Bye Bye for Now

Tomorrow is my bridesmaids brunch and spa day, Friday is the rehearsal, and Saturday is the wedding. I really can't wrap my head around it all. I have moments when it hits me, like my minor freak-out Monday at the dentists office, but mostly it doesn't yet seem real. I'm sure it will all seem very real soon.

So, this is my last post until I return from the honeymoon! Ocho Rios here we come!

Thanks for everyone's encouragment, advice, and comments. You have all made this journey much easier and more interesting.

Bye bye for now.

Uh oh it's raining again...

Finally, my shower post! My moh did an amazing job, and honestly my pictures don't do her justice. She took tons of pictures, so I will post those when she gives them to me. The theme was English Tea Party in a Daisy Shower -- okay, so I made that up, but you'll see what I mean. She had her backyard decorated with hanging white shower curtains, bright pink gerbera daisies, and buckets of shower stuff as center pieces. Of course, none of my pictures show this because I didn't think to pick up my camera until we moved inside!

My fmil and two fsil in sundresses and hats -- and lots of gifts.

Three of my bm's model the pottery barn robes I bought them as thank you gifts (my fourth bm is out of state).

My moh had each guest make a scrapbook page for me which she will add pictures to and give to me at the bachelorette party. All the good pics will be in the scrap book!

It's all about the bm's...

Bridesmaids! I think it is odd that being a bride suddenly changes the meaning of "bm" to something wonderful, pretty, and fun! :-)

Where to begin? Well, first I found these amazing robes on sale at potterybarn.com (thanks to weddingbee) for only $20.00 each and free monograming -- so I immediatly bought one for each of my bm's (I decided to only use first and last inital because one of my bm's hates her middle name [it is Olga] and her initals would be NOB, which looks strange).
Left: The robes have arrived!

Once they arrived I had to figure out how I would present them to each bm, so I went to Target (the best store ever!) and bought some supplies, dug out my sicker maker and any other artsy supplies I could find, and walla -- I had a mess on on my living room floor. My fh made fun of me all day long; apparently it is "crazy" to diy all day but "normal" to play computer games all day -- go figure!

So, I decided to personalize each bag for the robes using my computer, some card stalk, a daisy punch, and my sticker maker. The final results:


Then, I decided that the robes just were not enough, so I went onto designhergals.com and created a gal pal for each of my bm's. I purchased the one day pass for $9.99 and printed away! First I made each of them a small note card/stationary set:


The note cards are on the left. Then, I decided that I would use the same gal pals to make their invitations to my bm's "brunch". Instead of a brunch, we are doing a breakfast and spa day 3 days before the wedding. (The basic invite is on the right). I'm doing breakfast at my house and then going to my favorite local spa Total Woman Gym and Day Spa to get pampered. I got each of them a swedish massage (my moh gets a maternity massage) and I am getting a massage and body scrub. I used all of the same supplies I used to decorate the gift bags to make the invitations. Here is the final product with all of the embellishments:

Left: Front of Invite ~~~~~~~~~~~Right: Back of Invite with their Spa Appointment Card

Whew! Okay. I'm going to eat lunch now and then I will post about the bridal shower!

Ladies in blue...

First, I have to give credit to Lady T for giving me this idea. The picture is from David's Bridal "dress your wedding". The dress the bride is wearing is NOT my dress, but it was the closest one I could find to mine in David's Bridal. Yes, each of my bridesmaids is wearing a different dress. They will all be wearing silver shoes, and I will be wearing shoes the color of their dresses. The two dresses that are strapless in the picture, won't be strapless for the wedding. One of my bm's is a seamstress, so she is doing all of the alterations and adding straps to the dresses that need them. Two of my bm's are redheads, one is a very dark brunette, and the other a light brunette. Each bm has a completely different body type, not even close to the ones in the picture. Picture them each carrying three yellow gerbera daisies with silver ribbon. My moh will be about 5 months prego on the wedding date and she looks so cute in her dress!

I'll write more later...

Spa Day!

Hello! I belong to the best gym in the world -- Total Woman Gym and Atmosphere Day Spa -- and I am a "spa" member, meaning that I get one massage or facial a month included in my membership. Now, generally I would not be able to afford such a luxury, but when I joined 3 years ago they had an educators special that could not be beat, and they never raise the monthy rate. So, once a month for the last three years I've been getting a massage. So, today I went in for my monthly massage and two great things happened. First, they are running a special for current spa members to upgrade for only $35.00 extra a month to a two treatment plan -- so now I get a massage and a facial once a month! Which is great because I always ended up buying the facial anyway (which is $70.00). Second, they are running a special to purchase three treatments on a gift card for the same price as two treatments, so I decided to buy each of my bridesmaids a massage. The plan is to have a bridesmaid "spa day" the week of the wedding! I am so excited!

On another note, I am finishing my guest list by next weekend so I can order my invitations! Now I need to start thinking about wording...

Bye for now!