next up.

now that my sister's wedding is done, the attention and hysteria has shifted to me and jared. even at becca's wedding, about every other person made a note that, 'youuuuuuu're next!!'

our engagement party invites went out earlier this week and so, i am sure there will be lots of unexpected nagging and prodding -- it's already started over what cake-topper, serving set, type of candles, color of dresses, types of flowers, number of guests and anything else you can think of.

overall, i am pretty psyched. jared is even getting really excited. we met with our caterer last night to go over the menu and it's going to be awesome. we are even going to have a french fry table!!! a freaking french fry table with different dipping sauces.

since we are having the wedding at a non-traditional place we get to do all the planning. and though i opted to not have a planner -- luckily our caterer handles all the coordination on the day of-- the details can be fun but also time and $ consuming. being a frugal and creative person, i plan on diy-ing a lot of the wedding. luckily i have a mother, a sister and a mother-in-law-to-be who are all crafty.

here are some ideas on my diy projects:

• sweets/candy bar. this one is pretty straight forward. we are going to get some cool retro-esque candy, i will bake some choc chip cookies and then i thought we could also get some mini-cupcakes to serve along with those. i found two really cool old glass jars that will give it a candy store sort of feel. if you have any you can lend us, that would be great!

• diy flower bouquets and boutinieers. this seems pretty easy. i just watched a video on the process which really took a lot of the mystery out of it. this is something i think the bridal party could do together the day before. having five girls in the bridal party can definitely add up with all the bouquets, corsages and boutineers. i have to scope out the flower market and then decide whether i should go that route or one of the many online bulk sites. again, reccommendations are totally welcome.

• favors. not sure what these will be, but i have a whole bunch of ideas bookmarked. this will be a fun project for the family to help me with.

so i am excited.... we have 309 days of fun planning and projects left. for now, we are looking forward to the engagement party at my dad's house in a few weeks!!

btw, we did pick some colors. since i really wanted jared to be a part of this we ended up going to look at invitation colors for inspiration. he really liked the silver and navy combo, as did i. we ended up picking those colors. i was inspired by this martha stewart pallette (see pic to the right).

i've already picked up some ribbon in that cool mossy aqua color. and my dress will not be blue, but i am sure there will be something blue involved. i also think that creamy white and peachy pink flowers will really compliment this combo. that means that the ladies will get to wear either a dark gray or navy.