Weddingish things

Less than two weeks until the wedding! So I thought it was high time I share some details with you.

I'm feeling good about everything. Not too stressed. Just enough relaxed. Most things on the "to do" list are minor at this point, with the exception of a couple of small projects involving embroidery.

The only things I'm annoyed about are the huge zit on my chin, the cut I just gave myself on one of the knuckles on my left hand earlier today, and the two scars I've managed to give myself on my left hand/wrist over the last few weeks. For the record one was from some small cut I got at the airport coming back from New Mexico, and the other was a minor incident with a cast iron skillet last week. All three (zit excepting, of course) are on the hand that will likely be the center of some wedding ring photos. Geez!

This past weekend we finalized our wedding site. Yes, that probably sounds funny to you since the wedding is next Friday. But we're doing a guerrilla wedding. And as such, I'm not actually going to tell you the location until after the fact (not that most of you would know where it was anyway!). Fear not—we're not trespassing or going anywhere we shouldn't. It will be held on public land in a lovely location in Chicago. So lovely, in fact, that we saw a deer when we went to walk around the site this past Saturday. Actually we saw another one but I didn't have the camera ready for the second deer. We definitely considered this guy a good sign.

We have our outfits set. I won't share all the details, but here are a few glimpses. It shall be a fairly vintage wedding, not surprisingly.

A bit of Mel's hand-painted vintage tie...

The label of my vintage dress...

It's a rather casual dress, but I love it. Judging from the style and A-line skirt, I'm guessing it's probably WWII-era. The colors are so rich and vibrant! I didn't actually buy it thinking of it as a wedding dress, it was a dress that sidetracked me on Etsy while I was looking for wedding dresses. But once I saw it in person I fell in love and decided it was The Dress. Here's one more little detail, part of the collar...

I'll be wearing several pieces of jewelry. The only thing that won't be my engagement ring/wedding ring or family jewelry is this celluloid bracelet. The picture is a bit fuzzy but I thought it was funny that Dinah traipsed through the shot...

The other pieces of jewelry will be family pieces, some of the very few I have. My "something borrowed" will be my mom's pearl necklace. My "something old" (other than the vintage clothes, lol) will be a ring of my grandmother on my dad's side, and a vintage brooch and clip on earring set of my grandmother on my mom's side. Here's a photo of the brooch...

My "something new" will be vintage-inspired underthings that need not be mentioned. ;) And my "something blue" will be a handkerchief my mom is supplying that was my great-grandmother's! Pink with blue flowers, which I'll tuck into the self-belt on my dress. Here's the photo my mom sent me of it when she was on the hunt for blue, isn't it so pretty and delicate?

Speaking of my mom, she knit me a wonderful wedding shawl in less than a week! It all started with an idea, and a coincidence, and then a discussion via email about who was going to knit it, her or I, which resulted in her saying, "Let me rephrase this. Your mom would love to knit this for you." Doesn't that just tickle you? So off in the mail to her went the yummy silk-blend yarn that had been in my stash just waiting for the perfect project. It's the palest, palest yellow, almost white. And she's already finished it! Here's her photo of it blocking:

It's a lovely wee little shawlette. The pattern is called Buttercup (Ravelry link). I can't wait to see it in person. Doesn't it look gorgeous? Light and airy and perfect.

Speaking of wedding crafts, I have only one on my plate. I'm embroidering vintage handkerchiefs for both Mel and I for the wedding. Mine will actually be used as part of our ring bearer pillow that our nieces will be sharing duty of, but I won't explain how I'm creating that until after the wedding (partially because the details aren't completely decided upon!). But I will show you just a smidge of my handkerchief...

I actually have never embroidered lettering before, so I did a practice run on a piece of muslin in preparation, after reading this series of tutorials at Needle n' Thread. I used split stitch (which I discovered I'd been doing wrong!), and practiced making the back of my work look decent. More decent than I'd ever bothered to do for embroidering on kitchen towels, anyhow, since I figured a wedding hankie would have a bit more longevity!

Here's a sample of my test stitching...

I also learned how to embroider without creating knots (starting it with a waste knot and ending it by pulling it through), something I didn't read about until after I'd worked the letters shown in this photo...

So there you have it, my pre-wedding round-up. I can't wait to share more details after the weekend festivities are complete! Things kick off next Friday with the ceremony and dinner afterward, and our first party the next day. Please understand if you don't hear much from me between now and next weekend. The "to do" list isn't that long, but I'm sure I'll soon find many things that are missing from it! ;)