Picking Up

Well hey! It's been over a year, but what the heck - I want to blog again. Anyone still around here?

We just celebrated our second anniversary and what can I say...I'm happy! 


Also, I blame that happiness on the 26 pounds I've gained since being married. RIDIC, right? Yep. That is why, my dear friends, I have joined SlimGenics. Even when we got married...26 pounds ago...I was overweight. So it's time to nip this in the bud and get healthy and stop gaining 13 pounds every year, mmmk?


SlimGenics is a pretty normal sounding program. The only pre-packaged foods to eat are snacks that are created to up your metabolism and thermogenically help you lose weight. Otherwise, it's all about learning portion control and what types of foods and the amount of them you should eat each day. I really just think of it as a game. I have this many fruits, veggies, starches, etc....how can I make that work into the puzzle that is my day? I started one week ago and have lost 4.25 pounds so far. I don't mind the foods I'm eating - I just don't like vegetables enough to eat 4 servings of them. 


Things I miss eating the most...

• pizza
• tortilla chips
• popcorn
• nuts
• beer
• bread (particularly bagels and dinner rolls)
• french fries

Alas, I just gotta keep on keeping on! Here's to another day of smart eating choices!

Pretty, Pretty Paper

Creating an invite that really set the tone but was totally us was really important to us. Since my darling Nick is a graphic designer, naturally we originally thought he'd do all of our paper products. But then we decided that it was tough for both him and I to work through the creative process together so we decided that we would give someone else a shot at designing our invitations. Randomly - we found out that one of Nick's old co-workers started her own wedding invitation business, so we decided to meet with her about a design for us. Everything was going fine for awhile, then she went a little crazy and then I had to try really hard to get us out of the "relationship." Luckily, we got away from her and decided to do it all ourselves. And I'm so glad we did.

Nick ran with my ideas and we came up with some sweet invites that I was in love with. Nick designed them at home, we got them printed at a local print shop and we got tons of compliments on them! I was really upset that I didn't have the budget for calligraphy for the envelopes - so I had to make due without them. I decided after many conversations with myself about etiquette to print the addresses on the envelope with our home printer. I found a pretty, formal, cursivey font to do them in and used some pretty black lined envelopes. My friends said they thought they were pretty and weren't upset they weren't hand-written and I trust them! :)

I'm so glad we put as much personal work into our planning as we did - it makes the day and rewards of a great invite so much sweeter.

Enjoy! :)

Let Them Eat...and Eat!

When we first sat down to talk about how we wanted to allot our budget for the wedding - it became obvious to both of us that we wanted to put lots of money towards food instead of elsewhere. We both had been to too many weddings where we waited so long for food, had to eat our chocolate favors to fight off starvation and then ended up getting a burger from the hotel bar at 9pm in order to continue dancing. We wanted to make sure our guests wouldn't go hungry and eat good food, at that. And that they did!

As soon as our guests arrived at the hotel/reception site after the ceremony, cocktail hour began and they were greeted with butler-passed hor'deurves. I originally was just going to do stations because the butlers were extra, but it just worked better for the space to have butlers. Plus - classy points! :) The butlers served two types of bruschetta, ham & cheese pinwheels and shrimp. This amount of food turned out to be an even better decision because our ceremony ended quicker than expected and the ballroom wasn't to be seated until a specific time. Luckily, the staff bumped the timeline all up a bit, but I was glad that my guests were sitting bored during that time. :)

Our dinner consisted of three entree choices that guests indicated on their RSVP. We served flank steak, pear chutney-stuffed champagne chicken and walleye (we ARE in Minnesota and it's my fav!). All entrees were served with rolls and a wedge salad and sides.



We sat a menu card on everyone's place setting since I think it's nice to read what everything is, plus we needed to explain that their dessert was in their centerpiece and that beverages were free during meal service - so it just made sense to make these. We did them on our printer at home on some cardstock. Escort cards had each guest's name on it, table number and a ribbon (black, white, green and polka dot for the kiddies) that indicated to the service staff which entree they had reserved.

After dinner, after the band had begun playing for a bit, we opened up the popcorn buffet. More about this in another post. :)

Later in the evening around 10pm, we served a "late night snack." This has become a huge trend and is usually something kitchy - and we totally had to oblige. We served pizza for our late night snack, which was totally not a surprise to anyone because I'm a complete and total pizza feind and would TOTALLY serve pizza at my wedding. :) There was tons of it and everyone was so excited when it came out as they weren't expecting it and it was SO good!

Throughout the night we had many, many comments on how great the food was and how full they were. Guests said that dinner was phenomenal and they were stuffed and then came the popcorn! So then they were seriously stuffed, and then came the pizza! These are good problems to have. :)

Thanking Them

(Black, white and green wrapping of course!)

I researched and looked long and hard for the perfect gifts for our family and friends. It's always hard to find exactly what you want in the right price range but I wanted to make sure that our bridal party and parents knew we appreciated them and give them some nice items. In addition to the gifts we gave at the rehearsal dinner, we also gave each of our bridal party members 2 drink tickets for the cash bar during the reception.

• Bridesmaids - I gave each of my bridesmaid a green pashmina (I thought would be nice for the evening of the wedding) and matching earrings (black drop - like) and necklaces that were all different but paired well together.
• Groomsmen - Groomsmen received green argyle socks to wear for the wedding (had to have that photo!) and a leather money clip with their first name engraved on it.
• Ushers - Ushers received the same money clips as the groomsmen and a bottle of liquor. Neither of them came to the rehearsal (or dinner) due to their own personal decisions so we gave them their gifts during the reception dance.
• Flower girl - I found a cute Hello Kitty tote for Abigail as part of her gift because she loves Hello Kitty and then I knew she'd have something to keep all her flower girl things in on the day of. There was also a little Hello Kitty notepad and pen inside. Also - I gave her a nice photo frame with an IOU for a picture of us from the wedding for it.
• Moms - We ordered embroidered handercheifs on Etsy for our moms. They were really cute, dainty and lacy with "Mother of the Bride" and "Mother of the Groom" along with the wedding date on them.
• Dads - We ordered customized tie tacks from Etsy for our dads. They were vintage typewriter type buttons on the tack with their first initial on them.

(all personal photos)

Out of Town Bags

While planning our wedding, we took our guests' comfort very seriously. When we originally started planning, we talked about what were the most and least important things to us and the important ones always revolved around our guests feeling welcome, taken care of and happy. One of the things that we did to accomplish that was to put out of town (OOT) bags at the hotels that our guests were staying at for the to receive at check-in. I've never personally received anything like that for going to an out-of-town wedding, but I think it's the details that count and certainly wanted to do this for our guests. We talked and thought about these throughout the whole planning period but they ended up being one of the very last things we made a final decision on and actually didn't do them until the morning of the rehearsal!

We ordered muslin bags online and used some ink and stencils to put our own design on the outside. Then we made little tags with a stamp and wrote "Welcome to Minnesota! love, Nick & Meredith" on them.

Here's what we put in ours...

• A postcard in regard to Minnesota, Minneapolis, the Twin Cities, etc. (I found these at Walgreens for super cheap!)
• Individual bag of goldfish crackers (pre-packaged)
• Individual bag of swedish fish (we got little candy bags and ties from Michaels). Swedish fish were kind of a nod to the land of Norweigen heritage that is Minnesota but also satisfied the need for something candy. :)
• Ole and Lena fortune cookies. I was so excited when I found these! Ole and Lena is a MN thing - they are two Norweigans that say funny things. I thought they were a super cute idea.
• A word find. We just made this online and it was comprised of wedding words.
• A wedding weekend information booklet. We made these in Microsoft Word - little 4x4 pages that included a timeline, hotel shuttle info, local attractions, contact numbers, etc.
• 2 water bottles - we bought water resistant labels online and printed our own design onto them and put them on each. We also used a bunch of these for the wedding party, etc.

We took these to the front desk of the hotels our guests were staying at and had them give them to each person who checked in on our list. Unfortunately, I didn't hear many comments about them but I know the desk handed them out and hopefully our guests enjoyed the welcome!

Bachelorette

I have a confession to make....bachelorette parties aren't really my thing.

Especially after I was already "technically" married - this part wasn't something I was totally looking forward to. Plus - I don't have a lot of girlfriends - more guys. So I knew I wanted to do SOMEthing - but nothing over the top. Luckily, my MOH is the same and understands so it was pretty low key.

The night started by meeting my girlfriends for dinner at a local Italian restaurant downtown. It was fun because it was also prom night for a bunch of local schools - so there were a lot of kids out to eat in their prom dresses/suits which was fun. Especially because my MOH is a high school teacher and saw a bunch of her kids!

We had a lovely dinner and then went back to my MOH's apartment for gifts and games. Nothing too crazy - just the usual. And then we went out for drinks at another local establishment.

I think it's important to have that "one last night out with your girlfriends" but you should always remember that it can be whatever you want it to be. I've been to many different kinds of bachelorettes - it all depends on the Bride's style. And really - the main idea of it for me (along with showers) was to get me out of the house and have fun and get my mind off of all the planning! :)

(friends)

(me and Brittany - getting married next May!)

(the group - two married ladies, MOH, me, and the single gals)



(all personal photos)

The Dress

I never really mentioned anything about my dress because it really isn't that great of a story. When I first got engaged the part of planning that I was most scared of was finding a dress. Being a girl who has always been a bit overweight - I wasn't very excited for shopping for something that could very well be pretty dissappointing. After getting engaged in October - I put off dress shopping until December when I could go for the first time with my mom by my side. I wanted to have that experience with her and it wasn't like I was chomping at the bit to go before then. So after spending Christmas in Iowa with my parents (and Nick) - mom and I took a day to go to a few shops in the area. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be - what a relief! I was happy to find some samples in my size and even found one dress that I would've bought right then and there if I wasn't such a type A researcher. :) It was great to have my mom along to hear her thoughts and opinions and I knew I'd take those into consideration as I continued the search on my own back home in MN.

So once home, I went to a few more shops by myself to try to find something with no luck. And then I ended up overshopping - I saw too many dresses and fell in love with 6. They were all copmletely different and I had no idea what to do until one day - I decided to go to one last shop over my lunch hour. And that day is when I found THE one. The saleswoman did something very smart for me...I was looking for a dress that was a specific shape and figure, and with minimal sparkle - but definitely SOMEthing. So she found me a dress that was the perfect silhouette and then we ADDED the sparkle! So smart! Thank God for that woman! :)

I had so much fun going to my dress fitting with my MOH. It got us together to talk about the wedding, and it was nice to have someone along for the ride since my mom couldn't be there. I had to have multiple alterations done on my dress because by the time I found it - it was too late to order a dress, so I bought a sample dress that was too big for me. Here are some pics from the last alterations appointment before the big day.

The perfect bustle

MOH learning to bustle

Green shoes!

Notice the applique that we added on to it.

And veil (which we had to alter as well.)

Oh! And here's the flower girl. We took a trip out to see her and her family in April before the wedding since we knew we wouldn't be able to spend the whole wedding weekend with her. We made a final decision on her dress while we were out there. Super cute!

I thought this was hilarious that we both had the same look on our face in these pictures...

(all photos are personal photos)