Sing a Song of Sixpence

Usually I don't get excited when opening mail. Mr. Goodlaff comes home, sorts out the mail ("Miss Goodlaff, Mr. Goodlaff, Miss Goodlaff, Mr. Goodlaff"), and then I open and toss into the burn pile the credit card offers, grudgingly file the bills, and go on my merry little way.  But today was different! Today's mail contained a card from Granny Goodlaff in Florida. 

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little confused by the appearance of a card in our mailbox.  I went through a mental list of holdiays, birthdays, and events, trying to figure our the reason for the card, and none of them being even remotely close to occuring, I gave up figuring out why the card was there and just opened it.

Inside was a sweet note and an envelope with two small tokens:  

Sixpence!  Sixpence for my shoe!  I was pretty blown away by these two little coins; I mean, how cool is that sixpence from 1957? Plus, I'm now able to cross another item off of my bridal bingo list (still looking for old and borrowed).  I'm going to find a way to wear both of them in my shoes on our wedding day.  Granny Goodlaff suggested that the small one may be more comfortable, but if one sixpence is good, then two is better, right?

So. Cool.

These coins totally made my day, and I love that Granny Goodlaff is keeping in touch and staying involved all the way from Florida.

Did you have any awesome surprise gifts leading up to your wedding?

Inspiration of E-pic Proportions

Okay, I know, I know.  Mr. Goodlaff and I were supposed to have our engagement pictures taken a while ago.  With under 100 days to go before the wedding, I admit, we are probably cutting it close.  BM Cosmo was teasing me last week that if we wait any longer to take our pictures, we will have to take them after the wedding. Ha. Ha. Very funny.

The road to engagement pictures was paved with good intentions.  The Goodlaffs planned on taking pictures in the Fall.  I love Fall--it's my favorite season, and I wanted nothing more than to have beautiful bold red, orange, and yellow leaves feature prominently in our photos.

So Pretty...

But, alas, it was not to be.  I work in elections.  We had an election in the fall.  There was no time for engagement pictures.  Boo.



After Fall came Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and before you knew it, we were rolling in to January.  Finally we set a date, and though it's dangerously close to being February, we are squeaking it in to the first month of this year. So, now that the date is set, how about a little bit of Engagement Session Inspiration?

Warning, lots of pictures ahead!

Everything's Coming Up Ranunculus

I have a floral confession: the only roses present at our wedding will be the single, long-stem roses we are giving to our mothers.   Yes, you heard right.  No. Roses.

Not on the Cake

Not in the Bouquet

Am I a bad bride for not including such an iconic flower of romance in the wedding flowers?  Maybe, but my floral budget sure is happier for it. It's not that Mr. Goodlaff and I don't like roses, or that we are allergic to them; it's just that when my wedding vision (use your mystical voice there) arose, there was nary a rose in sight. 

Let me present to you the flowers that will be in attendance at our wedding:

What's My Name Again?

Source, with a little help from my mad paint skillz...

In a few months, Mr. Goodlaff and I will get our marriage license, and by the time we head into the Recorder's Office to do our paperwork, I will have made a decision about what my new name will be. But right now, I have no clue how I will fill in that paperwork.

When I was younger, I always assumed that I would take my husband's last name and drop my own; I didn't really know there were any other options. But there are options--lots of them: I can keep my current name; I can take Mr. Goodlaff's last name; I can add Mr. Goodlaff's name to my last name with a hyphen; I can make my maiden name my middle name; I can add my maiden name to my middle name.  In California, Mr. Goodlaff and I can even create our own last name (in fact, that's how this blog came to get its name). 

Right after Mr. Goodlaff proposed, I discovered my inner feminist. All of a sudden, dropping my last name and taking Mr. Goodlaff's wasn't a given.  I've had my current name for 27 years now, and I rather like it; I feel that to leave it behind completely would be a little bit like losing a piece of myself (and I mean that in the least melodramatic way possible).  Your name is so much a part of your identity--it's how you recognize yourself, how you define who you are. And not to go medieval on you or anything, but I have no brothers, and therefore there's no male heir to carry on the family name--I feel a need to represent.

I'm not going to completely give up my last name, but I am going to take Mr. Goodlaff's name too.  So, here's where the waffling begins: do I hyphenate or take my maiden name as a second middle name?

Decisions, decisions.

Big Reveal: Bridesmaid Dresses (and a Shoe Decision)

The search for bridesmaid dresses is over!  This week Cosmo and I went dress hunting, and she picked out the style she wanted to wear for the Goodlaff wedding. We now have a complete set, and I'm thrilled to present the girls' choices to you:

Source

As you can see by all the different styles, there was no way that I could have picked one dress that would have made them all happy; looking back, I'm really glad I had the brains to not even try.  I love all of these dresses, and I think they each look fabulous in the styles they chose.

Sister Goodlaff, Cosmo, and TCollins will order this week (Sunrise already has--she's so on top of things!), and then I can cross one more thing off of the list and rest assured that the Goodlaff bridesmaids will be fully clothed on our wedding day. 

We also have a resolution to the great shoe debate, which came in the form of a paper sample, of all things. Mr. Goodlaff and I are currently designing our invitations for the wedding (more on that later), and we ordered a few paper and envelope samples from cardsandpockets.com, one of which was silver.  The minute I saw the silver against the swatch I have of the dress material, the decision was made.  Silver keeps the color scheme cool and helps balance the pops of color, whereas yellow really warms it up.  Plus, when everyone is telling you "no," you should probably listen.  Silver shoes, blue dresses, yellow, white, and green bouquets.  Done, done, and done.

Whew! Now, what's next?

Have Some Cake....

One of the last vendors that Mr. Goodlaff and I still need to book is a baker for our cakes.  Let me tell you, living in a rural area severely limits our vendor pool, and that's definitely showing in our quest for a wedding cake. 

Mama Goodlaff and I were at a bridal fair a few months ago, talking to a local cake artist.  Her cakes were fantastic, and after chatting with her for a while, she asked who was doing our wedding flowers.  I gave her the name of our florist, who happens to be a family friend, and she said, "oh, is that negotiable?"  Um, no, it's not.  She didn't like that answer, so she turned away from me and started talking to another bride. That baker's name was promptly crossed off the list. Her cake tasted great, but her utter lack of professional courtesy killed any chance she had of getting our business.

Cake vendor number two took almost three weeks to get back to my initial phone call.  Finally she sent her wedding cake packet, and after I sent her two additional emails asking for more information, I gave up trying to get into contact with her and crossed her off the list too.  Communication is a must.

After striking out with two bakers specializing in wedding cakes, Mr. Goodlaff and I began looking at local bakeries.  Since we are doing a cake bar, getting all of our cakes from a bakery may be a better option for us.  It's cheaper than buying a full-blown wedding cake, and most bakeries already have many different types and flavors of cakes that wouldn't necessarily be available to us through a wedding cake vendor. 

We started our search at the Flour Garden Bakery.  Their idea of a cake tasting looks like this:

"The Lunch"

Mr. Goodlaff and I call it "The Lunch" (you must use an ominous voice and air quotes when talking about it) because words beyond "the" and "lunch" are massively unnecessary. Sure, we have lunch every day, but this lunch was really the be-all, end-all in the entire history of lunches because it was the most excruciating lunch I've had to sit through.  "Awkward" doesn't even begin to describe the hour and a half that Mr. Goodlaff, Houdini, Tally, and I spent at Lefty's Grill on that fateful Wednesday.

When we left off, Mr. Goodlaff and I had agreed to meet for a lunch date on Friday, I had warned him of the impending set-up at lunch that day, and I was happily floating about three feet off my chair, waiting for 12:30 to roll around. 

12:30 finally came, and Tally and I were off!  We parked and walked to Lefty's, only to *gasp* run into Mr. Goodlaff and Houdini who were already seated directly across from each other at a table for four.  I sat next to Houdini, across from Tally, and kitty-corner from Mr. Goodlaff, who, right that second looked like a prisoner on death row about to get his last meal before facing the firing squad.  Shoulders hunched, eyes cast down, and with the expression of a man contemplating mutiny, Mr. Goodlaff sat there, probably trying to figure out how to use his butter knife to a satisfying effect on his table mates.