The Meaning of the Garter

My wedding dress is 90% complete. This weekend I ordered my veil and garter which means only the shoes are left! It took me a while to decide on a veil. I knew I wanted something simple being that my dress has so much detail I didn't want the veil to take away from my dress (especially since its worn for such a short period of time). I found quite a few that had the simple look that I was going for so I needed to figure out what length I wanted. Originally I was going to go with a fingertip length one but as I was browsing I came across this one...

It's a little bit longer than shoulder length and I LOVE it. It has just the right amount of volume I wanted and is so beautifully simple I knew this was the one I wanted. I plan on wearing my veil either just above my up-do or right below it (I don't want it too high on top of my head because I don't plan on wearing the veil over my face) The best part was the price. A lot of veils that I have seen range anywhere from $100-$175, however lucky for me this veil is new and on sale! So I was able to get it for a whopping total of $49.00! I can't wait until it comes in!

I also ordered my garter. As I was looking though all of the differnet choices I starting to think... what is the actual purpose of this thing? So...I Googled it lol! I was suprised at the stories most with the same general idea but I came across this one which I think explains it well with out dragging on a boring story...

Historically, this wedding garter tradition also relates to the belief that taking an article of the bride's clothing would bring good luck. As this often resulted in the destruction of the bride's dress, the tradition arose for the bride to toss unattached articles of clothing to the guests, including the wedding garter from the thigh of her stockings. This tossing of the wedding garter by the groom is also another version of the bride's tossing of the bouquet of flowers to the crowd. The idea is that anybody who is unmarried catches the bouquet will be the next one to wed. Thus, the unmarried male guest who successfully caught the wedding garter was believed to be the next man to be headed to the altar from the group of single men at that event. Traditionally, the man who caught the wedding garter and the lady who caught the bouquet will share the next dance.

So after I understood the tradition behind the garter I figured I should probably get on with picking one out. I wasn't as picky about this as I was the veil...I mean after all no one really see's it anyway. I did however know that I wanted to order a set of two. One for me to keep and one to be thrown for the garter toss. After a little bit of deliberation I ended up choosing this one...

The smaller of the two will be the one to be thrown.  The garter is mostly made of lace with some flower detail. It is synched at the top obviously where the elastic is. On the bigger garter I chose the bow to be in the color pool where the smaller one is in white. I debated back and forth between truffle (which would have matched my bridesmaids dress ) and pool. I ended up choosing the pool 1) because it looked better with the white than the truffle did and 2) because I can use it as my something blue :-)

Also I have picked out and started to finalize the plans for the wedding cake. Im hoping to have the cake look like this ...

I want basically the same flowers except for replacing the pink flowers with red ones. I love the piping on the layer (which I realize is quite hard to see here, but if you click on the picture it will get bigger). I love the square look so were definitely going to do that. The layers are also going to go as follows- bottom layer chocolate middle layer- vanilla Top layer- Chocolate. I'm also thinking about  having a smaller cake topper on top (maybe our monogram) and flowers around that also. Any ideas for the cake let me know! I'd love to hear them!

Thanks for reading!

Only 167 days until the wedding!!

Only 182 days until the honeymoon!

Honeymoon

As of  yesterday Shawn and I have booked our HONEYMOON!!! So exciting! We are going to be taking a 7 night Carribbean cruise via Royal Carribbean on the Liberty of the Seas. We will be leaving on the 17th of October and will return on the 24th of October. Our cruise will leave out of Miami, Florida (were looking at flights now). Our cruise will visit Philipsburg St. Maarten, San Juan Puerto Rico, Labadee Haiti and then back to Miami. This will be the first time either of us have ever been on a cruise and we are really looking forward to it. I've added a few picture to show you all a few things the ship offers. If you want to get a more indepth look click here --> http://www.royalcaribbean.com/multimedia/virtualTour/ship.do;jsessionid=0000Zf72bN40xoDuDP1_xRW9L69:12hbioe0u?shipClassCode=FR

Libery of the Seas

Royal Promenade

H20 Zone Water Park

Balcony Stateroom

( I can't wait to sit out on the balcony star gazing! )

And don't worry I'll take plenty of pictures to post when we get back! Soo excited!! Only 195 days until our honeymoon!!

We have also finally mailed out our save-the-dates with help from both of our families we were able to get everyones address and this past weekend Shawn and I put the finishing touches on our envelops! We used wedding ring stamps, the return address labels that were in the previous blog and matching seals.

Wedding Ring Stamp

Shawn Working Hard on the Save-The-Dates

The Finished Product

Last weekend Shawn and I also did our registry which will be used for the bridal shower. We ended up doing two. One at Bed Bath & Beyond and one at Macy's. The women who helped us at Bed, Bath & Beyond was great! She was very enthusiastic about her job and really wanted to make it fun for us. She gave us a few tips, a tour of the store, gave Shawn the scanning gun (which made him happy as a clam) and sent us on our way. At first we were a little weary as to what to pick out. There was so much to choose from! But once we got the ball rolling we were scanning everything! It was so much fun. After that we took a break for lunch and then headed to Macy's. However after picking out so much at Bed, Bath &Beyond there wasn't very much at Macy's we really needed, but we still made the best of it and picked out a few things that we liked. (p.s. the scanning guns at BB&B work much better than the ones at Macy's!!) Although because we did do the registry at Macy's I got a free tote bag :) lol 

Thanks for reading :)

Only 180 days until the wedding!!!

Announcements!

Hello every one so I have very exciting news! My save the dates have arrived!!!! I had them done by Magnet Street Weddings ( check them out! http://www.magnetstreet.com/home/market/517) They have great quality items at really good prices. You can even get samples sent to your house for free of whatever style invitation you want! I ordered about 100 save-the-dates along with guest information cards with included information about the hotel availability. I am so please with how they came out! They look just like they did when I personalized them online. They were really nicely (and carefully) packaged and even came a day early. My family and Shawn's family have been working on getting everyones address and as of today we have them all. So now I have to get down to business and start writing them all out. And buy the stamps of course!

I also went on the website just to see if maybe they had finally come out with a matching formal wedding invitation and it must have been my lucky day because now they do!! So exciting! They are a great price and now everything will all go together nicely. ( I was very upset about having to have a different look for our invitations). We will also be getting return address labels and seals to match. :) Cute right?

Also this Saturday our engagement announcement came out in the daily mail ( local newspaper). Were still contemplating wither or not to also put it in to the Times Union newspaper. The picture on the announcement was actually taken at my birthday dinner while we were out at Yanni's a  yummy seafood restaurant! 

The announcement reads : 

Schomaker- Burdick

Fred and Deborah Schomaker of Coxsackie announce the engagement of their daughter Brianne Kelly Schomaker to Shawn Lee Burdick, son of Roger and Maryanne Burdick of Coxsackie.

The future bride is a graduate of Coxsackie-Athens High School and Columbia-Greene Community College. She earned her associates degree in applied science and now works as a Registered Nurse in Loudenville. 

The future groom is a graduate of Coxsackie-Athens High School and Schenectady County Community College. He earned his associates in fire protection technology and emergency management. He now works in   Latham as a firefighter/EMT.

An October 2nd, 2010 wedding will take place at the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Haines Falls, with a reception to follow at the Copper Tree in Hunter.

We are currently in the process of ordering our cake and flowers so be sure to keep a look out for a new blog on that! Oo and before I forget I was given an award!!!Thanks Becca! Becca aka Only a Mama Knows has given me the Happy 101 award horray!  :) If you don't currently read her blog you should seriously go do so! Her kids are aborable beyond words and her photography skills are simply amazing! Check her out!

http://onlyamamaknows.blogspot.com/

Ok, so here are the rules:

1. Thank the person
2. List the things that make you happy.
3. Tag people.

Things that make me happy:

*Reading outside on a sunny day
*Shawn :)        
*Back rubs
*Wine
*Trying on my wedding dress again and again!
*Baking....just about anything
*Chocolate covered strawberries
*My dads jokes
*Visiting my Grandma

I have chosen to give this award to these fellow bloggers because you make me happy and I love reading your blogs!  :) 
Courtney -Something borrowed, something blue http://clynnwatson.blogspot.com/
Amanda- Journey of lower jaw surgeryhttp://ark63088.blogspot.com/
Carah- carahmelie03 http://carahamelie03.blogspot.com/


Thanks for reading!! 


Only 195 days until the wedding! (were in the 100's now!! :) )

7 months to go!

Only less than 7 months left to go! I can't believe it! This time has flown by and now I'm really starting to get down to business. Last month Shawn and I went up to Haines Falls and attended Saturday Mass before meeting with father Motta. We went over a few more things involving the wedding and are going to be booking our pre-marital class for April. (Which by the way is 100+ dollars! I know crazy right?!) We will be meeting with father Motta again after we have finished our class.

I also ordered my save-the-dates Hooray!! And yes they are the ones I had posted in a previous blog. So they should be in at the end of the month and I plan on sending them out the first week of April. I'm also going to order the matching address stickers (the less writing I have to do the better!). I also like the ones under  it for the formal invitations. They had ones that matched the invitations I want to get but I didn't really care for them. Once I get those mailed out I'm going to decide on and order the wedding invitations. So within the next few weekends Shawn and I are going to be sitting down with my parents to go over what exactly we are going to be eating at the wedding lol!

I also went to Price Chopper a few weeks ago to discuss my flowers. However I quickly decided that I wanted to work with a different Price Chopper. The girl that helped me told me more about her wedding than I was able to explain about mine, and she also poo-pooed all of the ideas I had. Needless to say I was eager to get out of there. I plan on going to the Price Chopper Shawn's Aunt works at. She originally was going to help us with cutting the cost of the cake (by making the actual cake smaller and having a sheet cake in back) but I'm thinking about taking a look at Price Choppers actual wedding cakes and ordering that from them as well. So I figured while I was there I would see if there florists were a bit more helpful than the last one!

We are also going to be booking our honeymoon soon!!! We've decided on a Cruise most likely a Carribean cruise. We thinking of going a week or two after the actual wedding. We've looked at a lot of the 7 night cruises and I think thats what were going to go with. Were going to be meeting with a travelers agents soon.

We also have recently been looking at wedding rings. We went to Littman Jewlers which is where we have pretty much gotten all of our jewlery from. There prices weren't too bad either! I've picked out my ring something simple with a little "V" shape at the top to fit nicely around my ring. Shawn picked out a titanim ring that he liked however he wanted to see if it could come any wider. Unfortunatly we found out that it couldn't so were going to go back to make our final decision within the next few weeks.

Lets see I think that sums things up for now. Thanks for reading!!

Only 207 days until the wedding!

Bridal Makeup

So as some of you may know that have been reading for a while, I watch many makeup guru's on YouTube.  One of which is Carahamelie03-----> check her out and subscribe! Love her, her videos are great! http://www.youtube.com/user/carahamelie03

So a few months back I had requested that she do a bridal makeup video because I really didn't have a clue how I wanted to wear my makeup. I wanted something pretty and elegant but at the same time simple. I attached the link to that video here (click link above the video is called easy bridal/wedding makeup). I love this look and I am seriously considering using it for my wedding. Let me know what you all think!

This was the makeup pallet that she used. It is the 88 warm pallet by Coastal Scents which you can get for around $25!         http://www.coastalscents.com/cfwebstore/index.cfm

Thanks for reading!

Only 227 days until the wedding!

Arts and Crafts!

I got my bridesmaids dress! As some of you may know not only am I going to be a bride, but I am also a bridesmaid! A good friend of mine from college is getting married in June and had asked me to be in her wedding. Yesterday I got my bridesmaids dress from her so I figured I would share!

How cute is this dress?! She is having a Spring wedding and her color scheme is green and blue. It's also going to be an outdoor wedding so this dress matches her theme perfectly. Its a strapless dress that comes to get above the knee. Myself and another bridesmaid are going to be adding straps to our dresses while the 2 maid of honors remain strapless. The thing I love about this dress the most is that it can be worn again. Either to another wedding or bar-b-q! It can be dresses up or down. We are going to be wearing pearl necklaces with the dress which really makes it look nice!

Also today I stopped into Joann's craft store. I wanted to get some ideas for gift bags for guest who are going to be staying at the hotel for the wedding. I didn't actually buy anything but I did get some good ideas. I think what I'm going to do is get some plan brown gift bags like the ones below. Their very simple but they  have that outdoors/fall feel to them which matches our theme. Then I think what I want to do is decorate the outside with decorative leaf cut-outs. I think I might even layer them with a solid color behind the decorative one. I'm not positive on my idea but brainstorming.

I also thought about maybe added some simple stamp work to the bag. I saw these two stamps there and thought that they were so cute. However there about the size you see them on here and I kind of want something a bit bigger than that. I was also thinking about doing a simple Thank You stamp instead on the middle of the bag. I don't know I'm having trouble deciding on that part.

I also saw this stamp which I thought was really cute!  I wanted to use it for something but I don't think I want to put it on the bag. I feel that if I did it would just be too much of the leaf theme. But it's cute non the less so I'm going to see if I can come up with something for it.

Either way I want to get started making the gift bags. Just so that one less thing I have to worry about. We blocked 30 rooms so at the most I would only have to make 30 which isn't bad. The hard part is buying all the goodies to fill them! lol

Thanks for reading!

Only 231 days until the wedding!

Bridesmaids

I've got my dress! I was finally able to pick up my wedding dress from David's Bridal a few weeks ago, and needless to say I've tried it on again and again since I've brought it home. I  want to wear it all the time! lol So I figured being that I finally have it home I would give you guys a sneak peek, but a small one at that. I still want my dress to be a surprise to everyone. The 2 pictures below are some examples of the stitching and bead work on my dress ~ gorgeous!!! I love my dress and I can't wait until I can actually show everyone! I did however show my bridesmaids... After all they are the closest people to me and I also need their help in picking out a veil. Needless to say they all loved it! Although if I have to go to the bathroom at any point during the wedding they are all going to get to see a side of me they haven't seen before! lol

I also took the girls bridesmaid dress shopping on the 23rd on January and what fun we had! Unfortunately 2 of my bridesmaids couldn't make it do to work but it was a productive day none the less. We had an appointment at David's Bridal at 12:30 and it was packed! From the get go I was a little peeved because I didn't get the consultant I had requested weeks prior and had ended up with someone who barely helped us at all. By the way thank you Courtney for running back and forth to get more dresses! The girls tried on a bunch of styles because I only knew two things for certain that I wanted, the dress to be dark brown and for the dress to be floor length.

Models: Kristie- MOH and sister of the Bride and Shannon- Bridesmaid and sister of the Groom

These were the dresses that we ended up picking! I love them of course these dresses are in the wrong color but there were a ton of the red in multiple sizes for all the girls to try on. We also decided to go with a sash around each of the girls waists. Which Shannon is modeling in the pictures. The pictures below are the actual dresses the girls will be buying. The first dress Kristie will wear. It's in the color Latte with a Truffle sash. However she will not be wearing the cinched sash shown in the picture she will be wearing one like in the picture above. Shannon, Amanda, Courtney and Kim are all going to be wearing the second dress. The dress is in Truffle and the sash is in Latte. They are so pretty and look so good together and according to the girls they are very comfortable too!

After working up an appetite in David's we went to lunch at the Olive Garden. Our waitress Patty or Peggy I cant remember which one it was, was amazing! She even chatted with us about the wedding and gave us extra bread sticks to take home to boot! Most of lunch was spent laughing and talking about the wedding. After we were full we headed up the Gowns by Yvonne to try on a few more dresses to make sure that the one we saw at David's was the one. They had some pretty dresses at Yvonne's but all the dresses on the racks were only one or two sizes so only one of the girls got to try them on and they were far more expensive than what we were previously looking at. So with that it didn't take long to make our decision.

I can't wait until the wedding. I had such a fun time shopping with my bridesmaids that I'm sure the bachelorette party will be a blast!

Only 233 days until the wedding!