Rehearsal

We had our rehearsal the Friday night before the wedding.  I had been running around all day buying last minute things and finishing up the wreaths so I was literally running into the church.  After waiting a few minutes for my sisters (shocking I know), we started the rehearsal. Our whole bridal party made the rehearsal (all looking very beautiful/handsome) so everyone learned what to do for the real thing. Everything was going smooth until it was the ring bearers and flower girls turns.  The ring bearers (our 3 nephews) did AWESOME! They all held hands and walked right down. The girls on the other hand (our 3 nieces) refused to go down. Granted their only 3,1, and 1, none of them were having it. The littlest girls wouldn’t even attempt to walk down and the 3 year old walked down but cried the entire time. I had a feeling this was going to happen so was fine with them doing whatever needed to be done to get down the aisle for the wedding (walk with the boys, have their mom or dad carry them, etc).  I am so thankful for this picture of the boys because my nephew Aiden (in blue shirt) got sick with the flu that night and was too miserable on Saturday to make it to the wedding. It still makes to tear up that he isn't in our wedding pics.

We soon gave up on the girls and then it was my dad and I’s turn. I thought I would keep it together but as soon as the music started, I lost it. That in turn made my dad and sisters lose it and I think even Derek was teary eyed.  We made it down and my dad handed me over to Derek. Things went smoothly and at one point Derek asked if I was shaking. For some reason I was shaking like crazy. I think it was the whole rushing in, jumping into things, nervous/excited, something like that! The pastor asked us if we wanted to do it again and I quickly said yes. I felt like everything was going in one ear and out the other. We did it over and everything went good, no tears were shed, and I was able to remember what we were supposed to do.

After rehearsal at the church, we all headed to rehearsal dinner at the train depot in Manhattan. We had more family and friends waiting there to help celebrate. Derek’s parents hosted the rehearsal and they did AMAZING. I think it might have even looked better then the wedding! Everything was yellow or grey and the centerpieces were picture stands with some of our engagement pictures. Brookeville hotel catered it and there was water, tea, beer, and wine. His mom and grandma made cupcakes and I think everyone said they had 2 they were so good. I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have the in laws I have. Not only his parents but his sister, her family, and all his extended family. They are so nice and so much fun. We always tell each others family that it’s a toss up of who's family drinks and parties more.

Everyone ate, drank, and had a good time. Derek and I parted ways after that. He went out with the boys and stayed at the hotel and I went to my dads and went to bed. I wanted to go hang out with all my friends and family that were in town but we all know I don’t handle hangovers well so I happily declined and went and got my beauty sleep.

Stay tuned for the wedding post!

Wedding preparations

I’m going to have to break these wedding posts up into sections: preparations, rehearsal, and finally the wedding.

I made the majority of the stuff for the wedding so I think I am entitled to dedicate a post to all the crafts. I can’t take all the credit though cause I had help from Derek, my sisters, my cousin Kayla, and my dad and his girlfriend on some of the things. Here is what my house looked like for a good 2 months before the wedding:

And then I stayed at my dads the week before the wedding and his house was turned into this:

The first thing we made was the tissue wreaths for the church aisles. We had a wreath/drinking night at my sisters and accomplished 3 of 12 before we decided to call it quits and focus more on drinking Here are the wreaths:

I had 6 grey and 6 yellow. I wish I had a picture of the final product but I can’t find any. I put ribbon on the styrofoam where there wasn’t any tissue and then we tied a ribbon bow where we left room on the wreaths. I thought they looked too much like Christmas wreaths so we turned them and had the bows on the side instead of top. Hopefully someone has a pic of the final product and I will post it when I get it. I was VERY happy with how they turned out (which is a good thing because each one took me about 2 hours when I was doing them alone).

Next I made ribbon wands for our guests to wave when we were walking out of the church.  Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of these. We got wooden dows and spray painted them white and then glued yellow and grey ribbon to the ends. Hopefully our photographer got a good pic of them.

Lastly, we made our own centerpieces. The branches didn’t get in until Thursday (yes, 2 days before the wedding) so we were on a mission to get them done. Luckily my sister was in town by then to help as well as Derek, my dad, and his girlfriend Kelly. It finished mounting the branches in the pots in no time (after Kelly knocked one over and cement went EVERYWHERE.  Luckily it was still wet so we quickly cleaned it up before it dried). I put green moss around bottom so you couldn’t see the cement and tied yellow ribbon around the grey pots. I had planned to hang crystals from the braches but we decided last minute they were too casual for crystals and liked them better plain.

Wedding preparations VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Again, final product pic is going to have to come later. So mad I forgot to take pics when they were all done! Here is what I did for the other half of the centerpieces.

So there you have it. Those are the things that kept me very busy the 2 weeks I had off before the wedding. Next up: rehearsal!!

Our honeymoon-Riviera Maya, MX

I know I am doing the honeymoon post before my wedding post but I just uploaded all these pics to facebook so I might as well do the blog about the honeymoon as well.

The Monday after our wedding we headed to Riviera Maya, MX. It's about 30 miles south of Cancun and absolutely breathtaking. We stayed at El Dorado Royale which is an all inclusive, adults only, resort. It was the best vacation I have been on and we will definitely be going back. After doing an all inclusive, we will never travel any other way. It was so nice to order as much stuff off the menu as we wanted, everyone at the resort was just ordering other people shots just because we could, and I think we tried every alcoholic drink known to man.

With 13 pools and 8 restaurants, we didn't even need to leave. We decided we would regret not going and doing any "adventure" so we decided to go snorkeling on Wednesday. If am terrified of sharks but after getting to the boat to head out, they informed me that there is a natural coral reef wall (or something like that. They were probably lying out their ass to me) so sharks didn't come on the side of that wall we were going to be. So I geared up and we all shipped out. It was AMAZING. The water was only about 10-14 feet dip and you could see all the way to the bottom. We saw a ton of reefs, fish and a couple stings rays. Derek and I headed back to the boat before the group (snorkeling wears the crap out of you) and I guess our group saw a turtle. So sad I missed that. After our group came in, they put up what was called a Catabaran which was like a parasail but with a swing. I figured since I hadn't been shark bait yet, I might as well test my luck and give it a try. It was so much fun!!

So other then that adventure, we did a lot of swimming, drinking, eating and hanging out with other couples we met while there. Our room had a swim out pool so we spent a couple hours each day on our own at our pool and then we would take the lazy river from our room to the fun pool. The hotel put on a different show each night but we only made it to 1. Drinking and being in the sun all day wore us out so we were usually in bed pretty early. We had an awesome time and we're very sad to leave but ready to come home at the same time. Enjoy the picture overload!

I heart zazzle

I lied. 1 more post before I leave town.

I just have to express my love for zazzle.com. This is the website we used for our wedding invitations and I couldn't have been happier. It's kind of like an etsy where different sellers post their stuff. When I ordered the wrong size for our reception cards, they gave me a full refund, didn't make me ship them back, and mailed me new ones for FREE! I forgot to ever post a picture of our invitations. I'll include them in our wedding post in a couple weeks.


THEN I looked around on their website again for programs. I found one I liked but it was in purple and grey instead of yellow and grey. Emailed seller and with a snap of her fingers, she changed the purple to yellow. Ordered them, they were shipped and here super fast. Stupid me again, left someone off the program so contacted zazzle. Same thing again, refund, keep bad ones, new ones on their way for FREE.

So I ordered the new ones on the 20th and they say item ships the next day and allow 5-7 business days to arrive. I figured they should be here by next Friday at the latest. I didn't want to pay an extra $75 to expedite them so I decided I would pray they were here in time. Well I emailed them today cause they hadn't been shipped yet and I guess I didn't read the fine print and if the order is more then 50, to allow 2-3 days before being shipped. Well crap! But because they are awesome, they bumped them up to 2 day shipping for FREE and they will be here early next week.

If you need invitations, programs, pretty much anything, check them out. They sell clothes and everything imaginable. The more you order, the less you pay. I HEART ZAZZLE.

It's that time

Tomorrow we head to Manhattan and I'll be a married woman when I come back to KC! Derek is only going to Manhattan for the weekend so we can meet with the pastor one last time and go to church on Sunday and then he is coming back to KC till (hopefully) Wednesday night, maybe Thursday night.

(this is what our cars look like right now)

Last Friday was my last day at work (I already miss the little boogers) so I have had this week off and have accomplished a lot. Ribbon wands are about done, centerpieces are almost done, pew decorations are almost done and I think all the last minute things have been purchased. I say everythings ALMOST done because I am saving some of it for next week. Everyone says I'll be busy next week but I'm thinking I'm gonna be pretty bored at my dads house all alone while he is at work..

I started packing yesterday and it's taking me 10 hours because I am trying to get all the wedding stuff packed, my bags packed for a week, getting last minute stuff for Zoe and Elsie's 2 week stay in Manhattan, AND digging out all my summer clothes so when we get back Sunday after the wedding, I don't have to try and find it all. We leave bright and early Monday morning for our honeymoon!!

And because I am doing a blog so I can remember all the stuff that went into planning the wedding, here are a few things that are giving me grey hairs :)

1. Got the 3 new bridesmaids dresses in and Amber's STILL does not fit. Stupid dress people don't freaking know how to make a dress. So she re ordered a new one and it will be here (hopefully) early next week. Nothing like getting a dress last minute! Her latest one fits ok and someone thinks they can make it work if worse comes to worse.

2. Got the programs in and I forgot to add put someones name on it (won't mention who's) so I re ordered them and I got the last ones in 5 days so I didn't want to pay the $75 to expedite them so we'll be getting those next week too. I have them being shipped to my dads and my fingers are crossed they get here by Wednesday. I have old ones if worse comes to worse but I will feel awful not having that person in the program!

3. We are STILL waiting on some of the branches for our centerpieces. Long story short, they had a bad snow storm where they were being shipped from so they were finally shipped March 25 (3 weeks late). I still hadn't received them last week so I emailed him and he apologized and said they must be lost in the mail so he is expedited new ones on Tuesday and they should have been here today but still nothing. I might die if they don't get here tomorrow.

4. Our computer crashed on Tuesday. It was going to cost $200 to fix it so we just went ahead a bought a new one for $400. Geek squad was able to transfer everything from the old computer to the new one but the wedding video that was 90% done, isn't showing up right on the new computer. Hopefully myself or the geek squad can get that figured out today because I might cry if I have to start over!

So there you go. Surprisingly, I think I have been staying pretty calm but if you talk to me next week and I blow up at you, don't take it personally :) And if you could all say a prayer, their saying mostly sunny and 75 for next Friday and Saturday. Lets hope it stays this way!

Farewell till after the wedding!

Showers 1 and 2

I have been lucky enough to have 2 wonderful showers. My first shower was in Derek's hometown on April 3. I don't have any pictures but I promise once I steal some from Derek's parents camera, I will upload them. About 20 people showed up and we got spoiled with a lot of great things. I made Derek go with me to this shower because I didn't know very many people. Derek's from a small town so pretty much the whole town was invited. I was slightly nervous but Derek and his sister Jaime both sat by me and whispered where the person who got me the gift was in the room :) The people in Derek's hometown are sssoo nice. Ladies who didn't even know me offered to put on the shower and they did a wonderful job.

My second shower was this past weekend in KC. My moms friend, Lisa put on the shower for me and she went above and beyond herself. She made and frosted wonderful cupcakes, had mini pigs in a blanket (my favorite food), fruit kabobs, ordered custom mints, had beautiful flowers and pictures of Derek and I framed, and just hosted a wonderful shower. I had about 15 people at this shower and once again, Derek and I were spoiled with gifts. I stole these pics from my sisters blog

It's that time again-wedding update!

Here we are, less then 1 month away from the big day!!! My butt has been in full wedding gear this past week. Where shall I begin...

• Paid balance for our oh so talented photogrpaher: Bethany Meysenberg. Can't wait to see our engagement canvas she said is in and our guest sign in book/engagement pic book. I have a few fun props for the wedding day (1 includes the cool "something blue" Amber gave me) so I think we should be set for pictures


• Sent in songs we want DJ to play and also paid off that balance. Everyone better bring their dancing shoes because my brother (former DJ of the year) will be sure to have the DJ play all the right tunes. Plus, it's the company my brother used to work for so the have promised me their best DJ!


• Ceremony music has been selected. You should have seen me crying when I was listening to different music for the ceremony. I don't know what it is but wedding music always makes me cry...I'm gonna be a crying mess on my wedding day


• Ordered our wedding bands. Actually picking mine up today! Derek's won't be in for another 6-8 days


• Almost done with programs. Sent the draft to the pastor and Amy so they can both look over it. Pastor to make sure I have the ceremony in the right order and Amy because she has done this before so she knows how everything should be worded. Plus, i'm sure there's 1000 typos


• Got 12/15 vases I need for centerpieces. I have been to 3 targets and cleared their shelves of these vases. These vases are just for half of the tables. Derek and I already robbed Hobby Lobby of 42 vases for the other half. No typ there...42 vases is correct (3 on each table)


• Wedding dress should be complete! I was supposed to go for final dress fitting this week but Amber was busy and I need her to go with me so she can learn how to bustle my dress. Hopefully reschedule for next week


• Honeymoon is paid and passports are being processed


• Bridesmaids dresses are being fixed and 3 new ones should be here next week


• Tuxes are all ordered


• Meeting new cake lady this Saturday


• Buffet food has been selected


• Got marriage license

I think that's all the stuff I have been up to lately. Still have a few things to purchase and make but everythings slowly coming together and I am getting very excited! My first wedding shower is this weekend back in Derek's home town. I'll try to remember and take pics and upload them next week. Have a great weekend!