A Rock Hugger Dress

No, not THAT dress!  For those of you that have not heard yet, I am wearing Momma Rocks wedding dress on the big day.  It is the in the process of being altered to fit my 3” taller frame, and to convert it to s strapless dress…BUT, the alterations are almost done!  (I am so excited – it looks awesome!!)

But enough about that dress.  I am talking about my “Sunday Brunch” dress!  Mr. Rock's mom (i.e. “Chicago Rockette”)  was kind enough to buy me not one, but several very nice dresses in January.   One of those dresses I wore to the Chicago Shower (and received many compliments on it!!).  I am planning on wearing another new dress to the “morning after brunch”:

(Again, sorry for the yellow tint of the photo!)

I call this the “Sexy in the City” dress, because I look like an actual, for-reazy grown-up in this dress.  So, when you stumble downstairs and out the back door of the hotel for breakfast on Sunday morning (Mr. Rocks and I will be there from 9AM – 1PM), we will be waiting for you in a pretty spiffy dress!

(Oh – and the real bonus here – the dress fit me in January, but now it is TOO BIG!!  I will have to get it taken in on the top so it can fit me properly!  These are the kinda wardrobe issues I like!!)   

The Family Tree

So, one item I worked on (annnd completed) over the past few days was the "family tree" for the wedding reception.

(Sorry for the yellow tone of the photo!)

This involved finding a nice "y-shaped" tree branch, which I coated with, like, 1 million coats of clear spray paint.  Then I stained the base (using the leftover golden oak stain we had in the garage).  Then I found 7 little picture frames from Michaels (yay coupons!).  All that was left was finding (and scanning) pics of our parents and grandparents.  I don't want to post the pics I am using in the tree (you need to come to the wedding to see those!!), but here are a few pics that I really liked, but did not make it into the final cut:

 This is Mr. Rock's mom's parents: "Big D and Ciro."  I really liked this pic, but it was oriented the wrong way for the tree.

These are my parents.  I really like this one - for the color in the window and the way my parents are looking at each other.  I really hope that Mr. Rocks and I can take a pic like this on our wedding day.  However, it did not make the cut since the photo is a little off center (Papa Rocks is a bit cut off).

Our "Guestbook"

So, Mr. Rocks and I did not want a "traditional" guestbook at the wedding - we would rather have something that our guests "sign" for us to display.  So, we are having a "fingerprint tree" instead!  Our guests will "leaf" their fingerprint on our tree and sign their name, and then we can display the tree at home.

This was relatively easy to make.  I found a blank template here, which I downloaded and personalized with our names and our wedding colors (blue and orange birds).  Then we just had to print it out, get a nifty frame, some inkpads, and some nice pens.

We also made a "sign" for our wedding tree, so that our guests know why there is a bare tree at the wedding:

All I need to get is some baby wipes (so our guests don't have green fingers!) and a small trash basket for said baby wipes, and I will be done with this project.  I can't wait to see it filled with leaves!!
(All photos are by me.)

Dressing the dudes.....

So, the "2-month to go" mark passed a few days ago (yaayyy!  Oh....wait...holy-crap-I-still-have-so-much-else-to-do!!!)  I am in the middle of several projects, and once they are done, hopefully I WILL post about them!

But for now, let us take a gander at what the men of the wedding party will be wearing.  First - some background.  Mr. Rocks is not a tux guy. At. All.  He is most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt.  While I think a t-shirt is just a bit too casual, I definitely wanted my man to be comfortable as he is standing in front of ~ 100 people telling the world he is going to marry me.  So he and I talked about it, and went through some of our options.....
Option 1:  Obnoxious hawaiian shirt

(Image from Collectorsweekly.com)

Hmmm....could work.

Option 2: Pirate costume

(Image from Go4costumes.com)

This one goes against Rule #1 - no pirates at my wedding!  (No plundering of booty!)

Option 3: Cuban shirts!  Winner!

(Image from Pennersinc.com)

Since there is a strong Cuban presence in Miami and the Keys, we though the shirts were appropriate.  They look nice, are a bit unique, and will be comfortable in the FL heat.  We will pair Mr. Rock's shirt with a pair of light khakis.

For the grooms:

(Image from Pennersinc.com)

We will pair this with a blue pocket square that matches the BM dresses (they will also be carrying orange and yellow bouquets).  And khakis.

And for the dads:

(Image from Pennersinc.com)

We will be giving our dads a boutonniere to match the Mom's dresses (I hope).

And to top it all off, all the guys will be wearing a panama hat (cuz we need to keep those shiny domes covered!!)

"Terror 1 and Terror 2" (aka the Ring Boyz - which, by the way, sounds so much more legit than Ring Bearers) will be in white linen shirts with khankis. (sorry - no pic!)  I am hoping that they can withstand running in the water for just a few minutes so we can get pics of them before they get wet.  (Which they will....and I'll probably encourage it - sorry MOH Momma!!)

So, what do you think?

The centerpieces

So, one of the things that I finished over spring break was the centerpieces!  When looking for centerpieces, I knew I did not want a tall centerpiece.  I also did not want fresh flowers.  I was looking for something organic and low profile that complemented our wedding colors.  Something that I could make would be a bonus, too.

Luckily, Dad Rocks cut down part of a tree in our backyard (yay for crazy wind storms!).  When he cut down the tree (and I helped!!), there was a large branch on the tree.  He cut the branch into discs, which are now the base of my centerpieces.   Also, luckily, both my mom and Mr. Rocks mom like to make red sauce which requires lots and lots of tiny cans of tomato paste.

(Image from meijer.com)

So, after cleaning, punching, and painting the tomato paste cans, I sanded and epoxied the tree discs.  Add a cute tiny vase (thanks Momma Rocks!) and a pretty purple flower (thanks for helping me get these MOH Momma and "RB2" (ring bearer 2 - aka "The TERROR")) and a few candles, and voila!  Our centerpieces:

Whats in a name?

This is a tricky post for me to write - mainly because I am unsure of what to do....its about my (our) last name(s) after June 2.

(Image from slickdeals.net)

Way back in the day (I think it was a Tuesday), Mr. Rocks and I talked about changing my/our name after the wedding.  We came to the agreement that we would both legally change our last names by combining them (so we would both have a last name of "JonesSmith").  This seemed like a really good idea to me - it truly represented the joining of two people, and we could both continue to use our "pre-marriage" names in our professional lives.  (i.e. if I went to a conference as "Dr. Jones" but my drivers license said "Dr. JonesSmith," I should not have any problems.)  I thought this was settled and we were both happy with the plan.

I was wrong.  :(  Late one night in January, Mr. Rocks said to me, rather sleepily, "Ya know, there is a part of me that just wants you to be "Dr/Mrs Smith" after the wedding.  It was late, we were both tired, so I just made some kind of non-committal sound and we went to sleep.  He did not mention it again, and a few weeks went by.  This whole, time, his comment was weighing on my mind.  I finally brought it up to him (during daylight hours, when we could actually talk about it).

Now, this is why Mr. Rocks is so amazing.  He basically said he wanted me to be happy with whatever name changes we did.  Bottom line - that was what was important to him.  After some more prodding, he did say that yes - he always imagined when he got married his wife would take his last name.  And honestly, I want to make him happy.  I want this to be a decision that we are both happy with.

But I don't know what to do.  The way I see it, I have a few options:
1) I alone could hyphenate my last name and be "Dr. Jones" professionally and "Mrs. Smith" in my personal life.  I really, really, really dislike this idea.  I want my last name to be the same as Mr. Rocks last name.
2) I could just take "Smith" as my last name - personally and professionally.  Really, I am just starting out in my career....I'm would not be the only woman who changed her last name in academia....so it would not be so terrible.  However - I am the only one in my family with a PhD.  I am very proud to be the only "Dr. Jones" and I am not sure I am ready to give that up. 
3) We could go back to "plan A." But then again, I want to make sure Mr. Rocks is happy with the plan too.
4)  We could just totally combine out last names into a whole new last name: "Slymer"  Honestly, there is a part of me that really likes this idea.  But then again, my last name would be "Slymer"

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?  I am still very unsure of what to do!

Guess what came in the mail today?

I'll give you a hint - its small and circular and rhymes with "bing"!  Yep - Mr. Rocks ring arrived today!

(Image from JVL Jewelry)

Yay - now we both have our rings! 

If you remember, I found my ring (i.e. the most awesomest ring in the world) a few months ago.  However, my ring was waaaay out of our budget range.  So, with the help of layaway and some finagling of our monthly budget, I was able to pay it off, bit by bit.  I made the last payment over spring break (in early March) and now we own it :).  (And check this - when I put my first payment on the ring, it was a bit too tight for me.  "No worries" the jewelry folk told me - it would be easy to resize.  However, since that time, I have lost a little bit of weight, and when I stopped in to pick it up, it fit perfectly!  Yay!) 

But we still did not have Mr. Rocks' ring.  And that was proving to be a bit tricky.  See, Mr. Rocks does not wear any jewelry, and he was not sure he was into wearing a wedding ring.  I understand that, and I certainly don't want my future hubs to be wearing something every day that makes him uncomfortable.  But I always imagined my husband wearing a wedding ring.  So I asked him it he would try wearing his wedding band for at least a few months...and if it felt too weird, then at least he gave it the "ole Harvard try".  But, because Mr. Rocks wedding ring might end up sitting in my jewelry box most of the time (I hope not, but who knows?), we really did not want to bust the budget again on his ring.   But we wanted something that looked good and was not cheap (I offered to give him a ring pop, but for some reason, he said no :).

Luckily, we found a really nice tungsten ring! (The tungsten rings are the ones that will break rather than bend in case Mr. Rocks gets his hand stuck somewhere - this is better than the other rings, which could bend and cut off circulation to his finger.  And if you know Mr. Rocks, you understand why we are concerned about this!)

So we ordered it, it fit :) ......and now....for your viewing pleasure...your only shot to see these two beauties together before June 2:

(Photo by me)

And now they go back in the box till the wedding :).