Our "not-so-green" wedding bands

One aspect of our wedding that we did not go-green on is our wedding rings. I love traditions and passing things down, but unfortunately my mother's wedding ring (which was her grandmother's) is way too small for me. I did not want to destroy it by using the gold to create a new ring either. If one day my fingers are small enough, I hope to wear my great-grandmother's wedding ring, but for now Derek and I may be starting our own traditions.
Even though it's not "green" I'm still excited and want to share! So here they are!

We had lunch after we picked them up and did not want to leave them unattended in the car, so we pretended to be married for an hour! Derek says he really has to get used to his because of the weight. His ring is made of Tungsten Carbide and is kind of heavy. But he loves it!
We also finished designing our save-the-dates and invitations! We have definitely been productive! I will upload images of both in a later post once we finalize the wording. Less than 4 months to go!!!!

Long weekend, lots of planning!

Over the long weekend, lots of planning was done! We made some final decisions on times, places, set-up and details. One major detail we finally figured out was my recycled wine charm favor idea.

I have been struggling with finding a way to present these charms so guests know what they are without spending alot of money doing so. I was browsing wedding blogs and I came across a post on OffBeat Bride about a couple who collected thrift store coffee mugs (called them muglies!) for their guests! I loved it! So, I sat my entire family down and they all agreed to begin searching! We don't know the size of our guest list yet, but it's safe to say we will be collecting nearly 300 thrift store wine glasses!


Amazing photo courtesy of Soon-to-be Mrs. Eric Rubeck :-) Thanks, Toni!

I'm so excited because we're not limiting it to a certain style of wine glass--these will be all kinds of stemware like goblets and champagne flutes! It will definitely showcase our recycled theme!!

I have another really cool find that I am dying to share, but I have a few more decisions to make before I know if it will actually make a debut at the wedding. I will share it either way, but I'll make you all wait in suspense! Clue: It's something old and has to do with human anatomy and art! Any guesses?? :-)

Life got in the way! :-)

It's funny how easily life can get in the way of blogging! It appears that I have been on a month long hiatus from the blogosphere! I hope I have retained the few followers that I started with!
My parents were in the city this weekend and mom took some great shots of us to use as engagement photos! We may use a few others for our save-the-date emails too! Perfect, free and the photo-shoot came with iowa pork chops! :-)



I've realized over the past couple months how difficult it can be to plan a "green" wedding. Both of our families are very large, and since we haven't seen many of our friends for a while, that list is also getting long. One decision that we recently made is to go with real plates and silverware. We had originally discussed using 100% recycled or sugarcane-based table service, however that was entirely too expensive for our budget. I'm really getting excited about using the real stuff because now all the tables will be set and will look beautiful!

We've also decided to go with an outdoor wedding. Hopefully the decorations will be simple and very natural. Anything that we purchase we are trying to re-purpose afterward. My mother had her eyes on 2 large, green pots that she knew would look amazing for the wedding, but she also has plans to use them in her garden when our event is over!

Sadly, not all the elements of our wedding will be eco-friendly, but it's that extra effort to help out in whatever ways we can that make a difference. I am still looking for suggestions or ideas anyone out there has to offer!