One Step Closer...

Although all of the preparations for the wedding aren't finished yet, we are one step closer! We are now legally allowed to marry in the state of Michigan! Gary and I picked up our marriage license yesterday morning. Northville has a satellite office so we didn't have to go downtown and mess with the county building. It was really quite simple, we applied on Tuesday and picked it up on Thursday! Of course I had to get a photo...Gary wasn't too happy about it...

Weather Watch

And it begins. Today marks 10 days out from the wedding...which means our wedding date is now within the 10 day weather forecast! I know being 10 days out, it's not entirely accurate but you better believe that I'll be checking it every day! We're not looking too bad so far...I would love it to be a little warmer with with no rain currently in the forecast, I'm a happy girl!

The Problem with Cake

The problem with cake is that every flavor is good. Our baker, Gwen, has so many delicious flavors on her "menu" that Gary and I ended up having her bake us about six little cakes before we decided on our flavors. We're getting down to the wire now so we went last night for our last tasting and to finalize the design. So what did we end up with?

White Amaretto cake with Raspberry Cream filling

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Cream filling

Apple Spice cake with Cream Cheese filling

And as for design, I only pulled one inspiration photo the entire 6 months that I've been scouring wedding magazines and blogs. And so here it is:

I liked it because it was simple and classic. Our ribbon will be red instead of orange and the flowers on top will be whatever our florist comes up with!

New Wedding 'Do

Despite the fact that Gary likes my hair better light, I wanted to get it dyed darker before the wedding. I prefer my hair dark and it fits in well with the fall theme. So just as all of the things you read about getting your hair done before your wedding, I went about two weeks out just in case anything crazy happened (like the purple hair from my latest wedding nightmare).

I definitely got dark...and I LOVE it! I don't think this picture does is justice...I think it looks darker in person. It felt good to have a trim too! I've been growing it out since we got engaged and my ends were getting pretty scraggily. So what do you think?

Important Information

You can never be too prepared on your wedding day. And you never know when someone is going to need the phone number for the DJ or the address to the reception hall. So I made up these little important information cards for our wedding party and the other folks involved directly with the wedding. .

I started with a blank piece of 8 1/2 by 11 paper and created individual boxes to hold the information. I used three different categories: Important Phone Numbers, Important Addresses and Vendor Phone Numbers

I then cut them out and accordion folded them like so:

Once they were folded, I just had to tie a cute little bow with twine! When finished, they are the approximate size of a business card so the guys can slip them in their wallets and the girls can stash them easily in a small purse.

Hopefully this will make life easier for everyone if they should need to find a phone number or an address. Otherwise, they were just another fun (and quick!) project for me!

Run Like the Wind

This will be my first non-wedding related post in a while but I had to give a shout out to my future husband because I am SO proud of him! This summer, he decided that he was going to run the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon. Originally, I was going to run with him but do to the horrible feet I inherited from my mother (that and I've heard horror stories of brides having to wear closed toe shoes because they crack their toe nails off while running) I decided it was best for me not to run. But Gary stuck with it and he DID IT! We were downtown bright and early today - the race started at 7:15 AM! They ran through downtown, over the bridge to Canada, through Windsor, through the tunnel back to Detroit and back to the finish line...a whopping 13.1 miles!

Here he is before the race all bundled up...I think it was 37 degrees at race time!


And here is one while he is running...I didn't bring my new camera so it was hard to get an action shot! He is kind of in an open space on the road dressed in all grey.

I also got to see him just before the finish line and give him a high five! I am so proud that he stuck with it AND that he finished 10 minutes BEFORE his goal time!! Congrats G!!!

The Dresses are In!

They've actually been in for a while, and I'm just getting around to posting about it. I was having second thoughts about my choice for doing different colors for each girl. (And I was having nightmares that the shop ordered the wrong colors!) But when the dresses came in and I saw them all together again, my worries were gone. They look great! Here is Kristie modeling hers:

It definitely took a while to get her all laced up so we'll have to make sure to bake some extra time into our getting ready schedule on the day of!

Gifting the Hostesses

This post is a little late, but I kept forgetting to bring my camera to work with me. I wanted to share this cute and super easy project that my mom thought up to use for hostess gifts for one of my showers. All you need is a mum plant, a terracotta pot, some ribbon and a handy dad who can drill holes for you.


I think they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. Now you may be asking yourself why you don't see me helping...I was too busy taking pictures of course...and I had just gotten my nails done :)

Last Fling Before the Ring!

Boy did we have FUN!! The theme was "Sexy Girls in the City" and I'd say we lived up to that! The night started out at my sister's house for drinks, dinner and some games! Of course they had to have her entire house decorated with embarrassing photos of me! The girls also set up an underwear scavenger hunt for me...it was SO fun and I got lots of cute undies!!

Clue: Courtney now knows better than to take THIS to the bar with her!

Bronco Girls!

All the ladies ready for a night on the town!

After the pre-party, my mom was a dear and drove us to Grand Rapids where we had a hotel room for the night. We did a little more pre-drinking in the hotel room and then hit the town!

A few more cocktails at the hotel!

Why yes, we did take a red limo from 1992...

Me and my maids on the town

I have many more photos but you can check out Facebook to view them all!

To wrap up this post, I thought I'd write something along the lines of Courtney's post of the top 10 moments of the night, I thought I would post the top 10 things I learned from my bachelorette party:

1. I have had WAY too many embarrassing pictures taken of me throughout the last 5 years
2. It's even more embarrassing explaining said photos to my mother
3. Even with a ring on my finger, I haven't lost my touch for getting free drinks
4. Don't tell me that some other bachelorette stole your boa because I WILL fight her
   
5. It is not impossible to fit 7 girls on a rickshaw at the same time
6. My sister and I definitely do not hang out enough
7. I have the BEST helium voice out of the entire group
8. I can eat two hot dogs and pizza at 2 AM and feel just fine afterward
   
9. Video cameras should be illegal at bachelorette parties
10. I have the most amazing friends ever!!!
    

Gettin' Pampered

I decided early on that I didn't really want to have a friends shower per say - but rather just spend some quality time with my closest ladies. So my bridesmaids planned a day of pampering for me! I was home for the weekend for my bachelorette party (post coming soon!) so we took advantage of the fact that we were all in the same city and spent a morning at the spa! We headed out to Design 1 in Grandville for pedicures and manicures. Kristie, Amanda, Emmy and I all received wonderful pedicures (Ange is too ticklish!) followed by manicures for Andrea and I. And of course we had to have some mimosas to sip and yummy chocolate chip muffins to munch!




After mani's and pedi's it was time for brunch. Kristie had asked me where I wanted to go, and I think she laughed at me when I told her. I told her I wanted to go to my favorite breakfast place - Cracker Barrel! Kristie even decorated the table for us!

I am clearly excited to have a Cracker Barrel breakfast menu in my hands!

Some of Kristie's decorations...and my favorite mints!

Taking advantage of the cute rocking chairs!

BUT my day of pampering was not over yet! As a gift to me, my sister and Kristie paid for me to get my makeup done at MAC! While the other girls prepared for the party that night, Emmy accompanied me to the mall so I wouldn't be lonely. She also took a few photos of me while I was getting "made up":



Thank you SOOO much for everything you planned ladies! I had a BLAST! And a special thanks to Kristie - I know she put a lot of hard work into organzing everything!

Stay tuned for the bachelorette shenanigans that went down that evening!!