Hair-Do Redo

A few weeks ago, mom and I went in to get hair cuts and to practice with our hairdresser, Lori, for the wedding day.

I think I threw Lori off a bit when I asked that little fake flowers be interspersed with my hair, all the way down. It turns out, that's harder than it sounds.

The only solution she could come up with on the spot was gluing the flowers in and they could be cut out at the end of the day. Cut out? Yikes. I wasn't liking the sound of that. Lori assured me that she would talk with her colleagues and try to find a better way to attach the flowers.

I got a call from Lori last week, asking for another practice run. She had gotten several suggestions and was ready to try again with the flowers. I went in after work last night, and Lori played around a bit. She used thin, clear hair ties to attach the flowers, and also tried braiding them into my hair. There were also a few failed experiments, but I couldn't always tell what was going on back there, so I'm not sure what those were.

After much trial and error, I decided that I really liked just having some clusters of flowers stuck in around the "bun" / "ponytail" area where my hair will gather at the back. The first time I went in, we tried this, but the clusters were sticking up over the top of my head, and I thought that looked kinda silly. So, we went away from that look immediately.

After seeing them just stuck around the sides and the back, I liked it better than anything else we'd tried, and there will be no glue required! I'm so happy that Lori is working so hard to make my hair look natural and beautiful. Who knew the "natural look" would be so much work?

My Maid of Honor Returns!

Liz is back in Lincoln!

She flew in last night from Chicago. She just completed a semester studying in Italy and it's so nice to have her back home.

Even though she's been awake "since yesterday" (as she put it) she still wanted to go out with all those who met her at the airport for coffee. We went to Meadowlark, where she got a proper, American coffee drink (an Iced Caramel Macchiato), after months of non-flavored, strong espresso drinks from Italy. 

She tells me that if you order a Latte in Italy, they'll give you warm milk. In fact, almost anywhere you order milk in Italy it will be served warm, unless you specifically request cold milk! (That's one to remember if I ever decide to visit.)

She brought us souvenirs, something special for everyone. Andrew and I received a bottle of Spumante from a beautiful winery she visited. She also brought me a postcard from an art museum with a colorful bird design on a textile.

Perhaps my favorite treat she brought back are the chocolates. She brought some amazing, Hazelnut flavored chocolates (they look like large peanut butter cups wrapped in beautiful green foil) and the best dark chocolate shell candy with a smooth dark chocolate center (kinda like the Lindt truffles). They are to die for. Thank you so much, Liz!!

Now that she's back, I guess it's time that I put my Maid of Honor to work for the wedding!

Mint Madness

Well, Lynnette out did herself again! She created wedding mints in several shapes and many, many flavors for us to try. I think there were at least 15 different flavors...it was very difficult to choose just a few. She suggested picking as many flavors as we'd like, then choosing either a shape or color to represent each flavor.

We decided on: English Toffee, Almond, Amaretto and Peppermint.

Thank goodness I talked to Andrew about the mints for the wedding well before anyone started experimenting with flavors/recipes. She was planning to make the typical, cream cheese mints made with granulated sugar. (Not my favorite, but if it was a tradition for Andrew's family, I was happy to have them on the cake table.)

However, after talking with Andrew about it, he mentioned that he doesn't like that kind of mint. He remembers his mom making the candy mints (more like Andes mints) and that's what he though we'd have for the wedding all along. I was so happy to hear that, because I like that kind of mint much better, too!

I had no idea how many flavors are available for mint-making! It was like cake tasting all over again!

Sarabande Meeting

We had a meeting with Tim, the leader of Sarabande Jazz, last night. We thought we had pretty much every detail figured out, until we starting going over everything with Tim. He's willing to MC all evening (even though the band doesn't start up until 7:30 or so). This made us very happy, but it meant we had all kinds of new decisions to make.

We'll have him announce the wedding party, play during Heidi's breaks and announce the cake cutting and toasts. (Uncle Art might actually be able to enjoy the reception this way!)

He played some tunes for us (we always love that) and gave Andrew and I an MP3 of the music for our first dance song, so that we can practice dancing. He also gave Andrew a copy of the crazy fusion/techno mix he suggested we walk in to. I vetoed that one pretty quickly, but Andrew liked it a lot. It was definitely cool, very Andrew's style. It was way over the top, though. It doesn't go with anything else in the wedding at all. Sorry Andrew.

All in all, it was a pretty great meeting. Hearing some of Tim's ideas really got us excited about the reception. I think Sarabande is going to make the reception unforgettable.