The Budget Wedding Part 1 - Wedding Stress and Updates/Rant

John and I have been engaged for 7 months, come this Wednesday I will have the first and only thing (other than my ring) done for the wedding: My wedding dress will be paid off. That's it.

See, we've been running into some financial difficulties with moving and my job being slow in the summer. Meaning wedding details had to take a back burner and now I feel like we're running out of time to pay for things...like our honeymoon...and the venue, which we haven't even put deposits down on yet.

After some consideration we decided to move the wedding. Again. For the second time. Now I had some issues in the beginning  planning stages feeling like I HAD to do certain things. This idea stuck with me through the planning process so I ended up changing things not once, not twice, now not even THREE times. This will be the fourth time we've entirely changed the wedding theme and colors. The one constant is that it will be a casual affair, because that's just who we are. I'm starting to feel like I'm overwhelming our wedding party with the changes to everything. Making them nervous to purchase anything or even just irritated at my lack of ability to make a final choice.

Don't get me wrong, it's been valid every time we've made a change. Its been financial problems. The first venue we chose wanted us to get married at 7:30 am, or charge us an arm and a leg to have it later. So we eventually made it a lazy beach wedding because the aquarium was too far away to keep our budget down and too stressful to plan a more formal event, so an informal and fun wedding next summer sounded perfect. However, even though the cost is decreased we don't have enough time to pay off a venue without sacrificing bills, the dogs care and groceries. So we've made the choice to move it out six months and have a winter wedding, enough time to get on our feet and pay off a nice venue while also cutting costs more since it's off season. Even our honeymoon of we go after chirstmas will  oat less.

In my head this makes more sense and sounds more like us with all the cozy sweaters, hot chocolate and Christmas music. It's the same way a breezy summer beach wedding sounds like us. But more within reach and less overdone and like something my mom would want more than I would. I'm stressing so much about it, I'm actually worried to tell our friends we changed wedding stuff. Agian. I almost want to elope. Almost.

More posts will be up soon, as well as an actual update and even some videos. We're setting up from the move and should have internet in a month or so. So stay tuned.
-Courtney

My IUD Experience part 2

Hey all, So it's been about five months since my IUD insertion so I thought I'd update. If you read part one of my IUD experience you'll know I'm just picking up from where we left off.

It's hard to explain the symptoms I was experiencing. For the most part I was fine after about 3-4 days, and even those days weren't awful.  After day 2 I was comfortable 75% of the time. The cramping I did have was horrible, but I didn't seem to have almost any spotting until a week later. I'm not really sure if that was just spotting or the start of my period, it was a bit confusing after two days it turned into a heavy flow that lasted about a week and a half and was a pretty bad period as far as cramps go. However I haven't actually had any cramps since then except during my periods, which are painful but not as bad as the first few days after insertion. I was told these would become more regular and possibly shorter (I had short periods to begin with, so I'm not sure how this will be affected in the long run, as it can take up to 6 months to fully adjust to the IUD).

The really TMI stuff is the following: I chose the IUD due to allergies to several lubricants and condoms, and even in our last three, almost four years of dating we haven't found anything that didn't cause a reaction, so as a result we didn't do as much sexy-time activities as we wanted to since most often the thought of pain and discomfort from allergic reactions outweighed the desire to have sex, for me anyway. So to me this seems to be the perfect solution considering I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship and my only concern is pregnancy.

After weighing the pain against the now much more comfortable and enjoyable benefits, I have come to the conclusion that I will most likely get another IUD when mine expires and at this point we will be married...oh yeah we got engaged in January for those of you who didn't see the instagram post. I do want to do another update once I've had it for about a year, just in case things change or whatever, but for now that's all for this peek into a very intimate part of our lives.

-Courtney

DIY Haunted 1920's Party (Murder Mystery)

Though this is our third annual party, this is the second we will post on this blog. Even if we could find the information (it's hiding somewhere in packed boxes) , I'm not sure we'd publish it because it has so many flaws. However year 5 will be the same theme to celebrate 5 years. So not this years party but the year after. We've been gradually improving our methods and strategies for how the parties will run and so far this is what we've come up with.

Just a forewarning! This Post contains links to content intended for mature audiences and may contain some of the following themes: drugs, sex, crime, alcohol abuse, mental illness, ect.

Basic Information: After several months of planning and MANY changes to clues and story line we eventually came up with a story driven by a lesbian couple in the 1920s. You can find the ever updated rules on this page. This particular party was designed for two female hosts, Scarlet and Peach, but we included John as well by having him be the ghost of a caretaker. He ended up serving drinks and feeding our guests as well as helping supervise the party and take guesses. I have to say having him around for that role proved to be very helpful, but it's not necessary. And just in case you were wondering this party was written for 11 guests and IS SET IN MODERN TIMES so the hosts are ghosts.

Setting: We dressed up the community room with cobwebs, spiders and vintage decorations like chandeliers, I made mine with paper and string pearls but there are SEVERAL tutorials online to take inspiration from. I also chose to use flowers from hobby lobby that were brown in antique style vases we bought for less than $2 a piece at goodwill. I suggest using a coupon on waiting for a sale at a craft store to buy the flowers. Unfortunately many of the props and decorations did not make their way into happening as we moved several times but I have a few sketches of some inspiration for DIYs I was planning that I highly suggest if you have the time/ ability to do so.

We also used my laptop to play a 1920's track that I purchased on itunes. Just a side note. I opted to make a simple invitation using a strip of dark patterned paper and layering information printed on white printer paper in the center under where I embossed "You're Invited" in gold at the top of the paper layered on black card stock. I included a small card with their character bio, RSVP information and dress code.

Dinner: This year we opted to rent our chairs, dishware and black linens. We also had balloons for the "open bar" which we served mock-tails, You can locate all of our concoctions and on this page. For dinner we chose this crock-pot minestrone soup recipe and bought potato rolls from the supermarket which we heated up 10 minutes before the guests arrived.
We also served apitizered which consisted of tiny sandwiches using sourdough and white bread and my chicken salad recipe as well as cheese cubes.

Writing and Details: I've also included pdfs of our survey we handed out after the party, the new and improved guess sheet and the party story which we based all of our clues off of and the character bios we sent out with the invitations.

And since we didn't put the answer on the clue page here it is:

Who: Mrs. Peacock
Motive: Mental Illness, thinks Peach is possessing Scarlet
Method:Strangulation (with a silk scarf)

Also pertaining to the page of clues, I have them numbered on my own personal print ous in the order I have them typed. They are sorted by type # 1-10 are alibi clues, # 11-16 are method/how clues and #17-30 are motive clues and #31-53 are other clues that either mislead or confirm other things.

The revealing clue #s are as follows Alibi, #10, 43 How, #11 Motive, #22,33

Another change is that we filmed a movie that depiceted what originally happened back in 1920 that our modern day guests had to solve. However this movie was made for personal use only and can't be posted so I suggest you film your own OR read aloud a legend of sorts to get your guests interested.

I considered re-writing the original version of the story which was intended to be hosted by John and I but I decided instead to post what I ended up using as we are already hard at work on this years party and I need to clean out my planner and file box. I decided to keep this post shorter by dividing it up into seperate pages for you to look at so you can find things easier, hopefully this makes it a little easier to use. I hope you enjoy and please let us know if you try this out, we love to hear from you!

Until next time,

John and Courtney aka Plum and Peach

Top 5 First Date Tips

Awwwweee...I remember our first date. It was a giant misunderstanding, I spit chicken down my dress and had a wardrobe malfunction. It was kind of a disaster.

Want to avoid that? I don't blame you. But hey, if he still likes you after that he must be a keeper right? Don't worry. I will let you in on how to make everything go as smoothly as possible.

1. Make sure you verify that this is actually a date. Apparently some people think "Dinner and a movie" means hang out *cough* John *COUGH* Just double check that they mean date, this will save you from the possibility of over-dressing.

2. So it really is a date right? What are you going to wear? Guys- if you are taking them to a casual (no, not fast food. I mean like a chinese restaunt or something similar in dress attire.) restruant in town (usually a safe bet), go with a casual button up and a nice pair of jeans. If it's hot and you need shorts go with something a little nicer.

Girls- Sundresses, and maxi dresses are a safe bet IF they are casual. Knee length or longer is kind of my style but you do you. You could also get away with a nice top and a pair of nice jeans. Try pairing it with  flat or cute sandal/boot depending on season and weather. WHen it comes to hair don't go overboard, a sleek ponytail or leave it down, you could also opt for a messy bun to keep it casual. Makeup? I say go for whatever you usually do, but if you want to spice it up try a winged liner IF you can keep it even OR a lipgloss. Above anything esle dress comfortably, make sure your undergarments are nice, not sexy, just fit right. My bra literally fell out of my dress, If you go somewhere more fancy dress for the restaurant and play with your makeup before hand to find what you like.

3. My top tip, go see the movie first, then have dinner. I have said this for years That way if your date is a total drag and you have nothing in common, you have something to talk about, OR if you are really shy, it's a good way to break the ice since movies don't require talking!

4. RELAX. Be yourself and DO NOT do what I did.  I wanted to look lady like so I ate a little bit in front of him, and when he got up I shoveled food into my mouth, only to be surprised by him when he asked what kind of ice cream I wanted from behind. This caused me to spit chicken all over myself and the table. So just eat like a normal person.

Men- if she does do something like that or anything else embarrassing, be chill about it.  Either pretend not to notice, or casually brush it off, chances are she's embarrassed enough.

5. If he wants to open the door for you or pull out your seat, let him. He's being gentlemanly and it's a sweet gesture, don't do that weird thing where you get offended and act like it's rude and say "thank you". It seems obvious but I've seen girls get mad about it.

Above all, just have fun and enjoy each others company. Who knows maybe he's the one. Or maybe he's not and you know what? That's okay too! :)

-Courtney