Catching up!!

Let the dates of these posts be a lesson to you. I started off with frequent posts detailing the little things that go along with wedding planning in detail. I kept all family and friends happy as they knew right where I was in the planning. And then as the wedding nears, my posts have become few and far between. Wedding tasks keep a bride rather busy and unfortunately the blogging takes a back burner. For this, I will apologize and make a pathetic attempt to catch everyone up. 

I’ll start with the invites. I am in love with our invitations. They feel so peaceful, which is how I envision our ceremony in the meadow so it was quite fitting. WeddingPaperDivas.com printed these for us and I could not be happier with their quality and service. Two thumbs up. I have to admit I hesitated clicking on their link since the word “divas” screamed glitter and neon colors, but I was pleasantly surprised with their diverse options and especially Andrew and I’s “perfect match” on invites. We spent a nice evening getting them all ready to mail out and felt so excited that the wedding was getting so close. Dropping those invites in the mailbox was a great feeling.

Here is a picture of getting the invites ready

of course we took a cheesy envelope-licking picture, wouldn’t you?!

 Andrew dropping invites in the mail

My turn!

 

One of the greatest parts about getting so close to the wedding is the fun events that lead you into it. Our first was our honeymoon shower thrown by my “Aunty O”, Olivia Collins. Shower my not be the right word for this occasion as this was a FIESTA. And Olivia pulled out all the stops on this one. Guests were instructed to wear beach-y attire, Andrew and I followed instruction very closely and arrived in bikini body t-shirts. They were perfect for the occasion! The event was held at the Manhattan Arts Center and when we walked in it was a Mexican Fiesta from wall to wall. The bar was amazing lined with brightly colored margarita glasses that were soon filled with my dad’s famous margarita recipe. Around the room there were piñatas, each with an idea of fun things Andrew and I could do on our honeymoon that guests could contribute to. And to top it all off, there was a delicious dinner catered by none other than Coco Bolos, which is always a favorite. We greeted guests and mingled as Mexican tunes filled the background and we got so excited for our honeymoon to Riviera Maya.  Part way through the evening we took a celebratory shot of tequila with all of our guests. What a treat this whole night was! A truly unforgettable evening that we just feel so honored to have been the reason for such a night of fun happening. We have so many wonderful people in our lives.

 Us arriving at the shower

 With our host

Speaking of wonderful people. That leads me to the next shower. This was my bridal shower (the no boys allowed one!). It was a kitchen themed shower and this theme was not a random choice. The Maxwell ladies (Kathy, Kelsey, and Sarah), whom I’ve known my entire life, surprised me and the guests with a short film of none other than yours truly, in my most awkward years of life, in a “newscast” shot on scene at Kathy’s Kitchen. Let me back up 15 years or so. When Kelsey, Sarah, and I were younger we used to get together and film newscasts called Weekly Chaos. This went on for years. There is TONS of footage of this. We would make up news stories, find stories from the local paper, anything to make a good show. We had stage names, we reported the weather, we made commercials, and we even went “on scene” (meaning a different room in the house). But one of the most (in)famous of the shows was when we went on-scene to “Kathy’s Kitchen”. Myself acting as Kathy (and no, this is not a true reference to the real Kathy!!), made this kitchen as disgusting as could be including my own appearance. I had pillows stuffed everywhere they’d fit on me, I pretended to snot on the food, scratch lice (white rice) from my hair, and even kill then cook with roaches (rolled up black electrical tape) trying to crawl across the grill. Needless to say it was in no way cute. But looking back at it now, pretty stinking hilarious. After watching that clip, we headed back to the shower area where a mimosa bar awaited us with different juices, champagnes, and fruit. Yum!! The centerpieces were fun vases of flowers accented with kitchen utensils (so cute!) and my three hosts were dressed the part in their adorable aprons. We had a couple fun activities, ate some delicious brunch, and opened gifts (and I didn’t break a single ribbon). I now have a fabulous ribbon bouquet for my rehearsal. This was the best bridal shower EVER. Not kidding you. And it was for me! How great is that??? Another unforgettable day. Perhaps there will be another of those this week? ;) 

 Bridal shower group

 With my hosts!!

 With my mom and sister

And lastly, I quick glimpse at the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Andrew went over spring break to Breckenridge for a ski trip with his friends. I didn't ask for any details, but I know he had a great time and I have one picture to share.

Andrew and Jonathan getting ready to hit the slopes

I chose a similar location and headed to Denver with my friends the last weekend of April. We had a great time!!

Our group having dinner at Lime

Me with my "Bride" tiara and boa from Lime!

We went to a terrifically fun and hilarious show in downtown Denver where I got another boa and was brought on stage for some fun for the bachelorette.

Here is me with Cassie (that fierce blonde in a black dress) and some of the show performers

What great times surround the wedding. So many memories have been. Now we are just a few days from the main event. I can't wait to write a post as Mrs. Esser to fill you in on how the big day went.

Megan Andrews, signing off....

Bridal Shows: Friend or Foe?

This weekend we went to our second (and final?) bridal show. January is typically the month when most bridal shows take place, and since we got engaged in March we missed them last year. This year we are four months from the wedding and have already secured most of our vendors for the wedding. So going to these two shows was really more for the fun of it (and the potential to win some prizes, though that didn’t happen).

Let me start with some good that came out of going to these shows. We were able to see most of our vendors that we’ve already booked. I really like getting to see all of these people. They are going to play such a big part in making our big day as special as it can be and I really appreciate the relationships we have with each of them. And let me tell you, we have the A Team.

We also did have a few unexpected finds that we may decide to add on, one being a videographer. I had not really considered using a videographer. We hired stellar photographers  (J&C Imaging) and I have so much confidence in their ability to capture our day beautifully that I thought the added cost of a videographer was not necessary. I also decided to have one groomsmen and one bridesmaid use flip video cameras to capture some of the pre-wedding festivities. But, when speaking with a videographer at one of the bridal shows he mentioned a package he has to just cover the ceremony portion of the day for a very reasonable price. And the thought of getting to see a video of those special moments seems pretty wonderful. Now, I need to do some research on the videographer options out there. But just the idea of hiring one for just the ceremony wasn’t something I had considered but really love the idea. Hold on a sec, gotta go add that to my to-do list….

So now let me tell you what drives me nuts about these bridal shows. THE OUTRAGEOUS AMOUNT OF CAKE. Okay, I get it. You want these brides to taste your cake, love it, and hire you to make their wedding cake. But seriously, let’s get real. We’re brides. Want to know what brides do? The one thing that takes the longest to do pre-wedding? We go on a bridal DIET. I have known some seriously skinny brides, and you know what they do? They go on a bridal diet. Do they need to? No. But every bride wants to look her absolute best that day and eating a little healthier helps them feel even more like they do. Cake is good. We already know that. It’s fantastic. But with the number of cake samples a bride is going to try at the bridal show I doubt any single one is going to stick out as “the most amazing tasting cake” she’s ever had. She probably had two other cake samples that she was trying to suck down simultaneously. Because it’s there (everywhere), it’s delicious, we’re sick of this “bridal diet”, we’re hungry, and hey, it’s a special occasion….right?  Why, oh bridal show, do you do this to us vulnerable brides? However, at today’s bridal show I found something that made me smile ear to ear. A cute little gathering of bite size veggies in a shot glass with a small dip of ranch in the bottom. Thank you, Dela Voce. You restored my faith in a wedding food vendor looking out for the bride. Your tiny garden was a delicious, guilt free treat. And cute to boot. Score you.

Stay tuned! The wedding is a few short months away!

Days to wedding: 118

right on task

A girl's best friend may be diamonds (and when you get engaged they become your best friend forever, resting peacefully on your left finger), but a girl-planning-a-wedding's best friend is lists. I recently found myself doing exactly what I had been warned would happen, keeping myself up at night making mental lists of all the things that need to happen in the next 6 months before the big day. How could I possibly #1 ever sleep or #2 ever remember all the things that kept me up all night the next morning. I couldn't. So I started to make a written list of everything. Even that didn't relieve the looming "IShouldBeDoingEverythingRightNowOrItWillNeverGetDone" thoughts. Then I realized that was exactly my problem, I was making everything a top priority and thinking I needed to get it done right away. So I further organized my list. I opened Excel, made a tab for each month from now until the wedding (including a separate tab for the week of the wedding, the day before the wedding, the day of the wedding, and even the day after), and started sorting all my to-dos. Now, I have a short, manageable list of things to accomplish each month and I never have to wonder "should I be working on 'this' or 'this' or 'this'?" And guess what I've done this week. I've gone to bed and slept wonderfully knowing the planning is completely under control.

One to-do list item I am particularly proud of getting accomplished was our save the dates. I had a specific vision of what I wanted, and while it took a few tries talking to the designer to get my vision across, they turned out exactly how I imagined. I am so happy with them.

FRONT:

The captions read: "boy meets girl", "boy and girl fall in love", "boy asks girl to marry him", and "girl says yes"

BACK:

The blank space on the back allowed for me to write a personal message to each guest. I especially loved this aspect. It gave each one a personal touch. I was able to write a special note for those in the wedding party, tell guests how much we look forward to seeing them, or simply test out my "artistic side" with some light hearted doodles. Here is the artwork for my brother and sister-in-law's save the date. They live in California and will be flying back to Kansas for the wedding.

I'm looking forward to all the upcoming to-do's in the next 6 months and I appreciate those that will be helping with any of these. It means so much to me. With each task we're one step closer to the big day!!

Short and Sweet

Here is how bridesmaid dress shopping went:

I had a dress in mind that I liked, so it was ready for the girls to try on when we got to Celebrations of the Heart (Celebrations of the Heart girls are so terrific, I highly recommend their shop). Cassie and Andrea each tried it on, Cassie also tried on one other. The dress I had in mind was a clear winner. Chosen. Done. And we moved on to a champagne lunch a few steps down the road at Dela Voce (the same restaurant Andrew took me the night we got engaged. Cute, huh?).

I'm pretty determined to not stress about this wedding. And I don't see any reason why my bridesmaids should stress either. Honestly, why should they? They don't get to take home a brand spankin' new husband that night. I do. So I actually spent more time deciding what to have for lunch at Dela Voce than I did deciding on the bridesmaid dresses. (In my defense they have a lot of really rockin choices.)

Brides everywhere, listen here! This wedding is only happening because it is a celebration of the beginning of your marriage. So let it be a celebration, not the cause of high blood pressure. Celebrate each milestone in the planning process (this can be accomplished with champagne, chocolate, listening to an N'SYNC album in full, whatever excites you most). For those of you who crave exact instruction, I prefer a 1:2 ratio, for each minute spent planning, spend two celebrating. If needed, think of it as practice. You'll be so good at celebrating by the time the wedding comes around, nothing could stand in your way of having a blissfully perfect evening.

Now on to the next task, save the dates!

D.I.Y. ---> D.I.why not?

There will be a lot of tradition at our wedding. I will be walked down the aisle by my father, given away to a groom that has not seen me that day until that very moment, be married by a minister, kiss my husband and be wisked away for a photo shoot. We'll return for dinner, dancing and good times with those closest to us. No surprises there. But a few of the details along the way will reflect a non-traditional wedding. While we will not be married in a church, I think the beauty of the meadow where our vows will be exchanged couldn't show God's presence any clearer. Now, I don't want to give away every detail of the day, but I've recently been working on some homemade items to give our wedding a very personal touch. The first being the bridesmaid bouquets. To keep with the rustic vibe of the wedding, and my severe hesitation to spend a large chunk of our wedding budget on flowers that will quickly fade, I have decided on a non-traditional bridesmaid bouquet. I purchased silk flowers at Hobby Lobby, covered the stem with brown floral tape, and stuck them into what I would call a "twig ball". The stem of the flower will be held by the bridesmaids, and on top will be a flower surrounded by a wrapping of twigs. Since this is tough to imagine through words, here is a picture of the (maybe) finished project:



I'm so excited about how these turned out and think it's a great twist on the traditional bouquet of flowers. The next DIY piece was the flower girl basket. Traditional white flower girl baskets just didn't seem to fit the look I am going for. So I found an inexpensive, simple basket and added my own touches to create the perfect flower girl basket. I added fake twig pieces to create the handle and silk flowers for embellishment.



I love this finished flower girl basket. It is exactly what I had in mind. But a white silk ring bearer pillow just wouldn't fit with this. So, I decided to make that piece, too. I sewed (thanks to my mom for the sewing lesson) a burlap pillow, sewed a coordinating piece of fabric into a sort of "ribbon" and hot glued a center embellishment. Two strings of twine are also attached to later tie on rings. I will thank Andrew for his time spent with me and my mom in Hobby Lobby picking out fabrics for this pillow. There were so many choices and I wasn't quickly decisive. He also reigned us in anytime the parts for the pillow were beginning to look too "girly" for our ring bearer to feel good carrying this thing with many eyes on him. So instead of ribbon, we chose fabric, and instead of a flower in the middle we chose a wooden embellishment. I'm so happy we had his input because there could not be a cuter (is that word too "girly" for this?) ring bearer pillow than what this one turned out to be.

I also feel good being able to say I made it myself. This turned out even better than what I'd had in mind. For the reception, one of my favorite touches is our dinner plates. Traditional options include renting nice table settings or going with plastic. Instead, we decided to start collecting mismatched china plates from second hand stores/garage sales/antique shops, wherever we could get our hands on them at a good price. We put the word out to many friends and family members and I'm happy to say we've already been able to collect around 200 china plates. Amazing. So I will say a big thank you to any of you that are reading that contributed to The 2011 Search for China Plates. I'm so excited to see the tables in the barn (our reception space) lined with an eclectic collection of china plates.

As the big day draws nearer and nearer, I will leave you with one last photo. This is a picture of the flowers Andrew surprised me with on the three month anniversary of our engagement. He chose them because they were our wedding colors. The petals are a soft ivory with a light pink inside and slightly green tips. Simply beautiful.  

313 DAYS TO GO!!



THE dress

(disclaimer: I will not be describing the dress or mention designers/styles/etc as Andrew can not know anything about it. If you'd like details I'd be more than happy to fill you in privately, so long as you raise your right hand and take oath to not mention a single detail to my groom)

I watch Say Yes to the Dress, I hear stories about finding your wedding dress and just knowing it's the one. But as an often indecisive person, I was skeptical that I would ever be sure about a dress. I fully expected to have two that I just couldn't decide between. And after finding a truly lovely dress at Celebrations of the Heart in Manhattan, then planning to continue looking in Kansas City, I was positive I'd be in love with two dresses and need a tie breaker. I was so wrong. Aside from my groom, I will not be more sure about anything having to do with this wedding. Here is the story of my completely decisive weekend:

My mom picked up my sister and I Saturday morning and we headed to the Kansas City airport to pick up my sister-in-law Andrea. She had flown in from Colorado just to go dress shopping with me. I couldn't ask for a better sister-in-law (thanks, Logan). We headed straight from the airport to my first appointment at The Gown Gallery in downtown KC. After navigating a place to park, we walked to the door where we had to call and get buzzed up to the store which was a warehouse style loft. That warehouse style filled with gorgeous gowns was really a site to see. It was a fun atmosphere. I got started with my consultant showing her designs I like. While flipping through options that I knew they carried, she noticed another that I had quickly flipped through thinking they didn't carry that designer. It was a dress that I came across online and had fallen completely in love with just from the picture. She said they had it there. I was so excited, even though my next appointment had been made specifically for trying on that particular dress. But now I didn't have to wait another minute. It was the first one I tried on. She spent her time lacing it up just right and I think the whole time she was lacing my jaw was fully dropped as I stared in the mirror. This thing blew my expectations out of the water. Standing in this dress I didn't have a single insecurity, other than the chance that the little bit of eye liner I applied that morning might run off it I started crying. I had never seen a gown so unique, so flattering, and so perfect. It was mine. I knew it. I walked out of my dressing room and turned every head on my walk toward where Mom, Lyndsey and Andrea were seated. I may have even sold that dress to a couple other brides, I may need to look into getting commission. All three of them seemed to be equally "wow"ed. We looked at the dress for quite some time, continually noticing more and more beauty to it. It was unquestionably the one. Now, remember I said I originally had an appointment with another store to try on this same dress. So we decided to go ahead and head to the next appointment and try it on there as well and compare prices. We headed out and had the picnic lunch that Mom had packed for us with cucumber mini sandwiches and crab salad pitas. YUM! I had made two suggestions for what she could make and she made both, isn't she great? Then it was on to Ida's Bridal in Overland Park...

When I got to Ida's they brought me a long stem red rose with a little ribbon attached. That was a great start. I went in to my dressing room where my consultant handed me a very soft cozy robe to put on while she went and pulled my dresses. Then we got started trying on dresses. I went ahead and tried on two others, blah blah blah. They all just seemed so silly, I just wanted to get to "mine". Finally it was time to put the beautiful dress back on. It was even more beautiful. The lighting was a little different in this shop, less windows letting in natural light, more indoor lighting. But it showed the dress off in a totally different way. This thing was incredible. The price tag was exactly the same, so now I just needed to choose which store I'd rather purchase from. I have to say I had a much more personal experience with my consultant at The Gown Gallery (first appointment). So I started to lean toward going back and purchasing there. But, Ida's is so much easier to access when it came to coming back for fittings and such and they make custom veils and are able to actually make me a hairpiece out of parts of the dress that they will cut off when they hem it. Their price range for alterations was half the price of what was quoted to me at the other store, and they offered 10% off if I ordered that day. So it was a no-brainer at that point. It was time to place my order. I was then presented with a congratulatory gift bag for finding my dress that included a little sewing kit, a small wedding planning book, a couple wedding magazines, and a note to Andrew addressed to "The Luckiest Guy in the World". They really put a lot into those little things that really make it special. As I sat in the bridal shop I decided I had zero desire to continue trying on any more dresses that I knew weren't mine, so I made a call to my last appointment for the day and cancelled, letting them know I'd already found my dress. After browsing briefly at some bridesmaid dresses, snapping a picture of the four of us outside Ida's, and grabbing some fro-yo and a bottle of wine, we headed to the Doubletree hotel where we would stay the night. We relaxed in our room a bit and made dinner reservations for an Italian restaurant across the street. Not long after getting settled, we had a knock on the door and I went to check out who it could be. It was two hotel employees, one with a bottle of wine and glasses, and the other with an impressive tray of fruits and cheeses. There was a note addressed to my mom from one of the hotel managers that she knows (we've stayed at the Doubletree many times in the past for my dad's Marriage and Family Therapy conferences every year) saying that she hoped our special weekend of dress shopping was going well. It was such a fun treat. We headed over to dinner and shared meals since none of us were very hungry after our wonderful appetizer. After dinner we finished our evening with our wine down in the hotel hot tub. I could not have asked for a more perfect day. I'm so thankful for each person that played a part in making it such a special day and a wonderful memory I will think back on forever.

Engagement pictures!!

We had such a great time taking our engagement pictures and were so excited to get to see them this past weekend. Our pictures were done by J&C Imaging and for the next month we have an online gallery to view all of the pictures. You can see them by following this link:

http://jcimaging.morephotos.com/mp_client/pictures.asp?action=viewphotos&size=thumbnails&thumbpagenum=1&eventid=44673&eventstatus=0&categories=no&keywords2=no&groupid=0&bw=true&sep=true&ckw=false

Here are a few favs:

We are so happy with how they came out. We are going to have a tough time deciding on which prints to purchase. We couldn't be happier with our photographers at J&C Imaging!!