Wedding Planning, Here I Come!

You may be asking yourself, Self, isn’t Jessica already married? Why would she be planning a wedding?

Well, I can answer that for you. :) I worked my first wedding as a coordinator this past weekend. This is M’s sister, the one whose wedding I helped with back in July. She asked for my help a few weeks ago and of course I said yes.

M’s sister got married at the Shrine of St. Joseph – one of the most BEAUTIFUL churches in the St. Louis area. It was absolutely gorgeous and the people running the Shrine are the nicest people to work with! I would love to work more weddings there, for so many reasons. If you’re looking for a venue, I would highly recommend it!

I mean, look at these pictures:

  

 

Those candle holders and decorations come with the rental if you want! Aren’t they pretty? :) 

After the excitement of the ceremony, I sent the bride and groom off with the limo and their bridal party to get pictures around the city and I headed to run some errands before the reception. It’s a good thing I got there early, because there are always so many details to attend to!

This picture was in the lobby of the Holiday Inn at Six Flags – such a beautiful hall to have a wedding reception! I don’t feel comfortable sharing any other pictures that show the bride up close, because of privacy issues, but I thought you all would enjoy that one…

And this one. :) Love those exposed beams and chandeliers in the Great Hall!

Now Husband and I are working on creating a business plan and incorporating and all that fun stuff that comes with a small business. We have a few ideas for names, but there’s a lot of research that has to happen before moving forward with those.

One of my favorite names (All in the Details) is apparently chosen by a mother/daughter team somewhere in another state. Plus the Secretary of State’s website indicates the name is already taken in our state. So that one’s out.

My latest favorite is Pixy Productions. Those that follow me on Twitter may recognize that first part of the name – Shortpixy has been my online handle since back in the AOL/AIM days. I think it would be a fitting tribute to use that as my company name, don’t you?

Husband has promised that he’ll help me work on the business paperwork soon and we’ll get things moving. It’s so exciting, because it’s actually happening! Yippee!

I don’t understand technology

I need help with my iPhone because I’m an idiot when it comes to technology.

I downloaded the new Facebook app and wanted to upload some pictures to the albums when I’m on the go, at events, and just around town. But it won’t let me!

I can upload pictures from the phone to the mobile album just not direct it to a specific album.

And then that leads to a whole separate question about how to go about uploaded pictures: should I create individual albums for various events and such and upload into them? If so, can you show me how?

Or, alternatively, should I just have one mobile album and just upload random pictures from my life?

Thoughts?

Am I totally overthinking this? Does anyone else sit down and really ponder how to work their social media networks like this? Am I just a weirdo?

Anyone there?

Bueller…?

I love getting things in the mail!

A few weeks ago, I decided I needed to make some personal business cards for the wedding coordinating side business that I’m starting up (more on that later this week). I have the ones for my day job but if I meet someone on the street in a personal capacity, I don’t want to give them one of those. I like to keep my personal stuff out of my business email. You never know who is reading those emails, after all!

I ordered some adorable business cards from V!sta Pr!nt. Love them, but they don’t need any help from me to promote their business. When they arrived, they were SO cute that they deserved a new business card holder. Let’s just say that Target and Office Depot did not have the cute factor in the business card holder area. It’s SO hard to find something cute like that.

That’s where Etsy comes in. My favorite place on the internet to just let my fingers do the walking. LOVE this place. I did a little search and came across the seller ocsellerscreations. The items they have in that shop are so adorable and I had to get this one because it matched my new blue and brown cards perfectly.

Isn’t it cute? The clasp keeps it closed in my purse.

 

There are two sides to it and it can hold up to 100 cards but not feel too big when closed.

This is also part of 101 in 1001 list, I’ve bought from another seller from Etsy! This is one of my favorite to dos on my list. :)

Images from ocstylescreations’  Etsy shop.

I’ve got the need… the need… to shop

I feel like every other post in my Google Reader is about fall clothes. What’s new this season, what’s on sale, what item that I don’t have and never knew I needed but know I HAVE to have it.

And I’ve got the itch.

You know the one… when you stand in front of your closet at 8:05 am and there is only so much time to clothe yourself because you have to be out the door and at the office by 8:30 am and your 20 minute commute just doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter no matter how hard you try. And the clothes are just NOT WORKING with each other.

And the itch to go shopping just comes and grows and doesn’t go away.

Husband gathered up a bunch of clothes that he wants to donate to Goodwill. I’m hoping I can take them to the good location south of our house sometime this week.

And maybe I’ll come home with some new things for me? I’m in serious need of more work pants. I have lots of shirts and sweaters and jackets but hardly any pants.

Does anyone else have that problem? How do you make the itch go away?

Source

Dallas/Fort Worth Weekend Wrap Up

A month ago, while looking down the calendar and seeing nothing but work related events staring back at me, I called up my mom and insisted she fly me down there to visit at some point in October. Unfortunately, we had to wait three weekends until we both had the time to see each other!

Ostensibly, the weekend was to clean out Dad’s closet. Some may say it’s too soon, some may say not enough time has passed, but honestly, there are no right answers in this situation. I thought we could get the process started and Mom was amenable to it.  So a mini-vacation it was!

So an early Friday flight it was… I had to stop by and get a classic hot cinnamon dolce latte with whip. YUM.

I’ve tried to take more pictures, but I don’t think the camera came out of it’s bag once. So my iPhone photos will have to suffice.

Husband hates having his photo taken, so that’s why I have to do it secretly! It’s beside the point that he reads this blog. :)

Apparently Sappho took a liking to him. Sappho didn’t do this one to me the entire weekend.

Remember the story of that cat that was hanging around Mom’s house? Well, she adopted him. Meet Sappho!

  

The other function of the trip was to organize the family photos. I had promised Dad that I would help him with this project over the summer and it never really happened.

I pulled out piles and piles of photos from the entirety of the family’s decades together…

 

It was kind of overwhelming. Mostly we spent Saturday going through piles and every few minutes passing one photo to the other with a giggle or a roll of the eye as to the location, chopping off of heads or possibly outfits.

We did finally find the stash from the infamous Florida trip in 1995 (I think that was the year). I was 12 (but looking at that photo, I’m wondering if I was younger than that…). And I can’t believe I’m showing you this photo, but it’s in the interest of Disney. :)

I also found photos of us in the Prime Time Cafe at the Studios. I had no idea I had ever eaten there! I’ll have to go back sometime and see if it brings back any memories. Mom said we had a lot of fun that day!

And the photo with Minnie? There are so many more baaaad paid for photos, as Ellen would say, but I’m not ready to show those yet. :)

In addition to the prints we found, I located the 50 odd hours of family movies. We were prolific back in the day! I’m hoping I can find a good company that will digitize both the video and the prints for a reasonable price. Because it will take forever to do any of it ourselves.

 

At the end of the weekend, photos were in boxes and organized according to categories and put back in the cabinets. We’ll pull them out in batches to label and then add to photo albums. It was SUCH a huge project it will require more trips in the future to finish. But at least we’re moving down the right path!