Farewell, For Now.*

Well, I think it’s time to put this blog to bed.  I don’t have much to post here anymore and I don’t really post anything on a too frequent basis.  I’ll definitely leave the blog up so you can check out all my DIYs (remember, there’s a DIY tab at the top of the page), and you can definitely still comment on any post to get a hold of me (I no longer use the email address associated with this blog).  Please come visit me at my other blog, The Bookworm Wife, where I post my musings on life, books, food, home décor, crafts and more.

Photo by Sarah Immel Photography 

It’s been a great ride and I have loved sharing my wedding planning journey with you all! 

*I may post again someday, if I think something really deserves to be posted here.  I don’t think I can ever close the book on this blog entirely!

First Anniversary Gifts

We’re back, y’all!  And we had a great time in Boston.  I definitely plan on sharing the pics from our trip with you next week, but first I wanted to talk about our anniversary gifts…because frankly, Dr. Groomy did GOOD and he deserves a shout-out.  Ha!

So, the first anniversary is traditionally the paper anniversary.  I went pretty traditional and got him these:

Tickets to see the play based on the life of Vince Lombardi.  You should  recognize this name, as Vince Lombardi is the name attached to the trophy given to the winners of the Super Bowl each year.  He is a legend in Wisconsin, as he was the coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, when the team dominated the NFL, winning 3 straight league championships and 5 of them in 7 years.  Quite simply, Vince Lombardi IS Packers football.  And since Dr. Groomy used to be sort of a musical theatre geek back in the day, I knew he would get a kick out of seeing the play based on Lombardi’s life. 

Dr. Groomy…well, he didn’t follow the traditional route but that is because he is AWESOME and got me these:

I attribute this as a direct result of two things: 

1) having a husband who actually listens when I randomly say 6 months ago that it would be nice to have diamond stud earrings some day, since the only thing I ever usually wear is fake pearls ….and

2) being that awesome wife who doesn’t care that—and actually encourages—her husband to spend a hefty amount of money on nice baseball tickets each season, and who, upon arriving home from their first anniversary trip, drives her husband straight to the ballpark so he can attend the home playoff game (true story).

So there are our first anniversary gifts!  How do you celebrate your anniversary?  Do you go the traditional route for anniversary gifts? 

One Year Ago Today…

…we went to church…

…said our vows…

…and got married!

Then we partied with our friends and family…

  

…snuck away for some romantic shots…

 

…and had an all around amazing day.

The people who say the first year of marriage is the hardest are liars.  (Well, that, or they didn’t live together for 5 years before they got married!)  This year has been amazing, and we are looking forward to many more years to come!

We are celebrating our first anniversary with a trip to Boston, a city neither of us has been to before.  I’ll be back soon to recap our first anniversary gifts to each other!  I received mine already and let me just say—the hubs did good. 

Read all of our wedding recaps here.

All photos in this post are by Sarah Immel Photography.

My Best Friend’s Wedding: Finally, The Bachelorette Party!

So, I’ve already talked about my best tips for planning a baseball-themed bachelorette party AND shown you the awesome gift bags I made.  Today, you get to see how the party actually turned out!  Three words: TONS OF FUN.

We met at my house and caravanned to Miller Park in two cars.  Once there, we set up our spread and got to partying!

One of the great things about Miller Park is the ability to tailgate.  And we Wisconsinites are serious about our tailgates—we’re talking tents, stereos, bean bag toss, the whole 9 yards. We had a total blast, grilling out and chilling before the game!

  

The lovely bride to be:

Instead of your traditional “bachelorette” crown or sash, I made her a button—I took a regular Brewers pin and added the “Bride” ribbons to it.  It was perfect for B—not too flashy but still marked her as the bride!

After grilling out and chilling in the parking lot for awhile, we headed into the game. 

Of course, we had to stop and take a few pictures in the “big glove!”

And then we headed up to our seats.  We were waaaaaay up there in the nosebleeds, but it was so much fun.  And we brought in our “Congrats, Michelle!” banner!

After the game was over, we headed back to our cars.  Most of the guests headed home, but Lauren, Jenny, Beezus and I headed out to one of our favorite bars.  We shared a few pitchers and had a great time, then took a cab home & called it a night!

It was a really fun bachelorette party & I know the bride had a great time.  Stay tuned—up next I’ll be recapping the wedding!

See all of the posts in the My Best Friend’s Wedding series here:

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  Beezus
Shower Theme & Invitations
Shower Décor & Favors
The Bridal Shower: A Big Success!
Bachelorette Party Planning Tips
Bachelorette Party Gift Bags

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  KDoc
Dress Shopping

My Best Friend’s Wedding: Bachelorette Party Gift Bags

Ack, I am so sorry for my absence!  Two weddings in two weeks—both of which I was heavily involved in—makes for a very busy and TIRED Amy. 

Last we left off, I had posted my tips for planning an alternative bachelorette party—in this case, a baseball themed party for my best friend.  Today, I’ll show you how the gift bags came together!

Each bag contained:

A personalized t-shirt…

You can see the writing on the front and back of the t-shirts on this post.

A bag of ballpark peanuts…

A package of Twizzlers…

3 Baseballs…

…filled with M&Ms!

Some fun Brewers notepads…

A package of chewing gum…

And a silly Brewers straw.

Of course, I had help from CC while assembling…

I was really happy with how the bags turned out.  Dr. Groomy & I attended another bachelor/bachelorette party the week after this one and I assembled bags for that party too! 

Since it was a much bigger party (30 people compared to 10!), I did these bags on a smaller scale.

They contained:

A mini-stuffed baseball…

A package of ballpark peanuts…

Some bubblegum…

And baseball cards for trading!

I love crafting stuff like this and I am so happy with how both sets of bags turned out.  Most of the materials were found at The Dollar Store & Target, so they were affordable, too!  Please comment to let me know if you have any questions.  The t-shirts were made using the screen printing services of Zazzle, and the poem on the t-shirt was written by the bride’s sister. 

Up next, I’ll post about the actual Bachelorette Party.  And then I will recap her wedding!  Stay tuned…

Oh, and have you checked out my other blog?

See all of the posts in the My Best Friend’s Wedding series here:

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  Beezus
Shower Theme & Invitations
Shower Décor & Favors
The Bridal Shower: A Big Success!
Bachelorette Party Planning Tips

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  KDoc
Dress Shopping

My Best Friend’s Wedding: Baseball Game Bachelorette Party

This past weekend was my best friend B’s bachelorette party.  We went to a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game and had a great time!  Planning a bachelorette party for a baseball game—or another alternative event—is a lot easier than you might think.  Here’s some tips based on what I learned during the planning process!

1. Plan a party based on your bride and decide WHO you’d like to include. For B, we knew right off the bat that a baseball game would be perfect for her.  She is a lifelong Brewers fan & is a pretty low-key gal, so something fun like tailgating at Miller Park (where the Brewers play) was perfect for her.  We also wanted to make sure the event would be fun for her mother & mother-in-law, and her little sisters (both of whom are not 21 yet).  Doing an “alternative” bachelorette party like this allowed all of them to participate!

2. Decide WHAT you want the party to include. We knew we’d be tailgating & attending the baseball game, so we decided that we would make the party cost be one flat rate that all guests could pay that would include “everything.”  For the baseball game, the cost per guest was $40.  This included a game ticket (we went with the $15 variety), a bachelorette party t-shirt, and the tailgate food & condiments.  Everyone was to bring their own beverage & anything they wanted to eat or drink INSIDE the stadium was at their own expense.  This worked perfectly for our group.  We had everyone bring cash or make checks payable to me, and I took care of purchasing the food, tickets, & t-shirts.  Everyone brought chairs & such to the tailgate, but all food, condiments & supplies were provided.

 
The bachelorette party t-shirts (left is the front, right is the back). 
I’ll be posting more about these in my next post!

3. KISS:  Keep It Simple, Stupid.  We met at one location, caravanned to the park, and everyone paid me ahead of time.  ONE person bought the tickets, the food, etc. so that we weren’t doling money out to several of us.  We kept the food simple too—hot dogs &  brats (so we didn’t have to buy more than one type of bun), simple condiments of ketchup, mustard & relish, chips, veggies, fruit, & cookies.  It was an easy and inexpensive menu to plan and execute.

The Food Spread

4. Have fun with it!  If you’re a regular reader, you know that I LOVE to plan fun surprises and do crafty DIY stuff.  I made each guest a favor—a bachelorette party goodie bag—filled with baseball-themed stuff.  I hit up the Dollar Store & the Party Store for most of the fun supplies.  More on this in my next post.

All in all I would say our baseball game bachelorette was a rousing success.  More to come on the party packs & the actual event!  Stay tuned.

What kind of fun bachelorette parties have you planned or attended?

See all of the posts in the My Best Friend’s Wedding series here:

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  Beezus
Shower Theme & Invitations
Shower Décor & Favors
The Bridal Shower: A Big Success!

My Best Friend’s Wedding:  KDoc
Dress Shopping

My [Other] Best Friend’s Wedding

I think I forgot to mention this previously, but guess what?!  My other BFF, Kristin (also known as KDoc), just got engaged and is getting married in December!  [Yes, I am one of those people with multiple BFFs.  Deal with it, please.]  She also asked me to be a bridesmaid, so I’ll be covering her wedding here as well—hooray!  Tons more wedding fun for you guys to ogle.

We started out the wedding festivities last night by going with Kristin to try on bridesmaid dresses and see her top three choices for a wedding gown.  This is going to be a picture heavy post, so grab a cup ‘o joe and pull up a seat.  Here we go!

We arrived at David’s Bridal and got right to work.  I snapped KDoc & her maid of honor (her sister), Lauren, heading into the dressing room to try on gowns.

And then we saw Kristin’s four top choices for gowns.

Choice 1:

  
This gown was definitely more my style than Kristin’s.  We all loved the lacey, sparkly overlay on the top of the dress, but it didn’t really scream “KDoc” to us.

Choice 2:

  
This gown was definitely more my friend Hayley’s style than Kristin.  This dress shopping experience was very much a tale of the three bears—er, three dresses.  One was my style, one was Hayley’s style, and one was definitely JUST the right one for Kristin!

Choice 3:

   This gown was gorgeous but it was definitely the most expensive one.  We all loved it, but felt it was a little too poofy on the bottom.  Regardless though, this was another great option!

Choice 4:

  
This dress was absolutely lovely—the best of the bunch.  Just what I would picture her in!

In between KDoc’s dress changes, I got my Royal Wedding on:

LOVED all those crazy hats at the Royal Wedding!  I definitely want an excuse to buy and wear one!

And then she picked and accessorized the winning dress!  Obviously, it was Choice 4:

…which she paired with a hair flower, a dainty veil, and some gorgeous jewelry that the three of us bridesmaids decided to gift her with (she wouldn’t have purchased it for herself otherwise, and we thought it was so gorgeous and beautiful and PERFECT for her).

 
Close up of the veil

 
Close up of the necklace!  It had drop earrings to match.

We took a moment to wax poetic about her side bustle:

(She’s going with the second photo)

…and then it was time to try on the bridesmaid dress we were 99% sure we were going with!  Awesomely enough, David’s Bridal had the dresses available for all of us to try on in our exact sizes and the exact color.  So we got to see what it will really look like instead of picturing it with swatches!

LOVE the pockets.

The three bridesmaids, goofing around.  Left to right:  me, Hayley, Lauren

And us with the lovely bride! (Please excuse my waving hand, I was about to stick it in my pocket.)

KDoc also decided that since it’s a winter wedding, she wanted to accessorize with a bolero or wrap.  She decided on a white fur wrap to go with her dress, and we all decided that the bridesmaids would get brown wraps (their wedding colors are this clover green and cocoa).  Here’s what the wraps look like, but in white (picture them in a nice brown fur color):

  

And then we ordered everything up and headed outta there!  It was a really fun night and I am so excited to bring you more about this wedding in the future.  In the meantime, I’ll be back early next week to post about the goodie bags & favors for Beezus’s wedding!

You can read all of the My Best Friend’s Wedding Series here:
My Best Friend’s Wedding:  Beezus

Shower Theme & Invitations
Shower Décor & Favors
The Bridal Shower: A Big Success!

I’ll be dividing future posts in this series by the bride’s name!

And in the meantime, have you checked out my new blog?

My Best Friend’s Wedding: Shower, Part 3

Read part one here!
Read part two here!

Ok, so now that you’ve seen the invitations and the details, it’s time to show you how it all came together on the day of the shower.  I am proud to say that it was a resounding success!

We had the shower at a local park, in their community room.  It worked perfectly for the 40 or so women we had attend the shower!  Some examples of the centerpieces…I bought all the flowers at Trader Joe’s, and then at the end of the day, all of the hosts + the bride were able to take an arrangement home.

 

The community room even had its own kitchen, so that is where we set up the food.

For the main dish, we offered sandwiches.  Guests had a choice between:

or

We also made signs for all the side dishes.  We had things like fruit, veggies, coleslaw, pasta salad, and of course:

The spice basket!  It was filled to the brim and then some.  We had every guest bring their favorite spice to share with the bride.

Party favors!  Everything was bee or honey themed, and we went all out.  Burt’s Bees chapsticks, honeydew melon candles, Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Buns snack treats, mini jars of honey, bee-shaped notepads, bee-shaped nail files…every guest got to take one home.  I wish I had gotten a better close-up on these.  They had cute tags that matched the invites and said “Thank You!”

And of course, dessert!  Beehive cupcakes.

Aren’t they so freakin’ adorable?!

The shower was a really fun time.  We played two short games, but otherwise, it was mostly mix and mingle.  Everyone ate lunch and then B opened her gifts…and that was about it.  It was a really lovely time.  Here is the beautiful bride with all of her shower hosts:

Left to right:  her mother-in-law, Jolene; sister-in-law, Jenny; friend, Lauren; matron of honor, ME!; the beautiful bride; her mother, Ellen; her sister, Jenny; her other sister, Emily; and her sister-in-law, Jenny.  Yes, they have a lot of Jennys in their family!

Stay tuned!  Next up, I plan the Bachelorette Party.

What was your bridal shower like?  Have you ever had to plan one?

The Post-Wedding Chop

I promise, I will share the last of the shower photos from the My Best Friend’s Wedding series with you tomorrow.  Today, though, I want to share something else—my post wedding chop!

I just had it done yesterday.  Can you believe I hadn’t cut my hair since before our wedding?!  It was AUGUST the last time I got a haircut.  That is crazy to me because usually I am someone who LOVES getting it cut.  Seriously, I used to grow my hair long just to cut it all off.  I guess I’ve changed a little since my younger days!

Enough with the chit-chat, on to the pics.  I was going for a combination of this:

and this:

And I got it, almost exactly.  Here’s my before:

And here’s the after!

I love it. My head feels 10 pounds lighter, haha!  About 9 inches overall were chopped off…I can’t believe I had that much hair.

Did you/will you get a post-wedding chop?  Will you wait to get it cut until almost 7 months after your wedding, like I did?

Don’t forget, I’m also blogging regularly over at my new blog, The Bookworm Wife.  Come visit me there!

My Best Friend’s Wedding: Shower, Part Two

Read part one here!

We had Michelle’s shower this past Sunday and it was a resounding success!  Time to show you some of the details that really helped make the event.

Remember her invites?  I made all of the paper products for the shower to match the invitation suite.

We had nametags for the bridesmaids and mothers…

These were made with cardstock, my trusty ol’ Xyron,
and some pins + a glue gun.  Easy peasy!

…and a basket for the silverware.

I also made tags for the food.  We had some that attached to these Bee stands (found at Hobby Lobby):

And some that were just folded cardstock:

I made a gift list for easy recording of all the gifts she received.  It looked like this:

…and had a list of all of the RSVPed guests.  I also included a few extra spaces for guests who didn’t RSVP but might have sent a gift or shown up anyways.  The gift list had columns to write down the gifts, if they came with a card, giftcard, or any money, and a place for Michelle to check off when she sends the Thank Yous.  It also had space on page two for any miscellaneous notes!

In terms of décor, you’ll see a lot of that in my next post…but I did want to give special mention to the centerpieces.  I got these cylindrical vases at the Dollar Store and used ribbons to spice ‘em up a bit!

There were three different options for ribbons.  Big:

Medium:

And Little!

I bought fresh flowers at Trader Joe’s on the morning of the shower and they turned out lovely.  Sneak peek:

More to come this week!  Stay tuned.