Rob and Kiesha Get Married

It’s so close I can taste it!

The invitations have been assembled and mailed and we’ve even got a couple of RSVP cards back in the mail.

Thursday night (which coincidentally, was my 27th birthday), Rob and I went to the Polaris Fashion Place mall to do some window shopping. We were inside J.C. Penney’s, looking at dresses and such, when I did a double take and saw the most beautiful green clutch hanging off the arm of a mannequin.

I have been looking for a green clutch for months. The only ones I’ve seen have been designer ones that cost upwards of $200. I was slowly resigning myself to the idea of going with a white clutch when that mannequin called out to me.

“Kiesha, isn’t this the purse you were looking for?”

I ripped it off the mannequin’s arm for an inspection. Everything seemed perfect. It had a long silver chain that can be used as a shoulder strap, or tucked inside for a clutch look. It was about fourteen inches long and maybe five inches tall, with a nice wide interior and three pockets!

And the price was right. $32.50.

I did notice the teeniest, tiniest flaw on the purse near the clasp, where it seemed like the stiff material used may have had a bump, which was then covered in the green fabric. When you hold the clutch, your hand covers the flaw.

Nevertheless, I smelled discount, so I took it up to the register and asked if they had any other purses. She said they had two, but when she tried to find the other, she came up empty-handed. So I asked if I could get a discount because of the flaw.

I got 10% knocked off. And, as it turned out, the purse was already on sale. I took it home for $21.

Here she is:

And with my beautiful green shoes!:

The light doesn’t do them justice; they are almost EXACTLY the same color. I think it’s because they’re made of two different fabrics and catch the light differently.

And in other news, today I did my practice run for the wedding hair and makeup!

There is an insane amount of hairspray in my hair right now. I took the pins out because they were starting to hurt my head and I thought I would just comb it out a little. Yeah, right. I couldn’t even get the comb through my hair. Guess I’ll be sporting a curly ponytail the morning after the wedding on that 9 a.m. flight out to Seattle, because there’s no way I’m getting up at 4 a.m. to wash out my hair and redo it.

Two months to go? Holy cat! I know there’s still a million things to do!

First order of business: Groomsmen.

Lo, those many months ago when Rob and I got engaged, we asked Rob’s dear friend Rich to be the Best Man, knowing that he was moving to Korea a few months before the wedding. Rich thought he’d be able to make it back for the wedding, but unfortunately he will not. So Rob asked another friend, Peko, to join the wedding party. Steve will now be the Best Man.

Second order of business: The Menu.

He had our tasting with the caterer and everything went great. Vegetarians will be taken care of with a veggie-loaded lasagna and the meat eaters will get Sicillian Chicken.

Third order of business: Invitations!

Our friend Clint Reno screenprinted our invitations and RSVP cards the other night. They look beautiful! And we will have them in the mail by the first weekend of September. We just have to cut them out and assemble them first.

Some photos:

Our paper and envelopes. Chocolate brown and mint green!

The first screen (the one with the leaves).

Clint checks the paper size.

The white ink goes down.

Clint does the first pull while I ably assist.

The first color is done!

Chocolate brown ink goes down!

We’re going to keep the final product a secret until they go out in the mail. They’re pretty awesome!

79 days to go! In the past two weeks, we have secured a rehearsal dinner location, purchased the paper for our invitations, scheduled a tasting with the caterer and nailed down a trial run date for the hair and makeup. On Saturday I go in to get my dress altered.

Things left to do this month:

• Purchase attendants’ gifts
• Get Rob’s suit and shoes
• Get covered in ink while helping to screenprint the invitations

Things left to do in general:

• Find a handbag
• Decide if I should get a shawl or wrap
• Look into alcohol purchases
• Figure out the flavors for our ice cream cart!

On Friday I booked the hair and makeup appointments for myself, my two bridesladies and my mom for the wedding day.

Today I booked an appointment for this Saturday for the florist. I also stopped at Wendy’s Bridal and picked up my undergarments for use under the wedding dress. They look like they’re costume pieces for a revival of “Gone With the Wind.”

I feel like a lot of stuff is getting done and I love it.

Next step: Invitations.

In other news, I got my Flight of the Conchords vinyl record in the mail today, a day before it’s even technically released and a full week before I expected it to arrive. Kind of makes up for a semi-yucky day at work.

So we finally sent out our save-the-dates not so long ago. We went to Barnes & Noble and picked out some super-cool Ohio-themed postcards, seeing as how the save-the-dates were only mailed out to the invitees from the New York/New Jersey area (and one out to Washington State). So now all you folks can share Ohio trivia with each other. How many presidents were from Ohio? Did you get the recipe for how to make Buckeye candy? What is a buckeye, anyway?

Save-the-date postcards have been obtained! They should be going out in the mail within the next week to all you lucky New Jerseyians, New Yorkers and Washingtonians.

We also completed our first registry! It’s weird to just run around requesting gifts, but it was also a lot of fun. More details on that later.

We are investigating save-the-date cards for Rob’s New Jersey friends and family. We discovered that October 25th is an OSU home game (boooooo!), so peeps gotta book their hotel rooms EARLY.

I found some really hilarious postcards at Barnes & Noble that we are thinking of using, but Rob wants to go check out legit ones at a paper store in the Short North. We’re going to do some research this weekend.

I’m also trying to convince Rob that we should go do some gift registering this weekend. He is less than enthusiastic about this.