Christina's Bachelorette Party

After a very intense week of splitting my time between my old job and my new job, plus a one-day stint at Jury Duty, I have to say I am MORE than ready to throw back my hair, have a few drinks and celebrate Christina's last "harrah" before her wedding! (You like how I did that there? "harrah"?) Yep, I'm off to A.C. (again!) for Christina's Bachelorette Party! Christina knows all the details of this weekend, so I can write about our plans without ruining any surprises this time around!

Saturday afternoon, her bridesmaids, plus other girlfriends (me!), will be meeting up in Philly for a good old fashioned pole-dancing lesson!  This will probably be mortifying and embarassing and I can't wait! I gotta work on my upper body strength! I'm hoping to perfect this move before the day is through:

Just kidding....sort of....I mean, I wouldn't want to show everyone else up or anything. Anyway....moving on...

After the 2 hour class, we are loading into cars and driving over to A.C. where we will be spending the night at Bally's. Christina got us an awesome deal on the hotel rates because she worked in A.C. for the past 2 years.

Once we settle into our rooms, we'll hang out, give Christina her gifts, get ourselves glammed up for the night out on the town, and probably do a little pre-gaming and toasting. We have an 8:30 dinner reservations at Carmines and after that, your guess is as good as mine! I know there was talk of possibly going over to the vodka ice bar at the Tropicana Hotel. It's 30 degrees below zero and they have a 60 foot bar made out of ice. I've always wanted to go to one of these bars, so I think it would be very cool to try and go to that! Whatever we do, it will be a good time and I'm so excited to get away and celebrate with some really fun girls, and most importantly, to make sure Christina has an awesome time.

I should also mention that Ashley's bachelorette party happens to be this weekend, too. :( Unfortunately, I will not be there to celebrate with her as well. I know the plans, (though she doesn't) and she's going to have a pretty fantastic weekend. Have a great time Ashley, and I can't wait to hear all about it on Monday!!

I was really, really, REALLY hoping that I would have our engagement pictures back by today to show you, but I'm still waiting, ever so patiently, to get the files. I HOPE I have them to show you guys by early next week. Fingers crossed!

Happy Birthday "Saying 'I Do'"

This summer is just FULL of anniversaries, birthdays and celebrations!!

One year ago today, I started this blog with this first entry! It's kind of funny to read now. Back then, I didn't put nearly as much time and effort into my posts as I do now. Believe me, when I started this blog, I never expected to love it as much as I do. I enjoy sharing this process with others, as well as having a step by step documentation for me to look back on. I have learned SO MUCH about blogging over the past year and how interesting and huge the blogging world is!

I am very thankful for my loyal readers (hi mom!), my friends and family who follow this and some fellow wedding blogger friends I've made along the way! You all have traveled with me over the past year as Chris and I set the date, you also were with me as I started looking for my dress, then when I finally found my dress! You were there for me through my proposal video addiction, (Molly remembers that time well. She'd come out of her room at 2am to find me crying in the living room after watching these videos for hours), this was followed by my video save-the-date addiction. Then there was the arduous, but fun, task of looking for a band and a photographer at the same time. Those were a crazy busy few weeks, but in the end we were very confident in our decision. You were with us through registering, choosing my bridesmaid dresses, engagement party 1, engagement party 2, our one year engage-aversary, and now here we are one year later, and life is looking pretty darn good for me right now!

I'm excited to continue blogging up to, and including, our big day and so thankful for people who have supported and encouraged me to continue blogging through this process, it has been so fulfilling to me. I also feel like I have more and more to talk about every day as we get closer to May. There is just so much to do all of a sudden!!

Printer for Invitations/Save-the-dates

Flowers

Plan Honeymoon! - ITALY

Mother of the Bride/Groom Dress Shopping

Transportation

Hair and Makeup

Tux Rentals

Jewelry/Shoes

Wedding bands! (rings)

Rehearsal Dinner

Guest Book

Something old/new/borrowed/blue

Out of Town Bags for hotel
Table Numbers

Bridal Party Gifts

Dance Lessons (we NEED THIS before the wedding)

Music for Ceremony


What else am I missing?  I know there are things I need to take care of that I haven't even considered yet! Help!

This is my mantra right now:

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath- Michael Caine

I leave you with this adorable stop-motion video!

Max & Margaux Stop Motion from Shark Pig on Vimeo.

Good things come to those who wait!!!

So much has happened in the past 7 days I don't even know where to begin! For starters, I finally got a new job!! I'm so excited by this amazing opportunity and for this next step in my life!

Secondly, I am now a featured blogger for Theknot.com for the next few months!

Lastly, I am also now a "Long Island Wedding Examiner" for examiner.com. I can write about basically anything I want that pertain to weddings on Long Island. My first article published yesterday!

Check it out here. 

If anyone has any suggestions for topics to write about for future articles, please send them my way!!

Now, onto my post. This past weekend I went home and tried on my wedding dress!! The seamstress only pinned it for now to show where I'll need alterations. However, she isn't going to actually make alterations until January or February because, like every bride, I hope to lose some weight between now and then. It was so great to try on "MY" dress, and be reminded of why I picked it in the first place. I also tried on some veils and think I know what veil I want to purchase. It's very simple and you can still see the back through it (which is my absolute favorite part of the dress. Would it be weird to walk down the aisle backwards??) Here's a little dress "teaser" if you will:

My mom also started the ball rolling on looking for her dress for the wedding. We got some great ideas of what works on her and what color she thinks she's going to wear; purple or lavender. After dress shopping and lunch, my mom and I hashed out a rough plan on our bridesmaid gift project. I can't reveal what it is we worked on, but I will say that we played around with colored pencils...and it was fun.

Curious?

The rest of the weekend was taken up by an 11 mile bike ride with dad, attending a rodeo with sister, and a musical at Muhlenberg College with Grandma and Mom...so I was quite the busy bee! Even so, I do feel like this was a successful wedding weekend, and was the perfect way to kick off what turned into my equally amazing week!

Good things DO comes to those who wait...

D-I-Y Wedding Crafts and Wine

Last week, Ashley invited Ben, Kyle, and me over to her place for some wine and wedding crafts! Benjamin was camping with his family for the week so he could not attend. (If you ask me, I think he made the whole thing up to get out of doing crafts!!)  After last week, I feel confident in appointing Ashley as the "D-I-Y Queen". She has so many fantastic, crafty ideas and hand-made touches planned for her wedding. It is truly impressive.

I was in charge of cutting out the program fans. It was tedious but they are so cute and they'll be a big hit at the ceremony (definitely scrapbook worthy). I got to her apartment all set to tackle a bunch of crafts and was thinking..."I'll be there 2 hours, we'll finish all her D-I-Y stuff, badda bing, badda boom, we're done!!" As I started to cut out the programs (2 pages of 6 tear-drop panels to make up one fan!), I quickly realized that this was a daunting task. Over the next 2 hours, I successfully cut out 5 programs!!! 5!! Out of 150!! Did I mention this was over 2 hours? Now...this was while talking, laughing, and drinking wine...so we should consider those outside factors, but still! Ashley had already cut a lot of on her own so I did definitely help her, but she still has a lot to do! Anyway, here are some pictures of what the projects look like. I'm going to make it my mission to learn how to take better pictures in bad lighting, but here's what I got: 

2 pages of these equaled one fan!

Wine and fan programs (not yet fastened)

Kyle and Ashley holding up the finished product

Kyle was working on the printer the entire time trying to get her Parker Pictures to print.

While I cut the fans, Ashley made these little pinwheels for the out-of-town bags. I'm not saying she burned herself on the glue gun multiple times...but I'm not not saying it either.:

 

The finished product! Yet to be attached to out-of-town bags

BUTTONS!

So, though I felt my contribution was insignificant...I know that 5 programs cut are 5 less that Ashley has to do and I know that every little bit helps. Perhaps we'll have another session to help her out in August, but either way good luck Ashley, and it'll all be fabulous!

Chelsea Clinton's Wedding

I'm not gonna lie, I am excited to see all the pictures from Chelsea Clinton's wedding hit the internet over the weekend, and I am eager to see some of the details in this extremely high profile wedding. However, I am SO SICK of hearing about Chelsea Clinton's wedding!! I have a google alert set for "wedding" and pretty much every single article I've been sent for the past three weeks is about Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Good Morning America and Today talk about it DAILY: Where will it be? Who will be there? How much does it cost? Who's going to wear what? blah blah blah...leave poor Chelsea alone and let her enjoy her wedding. I clicked on an article the other day entitled "Chelsea Clinton's wedding to cost millions" and these were the other articles it took me to:

• CHELSEA CLINTON WORRIED HER FUTURE HUSBAND WILL CHEAT ON HER
• CHELSEA CLINTON HAS COUNSELING TO COPE WITH WEDDING STRESS!
• CHELSEA CLINTON’S WEDDING IS INFURIATING HER PARENTS’ PALS!
• CHELSEA CLINTON’S PARENTS NERVOUS ABOUT WEDDING!
• CHELSEA CLINTON INVITES BARACK OBAMA AND OPRAH WINFREY TO HER WEDDING

I would be so upset if I saw those articles right before my wedding. They're not even about the wedding anymore (except the last one)! I'm sure she's used to handling the press, especially negative press. And, I'm sure some would say she's asking for it by having such a public wedding, but those articles have to sting a little! I realize I'm just perpetuating the madness by talking about it even more, but it seems to be the only thing anyone can talk about these days, so why not join in?

If the residents of Rhinebeck are smart, they'll head out of town for the weekend. It's going to be a real shit-show there with press and security. However, I REALLY REALLY think it would be great if the whole Rhinebeck Wedding leak is all a hoax to divert the media, and it's really in some completely other city or state. That would just be impressive. But, apparently tents are going up, roses are coming in, and luxury porta-potties are being installed at Astor Courts, so I don't think that's the case.

Mike and Kerry's Engagement Party

Our friends Mike and Kerry, who are getting married next September, 2011 had their engagement party this past Saturday. Mike is one of Chris's oldest friends, and Chris will be a groomsmen in this wedding. It was sooooo hot outside on Saturday, but thank goodness Mike's parents have a new in-ground pool!! We hung out in the pool, drank beers, and tried to stay as cool as possible throughout the day. We arrived at around 3:30pm and didn't leave until 11 hours later at 2:30am after a monsoon came out of nowhere! Chris and I had a ton of fun and, of course, being treated to amazing food all day long didn't hurt either!

Mike and Kerry with their families

Kerry's friends put together a great "How well do you know Mike and Kerry" game that was of course turned into a "How well do you know Mike and Kerry drinking game." It was a great way to get all their friends involved in celebrating their relationship. I was happy that I knew a fair amount of the answers but also learned a lot of things I didn't know about them too!
The "kids" after our game:

Congratulations Mike and Kerry!!

Our Engage-aversary Celebration

With a little bit of trickery and some fancy string pulling...I was able to get a 6:30 reservation at Mesa Grill for Chris and me on Friday!! I was sooooo excited and glad we wouldn't have to wait around for 3 hours with our name on a list. Chris drove into the city Friday afternoon and picked me up at work. We drove downtown and easily found a parking spot right down the block from the restaurant.

We were seated right away. I got a glass of some Spanish red wine and Chris got his usual captain and coke. For our appetizer we ordered a Spanish Chorizo Quesadilla with fried egg, smoked tomato salsa, grilled green onion and crispy artichokes. I was skeptical about ordering this, but it was my favorite part of the entire meal!

With our meals, we ordered a side of mashed potatos with green chile queso sauce, and roasted corn with grilled cactus, lime and cotija. (Yea..I don't know what half that stuff is either) But let me tell you...that corn was one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten. I wanted to bathe in it...too much?

I ordered Ancho Chile-Honey Glazed Salmon with a Spicy Black Bean sauce, Tomatillo Salsa and Roasted Jalapeno Crema.

Chris ordered Red and black pepper crusted filet mignon with mushroom-Ancho chile sauce.

For dessert we knew exactly what we wanted. We ordered the same thing we had last year for dessert: Churros dusted with cinnamon sugar and star anise with dark chocolate dipping sauce and two scoops of vanilla ice cream:

I realized that we didn't get a picture of us at our table...so I made sure to get one in the car..not the best picture but at least we got one!

We both enjoyed our entrees, but I wouldn't say we were raving about them. Our favorite part of the meal was the appetizer and the sides. This was a great place to go for nostalgic reasons and good food, but I don't know if we'll be rushing back here. There are tons of other places I want to try that I hear are better. We got in the car to go back home just in the nick of time. It started to storm really bad as soon as we started to drive away, and the storm just continued to pick up the more we drove into Queens. The rain was hitting so hard we could hardly see the road in front of us. And, the lightning was lighting up the entire sky. It was actually a really cool storm...I just wish we could have enjoyed it from the comfort of our own home. On the radio, the announcers kept saying to stay indoors and that parts of New York and New Jersey had tornado warnings! What the heck??

We got home in one piece and hung out with our friends Mike and Kerry at our place for a few hours. It was great catching up with them, we definitely don't get to see them as much as we want to. All in all, we had a successful first engage-aversary celebration! (And I guess only because I'm pretty sure people don't celebrate their engage-aversary's every year.)


I leave you with this amazingly beautiful video that I found over at The Wedding Chicks. Her sister's speech is really beautiful and I can't watch this without tearing up.

Joanna + Dan from Picotte Photography on Vimeo.