the much anticipated fitness update!

This may be the most exciting blog post of my life! Okay, so you remember how I didn’t exactly fit into my beloved Vera Wang, right?!? Then, you recall my super healthy, pumped up plan, right?!?!

The original post was on May 28th. Today is August 27th. Almost 3 months later…looky what I did!!!!

(**Keep in mind, this isn’t an official fitting. The dress needs to be seriously hemmed and bustled, but I couldn’t keep my sugar-free fans waiting!)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Those 50 daily push-ups have been paying off, no?!?!

I’ve been “instructed” by my sister:  “You cannot lose any more weight!!”  As you can see, my boobs are…well, gone.  But, I’m seriously all muscle!!!!  I feel so strong!  Hit me, just try!  However, I’ll probably get some bra cups sewn in for extra support!

A shot at the back!

YAY!!!  2 months ahead of schedule, that’s how I like to roll.  Anyone else want to brag about their weight loss success?!?!

1,256 down, one more to go!

Today marks a huge moment in my life.  I officially started work as an associate, and I couldn’t be happier!  This year has been such an adventure with graduating law school, taking the bar exam and starting a new job, and now there’s only 1 more thing left to do.  GET MARRIED!!!

Originally, we were going to buy a house, but we’ve decided to save some money before that happens.  Posting may be a little on the light side this week, but I promise once I get adjusted to the new sleep schedule I will be back on track.  I plan to blog at night when I’m doing projects for the wedding, and I have a ton of stuff to do, so get ready!

In the meantime, I did a full blown post of my bridal shower on Weddingbee, so please check it out if you have the spare time!  I’ll probably do a bridal shower post on here eventually, but I’m so exhausted after my first day that I’m going to cheat a little!  Please forgive me!    See you tomorrow!

No. 254 unnecessary expense, calligraphy!

Let me preface the joy of receiving our envelopes from oh-so-fab calligrapher, Michele Clark that collecting addresses is near impossible! I’m not joking. I think 25 addresses changed between sending our save the dates in March and now. Stop moving people!

The envelopes are absolutely beautiful. I think the fiance was a bit skeptical about paying someone to address our envelopes. Yes, he was totally convinced this was Item No. 254 “unnecessary expense” that contributed to our busted budget. However, when I opened the box this week like the first gift on Christmas morning, there was a glee in his eyes, too! He will never admit it, but he was impressed.

Michele is seriously awesome. She flowed with the aforementioned 25 address edits, and made her wispy style slightly more “wispy.” I had to cut off the addresses, but here’s a sneak peak. I promise to show you more when I reveal our invitations!

Here are the inner envelopes.  For our close friends, we scrapped etiquette and used their nicknames.  However, for family and distance friends, we stuck to tradition.  (Ugh, tradition.)

(This post is dedicated to Mrs. Onion, who introduced me to Michele Clark!  Michele doesn’t have a website, but her email address is calligraphybymichele at verizon.net).

Who else found calligraphy to be an unnecessary, yet beautiful expense?!

want some cake?!

Continuing with my wedding planning excursion, we stopped at our baker and picked up our cake tasting. We get the option of picking a different flavor for each tier, but I had no idea the cakes would be this huge! Since we were 35 minutes away from home, and just couldn’t wait any longer, we did a drive-by cake testing just outside our wedding venue!

We didn’t have a knife, so we just forked it. Ya know.

Later, we staged a faux cake testing for blogging purposes. I’m always thinking of you guys! The cake is 4 tiers and will be covered in buttercream frosting. The first tier will be white cake with almond syrup and a raspberry filling. We originally chose a bavarian creme filling, but found it was too plain. The white cake is absolutely scrumptious and uber moist.

The second tier will be devil’s food cake with chocolate bavarian creme filling. It will be perfect for the chocolate lovers!

The third tier is carrot cake with nuts and pineapple with what else? Oh yes, cream cheese filling. It’s to die for! The fourth tier will likely be the white cake with almond syrup, but I haven’t quite made that decision yet.

Here are the cake flavors in all their glory! We still have a ton of cake in our fridge, so if you’re ever in town and want to stop by, give me a holler!

our haunted rehearsal dinner venue!

Ok, it’s not really haunted, but for our Halloween Rehearsal Dinner, it just might be! This was the one planning item that I really slacked on. I’ve been engaged since March 2007, and literally started booking my vendors in July of that year. For some reason, I just kind of let this item fall by the wayside. So, last week my mother and I drove to Lakeland (it’s about 40 minutes from my parent’s house) and scouted some restaurants. Unfortunately, we came up empty handed.

After 2 hours of searching, I walked into our wedding hotel and asked if they had any other recommendations. There was really nothing left, and I wasn’t planning to have our dinner at the hotel itself, but after I saw the room and menu I was sold. Plus, all of our guests would already be staying at the hotel, so how easy would it be for them?! SOLD!

Here are some pictures of hotel and the private room where our Halloween rehearsal dinner will be held. YAY!!

This is the main dining area, and through the doors is the room!

For the rehearsal dinner, the tables will be set up in a U-Shape. We’re only having about 26 guests, so it will be a very intimate special dinner for us. The windows look out onto the lake where we’ll be getting married the next day!

Anyone else leave this planning item until the last minute?!?

another DIY project?!

Wouldn’t this be adorable…anywhere? We could hang it on the fireplace, in front of the cake table.

(Image from Darling Dexter)

You can find the templates from Martha Stewart!

I love J.Crew

was internet shopping on J.Crew last night, I mean what else can I do nowadays, and I stumbled across this chiffon flower hair pin. Now, I know this isn’t a Jennifer Behr masterpiece, but for those on a serious wedding budget, this could be the perfect hair flower! With J.Crew’s lenient return policy, why not give it a go? Who knows, it could be gorgeous!!

**Disclaimer: I do not work for J.Crew. I’m merely obsessed with their merchandise. I do not guarantee this merchandise is perfect for your wedding, I merely suggest.

words that describe food!

Earlier this week, the fiance and I met with our caterer earlier this week for a tasting and finalized our wedding menu!

Of course, in all the chaos I forgot to bring my camera. I know, I know.  I suck.

For the cocktail hour, we had originally chosen vegetable spring rolls and empanadas with stations of cheese and fruit. However, when we got to the plates of food, we realized there was just too much fried stuff. I now it sounds crazy and we do realize that the masses love fried food but we don’t love. It makes our insides hurt, so we opted for baked portabellos stuffed with spinach, crab or chicken and vegetable spring rolls. These will be passed around during the cocktail hour.

For dinner, we were pretty adamant about having a plated, sit down dinner. In our experience, the buffets were fine except people aren’t eating at the same time, and it takes a lot longer to get through the meal. We want to feed our guests, but what we really want to do is dance, so it was important to have a plated meal.

Our menu is pretty basic. We have a caesar salad with the best croutons I’ve ever tasted, seriously. Our entree rocks my house. We’ve selected a stuffed chicken because our venue doesn’t have a full kitchen, so we hope the stuffed chicken tastes the best re-heated. We wouldn’t dare try to reheat filet mignon. (I’m a bit of a food snob.) The chicken breast is stuffed with spinach and feta cheese and there’s an amazing saffron sauce poured over it. Delicious! Our sides will be garlic smashed potatoes and green beans with toasted almonds.

We haven’t made menus yet, but I was looking at others and thought you might appreciate knowing what words our menu will contain? It’s all about the details!

Salad – Parmesan cheese, herbed croutons, Caesar dressing, Romaine lettuce
Entree – Breast of Chicken stuffed with spinach and feta cheese topped with saffron sauce
with garlic smashed potatoes and stringbeans amandine (yes, there’s really no ‘L’).

We haven’t decided on our wedding cake flavors yet, but that tasting is right around the corner!

Who else has finalized their wedding menu?!

My sister’s 4th of July wedding!

I’ve been waiting for my brain to return from its mushy self to blog about my sister’s professional pictures!!! Well, my brain is still a bit mushy. I’m still in my pjs, but I’m about to get dressed to gym it up.

My sister’s photographer, Jennifer Brum was gracious enough to share some of my favorite photos with me! Without further ado…

Here are the initials we made in all their grandeur!!! They look absolutely fabulous don’t they? My friend Katie is also planning to make some, and I really think it’s such an easy way to dress up a space for a little amount of money!

A shot of the embroidered label that I bought off etsy and had sewn into her gown. It’s nothing new to us brides-to-be, but my sister was totally surprised!

Sarah had worn Vera Wang perfume years ago, but she saved the last tiny amount for her wedding day. Ahhh, she’s a woman after my own heart.

Here is the photo book that I made for Sarah using iphoto. If you’re a mac user, you must try this out. I thought the quality was much better than MyPublisher. The picture on the front was taken at her bridal shower. I used the Boutwell’s Totally Rad Actions to give the picture a kick!

I love this picture. I had just helped Sarah get dressed and we were just taking the moment in. I was so happy for her.

Sarah and my new BIL got married at the St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida. It was the fifth generation of BIL’s family to be married there. The first couple was married in 1901. Crazy, right?!?!

A great classic shot!

Here’s a look at our bridesmaid dresses! Weren’t they super colorful?! Loved them!

The first dance. Look at that. Wow. That’s L O V E.

A great shot of the parents dancing. Great job, Jennifer!

Remember when I said it took a while, but eventually the reception turned into an all out dance partay?!?! Here’s the evidence!

Oh yeah. You had to see a picture of Matthew and I boogying down, right?!

The happy couple left on a yacht along with another fireworks display!!! The perfect 4th of July wedding!

All photos by Jennifer Brum.

ceremony writing is tough!

Hello everyone!  I’m back!  I survived the bar exam (thanks for all the well wishes), and now I’m ready to kick this wedding planning stuff into high gear! I have the luxury of waiting a few weeks to start my job, so I’m staying with my parents until my bridal shower and I’m getting some serious stuff accomplished.

Yesterday morning, th fiance and I met our wedding officiant for breakfast. It was the first time meeting face-to-face since hiring him about a year ago! It sounds worse than it really is though. I got many recommendations (thanks WCF Knotties), then had a long chat with him, so I had every confidence we would all have great chemistry. It sounds like a first date, doesn’t it?!

In preparation for our meeting, I spent my entire Sunday browsing the internet for inspiration. Truth be told, I really hadn’t thought about our ceremony except that I wanted it to be highly personalized and longer than five minutes. I figured it would be easy to feel inspired by our favorite authors and poets, but it turned out to be quite the challenge!

First, let me thank those who gave me inspiration. Namely, the incomparable Mrs. Lovebug. Her group blessing won me over big time! I really loved the idea of getting the whole gang involved. Call me crazy, but the most important part of the ceremony besides the obvious “I do” stuff, is having our family and friends with us.

Our ceremony will be a civil, secular one.  The fiance is Catholic, and I’m not quite sure what I am, but I read a lot of Pema Chodron. Nevertheless, we want to inject our ceremony with certain spiritual elements that embrace our ideals for marriage. For us, having a couple of friends read poems for us sounded like a good idea. Yeah, but finding the perfect poem?! Wow, close to impossible. When we find it, I’ll be sure to let you know!

(The SPOT!  Could it be more Florida?)

Our vows will be entirely our own. We plan on writing them separately, and giving them to our officiant in secret. We’re seeing each other before the ceremony, so having our vows kept a secret will definitely make the ceremony very exciting for us. To accompany our vows, we want to do a hand ceremony. I gained a lot of inspiration from mrs.pootiekins for this one.

I realize this post wasn’t a lot of help, but I hope it inspires some of you to really customize your ceremony! After all, you want the memory of your ceremony to be a unique one, right? There’s only 3 months left! Gotta get back to it! I’ll be back tomorrow with some professional pictures from my sister’s wedding!