Red Hot Mountain Getaway!

Hello, friends! I hope that you had a wonderful weekend! I am smack-dab in the middle of back-to-back wedding weekends, so I apologize if I'm a little off the grid these days. This past weekend I stood next to one of my closest friends, Sara, as she married a wonderful man, and on Friday I have the priveledge of standing beside my long-time best friend Elizabeth as she does the same. For some they might see these bridesmaid duties as obligations, but I have truly loved trying to make this time special for them both and hope that their wedding days were and are just perfect. I'm hopefully going to post about Sara's big day this week, so stay tuned!

 

Of course, along with wedding-day duties and showers, however, there is also the fun of planning a bachelorette party! For Elizabeth (whose shower you can see here), the bridesmaids are kind of scattered and we knew that this would mean a weekend getaway was in order. She initially wanted to go to the beach, but seeing that it would cost a lot of money during spring break season and it's very far for some of us to travel, we decided to meet in the middle and got a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Besides, all she really wanted was a low-key girls' weekend where we really wouldn't do much other than relax and spend time together, so we figured we could do that anywhere!

 

If you have never rented a cabin in the mountains, I highly recommend it! Most are equipped with game rooms, plenty of bedrooms, back porches with gorgeous mountain views that you can look over from a rocking chair or porch swing, and outdoor hot tubs for relaxation... it's my kind of place. We all arrived on Friday night, had a delicious spaghetti dinner, stayed up until one o'clock in the morning sharing stories and catching up, and then "slept in" on Saturday and enjoyed a big breakfast. I put that in quotation marks because for those of us with kids, this meant that we just stayed in bed until about eight... my how things have changed! We spent the entire day in our lounge clothes, spent some time in the hot tub, took naps, and just enjoyed a nice change of pace. The one thing we wanted to make sure of, however, was that we did some sort of "party" for our bride-to-be, no matter how laid back it was. We just wanted it to be special.

 

A few weeks before the trip a couple of the other bridesmaids and I started thinking of themes and somehow got stuck on those red-hot candies... perhaps because this was right around Valentine's Day. We decided to take that idea and run with it and called it her "Red Hot Mountain Getaway," since we were celebrating one red hot bride! I called up my uber-talented sister, told her the theme, and she designed what just might be my most favorite invitation she has done to date (and she's done a lot of great ones!). Just see for yourself:

We asked everyone to wear red for our night out and our bride wore white. Actually, I wish I had a picture of the group because we could not have coordinated our outfits better... all the girls ended up in an equal mixture of red, white, and black as if it had been planned! Unfortunatley, all of the group photos are on someone else's phone. I did make sure to get this one, however, since we were the three moms on the trip, just to show that even post kiddos, we've still got it! Haha!

And since I don't have any of the photos from our night out, which was... er... interesting to say the least considering that Gatlinburg doesn't really have a night life, I just wanted to post the decor since it was fun! So here's a glimpse inside our Red Hot Party:

It was a fun and really easy theme for a "last fling before the ring" and one that I hadn't really seen before. We decorated with red roses, red hots (as well as other red candies), candles, pom poms, crepe paper, boas, and pearls and served red wine and red velvet cupcakes- heaven!  And the awesome table cloth? That's actually a curtain that hangs in our study... you can find it here. It makes me strongly consider using curtains as tablecloths more often as there are so many more cool options!

 

And what's a trip to Gatlinburg without this classic shot? If you've been there you know what I mean:

 

Sunday morning came quite early and I had to jet early to get to my speaking engagement, but it was wonderful to have a weekend away with these ladies, and one without kids! I love my children dearly, but a couple of days away every now and again can make a huge difference... sometimes we just need some me-time. I'm thankful for a husband who understands that, too.

 

Just four more days 'til my best friend is married off. I CANNOT wait!

He's "OSO" Special

March just seems to be getting away from us this year. Between lots of travels, wedding festivities, and the crazy schedules that can come from pastoring a church, our calendar has been full. Thankfully we had the foresight to just have a small family gathering for Jake's birthday this year rather than a full blown party like in year's past. While they were fun and we'll surely do it again in the future, his best buddy is his cousin anyway, so as long as he was in town, Jake would be one happy boy.

 

While we did not have a "theme," the one thing I refused to skimp on was the cake. Growing up, my mom made THE BEST cakes for us... she has a gift. As soon as Jake was born I knew that decorating a special cake for my kids each year was one tradition that would continue. Jake really does not request anything in particular yet (and if you asked him, he'll tell you that it's everyone else's birthday but his!), so I just went with what he's been requesting the most on TV lately.

"Mo Spessy Oso, please, Mommy?"

 

That's "More Special Agent Oso, please, Mommy?" in Jake-talk. Have I told you how much I love Jake-talk? He still uses so many of his own words, even when he knows the real word. I'll be a little sad once he starts speaking in full-on proper sentences. *sigh*

 

But I digress... what's that you say? You don't know who Special Agent Oso is? Yeah, I would not have either a year ago! You can find him on Disney Jr. and essentially he's the "unique, stuffed bear. He's on a special assignment to help a kid somewhere..." Oh sorry, mom-with-a-toddler, did I get that stuck in your head? My apologies.

 

If you're still lost, here's a picture:

Cute, eh? And my rock-star mom just so happens to still have the teddy-bear pan that she used for my Care Bear cake back in 1985... who says hanging onto things doesn't pay off? It worked perfectly:

And Jake? The dude absolutely loved it! He knew who is was right off the bat and then immediately said, "can we cut Oso?" Our growing boy has priorities!

 

Thankfully we made sure it lasted long enough to actually make it to the party where he graciously shared it with his Aunt Mindy who had a birthday last week, too.

I still can't believe this kid is three... to me he'll always be my Little Sweet Baby Jake.

Old, New, Borrowed... and Blue!

I think I've mentioned before, but in April I am going to be in back-to-back weddings. Not only that, but I am the matron of honor in both, so I have double-duty when it comes to making the time leading up to the weddings special for each bride. On the upside, there are a few small details that I have been able to duplicate, such as fun shower games and printables, but because of this I've had to put off the first of my recaps until both showers had been celebrated. So, even though this was back in January, here's a quick look at the fun we had at my best friend's bridal shower!

If you've ever met Elizabeth, you'll somehow learn very early on that her middle name is Blue. It's a family name and she loves it, and I do, too! Many people call her that, and so it seemed appropriate that we use the very appropriate theme of something old, something new, something borrowed, and of course... something Blue!  The I'm not posting a super-great image of the invitations, mainly because I swiped an image from the Internet and used it for my own design, but you could order very simlilar ones here:

We of course had hints of blue everywhere, but also used lace doilies and decorated with Mason jars to give it that vintage, old feel. I personally loved the way it all came together!

And ohhhhh these cupcakes were amazing! They were a chocolate-peanut butter creation from Annie's Eats. The frosting was to die for!  And how fun is the wine bottle in the high heel? The idea was from one of the other bridesmaids and I do believe that heels and wine were made to go together!

 

As for the food, we kept it simple and purchased finger sandwiches and a vegetable tray from Kroger, served pita chips and hummus, and an easy (yet delicious!) salad made up of field greens and spinach, mandarin oranges, sliced strawberries, sliced almonds, and poppyseed dressing. Delish! And thanks to someone who is much better at mixing beverages than I am, we even had blue sangria! It's hard to tell in the picture though!

 

After everyone had something to eat and mingled a bit, we passed around a notebook for them to write some advice for the bride-to-be, which will be a fun little keepsake for her. And then we passed out bridal shower Madlibs to do with a friend during the gift opening! I always think it's a good idea to have something for the guests to do while the gifts are being opened. I think it makes the guest of honor feel a little less awkward, too, since it's all eyes on her at that moment!

 

 

 

For the Mad Libs, I once again swiped someone else's brilliant design (are you seeing a pattern here) and customized it to fit my needs. But to give credit where credit is due, you can check out the original here.  Once I tweaked it, mine looked like this:

 

 

These were a huge hit, but even funnier was listening to everyone try and remember what a noun, verb, and adjective are! Wow, it's been awhile since we've all been in grammar class!  And as you know, I like to share, so if you ever wanted to use this, just email me and I'll gladly change the groom's name (since I highly doubt she'll be marrying a Dara!) and send you a copy.

 

All in all, it was a great day! I can't wait to stand next to these gorgeous bridesmaids in just a few weeks as my favorite person gets hitched!

 

But even sooner than that, I REALLY can't wait to meet up with them for our Bachelorette Mountain Getaway this weekend! After a week and a half of taking care of sick kids, this girls' weekend could not come at a better time... this mama needs it!  Look out Smoky Mountains, here we come!

 



Celebrating our Bug!

This past weekend we gathered with family and a few friends to celebrate Lilly's first birthday! I was pretty selective in who would be recieving invites since Jake's first birthday was an absolute zoo with about forty families in attendance... yowza! So aside from the other pastor at our church and his family, we sent invites to a few families that have babies Lilly's age- you know, her little friends. My sister, Mindy, designed the invitations and set the theme for the whole party:

And as a sidenote, she does freelance work, so if you're ever looking for design stuff, she's a great option. She has a craft-blog, too, which can be seen here.

But anyway, going with a ladybug theme was fun and easy! Instead of trying to find a lot of ladybug decor, we kind of veered toward red, black and white with polka-dots. And of course our party-girl had to dress for the occasion and I found the perfect dress and shoes... and then majorly failed and did not get a photo! This is the best I have (and if you look REALLY close you can see the ladybugs on her dress and shoes), but I know this outfit will be revisited for her 1-year-old photos soon!

We just did a light lunch with a mostly bug-themed menu: chicken salad sandwiches, ants on a log, Lilly's favorite (yogurt) parfaits, caterpillars-in-cocoons (pigs in a blanket), and Ladybug Chow (potato chips and a giant bowl of Cheerios for the little ones).

And of course there were cupcakes and a smash cake, decorated by yours truly... one of my favorite things to do:

The decorations were downloaded for free from Smitten Blog Designs, and my lovely friend Laura, who surprised me from out of town, put her crafting skills to work and strung the banner together for me. It turned out super-cute!

We had a small turnout due to babies with fevers and busy Saturday schedules, but Lilly loved the attention, loved being sang to, and as expected, REALLY loved the cake!

It was a special day indeed for a very special girl... I still can't believe she's a year old already (sniff).

Ultimate Wedding Week - the Details

We've reached the last day of the "Ultimate Wedding Week" Link-Up series and today's topic is hosted by Amy over at Fresh & Fancy.  While some people find the details the most annoying part of planning anything (i.e. my husband), I actually love them!  It's the little things that are incorporated to highlight your personalities, and I loved coming up with the ideas and seeing them executed.  I guess when a pastor marries an event planner, he's going to care most about the ceremony and she's going to care most about the details.  So you see?  We really are a perfect match!

First up... the dress of course!  This beauty is a Justin Alexander:

I wish I had one where the train was not bustled, but as I mentioned in previous posts, there are no picture of just me in my dress.  Such a shame, but something that will be remedied in the near future!  Any excuse to put it back on is okay by me!

As for the shoes, I think I just found them at DSW.  I knew nobody would really see them, so even though they did not match my dress perfectly, I loved them because they reminded me of something you would wear to play dress-up in as a young girl.  And isn't this day somewhat of a fullfillment of that?  And at $39.99 for something that few people would see, I'd call it a win!

As for jewelry, most of it was borrowed.  I wore my sister's earrings that she wore in her wedding three years before and my best friend lent me her grandmother's ring, which was gorgeous (and my something blue!).  The only other thing I added was a bracelet, which I just bought at a department store.  There was nothing real about it, but I loved (and still wear) it.

Josh was very particular about his ring and definitely wanted something more masculine.  We ended up finding one with crosses engraved somewhere online (I can't remember where) and mine is from Jared's.  Yes, "he went to Jared's!"  Haha.

As for my beautiful bridesmaids, this presented more of a challenge as I knew that one of them would be 8 months pregnant on my wedding day.  Being her first pregnancy, we had no idea what kind of pregnant-lady she would be.  Some carry their babies like tiny basketballs and others get pregnant all over the place unfortunately.  While shopping we laughed a lot because she had to try on everything with the little "pregnant belly" pillow, which always looked ridiculous.  Finding this picture of someone else's wedding really helped:

Isn't Google amazing?  I planned before Pinterest existed, so I just searched "Pregnant Bridesmaid" and found all sorts of pictures!  We actually ended up getting this exact dress by Bill Levkoff and my matron of honor got a slightly different one to make her stand out a bit more.  And the best part?  It's hard to figure out who has the bun in the oven!

Dark brown and cream were not my original colors.  Because our wedding was outdoors in Florida in June, I envisioned something a bit brighter and more summery.  Once I found my dress, however, that all changed.  My dress was champagne and cream in color and the summery colors did not look right with it.  Nor did short dresses as my dress was too elegant in style to look right next to them.  Dark brown alone seemed almost too formal for me and so I finally decided to mix in a secondary color and mix it up a bit.  I could get away with putting my bridesmaids in cream because my dress was darker than that, but complimented it well.  Then of course I realized that black tuxes next to all of this brown and cream might not look the best, which is why we went with the tan suits for them, which I loved.  Plus, they would have been far too hot in black!

With so many neutral colors going on, I really wanted pops of something bright in the flowers.  My bouquet was a ton (literally... that thing must have weighed 20 pounds!) of cream colored roses as to not take away from my dress, and my bridesmaids had lots of magenta and light green in theirs.  Josh and both of our dads had cream roses for their boutonnieres to match my bouquet and the other guys all had some sort of green flower... but I'm not actually sure it was a flower.  I'm actually not sure what it was, but it looked awesome.  I don't know much about flowers, so I told my florist what I wanted and she did an amazing job!  She also brought extra (smaller) roses to pin into our hair if we wanted.  A few of my bridesmaids did and I had three pinned in after I ditched the veil at the reception.  If you're in South Florida and looking for a vendor, I would highly recommend Deerfield Florist.

Since out reception was outdoors, the hotel had cucumber and lemon water for the guests and we put a basket of fans by the entrance:

Thankfully we have a graphic designer in our family.  I have sung my sister's praises many times on this blog, and today she gets even more love.  She is crafty in many ways, but most talented on paper.  Actually, she just started her own crafting blog, so you should check it out here... but I digress.  This lovely talented lady was kind enough to design and print our program.  Weddings are expensive enough as it is, so if you have talented people in your lives, utilize them!  Besides, it adds even more of your own personal touch to the day:

The guest book was at both the wedding and reception site, but unfortunately got overlooked by a lot of people.  We bought an album with photo sleeves and asked our guests to write in the space provided next to the photo sleeves.  We then had a digital camera sitting out for them to take a photo of themselves.  We have some awesome photos of our guests who participated- some are "normal" and some are just plain funny- so the idea in theory was excellent.  If you choose to go this route, however, I would have maybe a younger family member, cousin, etc. man the table for awhile and take the pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites:

I think I hit the rest of the ceremony details in my ceremony post, so I'll move on to the reception.  We ended up having twelve tables (counting ours) and so instead of doing table numbers, we did the months of the year.  On each table was a recap of what happened in our relationship that month.  This worked particularly well for us since we met on July 31st and got married the following June 13th, so we had something happen within every month (just barely).  We listed things such as meeting, getting engaged, running a marathon together, traveling to New York, etc.  It was a fun way to share some more of our story with our guests.  And we, fittingly, sat at the "June" table.

Our delicious cake was a layer of chocolate and a layer of Amaretto vanilla, and it was to die for.  The grooms cake was made by the same crafty sister (seriously... what can't she do?) and was Josh's favorite, red velvet.  I'm guessing the crimson color has something to do with it:

See?  I told you I'm a details person.  I may have gone too into detail giving you the details, so I apologize for getting so lengthy on this!  As for my top 3 pieces of advice to future brides, I'd say:

1 - Figure out what's important to you and budget for those elements.  I wanted a fantastic photographer and videographer, as those were the things that would last forever.  Our videographer is now based in Southern California, so if you're in the area and looking for one, seriously look no further.  I wish I could show our video here... they make a "film" of your day set to music and it's seriously the most beautiful thing.  It's something I will cherish always.

2 - Pass wedding-day tasks off to others.  My sisters and mom were awesome about taking things from me and my friend Julie volunteered to deliver checks to all of the vendors who needed to be paid that day.  I literally worried about NOTHING... and a relaxed and pampered bride is a happy bride!

3 - And most importantly, remember that no matter what goes wrong, even if your wedding is a world-class disaster, at the end of the day you will be married to the person that God picked out for you... and that's really all that matters.  Besides, wedding day disasters probably make for some great stories later!

I'm glad I participated in the link-up party as it's been a nice trip down memory lane, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to blogging about some other things I've had on the back burner over these past two weeks.  Plus, blogging 5 days a week has been challenging with work, church, and the little ones and I've stayed up much too late writing and scheduling posts.  It was worth it though.  Thanks so much for allowing me to share... I hope you enjoyed the Ultimate Wedding Party as much as I did!

Happy Friday, everyone... have a fantastic weekend!  Check back on Monday for a race recap of the Lexington Half Marathon!