shrinking

I've been chubby my whole life, and have spent a good part of my life more than chubby. But since I have changed the way I eat and have started working out, the strangest thing is happening, everytime I get on the scale, it goes down.

It's weird. I'm 25 years old and I weigh the same now as I did when I was 15. Weirder still is that it is 60lbs lighter than I was 2 yrs ago. I look at pictures of myself from then and I don't even recognize myself. But I still feel the same on the inside. I'm now very solidly in the "average size" category, but I don't feel it. I'm still surprised at finding cute pictures of myself, or being able to fit into a pants size I don't ever remember wearing.

A wedding is great motivation to slim down, and Josh doing it too has been so helpful! But now it's not even about the wedding, or fitting into the dress (although i did buy it in a smaller size than i currently wear, so i need to lose about 5lbs to get in it) but about seeing what i actually look like under all this, about saving myself from heart disease and diabetes which both run in my family, about not feeling like the fat girl anymore.

I'm on my way, and it feels really good.

chilly noses

Let them eat cake!

I'm going to be Mrs. Lucas in less than 4 months. Craziness! I remember last May, when we starting talking about all this, we thought we were crazy to be planning so early. A couple people even made comments about how we were booking things so early (a year for a venue? not so early) regardless time has ticked down and now were in crunch time. I'm sorry to those of you who are tired of reading wedding related posts, but that's pretty much what my life is about right now.

1) School 2) wedding planning 3) preparing to move in with Josh (which I have to say is the most exciting thing ever. I am so ready to live in one place, to not have to say goodbye to him every monday morning and drive back to Petoskey. To feel settled and to start to build a home.

At the very beginning, we were not going to have cake. We are scrapping a lot of the "traditional" wedding elements, cause we don't like them. For example, there is no bouquet or garter toss, cause I always hate that at weddings, and we're not having a father/daughter or mother/son dance cause our parents aren't really into dancing or being in the spotlight. We also feel like these elements break up the party. I hate it when people finally get out on the dance floor, and then the dj stops everything for the tosses - or after dinner watching 20 mins of people you don't really know (like the bridal party) dancing together.

But dessert - you are so close to my heart! We wanted to do something yummy, like a dessert buffet, but every vendor we talked to wouldn't let us bring in bakery goods, we had to buy them from them and that got pricy fast! Plus, part of the fun of a dessert buffet is having mix of treats, your favourite bakery tarts and grandmas oatmeal cookies. So we scrapped that idea. Then we thought of pie. Josh loves pie, and Jespersons here in town makes amazing pie! and we went there on our first date! But $3-4 a piece was going to kill our budget.

Originally, I didn't want my mum to make our cake. Not because she doesn't do a good job - cause she does, she makes gorgeous and delicious cakes. But because she already has a hundred wedding related jobs. And as she has made the cake for at least 10 of my relatives I've been privy to the stress that it causes. But, she is free, and I think she is excited to have a job that is all hers.

So this is the cake pic that I gave her for inspiriation. Three levels of cake, she's decided on 10",8" and 6" layers, with four layers of cake in each to give it height. We're doing white fondant with hot pink, orange and cream ranunculus.

On this cake plate - cute eh? I love wrapables.com

I think it fits us. And Josh is happy cause if my mum makes it he can have any flavour of cake he wants! (And what he wants is cherry chip) which most bakers don't do. I know he's excited cause when my mum and I talk about how much cake we need for 90 people, his response is always "it's ok if there is cake leftovers" :) god I love him.

hey ma, hey ma, I think I need a bra....

So now that the dress is arriving in 2 months! And from there I dive into the wild world of alterations, I've been underoo shopping. As my dress is strapless, I unfortunately have to wear a strapless bra. However, I have recently discovered the wonders of the longline bra (no gradual downward slide, no feeling of being cut in half by an overly tight rubber band) and I can only imagine that a corset will be even better! Plus! Tummy control! I like this first one, it looks smooth, which I am attracted too, but I don't know if I'm going to wish that I had something that was a little more firmly controlling.

I have the same fear for this second one, additionally the cups are push up, and i think I wanna keep the girls strapped in. But, it's Microfibre, the most wonderful thing ever!

This third one is firm control, smoothish looking, keeps the girls in check, but for some reason I'm not really attracted to it.

I think Josh would like this one the best. It screams bridal to me. Pretty, sweet, even more traditionally sexy than the former ones. But it's very firm control, and looks kind of itchy I'm scared that it's going to be very uncomfortable. But paired with some lacy undies ;)

Thoughts?

shiny things...

I'm completely in love with these hummingbird earrings, perfect in colour, length, and I love that they are so different - I actually think I would wear them again. The second pair are more what I was envisioning, but I can't imagine wearing them all that often, and they seem, compared to the first, a little on the boring side. Plus, the first are handmade by a girl (Teleecouture) on Etsy, so I bet I can ask her to make me a matching bracelet too! Exciting!

What do you think? Which ones would you wear?

I Heart Zappos!

When I arrived at my parent's house this afternoon there was a surprise waiting for me, a big box of shoes! So exciting! I'm in the process of collecting all the things I'm going to need, so that when my dress arrives I'm ready for the fittings. I had an idea of what I wanted, gold, strappy, ankle strapped and not too high. These ones are hideous in person. They were the right colour and I thought the butterfly was pretty in the picture, but in person - very ugly. They are Bouquets "Jean."

The second ones I tried on was this lovely pair "Brazen" by Yellow Box. Super cute, sparkly, comfy, but I don't think I want my wedding shoes to be so flat. I love these ones. "Sweetie Pie" by Naughty Monkey. So cute, and although they don't match my dress, they match the wedding perfectly. Unfortunately the 6.5's were too big and they were out of 6's. After I got them on, I'm not too sure I would want to wear 3inch heels all day. Super cute though.

These are by Kenneth Cole Reaction. They fit weird and kinda made me feel like an old lady.

These were my favourite when I ordered them. I was scared that I wasn't going to like them cause there were sold out of my size, but I managed to get them in a 5W, surprisingly they fit perfectly (hurray for short and stumpy feet!) the straps across the toes are a little baggy, but that means I can put in some foot petals and still have wiggle room! Yay! Gold, strappy and not too high!

Now on to undies and jewelry and veils! Hurray! Also fun things like centerpieces, groomsman ties, seating plans, program order..