J+J’s Wedding

I still don’t have reception photos yet, so the break from recaps will continue. However, I realized I’ve talked multiple times about my friend J, who got married about a month and a half after David and I on July 31st, and I never mentioned anything about their wedding. 

J went to KU with me so we were both finishing school in 3 years, in long term (6+ years) long distance relationships, and hoping for a wedding shortly after graduation. David and I got engaged in March and they got engaged in October of 2009 and we got to spend our senior year planning our weddings together. We shared vases, paper lanterns, and some other decor and she actually ended up doing a boudoir shoot after hearing about it from me! She also used the same photography company we did, but had a different photographer.

I decided to share some of their pro pictures since they were recently posted on our photographers’ facebook page! 

 

 

 

{She had the cute pink bow shoes I wanted my bridesmaids to wear, but wasn’t mean enough to make them – They were 4” heels!}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{The father-daughter and mother-son dance – You can see my cute hubby and half of me on the far left side of the picture in the background!}

{My Dollar Tree paper lanterns!}

{All photos by Amy Stevens of Lola Jo Photo Design}

Their wedding was so pretty, fun, and them – I loved it! And I love even more that we’re now both wives and we live about 2 miles apart in cute little houses with our husbands. We love hanging out with them and we’ve introduced them to Channing and Zach, so we’ll have a little ‘married couple group’ after their wedding in April! :)

Did you/do you have any friends going through the planning process with you?

Wedding Projects, Wine, and Weekend Preview

It's been a long week. So an evening filled with lots of wedding projects, wine, and good music in celebration of reaching the 100 day mark was definitely in order. And who came up with the brilliant idea? My fabulous roomie/BM S! 

I must really love you guys - I look a BIT tired. Also, sneak peak of a project I'm working on!

She really is fabulous - She not only helped me with the incredibly tedious coaster project, she also made lots of progress on the 2nd tulle wreath *which is unfortunately equally as tedious*!

It was nice to spend the evening not thinking about school and making some progress on these projects. I finished the one I was working on (post coming soon!) and we're 40% of the way done with the coasters! (Have I mentioned I really like things to be even? She knows me too well - She ended on an even number!) Thanks for all your help, dear! I <3 you!

This weekend David will be in the KC area reffing, so I'll get to see him again and will even get to watch him ref a couple games! I'm spending tomorrow night scrapbooking with my aunt, so I should have another project to post about next week. I love scrapbooking with her - We stay up most of the night chatting and catching up while we work! Hope all of you have equally as wonderful weekends!

The Luckiest

I know I've mentioned a couple times that David and I are having 'The Luckiest' by Ben Folds sung during our ceremony. And I might have even mentioned that two of our good friends, Mikayla and Cooper, from high school will be the ones singing it. But I've got to give you guys more details than that - These two are incredible!

First and foremost, they're awesome people and great friends. 

They've also been playing together for years. Originally, it was for praise and worship in middle school, and then for praise and worship in high school.

Getting ready to play together on our senior trip

Now they play shows together whenever they're in the same city! Mikayla is actually in Nashville right now.

 

At a show last winter

And it doesn't hurt that they're both incredibly talented! Both are amazing guitarists, and Mikayla also plays the piano.

 

  

I can't find any recordings of Cooper's, but Mikayla has a myspace account with several of her songs that she wrote herself. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to embed any of the tracks here, so you'll have to follow the link to check her out, and then imagine her singing this song along with Cooper: 

I know it's going to be absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait to share the recording of it with you when I do my recaps! It's wonderful having such talented friends that will be making our day even more special.

Are you incorporating any of your friends' special talents?

Blog Friends in Real Life

You may remember a certain adorable blogger bride who looked a little like this:

Or this?

source for both

That's right! I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Ali Joy and her fiance, Chris, last night! Unfortunately Ali isn't blogging anymore, so it was so nice to be able to catch up on everything!  We've been facebook friends for awhile, and I found out she was going to be in Kansas City with Chris, so we decided to meet up and chat about life and our weddings of course (more just Ali and I, but Chris was so nice!). It was great meeting her, and I'm soo hoping she and Chris decide to move to KC - She said they'd been thinking about it and that they love the area. How fun would that be?!

(Yep, she dyed her hair!)

I wish all of my other blog friends didn't live so far away - I didn't realize just how fun meeting 'in real life' is! I never would have guessed how extremely rewarding blogging would be. I've met some great people I never would have met otherwise and the support, encouragement, and inspiration from other women going through the same things has been both helpful and valuable. Blogging has become so much more than just getting my ideas out so I don't forget them - Now I feel like you're all friends who love hearing/thinking/talking about weddings as much as I do! So thank you all for making the experience so wonderful and worthwhile!

Why do you blog? Have you had the chance to meet another bride blog friend 'in real life'?

A New Take on Luminaries

This week is much slower for me school-wise, so I'm hoping to have time to work on a few projects I've been putting off. I have a friend here at school who is also engaged and is planning a July wedding. We actually met our freshman year, which is an interesting story - Her mom works with David's mom and I'd heard a lot about her without ever meeting her before. The first week of school we were both going through Fall Formal Recruitment and I happened to see her name tag and that she was from my hometown. Surprisingly (I rarely will start a conversation with someone I don't know) I decided I was just going to ask if she happened to be the same girl I'd heard all about from David's mom. It turns out it was her, and we got to talking. We found out we have a lot in common - she'd been with her boyfriend about as long as I'd been with David and they were also in a long distance relationship. We talked a lot our first few months of school, and then on and off since then, but we've recently been hanging out a lot more. It's so fun to get together and be able to vent about school and talk about how much more exciting wedding planning is than studying. :) Last night we decided to go to Michael's because we both have some extra time this week to work on things and she brought up an idea her MOH's sister used in her wedding. I thought it'd be cute, and decided to pick up the supplies for it without really knowing where I'd use them. I'm glad I did, because I love how they turned out!

The materials you'll need are:

• 3 photo mats - I used 5x7 mats (for a 4x6 picture), but you can use any size you want
• 3 pictures printed out on thin paper or vellum
• A tool to punch holes through the mats
• Ribbon - I used 6 pieces cut in about 6-8 inch pieces
  
• Tape
  

I just used the plain white photo mats I found for less than $2 each:

I guess I thought I was a lot stronger than I actually am, because I figured I'd be able to punch the holes using a hole punch. Uh, not so much. I ended up using the tip of a screwdriver to punch the hole and then used sissors to widen it a little bit, but I'm going to try to find a better method when I actually make them because I was bending the mat and I didn't leave the cleanest holes (as you can imagine). You'll want to punch the holes as close to the side of the mat as you can without it tearing. It doesn't matter where you place them vertically, so I just put mine even with the lines of the opening for the picture so that the holes would be uniform.

After you make the holes you'll want to attach the pictures to the back of the mats. I just used a couple pieces of tape to hold them in place. Once the pictures are attached, you can start threading the ribbon through the holes and tying the mats together. You want the ribbon to come through from the back to the front of each hole, so I'd suggest only actually tying 2 holes on the same side to start out with so that you're able to easily thread the ribbon from the back for the other holes. It's a lot harder to get your hand in the middle to thread the ribbon through if you tie each one as you go. Once you've threaded and tied all of the ribbon, you can tie the ribbons in bows. I used bows for this one, but I'm not sure if I like them. I might end up just tying the ribbon in knots. The bows did help cover up the places where I bent the mat, though.

Your luminaries should look something like this:

 

Then you'll place a LED tea light inside of your luminaries. I didn't have any on hand, so I (very carefully) used a votive. 

I just used computer paper for my pictures, but I'll probably use vellum when I actually make them. And I'll be waiting for the mats to go on sale to make this project a little more budget friendly. I know they're 50% off fairly regularly which would make each one cost less than $3.

I'm not sure yet where I'll use them, but I definitely want to incorporate them somehow! I've always liked the look of luminaries and I love that the candle light makes it look like we're glowing.

Are you using any form of luminaries? Any ideas for where I could incorporate mine?

Another Great Weekend

It was another great weekend! Celebrating David's birthday was so much fun. We went to dinner Friday night with 8 of our friends that live up here, and then came over to BM S's and my house afterward. I think David really enjoyed himself, and so did the rest of us! We had one GM, GM J, and BM S there, as well as one of our ushers. I told David on Saturday that I'm so excited for our wedding weekend because I know we'll be laughing the whole time - We have so many hilarious people in our bridal party!

I'll leave you with a few pictures of the weekend. I'm working on a bunch of posts for this week - I've made quite a bit of progress with our decor projects recently! I hope you all had as much fun this weekend as I did!

 

 Our traditional birthday picture!

  

Me with BM S

David with GM J