The bar exam in officially 1 week away. One week! Holy schmoly, I need to get back to studying. But, I will interrupt this freak out study session to show you my beautiful, modern and cheerful bridal shower invitation made by my lovely sister!
She gave it to me this past weekend, and it’s a little surreal, because the fiance and I have not yet started celebrating our impending nuptials. This will be the start to all the wedding events and I’m super psyched!
I’m not trying to figure things out, because I’m one of those weird people who actually LOVE surprises. I do know it’s at a beach resort, but that’s it! Oh, does this get to mean I get to start stalking my registry?
Oh, would you like to see what I’m wearing? It’s from J.crew (of course!)! Yes, I’m wearing white. I’m ballsy like that.
Okay, I’ve been studying for the bar exam for a while now. I’ve been a doting law student, only blogging once a week, scheduling future postings and staying away from my favorite blogs. But, I’m sorry I can’t stay away for much longer.
With the exam about 2 weeks away, I happen upon this:
I mean for real, these are the most gorgeous wedding pictures I’ve seen in a long time. The first picture alone convinced me that I need a birdcage veil like I need to pass the bar. And the yellow? Oh heck yes. I have a friend whose signature color is yellow and now I know why. It’s so natural. It’s the color of the sun! I cannot wait to see the girls in their bright yellow dresses in November! It’s going to be fabulous, I just know it!
My short stint as a Maid of Honor for my sister was really amazing. I’m not going to lie it was a ton of work, but when you’re planning your own wedding it really doesn’t seem like work and when it’s your sister, I mean come on. There is no greater joy.
All in all, I performed the classic Maid of Honor duties. I threw her a bridal shower, I kept my phone at my side at all times for the couple of weeks preceding the wedding to put out any fires, I was her craft slave (that was rather voluntary, actually) and on the wedding day I was her stress reliever.
I did a few things I am especially proud of:
1.) I made my sister an iphoto book (thanks for the idea, Mrs. CB) documenting all of the events leading up to the wedding. I had all the girls sign it! In the book, I also attached her bridal shower invite, the menu and the advice cards I had mailed along with the invites. I also included some of the games we played.
2.) Thanks to Miss Peacock, I decided to buy tank tops for the girls to wear for the morning of. The girls wore pink, that matched our dresses. My sister wore white and I wore light pink with a cute baby picture of my sister. I got some laughs.
(That’s Audrey. She was the rockstar bridesmaid. She will likely kill me for posting this.)
3.) The morning of the wedding, I got up early to prepare a nice relaxing bath for Sarah. I woke her up very gently, no frightening buzzes were allowed! Didn’t she look rather happy at 9:15 in the morning?
4.) I mentioned in a prior post the mistake I made in forgetting her rehearsal bouquet. Well for the day of, I had packed an emergency kit that included lotion, tissues, swabs, band-aids, lip gloss, compact, etc. I also had other items like a camera, a video camera, her shoes, perfume and I put it all in that tote you see above. That was my go-to tote. I made sure everything was in there and that was all I needed to keep track of.
5.) For the rehearsal dinner, I made a slide show! Yes, I know everyone does this, but when you can make the quarterback of a college football team cry, you know you did good! (Anyone watch Friends? Remember Monica at her parents’ anniversary party?!?)
6.) Before I had the privilege of putting her dress on (which was the most amazing experience by the way), I made sure to lay out all of her accessories for the photographer. As a fellow bride to be, I knew that was going to be one of the pictures! I also made sure to hang her dress in a pretty spot before the photographer arrived!
(Steaming the ladies’ dresses!)
(As you can tell by the look on my face, I was all business!)
7.) During pictures, I was an annoying tissue blotter. Being July in Florida, I didn’t want my sister with a shiny nose! I considered it my #1 duty to make sure she was looking fabulous at all times! Although, look at her, it was a pretty easy job!
8.) During the reception, Sarah was being the responsible bride going to all the tables to greet her guests. After five dance songs, I had to do it. I ran over, apologized to the guests and stole the bride. The song was “Shout!” and it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding reception. The next hour was filled with non-stop dancing and it seriously made my entire night.
For those brides-to-be looking for some inspiration, here’s an update! To recap: I’ve been a regular gym-goer for the last 5 years, but for the wedding I really wanted to get into excellent shape! So, for the past 7 weeks I’ve been working out 5 days a week and generally watching what I eat. (**On Fridays, I’ve been doing the StairMaster, a timeless classic that really kicks my booty, literally! If you haven’t tried it in a while, jump back on, your thighs will thank you!)
The scale has only moved about 5 lbs, but the inches have moved INCREDIBLY! I’ve read a ton of magazines and they always say to forget about the scale and just take your measurements, and boy they weren’t kidding!
Bust: 38″ [5/25/2008] to 36″ [7/8/2008]
Waist: 30″ to 29″
Hips: 40.75″ to 39.5″
Thigh: 25″ to 22″
For all you non-math majors, that’s 3″ off my thighs!!! Awwww yeah.
(Me and the sister back in May 2008 – notice the bulge?)
(The Fiance and I on July 4, 2008.)
For those keeping track of my dress fitting progress – my sister came over a couple of weeks before her wedding and I put on the dress. I’d been having nightmares about it not fitting. Well, it fits and zips ALL the way up! It’s still a little tiiight, but progress has been made!!! Wahoo!
P.S. To Lane: I did 26 consecutive REAL push-ups last night!
So, give me an update on ya’ll! How ya doing with the exercise?
No, I’m not talking about the morning after the wedding, get your head out of the clouds. I’m talking about that morning you wake up and all of your girls are with you getting beautified. What to wear? Well, when I saw the pictures from Maie’s wedding, I fell in love with her robe that was, of course, from Anthropologie. (Don’t ask me how I know this, okay fine, I asked her in a stalkerish email).
So when my best friend, Ashley went to Thailand for 6 weeks this summer, I asked her to look for a really pretty robe that I could wear the morning of. I spoke with her on the phone last night and she said she found one for me! I’m also thinking about getting the girls a little something to wear for the morning of with me. I’m sure 3 of them just read that, but don’t worry their surprise isn’t ruined, there will be other stuff they don’t know about!
Speaking of things to wear, I made tank tops for my sister and the bridesmaids to wear the morning of. They were really adorable. I bought the tank tops from Old Navy and iron-on transfers from Michael’s. There were very similar to the tank tops Miss Peacock made for her friend’s bachelorette party. Thanks, Miss Peacock! I would have loved to wear robes the morning of, but we ended up driving to the hair studio, so we needed to be appropriately attired! Darn!
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes for my sister’s wedding this past weekend! I’m busy studying, but just wanted to post a quick picture of the lovely newlyweds who are having a fabulous time in California as I type!
I will be posting about my experience as the Maid of Honor for all you ladies that have the same job! It was a lot of work, but the benefits are huge, especially when you see the bride happy and married!
The new Mr. and Mrs.!
Also, just wanted to give a quick shout out to the bridesmaids and honorary bridesmaids that helped me this weekend. You know who you are! Thanks for being there for Sarah and helping me out in some vital ways! I wish I had had more time to chat with some of you, especially those that read the blog, my sister is so lucky to have such AWESOME friends!
In t-minus 3 hours, I will be driving over the Jacksonville for my sister’s wedding. It’s been such a fun adventure and I’m sort of sad to see it go. It’s been a privilege to be her maid of honor, and I can’t wait for the big day. In the meantime, I’ll share a couple of projects I’ve been working on these last few days. You’re getting the exclusive, because the bride hasn’t even seen them yet!
Here is the schedule I made for the bridesmaids. I also made for the groomsmen, but they are much less feminine. I actually printed them out into business card size, so they could easily stash them in their wallets!
Here are the tags I made for the sparklers that will going into the OOT bags. It’s the same design I made for the front of their bags. We bought the ribbon from Michael’s.
See you back here on Monday! Have a happy 4th of July!!
As many of you loyal readers know, my sister is getting married this weekend, so please pardon the light posting. To give you a bit of eye candy though, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite Etsy finds that have been incorporated into our Exciting wedding! First, I present to you my lovely bridal clutch. I originally bought something that was all bridal and quite beautiful, but as our wedding started to take shape, I felt it was too fancy. My sister will be using it for her wedding this weekend!
This clutch is amazing because it’s huge and I can use it again! My heart flutters every time I look at it. I bought it from Etsy seller BlueOrchidBags.
Speaking of things that make your heart flutter. How gorgeous is this dress from Anthropologie? It would make such a beautiful rehearsal dinner dress, don’t ya think?
