Excited about life!

Ordered part one of the ladies' surprise tonight. I feel really good about it!! :)

Also, along the same lines: Jeff and I are taking Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. Tonight, my purchase was made on amazon.com and for the first time EVER I used my debit card (with the VISA logo on it) to pay for my order. My money. No more debt for me! Feels great!

Oh, and the wedding registries are complete! Yahoo!!!!!!!
Jeff and I agreed on every single item, which is pretty incredible. There are some big ticket items on there, but the plan is to have money set aside by the time we're married that we will have the money to purchase what we need from what is left on the registries.

Amazon Registry

Target Registry (enter Heidi McWilliams into the search portion)


One last thing- Jeff and I started a new book together that my mom got for us. Gary Chapman's "Things I Wished I'd Known Before I Got Married". Fun little chapters with discussion questions afterward. This is the third premarriage book we're working through now... we also did "Ten Great Dates Before You Say I Do" and "Preparing for Marriage". I love having a man that wants to grow a deeper relationship with me. Praise God!!!

Hot Dang! Flowers are picked!!!

I'm relieved and totally excited! Can't wait to see the finished products! I only have to wait 200 days. :)

For flowers, I'm definitely going with Steph at Country Hearth Flower Shop in East Berlin!
I've known her since I was a little girl and she was so helpful with helping me pick out flowers that not only worked with my color scheme, but also looked good together!

For my bouquet:
*Deep purple Calla Lillies
*Orange Tiger Lillies
*White Wax Flowers
*Green Hypernicum berries
*Orange Alstroemeria
*Curly Willow Branches

For the ladies:
*Orange Tiger Lillies
*Orange Alstroemeria
*Firestarter Gerbera Daisies
*White wax flower mixed in...

Jeff's boutonniere:
*Purple calla lily
*Orange alstroemeria
*White wax flower
*Willow branch sprigs

For the gents:
*Purple calla lily
*White wax flower

For the parents:
*Orange alstroemeria and white wax flower


And the best part: I came in under budget on my flowers!!!!!!!!!

You can google all those flowers if you want the scoop on what they'll look like. Or you can wait 200 days like me till you see them all together! :)


In other news:
I think for the ladies shoes I'm letting them choose. Since I went the traditional route and have each girl wearing the same style dress I'll let them individualize with the sandal. I am however putting a stipend on the height. :) Ladies taller than me get to choose from flat silver flip flops. Anyone close to my height can wear short wedges under 1.5" :)

As for my shoes: only my girls have seen the ones I'm leaning toward. I'm pretty excited about them. :)

Crysanthe-what??

The moment I've been dreading.

Choosing flowers...

I've had numerous people suggest that I go with wildflowers that I handpick and arrange. As you can see from my DIY list... I have enough to do on my own. I'm turning to professionals on this one!

I would like to be prepared when I get there- so I'm brainstorming some beautiful orange and plum flowers to ask about! :)

Ladies- orange bouquets

Gents- purple boutonieres

Me- orange and purple bouquet

Jeff- purple flower with orange berry accent... or something twiggy

My original plan was to have the ladies carrying orange gerbera daisies. I love the bright pop of color with the playful green color on the stems... but now I'm expanding my horizons because I want to incorporate whatever flowers they have into my bouquet... and, well, I don't want gerbera daisies in mine. :)

So, plan B:

tiger lillies

I like these stemmy things curving around- maybe with twigs??

alstroemeria- nice little wildflowery feel to it!

orange lillies

As far as purple flowers go... I love the color of deep purple cala lillies... but I don't like the price. I haven't fallen in love with any purple flowers yet- so if you see any please let me know!

Wedding Dream

I've heard about these so-called wedding nightmares... most of them I've heard about are brides walking down the aisle in sweatpants.

Here's mine. :)

Our wedding was going to take place in a dingy basement (how romantic). I was in a side bathroom with my bridesmaids when they were helping me get dressed. I realized the dress I had on was all wrong. It looked like an explosion of fabric from the 80's. A lot of poof. I told them it was the wrong dress but there was no time to change! My hair was still in a ponytail from the morning and my hairstylist didn't have the curling iron plugged in. I looked down and realized a toilet overflowed and I was standing in disgusting crappy water... then Jeff busted in! I told him he wasn't allowed to see me, but he informed me that he was there to walk me down the aisle because my dad didn't want to.... and that wasn't the worst part... here Jeff was wearing a dress too! Interesting. I remember walking down the aisle with him and realizing that I didn't recognize the people in the audience and then I woke up to my alarm.

Nice, huh? I feel pretty confident that none of those things will be an issue on the wedding day. Although, my one bridesmaid- Julie- is officially in charge of making sure I don't step in poop of any kind. :P Especially since we'll be out in nature.

D-I-Y Gone Wild!

((D-I-Y..... do it yourself.))

Call me crazy, but I've been very inspired by DIY projects lately. I know they can be quite time consuming, but when you're working with a tight budget anything you can do to save money you should! There is so much to choose from for the rustic outdoors theme though!!!!

Here's my "to do" list so far:

Reception:

*3 wooden cake stands- http://http//www.oncewed.com/8448/wedding-blog/diy-wedding/diy-tree-pedestal-cake-stand/

*20-25 Centerpieces-

*Table number displays- take photographs of natural elements shaped into numbers
(this picture is an example of a found alphabet- I will be taking photographs of rocks in the shape of a 6, or twigs that write the letter 4)

*Seating/Escort Cards- cut slats into a log at a diagonal angle so the escort cards are readable looking down at them... *Napkin Rings- using an awesome purple/orange/green fabric one of my BMs found!! (Not in this picture)- http://www.do-it-yourself-weddings.com/wedding-napkin-rings.html

*Sign for Meal- instead of menu cards... I'm thinking a chalkboard...

*Funny Face Guestbook Table- we're having a POGO printer at the reception which prints out 2"x3" photos from your camera for our guestbook. Jeff and I love our funny face pictures, so they've inspired us to have our guests do the same.

The best part is that each of the photos that prints out comes out with a sticky back... easily added to our awesome guestbook!!

Yep, that's a wood front cover. I might be able to get a wood burner and carve our initials into it... like of like the bark of a tree. :)

*Trail Mix Bar- for our hors d'oeuvres we're having a trail mix bar!! There will be 12 different ingredients to mix and match. I bought baskets for it already, but I have to make liners for them so the food can sit right in them! Yum!!

*Favors- S'Mores Kits!!!!! Each kit will make two S'Mores and will be held in a burlap bag with a sticker on the front with our names/date/ and instructions on them... S'more Kits will include 2 mallows, four graham crackers, one hershey single size hershey bar, one reese's cup, and a folded wire hanger to roast them with!!!!!

Stationery-

*Save the Dates (almost done)- created the design myself on Photoshop and ordered paper from http://www.papertemptress.com/! She is amazing to work with!!!

32 done. We have 20 more to make...

They are 4"x6" cards with Eggplant colored cardstock, then there is a natural color cardstock ontop. The border is a topographic map of the Appalachian Trail in the area of our wedding, and the font is a Leaves font I found online. Each SaveTheDate has a piece of hemp tied around that secures 3 stickers to it with our names and wedding date on it... for easy application to calendars. :)

*Invitations- just recieved my paper in the mail yesterday. Will be working on them in my free time... but they don't need to be completed until 3 or 4 months down the road. I have a feeling most of them will be done over spring break week!!!

*Crossword Puzzle- (almost done) These are going to be at the tables during the reception for people to work on while we're getting pictures taken!

*Wedding Programs- not sure what direction I'm going with these yet...

*"Day Of" Itinerary Cards- for everyone in the wedding parties... timeline of the day on the front, and on the back will be their personal responsibilities

*Wedding Update Newsletters- was originally going to make these to send out to my girls... but then I realized I don't have that much free time... so, instead hopefully they'll follow my blog on here and let me know what they think! And chip in ideas!! :)


Wedding:

*Wedding Pointer Signs-

*Rose Petal Cone Holders- using brown kraft paper... they will hold plum rose petals :)

Extras:

*Bridesmaid Gifts- SO EXCITED ABOUT THESE!!!!!! I can't post them on here yet though... since they might look at this site... but I'm pretty darn proud of them!

*Itunes Playlists- To save money, we're not having a formal DJ... instead our friend from church will be M.C.ing... it's just up to me to have the playlists ready!!

The future Mr. and Mrs. Varner

I figure what kind of wedding blog would this be if I didn't first explain who we are and where we come from.

I (Heidi) am a country girl, born and raised in south central Pennsylvania. I love the outdoors- been camping since before I could walk (yes, I take pride in that). I found my talent for art at a young age and persued my art education degree at Kutztown University. I never lost my fascination with the outdoors, so on my school breaks I always had something big and adventurey planned! Caving, climbing, backpacking, snowboarding... always something! After graduating I moved back to the homefront with my parents and got back into church. Life had a way of just rolling along, and then when I got focused on God I was blessed big time in return.
(enter Jeff)
Jeff spent the first twenty three years of his life in a completely different setting. He's my city boy! He grew up in Carlisle, Chambersburg, and Harrisburg. In June of 2008 he moved into the Gettysburg area and made a life swap. God was not much of a prior part of his life, but that summer everything changed. He was living in a Christian Discipleship Program through our church and began attending many of the same meetings I was involved in. We met on a Tuesday night at a young adult's bible study called S.O.S. We chatted, and as he recalls, he was instantly intrigued by my maturity and my sense of adventure. (I might have randomly brought up the fact that I love backpacking and that I was lost in a cave two years before for over two days without food or water)... on purpose.
Weeks went by of sending random messages back and forth on myspace, and little conversations after church. Eventually numbers were exchanged, and then the little thought arose in my mind... "I think he likes me." And then... "I think I like him."
After a Friday night bonfire with the S.O.S. group we officially started talking about a chance to hang out together. And so it was planned, the next morning we would start our day at 10am and go for his first hike on the Appalachian Trail. Poor guy didn't know what he was getting himself into. Neither did I. ;) We hiked nearly 20 miles in one day. Up and down mountains. Around bends. Over creeks. Through the woods. On and on... in ONE DAY! We finished the last part of the hike in the dark; I had my red headlamp out showing the way looking for the white AT blazes on the trees. When we got to the car Jeff said his toes were screaming. He went to take his shoes off and realized that was a horrible idea. We finished the long day off with icecream at Dairy Queen (which officially made it a date). It wasn't until he got home and took his shoes off that he realized his toes were bleeding. Poor guy... in the next couple of weeks Jeff lost three toenails. What a trooper. :) He's my man. And I love him.

We've had many adventures since, and now we're on pursuit of the greatest adventure. Life together.

God has been an active part in our relationship and we're both excited to have him in the driver's seat of our relationship. He (God) gave me a vision last January- a little over a year ago of Jeff and I sharing our first kiss on our wedding day. I was shocked and a little confused. We had been kissing since date 2... but God used this to restore our relationship and grow us even further.

So, in 254 days, Jeff and I will once again share our first kiss as we step forth into the realm of marriage. Side by side. Forever. :)

I'm tempted to say, "We can't wait!" but the truth is... we will wait... with joyful anticipation. <3