Tag Archives: wedding

My Best Friend’s Wedding

June 19, 2009

Warning: Some of these pictures are of some of the cutest little girls I’ve ever met. Proceed to read at your own risk!

The dress

So, my best friend got married on the 6th- and I had my first gig as a bridesmaid. And I must say, it was a blast. Rachel, the bride, had everything planned to perfection, the church was beautiful, and the reception hall people took care of everything. PLUS, the food was delicious and the DJ and dancing was awesome. Can’t ask for much more than that!

After our girls’ slumber party, we woke up at 6:30- too excited to sleep for much longer! Rachel’s new sister-in-law, made us breakfast (yum!) and then Alison, the hair dresser, came to us at 9.

Bridal Hair!

No, this isn’t QUITE how she looked… Alison just wasn’t finished yet.

REAL Wedding Hair

Much better!

Now for the veil…

Maid of Honor

Michelle was a great Maid of Honor- she was so excited for her big sister to be getting married!

Punks

These guys are Rachel’s adopted brothers. I met them when they were 11 and 23 months old- and it was love at first sight. It’s amazing how fast they’ve grown…

Goofballs

Cool dudes

And these two goon birds are 2 of the reasons that I can’t wait to adopt our own kids.

Family

And here is my second family.

Beautiful Bride

And the beautiful bride!

Flower Girls!Flower Girls 2

And these little girls?  They stole the hearts of every man in the room.

At the rehearsal the night before the big day, as I walked down the aisle after them, Z looked at me and mouthed, “I want some DAUGHTERS!”  They even had my bachelor friend, Joe, ready to settle down and have some little girls.

They were totally darling as they practiced their stately march up the aisle and the day of the wedding, they did their job perfectly.

Watching his bride

Dan’s face as he saw his beautiful bride for the first time.

The Bride and Groom

The priest made the couple laugh all through the homily- even the part where he told them about the old Catholic “superstition”- that the number of people in your bridal party will equal the number of children you have! Apparently, these 2 can expect 13 little ones! Rachel was excited… Dan looked a little terrified…

Sucker

Although, if they had 13 of these little dolls, I don’t think he’d mind too much. Little Claire had Dan wrapped around her finger- even getting him to order her and the other kids chocolate cake for dessert at the rehearsal dinner. He’s a sucker for a little girl in a sweet dress.

After the ceremony- and only a FEW tears, we took pictures and headed to the reception which was on the edge of a small lake. The hall was decorated beautifully…

The Hall

And Rachel made her guest book very similar to mine. So, I loved it!

The Guest Book

Here’s their rather unique cake! All of  the layers were on individual stands, rather than stacked on top of one another.

The Cake

And their table numbers and flowers. (One of my favorite parts of a being a bridesmaid. Seriously, I was so excited to take home such beautiful fresh flowers!)

The Flowers

The first dance…

The First Dance

Dan and Rachel danced to Tim McGraw’s “My Best Friend” and followed that with the traditional “Daddy-daughter” and “Mother-Son” dances. Then everyone joined in and the floor was rather crowded for the next several hours.

I don’t know if I’ve confessed this before but, Z and I love to dance. We’ve taken some swing lessons and basically try to adapt those moves to all situations… unless we’re line dancing. I’m terrible at “making it up” but now that we can at least pretend to know what we’re doing, Z doesn’t let me OFF the dance floor! Let’s just say that by the end of the night, I felt like this guy!

Long Day!

It was a wonderful, fun day and one of the best weddings that we’ve been to together. Now, we’re waiting for them to get back from their long honeymoon so that we can go camping with them later in July.

Speaking of other summer plans, we’re off to Z’s grandparents’ lake house this weekend to celebrate Z’s graduation from college. (It’s official now!) Good thing it’s going to be in the 80’s and 90’s all weekend!- I’ll post about it next week.

Have a great weekend- Choose joy,

E

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Transitions

June 2, 2009

Wow. I’m a really bad blogger! Not that I’ve ever been particularly diligent in my journaling endeavors…

Maybe I’ll just blame it on the fact that for the last few weeks, Z and I have spent every spare moment packing boxes, carrying boxes, moving furniture, and searching for the inevitably “lost” item of clothing amidst the mountains of cardboard filling our apartment.  We are in the middle of a multi-stepped moving process. Our lease on our apartment ended on the 31st (also, our first anniversary!) but we need to be in town until the end of June for Z to finish his last college course and for me to wrap up my time at my current job. So, we are subleasing for a friend for the month of June.

In July, we will move into the basement apartment at Z’s grandparents’ house where most of our stuff is currently being stored while we search for a NEW apartment in that area. Z’s teaching job for the fall is official and out of a desire to avoid a two hour commute every day, we will be leaving our college home and moving closer to his new school. Which means that I too will get to seek new employment. We are hopeful that i can find a job and a new apartment by August- and having the time to look in July while enjoying a rent free, air conditioned, basement apartment is truly a blessing.

And in the midst of all the searching, we of course have many plans for summer fun and adventure. We attended the first wedding of the season last weekend- of a couple of our college friends (they are dropping like flies!) where Z played piano for the ceremony…

Z on the piano

At a wedding

… and the reception had a great view of the city skyline! (not that you can actually see it in the above photo!)

And this COMING weekend, we will be celebrating with Rachel and Dan (see previous post!) at their wedding on Saturday. Throw in a few more weddings, a weekend at a lake house to celebrate Z’s graduation with our families, a camping weekend, a weekend in Cincinnati to visit our other married cousins, horseback riding lessons from Z’s aunt (which I am SO excited about!), and a list of projects that is 2 miles long a growing, and our summer promises to be a very busy- yet fun!- one.

And hopefully I’ll be better at recording it here- especially since I might actually have some fun things to talk about.

Another post coming soon- I promise!

E-town

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A wedding shower- The food!

May 18, 2009

Flowers and bees

The day of the shower was beautiful. Sunny, breezy, warm.  And the morning of the shower, my parents and I ran around finishing all of the last minute details for the shower. Starting with these:

Bee pops!

Inspired in part by Pioneer Woman’s “Springy Flower Pot Desserts” and by Bakerella’s infamous “Cake Pops,” I combined the two into these adorable little desserts. I spent the evening before the shower making the bumblebee cake pops.

Bumblebees

I simply followed Bakerella’s instructions to make cake pops… and then dipped them in yellow melting candy, added chocolate chips to one end for their stingers, brown candy coated sprinkle chips for the eyes and painted on their stripes and smiles with a toothpick dipped in melted chocolate candy.

Bees

Aren’t they cute??

Then my mom and I made these:

Flower pot

Using the smallest sized terra cotta pots we found at Hobby Lobby, we made this ice cream desserts.  We placed a vanilla wafer in the bottom, spooned some softened vanilla ice cream into the dish around a plastic straw and covered the top with crumbled oreos (which, with the filling left in the mix, really looks like potting soil!). We froze them like this overnight and the morning of the shower, we wrapped them in bright red and green napkins and tied with a black ribbon. (the wedding colors!)

Dessert

The napkins kept everyone’s fingers from freezing and made the flower pots look like they were wrapped as gifts from the floral department!

We placed cut, artificial flowers and the bumblebee cake pops into the straw immediately before serving.

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And the bride (and everyone else!) loved them.

The bumblebees were pretty time consuming, so I used the rest of my cake balls to make these:

Cupcake Bites

Again, I used wedding colors… and had one of the bridesmaids ask if I sold desserts as a business! I answered, no, but Bakerella should! (have to give credit for genius ideas where credit is due)

We even sent everyone home with a cupcake bite…

Cake boxes

…in their own mini-cake boxes!

Cake of boxes

Mom’s digital craft cutter was responsible for these wedge shaped boxes-

Cake

And the adorable decoration they created when arranged into a layer cake! (Notice that one layer is “vanilla” and the other is “chocolate”!)

Dessert table

As if we didn’t already have enough sweets, we also served some lime bars, heart-shaped elephant ears, and HAMBURGER cookies (vanilla wafers, thin mints, red and yellow icing and green dyed coconut layered together- yum!) which fit our “outdoor”/”summer camp” theme.

We did serve lunch too…

Lunch

Salads and sandwiches!

And for good measure…

Champagne Punch

Champagne punch! Hey- we were all 21! Well, except for this little sweetie…

baby!

But she didn’t get to have any.

It was a beautiful, tasty afternoon. And the leftovers made the next day pretty sweet too!

Leftovers

Choose joy,

E

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A wedding shower- the invitations

May 7, 2009

The invitation

I like being a bridesmaid. It’s all the wedding planning, creating, and fun with WAY less stress and for way less money!

Last Saturday, my mom and I threw a shower for my best friend who is getting married in just under a month. And the first step was creating the invitations.

We started with their wedding colors. Red and black, with apple green accents. Remembering how Rachel and I did a parody on the popular Mastercard commercials for a class project in high school, Mom and I came up with another for our invites.

the perfect guy: $ 3 summers of Camp Duncan

the perfect guy: $ 3 summers of Camp Duncan

Rachel and her fiance met while counselors at camp and since the groom is a pretty important part of the wedding, we started with “the perfect guy.” Mom’s digital craft cutter, the silhouette, cut out the black heart and kissing silhouette that we mounted on the apple green layer.

the perfect dress: $ not telling!

the perfect dress: $ not telling!

Then we stamped and embossed a white dress onto the red layer.

the perfect accessories: $ sensibly on sale

the perfect accessories: $ sensibly on sale

Then we embossed a shoe, crown, earrings, and a necklace in silver on a white layer.

the shower

having friends and family to shower you with gifts: priceless. There are some things that Dan and Rachel have. For everything else, there's going to be a wedding shower!

I then printed all of the shower information on white paper and mounted it on the final black layer.

the invitation

Then I stacked all of the layers and tied them with a black ribbon. The finished size was 5×7 and they were definitely well- received!

AND, they were fun! Up next, the actual shower! (With desserts inspired by the Pioneer Woman and Bakerella!)

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Wedding Flowers

April 27, 2009

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I LOVE FLOWERS.

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And for my wedding, I knew that we cou ldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on them. So, I got creative. Instead of hiring a professional florist, I asked my friend, Laura, if she’d be able and willing to help with the flowers since she had worked for a florist for several years in high school. It was her first wedding (and she has done several since!) and I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so I tried to minimize the pressure.

I wanted a bouquet- a big one. With lots of huge orange lilies.

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(And there it is!)

I wanted corsages and boutenniers for our VIP’s. And since they can easily be made the day before, that’s exactly what she did!

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(She’s really talented!)

I also wanted my bridesmaids to be able to carry something…without breaking the bank. So I ordered some sandalwood fans for 50% off which resulted in them being less than a dollar a piece. My sister then spray-painted them black for me. And Laura had the genius idea to add a few flowers to them!

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And I was totally thrilled with how they looked!

Now, a few months before the wedding, I sat down with Laura and described what I wanted. And she helped me to decide what I needed to order and how much I should get. Then, I called several different florists to get a quote on what I wanted to order. I bought all of my flowers AND had them delivered the day before for about $150!

And I had ordered WAY too many! :)

So, my mom called my aunt up quickly and asked her to bring down her hanging mason jars to the rehearsal dinner. Then, on the morning of the wedding, Laura threw these together…

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These beautiful arrangements were hung from shepherds crooks that lined the aisle. And they were made of leftovers! (I should clarify that the woman who catered our rehearsal dinner also sent us home with the flowers that she had used to decorate and we re-used though too!- Although, there were not TONS of those!)

Meanwhile, the woman I asked to make my cake, a dear friend of my mom’s, was busy making this:

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Which ALSO used LEFTOVER flowers!

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I didn’t see the finished cake until we entered the reception hall as “Mr. and Mrs.” but I couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out!

Believe it or not, we STILL had leftover cut flowers. And not wanting them to go to waste, we put them in our hair!

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That’s a small freesia flower in my cousin Heather’s hair.

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And a bright red carnation and yellow daisy in Brittani’s.

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And more freesia in my sister’s.

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And tiny white daisy looking mums in mine! (I don’t remember what they’re actually called… that’s why I had Laura!)

One more way I saved on our flower budget was deciding against having a “throw bouquet.” I HATED having to be the single girl who would go up and try to NOT catch the bouquet and most of my friends felt the same way. So I decided to do something different.

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I gave my actual bouquet away to the couple who had been married for the longest. This is Ken and Doris, a sweet couple from my home church who traveled over 2 hours to attend our wedding. They have been married for over 63 years! It was fun to recognize all of the couples who have proved that divorce is NOT always the end of marriage and honor those whom we would like to emulate. Plus, my flowers brought them so much more joy than they would have to one of my unmarried friends!

So, with a little creativity, and luck, my wedding was FULL of flowers for under $200!

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Wedding Season

April 22, 2009

2 of my best friends are getting married this summer and preparations are now in full swing. As a bridesmaid for each of them, I’m finding myself having many flashbacks to my own planning process a year ago. While that was really really fun and exciting, helping my friends through it is even better. Because I don’t have to be stressed about it. I don’t have to be the bride to whom everyone runs for answers. I don’t have to be the decision maker. And as fun as being engaged was, being married is WAY better. So this spring I plan on fully enjoying all of the wedding excitement without all of the pressure. And blogging about the shower, wedding, and reception ideas that I used for my wedding and am coming up with for my friends this year.

Invitations, centerpieces, decorations, bridesmaid dresses, etc.

Here are a few flashbacks from my wedding! (11 months ago!) Disclaimer- our wedding was colorful. I am not a “pink and white” person. My bridesmaids all look best in bright/bold colors so I chose to put them all in a deep, wine red colored dress.

I also knew that since we would be married outside and that I wanted a very festive, fun, and laid back atmosphere for the reception that I could get away with more color!

On a trip to Archiver’s to plan my save the dates, I found the perfect striped paper and everything then stemmed from that piece of paper. I’d scan it and post it, but they don’t sell it anymore and I’m too lazy to do it right now! Anyway, I ended up with red, orange, and yellow with a few teal accents and the natural green of my flowers and the backyard in which we were married.

I’ll start with the last detail that I decided on- centerpieces for our reception hall.

Centerpieces

Our centerpieces were VERY simple. I wanted a lot of color on the white tables and searched for months to find table runners or fabric that I could afford to lay on each table. I ended up buying several yards of the colors pictured here from Hobby Lobby. It’s a simple cotton broadcloth… and my mom and I ironed it and cut it into squares. Then we just laid them on top of each other to create the multi-colored, layered look here. And each table had a different pattern!

The terra cotta pots are also from Hobby Lobby and they are filled with mixed nuts and colorful m&m’s for people to snack on. The center one is a potted flower- in red, orange and yellow. We put out a couple of votives and added the table numbers (also handmade… a piece of 8.5×11 cardstock in red, yellow, or orange folded in thirds so that it stands as a triangle and wrapped with strips of a striped paper that I used on all of my wedding stationery. Then I just printed the numbers in the same font that I used for everything, mounted them on green or teal cardstock and glued them to each side of the triangle!).

And, voila!

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Colorful, simple, and CHEAP.  (Which is important when you have so many tables to decorate and little to no money!)

Here are some other beautiful centerpiece ideas that I’ve seen at weddings we’ve attended in the last few months (I probably like them a little better than mine but they were also professionally done so, more expensive I’m sure!)

Ornament favor

At Z’s cousins’ Christmas wedding, ornaments at each place were the favors.

The water carafe was even beautiful with basil, lime, and cranberries floating in it!

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Check out that professional flower arrangement!

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This centerpiece was from a friend’s June wedding. I love lilies and would’ve covered my reception hall with them if they were more affordable! Instead, I bought 5 large orange ones and had them in my bouquet!

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(Notice how her table numbers are very similar to what I did… they’re so easy, cheap and look really nice!)

Next post will probably be full of dresses and flowers- my favorite details by far!

~E

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Ocean’s 7?

February 26, 2009

Ocean's 7

Almost 9 months after our wedding, I’m still getting new images from the day. This one was snapped by my grandfather-in-law, in whose backyard we held the ceremony. This is totally un-staged, and I love it. It’s all the guys walking from Aunt Teri’s house where they got ready a few minutes before the ceremony. Guess which one the groom is!

My favorite thing about this photo is not Z’s slightly funny expression or the fact that it looks like it could maybe be the cover of a cd of some large all-male band. It’s the guy all the way on the right.

You see, we had 4 groomsmen. Tyler, John, Red, (Z) and Sam. (From left to right). Then there’s the groom. And my father-in-law who preached during the ceremony. And then, there’s Dan.

He may be dressed to look pretty close to the part of groomsman but Z met Dan the day before our rehearsal.  Dan is my best friend’s fiance. And when she, being a very supportive and helpful bridesmaid, came to town a few days before the wedding, he came too. And as if I didn’t think  he was perfect for my best friend before, I DEFINITELY did afterwards. He jumped right in and quite literally got his hands dirty helping us with last minute details. He repotted plants that would become our centerpieces; he helped Z finish our slideshow and made sure that it was set up and played correctly at the rehearsal dinner; he even acted as a stand-in groomsman during the rehearsal when Red was late coming from Chicago. When the girls and I spent the night before the wedding together, he joined in all of the guys’ fun. On the morning of the wedding, while the “real” groomsmen were setting up chairs in the backyard, Dan was with Z, running errands and washing our “getaway” car. And then he got ready with the groomsmen and while he escaped all of the formal photographer pictures, Grandpa caught him here. One of the guys.

And while he might not have stood up with us during the ceremony, he will be a welcome and constant fixture in our lives since he is the one lucky enough to have won the heart of my best friend. The weekend of the wedding, he won ours too.

Dan and Rachel’s wedding is in  June and it will be my turn to stand up with them- and you can bet that Z will be doing as much behind the scenes stuff that he can.

Choose joy today!

E

P.S.- sorry if the photo looks weird… sometimes it gets all stretched out on my screen and I’m still not sure how to fix it!

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Stained Glass

January 14, 2009

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This is one of my favorite wedding pictures. And it wouldn’t have been possible without my lovely and talented friend, Ericka.

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This is her with the beautiful stained glass window that we designed and made together for our wedding. Stained glass is her hobby and she has a real passion for it. When Z and I decided to get married outdoors, the only thing I thought I would miss was the stained glass windows in my church. My mom then suggested making our own! Z came up with the idea of two intertwining tree trunks to symbolize the joining of our lives, etc.

And Ericka was instrumental in making it happen.

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First we drew the pattern that you can see surrounding the brown glass. We cut up the first pattern into “puzzle pieces” and then trace them onto the large posterboard shown here after numbering all of the pattern pieces. We ended up with a “paint by numbers” type template.  We then took the “puzzle pieces” and traced them onto the appropriate colors of glass.

Then, Ericka cut all the pieces out. I know how to do it, but she’s a whiz and could do it about 10 times faster than I could… and when you’re wedding planning, you don’t have time to mess around.

After you cut out the glass using a special glass cutter (it creates a score line on the glass and then you use a “breaker” that simply cracks the glass along the score line. It’s pretty amazing!), you have to “grind” (aka sand) the edges so they all fit togther well.

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This is pre-grinding.

Then you “foil” the edges. We put a copper foil on each edge of each piece. This helps the solder hold everything together.

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Then we fit them all together really tightly and placed pins all around the edges to keep everything in place. For big windows, like this one, Ericka added some metal reinforcement along the big joints too.

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And then she soldered it all together. And her dad built a frame for it.

This is us working on it.

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And here is the finished product. In all it’s glory. Hanging from the arbor under which we were married.

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Oh, and then we made a miniature one from which we hung 3 “strands.” Instead of lighting a unity candle that would have been blown out by the wind anyway, we braided “a cord of three strands” that “is not quickly broken.” (Ecc. 4:9-12) Yeah, we’re non-traditional. And I loved it.

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And now we have that beautiful window and the cord hanging in our bedroom instead of a pillar candle. (Not that there is anything wrong with a Unity Candle! We just did everything a little differently… but more on that later.) For now, I’ll just remind you of how cool of a backdrop stained glass makes.

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Choose Joy and be different,

E

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