Photo of the day, via Weddingbee Pro.

I am just so in love, I have to post more pictures.

Just a quick preview of my mom’s most difficult project for the wedding: the Ann Wood-inspired cake topper birds!

We’re still making some little changes… Or rather, my poor mom is making the changes per my requests. Let’s just say that I’m lucky that my mom loves me. But it just kills me how little stuffed animals can have so much personality. I also think that Mr. R will like that the boy bird looks kind of like a penguin.

I’ve been agonizing over the programs for a couple of weeks now, but I’m close to being ready to print. In the meantime, I thought I’d share my favorite inspiration images… Stationery and dresses are the two things that make me wish I could get married (to the same person, of course!) over and over and over.

The last three days were jam-packed with as many wedding (and shopping) things as humanly possible. I had to take full advantage of my matron of honor coming to town for the weekend. Adorable!

We spent most of our 46 hours together doing everything we used to do when she lived here. And when I say everything, I mean all the things we would normally do over a week or two we jammed into one itty-bitty weekend — from botana de queso at Los Dos Hermanos to coveting eye shadows at MAC to drinking peach bellinis at Macaroni Grill, we did it all.

Before she arrived on Friday, I had a tasting with our caterer. I wasn’t going to have one at all — our venue has an exclusive contract with our caterer — but I decided that I wanted to confirm my choices. I wish I would’ve taken pictures of all the food, because it was incredible. The dessert miniatures were delicious, the hearty mini chicken pot pies were savory, and there was so much more… teeny fingerling potatoes, little crab cakes, the list goes on. I was thrilled with how everything turned out — especially the items I specially requested that aren’t on their regular menu.

Then first up on Saturday (after the obligatory venti seven-pump nonfat no-water chai) was a trip to the florist to finalize flowers. I continued to gush over photos like this:

…and I shamelessly begged for peonies. Well, much to my delight, she thinks she can get them from California! Probably not enough to use them heavily on the tables at the reception (or, more accurately, my budget doesn’t afford enough room for liberal peony importing), but we should have some for my bouquet and at least some for the tables. I could have kissed her, I was so happy. Lily of the valley too, and tweedia. Hooray, hooray!

Next was Rebecca’s dress fitting. I didn’t take any photos at the seamstress’ studio, but I shoud have because her dress is beautiful. I can’t wait to see all three of the bridesmaid dresses together. I’ve only seen them one at a time so far, and the colors are better than I hoped. The lightest blue is oh-so-sweet, the middle blue is vivid without being overpowering, and the darkest blue — the one I was most uncertain about — is perfection. From the swatch, I feared it would be almost navy — way too saturated, and extremely dark. Instead, it’s a smoky gray-blue that effortlessly compliments the other blues. Rebecca’s sporting the middle shade, and it looks fabulous on her. Just wait until you see!

After brunch at Orchard Heights Winery this morning, we took a little trip out to the venue:

I am a wine snob in training (or geek in training, GIT), but Rebecca is blessed with an amazing palette. The owner of the vineyard calls those people “super-tasters.” She definitely qualifies as one of those and she had to come with me to select our wedding wines.

Never lacking in presentation, Zenith had a lovely fruit and cheese plate to accompany our tasting:

We chose two whites, one sparkling and two reds. The whites are creamy and decadent, and the pinot noir is very fruit-forward, soft and approachable. Yummy. The exact varietals are a surprise, but trust us, they’re going to be good.

I miss Rebecca terribly already, but it was an absolute delight to have her with me this weekend. It’s hard (okay, make that nearly impossible) to believe that the next time I see her will be less than two days before the wedding.

Forty-two blue bags, all in a row (excuse the terrible iPhone photo)…

I’m a little bit ahead of myself, but I assembled our welcome bags this week and seeing them in my dining room makes me even more anxious for April get here.

I originally bought paper bags from Target, but my test run made it clear that they weren’t big enough. At first I decided to leave out one of the beverages and just cram everything else in there, but the bags also seemed too plain and I couldn’t find a way of dressing them up that I really liked. Doing a label over the top to seal them wasn’t an option because they were so full, and wide satin ribbon for 42 bags costs a fortune. So I returned them and bought larger, sustainable, reusable bags from Paper Mart — for the same price!

They don’t stand up well on their own, but I had a ton of extra chipboard laying around, so I cut 8.5″x11″ sheets in half and put them in the bottoms for support.

I didn’t want any of the paper goods to get lost in the bottom of the bag, so I bought 9″x12″ clear envelopes in bulk on eBay (less than $9 for 100) and put everything in there.

From left: clear envelopes, eBay ($9); Travel Salem guide, visitors center (free); Oregon state maps, state department (free); Willamette Valley wineries guides, WVWA ($25 for 50); welcome cards, printed at home on leftover Eames Furniture Weave cover stock (free); Oregon postcards, printed for free through VistaPrint (free); Oregon stickers, Heart in Oregon ($20 for 50).

Several months ago, I went to Costco and priced a ton of beverages, snacks and candies to figure out what I wanted to put in the bags. I settled on Sunchips, mini chocolate chip cookies, peppermint patties, bottled water, S. Pellegrino, assorted nuts, dried fruit and ginger cookies. (That’s one of the returned Target bags hanging out in the background.)

I didn’t like the nut assortments that came in individual packages, so I bought spice jars at Ikea and then layered in chocolate-covered raisins, almonds, walnuts and peanuts.

And the ginger cookies came in bulk, so I ordered super cheap little glassine bakery bags on eBay, split the cookies between them and sewed them closed with my sewing machine.

I have to do the same thing for the dried fruit, but I have to do that closer to the wedding.

I absolutely cannot wait to hand these out! But here’s a logistics question for all you brides out there: Did you run into any trouble with the hotels accepting the bags, distributing them to the guests, etc.? I was hoping that I could bring them to the hotel with a list of guests and each party’s arrival date, but any guidance would be appreciated.