DIY Calligraphy

So in an attempt to DIY as much as possible (white wanting everything to look as professional as possible), I've decided to do my own calligraphy. DIY'ing was important to me, because I want as many of our own touches as possible. I want to be able to walk away knowing that my blood, sweat, and tears were in as many of the details of the wedding as possible. And I really like the idea of addressing each one of my guests personally (ok, if I had a bigger guest list maybe I wouldn't feel that way, haha!). 

I decided to start with a simple calligraphy kit that I got from Michael's so I could learn all the letters, and work on some different scripts. I may or may not end up using a dip pen (the one I have has a cartridge), just because I don't know how much extra work I'll want to put into the calligraphy once it's time to actually do it :) So for now I'm just practicing.

Here are some of my practice sheets:



And just for fun (these are not anyone's names, their names I jokingly call my fiance):

I found my DRESS

After going to the bridal show in Raleigh this past weekend, my mom and I decided to make an appointment at A Bridal World (we were thinking just to get some ideas of fits that looked good on me), and at Victorian Rose (we talked to one of the ladies in their booth, and she couldn't have been more helpful or more nice!), both in Raleigh.

I tried on about 5 or 6 dresses at a Bridal World, and their dresses are very reasonably priced, and they had plenty of larger sizes to try on (we aren't all a size 4 or 6 - which is the size of sample wedding dresses. The one dress the consultant recommended, I never would have tried on, but it look really amazing on my body (which is hard - I have wide hips for my body and I'm short - only 5 feet tall, so finding a dress that compliments either feature is hard). I had them hold it while I thought about it (they sell off the rack), and decided to go ahead and go to my appointment the next day at Victorian Rose. The dress looked really good on me, but it didn't have any of the design elements I had envisioned.

They were so incredibly sweet and helpful at Victorian Rose even though pretty much all the dresses were size 10 (aka size 6). I ended up finding my dress there. There was never any pressure; they asked me what I was thinking for bridesmaids, I told them I wasn't sure yet, and there was again, no pressure to start searching there.

So my contract is signed, and my deposit is down. I can't believe I found my dress yesterday! Now, on to the shoes...