Wedding – simplify the chaos

One Year Anniversary

I cannot believe it’s been an entire year since my wedding day!

I’ve been re-capping lots of the details of our wedding day in my Wedding Wednesday posts, and I had planned to do a post today on a few of my favorite moments from my wedding day. However, now that the day is here, all I want to do is sit on the couch with a glass of wine and a slice of our (one-year-old!) wedding cheesecake and watch a Redbox movie with my hubby.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Photo shared with permission of Rothwell Photography.

Previous Wedding Wednesday Posts

Decorations, Part One, Part Two

Ceremony Decor

Reception Decor

Flowers

Wedding Wednesday: Reception Decorations

Jambo!!

Today is the TEN YEAR anniversary of the premiere of “Mean Girls.”

Wait.

Mean Girls

WHAT!?

Yes, it’s true. Regina George came into my life ten years ago!

I seriously love this movie! My friends and I watched it at least once a week in high school — I can quote Every. Single. Line. And it makes me laugh every time I watch it! It is an absolute classic in my book! So of course, I’m celebrating it’s 10th anniversary by . . . wearing pink (because it’s Wednesday, and that’s a rule) and watching it for the trillionth time!

Because of this oh-so-fetch celebration, I’m gonna make my weekly Wednesday post nice and quick!

Wedding Wednesday

My final decoration post is about our wedding reception. We kept things nice and simple — a big white tent in the front yard of the farmhouse with a few decorations to add pops of color! Once again, all photographs are copyright the AMAZING Rothwell Photography.

First of all, MAD PROPS to my awesome hubby for creating these paper flower poms:

The boy spent hours creating 30 of these babies! Each petal was a piece of paper and you need 5 petals to make a flower, 12 flowers to make one pom. Do the math — that’s 1800 flower petals to fold!! I was so impressed with how they all turned out though. We got tons of compliments on them! All we did was hang them from fishing line across the length of the tent at varying heights (we used a hold punch and those paper reinforcer donut hole stickers to hang them).

Simple and beautiful! And I love the way they pulled everything together without trying too hard.

This was one of my favorite shots of our first dance — mostly because I love the way J and I are laughing and loving life in that moment but also because the poms look sa-weet! I absolutely love how they turned out! So proud of my crafty hubby (even if he did only do it to have an excuse to take study breaks! Haha!) See the full directions here for how to make them.

Really the only other reception decoration was the centerpieces. Each table’s set-up looked like this:

-Square piece of green burlap

-Large stump cut to a height of about 2 inches (thanks dad!)

-five wine bottles (more on this below!)

-a few bits of moss around the stump

-one small stump with a notch cut in it for cardstock (again, thanks dad!)

-table numbers (each table had a fun fact about us corresponding to the table number i.e. Table 7 — the number of states we’ve traveled to together. It was a fun way for our guests to learn a little more about us as a couple!)

-green, yellow, and white flowers (got these in bulk from my florist. They were all the same types of flowers incorporated into my bouquet and other flower arrangements, which helped tie everything together. By buying in bulk and assembling ourselves, we saved a ton of money too! Yay!)

Justin and my table looked a little bit different. We didn’t have a bridal party table because we wanted our attendants to sit with their significant others so we had our own simple little table:

A nice green tinted jug with flowers and some Mr. & Mrs. stumps (made last minute with a sharpie marker and some extra little stumps!) kept things sweet and simple. We knew we wouldn’t be at the table that much anyways so why overdo it?

We hung a few strands of white Christmas lights around the tent and called it good! Easy peasy!

Wine Bottles

The wine bottles was a simple project. We collected tons of wine bottles from family, friends, restaurants (not kidding), and anywhere else I could find them. Some were already tinted green and yellowish, so we left them as is! Labels are easily removed by soaking the bottles in warm water (make sure the water inside the bottles is really warm!) and removing it with a kitchen scraper.

The bottles that were clear or a color other than green or yellow got spray painted. I used lime green, yellow, and cream (hotel vanilla, technically) spray paint. I didn’t take pictures of the process but it was super simple:

1- Lay out newspapers in a large space outside. Make sure to lay out a lot of newspapers — the spray paint goes further than you’d think!

2- Place the clean, dry bottle on the newspaper (my dad eventually crafted a bottle holder out of a block of wood and doll rods but most of the bottles were sprayed on paper).

3- Spray thin coats of paint on the bottles. I waited 30 minutes in between coats and each wine bottle got at least 3 coats.

4- Let the bottles dry for at least an hour or two, depending on the temperature of wherever you’re spraying them.

5- Smile! You’re done!

We used rubber bands to create a striped look on some of the bottles (see white bottle above). To do this, all you have to do is wrap a bunch of rubber bands in varying sizes around the bottle between steps 2 & 3. It looks better in the end if the bands are lying flat against the glass and not twisted. I cut the bands off with scissors then — do not remove the bands until the paint is completely 100% dry!

And there you have it! Super easy and it looked great! Plus now the wine bottles make great decorations around the house!

Have a great hump day! Love, me and Mrs. George 🙂

***

Today’s outfit. Unfortunately, there was no pink involved so I couldn’t sit with the Plastics at lunch . . .
Dress: via Ross (no longer available) ~ Cardigan: Target (exact here) ~ Shoes: Nine West (no longer available; similar here)

Wedding Wednesday: Ceremony Decorations

Hey Mike! What day is it!?

The students at my school absolutely love quoting this commercial. I have to admit that it does bring some much-needed energy to help push through the day! Whoot whoot! 😉

Wedding Wednesday

Continuing on my decoration trend, let’s talk ceremony decorations!

Since the ceremony was happening outdoors, I wanted to keep the decor to a minimum and let nature do most of the work. We had white chairs arranged on the lawn in a semi-circle with a middle aisle. At the entrance to the main aisle, there were sets of three tall tree stumps of varying heights.

Each of the stumps had a glass bottle (these were all beer bottles spray painted in wedding colors) holding a single flower. We varied the flowers to give it a little more pizazz.

I really liked the way this turned out! It gave just the right touch without going overboard or taking tons of time.

The only other ceremony decorations were at the front of the aisle. A dear family friend of mine (basically a grandfather for me) constructed a beautiful arch for us. I absolutely loved it!

Side note: I also really enjoyed this moment of the ceremony. 😉

We had some slate tiles to stand on since there was a chance of rain (and it did rain) so we wouldn’t be standing in wet grass or mud. Under the arch I placed an antique table that belongs to my family. I covered it with a simple lace doily from my mom’s house and set three pitchers on top.

The pitcher in the middle was a gift from our pastor. It was handmade (though not by him) and came with a matching basin. Instead of a unity candle, we decided to have footwashing. This is an important tradition in our denomination and we really wanted this to be part of our ceremony. I’ll give more details in a future post!

The other pitchers belong to Justin’s mother. They each had water in them; instead of our mother’s lighting candles, we had them pour water from the pitchers into the main pitcher we used for footwashing.

The only other decorations we had were a few white coffee filter poms hanging in the trees. These were made by my sister-in-law and provided a nice little touch.

Other than that, we let nature do the talking. And I was okay with that. 🙂

Happy hump day!

All wedding photos are copyright Rothwell Photography.

***

I love maxi dresses; they are so simple but still look like you put in some effort! Today’s look:

Blazer: Maurices (exact old) ~ Maxi Dress: Modcloth (no longer available; cute option here) ~ Earrings: Premier Designs (exact old) ~ Bangle set: Shop Ruche (exact here) ~ Ballet Flats: Fergalicious by Fergie (similar here)

Wedding Wednesday: The Decorations, Part 2

Not gonna lie, it’s been a long day and my hubster wants to chillax on the couch and catch up on last night’s episode of “The Voice” so I’m gonna just get right down to it so I can go join him! It’s Wedding Wednesday and the decorating fun continues!!

Wedding Wednesday

Our wedding took place on my grandparent’s farm, which is now owned by my parents. My parents decided to renovate the old farmhouse in the months before the wedding, and one of the things they updated was the windows. Putting new windows in = tons of old, rustic wooden windows for me to use for DIY decorations!! YAY!

Here are some of the ways I incorporated these windows into the decor:

Believe it or not, this window frame came with the perfect amount of aging/distressing so I didn’t have to do anything to it. All I did was clean the window with some simple wood cleaner and it was done! I printed out the photo at Costco because it was the only place I could find that would print off a near poster-size picture and didn’t charge a ridiculous amount of money for it. Score!

I used the same process as before (but with smaller pictures) in the above window frame. I’m sure you can find some super crafty way of attaching photos to a window on Pinterest, but I’m going to be very real about the un-crafty way I created these.

1. I cleaned the window and glass.

2. I placed one picture at a time behind the glass of the window and moved it until the exact part of the picture I wanted to see was “framed” by the window pane.

3. Without shifting the picture, I carefully pressed it into into the glass. Making sure the picture was flat against the window glass, I used my nail to bend a crease in the picture up against the side of the window frame. This marked the outline of the part of the picture I wanted to see

4. I cut out the picture using my crease as an outline (I left a slight edge around the crease in case I needed to shift the picture. Better to have to trim it a little more than realize I came up short!)

5. I used masking tape to attach the picture to the side of the window glass.

6. I repeated all those steps for the remaining three window panes!

Like I said, you’ll probably find a more conventional, “crafty” way to do this using fancier tools and a more exact method on different blogs or DIY websites; however, this is what worked for me because it was quick and easy! I loved the result and no one saw the back of the windows anyways so the whole tacky-masking-tape-thing can stay our little secret, right?

While I liked the first two window frames (which were placed by the “welcome table” that I talked about in last week’s post), this last one was probably my favorite. I loved the double window; it was so unique! I propped it up against this display of new and old crates found in my parents’ attic near the walkway where people went from the ceremony to the reception. The yard at the farmhouse was very big and thus, difficult to decorate, so this display was a simple way of adding some cool decorations without spending a lot of time or effort or going overboard. I found the J & S letters at TJ Maxx and the wooden hearts were handcrafted by a dear family friend. The wine bottles were part of a whole ‘nother DIY project that I’ll discuss in a later post. I was really happy with how this display turned out!

In the spirit of window crafting, I’ll share one more thing! Our seating arrangement was created using an old storm door found in the attic of the old farmhouse.

I alternated seating arrangement cards with engagement photos on the windows of the door and absolutely loved the way it turned out! For this, I used clear reusable tabs on the back of the photos and seating cards to attach them to the glass. My dad created a simple arch and used swinging screws to attach the door to the arch to put it at eye level with our guests.

If you look closely, you’ll see I used the same tree design on the seating cards that we had on our invitations and programs. It was the perfect way to tie everything together!

All photographs are copyright of the fantastic Rothwell Photography.

And that concludes another Wedding Wednesday! Have a good evening!

***

I am slowly inching my way into a spring wardrobe — here’s hoping the cold winter is finally gone!

Sweater cardigan: Maurices (similar here)~ Cami: Express (exact old)~ Khaki pants: Maurices (similar here) ~ Flats: Target (exact here) ~ Belt: Via Plato’s Closet ~ Necklace: Lia Sophia “Flower Pot” (no longer available; similar here)

Wedding Wednesday: Decorations, Part 1

Hi there!

I hope you all are having a great week so far! My week seems to be going SO slow; Justin and I leave on Friday after work for a vacation and I am so excited! I have to keep distracting myself so that I don’t focus on time or otherwise this week will seem never-ending. Come on Friday!!

Wedding Wednesday: “Welcome Table” decorations

For today’s Wedding Wednesday post I thought I’d start re-capping some of the decorations we had around our wedding. I should preface this by saying Pinterest became my BFF during the wedding planning and it was definitely reflected in the decorations. Wish I could take all these ideas as mine alone but I took lots of inspiration from others. I still tried to put my own spin on things so that counts for originality points, right? All photographs below are copyright Rothwell Photography.

For today, I’m gonna focus on the things on the tables at what I call the “welcome table.” This was the first thing guests saw: where they were dropped off gifts, signed the guestbook, and got programs! I wanted it to be functional, interesting, and helpful to our guests.

I incorporated chalkboards in a couple different ways. I bought mini chalkboards from a local store and used them as signs to give info to guests.

I used one small one in front of a wooden box to tell guests where to leave their cards. (Props to my wedding coordinator for thinking to use extra painted bottles and flowers to spruce up the area. More on the painted bottles in another post!)

I didn’t ask anyone to hand out programs so I used one chalkboard to instruct guests on what they needed to do. I had a basket with song sheets, another wooden box with programs, and a huge tub with bottled waters for guests to grab before they went on to the ceremony.

Speaking of programs . . .

My amazing sister helped me put together these cute fan programs in the days before the wedding. I used navy and green font and the same tree drawing (which my other amazing sister drew herself!!) that was used on our invitations. Making the fans was super simple! I printed out the programs on cardstock, folded them in half, used spray glue (found here) to attach popsicle sticks to the back of the cardstock, and sealed the fold together. Once the glue had dried, I used a scrapbook corner cutter to round the edges so they looked more polished. Easy! And it was very appreciated by my guests since it was a hot day!

Now on to a few more things!

Also on the welcome table was the guest book. For this, I found a giant letter “W” (for our last name) at Hobby Lobby and I had a friend paint and distress it using green paint. (Not only was green a wedding color but it’s also a color I use in almost every room of our house so I knew I could use the letter to decorate later!)

I absolutely loved that we did this! The letter is now hanging up in our living room — the perfect reminder of our special day and all the loved ones who shared it with us!

And speaking of loved ones who shared it with us, there were a lot of loved ones who couldn’t make it to the wedding. Specifically, Justin’s grandparents were both in poor health and lived four hours from our wedding site so they were unable to attend. We wanted to pay respects to them so we put their pictures on a table near the guestbook with a little sign that said “Loved ones celebrating from afar” because we knew they were celebrating in spirit!

We also included a picture of Justin’s grandpa, my grandpa, and one of my childhood best friends, all of whom unfortunately passed away long before Justin and I knew one another. We wanted to remember them too so we included a sign that read “loved ones celebrating from above” — it was hard to not have them with us at our wedding but I love knowing they were still watching over us!

And continuing the picture theme, on the other side of the table, we had a grouping of pictures from our ancestor’s weddings. We were lucky enough to find pictures of all of our grandparents at their weddings in addition to our parents. For fun, we also threw in baby photos of the two of us. 🙂

I’m glad we had all the photos out because it gave our guests something to look at while waiting in line for the guest book and programs. And it was a great way to pay to tribute to all the marriages that we respect and admire!

And that’s all for now! All of the decorations were super simple and easy — just the way I like it! And none of them took very long to put together except for the fans which did take over an hour to complete.

More decorations to come in the next Wedding Wednesday! Which will not be next week because I’ll be on VACATION!! Whoop whoop!!

***

Today’s outfit was warm weather wishful thinking. Can’t wait to not have to wear cardigans and tights with everything!

Dress: Maurices (exact unavailable) ~ Cardigan: Maurices (exact here) ~ Tights: Express (exact here; similar here) ~ Black suede pumps: Target (exact old, similar here and here) ~ Belt: Maurices (exact here) ~ Earrings: Gift from a friend

Wedding Wednesday: Wedding Party

So yesterday after school I had a meeting and then Justin and I had friends over for dinner. No time to blog! Therefore, “Wedding Wednesday” is happening on a Thursday. And in my own little blog world, there is nothing wrong with that. 🙂 So let’s get to it!

Wedding Wednesday: The Wedding Party!

Since the last two Wedding Wednesdays have focused on what Justin and I wore, I decided to keep that theme going and discuss the bridal party!

From day one of planning, Justin and I knew that we wanted our wedding to be FUN — our goal was for the whole day to just be a celebration! Nothing super fancy and stiff because that’s just not us. We wanted our wedding party to be comfortable and happy so we gave them a lot of freedom with their outfits. I did this mostly because I have been in a few weddings and I’ve learned a few things. For starters, while it is a HUGE honor to be part of this special day in someone’s life, it is really kind of annoying to have to shell out $200 for a dress/suit you hate and will never wear again. Nothing against the bride or groom, but if their style is not yours, it’s hard to spend lots of money on clothes that aren’t “you.” In addition to that, everyone in our party was either a young professional just starting a career, starting graduate school, or still in college (a.k.a. BROKE). Our wedding took place in my hometown and many had to take off work and pay for travel just to get there. We didn’t want to put a financial burden on anyone so letting them pick their outfits ensured they not only felt comfortable in what they wore but also spent an amount of money that was comfortable to them.

Here are the results (all photos copyright the incredible Rothwell Photography):

I absolutely LOVED how everything came together! I’m so glad everyone put some personality into their outfits.

While I was very pleased with how everything turned out, there are some things you should consider if you’re giving your wedding party freedom in choosing their own outfits. Here are my top tips:

1. Give your attendants clear guidelines. For my girls, I told them to pick a knee-length navy dress. Since my family is fairly conservative, I asked that hemlines be no more than one inch above the knee. I did not care about sleeves/strapless/neckline other than to ask that there not be cleavage. I also sent them pictures of dresses I liked as examples and a few of them ended up buying dresses that I sent as examples. SHOW THEM PICTURES! They might think they know what you’re looking for but they could be on the wrong page — make sure they see the type of overall look you’re going for with your wedding. I also told them to pick nude shoes that they would be comfortable in (flats, heels, sandals, etc) but asked that they not be flip flops.

For the guys, I asked them to wear khaki dress pants and brown shoes (we provided the shirt and suspenders). I did not care about color or style, although in hindsight I wish I had told them not to wear pants with pleats because that ended up looking a little strange with suspenders. For the tie, I sent them a link to the Bows N Ties website because they organize their ties into color palettes. I asked them to choose a tie from a specific page that they liked and would want to wear again.

2. Make sure to approve of all outfits . . . I had my girls text me a picture of their chosen dress before they bought it just to make sure it was okay. They were all really willing to do this because no one wanted to stick out by being the oddball in a dress that looked “off” from the party. I didn’t ask them to, but most also texted a pic of the shoes to make sure they got approval. We also approved all the guys ties before they bought them to make sure there weren’t a ton of duplicates or one that clashed.

3. . . . but be flexible with individual styles. One of our ushers felt that he didn’t look quite right in thicker ties and wanted a skinny tie that was not offered on the website we sent. We told him to order one he liked (but just double check with us before buying to make sure the color worked) and felt comfortable in. Be willing to consider all requests, and think about what is really important. You might not love lace, but if your sister picks a dress with lace that she loves and is happy in and it fits in with the rest of the dresses, that might be worth letting slide even if it’s not your favorite. If you feel yourself wanting to control the dresses on a micro-detail level, letting your attendants pick their dress might not be the right move for you.

4. If you don’t want to give up complete control, consider allowing attendants to choose details. For example, consider a dress that can be worn multiple ways (strapless, one shoulder, spaghetti strap) to let each girl wear what they’re comfortable in. Or allow them to choose their jewelry or shoes even if they’re all wearing the same dress. I bought my girls each a piece of jewelry, but I let them pick it out so it’d be something they’d wear again and again and think of our wedding!

5. Make sure it all “fits” by choosing a few details to keep consistent. Giving too much freedom can look chaotic or keep your party from looking like a cohesive unit. For example, if you just want attendants to wear a blue dress with no other guidelines, they might all wear something totally different and not look like they belong together. I’ve seen weddings where you can’t even tell who is in the party because the outfits are all so different. If that’s your style, go for it! For me, I wanted my party to still look coordinated. I had the girls all in dresses of the same length and the guys in the same shirt and suspenders. While our ushers wore white shirts and our groomsmen green, their looks still coordinated well together! Because there was so much variation in style of dress, shade of khaki pant, and style of tie, the party needed a few key details to be the same in order to “fit” together.

I hope you have found this list helpful! I had many compliments from guests (and even some people who weren’t at our wedding but saw pictures) on how great our party looked and several attendants commented on how much they appreciated getting to choose a style that they liked and would wear again . . . AND that fit their budget! I highly recommend considering letting your attendants in on some of the decision making — I’m really glad we did!

Previous Wedding Wednesday Posts:

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I was feeling polka dots for today’s outfit so I kept piling on the dots! Details to available pieces on Wear page.

Sweater: New York & Company

Blouse: New York & Company

Skirt: Kohls

Tights: Express

Pumps: Maurices

Necklace: Forever 21

Wedding Wednesday: The Suit

Okay, people. Fess up.

Elsa-Frozen Who ticked off Elsa!?

Seriously, I can’t believe it is snowing again. We have already had several inches this afternoon and school has been canceled for tomorrow. While it will be nice to have a day off, I am getting antsy for spring!! I need some warm weather and bright colors back in my life!

Wedding Wednesday

Since last week’s post was all about my dress, I thought I should spend some time this week and talk about Justin’s suit. Finding the perfect suit was (shockingly) more difficult that finding the perfect dress.

Our requirements for a suit were seemingly pretty simple. We wanted something light tan and breathable since the ceremony was outdoors. We also wanted it to be fairly casual since our wedding theme was more fun than formal.

That’s it!

You would think we would have found tons of options but we struggled. I bet Justin tried on suits from at least 10 different stores and nothing was right. Most suits looked too formal or were too dark in color. I was about to give up and have him just wear khaki pants . . . until . . .

We found the perfect one!!

Justin’s suit was from Express, which was very fitting since that has long been one of my favorite stores. It was the best combination of everything we were looking for — breathable, the perfect mix of formal and casual, and the exact shade of khaki I was envisioning! Plus, we used one of those excellent Express coupons to get a sa-weet discount. Success!!

Originally J was planning on wearing the full three-piece suit, but once the day came, he just felt that the right thing was to ditch the jacket, roll up his sleeves, and keep it casual. I actually love that he did that — it was perfect! And did you see those shoes!? He found navy and yellow boat shoes to match our colors online and convinced me that he should wear them. They are perfectly, ridiculously him and I’m glad he found them. He definitely stayed true to himself!

See what I mean? He’s ridiculous. And awesome.

Justin also wore a navy and green striped tie (all the guys wore variations or blue and green patterned ties but that’s another post) to complete the look. I loved the entire outfit, and he looked SO handsome. Mmmmm. 😉

And there ya have it! My hubby on our wedding day. Lookin’ snazzy and keepin’ it real.

Have a great “hump” day!! If you are getting snow like me, be safe out there!

***

Today’s outfit was inspired by the Style Me Feb prompt “shades of sea and sky.” And yesterday’s was inspired by my desire for SPRING. Details on Wear page!

Shirt: Express

Pants: Old Navy

Flats: Target

Necklace: Purple Peridot

Bracelet Set: Ruche

Sweater: Old Navy

Blouse: Express

Pants: Kohls

Pumps: Maurices

Necklace: Lia Sophia

Clutch: Coach

Wedding Wednesday: The Dress!!

As I write this blog post, I’m having a hard time staying awake. And no, unfortunately it’s not very late in the evening.

I woke up at 5:00 to go to the gym (highly unusual!) and actually got out of bed and went (more unusual!) I was feeling SO good and really proud of myself . . . until I left the gym at 6:30 and promptly got a phone call from school that we had a two-hour delay.

Excuse me, what!?

At least I could come home and take my time getting ready and do a few things around the house before going in. But still. 5 a.m. Sheesh.

Wedding Wednesday

In other news, it’s Wedding Wednesday!

Once Justin and I got engaged, one of the very first things I started planning was . . . my wedding dress!!

A few things I have learned about wedding dress shopping through my own experience and also from several friends sharing their experience with me:

1. Set a budget! Wedding dresses come in a VERY wide range of prices and it’s easy to get sucked up in the tulle, rhinestones, and chiffon and get carried away into a dress that is way more than you want to pay. Be very upfront about your budget to the wedding dress sales associates and be very clear that you only want to see dresses that are actually in your price range. Also don’t be afraid to shop the clearance racks or buy a dress right off the rack to get a discount.

2. Take 2-3 people dress shopping with you. Too many people = too many opinions. This is your day and your dress and it should be exactly what you want! I went dress shopping two different days; the first day I went with my mom and future mother-in-law and the second day I went with my two sisters. For me, having two people there was perfect! Just enough people to get feedback and affirmation but not too many that I felt overwhelmed with opinions. This also worked because everyone I took had a clear idea of what I wanted and what was going to work on my body and was super supportive; I do not recommend taking anyone who you think will try to make you wear the dress they want even if it’s not what you want or be critical of your taste.

3. Take pictures along of dresses you like . . . I took 3-4 magazine pictures of dresses I loved. Again, you don’t want to take along too many pictures — just enough to give the sales associate an idea of what you’re looking for.

4. . . . but keep an open mind! While I ended up getting a dress just like I was picturing in my mind, many of my friends say they got something the complete opposite of what they originally thought they wanted. One girl wanted a floor length mermaid gown and ended up with a tea length dress full of tulle. Another friend thought she wanted something very glitzy and beaded but she ended up with a beautiful floor length gown with lots of tucks and not one single bead. So be willing to try on a few dresses that are nothing like what you thought you wanted; you might surprise yourself! Also be willing to try different veils, belts, and other accessories to make the gown “yours.”

5. Have fun! This is not supposed to be a stressful day. When I went with my sisters, we made it a whole day: lunch, shopping (not related to weddings) and lots of girl talk. We laughed and joked during all the dress fittings and the sales associate did a great job of keeping it light and fun. Don’t put tons of pressure on yourself to find the “one” dress immediately. It took me two shopping trips to find the “one” so don’t worry if it’s not one of the first few that you try on.

All the dresses above were ones I tried on and liked for different reasons, but there was always something about the dress that didn’t feel quite right. The dress I ended up picking out was chosen for me by the sales associate. She saw the pictures I brought in and selected a few from their racks that she thought would fit what I was looking for. I wanted something with lots of detail and I wanted a very dramatic train. I also wanted something fun that I could have a good time and dance in without worrying about messing up the dress all day (I’m a pretty big klutz!)

I chose this stunner from designer Justin Alexander. I don’t want to sound cliche, but the moment I tried it on I knew it was the ONE. It was exactly what I was picturing in my mind and I didn’t want to take it off! (All photographs below are taken by the phenomenal Rothwell Photography — check them out here)

Best part about this dress? It was SO easy to move in and the train had so much going on that I didn’t worry about every time I bumped into everyone – – even if I snagged it on something, no one would be able to tell! And I could definitely get my groove on and boogie all night long which was so fun!

This is actually inspiring me to go try on my dress again. Maybe I’ll prolong sleep for a liiiiitle while longer . . .

Have a fantastic “hump” day and for those of you brides out there: happy wedding dress shopping!

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Today’s outfit. Deets on “wear” page. Enjoy!

Dress: Kohls

Cardigan: Express

Boots: CL by Laundry

Belt: Bluetique

Bracelets: ShopRuche.com

Earrings (not pictured): Target

Wedding Wednesday: Begin Planning!

Well, my streak of consecutive days at school over the past two weeks will stop at one, since we had no school again today due to icy roads. I am starting to get really stir crazy around the house! At least I am getting lots of snuggle time with my fur babies!

Wedding Wednesday: The Planning Process

A few days after Justin and I got engaged, I created three different documents on my computer to help with organizing the planning process. Since I am still fairly new to blogging and so not tech-savvy, I was not able to figure out how to upload the actual documents I used to my blog. I originally wanted readers to be able to download each file for themselves if they found any of my documents to be useful; however, actually completing that was beyond my realm of knowledge. I therefore did the closest thing (within my capabilities) and took screen shots of my documents to upload as pictures. Lame, I know. But hopefully it still gives you an idea of how I set things up in case you’d like to set up something similar.

Guest List

The first document I created was our guest list. I actually downloaded my guest list straight from The Knot’s wedding planning website so rather than screen shot my guest list, I’ll just include the link to their list template here so you can download it if you wish. We actually signed up for a wedding website through weddingchannel.com (which is now The Knot) and were able to upload our guest list straight to the site. This made it SUPER easy to have guests RSVP through our wedding website and eliminated the need for RSVP cards. We got an e-mail notification when each guest RSVPed — SO NICE! I highly recommend going this route–it’s simple and f-r-e-e.

**Sidenote: The guest list is one of the hardest things to do. It seems easy enough, but when you have to combine you and your hubby’s friends, family, and all the random extras, it can get big fast. I suggest carving out a significant chunk of time to just sit down and list everyone you even might want to invite. (Justin and I did this on a seven-hour road trip shortly after we got engaged–I wanted to get it out of the way!) Then start to systematically work through and take people out. Don’t be afraid of hurting feelings; it’s your wedding!! And in reality, you simply can’t invite every single person in your life.

A good rule of thumb is to expect about 75% of the guests you invite to RSVP “yes.”

Wedding Budget

With this one, I created a spreadsheet in Excel and listed every possible expense I could think of. I categorized the expenses into logical groups (i.e. stationary, reception) and listed all the details underneath. I had an “estimated cost” column to list how much money we were going to budget for each item and then I also had an “actual cost” column to list how much the item actually cost.

I set up the spreadsheet to have a “Grand Total” at the bottom and inserted a formula for the box to automatically update and add up the total in each column so I could easily see if I was under/over budget. This made it SUPER easy to keep track of our money and also helped me see where we could try to cut costs.

Contact List

I cannot stress this enough. A master contact list is an absolute must. It is hard to keep track of everyone’s numbers and information and you will want to be able to stay in touch with your vendors in case you have questions or need to confirm details with them.

My master list was super simple. Just an Excel sheet with all the vendors and their essential contact information listed, and also columns to keep track of payments. Some vendors require deposits, others want an additional portion of the payment before the wedding. It’s easy to lose track of who you have paid already and when payments are needed so this is a simple way to keep all the information in one place!

Bonus: Wedding Timeline

Another helpful document to have at the beginning of your planning is a wedding timeline. My sister-in-law gave me a copy of Real Simple’s wedding planner and I used the timeline they had but you can find many online. This was a very helpful tool to keep me on track and help me to know when to do things. Had I not had this, I would probably have had way too many things to do close to the wedding and it would have been stressful. I’m so glad I spaced everything out and had some time to breathe!

I hope you find some of these tools helpful! Feel free to take my ideas and tweak them for your own use 🙂

Happy “hump” day!

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No school, no outfit of the day. Even if there’s no school tomorrow, I need to put on some real clothes!!

Wedding Wednesday: The Beginning

Hey y’all!

So…it is Wednesday night and I just found out that school is canceled tomorrow. AGAIN. We haven’t had school all week due to MLK, Jr. Day on Monday and snow days ever since. Crazy! It’s like a little mini winter vacation. I’ve been trying to keep busy by cleaning (sort of) and cooking/baking. I’m currently in the middle of making some delicious Oatmeal Wheat Bread using a fabulous recipe my friend Leah gave me. It’s so yummy! While the bread was rising, I started flipping through some pics on my computer to pass the time and I came across tons of my wedding photos (It just so happens to be our seven-month anniversary! Whoop whoop!)

I just love looking at our wedding pictures! Justin and I got married this past summer and it was seriously the best day of my life. Everyone told me that the day would go by so fast and I wouldn’t remember anything later, but I actually remember so much more than I thought I would. I made a conscious effort to continuously take in the day and appreciate each moment. Justin and I decided from the day we got engaged that we didn’t want to “just get married” but we wanted to enjoy the whole process! We tried to keep each other accountable to not blow decisions out of proportion and to realize that this was just one day. We knew things would go wrong (and boy they did! I”ll save that for another post) but we also knew that this day symbolized the beginning of our whole life together —we wanted to just have fun and celebrate!!

As I was flipping through these photos, I thought about all the things that had gone into planning the day and I decided I’d like to share about my wedding day on the blog. Just bits and pieces that went into planning (and the day of) that helped me in case it might help some of you! Since it’s Wednesday and I do love some good alliteration (eh-hem Teacher Tuesday!), I think I shall have a Wedding Wednesday from here until my anniversary . . . or until I run out of things to say about it. 🙂

Since I view today as more of an introduction, I’ll just leave you with my biggest piece of advice:

Plan your little heart out. But when friends and family come into town for the big day, STOP planning and enjoy your loved ones.

My absolute biggest regret happened the night before the wedding. All our friends and family were in already. We had the rehearsal and dinner, and after dinner my friends were all there wanting to hang out. Justin and I told them to go ahead without us. Why?? Because we hadn’t finished wedding slideshow. Yup. I valued getting that darn slideshow done so much that I placed it first and foremost. I truly thought we’d just finish quick and have time to go out, but we were up until midnight finishing it, completely missing time with our friends. And you know what? The day of the wedding, it was too light outside to even see most of the pictures. It was totally pointless. Complete fail. I wish I could go back in time and say “Screw the slideshow! Let’s all hang out!” I missed out on a night with friends that I had been really looking forward too because I let myself get stuck on a little detail that I thought was important.

Do yourself a favor. Do what you can in the days leading up to the day, and when the day comes, forget the small details. They don’t matter. If it’s not done by the rehearsal, it’s not getting done. And that’s OK! Create memories with family and cherish time together with friends. This is probably the only time in your life when everyone in your life is together so ENJOY IT!!!

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Still no daily outfit. Because I’m still just wearing sweatpants all day. 🙂