One year ago today...

I became the future Mrs. Bielecki.  Wow that sounds weird!  And what a year this has been!

Since I already told you all the details on the proposal here, I won't go into all the details again.  But I will say that I am really happy we planned such a long engagement.  When people would ask us when we set a date, we would tell them November 6 and as soon as we added 2010 they looked at us like we were nuts. Then we had to explain that we wanted a long engagement and we wanted to buy a house first, yadda yadda - like it's really any of their business! haha  I was very happy when November 6, 2009 came so I could stop adding the 2010 to it and people might stop questioning it. 

I really don't know how brides do it in less time.  I have all the details and planning organized and spread out that I think if I tried to do it in less time I might have a heart attack.  Aside from the saving money part, it's a lot of work!

I also want to take this time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - see you next year :)

The Church is Booked

Phew!  What a whirlwind this has been.  We were finally able to book the church and I had no idea how hard that was going to be.  Who knew November 6, 2010 was going to be so popular?  I started calling Churches a few weeks ago and started with my parish, the Cathedral Basillica of SS Peter and Paul, and all three time slots were booked - 11am, 1pm and 3pm!  That was actually ok with me because for a church they aren't exctly the cheapest.  So I kept on dialing and was hitting brick walls everywhere I turned, they were either booked or didn't take outside parishioners.  Needless to say I was very frustrated and I think my mother thought I was losing my mind!

My last resort was St. Rita of Cascia on Broad Street - the date was available and all we needed to do was find a priest to marry us, return the information sheet, and have the pastor interview us.  The first one was easy, a very good friend of my aunt's is a priest and I grew up with his nephew.  A quick email sent and we had a priest - thank you Fr. John!  The second one was even easier - the information sheet consisted of asking for your contact information and the priest who will be marrying you - oh and a letter from your parish saying you could get married there.  Good thing we already had a meeting with the pastor of the cathedral scheduled for last night and he gave us the letter then.  Ok onto the interview - I was hoping the pastor would like us - I mean come on, how could he not?!?  Once I emailed Fr. John and told him we were considering St. Rita's I received the best news - he is very good friends with the pastor there! WOW - was it all actually starting to work out?

Marcin brought the paperwork to the rectory today and was told by the pastor that we didn't need an interview and we were all set for November 6, 2010 at 2pm!!!!!!!!  The church is absolutely beautiful - I couldn't be more happy :)

That was a big check on the to do list.  And yes I really have a list.  It is an Excel spreadsheet that is able to be sorted by completed or open tasks, month to be completed, and category it falls in.  Marcin thinks I am crazy and gets this scared look on his face everytime I show him the list.  I add to it everyday!  Right now I have 100 open items out of 108 - after the holidays I hope to check more things off the list so it isn't as scary!  I have posted a screen shot of the list so you can marvel at how organized I am or laugh at how crazy I am!  I don't mind which one :)

And here are some pictures of St. Rita's

Thanksgiving

It's been a week since Thanksgiving and I think I am still stuffed from everything I ate!  Since nothing much has happened with the wedding in the last week or so (besides the hunt for a church but I will post on that once we book one!) I thought I would post some pictures from my family's thanksgiving.  Some of my family members hate pictures of themselves and will probably kill me for posting them but I like them! 

I wanted to take this time to thank my family for all the love and support they always give me, especially when I am acting "like a crazy bride" as my mom would say :) I think I should also especially thank Marcin because he has been dealing with my craziness a lot in the last week! 

I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

Me and Marcin

Me and My Sisters

The Argyle Crew! My dad, Sister Kristy and Marcin

3 Generations - very well color-coordinated!

My mom, Niece Reese, and Sister Beth

My nephew, Cameron using Aunt Pat as his step stool!

The family hangin out!

The Inspiration - Part II

After I found the Inspiration Ad again, I set out on a mission to find more pictures and images that would inspire me and I came across the most wonderful website ever - The Perfect Palette.  The sole purpose of this blog is to inspire color for your wedding; they have custom inspiration boards in every color combination available.  I'm not gonna lie, a couple of their boards almost had me change my colors because I was so intrigued!!

But I am sticking with my first choice of Brown and Orange as they have the cutest ideas in the orange boards.  I might even have to get orange shoes now!  Sarah would be so proud of me :)

Here are some of my favorite idea boards!

Save the Dates are in the Mail!!

FINALLY!!!  I am so excited for these to be done and in the mail.  What I thought was going to be a painless process turned out to be a pain in the neck!  I am really happy with the final product of the magnets.

But the process of printing the information for the hotel card was a nightmare.

At my old job I purchased this pearl metallic cardstock to use for an event invitation and as soon as I received it I knew I wanted to use it for my wedding stuff.  So back in the beginning of October I went online to order it - 100 sheets for $30 + shipping.  I figured I could use the extra for programs or something.  Once it came in I was so excited - I did notice that it was thicker than the average cardstock but didnt think anything of it.  I attempted to print on it using our inkjet and it immediately jammed.  So on Monday off to Kinko's I go, assuming I am now going to pay just as much as the paper for the color printing there, but again this paper was worth it and I wanted them in the mail on Tuesday.  The guy at Kinko's told me it was too thick for their machines as well and they couldn't print on it.  They wanted $21 for 17 color copies on cardstock - I was very frustrated and left because I knew I could go buy my own cardstock for significantly less (ok Mom, Dad, Beth & Kristy - I know what you are thinking, stop making your cheap jokes about me - I am not cheap I am frugal!)

Tuesday night I was at Staples buying ivory cardstock, which is definitely not as pretty as the other paper but was much cheaper - $7.00 for 125 pieces.  The printing went seamless at home and then I brought them into work on Wednesday to use the paper cutter.  I quickly discovered the paper cutter was from 1980 with a dull blade and that was not going to work! So last night I spent two hours cutting them all by hand - I hope they are all straight - my eyes were starting to cross by the end.  If you get one and it looks like I was drunk when I cut it, please do not think any less of me :) (Seriously, I didn't let any of those any where near the envelopes - I hope!)  A big thank you goes to our friend Alissa who gave us the cute Love stickers to use to seal the envelopes.  There was no way I was licking all of them!

Marcin was a huge help with stamping and labeling. He did attempt to help cut at one point, but I was having a heart attack over him not being the straightest cutter.  I figured it was easier to be mad at myself if they looked bad than be mad at him!  He did joke around at the end that his fingers hurt from all of the stamps he put on and I almost hit him with the scissors! Here are some pictures I snuck of Marcin helping.

The Inspiration

So I am definitely one of those girls who has dreamed about her wedding since I was a little girl. I used to think I would have a spring wedding because I LOVE PINK, but then a few years ago I started seeing more and more pictures of fall weddings and fell in love with the colors and flowers. In fact, it was this one wedding advertisement that I saw in a magazine that made me think that was it, that is the wedding I want!


So I ripped it out and put in a box. Yup, at the time I had no boyfriend and no prospects for getting married, so I just tucked it away and thought it would come in handy one day. A couple years later I came across it, and decided I seemed a little crazy for keeping it and threw it away. Then of course the day comes and Marcin proposes; the next morning I pulled out the box and started looking for that picture. After about ten minutes of pulling my room apart, I remembered throwing it away, I was so sad!

About a week later, my friend Anna at work brought in a bunch of old bridal magazines she was done with. I was so excited! So that night, I grabbed a glass of wine and started looking through them all. Marcin barely had a space to sit on the couch, because they were sprawled everywhere! I turned the page and there was the ad from a few years ago!!!! I started freaking out and Marcin once again thought I was crazy. I think there are going to be a lot of those moments between now and the wedding. As long as he can live with it :)

So here is my inspiration for my fall wedding:

(Picture courtesy of David's Bridal)

I'm still trying to work on my sister Kristy to get her to like the orange. And my mom told me a few weeks ago that my other sister, Beth's hair matches the dress too much! So I am working on Plan B because with orange flowers, that may be too much orange for the dresses.  But the overall colors of the wedding will be brown and orange and I am really excited - I never knew so many brown and orange things existed out there!

1 year to go!!!

It's so weird to look at the countdown above and see there is only one year to go!  These last 11 months since we got engaged have flown by, I can only imagine how the next year is going to go. 

Good thing I have been busy with in the last year to get a lot of things off the to do list:
Venue - √
Photographer - √
Band - √
Dress - √
Florist - √
Save the dates - √

The save the dates were ordered on Tuesday and we hope to have them in the next week or so.  I am so excited for them, they turned out great.  A HUGE thank you goes to Michele, you know the bridesmaid who is a Yankees fan, (we won't even comment how the World Series ended - she and I will be friends again soon!)  When Marcin and I were up in New York for her birthday she took some awesome pictures of us in Central Park.  We are going to have engagement pictures taken with Sarah but we didnt want to do that until next spring at the beach.  So we started thinking about the save the dates and realized we didnt have any pictures we liked for them.  I knew Michele loves taking pictures, so it made perfect sense!  Here is a teaser of our photoshoot

A BIG thank you goes to my parents who have been a huge help through this entire process and will continue to be so throughout the next year!

Marcin, I can't wait to be your wife!  I hope the weather is as nice as it is today next year :-)

I HATE SEPTA!!!!

OK, so this has nothing to do with the wedding or even Marcin, I just needed a venue to vent.  My commute from Philly to SAP in Newtown Square usually takes about 50 minutes door to door.  I got into my car this morning at 8:00 on the dot on Wallace Street, 2 blocks north of our apartment on Green St.  (I have included a map below so you can feel my pain along with me!)  Now I will admit, 8:00am is leaving a little late for me, so I expected it to take a little bit longer than usual.  I pull out my parking spot and make it a block and a half where I am stopped for 10 minutes while all the parents drop off their kids to school because the kids can't take public transportation!!!  Ok, light is green and I make it cross Spring Garden where I SIT FOR 40 MINUTES between callowhill and vine street.  That is only 1 block apart from each other!!!!  There city police directing traffic, but of course the block I am on, we have the cop who doesnt know how to direct traffic.  He kept having cars already on Vine Street block 15th street when the light turned green!  Oh and the city has a HUGE PROBLEM with syncing their lights.  I have complained about this to Marcin for as long as we have been dating - when one light turns green and you think you will make it a couple blocks, the light on the next block turns red - someone really needs to look into this when the strike is over. 

My commute went from 50 minutes to an hour and a half.  This article explains the misery the entire city is feeling.

Can someone explain to me why SEPTA employees are being so selfish in this economy???  Can't they be happy they have a job at all?  I heard Ed Rendell on the news the other night saying they offered the union a 10% increase in thier pensions and they turned it down!  Even Ed Rendell said, whose pensions are being increased these days???

They better hurry up and fix this!  At least I have a car and am driving out of the city; I can't even imagine what it's like for the people who use public transportation everyday.  Marcin said all of the parking garages downtown were full - he almost didnt have a place to park!

Ok, I'm done - thanks for listening :)

The Photographer is booked

Actually she has been booked for awhile now! As soon as Marcin and I got engaged there was no question who our photographer was going to be. Sarah Schulte photographed two friends weddings and I would occasionaly run into her at weddings where I was the Day of Coordinator. (insert shameless plug here to hire me as your day of coordinator!)

So just a couple weeks after I was engaged I emailed Sarah and told her to save the date for us! She emailed back and asked if I was open to bartering a little and having Marcin and I travel up to The Berkshires in Massachusetts to be her Day of Coordinator! Of course I said yes. Marcin and I love taking road trips together and neither one of us had ever been to the Berkshires. It was such a beautiful drive and yet one that included lots of little back roads. Good thing we had GPS, although one night it led us to a Mall Parking lot - Marcin blames me for that one since I was driving, I blame the GPS! We really had a great time with Sarah, John and their families and they have become good friends of ours throughout this.

This was one wedding that I worked that I didn't take pictures :-( I left my camera in the car and didn't have a chance to go get it. So here is a link to their photographer's blog post on their wedding. (Check out her orange shoes - love them!)

Sarah and John, thank you for having Marcin and I share your day and we look forward to having you spend ours with us!

The Venue

Marcin and I set aside two weekends in January and February to start our adventure on finding the perfect venue.  We had quite the list mostly including hotel ballrooms in downtown Philly.  We have a lot of people traveling from out of town, and many people from Michigan who have never been to Philly  before, so we thought downtown would be the best place to go. 

The second Saturday morning we went to the DoubleTree Hotel on Broad Street and left there thinking that was the place.  Looking back, I think Marcin was enthralled with the Chocolate Chip cookies they gave us!  I had no idea DoubleTrees were known for giving cookies, but Marcin remembered them from traveling with his mom and sister when he was a kid.  The lady we met with told us one cookie has 17 grams of fat!!!

Our next appointment was at Cescaphe in the Northern Liberties section of the city.  It's a little out of the way in terms of being downtown and Marcin was miserable heading to this appointment.  We were running really late and he kept asking me why we had to go there when we already liked the DoubleTree.  I told him despite the location we had to go check it out because I had been there for another wedding and it was amazing. 

We walked in and I just knew it was the one.  The atmosphere was exactly what we wanted!! The girl started showing us around and telling us everything that was included in the cocktail hour - I saw Marcin start salivating at everything she talked about!  We were sold and he quickly got over that we wouldn't be downtown! 

We brought my parents  back the following weekend and they were sold as well, especially since they were there for the same wedding I was, and knew how wonderful it was.  We wanted a date in October 2010, but in January 2009 they were already booked for Saturdays - which means there are crazier brides than me out there!!  Here I thought we were pretty early in the planning stages.  So November 6th it is and I couldn't be happier :) (It buys me a few more weeks of planning!)

Here are some pictures from their website:

Phillies!!!!!!!!!!!

So today is my first non-wedding related post.  I thought the Phillies deserved their own.  I headed down the South Philly right from work, which was a small nightmare of traffic but very worth it, to meet Deanna.  Why was I by myself you ask?  BECAUSE MARCIN WENT TO THE GAME!! That's right, the guy from Michigan - the Detroit Tigers fan at heart, went to the game and I did not.  I mean, yes he has become a Phillies fan over the years of living in Philly, but really, going to the game??  I think Karma hit him though, because someone spilled a beer on him.  At least the guy bought him a beer in return :)

Chickie's and Pete's was crazy!  There were lots of drunk older women, which was highly entertaining.  And I have never seen so much big hair, tight pants, and cut shirts in my life - and I have been to South Philly a lot!  There was the mom to our left with the Phillies tattoo on her cheek and her mardi grad beads around her neck who danced all night and even attempted to do the Mummer's Strut, but it was not that good.  I learned that Deanna does not know the Mummer's Strut, so I will be offering her lessons before the wedding!  If anyone else needs them, just let me know.  We can take a road trip to my grandfather's because he does it the best :)

So Marcin stayed for the Trophy presentation and Deanna and I headed to Broad Street.  I wasn't expecting it to be too crazy because we kept hearing from the news and our friend who is a cop that they were not allowing it to get crazy this year.  The city was greasing up lightpoles so people wouldn't climb them!!  But at Broad and Shunk it was pretty crazy!  I have a video on my phone of it, but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone and on here!  If I figure that out, then I will post it later. 

It seems like it will be the Yankees against the Phillies in the World Series - they're calling it the New Jersey Turnpike series.  One of our bridesmaids, Michele, lives in New York and is a Yankees fan.  I informed her today that our friendship will take a break until November 6!

Enjoy the pictures.  And here's to a quick World Series, because our wedding and house budgets cannot afford many bar outings.  If you're up for watching it at home, come on over to our place - Marcin will make wings!!

Crazy Mom attempting the Mummer Strut

They Won!!!!!

Broad Street Craziness

The day we got engaged...

Marcin proposed to me on December 22, 2008.  We had our friends, John and Melanie, over (You see that time it was easy for me to say "our" instead of "my", I am assuming that's because they were Marcin's friends first!) Sorry I diverted again - ok starting again

John and Melanie came over for a Christmas dinner, where we drank lots and lots of wine, at least I did!  Melanie brought her fabulous home-made pierogies for Marcin and we had a great time.  They left around 10:00 and Marcin asked if we could exchange an early Christmas present.  I only got him one big thing, so I didnt have anything little to give him.  So I told him I would give him his card, and I would take a gift! haha

My gift was perfume, Ralph Lauren Romance and he loved his card, because of course I wrote a long, sappy note in it.  He quickly closed it and told me to get my coat and dress warm, he had something to show me.  He gave me some line about the city having this cool Christmas thing.  After some arguing on my part, because it was FREEZING, we headed out on a little adventure and ended up on the steps of the Art Museum. 

You see, one night way back in the beginning of our relationship, Marcin and I went for a walk and stopped at the top of the Art Museum steps.  I told him this was my favorite place in the city because of the view and then we never mentioned it again.  HE REMEMBERED!!!!

It was perfect - he got down on one knee and I felt the urge to cry, but couldn't because my tearducts were frozen!  There is one thing you have to realize about the art museum - it is always crowded, no matter what time of day.  There are at least a million people running up the steps like Rocky or at least 2 million cars driving in front of it.  But not at that moment - there was literally NO ONE around but he and I with the Christmas Lights from the Cira Center.

It was a moment I will remember forever.  Here is me with a red nose from the cold.

Here is the Cira Center and my beautiful ring

I started a blog!!!!

So this my first post and I am completely new to this whole blogging thing.  Marcin and I went out to dinner with friends back in June, when I was unemployed, and our friend Shannon suggested I start blogging about my our wedding planning.  I was going to call it "The Unemployed Bride".  I started looking around at wedding blogs and quickly came to realize that there are MILLIONS of them out there and why would anyone care what I had to say about my wedding planning?  So I didn't do it. 

But over the last couple weeks I have been inspired by other brides, aka "Knotties", as girls on theknot.com refer to themselves (I cannot get used to the lingo, it's all kind of weird to me).  So I decided to start one. 

Coming up with a name was challenging for me, as I am not creative at all in that area, so I would like to thank my our friend Sarah for this one!  I really am trying not to be a bridezilla, although my mom told me last week that I was being a crazy bride, and I took offense to it - A LOT!  So while I don't necessarily think the name is fitting for me, I thought it was fun!

Since Marcin and I have been engaged for almost a year - holy crap, I just realized that!!! I can't believe it's been a year!!!!  Ok sorry, i diverted - since we have been engaged for almost a year a lot of the bigger decisions have already been made.  So my first few posts will be about things that have already happened.  But we still have over a year to the wedding, so there is still lots of planning to be done! 

My Our wedding is November 6, 2010!

PS Yes at times, I still say my wedding, and Marcin is always quick to point it out :)