Commemorating Our First Christmas

The holiday season has officially begun, and I am so, so, so thankful to be spending it with Mr. Dachshund this year.  It's our first Christmas together, and I can't wait to mesh both of our traditions and to begin making our own! 

In the past month or so since the Christmas decorations have been out in stores, (does it seem like it goes up earlier every year!?) I've been searching for a "First Christmas Together" ornament to commemorate the end of our long-distance.  There were a lot of wedding cake ornaments, and while Mr. D and I are technically married, none of those felt right.

Finally, during a random Etsy browing session today, I found the perfect ornaments!  And, they're made by a seller who is not a stranger to Weddingland:  Paloma's Nest.

I love all of them, but the bottom right is my favorite.  Not only is it beautiful, but the symbolism is understated yet still meaningful.  It's definitely going to be a treasured keepsake in the Doxie househould around Christmastime for years to come!

I'm glad that the search for the perfect first ornament had a happy ending; I can't wait to get it and hang it on our tree! 

What did you/are you doing to celebrate your first holiday season together?  Did you find the perfect ornament, gift or tradition to commemorate the occasion?

The Doxie Save-the-Dates: The Finishing Touch

Some of you may remember my recent Cricut purchase, and the save-the-date mockup that I made as my first cutting project.  Well, it's been two months since I've acquired my favorite new toy and I've definitely been using it enough to get my money's worth!  So far, completing our save-the-dates has been my Cricut's biggest project.  With only six months left on our countdown, marking this project off our to-do list couldn't have come soon enough!

I'm thrilled with how they turned out!  But!  Before I reveal them completely, I need to fill you all in:

Do you remember my mockup?  Cute (if I do say so myself), but there was a big empty space on top that needed filling!

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to include a magnet into our save-the-dates, but I had no idea what to put on them!  Mr. Doxie and I haven't yet taken our engagement photos, and I wanted them to be something that people would enjoy. 

In my pre-beedom, I coveted the creativity of all the bees.  I still do, in fact!  In my obsessive Weddingbee stalking, I came across some adooooorable illustrations by Mrs. Gummi Bear.  Mrs. French Bulldog used one for her rehersal dinner invitations, and she's done some commissions for a handful of Bees.  I fell in love immediately after seeing Mr. and Mrs. FB on the chinese takeout box!  I HAD to have an illustration of Mr. Doxie and me, and I decided that our STD magnets would be its perfect home!

Just a few weeks after contacting Mrs. Gummi Bear via her Etsy shop, she sent me the cutest illustation of us, ever!  I expected to be pleased, but I was blown away with how perfect it was; and it was such a pleasure to work with Mrs. GB.

So without further ado:

 

Gah!  That looks exactly like Mr. Dachshund!  (We decided it be cute to poke fun at Mr. D's height)

Mrs. Gummi Bear sent me the illustration as a .psd file, and I used Vistaprint to turn them into magnets.  After shipping, it was $60.35 for 100 magnets.  They're a little thin, but the image quality is great.

Here they are, at home on their completed save-the-date!

I just have a few more address labels to complete, and some details on our website to fill in, and they'll be ready to send out.  I can't wait for people to receive theirs in the mail; I still can't get over what a great job Mrs. Gummi Bear did!

How many of you are/have sending out magnets with your save-the-dates?  What did you put on them?

Playing Catch Up

Okay. So I’m not going to start this post with another apology for my absence. I know I’ve been a slacking blogger. But, even worse, I’ve been a slacking bride.

As you all well know, we’re more than halfway through the month of November. Wait, what? NOVEMBER?!? Our wedding is six months away and I’ve not accomplished very much.

Where in the world has the time gone?

source

I will admit that adjusting to my new life with Mr. Doxie has been a bit distracting, but man!  Time really does fly.  Not only can I not believe it's already been seven months since Mr. Dachshund and I decided to get married, but he's already been here for a month!  A whole month has passed, in which nothing related to our wedding in May was completed.  It goes without saying that "wedding overdrive" is about to commence in the Doxie household!

However, the holidays are rapidly approaching, and procrastination is the easy route to choose for this dachshund.  I'm almost nervous that the long, long laundry list of my to-do tasks will be ignored until the new year.  Almost.  I really can't afford to procratinate any longer; in addition to the huge amount of crafting that I've decided to undertake for the wedding (the amount of which I've actually finished is only a drop in the bucket), I still have one huuuge thing that I haven't yet taken care of:  The Dress.

I've been putting off my search for The Dress for months now, terrified that I won't find anything that will flatter my less-than-flattering body.  The thought of shopping for one just isn't appealing.  At all.  I mean, I have an idea of what I'd like, but I've convinced myself that I won't have any luck finding it.  I know that unless I want one of my (many) wedding nightmares* to come true, I must will find a dress.  But alas, I must begin shopping for one to do so.  And soon!  The clock is a-tickin' and I don't want to limit my already limited selection any more.

Have you procrastinated in your wedding planning, only to realize that time has snuck up on you?  What did it take to get you back on track?


* I wake up on the morning of the wedding, excited to marry Mr. Doxie, and I realize that I have nothing to wear!  I ran to the closest bridal salon, and after making my guests wait hours for me to choose a dress, I ended up in something like this.  Definitely not a dream I want to come true!

Taking Care of Business

Despite our lack of a Hallowedding, we did throw a small Halloween party.  We couldn't let our invitations go to waste!  We used it as an excuse to celebrate Mr. Dachshund's arrival and to spend time with our family and friends.

Mr. Doxie and I went as (a very last-minute) Frankenstein's Monster and his bride.  We couldn't get the bolts to stick to his neck with the safe-for-skin glue, and after he rejected my Super Glue suggestion, I decided to just draw them in for effect  : )  You can see the Halloween-fabric bunting I made hanging in the background.

After our Friday night Halloween festivities, Mr. D and I headed down to Los Angeles to continue our celebrations.  We had planned on going to West Hollywood for Halloween night and partying it up with a few close friends, but Mr. Doxie was being a major party-pooper.  He didn't feel well and has a pretty big aversion to cities in general.  In LA he was miserable.

So we skipped West Hollywood and went to sleep early.  The next morning, determined to cheer him up (and because I knew that a certain paper store was in the vicinity,) we sought out the most deliciously over-priced cupcakes in Beverly Hills. 

A few pumpkin cupcakes later, we were on our way to Paper Source when what did we see!?

source

A beacon of light shone down upon that modern roof-top.  So what if we're registered at Crate and Barrel when the nearest one is three hours away?  We'd added a few things to the registry via the internet, but there are some things you have to see in person.

    "Can we go update our registry!?  PRETTY PLEASE!?"

    "Uggghhhhh," Mr. Doxie groaned.

    "But you'll get to play with a really cool scanner gun!"

    "Ughhhhhhhhhh," he repeated as I pulled into the parking structure.

Everything started out great!  Mr. Doxie, though I doubt he'd admit it, was having fun scanning things in.  (That's an Altoids tin in Mr. D's pocket, not chewing tobacco!)

We even agreed on the first item that we looked at, our flatware!  This was going to be effortless!

Uhhh, or so I thought.  We started disagreeing on everything else.  I knew Mr. D and I had different styles, I just didn't think he'd care very much about it.  I was wrong.

We disagreed on our everyday dishes, wine glasses, cutting boards, sofas...

And then there were the items that were a bit overwhelming.  Forget disagreement... neither of us could make a decision to begin with!  How do you choose one design from a whole wall of glasses?

We managed to survive, even though I did have to do some online registry cleanup when we got home; Mr. D was a little trigger-happy.

Despite our disagreements, I'm relieved that we did decide on quite a lot of registry items.  Though, I think I need to find a comprehensive checklist of registry basics so that I can cross-reference our C&B registry with the one from Macys.  All-in-all, I'm happy that we made it down to Los Angeles to get this taken care of.  And, I got all of our STD envelopes and paper without having to pay for shipping!

Were you and your fiancés in agreeance when it came to your registries?  If not, how did you come to see eye-to-eye?  Do any of you have recommendations to organize multiple registries?

We're Legal!

Hey guys!  I suppose another apology is in order; I've been the worst blogger lately, and for that I feel terrible!  But things have finally settled down, and I don't foresee any more extended absences in the near future.

Anyway, a lot has happened since you've seen me last.  Mr. Doxie is in California for good, thank goodness, and we got married!

Well, technically anyway.

There was a slight change in plans, though:  Our legal ceremony wasn't quite the affair that we had imagined.  So that we could include Mr. Doxie's parents, who would only be here for the weekend before Halloween, we decided to do a courthouse ceremony.  Though it wasn't at all what we had planned, I'm glad we decided to do it that way.  Our legal ceremony was intimate and special shared only with our parents.

Along with our parents, Mr. Doxie and I arrived at the elections office in Fresno at 10:15 Monday morning.  It took us about ten minutes to fill out our marriage license application, and about 10 minutes for it to be processed.

Everything was processed, but our dads were missing!  We were pretty anxious waiting for them as they got their coffee... I can't imagine how nervous I'll be in May!  My stepmom surprised us with a small carnation bouquet and boutonniere, which I thought was really sweet.

After the Doxie Dads showed up, we were escorted into a small room and the ceremony.  I was making all sorts of goofy faces...  it's what I do when I'm nervous!

Goofy faces and silly smiles aside, I was thrilled to be there in that room, at that moment, marrying Mr. Doxie.

I think our parents were pretty proud to be there, too.  From left to right: FIL Doxie, Doxie Stepmom and Doxie Dad.  (MIL Doxie was our photographer!)

The ceremony flew by.  Aside from our, "I do's," I have no recollection of what was said.  I was smiling way too hard at Mr. D to pay attention to what that lady was saying to us.

After what seemed like thirty seconds, we got to kiss!  We're married, holy cow!

We had our "reception" at The Elephant Bar in Fresno.  It was great to be able to spend a little bit more time with Mr. Doxie's parents before they had to drive back to Canada.

We were very happy "newlyweds," obviously!

My new family is my favorite.

And my family is pretty fond of their new son-in-law!

So my past week or so has been pretty great!  To clarify, though we're legally married, I'm still Miss Dachshund until May.  Our legal ceremony was just something we had to do to move on with our immigration paperwork.  I mentioned before that I was bummed that our wedding wouldn't be the "real deal"; now I consider myself lucky to be able to marry my love twice!

Soo, I'm sorry that our Hallowedding never was.  Our legal ceremony may have fallen short of fabulous, but it was perfect for us.

Did any of you have to "make it legal" before your wedding?

Adorable Aisle Adornments

From the moment I had my mind set on collecting fabrics to make our dinner napkins, I've been trying to find other ways to incorporate the fabrics to make our day seem more cohesive.  So far, I've come up with ways to incorporate different fabrics into our centerpieces as flowers, on our attendants as boutonnieres (an idea I'm totally, uh, borrowing from Miss Moonbeam!), as a part of our favors, and into the invitations.  Thankfully, the internet is full many, many creative and like-minded brides...  I'm finding inspiration all over the place!

A few weeks ago, I saw a real wedding featured on 100layercake that made my jaw drop.  Seriously.  It was like wedding porn created just for me.  I squealed, wished that I was as talented as the bride, and then saved the link into my favorites.

Although every DIY detail was the-cutest-thing-I've-ever-seen, one image stood out above all others:

First of all, she's wearing the dress I've been imagining for myself... which she made herself, BTW.  Second of all, that's probably my absolute favorite use of fabric bunting flags.  Ever. 

I'm pretty sure that this bride and I would be BFFs IRL.  I hope she doesn't mind that I'm planning on stealing borrowing her aisle decoration idea!  I can't think of a more perfect way to tie together our reception and ceremony areas.  Love, love, love it!

I don't really feel bad for stealing her genius idea; most ideas in wedding-land are stolen from somewhere, right!?  Heck, even those that I thought were completely original have been done before by someone, I'm sure!

So.  'Fess up, ladies!  What ideas have you "stolen" from other brides?

The Doxie Engagement Soiree

I feel like I've been such a bad blogger; it's been nearly a week since I've written anything!  I hope you accept my apologies... things have been pretty crazy around the Doxie household what with everything that's going on this month.

That said, I'm excited to share our engagement party with you!  Mr. Doxie's parents are so incredibly sweet; they flew me to Canada this weekend to spend Thanksgiving with them.  They also threw us an engagement party for about forty of their nearest and dearest.  I was absolutely blown away by how warmly I was welcomed into the family.  It makes me that much more excited to be Mrs. Doxie in May! 

I had never been to an engagement party before, and I'll be the first to admit that I was a liiittle nervous to meet everyone.  I'm a pretty shy girl.  But everything was positively perfect!  The party exceeded my expectations, by far. 

The decorations were appropriate!

The food was deeeelicious!  Seriously.  Props to FMIL for making the tastiest roast I've ever had!

Although Mr. D was exhausted from his bachelor party the night before, he still looked pretty cute!

Though he did choose to skip the alcohol for the night.  Also, his younger cousin found it quite amusing that we switched "bride to be" and "groom to be" buttons :D

Mr. Doxie's parents poured the champagne...

...and we toasted to finding love and happiness.  Oh, and that something good finally came out of all the time Mr. D has spent on the computer! (On the left are Mr. Doxie's best man and his girlfriend)

I was overwhelmed with the amount of love that was in the house that night.  Of course, I know that Mr. D is an amazing guy... it makes sense that so many people would care for him so much!  During my little toast, (during which I'm sure I was bright red) I mentioned how fortunate I am to be able to marry into such an amazing family.  I completely lucked out!  I hope they know how grateful I am that they've made me feel so welcome already.

We wrapped up the evening with some family pictures.  Can you pick out Mr. D, his dad and his brother?  We're gonna have some taaalll kids!

We even received a few gifts!  Completely unnecessary, and so, so generous. 

The best part of the whole night?  When we said our goodbyes, the majority of them said, "See you in May!"  I'm so glad Mr. Doxie will be able to share our day with his family and friends!  To be honest, we didn't expect so many people to make an attempt to make the trek down from Canada.

Did you have a chance to meet your fiance's family before the wedding?  How'd it go?