Girl's Weekend = Good Times

It was so great to be with the ladies for the weekend (although Joe was missed:). We ate a ton of food, lounged around and caught up with everything going on in each other's lives. Kristina is getting married the same day as Jenna so there was a lot of wedding talk! The weekend also ended up with jumping Kristina's car so it wasn't filled all with "girly" things:) Good thing Alison knew what she was doing!!

Over the weekend, my sister Andrea called to fill me in with some awesome news. Her friend Jamie & soon-to-be husband offered to be our bartenders for the night! What a blessing! I am glad my sister has some very thoughtful friends.

Girl's Only!

At 5:30pm, I'm busting out these doors and headed to my friend Alison's place to start our 3rd Annual Girls Weekend! When Alison's parents are off to Hawaii (I know right?! I want to be there too), we take over the house and catch up on life. I used to see Alison, Brit, & Kristina (unfortunately we're still missing Lindsey but she's off at Med school) a couple times a week back in college but with us all spread out across the state, getting together doesn't happen as much as we'd like it to. Thankfully we can have a full weekend to hang out, eats lots of food and share many laughs.

Lindsey, Alison, Sarah, Brit, Kristina from back in the day!

There will also be some wedding business going on this weekend too. Kristina is a talented cake backer/decorator/artist and she's going to be making our cake! I have to discuss details with her over the weekend. Here's what I'm thinking... something simple that we can cut into and then I want to make one of those bunting banners as our cake topper!

 But the question is, do we put it on a white cake stand which was the original plan or do something like this...

Decisions, decisions...

Happy Weekend!



5 months and counting!

Today marks the beginning of the five month countdown until we are walking down the aisle and on our way to getting married:) Today also means in five months and one day we're jet setting outta here to go on our Honeymoon! Oh Canada I cannot wait!! Taking two straight weeks off of work, getting married and taking a trip all beginning in five months from today. I love my life!!!!

As I was browsing around this morning on my usual go-to-wedding sites I came across this picture.

Do you know who these people are? I can give you a hit...it's Joe and I with our wedding party on July 23rd!!! See I'm in the white dress, Joe and his boys are in the gray suits, and my beautiful bridesmaids are in the blue dresses! Confused at all? Okay, well this isn't exactly us in the picture. However, these are the same bridesmaid dresses we picked out for the wedding and the gray suits are pretty similar (color wise) to what we bought on Saturday! My dress is a little different than this bride's but you get the idea. Man, we are going to be one good looking wedding party!

In other wedding goodness, Sue (Joe's Mom) booked our rehearsal dinner spot and the place is perfect! Lola's Lakehouse is about 15-20 minutes from our hotels on Lake Waconia and is also next to the marina. Hello awesome photo opportunities! It has a huge outdoor deck to gather on for those lovely summer nights and the walls of the restaurant are big garage doors that open the inside up to the outside!

Can't wait to share a delicious meal with our close family, friends and wedding party. What a great way to start off the wedding festivities! Thank you Sheleruds' for hosting:)

Veil Time

Last night I braved the snowstorm and picked up my veil. It looks great and simple just the way I wanted it. Now all that's left for my attire is jewelry and alterations! And speaking of alterations, I found a new seamstress. My good friend Kelly actually went to her so I know she'll do a good job. She lives in my hometown and I know she doesn't charge $400 so we're good to go there! Jenna and I are bringing in our dresses the morning of our shower in May so I'll have someone to go with:)
Crossing items off the list....

We have SUITS!

Saturday Joe and I took a trip to Men's Warehouse to search out some suits for the upcoming nuptials. The first coat Joe tried on was a light gray, Micheal Kors (he's a big designer) suit. It fit like a glove, it was the perfect color and then I wrecked it by looking at the price tag. $500. Even with the buy one suit, get one free promotion going on it would still be $250 for everyone and that was more than we planned on spending.

We told the gal helping us our price range and she said that because light gray is the new trend, they're going to be more expensive and there aren't as many light gray suits around as you'd think. The next gray suit she pulled out was $480. Browsing up and down the rack, I quickly realized finding light gray suits might be impossible and I was dreading the decision to go with something a little darker that would clash with our dresses.

Then fate stepped in. Well, the general manager, but thankfully he was eavesdropping on our budget converstaion and he quietly slipped us some information about the orignally suit Joe tried on. On Tuesday it would be coming down in price and the promotion would then be buy one get one for $100. He said we would be looking at around $150 per suit!! I don't think Joe and I could have said it any faster but we immediately said yes to the $500 suit!

As Joe was getting fitted for his new suit, the manager came up to me and said that he'll be out of town for business this week but if I came in next Saturday he could help us set up the order and get the ten suits we needed. I asked if he thought we'd still be able to get these suits if we waited and he said with 100 of these suits in the country we should still be able to get them. He must have seen the nervous look on my face and said he'd go check his schedule again.

He came back and told Joe and I that he would honor the pricing that would originally be starting on Tuesday that day if we ordered the suits. We pulled out everyone's measurements and he quickly went to work pulling all the suit sizes he had in stock for our guys. Amazingly they had five sizes out of the ten we needed there at the store. To top it off, they were going to ship the suits for Steve who lives in Alaska and Matt who lives in Wisconsin for us!

I am so thankful we went into that particular store on Saturday. How many times can you say you got a $500 suit for $150!! Joe's alterations only cost $40 too - way cheaper than my dress haha! Men's Warehouse was incredibly helpful and really worked with us to help us what we wanted! My dad was able to get his suit yesterday since Sadie was down here staying with Andrea for the weekend. His pants fit perfectly but the coat was too short in the sleeves and a little tight in the shoulders. I talked with the manager who helped us and he said he would ship a new suit to the Men's Warehouse TUX store in Duluth and my dad could bring in his suit he got from me to exchange it. Hopefully the new size will fit him better.

Joe and I walked out of the store in pure excitement about these suits! I couldn't believe the price we were able to get them at and they look so nice! Our wedding party is going to be looking good!!

102nd Blog Post!

I missed knowing it was my 100th blog post a couple posts ago so we're celebrating now! Whoo-hoo! It's hard to believe I've had now 102 thoughts worthy of sharing with you all. Well maybe not all of them have been worthy but my Grandma and Mom sure love reading about them.

Last night 3 Hole Punch showed up as Champions and put the fear in everyone's bowling hands. On our first night, we took five out of the seven points total so we're already off to a champion start! Oh and our shirts are awesome! I'll have to share a picture of those next time we dominate the alley again.

In wedding news, my new lady for alterations fell through. She decided to close up shop so I'm on the market again for another seamstress. Ugh. At least I didn't already bring my dress there and was half way done with it!

This weekend Joe and I are headed out to find our suits! That is if he doesn't have to work all weekend - there is a slight chance this may unfortunately happen but I'm still waiting for the update on that. I'm hoping to find light gray because it will look great with our dark blue dresses. I've been browsing around online with little luck so hopefully when we're in the store they'll have a better idea for us.

Christina, my cousin's lovely wife has been busy being creative on our wine labels! I am SO excited for these and the new rough drafts she sent me this morning are phenomenal!

Other than that, it's Friday which makes up for the rest of the week. If only my boss thought as highly of the President's as other companies do so I could have a three day weekend.

155 days to go!

STRIKE!

Bowling League starts tonight! That's right, Joe and I are in a bowling league with our good friends Chad and Kelly and we're ready to dominate! We're walking in tonight as the defending champions so the pressure is on to keep our title. Maybe our new shirts will having everyone running away in fear. I hear they look pretty intimidating. Only time will tell my friends.

Our weeks may have gotten one day busier now but at least it's for some fun! Joe and I used to have date nights during the week here and there and now it's a struggle to get some time in with each other. This will be a great excuse to relax and enjoy doing something together other than homework.

GO THREE HOLE PUNCH!

Because we're just that cool...

Last year for Valentine's Day, Joe and I skipped out on getting each other gifts, chocolates and flowers and decided to buy a new tent. Just letting you all know, this was MY idea:)

This year, we're getting each other these...

The new Kodak Playsport HD video recorders. These little wonders are shockproof, dust proof, and waterproof! The more I looked into videographers for the wedding, the more I realized they were a bit over our budget. Let me be more specific, thousands over our budget. So I thought...what if we each had a video camera to capture the behind the scene moments of the big day like getting ready to all the amazing moves that will be rocked out on the dance floor, like my father's air guitar. We can also give them to friends to record any moments they may be witnessing themselves. We want to remember our day not only in photos but in video too. I think these will be the perfect addition to capturing the amazingness of our day:)

Happy Love Day!

Spreading the love here on Valentine's Day to all and everyone! Joe and I celebrated our love (how cheesy:) on Saturday for a post-birthday dinner since our schedules didn't allow for it around my birthday and a pre-Valentine's day celebration because I'll be sitting in Physiology lab tonight. Not only did we multi-task on the birthday/Valentine's day celebrations but we scoped out a possible location for our Groom's Dinner.

Triple tasking people!

We headed off to Waconia which is about 15-20 minutes west from where the hotels are for our guests and ate at this cute little restaurant called Lola's Lakehouse. We couldn't see since it was already dark but it sits right on Lake Waconia and is next to the wharf. From the pictures on their website this place looks awesome in the summer. They literally had glass garage doors that open the inside of the restaurant out to the deck for those warm summer nights that I am desperately needing right now!  

We thought it would be the perfect location for our Groom's Dinner since it was unique to the area so hopefully July 22 isn't booked yet! Joe's parents are hosting the dinner for us and we appreciate it so much! We are extremely lucky to have such wonderful families.

Another day done and no exciting news to share:)

Well turning 25 hasn't made me be more consistent with blogging on a daily basis but there's only so much that magic number will do for you. And I can only think of one - lower car insurance rate. Oh and renting a car does not cost us an arm and a leg anymore. In Australia we payed doubled because of our age.

Since Joe's wonderful birthday surprise I've been playing around on Photoshop when I have some extra time. Although, I think I should probably read the book he got me as well so I know what layering means or what the different effects will make the image look like. I'm excited to be able to design our own invitations and claim them as another one of our DIY projects for the big day!

164 days to go!

It's official, I'm 25

I had a bittersweet day on Saturday. Although it was my birthday (one of my favorite days of the year) I also turned the ripe old age of 25. I didn't think it would bother me as much as it has but I'm learning to survive.  Step 1: Start wrinkle cream every day. Check.

Saturday started with my Mom, Sadie and I running to Sam's Club, Gander Mountain and Kohl's to find wedding things and birthday presents. Our first mission was to find beverage dispensers for the coffee, lemonade and water. And we found all three at Sam's.

We got two of these dispensers, one for lemonade and one for water at $20 a pop! Score. We also found a coffee dispenser for any coffee drinkers we may have at the wedding. And as my Mom says, "We'll have it for graduation parties, showers and anyone else who wants to borrow it in the future". Thank goodness! :)

At Gander I got a hiking pack that looks like a backwards fanny pack. Now I'll be able to carry my bear spray on our hikes at all times! Next was Kohl's and I found  serving plates to use for our cheesecakes!

We picked up three of these and plan on cascading them down from one another by using our birch logs at varying heights. I went with this shape rather than the square plates because I feel like it will 1) save us room on the limited table space we'll have and 2) they'll fit more cheesecake than the dinner plate. Needless to say, shopping was a success.

Saturday finished off with a delicious family meal and family over to help me celebrate my birth. Oh and the UMD Bulldogs trampled the U of M Gophers during the hockey game - double plus! Poor Joe was the only Gopher fan in the room. Speaking of Joe, he surprised me with a birthday present! I thought my car starter was my Christmas and Birthday present but I was fooled! Joe got me the Adobe Photoshop Elements software with the "missing manual" that doesn't come with it! I was so shocked! I have always wanted to learn how to edit my photography work and now I have the ultimate photo software. We're also going to design our own invites now that we have the skills. Well, I lied on the skills part. I have to learn the skills but I'm still super excited! What a guy that Joe is:) He makes my heart go pitter patter.

In other news, the superbowl did not go as I had hoped. But the commercials and company I was surrounded with made a great end to the birthday weekend. Here's a clip of my favorite commercial from the night. Well at least one of them:)

Tomorrow I am 24 no more...

25. Seeing those two numbers together has made me finally realize that 25 is a big step up from writing 24. I don't know what it is but 25 just seems so much older. They say the older are wiser so at least I have that in my favor. Joe and I are headed back home tonight to spend the weekend with family and celebrate my "youth".

Last night I picked up my dress and although it was a little awkward for me, she was very nice and understanding about it. I'm glad I got that over with! Now before I bring my dress anywhere, I'm asking about price!

Last but not least, I have found another project to do. Awhile back I posted these ideas for places to put any cards we may receive but an open box idea didn't fly well with the grandparents on both sides. You never know if any of the guests will have sticky fingers and although that is something your guests would never do, it's better to be on the safe side. To avoid a possible stinky situation, I came across this beautiful box on Etsy.

Can somebody please say PERFECT for our reception?! Old, distressed wood and chicken wire could not make me any more giddy than I am right now. Is that weird to say? Unfortunately, the lady who makes these is charging a whopping $300 to make one. I think we could do a lot better than that don't you think?

Happy Weekend!

Maybe my next post will be more sophisticated once I'm 25. We'll see.

Wait, what day is it?

This week is flying by! I could have sworn I posted something yesterday but I guess I didn't. Whoops. Tonight I'm going back to the seamstress's house to get my dress. Hopefully that all goes smoothly. I'm a little nervous to go and get it but I have to stay strong...$400 if I leave it there, under $150 if I go somewhere else. Definitely worth the savings.

I've been doing a lot of "detail" thinking the past couple of days in between studying and homework. One idea, table runners. Although table runners are necessary, because we're having white table cloths and white napkins it would be nice to have some color inside the barn for the reception.



We could do something like a burlap runner...



Burlap again



Or more of a color, cool pattern



I've been leaning toward doing something like the burlap but I don't want it to look like we tried really hard to make it fit in with our "barn" theme. I want it to be simple but still look like people are at a wedding, you know? Maybe I should actually go to a fabric store and browse around.