1 month

at 4pm one month from today, I will be Mrs. B (short for Bama Boy) . CRAZY and super exciting!!

Anyhow, Boy did I have a wonderful time this past weekend!

On Saturday I had a lovely Bridal Shower hosted by two of my mom's good friends: my godmother/ mom's best friend from college and one of our neighbors that I've known since I was 5.

(me seated with my little sis/maid of honor, my mom and my rehearsal dinner bouquet)

Everything was so perfect - from the cute little "B" Petit Fours to the each and every guest. Everyone from my Aunt from North Carolina to my babysitter from when I was a year old to my 5 bridesmaids made it to the party and truly made the day that much more special.
Later than night was an awesome bachelorette party with amazing friends -- note: theres a reason theres no pictures posted here of that night's events (i didnt have a camera and i havent gotten anyone's pics back). The short version - It was an absolute blast, a surprise and I was proudly not hungover the next day. Amazing!

Now back to reality and crunch time. T-minus 30 days til spectacular spectacular (or maybe just a fun wedding celebration at the beach)

details details details

this is the current scene in our living room:

favors/ seating layout in front -- welcome bags to the back. We're trying to get everything in order so that when we head down to the outer banks the week before the wedding, we're just compiling the welcome bags all at once. I love how our favors are doing double duty - serving as both favors and placecards. They're been really helpful in helping to organize our seating layout.

More to come on this fun little aspect of our beach-y celebration as we get closer to the wedding/ we get all of our little goodies in from various vendors and the dollar store!!

My Table Pain (plus a general update)

The RSVPs are coming in at an average of about 3 a day. Not too bad when you've sent out about 63 invites in the first round. I especially love getting something in the mail other than bills!! We thought we had a pretty good hold on who was and who wasn't coming for sure, so to lessen the strain in September, we started a preliminary seating chart to help us figure out numbers for tables, etc. Well, as the rsvps have been rolling in, a weird thing has happened -- we're getting some odd replies. People who have verbally said "yup, Im coming, you can bet on it" have then sent "decline" responses. The reverse is occuring also -- even amoung the bridal party -- where people have said "we can't make it" and then they've "rsvd'd" that they can make it! We love the wonderful surprise that some people who originally couldnt make the trip to north carolina are able to come... but its making things very interesting for sure.

It's also making the seating chart a fluxuating entity - changing with every passing day. Some tables that have started as 10 tops have been reduced to 6 tops (not really what we're going for) and some tables that had a nice mix of singles and couples have been reduced to 3 couples and a single. As a former shunned single, I refuse to do that to my single guests.

That being said -- I dislike seating charts.

On another note-- Here are the wedding updates:

1) the bridesmaids gifts are in. I love them and I really want one for myself. Also, all the bridesmaid dresses have come in from J Crew. Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

2) The names of the tables (which we're doing rather than tables numbers) are coming along. Heres an example of the first one:


1 down, 10 more to go (not including the recipe cards for the cocktail tables & signature drink signs for the bar)

3) The placecard/favors have been ordered and will be in w/in the week. Then its up to printing all of the name tags

4) rehearsal dinner invites, menus & drink tickets have been ordered from Vista print (many many thanks to one of my bridesmaids, misa, at notreallybloggingmaterial for the referral)

5) The welcome bags should be arriving today!!

6) My dress is at the tailor being hemmed right now, w/ a cute little bustle being added!! Shoes are in the process of being broken in as we speak (hehehe)

7) final contract w/ the floral designer to be finalized this week. Table linens also ordered

8) timeline to be finalized w/ vendors

9) maybe have the song list done for the dj completed???? maybe find someone to play guitar / violin at the ceremony. Maybe finalize verse readers? Can't print the programs til thats all decided.

And thats it. My stress hasn't been too crazy so far, but its only 45 more days, so who knows!

another reason why I love TJ Maxx/ Home Goods

I admit, I get such a tremendous high from finding amazing fashion steals at TJ Maxx (my $300 Ralph Lauren silk seersucker skirt I got for $30), and during the planning process I've learned to apply this to my wedding shopping.

Especially for my centerpieces

When I originally sat down with my floral designer extraordinaire in March, we had discussed using square, low glass vases I would rent from her for $5 a pop to house the table centerpieces. Five of the bridesmaids bouquets would be used as the centerpieces on the head table and we'd have 9 other round 10 top tables to decorate from there.

Oh how things change in 5 months. I've become super budget conscious, but also have really defined the look for the wedding - vintage inspired travel. I thought "why would we rent identical square vases for a fee that we'd never see again when we could jazz things up and BUY 10 unique vases for a similar amount and then turn around and sell them to get our money back (and maybe keep one for ourselves)." Using the idea of vintage as our guide, my mom and I were in TJ Maxx/Home Goods wandering around as usual and happened upon 10 Different apothecary style jars of different heights and shapes for b/t $3 and $10. They all have a similar neck opening diameter and similar bowl depth to make my florist's life a little easier. I'm thinking they will make really pretty and unique vases for our tables.

Here are my beauties:

Which in a little over 45 days they will look something like this:

(picture courtesy of theknot.com)

We've also nixed the idea of a head table and made it so we'd have 2 round tables for the wedding party just like the rest of the tables. I really didn't like the idea of making the significant others of the wedding party sit at another table away from their partner, so we decided against it! That means we've got 11 total tables to outfit. Six centerpieces will be made specifically for the larger apothecary jar vases and 5 of the jars will hold the bridesmaids bouquets-turned-centerpieces. It all sounds so good in theory, my florist is on board (and she has always created such beautiful arrangements at past weddings) so lets cross our fingers and hope everything works out!