAAD experience at another dress shop and I was just beginning to think that I was NOT going to find a dress. I am just not a white fancy dress kinda girl in the first place. But I was 4 months away from my wedding, and after my bad experience of hating myself, I was 3 months out and not setting FOOT in another place. Well I happen to see that a cute little boutique downtown was having a trunk sale and I had heard good things about the place. I didn't want to go without my mom, but I went in just to look around and see what was going on. I started seeing some AMAZING dresses. So I called mom up and said get down here I am going to find my dress today! After a quick change into 3 or 4 different gowns that I was DYING over...I was feeling great. The girl said, well since you like these others so much, can I just put this one back? It's our last one and a size too small. It was apparently a discontinued dress and I couldn't order a different size even if I loved it. I had pulled it myself and I was so drawn to it, I stupidly asked her if I could just slip it on and get it out of my head and move on to my other choices. She said that was fine and oh my....I put it on and fell in deep love for it. It was a little snug, but after the owner saw me wanting it so bad, she said she may be able to add a little of the length to give me a little room on the rest of the dress, but she informed me that I could NOT gain weight. Or get taller. DONE. I wish I could post the dress SOO bad. It is magical. It is comfortable and I feel like it fits my personality. I thought girls who teared up when they saw a good dress were silly, but I was feeling that feeling. Then I saw a sash in the color of the dress and LOVED that too! She showed me in a magazine the sash in a different color and she said after talking with me she thinks my personality could handle a bold statement....well I was hesitant, but seeing the sash on just did me in. So I bought the dress and the sash, last one, so no one else can even order it! HA! LOVE IT! Of course I can't post it....but here is the sash that goes around my waist. Chance has seen the sash so it's safe to post this part:)



2. So after finding my dress and this sash....I completely re-vamped my colors and theme! I was going for more of a chic-fun-cutesy-vintage wedding, but after finding my amazing dress, I decided that my theme was too casual and cutesy for my dress. My dress is very different from what you normally see, and it's more shabby-chic classy than cutesy like I imagined. Funny how a dress can warp your brain. SO I don't know how well you can see the sash in the picture, but it is a mixture of grays, browns, creams, and a little black. So without going too dark for an August wedding, I warped all my colors to match this sash! I was hesitant at first, but omg this sash just makes me feel like the dress is "me". And everyone who sees it on is like "yup, that's Katie". HA! Not sure if that's a good thing;)
3. So I've ditched the skirt idea for the bridesmaids, I couldn't find anything that was flattering on everyone that didn't look like a secretary, so I went with this dress:




It's from Ann Taylor loft and was only 80$!!! PLUS they were having a 30% off sale for awhile on it so a lot of my girls got it for around 50$! YAY! It realllllly matches my dress well and pulls everything together.

4. I ditched also my felt bouquets. They will be missed....insert moment of silence....but they were just not the look I was going for anymore. So here are my new bouquets. And yes, these are my ACTUAL bouquets!!!! I found a lady (on etsy...duh) who makes bouquets out of fabric! SOOO much classier for my wedding than the felt. And the look is so vintage and classy. I am in love. This lady is amazing. I sent her my dress, sash, and bridesmaids dresses and explained kinda the colors I was wanting and how I wanted my bouquet to look different and the girl's bouquets to be bold and different as well. And oh my did she accomplish exactly what I was looking for! She was so helpful. She sent me fabric samples and bloom samples and really made it easy to design exactly what I wanted! She would send pictures along the way and ask questions about what fabric to put where and what colors and so many options! These pics are not "officially" done, because I don't have them in my possession yet, so they dont all have handles wrapped yet or some other minor touches, but you get the idea:)
This is my bouquet:




Here are the bridesmaids bouquets:




The sweet little flower girl bouquets! These are for you girls Ellie, Jane, and Claire!!!



The bouts and corsages, but again, not perfectly finished yet...but you get the idea:)




So I am just in LOVE with her work. She also made me a small "toss bouquet" so I dont have to give away my big one:)
5. Let's see, what other changes....Not many to the decorations, because well, I am keeping it pretty simple, and although my colors were yellow, gray, and white....I mostly just did away with all the yellow and white and subbed cream and brown, with a touch of black here and there. I am having a lady make some garland (like paper circles sewed together) with my colors and that will be some added pop to the decor. But again, pretty simple.

6. My invites should be here on Saturday! YAY! I don't remember if I blogged on all that action but to reiterate really quick, before I even got engaged I found these invites that I just HAD to have out of a magazine. Well, of course....I called the place and turns out that they are all handpainted! WHAT? I didn't even know that existed for invites. They were like $12 a pop. Yikes. I love you all, but not that much. So I went to my friend, etsy...and sent the picture around to a few design-y ladies to see what they would come up with. They were pretty awful because it's so hard to find a way to use a font to look handpainted. FINALLY after paying a few too many ladies to try their hand at it, I found a lady that was perfect. With a few tweaks, it turned out great. I know it sounds high maintenance of me, but I looked for others. I promise I did! My heart was randomly attached to these! So here is the proof she sent me online. I guess I'll just debut it here even though they are going out soon....It's not like I'm paying some guards to keep all my wedding stuff secret like Kate Middleton;) Not so much in high demand for info in little ole Wichita!....



This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it looks real vintage and faded in person once it's printed:) I wanted to keep it all on ONE page. I am not into the whole here is a million papers to sort through with info. So I also made a wedding website....for FREE! Such a blessing that I found it! It keeps track of RSVPS and everyone can get on there for directions, hotels, registry, and venue stuff. It is so nice to have technology! So the website is:
http://82711.nearlyweds.com
But not all my info is on there. I will get on that before I send the invites out of course:)

7. Oh ya! My shoes! So remember those darling flats I ordered awhile back with the yellow and white stripes? They are handpainted from Spain...no big deal;) Etsy people! Get on that train!!! :) Well God stalled her from getting in the order of the plain shoes for a reason, because she was able to coordinate with my new colors! She is AMAZING! Etsy makes me feel like such an untalented loser! But I sent her all the colors I needed changed and she created this masterpiece! I have them in my possession and they are not only adorable...but super freaking comfortable too!






8. So I am trying to think of other updates, but at the moment I am fresh out. I am 2 months 11 days out. Again, yikes. I am going to try to stay caught up on all this now. Seriously, I'm going to. Seriously!