Easy DIY Photo Collage

I had bought some frames on sale at Michael's probably about 2 years ago-- I had hung them on the wall and filled the smaller frames, but didn't have anything in the 11x14 frame. 

I decided to do a collage of photos from our wedding from the photo studio.  I used Microsoft Office Publisher and it took me less than an hour.  I inserted a bunch of the pictures and then just started making them different sizes.  I would also crop some of the pics where there was dead space.  I just worked my way across and down the page to keep filling it in.

I took it to Office Depot on a flash drive and they printed on 11x17 glossy, thick paper for only $.49!  What a steal!  Walgreens and most photo sites wanted at least $9.99 to print.  I have another 11x14 frame to fill, so I'm definitely going to put something together and get it printed there.

Here's some pics of the finished product:

We made it!

Well, we survived 1 year of marriage....now just a bunch more to go! Since we just got back from Europe, we really didn't plan anything for this weekend or today to celebrate-- we were just going to go to the Botanical Gardens later today to walk around there. I did find it amusing when I woke up this morning to rain- just brought back the memories of dealing with the rain last year and looks like we may not be going to the gardens today!

Since I was lazy with every blogging much about the actual wedding and with pics, I'll share a few more today-- good reminder of the best day of my life!

Some wedding pics

Well, we finally got our wedding pics back from the photographer the week before Christmas, so I've been working on lots of photbooks and projects for gifts. I spent time this week getting the pics organized on Walgreens and am almost done and then will share the link with everyone so they can view and print any they want! In the meantime, thought I'd post some of my faves on here

This was in the elevator on the way to the ceremony:

I really enjoyed seeing the pics of the guys getting ready and the reception because it was stuff I had no clue he had photographed. This one made me bust out laughing when I saw it! Good times!

I'm a MRS!

Still hasn't really set in, but this is my first day as a married lady! I feel like I will have SO many pics and things to blog about....but will give quick synopsis now. We leave for HM tomorrow and am VERY excited for a vacation! The weather turned out absolutely PERFECT...so maybe dustin luck is not so bad after all! Woke up Saturday morning and looked beautiful, but laid in bed watching the weather forecasts and they all kept saying rain was moving in and we'd have thunderstorms in the afternoon. I check the hourly forecast and still calling for rain at 3pm. So it POURS after lunch-- people from out of town were saying they almost had to pull off the road it was raining so hard. Dustin said the phone was ringing off the hook with people calling...cause I'm sure they are thinking there is no way they are supposed to go to our outdoor ceremony. So Dustin had been trying to call the botanical gardens, but couldn't get through. So Yara, our awesome coordinator, gets through to the gardens and they say they have a meterology team there and that the rain will end around 2 and we'll be good-- they'll get the seats dried off and everything good to go. So we keep the ceremony on! Stops raining at some point-- maybe like 2:30 and holds off throughout the ceremony-- the sun even peeked out some too! It was just amazing how it worked out. So we stay around the gardens for some pictures afterwards and the sky starts getting super dark and gloomy. I know it made for great pictures, but we were just waiting for it to start pouring on us! We were able to take pics for about an hour and then started feeling raindrops, so got to the bus pronto. Starts raining then as we are driving downtown to the arch for more pictures. Arrive at the arch and it is sprinkling, but not too bad so we get out of the bus. Looks like the storm is moving away and sun will be coming back out. Then the sun comes out and a RAINBOW appears!!!!!! It was just so awesome and thinking it was so fitting that we got engaged in Hawaii where we saw so many awesome rainbows....and then we happen to get one in St. Louis on our wedding day!!!!! I just can't even describe how perfect that weather worked out...and I will be forever grateful that we were able to have the beautiful outdoor ceremony. Then it was on to the reception which was a lot of fun....but just flew by! Ok, more details and pics later, but here are a few people have sent:

911!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have labeled the caption of this picture on my computer as "heart attack." Our ceremony is at 3:30-- this is what you call "Dustin luck"

OMG.

Can't believe today is rehearsal day!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously woke up this morning and feel like I'm going to throw up-- just doesn't seem like it should be here already! This year flew by and even this last week completely flew by! Probably forgetting some major things, but hopefully I won't. This morning we will drop off our last stuff at WOW, need to make some reserved seating signs, need to put together gifts for the wedding party, and then need to finalize all timelines and get them printed out to have with me. Then I'll pack up my bags and move into my hotel suite! Oh man, freaking out! But excited!

Down to the wire!

So technically it is already Thursday cause is 1am...so I am 2 days away from getting married! We've been super busy, but feel like this is what it's all about and part of the experience! We got all moved out of my place-- it was very rushed, but got it all done Tuesday night and then salvation army picked up some things this morning that I couldn't sell. I close tomorrow and then hopefully I'll be mortgage free! Got my rehearsal dinner dress in the mail today and LOVE it...so I'm super excited to wear that. Still waiting for a few other things in the mail, so they better be here today...or that will not be good! Weather forecast still sucks-- scattered thunderstorms. Ok, well didn't finish everything I wanted, but am dead tired....so turning in to bed and will just hope that I can get a lot done tomorrow! I don't know if Dustin knows what he is in for tomorrow, but he took a half day from work to clean the loft....and it is a disaster zone, so that is going to suck to clean!

Weather

Forgot to mention that naturally I am OBSESSED over checking the weather. I go to multiple sites, which basically all give different forecasts...so isn't too helpful. But they all have 1 thing in common- RAIN!!!!!!!! Have I not told you before that dustin has the WORST luck of anyone...ever. So all along we kept saying, it is probably going to rain....so at least we are prepared for it, but will just suck big time. Won't get all the outdoor pictures and the ceremony will just lose the ambiance. Ok, can't even think about it now cause just makes me mad. Ugh

can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep!

I don't know what is wrong, but lately I have like 2 nights out of the week where I just can't sleep at all! I think it's cause I can't get my brain shut off, so I've been forcing myself to at least get up and do things and be productive. 2am and still wide awake tonight though! I did get up and get an email out to the wedding party with some details, made some signs for the bar at the wedding, made some smoking and no smoking signs for the reception balconies, and revised my programs. Also watched the Beautiful life (which was not good) and gossip girl. Today I got all the placecards made-- now mom is just double-checking them and alphabetizing. Got all the candy jars cleaned and candy in them-- now just need to put labels on them and that is done. Also, got the out of town gift bags complete. And got all pics scanned into the pc for the slideshow-- told Dustin that is now all in his hands to do. Phew! tomorrow will just be some minor wedding stuff and hopefully get 100% moved out of my condo so can be done with that then. Ok, you think this infommercial would put me to sleep...maybe I have a better chance of sleeping if I shut this laptop....laters

Honeymoon booked!

Nothing like waiting to the last minute! I had REALLY wanted St. Lucia and done TONS of research on it, but it was getting expensive to spend so much time there...so decided we should go back some other time when just doing a week vacation. Then we thought about Costa Rica...but then moved off of that. We went back to our original idea that we just wanted to go relax at an all-inclusive...and do a more sight-seeing type vacation another time. So we have never been to the Dominican Republic and I found a great, newer resort there....so that is what we decided on! It is the Iberostar Grand Bavaro and the reviews seem outstanding, so I can't wait!

Forecast good so far!

Well, the forecast currently has estimated high of 75 for Friday 9/25 and high of 78 for Saturday 9/26-- sunny both days and no rain!!!!!  Cross your fingers this can be the ONE time that the weather people will get it right!

Marriage License- check!

Picked up the marriage license at lunch today. Of course nothing is easy-- checked the internet and found dustin needed his passport since not a citizen and you can only pay in cash. So I walked home at lunch to get his passport....can't find it in its usual spot, finally remembered it was probably still in our bag from the canada trip! Found it! So I leave and am walking back to work to meet dustin-- realize I forgot the cash...so have to walk back. Get back home and the elevators are being cleaned so can only take the steps. By now it was almost noon (when I was supposed to meet him), so am looking for my cell to tell him to meet me at city hall instead. Realize I left my phone in the car from last night...so with no elevator have to run to basement to get the phone. Then get all the way to city hall with passports, drivers license, birth certificates, like our whole lives....and she wants our SS cards!!!! Those cards seem to be so useless and it seems if I have a passport and such, then surely I have a valid SSN! Luckily she was nice and just told us to write our SSNs on a piece of paper and she'd take that. Interesting. I found the info they ask and put on the certificate very interesting. Like why did they need to know how many years of education I have? Are they not going to let us get married if I don't have enough smarts? I don't know-- had to put our right arms up and swear we told the truth and then walked away $48 poorer with a certificate in hand! Now just can't lose it and have to bring it back signed!

Mail Service Sucks!

So a lot of people received our invites really quickly-- I was impressed when people got them like a day or 2 after we mailed them. However, we are just NOW getting ones returned to us in the mail where the address was wrong. Don't they look at it, realize it's wrong, and just send it back? What have they been doing with these invites for the last month?!?!?! Now it's 2 weeks before the wedding and we are finding this out. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I wish they'd just get rid of the mail and all post offices-- just seem more useless than anything. 99% of what they deliver is junk mail we don't need anyways. Ok, time to stop thinking about the annoying post office!

Engagement Photos...or not

I did want to do a blog update tonight with our ENGAGMENT PICS! But our internet connection is too slow and after 20 minutes I'm now giving up. Tomorrow AT&T comes to hopefully hook up some faster service....so maybe tomorrow I can get the pics up :( On a good note, invites went in the mail today (except a handful)! Woo-hoo!

Shower time!

One of the reasons I started this blog was to capture the whole wedding planning process and so I'd have something to look back at....but I've been too busy to even update this!!! I'm gonna have to post like 2x/day now to get caught up! Well the best thing that we've done lately is I had my shower last Sunday. It turned out awesome-- It was at Villa Marie Winery and of course we had one of the hottest days of the year, so it was too hot to sit outside. So the inside wasn't at scenic, but it worked. I got a lot of cool things that I'm excited to try out and start using now! I had been to a shower a few weeks ago that was mexican themed and they had these cute hand-painted margarita glasses for everyone....so I stole that idea and thought we could have hand-painted wine glasses for everyone! So crystal and I spent many hours the days before the wedding making all these glasses....and now I realize we never took any pictures of our hard work! Grrrrrrr! Here's a few pics though from the shower....wish I could rewind and do that all again instead of spending this Sunday trying to finish up the invitations!

Me, Missy (MOH & Sister), and Mom

Cute decorated wine bottles:

Me and BMs:

A few wedding things done

I think I'm finally getting used to being overwhelmed and probably just need to be used to it for the next 2 months! This week I've been to 3 different Michael's stores to buy paper for our invitations and finally just resulted to buying some really large pieces of it and then went to Artmart tonight and used their enormous paper cutter to make it the size I want. So, now tomorrow we can take our invite file and paper to the printer and get these invites going! I had my first dress fitting last night with the seamstress. On Monday I had bought some Spanx (underwear that goes from your chest to mid-thigh to streamline and control everything) since my weightloss is not going too well...and dustin has complained like every night this week that i can't possibly wear these and they are hideous. But the reviews are so good on them and says it can make you look like a size smaller, so thought they were worth a try. So I have them on with my dress and the seamstress tells me that I look larger in my dress than what I really am...just what you want to hear standing in THE dress! My goal is not to look larger! So she recommended not wearing the spanx cause she thought they were adding to me looking heavier, so it did look better once i took the Spanx off. So am I like the only person where the Spanx did the reverse?!?! Overall my dress fit really well and basically could wear it with no alterations (except adding the bussle). I was able to remove ONE to-do item from the fridge this week, but hopefully this weekend will be productive and I am really close to being able to remove some more items. Dustin has really stepped up and been doing a lot this week, so maybe my idea of having all these tasks on the fridge has worked so he is aware of all that is outstanding!

OVERWHELMED!

So my title of this post sums it all up in that one word! Of course work has picked up and I'm really busy the whole day there, then I come home and feel like I seriously have 500 wedding tasks I need to do. I made sticky notes of all the items that I could think of that we have to do and then put them on the refridgerator-- I figure that way we are constantly looking at them and dustin can easily see what needs to be done. They are arranged with the most urgent ones at the top down to the least important or ones that can wait. We'll then remove the stickys as we complete the item....so hopefully we have a clear fridge by the wedding! I actually felt a little better after doing this and didn't seem as bad as what I thought if you just do a few things each week, but some items are super big!

I leave tonight to go to chicago for a friends bachelorette party, so hopefully that will give me a little relaxation! I made some more undies and think they look real cute. If I ever lose my job I'll just iron-on bling for a living I think.

Engagement pics

Now that it looks like I'm able to upload pictures again, I gotta share some from our engagement shoot that our friend did! I can't wait to get them all back, but don't want her to rush cause she is busy with her own wedding on top of other things...don't know how people do all that! So like most things related to the wedding Dustin didn't really understand why we were doing these pictures or want to do them. I kept asking what he was going to wear on the day of it...I even bought him some new jeans but he didn't like because they were "too dark" (long live the stonewash for dustin!), so those gotta be returned. So I think Stephanie (our photographer) about died when she asked what we were going to wear for the 2nd outfit and dustin didn't know and was just going to pick something out spur of the moment. She and her fiancee had engagement pics a few weeks ago and said they went to the mall like 4 times to get their outfits. I swear dustin doesn't realize how lucky he is that I put up with his laid-back style! Like any normal person would have thought about what they were going to wear, made sure it was clean, made sure it was ironed, etc. But it all worked out for him just fine!

So we started out in dressier clothes and shot a bunch in the alley behind our building and then some just around our block and building. We then changed into more casual clothes and went over to the new city garden and just some other areas of downtown.

This one cracks me up cause I think she told us to each go sit at an end, so dustin plops down and crosses his arms like he's mad...so then that was the pose we did...then did some more lovey-dovey ones. As much as he didn't really want to do this, I think he really liked striking up poses!

This one I probably all screwed up, but I was playing around with the color on this one (and am too lazy to go pull the original one Stephanie did from the email)...but we love this shot and is on washington right in front of our building.

This was our casual outfit and we actually were done and just walking back to the car and realized there was no one on the street and she had the arch in the background, so snapped this!

Wedding Party Attire...for the moment

So I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all we have to do...and the lack of things dustin is crossing off his list. So tonight I went to Men's Wearhouse online and played around with some tux options and showed dustin and he knew right away what he liked and didn't like. So he picked this out all on his own out of the choices I gave him, but I really like it. Now we just need to go to MW to get things setup and see the fabrics in person and then hopefully this is completely off the list! Here is what it looks like the wedding party is wearing:

Jewelry ideas

So one of these weekends I want to take a stab at making some jewelry. I keep finding some really cool things on the internet for the wedding, but they are all handmade and people say it's not that hard to do. Here is the style of bracelet that I just love, but the problem is that my wrists seem really small so it's hard finding a brooch that isn't going to just take over my wrist!

I don't like this particular necklace, but something like this without the emerald and the brooch to match the one on the bracelet-- I like having it off-center...but of course I really need to just have some jewelry options and then see what looks best with the dress on.