Old Soul, Young Heart

I thought it would be cute--since I have a brother and Philip has a sister--to do a "sibling dance." Also, I had never heard of that before, so I thought it was a unique idea. So that's what we did. We danced to "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King. It was fun.

Me and daddy. He's so cute. Our dance together was "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys. My dad loves the Beach Boys. I will always think of him when I hear any song by that group. The Beach Boys remind me of cruising around town in my dad's old hot rods. (My dad has always had some sort of antique vehicle and we went to the Hot Rod Nationals in Columbus, Ohio a few times when I was growing up. Super fun vacation for a kid. I mean, it really was.) I also love that song because it's at the end of Love Actually and that part always makes me cry. The words are true and it just makes me think of how lucky I am to have a loving family and how my life wouldn't be as good without them. So it seemed perfectly appropriate. Philip and his mom danced to a song that I don't know or remember. :( Someone told me it was very heartfelt, though. Also I feel bad because I was talking to people the whole time and didn't get to watch them. But their pic...

Philip and I have never had a song. He is a music person and I used to be, but his taste in music is not exactly what you would play at a wedding reception (nor would he want his taste to be what you would play at a wedding reception). So the music part in general was somewhat difficult. I have more mainstream taste than he does, but thinking of a good, classic, not overly used, and non-cheesy first dance song was a bit of a challenge. For a long time I thought our first dance song would be "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis. It's Elvis; how can you go wrong? I was a fan and Philip was too, but towards the end I felt like he wasn't as excited about it. Then I thought of the song, "The Way You Look Tonight" by Sinatra. Honestly the first time I heard this song was in the movie My Best Friend's Wedding . (A lot of songs always come back to the movies for me!) I mean, the first time I saw that movie I was probably 13, so to know of Frank Sinatra...

I am so very unapologetically behind on Marriage Monday. You don't care. I don't care. So this week I'm talking about other fun things that were at our reception. I knew I wanted a unique card box because I think card boxes in general are pretty tacky and ugly. At one point I was thinking of doing some Up inspired things and I thought a mailbox would be super cute--Philip and I could paint our hands and names on it, ya know. I didn't end up doing the Up  stuff, but I still had a mailbox for our cards. It was like $12 at Home Depot and my uncle Randy made a little stand out of wood so that it would stand up properly. It was one of the last things that I decorated, so it looks not great... but it was cute enough! My dad painted the flag silver for me haha. (The purple stuff is removable if anyone wants to use this for their own wedding!) I was pretty pleased with how our seating chart came out. I designed in it a Word document and then just had it blo...

The tables at the reception gave me a bit of an ulcer; they were perhaps the most stressful thing for me in terms of wedding planning. I had a vision of what I wanted them to look like and it just wasn't coming together as I hoped it would. I knew I was going to do candles somehow because flowers are ridiculously expensive and just an unneeded cost. I originally bought some candle holders from ebay to use as the centerpieces. They were black and I asked my dad to spray paint them silver for me. The paint didn't stick and it just made them look super cheap, so I was pretty upset about it. I had spent a little money on them and didn't have enough left in the centerpiece budget to buy or rent different ones. Philip's parents caught wind of my dilemma and offered to pay for me to rent what I wanted. I was so thankful because I got a trio of glass candle holders from I Do Events in Washington and they turned out so lovely. I put all of this pressure on myself to ...

We were pretty excited for the food. I mean, I can only speak for myself here, but Philip really liked the food when we taste tested it at Eastland a few weeks prior. We were pleasantly surprised with how great it was. It's actually kind of scary to choose your reception venue without having tasted their food, because what if it's awful? And now you're stuck with a nice looking venue but no one's going to enjoy the meal? Well, we didn't have that problem! I made these menus for every seat. Yes--I made over 100 of these menus. I asked Eastland to fold the napkins this way so that the menus could fit inside. Luckily they were totally on board when I brought them a printed out tutorial on how to fold the napkins. I mean, I was trying really hard not to be micro-managey, but c'mon... I wanted it the way I wanted it and it was great because the girls at Eastland were like, "Awesome, we finally get to do something different!" I can't believe I...

After walking in, we went right into speeches. My aunt Peggy was up first. Poor thing didn't have her reading glasses, so she couldn't see what she wrote! But she said some super sweet things. :) Michele was up next. Bringing up watching hockey again haha. Love her. Then Trey went. I think this pic was taken when he said something about the only time Philip went rollerblading by himself was when he met me at the skatepark haha. I love this picture because of how wide open and awkward my eyes are and how hilarious Brooke looks. Awe... hugging after the semi-emotional best man speech. :) Let's get this party started! Looking back, I wish that Philip or I would've said something to the group about thanks for coming and spending the time with us. I think it's always nice when the couple says something before people dive into food. I had thought about it ahead of time, but knew that I'd be nervous for it and I had already had enough...

Late again. Sorry! We got to Eastland Suites and had a pic with the limo. (Woot!) Then we lined up outside of the double doors and awaited our entrance into the reception.  It was nice to be in the little lobby area for a minute because they were playing our pre-determined cocktail hour songs. (Well, duh!) But it just felt fun because it was actually happening. After choosing the songs and figuring out in what order they should be played and putting them on a cd, they were actually being played. And I said to Philip, "Awe... it's this song. This is such a good song." And the reception was about to start. After so much planning, the party was happening. And then all of a sudden I heard the intro to the song "Celebrate Good Times" and for a moment I freaked out. I said, "This isn't the right song!" And the wedding coordinator at Eastland Suites calmed me down by saying, "No, no... he's just trying to get everyone's attent...

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, hence the reason why I'm behind on Marriage Monday. It was difficult to come up with a theme for every week until our one year anniversary, so bear with me on this one. It's lame. We had the Eastland Suites limo take us from the chapel to the reception. Unfortunately it wasn't big enough inside to fit everyone from our bridal party (even though our bridal party was small!). But we had myself and my groom, Michele, and the boys. We popped the champagne (both the bottle that I bought and the bottle that Eastland Suites gave us) and had a grand little time during our 10 minute drive. Luckily Michele had her phone with her and was able to take these pictures.

The ceremony service is nailed down. We met with Jim and Michele (co-officiants) on Monday and went over a lot of logistics. Michele and I also made a quick trip to Evelyn Chapel since she had never been there. I just love that place. I can really visualize now what everything's going to be like. It is both exciting and scary, because it's getting so close!  With the service fully figured out, I can start making programs now. I feel as though this part might be a larger undertaking than the invitations, because there will be double the amount! The actual construction should be easier, though. Menu card printing/construction will also start soon. We met with the travel agent to go over our honeymoon itinerary. I'm so excited to be on vacay with my new husband in just 5 weeks. (Husband! So weird!) I am disappointed that I've been unable to reach our musicians for the ceremony. I've emailed twice in the past 3 weeks... still nothing. Maybe they're on vacation? I ne...

Philip tried on his suit at Men's Wearhouse on Wednesday. The tailor wasn't in, so we need to go back for him to actually get fitted, but it was cute to see him in his full get-up! I took a picture of him, but I'm trying not to share too much so that some things are still a surprise at the wedding! The RSVPs are a-rollin' in! Coming home to see who has responded is kind of the highlight of my day! We had our food tasting at Eastland Suites on Friday. We got to try 2 salads, 4 dressings, 4 hor d'oeuvres, 4 entrees, 4 starches, and 4 vegetables. The food was delicious--even more so than we were expecting! It was fun to talk to the planner about all the logistics, too. It makes me so excited! On Monday we met with Jim, one of our officiants, to talk about the ceremony. Michele (the other officiant and my maid of honor) had sent me some ideas already and I had thrown it together before we met with Jim. He was open to what I had typed up; he even let me borrow his lit...

Wedding Wednesday So now that everyone (for the most part) probably has their invitation, I thought I would post pics of them! I don't know if anyone cares, but I'm kinda proud of them since I designed and made them from scratch myself (well, everything but the envelopes and pocketfolds). The assembly line. Wrap-around labels. We liked the black envelopes the best, so I broke the etiquette rules and printed on labels. I'm sure black envelopes for a wedding is also against the rules... The return address is on the flap-side of the envelopes and on the flip-side of the wrap-around labels. Pocketfold invitations have been done, but I still like them. There's the logo! Envelope ready to be sealed! Let's take these babies to the post office! I checked with the post office again to make sure I had enough postage. I read a really bad story on Weddingbee about some girl's invitations getting returned to her due to insufficient posta...

I should really do better about posting things sometimes that aren't wedding related, but alas... Wedding Wednesday See previous post about my bridal shower that aunt Peggy hosted! I forgot to take a picture of Grandma Bean's shower invite from a few weeks ago. It's this weekend! Candle holders for reception centerpieces arrived from ebay. They're alright. I recruited my dad to spraypaint them silver (instead of black) and I definitely like them better now. I'm not totally thrilled with them, but they're good enough, I guess. Still plugging away at that direction sheet for the invitations. I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out, but I'm honestly just annoyed by it at this point! Invitation assembly line to commence shortly. I feel like I'm behind on this, since I want them to go out on Monday. I'm having trouble falling asleep because I'm thinking of all the details that still need to be nailed down. I also had my first wedding d...

Wedding Wednesday Let's Party Rentals has lost my business. I was in there two Fridays ago, if you so vaguely remember, to look at centerpiece ideas. She let me bring home a few things to play with (which I thought was great customer service). I went back the next day to return them and she said she didn't know how many of the tall centerpieces she had, but that she would check and call me. Two weeks passed and I never heard from her, so last Friday, I contacted her to see what was up and she says, "Yeah--sorry I didn't call you back. We only have 5." I need 15, but still, lady, call me back to let me know! So I don't trust that kind of unprofessionalism and will now be seeking out other ideas for centerpieces. I ordered candle holders from ebay at a little over $10 each, so hopefully they work out. Afterwards, I'll attempt to resell them on Recycled Bride . (Sidenote: I need to open up a wedding rental business in Bloomington-Normal. Let's Party h...

Sash news: I got the two sashes from ebay on Friday. I liked both, but one definitely stood out to my dad and I. I'm returning the one we know is a "no." I did order another one from Amazon, just to see. So I am down to the final two. I'm just so indecisive and have to know what all of my options are! The custom sash girl was surprisingly gracious when I told her that I'm going a different direction. Definitely use her if you ever need a custom bridal sash ! I ordered purple shoes from Von Maur and they are the perfect color! They aren't as dressy as I would like, but Philip reminded me that the boy shoes aren't dressy, either, so I guess it makes sense that mine are also pretty casual. And no one will really be seeing my shoes, anyway! I left work a little early on Friday to visit the rental place. My goal was to nail down centerpieces. I spent like an hour in the showroom, looking and thinking, thinking and looking. I'm sure the woman working th...

Wedding Wednesday I did some craftin' this weekend (while listening to the "Cocktail Hour" mix that I've created). I still feel as though it's a little early to be working on all the small projects that I have, but I'm bored right now and I'm sure I'll be thanking myself later for doing these things now before I have so many things to think about and work on. I was at a standstill with the invitations because I was waiting for the paper to go on sale at Hob Lob, so this is what I did instead. Expect to see this goodies in some capacity on 09.22.12! These are pomander balls and  the colors are more  pretty in person. I'm going for the ombre look. Not done yet, clearly! The flower girl dresses are going to work! Yahoo!!! I bought two sashes from ebay. I'm hoping they arrive quickly (got an email saying tomorrow!), because the girl from Etsy is waiting to hear back from me about creating a custom sash. She'll just have to wai...

Wedding Wednesday! I now think that the Pantagraph is a bargain. It's $40 to submit your engagement announcement and $45 to submit your wedding announcement. The Peoria Journal Star can be up to $43 for engagement (I spent $30) and up to $125 for wedding, which includes all the same things you would get for the Pantagraph announcement. Kiiinda crazy. We'll see what the Farmington Shopper costs. We (me, Joy, and the girls) went flower girl dress shopping on Saturday. We found a $40 one at JC Penney that's super cute. Our concern now is that it doesn't come in the right size, so we need to do a little more research on that. I really hope it comes in their size, because I'm honestly kind of over the whole flower girl dress thing. It was fun the first two times, but I just want it to be chosen at this point. We also went around to a whole bunch of bridal stores in Peoria looking for a sash/belt for my dress. I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm too p...