WEDDING WEDNESDAY

Well folks...  SIGH... its Wednesday after all.

I'm counting down to our camping trip so don't ya know this week is creeeeeping by.

Ah the wedding-ness.  This has been a fairly uneventful week thus far. I have a consultation with my 6/12/10 bride tomorrow morning bright and early.  We've got approximately two weeks until her wedding and with a holiday weekend this week I'm starting to stress.  To be honest, her schedule has not quite allowed for the planning I would like and I'm tempted to pull back.  Of course I will help in any way I can but I'm doing this one free of charge and I've hoped to avoid getting the point that we're.... well.... getting at.  Under normal circumstances I'm extremely flexible and can pull things together.  But with the extreme circumstances surrounding this one I NEED some bride participation!!!!!!!

THEN tomorrow at noon I'm going to the elected reception venue for my 6/18/11 bride so we can show the groom and mothers.  I'm very excited and know that once everyone sees the facility we will have the green light to move forward.  YAY!!!   I CAN'T wait to start showing you guys the deets.

Aside from that..... how about that American Idol (shoot dang I just came out of my Idol closet)...

Back to the wedding-ness.  I wish I had more to entertain this week but sorry yall - its been an insane week thus far and I had quite a to-do list today.  In closing, I'm curious, tell me about YOUR wedding day.  What was the most memorable moment (aside from the obvious I-Dos)?  Was there anything you'd have done different?  Would you do it all over again?  Night loves!

SECRET SUNDAY...

I did not forget about GARAGE SALE SATURDAY yesterday... I just didn't Garage Sale is all.  I had a million bajillion things to do and couldn't even fathom the idea of taking 10 minutes to poke around a sale.

I spent my Saturday accompanying one of the bride's I am working with to a couple of reception venues.  I'm so happy to say that they decided on my favorite and its an absolutely BEAUTIFUL country club type setting with a stunning staircase that the bridal party will come down when they are announced.  The grounds are fantastic.  There's a rooftop tent where the ceremony/outdoor cocktail hour will take place and I absolutely CANNOT wait.  (ok ok I'll stop... this is turning into a WEDDING WEDNESDAY post).  More about that later...

Then I paused at home long enough to catch my breath and went down to help out my mom.  For those who do not know she has Transverse Myelitis.  It is a rare condition with a very sudden onset that causes paralysis due to nerve damage in the spine.  My dad went on a golfing trip this weekend leaving her alone and to fend for herself which isn't the world's most brilliant idea.  Granted, her condition has significantly improved since its onset in November of last year, but she is very unbalanced and still needs help getting certain things done.  So off I went to mop her floor, do the dishes and do some little errands.

Today I met a good friend at the Farmer's Market in a small town nearby and I was pretty disappointed.  No fruits/veggies yet - mostly flowers.  Sidenote:  Yours truly is NOT the most domestic and the thought of being on my knees for MANY reasons, but especially to plant anything, does not appeal. 

I then went on a little crusade to find a new pair of jeans since my last pair are pretty much useless.  I went to Old Navy and Fashion Bug first since they typically have my size and are more convenient.  Not today.  Nope.  After getting in and out of the 85 degree heat and being approached by a scary thuggish guy in the parking lot who I'm sure wanted to cause me bodily harm, still no frick frackin' jeans.

So I was going to make a trip over to the mall and quickly decided against it when I realized it would quickly turn into a 2 hour hunt and quite frankly, I had better shit to do.  So I'm down to a pair of white capris, black capris and black pants.  No jeans.  Sumbitch.

I then came home and spent 2 hours trying to get re-motivated since I had a huge to-do list for today and had yet to cross anything off of it.  At my request the hubby brought all the totes we take camping into the house so I could get everything washed and ready for next weekend.  That alone took forever.  I JUST picked up the house at 10 o'clock at night.  How does the weekend go by so fast? 

Just a few more things to try and knock out before sleepy time and the rest will have to wait until tomorrow after work.  Tuesday I'm working then taking mom to an appt.  Wednesday I'm going to try and focus on WEDDING stuff.  Thursday I'm working, going to book the reception venue with the bride and coming home to load up for our camping trip.  Then Friday its "Adios SeNorItAs!!!"  Off for a 3 1/2 day weekend.  I will try and post on Wednesday but thats going to be about it.  Next week's SECRET SUNDAY will have to be posted when I get back on Monday unless we venture away from the campground long enough for me to have a signal and connect with you lovelies for a minute.

So... now that you have a rundown of my week and can all sleep soundly... we will part after checking out today's Secret.  Enjoy!

Why did I pick this one?  Three reasons:

One, I've wanted to ask this of a few people in my life.  But haven't because I don't want to acknowledge it or am afraid to hear the truth. 

And two, I've felt like asking this of myself a few times in my life but haven't for the same reason.  

Three, and most recently, I've wanted to ask it of a high school fling who recently contacted me wanting to meet up for all the wrong reasons.  He is married with two children and one on the way.  I wonder how many women he's tried to do this with and the thought of his wife so innocent and carrying his children makes me physically ill. 

WEDDING.... THURSDAY?

So sue me.  I flaked out on my Wedding Wednesday post yesterday because I decided to meet a girlfriend for din-din and ended up in a gab-a-thon until 10 o'clock last night.  I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive...

So my life has been consumed by a great many things lately but getting the wedding planning business pulled together and ready for launch is one of the few that I can handle.  It has felt SO good to be involved with something I absolutely love again. 

Before we proceed I googled "disaster wedding" and this is what I found.  Enjoy.

Today I would like to share with you my recent experience with one of the bride's I'm working with.  If you have room for one more prayer tonight please I beg you, pray for this wedding.  Let's list, shall we?

1)  Said wedding is taking place June 12th of this year.  Thats 23 days.... count em.

2)  The invitations JUST went out last weekend.  For real.  (DISCLAIMER - It was a day after the invites were mailed out that I was pulled in on this wedding.  Rest assured that had I been at the helm all along this would've been one fine tuned little piece of wedded mastery).

3) The DJ DOUBLE BOOKED himself and basically bid them farewell without so much as a "I suck at life."

4) Replacement DJ found.

5) The bride has invited over THREE HUNDRED people to this wedding.  When asked if she was constructing a seating chart she said "no."  I know these are a pain but no seating chart is every wedding coordinator's worst nightmare.  Believe it or not, people WANT to be told where to go.  It negates the whole awkward-ness of sitting too close to the "family" area, winding up with sucky tablemates, etc.

6) When asked why no seating chart she says, "Because there's so much family drama that I can't keep track of who hates each other week to week."  Holy.  Sweet.  Lord.  Almighty.

7) Who's preparing the food?  Family.  Non-professionally trained family.  Family that hates each other constructing a pasta bar.  Let the noodle slinging begin.

8) Last week she finds out that the aunt who was supposed to do the majority of the cooking has decided to go on vacation and will not be here to cook the food.  Man down.

9) Replacement caterer found.

10) The wedding is less than a month away and Miranda is terrified.  It takes a lot to ruffle my feathers but the brides complacency over all of this makes me shake in my flip flops. 

So say a little prayer to the wedding Gods and I'll keep you posted.  Stay cool.  - Just felt like kickin it yearbook style :)  Night all!

SECRET SUNDAY

Well everyone, this is going to be a rather short post.  I'm in a crappy place in my head today and pretty much am not in the right mindset to whip up my usual banter.  Not to mention the fact that I'm exhausted.  After a busy Friday, a long day of hitting up garage sales yesterday followed by drinks/dinner with friends, the husband and I spent the day at my parent's house doing some random things around the house for my mom. 

However...  At some point I hopped onto Postsecret and checked out today's posts.  I'll explain a little later in a much more thought out and dark post the reasoning behind it - but this is the one that spoke to me today.  In short, my life has felt like a big cloud is blocking out the sun these days and I'm struggling.  Like I said, one day when I can wrap into a neat little package I'll lay it out for you guys.  Until then...

**Sigh....**  On that note, I've got some preliminary wedding plans to work on before I attempt to catch some zzz's.  Night all!

GARAGE SALE SATURDAY WITH A VENGEANCE!

Hola!

Let me preface this post by telling you that today's garage sale experience was a rare one.  One where we met some totally great garage sale hosts AND the finds were spectacular-ish. 

So after a quick glance through the Garage Sale postings on Craigslist my eyes fall on these words:

"MAN'S GARAGE SALE" - To be clear - this equals my gateway drug for getting the hubby to accompany me on yet another treasure hunt.  This WAS quite possibly the garage sale from what my husband would consider heaven.  Two words:  Dirtbike stuff. 

So we mapquest the location and head to Destination Dirtbike.  We get there and the guy having the sale is quite possibly one of the coolest guys we've ever met.  He buys and resells repossessed dirtbikes and also has a huge selection of brand new dirtbike supplies/apparel.  AND he's hilarious.  Needless to say hubmeister bought a tail light thing for his bike and some pipe thing for his friends bike.  Both were new with price tags so I can confidently say that we got $110 worth of stuff for $45.  What?!

Ok enough about HIS finds.  On to me because, well, I'm cooler.

So we moved on to a garage sale held by two of the nicest gay guys I've ever met.  .  You could totally tell that these guys host some sweet parties and probably have some equally sweet friends.  They had SO much awesome barware that they have apparently received as gifts.  I even shared with them that I'd be writing about my finds on my blog and thanked them for helping me out.  This is what I found:

Totally sweet long stem champage glasses.  THESE suckers are having a coming out party for sure! 

SO EXCITED!

THEN because I'm awesome they gave me all of these nice glass candle holders for nada.  Sidenote: The two silver ones in the front have little stars etched in the silver so the light shines through them - totally perfect for Christmas.

We checked out approximately 2.7 million garage sales between a couple different subdivisions.  We even witnessed some garage sale/subdivision road rage.  Quick reenactment:

Scene:  Cars lining narrow street

Scene:  Man driving down street

Scene:  Lady driving towards man cannot get through

Man:  Sheepishly looks at lady

Lady:  Waits until they're right next to each other to roll down her window and casually says "Asshole" as she proceeds about her business

Now I am not one to buy clothes from a garage sale.   I think of a lot of dirty reasons why that is not a good idea.  But I happened to come across a couple cute shirts and decided what the hell.  At least if I can't get beyond my preconceived thoughts of dirty-ness, I can just take them to the thrift store since I'm only paying like 75 cents apiece.  Do enjoy...

This says "Staring won't get you anywhere."  I had to reassure the hub that this did not pertain to him because hey, after putting up with treasure hunting for almost FIVE HOURS... who I am to deny?

Then at some point I came across these little guys to add to my Halloween collection because I LOVE me some October 31st!

And then...  gotta add to the DVD collection since, ya know, I have time for that crap. 

(INSERT SARCASM)

And th-th-th-th-th-th-th-thats all folks!  Aside from the hub's dirtbike purchases, I got all of it for a solid $26.  Mission. Accomplished.

I hope you all are having a great weekend.  Its definitely nice to have some sunshine around these parts since its been nothing but rain, storms and wind this past week.  Get out and enjoy it!  Later lovers!

WEDDING WEDNESDAY!!!

Okay ladies and ladies... I REMEMBERED my own creation!  Wedding Wednesday!!

So I spent an entire evening last week developing a master spreadsheet to keep each wedding organized.  I thought of EVERYTHING I swear.  But it felt great knowing that I've got a good handle on them and that with a tool like that I'd be able to keep my life together.

Side story:  The other night my 10-year old nephew calls and asks me if I wouldn't mind going online and checking out his website.  Ummm... come again?  What the?  So if you go to http://www.omazingshirtz.webs.com/ you'll see his clever little creation.  I'm so proud of him.  He was talking like such a little man about all the "business ideas" him and his friends have.

So this got my wheels a turnin.  I decided to check out the site where they were made their free website and figured I'd give it a go and make one for my wedding planning services. I've been wanting to get this off the ground for so long.  Because its free, the design options aren't the greatest but I figured I'd at least pour some ideas out and use it as a springboard for a future site that will really encompass what I want the business to look like.

Wellll... its basically a hot mess hunk of junk that I threw together in approximately an hour.  And I'm even a bit ashamed to share but ya know what?  You've been warned, I know its a mess and not pretty yet... so go ahead and check it out.  I want to have your input on things it needs whether its design, content, etc. And if you know any web designers who want to help create a "real" website for me on the cheap please do tell.

Ok....(bites finger nails)... Here you go....  Check out Pink Productions baby!  (FYI this is the name I came up with at random.  I'm totally up for suggestions here too!)

Night lovelies!

I DO

Ok... so here's the honest truth (and yes that's Dennis and I on August 12th, 2007):

I am a self-proclaimed Wedding L-O-V-E-R.

Of course like every girl I've dreamed of my wedding since approximately 37 seconds before I was catapulted out of the womb and into the hands of all who had the honor of witnessing my arrival into this world.

Then I came thisclose to making the mistake of marrying my highschool boyfriend.  As I've said before, I was WAY more excited about the wedding planning than I ever could've been about the prospect of being married to my then fiance. 

We visited a wedding planner (because I thought I was a rockstar and deserved the celebrity treatment...silly, silly TV) and I was hooked.  First of all, the planner's name was Melanie and I adored her from our first consultation.  She ended up being like a big sister I never had and who I totally looked up to. (I was blessed with two brothers complete with being farted on and being told I was adopted...)

We were at approximately our third consultation when we got talking and she asked if I knew anyone looking for a part-time job who might be able to help her out.  Ummm.....  HELLO.  My name is MIRANDA.  I want to be your LADY.  And so it began....

I loved every minute of it.  After the wedding was called off and I skipped town I completely lost touch with her.  I've psych-stalker Googled her many times to no avail.  But I didn't lose touch with the feeling I had when planning a wedding.  Some brides become totally overwhelmed by the planning and avoidable chaos that surrounds a wedding but I absolutely love it. 

I've since worked as an event coordinator at an absolutely stunning venue and loved it still.  I never tired of fluffing the brides dress and being with her in that moment of nerves right before she walked down the aisle.  I never tired of the look on the grooms face when he sees his bride for the first time or when you see the bridesmaids sneaking each other tissues during the ceremony. 

And I've even planned my own wedding in two insane weeks under some very extreme circumstances.  (That's a WHOLE other story... to check it out click HERE).

Last year I had a sudden change of career and have missed the wedding planning business beyond belief.  But guess what?!  In one way or another I'm currently a part of FIVE weddings.  If I had a Happy Dance you can bet I'd be up off my seat right now. 

Wedding #1 - A girl I know from work is getting married this June 12th.  Due to some wedding drama she came to me last week asking for my (ahem!) professional help - ha!  So I'm stepping in to help her get her life together in this last month and will likely be there the day of to make sure she finally gets to enjoy the fact that she's getting married. 

Wedding #2 - My brother-in-law is getting married this September. The hubby and I are both standing in the wedding and I am beyond ecstatic at the thought of walking down the aisle with him again.  We never had the big reception so this should be epic all around.   Plus my dress is stunning (if only I were worthy :)

Wedding #3 - Our friends from Montana are getting married in Vegas next May.  The groom is a friend of mine from college and his fiance is an absolute doll.  She has totally let me be her wedding guru and I love it. 

Wedding #4 - My boss' son is getting married next June.  After 7 years and 2 kids they've finally decided to set a date and his wife-to-be has asked for my help.  There is nothing better than someone trusting you with something you love.  We've already been discussing preliminary plans and I think its going to be an amazing wedding.

Wedding #5 - My former coworker and friend is getting married next July.  They are getting married at the venue I used to work at and the very same place my husband and I were married.  (Downfall - seeing my old boss who I did not give a two weeks notice to but rather left a note on her desk with my key.  Solid.)  But they've got phenomenal taste so it will inevitably be a beautiful affair and being a bridesmaid I'll get to be on the front line of all of the planning and festivities. 

So there you have it.  The next year is going to be wedding overload and I couldn't be happier with that.  My hope is to take some photos from all of them and be able to build a good portfolio so this girl can kiss "normal" work goodbye and have my own event planning business.  So in honor of all the wedding jazz, I'm loosely dubbing Wednesday posts "Wedding Wednesdays."  (ok kinda lame - any thoughts for a way cooler name?)  I'll share some of the plans as they're coming together, photos of plans, etc.  I might even ask for your advice so strap on your creative cap and lets DO THIS!