How to Catch a Fletcher

Marital Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:19:00 +0000

I missed Wednesday by a couple of days, but I'm making good on my one post a week, so far! Yesterday was Thanksgiving and for the last week or so I've been mulling over what I am thankful for this year. It's not hard to look around at my life and rattle off the long list of what I have, have achieved and who is in my life. I am lucky, fortunate, humbled and beyond grateful for the full life I lead and all the gifts that have been bestowed on me.

Lately I've been researching (read "Googling & Pinning") how to have a happy/good/long marriage. If I'm going to do this whole marriage thing, I want to make sure that it lasts, is fulfilling and is the best it can be, for us. Anything worth doing is worth doing right! With that being said, I'm a big believer in making our relationship work for us and us alone. I like to read marriage advice and to ask people that we know what advice they have for us. Fletch and I discuss it and see if it is of value to us. Sometimes it is and other times, it's a nice sentiment, but doesn't quite fit. I believe that as individuals in the relationship change and age, that the relationship will adapt, if you work at it. "Marriage" and "Love" are verbs, actions, ways of living, not things. I won't just "get married", but I'll be living my marriage, working on my marital relationship for the rest of my life. It's important to me to be the best wife and companion that Fletch has in this life. To support him, help him grow, encourage him, to not take him for granted and to love him unconditionally; these are my goals in life.

I've been considering the link between gratitude and happiness. That if you take stock in your life often and are thankful for what you have, you will be happier. Last night we were watching the Thanksgiving Evening NFL Football game and were inundated with commercial after commercial for Black Friday and Christmas/Holiday advertising. Buy this car, buy this new tech device, buy this beer, buy this new drug so that you can be happy or make someone else happy. Buy, buy, buy instead of give, give, give back. Giving to others, not a new car, but truly fulfilling someone else's needs and desires not only helps that person, but gives you, in return, feelings of deep pleasure and lasting happiness. I believe that the same goes for marital happiness. Give first, then your needs will be met by the other. Love first, love deeply, give often and give again to your spouse. In return you will receive a deeper love in return, more than you can imagine. As we begin this holiday season I am thinking of ways that I can give back to others in a meaningful way and how I can gear up to be the best, happiest, and fulfilling wife to Fletch.

Happy Holidays!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

The Wonderful World Wide Web & Wedding Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:48:00 +0000

Seems that just about everything you need to pull off a wedding can be found or bought online these days! I’m certain that planning a wedding before Google arrived meant asking friends and families for advice and shopping locally to get what you needed. Now, you, my reader, are online on some sort of magical device that is letting you read this. I too am inundated with technology and have a job where the Wonderful World Wide Web is only a click away at any given time. In addition I have this thing called a Smart Phone (iPhone - another theme) that is never far from my hands. These in particular lead me to utilizing this WWW tool, and some other techie devices, quite often.

Here are a few of the ways that the WWW and new advances in technology have assisted Fletch and me thus far in our wedding planning endeavor:

Email (Gmail specifically) has assisted us in announcing our engagement, gathering guest information, sending out our save the dates, sending newsletters to our bridal party and parents, as well as communicating with our vendors. I can even e-fax documents straight from my computer (through email)! This is how we reserved the wedding venue and signed other various vendor contracts. I also use my Google Calendar and Contacts religiously. Honestly, where would we be without email?!

Internet Search Engines, particularly Google (do you see a theme here?), have aided in my research of venues, styles, color schemes, budget ideas, attire options, etiquette, recommendations on wedding professionals and even accommodations for out of town guests. I learned how to apply for our wedding license and how to have our friend get ordained online in order to become what our county calls a “One-Time Deputy Marriage Commissioner” for him to legally marry us {VERY important step in this whole process}! I found my Month of Wedding Coordinator online through her blog and our engagement party invitations were ordered online. Besides all of that, just about every vendor we use has a website of their very own!

While I haven't partaken of e-commerce for anything physical for the wedding yet, I thought I should mention that you can purchase just about anything you want or need from the inter-webs. You can buy new or used items. I should probably break this out into another post at some point, because really the possibilities are endless! Anything from decorations, clothing, accessories, shoes, jewelry, rings, bow ties, favors, invitations, photo albums, cake toppers, toasting flutes, etc.

I use something called Dropbox to organize all of my wedding documents, contracts, I Do To-Do Lists, etc. This is a “cloud” device which means that I can access the information in our Dropbox folder from any computer that is linked to the same folder. Fletch and I can share, view and edit documents at the same time without having to email them back and forth. You could do something similar with Google Drive (previously called Goggle Docs), but I like the Dropbox formula better.

Next, we purchased a subscription to a Wedding Website (Wed-site, if you will) that includes behind the scene features like: uploading our contacts from our email accounts to create guest lists (for all wedding related events), budgeting tools that are integrated with our vendor list, including reminders of when payments are due to vendors and a task calendar (which I haven’t been able to make sync with my Google calendar yet). The actual Wed-site that our guests see has some fun aspects to it, such as photo albums, a link to our registry, a song request section, a guestbook, links to hotels, directions from Google Maps and an online RSVP tracking feature for later! By the way, Fletch and I put the content together ourselves and I even got to do some very rudimentary coding, but I felt very techie doing it!!

Speaking of our registry, we did a couple of things that I think are neat and a little different. First we did the traditional gun scanner at a big box store route, which was fun. Then, I went online and found two online registry companies that allowed me to 1) add items from any store around the world that has a website and 2) gave us an option to have a honeymoon registry added as well. Both companies had internet add-ons that made it very easy to click a button and add items to the registry when shopping online. Both had iPhone Apps, so I could add and delete items on the go from my iPhone. We ended up using MyRegistry.com and could even customize it with our picture and a message to our guests.

Some of the other Apps that I love to use for my wedding adventures include Big Day Lite – tells me how many days until our wedding!; Venmo, which is a social version of PayPal where you can pay someone with just their phone number; Weddingawkr – which I used to look at all the time, but now I favor Pinterest* more…; Pandora - which gives me musical inspiration and when I find a song that I might want at the wedding, I make a note in my phone – nifty!; and Google Blogger (but it’s not very user friendly, sorry Google). Other Apps that I use regularly, but have already mentioned above are: Gmail, Google Calendar, Safari/Goggle, Dropbox, MyRegistry.com & the other big box registry. And if it wasn't obvious these all sync between my iPhone and online perfectly :)

In mentioning Apps, I should talk about the iPad at home (and we have a couple of iPods too). An iPad that I don’t use regularly because it’s hooked up to all of Fletch’s accounts, but that I’m considering using at the wedding in one or two ways. First is that we may use it to conduct our wedding ceremony and secondly I am considering using it as a camera for a photo booth! I’ll blog about the whole photo booth idea and photo/video sharing another time.

This brings me to the Social Media phenomenon. I don't really consider Facebook to be a "wedding" tool, however if you wanted to use it that way, you could. I follow our photographer and my stylist because I think they are great at what they do, and I think we could be friends after the wedding - they are interesting ladies. Facebook now has ads that mirror what you "Like", so I frequently see wedding related ads, but nothing really speaks to me. I mostly use Facebook to see and share pictures and keep tabs on my friends and family. I mentioned Weddingawkr earlier and if you haven't looked at it, you should; it highlights the best wedding blogs and stories plus it updates regularly. *But, I said that I favor Pinterest more and here's why: you get to save the images that you like on a virtual bulletin board and that "Pin" will take you to the direct source, so to the video, article or picture, that was originally posted online. It reminds me of bookmarking, but it's prettier, since you see the title picture on your "Board". It's a great way to organize your thoughts, things that you want, things that you want to do or ideas to try later. I use it as a source of inspiration and a place to look at pictures that make me laugh {Cats in Clothes, anyone?}. I currently have 19 different Boards related to wedding stuff; 34 total - shows you where my current interests lie {no surprise here, right?}. Pinterest is a sort of addiction, you can follow your friends or other people (strangers) with similar interests to yours and you can search very general categories of interest. The categories continuously refresh based on what people pin or "Repin", so there is a lot of new content constantly. It's fun for all sorts of things - I have pinned recipes, fashion that I want to try out and vacation spots. The other day, in the wedding category I saw a picture that said “Pinterest wasn’t around when I got married, I want a do-over!” Do you ever feel like that? If you had Pinterest or any of these other technologies available to you when you were planning your wedding, would it have made things easier for you? Would you have done things differently? Are there other technological tools out there that you're using that I didn't mention or may not know about?

Future Mrs. Fletcher

E-Pix 2, Nacho Bars & Falsies...

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 20:13:00 +0000

It’s the day after the election and President Obama has been re-elected! I went out and voted last night, feeling very proud of myself and my country. I realize it’s been almost three months since my last post – so sorry to keep you all waiting! Since August, Fletch and I have done and seen a lot - here are some of the highlights:

I cut off all my hair, gave it to Locks of Love and have a completely new style and color
We moved and are settling in nicely to our new home
I’ve watched 90% of all NFL football games, excluding what I like to call “third quarter nap time” and including my very first live game at Candlestick Park where we saw the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Seattle Seahawks (9ers won)!
We have visited our wedding venue three times
We went to three Oakland A’s games, including some of the playoff games
Hired our Wedding Coordinator
Finished our Wedding Website or “Wed-site”
Sent our Save the Dates
Had our engagement photos, “E-Pix” taken!
Celebrated Fletch’s birthday with a dinner party at our new house, complete with Nacho Bar!

Wow!

Now, let me focus on the last two items on that list.

Both took place last Saturday on an absurdly warm day for November in the Bay Area – we absolutely lucked out on the weather! The day started off with Fletch playing basketball in the morning and me being pampered at home by my stylist. She came to do my hair and makeup and we chatted the morning away. She brought along some false eyelashes for me to wear since, for photography, you really want to accentuate your features so that the camera picks them up. I had not worn false eyelashes before, but had always been curious. I don’t wear makeup every day and Fletch actually prefers me without it, so he’s always a little shocked when he sees me all made up. Fletch said that I looked beautiful and then joked around that the eyelashes looked like spiders coming out of my eyes! He was kidding of course – boys (insert eye roll here)!

You might remember from my original post on E-Pix that I had a list of about 15 locations to choose from. Well, we narrowed that down and ended up with three locations, two outfits each, two beers and two and a half hours with our lovely photographer! I had done a lot of research and sent examples of photos that I liked to our photographer. I feel like she really took those to heart, remembered what we liked and led us through the poses with ease. She helped us to just be ourselves and enjoy the process. Thankfully our photographer is very easy to work with, we feel like she’s our friend and we just had a great time being out and about together on such a beautiful day. We should be getting the pictures back in about two weeks!! I’ll let you know how they turn out.

After the shoot was finished we headed back home to prepare for Fletch’s birthday dinner party. I came up with a Mexican Potluck theme and made all the fixing for a Nacho Bar. The night before I had cooked the chicken and ground beef in my secret seasonings and prepped as much as I could by getting out most of our serving pieces. I even made the nacho cheese sauce from scratch and shredded all the cheese myself – quite a fete! Our friends and family came, brought wonderful dishes and important ingredients and all had a wonderful time. It was a huge hit and we’ll definitely be doing that again sometime soon!

We had changed out of our E-Pix outfits for the party, but I was still wearing my makeup from earlier. I received lots of complements and also some funny reactions to my eyelashes. One of our friends said something along the lines of “Those better be fake eyelashes, otherwise, I’m going to have to hate you!” She was pretty relieved when I fessed up. Later I was talking to my sister and her girlfriend, who used to do makeup for MAC Cosmetics and always looks beautiful and I innocently asked “What do you think of my Falsies?!” My step mom was nearby and said “You better be careful who you say that word around, because in my day it meant something else!” I didn’t know it meant anything else, but for some reason teeth came to mind. She explained and I thought I should let you know too! See below for the definitions:

Falsies (fôl′sēz):

Plural Noun: Pads of material in women's bras used to make the breasts appear larger or fuller.
False eyelashes:
In recent years, "falsies" has also been used to mean false eyelashes.

Apparently Falsies can also describe, however, more rarely, pads which create the appearance of larger buttocks! Just thought this was hilarious and that I should pass it along to you!

Anyhow, not sure if I’ll be wearing my falsies (eyelashes, that is) at the wedding or not, it’s still to be determined. Have any of you readers out there done any kind of “falsies” for weddings or events? Done any out of the ordinary beauty regimens that you would recommend? Anything you would caution against?

Just want to let you know that I am making a point to write a new segment every week. My current goal is to keep this up through the end of the year and make a habit out of it! Keep me honest people and be on the lookout for a new post next week!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Three Weddings

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:21:00 +0000

I'm flying home from another wonderful wedding weekend. The third of the summer and the last for our wedding season. It's been nice to spend time with family and friends while celebrating new beginnings. Also, it's made for some great research for my wedding planning! It's been fun getting save the dates, invitations, seeing the wedding websites & then finally getting to go to the weddings.

It's interesting how the weddings each had similarities and yet each was also so unique. It's also fun to see ideas that I'm considering using being brought to life.

Some of the similarities were having wedding websites, requesting RSVPs on the wedding websites, open ceremony & reception seating, unique & homemade meals and all had open bars - always a plus!

The venues and the cities they were in were all three unique, just as each couple is. The color schemes, flowers, music and details were all different from each other, and yet special in their own ways. The common thread here and what matters and was shown most was the love and support given by all three communities of family and friends who attended each celebration.

Even though my wedding is still a little over a year away, I am inspired and ready to get my wedding planning on! I can't wait to marry Fletch and have our nearest and dearest by our side!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Rent-To-Wed

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Renting an apartment = really normal
Renting a bed (hotel) = normal
Renting a car = normal
Renting a venue = normal
Renting table linens, napkins, plates, glasses, utensils = completely normal
Renting tuxedos = normal
Renting men's dress shoes = normal
Renting bridesmaid dresses = not normal
Renting a wedding gown = really not normal

What I mean by this is that I've never known anyone who has rented a bridesmaid dress or a wedding gown. Everything else on the list falls into the normal category of what people do on a regular basis. Heck, even renting items that you eat off of, put in your mouth and drink from are all acceptable; especially because they are washed! After all is said and done, at the end of the day, a wedding gown is a dress that you wear one time. I would guess that most bridesmaid dresses fall into this category as well.

I've been a bridesmaid in a few weddings and each time there has been the decision of and the purchasing of the bridesmaid dresses and accessories as well as paying for the services of hair, makeup and nails. Groomsmen usually are required to rent a tux and shoes and call it a day. In addition to the engagement party and bachelor/bachelorette festivities, bridesmaids host and attend the bridal shower as well as bring a gift. In general, it costs more to be a bridesmaid than it does to be a groomsmen.

Now in the last five or so years, I've heard of websites that rent the latest designer handbags, shoes, jewelry and clothes; kind of like the Netflix of fashion. I haven't tried it, but do find it interesting. I've mentioned before that I am no fashionista and in fact do not spend very much money on my normal wardrobe. In planning my wedding and searching for cheaper alternatives to full priced items in the fashion department, I came across a few options that seem very appealing to me and to my budget.

First is the idea of purchasing a used wedding gown. As I said above, it is a dress and you wear it for one day. Why should it sit in a box in the attic when you can donate it or sell it and someone else can enjoy it for their special day? It's recycling! Plus, you get it cleaned and it's probably just like new! This is a lot like my antique engagement ring (thank you Fletch!).

Second is renting a wedding gown. For some reason this idea for me has a negative stigma attached to it, however in reality it is not that different from buying a used gown. I guess the idea that you have to send it back is what gets me. But if I were to purchase a used gown, I think I would consider selling it afterwards anyway (we don't have an attic!).

Third is having my bridesmaids rent their bridesmaid dresses. For whatever reason this trend does not seem to have caught on yet, but for the male counterparts, it is perfectly normal to rent a tux and shoes for a wedding. Think about it this way, if a man owned a tuxedo and was asked to be a groomsmen in a wedding, he still might not be able to wear it because it may not match the style of the wedding or other tuxes of the wedding party, hence the rentals. The same can go for the bridesmaid dresses. My maid of honor has lots of dresses in her closet, but the chance that the other women in the wedding have the same dress or even a dress in the same colors as hers are pretty slim. So, instead of asking my ladies to purchase a dress to match a color scheme that they may not wear often, why not ask them to rent instead?

Questions for the readers:
1) What are your best budget ideas for a wedding?
2) What was your biggest splurge for your wedding?
3) What would you have done differently?
4) Have you rented a bridesmaid dress, wedding gown or shoes before and what was your experience?

I promise to write more posts soon!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

E-pix

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:22:00 +0000

It’s been awhile since my last post. Summer is in full swing, so is our social calendar. In the span of two weeks we’ve been camping, celebrating birthdays, had a strange Wednesday fourth of July complete with the day off of work, spending time with family, and we went to a wedding!

In Wedding News: we have our venue and have finalized our date!! We also have an Officiant and a Flower Girl! I am crossing things off the list left and right (and adding new “I Do To Do’s” all the time).

This week, we met with a photographer at a local café. It was the second time that a wedding vendor has said the words “Are you a professional (in my field) because no one else has ever asked me that before?” It’s flattering that we are so intelligent to ask questions that evoke that kind of response.

The meeting was largely about the contract and what our thoughts were regarding our Engagement Photo Shoot (AKA E-pictures or E-pix for short). More on this in a minute.

I’ve planned lots of parties in my life. If you’ve ever been to any of my parties, you know they are not ordinary get togethers. I plan the details to a T. Wedding planning is similar, but on steroids, so really not very similar! For a normal party I usually have one to three documents of information and ideas. For the wedding I have 17 folder categories (that match on my wedding binder, flash drive and Internet bookmarks). I’m not sure how many sub-folders I have, but it’s a ton of information - you get the idea.

In the past I’ve had creative control over most aspects of the parties I’ve thrown. However, for the wedding Fletch and I have complete creative control - which is exhilarating and a little overwhelming at times. Essentially, I have to figure out exactly what I want for every part of my wedding and then be able to convey that vision to each of my vendors. I am not a florist or a caterer or a photographer, but yet, I need to understand and communicate in each of their languages in order to get what I want (but first I have to figure out what I want). I also have to research and negotiate pricing with each of them. Essentially I give myself a crash course on each vendor type I will need, reading as much as I can so that when I talk to the vendors I know what to ask, what to expect and I get some good ideas along the way.

As an avid “wedding porn” viewer (I know, crass term, but very fitting), I have seen more than my fair share of wedding and E-pix online. What I didn’t realize is that we are the ones who have to come up with the photo shoot ideas. Now, as many of you out there who are on Pinterest or weddingawkr (or other social media sites that generate pictures) knows, there are billions of ideas out there for E-pix, let alone weddings!

So, here’s a crash course (from my understanding so far) on planning your E-pix session (after you’ve decided on a photographer, which is another ordeal in itself):

1) Location, Location, how many Locations?!
First things first, pick some locations to have your E-pix taken. I came up with a short list of about 15 places that I liked based on thinking about some of our local haunts (restaurants, bars), places that have meaning to us (our old and new neighborhoods) and proximity to each other (I guess we don’t have all day to do this). Another tip I read was to look for a location with lots of bright and vibrant colors, which got me thinking about the trend of using graffiti as the back drop for E-pix. What’s the consensus on this, too played out, cool, absurd? We aren’t lacking in local graffiti, so it could be an option, but like I said, I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding a place since I have at least 15 picked out!

2) How to Look
I’m not a clothes, hair or make-up stylist. I’m not really a fashionista or up on the latest trends, but the next task is to pick out clothes. Usually a few different outfits so that you have variety and create interesting E-pix. You don’t want the bride and groom to be’s outfits to be too matchy-matchy, otherwise they’ll look silly. Some advice went as far as saying to cut out the tags of the clothes because under certain lighting they might show through. Also, hair and make up are important and don’t forget to wash and iron your clothes (don’t want dirty wrinkles in your E-pix!). How should we do Fletch’s hair?

3) Themes
Last, is to think about the overall “style” of the shoot including, but not limited to, themes, props, poses and smiling like a fool! Some examples I’ve seen are reenacting movies, using balloons, including your pets and canoodling anywhere you can.

In general this should be pretty fun since I haven’t had “professional” pictures taken since prom and the hired photographer having me do a couple of corny poses and snapping maybe six shots total doesn’t really compare to this!

Have you had engagement pictures done and do you have any recommendations for us?

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Tan Lines & Tattoos

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Since my last post I have been a busy little bride to bee! The services for my grandfather were last week and it was so wonderful to be able to spend that time with my family. Even though the circumstances were not what any of us wished, it was still nice to come together and celebrate a loved one’s life.

Wedding planning to date is on a roll – working out the contract with the venue; waiting on quotes for catering, bartender, cake and rentals; found a photographer and started my wedding website!

On Saturday Fletch & I met with an eco-friendly florist in the morning and we liked her a lot. Then in the afternoon, my fantastic maid of honor and I went on a six mile hike while we chatted about the wedding the whole time. Exercise, good company and wedding planning all wrapped up into one – can’t beat that!

For the hike I decided to wear my strapless bathing suit top, even though I looked a little “hoochie” in it – it’s not exactly what I’d normally wear out on a hike. The reason being that later this summer I will be in a wedding where I will be donning a strapless evening gown. Up to this point I have tan lines that reflect tank tops and my racing swim suit, complete with a big “X” on my back! These tan lines would not really suit my overall bridesmaid look. Therefore, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try to even out my tan lines by looking like a “hoochie” for the hike. This got me to thinking about weddings, wedding photographs, tan lines and tattoos.

In my experience, weddings usually have a formal air to them, hence, tuxedos/suits, and evening gowns/dresses. In that case, it makes sense to me that if you are spending money on a dress, possibly shoes, getting your nails, hair and make-up done, that you would also want to make sure that your tan lines match the outfit you are going to wear, right? Along the same lines (get it?!), weddings are highly photographed events, not only does the couple usually hire a professional photographer, or two, most of the guests bring cameras as well. So, why then are there still bridesmaids out there who do not take this into consideration? Hence the picture below:

A couple thoughts about the tan lined bridesmaid: 1) her lines are distracting to the overall look of the picture, 2) her lines make it look like part of her dress is missing, 3) by the looks of this wedding party, it appears that she picked out her own dress 4) not sure if the photographer didn’t know how to take care of the problem with Photoshop, but even if they did, every picture that the tan lined bridesmaid was in would need to be touched up pretty significantly (read time consuming and possibly an extra expense for the person paying for the photographs)

Some ideas on preventing tan lines: 1) sunscreen, 2) wearing outfits that are the same silhouette as the bridesmaids dress, 3) cover up with a big shirt or a big hat, 4) carry a parasol

Some ideas on fixing tan lines: 1) try to even it out on your own (may be risky as in you could have multiple lines), 2) use make-up, bronzer or self-tanner to cover, 3) get a professional spray tan or airbrush treatment

What do you readers think?

Also in thinking of the overall look of our wedding and what kinds of photography styles we like, the topic of tattoos came up. Neither Fletch nor I have tattoos, but we are part of the minority. Out of our ten person bridal party (five bridesmaids and five groomsmen) I think only two do not have a tattoo (but for all I know they may have one hidden somewhere!). For the groomsmen it probably won’t be an issue since they will most likely be wearing suits of some kind. For the bridesmaids though there will definitely be more opportunities for skin to show (since I’m not into long sleeved dresses), and could lead to some visible tattoo action. I’m not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, more that it’s something that I’ve noticed in wedding photos and that inevitably will play a part in my wedding day and photographs. Just like in the picture above; I see six tattoos, including one on the bride. This bride did not want all of her bridesmaids dressed exactly the same or with the same hairstyle or dresses or even color of dress. The only thing I see that is the same on all of the bridesmaids is their shoes. I’m not sure exactly what style I want for my bridal party yet, but I know that I do want them each to stand out as an individual and part of what makes someone who they are is what they choose to put on their body. While I do not intend on asking my bridesmaids to cover up any visible tattoos, I have seen some pretty crazy requests from brides on TV and on wedding boards doing just that (not just about tattoos, but diets, hair color and other ways of being strict and controlling). I want my bridesmaids to be comfortable, to be themselves and to dance the night away. I picked each of my girls for a reason, because they are all important, special women to me and I want their individual beauty to shine through. I want to look and feel spectacularly beautiful on my wedding day. I also want the best pictures possible, after all, why would I spend so much time, energy and money on an event and on a photographer if I didn’t care about what the photos would look like?

Would love to hear some opinions and thoughts, brides or bridesmaid perspectives, how you would handle things like this, experiences, etc.

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Till Death Do Us Part

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:41:00 +0000

I stood by as my Grandfather looked up from his hospital bed, gazed into my Grandmother’s eyes and told her that she needed to be strong, that she would go on and live a happy life and that he loved her very much. He thanked her for everything that she had done for him and for the great life that they had shared together. The next day he passed away. Next month would have been their 49th wedding anniversary.

Fletch’s Grandfather passed almost a year ago. His grandparents had been married for 64 years. His Grandmother passed away in February. We have lost three of our grandparents in the last year. It saddens us that they will not be able to come to our wedding or hold our future children. We know that they are with us in spirit and we are thankful for the time that we got to spend with each of them.

In planning our wedding, we are starting to think about the vows we will take, what we want to say to each other and the deeper meaning of what it means for us to be married. The traditional vow of “Till death do us part” has particular significance to us at this time. Sometimes I have nightmares of Fletch dying and I wake up in a cold sweat and have anxious thoughts and feelings about what my life would be like without him in it. One of my deepest desires is to live a long, full and prosperous life with those that I love most being by my side. Our grandparents were fortunate in this way. May we follow in their footsteps.

In thinking of the actual wedding ceremony and vows to be taken I think of promises to be made to one another. Promises of a life of love, trust, respect, caring, growing, nurturing, understanding and forgiving. Forgiving others, including your spouse, but also in forgiving yourself. Life is not about perfection, but striving to live the best life possible through your promises to those who mean the most to you.

If you have lost a loved one and either are married or are planning to be married, how did you or are you planning to honor them on your special day? We would love any suggestions or thoughts on this.

I hope that when my time comes, whether it’s tomorrow or 64 years from now, that I will look back on my relationship and marriage to Fletch and be as thankful, loving, forgiving and gracious as our grandparents were to each other.

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Lord of the Rings

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 05:56:00 +0000

Today I got to have two phone dates, first with one of my bridesmaids and oldest childhood friend, who lives in Colorado and also my sister, who lives in Texas! Mind you, both of these women live far away and unfortunately, we do not get to see each other as often as we would like. However, it’s days like today when even a short call helps me remember why they are so important to me. Even when the calls, letters and texts are infrequent (we are all busy folks), it’s as if no time at all has passed and we can catch up, without missing a beat.

When I called my sister I had (unbeknownst to her) ulterior motives than just the typical what’s new conversation. I was hoping that she would be as excited as I was, when I asked her if her son, my nephew, would be the ring bearer in our wedding! I wasn’t disappointed! It’s so much fun to be able to surround ourselves with our loved ones for our special day. Even though it sometimes seems like our wedding date is (too) far away, it brings such joy and what seems like eager anticipation of our wedding day by our family and friends that it has a snowball effect of excitement that just continues to builds for us.

And so now we have a little Lord of the Rings to add to our wedding party. I can’t wait to dress him up in something precious and see his cute little smiling face on our wedding day!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

The “I Do To-Do List”

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:11:00 +0000

Today when I logged onto theknot.com it cheerfully tells me that I have 177 “to-dos” before my wedding. I don’t know about you, but this number is crazy overwhelming to me! Thankfully I have about 15 months before my wedding, so I don’t need to fret! In reality I know I will have more “I Do To-Do’s” than that, but I do not find it helpful that they announce it this way, as if I have to complete it all now or something.

Another thing I find disconcerting is when theknot.com tells me that I should start looking for my dress (“it’s never too early!” they say), and then has the task of booking your reception site several rows down and booking your ceremony site a couple rows farther down. Just goes to show how backwards the wedding industry can be and how they want you to spend your money. Along this vein, if you are looking for budget ideas and you come across this website: budget.weddings.com, just beware that it is owned and operated by theknot.com. I find that I have a sort of love hate relationship with mainstream wedding websites and magazines. Love the inspiration, hate that the expectation is that it’s normal to spend the average of almost $30,000 on one day. Granted, it’s a very special day, but come on – I can think of lots to do with that kind of dough!

For now, I'm just going to Keep Calm and Get My Wedding On!

Future Mrs. Fletcher

Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Future Mrs. Fletcher) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

I am the Future Mrs. Fletcher and am engaged to "Fletch". We just celebrated our 7 year anniversary in April while in London (here we are on the Underground).

Fletch proposed to me very unexpectedly in September 2011 and, of course, I said yes! We are both extremely excited to be getting married! Sometimes we think of eloping (gasps can be heard from our parents as we think this!), but we really want to celebrate with those nearest and dearest to us, so planning a blow out wedding it is.

Since our engagement there have been some really great things, like our AWESOME engagement party, (which I'll probably talk more about later), Fletch introducing me as his fiancee and thinking about the rest of our lives together! There have also been some disappointments and not so great wedding planning related experiences. Here are some examples: There are millions of choices for venues and vendors in the Bay Area (sounds like a good thing, but really, it just makes it that much harder. Especially for someone like me - read type A, who wants to see every option, then decide). It's VERY easy to spend loads of money on a wedding without even really thinking about it (great if you have loads to spend or want to). The venue that we originally liked (was indoor and had great prices), tripled their prices and wouldn't give us the new info for a month - yikes! After that it was difficult to find an indoor venue that we liked (that was not a hotel) for our original date in February (picked because it was in the off season and supposed to be cheaper). Essentially, I started planning the wedding right after we got engaged with one vision in mind and when that fell through we totally changed things up. Now we are on track to plan the wedding that we want, the wedding that will make us happy and that will celebrate the beginning of our new life together as husband and wife! I couldn't be happier!

So, in a nutshell, I am starting this blog for a few reasons 1) so that I don't overwhelm my fiance, friends & family by calling, emailing, talking their ears off about the wedding 2) to share some ideas, thoughts and inspirations and 3) because I can!

Hope you enjoy the ride!

Future Mrs. Fletcher