Bridesmaid Dress Fitting

What a weekend guys. Seriously, I had the most amazing, crazy, fun weekend and I am absolutely exhausted. I don't think I've ever done so much running around in my life!

I will post about Christina and Adrian's wedding as soon as possible, but let me tell you, their wedding was just incredible! I have never been to a wedding like this before. It was full of lots of vodka drinking, Russian dancing and instruments I've never seen, chanting, traditional songs..etc., etc. Of course, Christina was ASBOLUTELY STUNNING, she was glowing the entire day. I cannot WAIT to post about this wedding.

But before I get to that, I have to share my amazing day Saturday with my bridesmaids, minus Cassie :(. I got into Pennsylvania late Friday night after having way too much fun at Kate's Happy Hour that night. Saturday morning, Smith and Sister Melissa met up at my parent's house so we could carpool together. The other three girls were meeting us at the Dress Fitting.

Smith, Me, Melissa!

From there, we headed out to Bridals by Sandra for our 11:30 appointment. The car ride was great. I was really looking forward to some quality catch-up time with Smith and Melissa, and that's exactly what it was. Molly was there when we arrived, and Mandy and Mal joined us a little later after hitting some major traffic coming from New Jersey. At the dress shop, the girls tried on a sample of the dress so we could see how beautiful they looked in it, and then got measured. Once that was all taken care of, I was finally able to show them my wedding gown!! They didn't think that I would want to show them because I'm keeping it a secret, but I'm not keeping it a secret from them! I was so excited to show them my dress, and to see it again for myself. As the great, and wonderfully trained bridesmaids they are, they all loved it, and "oh'd" and "ah'd" exactly as I had hoped they would, and just enough for me to get giddy and excited about my dress all over again.

That's my dress in the Garment bag to the right!!

Free kiffles and pecan tassies! Can my Bridal Salon get any better??

After the fitting, my mom made a reservation for us at this adorable restaurant in downtown Nazareth called Bistro on Main.

The town was having their Halloween Day parade that day, so we had to park a few blocks away and walk, but it was a beautiful Fall day.

The parade went on the whole time we were in eating our lunch, which was highly entertaining! The food there was good, it was a cute, little restaurant which just had the six of us and this adorable older couple eating there. The woman (who took the picture below) came up to talk to us because she overheard us talking about weddings. It turned out, she and her husband had just gotten married 8 days ago, and they were in town from Florida visiting his daughter! They were a really cute couple and she was so excited to talk to us about weddings and asked me a ton of questions. When they left she told us we made her day, and she wishes me the best of luck. She totally made my day, too!

The restaurant was pretty slow...it took them a loooong time to make our food: which consisted of salads and paninis..I guess they were waiting for the lettuce to grow?? But, I really can't complain because it allowed us to have an extra long chance to hang out. Who knows when we'll all be able to get together again? It may not be until the Bachelorette party, or even the wedding, though I sincerely hope that's not the case. This forced us to just stop, for once, for about 3 hours and just do nothing but catch-up, and honestly it was awesome. I had a whole list of wedding related things I wanted to go over with them, and realized I didn't even get a chance to go over half of my things because we kept going off on so many other tangents and stories! I'll have to email the rest of my bullet points to them this week (I bet they're really excited haha). My only wish for the day is that Cassie was able to join us.

My mom was treating us to lunch, which was such an awesome treat and so generous of her to do! We only have one thing to say to her:

Thanks for an amazing Saturday afternoon Ladies, I love you all, and I'm getting so pumped!

Crazy Weekend(s)

I have a confession: Last week...Chris and I went to see our band, Arcadia, perform a showcase just because we wanted to hear them again. It's like I said when we were choosing a band: How often do you get to go be entertained by a live band for free? It just doesn't happen. We love our band, we hadn't seen them since February and I wanted to be excited all over again for picking them.

I saw that they were doing a showcase at a venue near our house and we headed off to see them! I'm so glad we did because, it seriously got me even more excited than I thought. I think this showcase was so much better than the one I saw in February. Yes, part of it was certainly because I didn't have the added pressure of having to make a decision this time around. I was able to go, sit back, relax and enjoy without having to think so hard about it. But, I really do think this was better. They seemed to have much more fun and even took song requests from the audience doing a ton of songs right on the fly. I can't even begin to imagine having all those songs memorized. The one singer's performance of At Last, seriously blows my mind every time I hear it, and I was so happy she did it again. I just love them and can't wait to meet with them to discuss specific music selections!

This past weekend I was home in PA to help my mom find a dress for the wedding. We didn't find one but that's ok! We have a better idea of what she wants and will keep trucking along until we find one. Melissa and I had a great day at King of Prussia with her AND we saw Straight No Chaser that night. They are an awesome Male acapella group. Here's a clip from the concert we saw (THIS VIDEO WORKS NOW!):

I had a great breakfast date with Cassie on Sunday morning. It had been way too long since we caught up and it was really nice to touch base in person with her again. Sunday afternoon my dad and I went on a long bike ride (read about it here). That night, I cooked dinner for my family plus Grandma, and grocery shopped with Sister. Monday morning, I was up bright and early for another bike ride with Dad (he's a biking fiend!), drove back to New York, had lunch with Chris, made a few pit-stops for some wedding supplies I've started to purchase, unpacked, cleaned, then worked on our save-the-dates after dinner. (They're going out SO SOON!) It was a jam packed weekend but it was so much fun!

Cassie got measured on Saturday for her Bridesmaid dress while she was in town. She has to teach the youth of America this coming Saturday and sadly, could not meet with the rest of the bridesmaids for the fitting. Once the other girls get measured this weekend they'll all be ordered and hopefully ready to pick up soon! So, that means this Saturday I'm meeting up with these lovely bridesmaids below:

We have an 11:30 appointment at Bridal's By Sandra and then my mom made us reservations at a small bistro for lunch! I can't wait to spend some quality time with some of my favorite ladies!

Pennsylvania Weekend

Tonight I'm heading home to PA!! I am soooo excited because I literally haven't been home since July and I have been really homesick lately! I typically like to go to PA at least once a month, and this has been killing me, I need my Pennsylvania fix! I have a long weekend and plan on taking in as much Fall, country, PA relaxing as I can. However, there are things to be done, and because of some of the more "girly" plans I have, Chris is going to sit this visit out. On Saturday, Melissa and I are heading to King of Prussia mall with mom to help find her a dress for the wedding! After a day of shopping, we're grabbing dinner and then seeing Straight no Chaser in Reading that night! If you don't know who they are, check out their website, they're an awesome all male acapella group. I'm soooo excited to see them and I so hope we can find the perfect dress for mom!

We're goofy!

But the fun doesn't stop there. On Sunday, I'm having breakfast with bridesmaid Cassie (she's going to get measured for her dress on Saturday while she's in town), visiting my amazing grandmother, helping mom with the bridesmaid gifts she's been working on and finishing up our save-the-dates so they can mail by Tuesday! Throw in a visit to my new niece puppy, Lilly, whom I haven't met yet!

Some cuddling with Shadow because he's really not doing so hot right now and I miss him soooo much (he turns 15 in less than a month!)

Going for a run or two on my favorite trail, Coercing my parents into taking me grocery shopping at the greatest place on earth, Wegmans, ;) a lunch date with Chris on Monday when I come back (cause he has to work and I don't na-na), and I have a lot of things cut out for me over the next few days. PA HERE I COME!

Tagxedo

Two things came in the mail to me on Tuesday night:
1. OUR SAVE THE DATES!!!
I cannot wait to show you our save the dates, but for now, they will have to remain a secret until I figure out exactly how I'm going to address all these and get them out by next week. It seriously will be the BIGGEST load off my shoulders to just get these out. I love how they turned out, and I really hope that everyone likes them.

2. My bridesmaid dress for Mike and Kerry's wedding!! I ordered it last week from the J.Crew Bridal boutique in Manhattan and it came already! The boutique was so beautiful and so accommodating, I had a really great experience there. This is the dress I'll be wearing for their wedding:

http://www.jcrew.com

I love the color and love the fit. Unfortunately I don't fill this dress out neaaaarly the way it's supposed to be filled out. The store didn't have this dress in my size when I was there to get fitted. So I tried on a size bigger than I thought I'd wear, which was big, but I deduced that one size smaller would probably be just right. But this dress was still kind of roomy (not that I'm complaining), and I will most definitely need the top part taken in so it doesn't fall down on me. I'm kind of wondering if I should have gone two sizes smaller...especially since I plan on losing weight over the next year. (Aren't we all though?) I think this will be fine. With my mom's handy sewing work, we can just take it in a few places and it'll be good to go!

I found this awesome website called tagxedo.com,. I read about it here on weddingbee.com. This website takes the words you most commonly use from your blog and sorts them into images.

I had a good laugh with Ashley because no matter how many times I regenerated my "word jumble" the words "Ashley" and "Jeff" kept coming up front and center due to so many recent posts about them. Having just returned from her honeymoon, Ashley went on a major wedding blog purge from her google reader. I asked her if she deleted mine now that she's an old married woman ;) and got this response:

"I don't delete blogs that I am so clearly the STAR of. Word jumble doesn't lie."

And she's right. Word jumble doesn't lie. I even created one using my twitter account. Sure enough, there's not only Ashley and Jeff, but Christina, Kenny, Mandy, Billy, and little 'ol Ben down at the stem! But still no Chris and Laura!

Am I missing them?

Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris Laura and Chris. Maybe this will help get our names into my next tagxedo project!

Anyway I think these are really cute, and you can create one even if you don't have a blog: Just type in a subject, news website you like, or a word search,  it's fun to play around with. This would have been a dream in High School...I can just see "Little Laura" now staying up late to create tons of these out of Broadway and music words and hanging them in her locker. My locker would have seriously rocked (I was cool I swear!):

Kyle: You know you're going to print this out and keep it at your desk...

Playing Catch-up

Hello! Well, as you've noticed, "Saying 'I do'" has undergone a makeover! I decided to graduate to the "big kid"designs that Blogger now offers and not live in the dark ages anymore!

Secondly with 4 days left of the month, I had already hit my 1000th visit for the month of September which is more than I've ever had! It's not the thousands that some blogs get in a day, but it's certainly a far cry from the 1 visit a month I had when I first started...and that was my mom!

http://my-bits-n-pieces.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-i-increased-traffic-to-my-blog.html

Also, Friday night Chris and I went out to dinner with Mike and Kerry. We went to City Cafe which had been suggested to us as a good rehearsal dinner space since it's so close to our hotel. This place was very nice. It had a great bar, good food, and live entertainment starting at 9. They actually had one of the wedding bands playing that Chris and I had looked at back in February called East Coast. The bar and dance floor were packed. But, I have to say...I felt like I was in an episode of what should be entitled Jersey Shore: Long Island Edition....for old people.  It was quite an eccentric crowd, let me tell you. I'll call City Cafe and get their pricing on dinner for a group, it was a nice space and could be fun. But, I don't have my heart set on this place, and think we can arrange something better. However, the real point of this story is that during dinner Kerry asked me to be a bridesmaid in their wedding next September 24th! I was so surprised and excited that I was asked to join their wedding party. It's going to be such a fantastic and special time, and I can't wait to be a part of their day! I am going to order my bridesmaid dress at the new J. Crew Bridal Boutique on Madison Avenue either this week or next week. I've been wanting to check this place out since it opened, so I'm happy to have the excuse to go there.

I suddenly understand why blogs like Weddingbee.com don't let you blog for them until your 8 months out from your wedding. It's like September came, and all of a sudden all I can think about is wedding, wedding, wedding. All of a sudden everything I've researched, every idea I had, everything I haven't booked, now suddenly needs to be called to action. I normally handle pressure fine but for whatever reason, last week was just an awful mess of stress, being overly tired, and not being able to shut my brain off. It all came to a head last Wednesday night as I had an absolute breakdown. Just as I was putting the final sentence on my post about the Long Island Bridal Extravaganza...something happened and the entire post was deleted. I panicked....and X'd out of the screen hoping I did that before the automatic save that blogspot does, which is "usually" so helpful. Well, it saved, and the entire post was gone, and it was 11:00 at night. So no surprise, I cried, but I sat down and rewrote the whole thing...not as good as the first, but the same general idea. As I finished the post, I stood up and got my foot caught in the lanyard attached to my USB pen drive which was in the computer, and completely broke it in two. Everything I have ever planned with the wedding is on that USB pen drive. All the engagement pics I edited...is on that pen drive. My LIFE is on that pen drive. I change and add stuff to it every day and hadn't backed it up in quite some time. Stupid? Yes. It was a lesson learned. So....I cried.  LUCKILY, it was salvagable and nothing was lost. I saved the information to our computer, but the pen drive is pretty broken and should not be trusted for future use.

In moving my plans into action this month, I really slacked on all the blogs I normally read. Not to mention, I feel like I add a new blog to read to my google reader every week, which truly gets overwhelming but I love them all! Well last week I did some catching up, and boy did I find some amazing stuff, and boy will I try to stay on top of these. There truly is some amazing stuff out there on these blogs if you just allow yourself time to read through  the posts!

First of all, I decided that I am going to invite the Obama's to our wedding!! Apparently, lots of people send their wedding invites to the White House, and the White House sends you a regrets letter wishing you the best of luck. Gwen at Gwenniepie.com, got her decline letter from them last week, and after reading the comments, I could see that lots of people do that! How cool is that?? It's certainly a little piece of history to hold onto to look back on one day. Of course, it would be cooler if they actually came, but the logistics of having extra security at the wedding would stress me out too much. ;)

I watched two videos that were amazing. Firstly this one. It's long, but it's beautiful and just like a movie!(I forget which blog I found this on!)

Aimee & Troy's Arthouse Short from Elysium Productions on Vimeo.


Then I found this proposal video:
Wedding Videography: Graffiti Wedding Proposal Video!

This week we have an event at the Sand Castle which I'm sooo excited about, our 6 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! (we have BIG plans..to be revealed later this week), our Save the Dates are being ordered, we officially booked our limos AND my parents are visiting to help with some wedding plans and to watch me run the DIVA Half Marathon on Sunday!! Unfortunately, work has been nutso this week, hence the delay in this post. But there is lots happening and lots to report on this week!

Bridesmaid Dresses!

I can't believe it, but I found my bridesmaid dresses! They are Bill Levkoff, strapless (though anyone can add straps or a halter if they prefer) and are clover with a black band under the bust:

I think these with some cream flower bouquets, (or maybe some white calla lilies?) will really look pretty and I'm sooooo excited about them! I was completely amazed at how easy this whole process was. Molly came over to my house around 1:30 on Saturday and we had some good, quality Laura & Molly catching up time. Melissa came over around 2:00, grabbed some food and then we hit the road with my mom and headed to Bridals by Sandra, where I am getting my wedding dress.

When we got there, we looked through their selection and pulled a ton of dresses that we were interested in. The woman that helped us, Jackie, was extremely helpful and attentive. She put all our dress selections in a dressing room as we pulled them. Once we had a ton of dresses set aside, we went back to the dressing room where Molly and Melissa tried on one dress after another. We narrowed it down to three dresses we liked: a grecian style dress with really neat knotted straps and knotted band under the bust, and a plain V-neck dress with straps that came down and knotted under the bust. All three of us kept coming back to this Bill Levkoff dress. It fit them the best, it looked great on, and to top it all off when Jackie brought us the color swatches for each of the three dresses...the green options in the other two dresses just weren't exactly what I was looking for.

I cannot believe how easy that was and also how confident I am in these dresses for my bridesmaids. Somehow this turned into the easiest part of the process so far! I expected to go out at least 2 more times after this. (Dare I say I'm bummed I won't have more research or entries on the great bridesmaid dress shopping hunt?!) As we left, Molly mentioned that she had hoped she could get to see my wedding gown while she was there. My mom went back to the dressing room to find Jackie and asked her to bring out my dress so I could show Molly. She brought it out and then she said "do you want to put it on?" OF COURSE!! So we shuffled back into the dressing room where I got to model my gown for Molly. It was so exciting putting the dress back on again, I'm just eager to see how it will fit me when I actually have it fitted correctly to me.

To round our out day, we went back home, picked up my dad and headed out to dinner at Bellissimos Italian Restaurant in Allentown. It was an exciting day full of family bonding, Molly/Melissa/Laura bonding, great food, pretty dresses and another check mark added to my checklist!

Reception Hall: Check

Church for ceremony: Check

Wedding Dress: Check

Photographer: Check

Wedding Band: Check
Bridesmaid Dresses: Check

What do I do now?!?!

Wedding Pic of the day...so cute!!:

Bridesmaid Dresses

Happy Easter and Happy Spring! It's warm, sunny and I couldn't feel better! (I'd say my SADD has finally lifted!) Tomorrow I start my first day of bridesmaid dress shopping!! I will be accompanied by my mom, Sister Melissa, Molly and possibly Mal.

(Stay tuned next week for a special "Meet My Bridal Party" Feature!)

I want to bring some pictures of dresses I like to the appointment and I'm really hoping they have a good selection. My wedding colors are cream, black and green. But, I just don't know what color green to go with...there are so many different hues and colors of green, it's amazing!!


I looked a while ago on Dessy.com, and found some nice colors and color combinations that I really liked. The greens that I liked were Shamrock, Clover and Evergreen, though I think I like shamrock the best. I like the idea of having a two color dress, either green with a hint of black or a hint of white, and I found a lot of options with colors in the After Six collection I found online, though I'm not sure how common these dresses are, or how expensive.
I sent a few pictures to my sister. This one was her favorite:

Here are some others I like:

this is the Clover color:

This is Evergreen color:

What do you think? Do you think the green and black combo is nice? Which dress is your favorite?
I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Happy EASTER!