Meet the 'Maids

Now that I've told you how I asked my girls, I'd like to introduce you to them. Each of these girls is very special to me for various reasons and I cannot imagine anyone better standing up for me on the biggest day of my life thus far. While I don't get to see all of them as much as I like because a lot of them are spread out across the south (and one currently across the world) I'm stoked to have them all coming together for the wedding!

First up is my maid of honor. MOH Vesty has been my best friend since freshman year of high school. She is one of the only people I have kept in contact with from that part of my life and we talk every day through text and email. We have a lot of things the other can relate to which is a big deal for me and I'm so glad I have her for support. This girl is one of the funniest people I have ever met and she'll tell me when I'm being crazy or dramatic. We have more inside jokes than I can even remember and even though we live several hours away from each other we don't have any trouble keeping up with everything that's going on in each other's lives.

All photos personal

BM Rooms was my roommate sophomore and junior year of college. We both transferred in the same year (I was a sophomore and she was a junior) and were placed together on a freshman hall. She was my first real roommate and thankfully we got along from the start. Since our graduations, we've both found jobs in the same town and frequently have game nights with our other halves. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding a couple of years ago at the same ceremony venue and now it's payback time ;) (kidding!). Thanks to her and her hubs, Kyle and I are not homeless for the next week while our house is being finished. You know you have a good friend if they're willing to house you, your fiance, and your cat for over a week!

BM Crown was my roommate during senior year of college. We met on dance team the year before and also had class together. I have had SO many good/crazy times with her and cannot wait to get down on the dance floor with her at our reception. From beauty queen to beautiful bride I'm thrilled I was able to be there for her and that she'll be there for me.

BM VeggieTales is part of a trivia team that Kyle and I are part of. She's also the girlfriend of one of Kyle's groomsmen. Our friendship may or may not have sprouted from copious amounts of alcohol and a trip to Steak and Shake. However it happened, I'm glad that it did. Out of all my girls, VeggieTales is my newest friendship but with how much our friendship has grown I can't imagine not having her up there with me!

BM Blondie was a member of the hall staff in my dorm sophomore year. We didn't really start hanging out until the end of the year but we made it count! We both stayed in town the following summer and hung out everyday, sometimes taking spontaneous road trips and watching hours of Dawson's Creek.

BM 'Roo is not only my bridesmaid, but she's also my future sister-in-law. She is absolutely hilarious and I'm so glad that we get along as well as we do. I'm a little bummed that she's currently studying abroad in Australia (hence the nickname: 'roo = kangaroo) so she's missed out on a couple of wedding festivities but I know she's having a blast and she'll be here for all of the important stuff. I've always wanted a sister and I don't think that I could have asked for anyone better.

So there you have it, my six lovely ladies. I cannot wait for all of us to be able to get together and have everyone get to know each other. Each of them knows at least one of the other girls and I know that they'll all get along when we're all together. I think I've got a pretty good group right here and feel lucky to have so many close friends who are willing to put up with me through all of the bride brain craziness.

How many bridesmaids are you having?

Could ya would ya ain't ya gonna if I asked you would you wanna be my

...bridesmaid tonight?

Soon after getting engaged I decided to ask six lovely ladies to stand up for me at our wedding. I could have just called each of them up or sent out texts but that just wasn't enough for me. Instead I gave them all this gem:

All photos personal

This book is filled with hilariously terrible bridesmaid dresses. As soon as I randomly saw this online I knew that I would be ordering six copies and sending them out. Inside the front cover I wrote: "If I promise not to make you wear any of these..." and inside the back cover I wrote: "...will you be my bridesmaid/maid of honor?"

Then I wrapped them in kraft paper and wrote them each a personal note which I put in an envelope and taped to the front. I was able to give 4 of these to the girls in person and I sent the other 2 in the mail. They all said yes and now I cannot wait to have them with me on the big day!

I'm going to introduce these amazing girls to you soon so you can see how awesome they really are.

How did you ask your wedding party?

I hate moving

I don't plan on writing very many non wedding related posts, but I feel like I need to offer an explanation as to why I have been MIA this week.

Kyle's parents bought a house here with plans to eventually live there when they retire (they live in Massachusetts right now and we live in South Carolina). In the meantime though, Kyle and I will be renting it as our own. The house is going through a major renovation and we were hopeful that we would be able to move in the first weekend of March and so we gave a notice with our apartment complex that we would be out by the end of February. We decided we would just move our stuff into the back building at the house and stay with a friend for a couple of nights. Well, somehow we greatly underestimated the amount of stuff we had in our two bedroom apartment.

Probably worse than this

I naively thought we would be done moving everything out Wednesday night (the last night of February) around 9 or 10 except for our bedding and then Thursday morning I could just toss that in my car and clean before turning in the keys. I was thinking I would be at work no later than 11 (I work 9 - 6). That didn't happen. Not even close. We were moving until 2 am when we finally decided to go to sleep and wake up early. We started moving again at 5:45am. I went ahead and emailed my office to tell them I would be taking the morning off and would be there at 2. We got done moving at 2 but still needed to deep clean our apartment...so I called again and said I would be in at 4. Cut to 5:15 when we finally turned in our keys. By the time I had dropped our cat off at BM Rooms' apartment where we will be spending some quality time and gotten to work it would have been after 6 so I ended up just taking the whole day off. Luckily, my company is very flexible when it comes to stuff like that (and Kyle's is, too!).

Well said. (Source)

Now to the news we got while we were moving. It turns out we can't move in until next weekend. Hello, emotional breakdown. Moving is a stressful process anyway and this just added to it. Luckily, BM Rooms and her husband are open to us and our kitty cat staying 9 nights instead of the 2 we originally asked.

I woke up today feeling every single muscle in my body and was so stiff that people at work kept asking if I was okay and why I was limping. Oy. No worries, I'll be back on track with the wedding posts starting tomorrow after my first day of Zumba! Operation: Bride Body is SO on.

Have you ever had a stressful move?

The Save the Date saga comes to an end

Promised I would be back tonight!

After many weeks of attempts and failures we finally finished our save the dates and sent them off. They were recently delivered to the mailboxes of our guests and I could not be more relieved. To refresh your memory, this was our inspiration:

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We eventually decided to completely nix the sleeve and insert approach and instead went with a card. Here is what we came up with:

The Front

Strategically blurred

The Back

It was such a relief to get these puppies out the door. Since the save the dates were so cheap, we decided to splurge on custom postage.

It's a tad blurry but the stamp says: J <3 K gettin' hitched

Now let's take a journey to the post office. I'm telling you, this was the biggest relief thus far so yes, I am dragging this out. 

Nestled in their box

So excited!! Please excuse the early morning bed head/naked face

Here they go...

Have fun sorting, USPS!

GONE!!!

Now to be honest, we're technically not finished. We still have three save the dates to address and send but we have yet to hear back from those in question about where to send this lovely piece of mail. I'm counting this as a finished project though and put a big 'ole checkmark on my wedding to-do list.

Did you DIY any of your paper products? Were you as excited as I was to add an item to the "done" list?

*All photos personal unless otherwise noted

Ahhhhhhh!

Hey guys!

I know I left you hanging there with the save the dates but we've been super busy packing up to move into our new house! I promise to come back tonight to show you how our save the dates actually turned out. Please forgive me!!

Yep, kind of like this

Have you had any big events that have put your normal routine on the back burner?

Don't You Forget About Me

First thing is first:

Oh Psych, how I love you so. Thanks, youtu.be!

Anyway, once we got engaged and secured a date we needed to figure out a way to make sure people didn’t forget about the biggest party of the year ;) Enter: Save the Dates. I am so sorry but I just can’t use the abbreviation. I love abbreves (Happy Endings, anyone?) but I cannot keep a straight face for this one. Maybe I’m stuck in junior high but just bear with me, please and thank you.

We knew right away that we didn’t want anything with our picture on it. I wasn’t really sure about having our mugs plastered on people’s refrigerators even though these kinds of save the dates can turn out amazing.

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I didn’t really have a clear picture of what I wanted. Add to that the confusion after browsing tons of super adorable and amazing creative save the dates:

Boarding Passes! Perfect if we were having a destination wedding. (Source)

Love this (Source)

So cute and creative! (Source)

Oh, Martha

Love the simplicity of this one (Source)

And then one day I stumbled upon this beauty:

Seven Swans

I. Love. These. We decided that we would attempt to DIO (do it ourselves) and just a warning, it did not go well. First, we decided that we would make kraft sleeves and have a green insert with white ink on both parts. In case you didn’t know, you can’t really just go print white ink. On top of that, Kinkos cannot print on the amazing linen paper that we had chosen. So, we decided to print in green ink on the sleeve and screen print white ink on the inserts. We decided to sew the front and back of the sleeves together instead of gluing and then we decided to cut out a rectangle on the front for the date on the insert to show through. Yes, it was ambitious and in the end it started to look too arts and craftsy.

Personal photo of save the date fail #1 before we started on the cut outs

Our second attempt was to make sleeves out of the green linen card stock and glue them together. I was still determined to have white ink on the kraft inserts so Kyle started making a screen print. After a couple of days, I nixed these too. It was just way too much trouble and it was taking too long.

Personal photo of save the date fail #2 and The Great Gatsby playing with a lamp

At this point I was frustrated and just ready to be done with the whole thing. We were already a month past the deadline we had set and had spent way too much time cutting and printing.

Stay tuned next time for a look at what our save the dates actually ended up looking like. 

Did you have a DIY project that turned out to be a major failure?

Venue Reveal: Reception Edition

I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats wondering where in the world we’ll be party rockin’ so without further ado, we will be having our reception at:

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We love, love, looooooved the Sawmill. It was one of those things where we just knew that it was our venue. It’s close to downtown, it has two separate spaces, there’s potential for all of the windows in the patio room to be opened which would allow the venue to be open air (just like our ceremony venue). On top of that, Kimberly, the on-site coordinator, was phenomenal. She was very organized and gave us so many ideas. We’re having a “fancy bbq” wedding which I’ll talk more about in a future post. As soon as we told her this she laid out all of our options. For instance, we will be using mason jars as drinking glasses for non-alcoholic beverages (at no extra charge)!

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Another thing we love is that chiavari chairs are standard which means no upcharge and more money in our pockets.  I am overly obsessed with chiavari chairs. I love them more than anymore should ever love an inanimate object. Seriously, it’s an issue. The venue also offered candle centerpieces at no extra charge and while we’re not using them it was nice to know we had the option.

SO PRETTY!

Speaking of options; unlike at the Loom we can rock all night and drink whatever delicious adult beverages we damn well please. Speaking of booze, there are also two bars; one in each room. I mean, c’mon!

Yeah, I can see this happening to some of the guests (Source)

One thing I didn’t mention in my last post is that the Sawmill also has a lawn that we can use for lawn games if our guests don’t want to dance or during cocktail hour. It’s also located next to some abandoned railroad tracks that should offer up some great photo ops, assuming we have nice weather. 

Let's add Hula Hoops to that list, Style Me Pretty!

I get giddy just thinking about all of the things we can do with this place!!

Did you have a “this is it” moment when you found your venue?