Tastes like Jello

We completed a crucial project on our wedding list this weekend - Hurricane taste testing.

As anyone who has read this blog at all probably knows, I credit the beginning of our relationship to the time Dan and I spent in the New Orleans area rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. It's been important to me since day one to incorporate New Orleans into our wedding day somehow, without going straight to the typical Mardi Gras "theme" that really doesn't make the connection at all. I've also been saying for MUCH longer than we've been engaged for that we should have hurricanes as our "signature drink" at the reception as an easy (and tasty) way to showcase that incredible important time together. 

We spent a little time recently looking up different hurricane recipes online, and quickly realized that many of the recipes are insanely complicated and would end up costing us a fortune on the bar tab. The solution? Pat O'Brien's hurricane mix - which is way more authentic New Orleans than any recipe concoction anyways!

Thankfully, Mr. Lawler had a few packets of mix at home from our trip to NOLA last winter, and he generously donated them to our tasting. He also provided a couple different kinds of rum, which was all we needed, making the taste testing totally stress free for me - thanks almost-father-in-law!!

Manda, Bridget, Aris, Allie and Jeff joined us for the testing, and Dan and Mr. Lawler made it fun with a couple different ratios of mix-to-rum so we could all decide which "recipe" tasted best.

Manda joined in the fun with a glass of the mix sans-rum. Her thoughts? "Tastes like Jello before it goes in the fridge!" -

My dad and Uncle Joe stopped by later for a quick test as well -

After a couple hurricanes and some Party Rock Shuffle tutorial watching at the house we all walked to Ribfest (YUM) where we ate a bunch of food, drank a bunch of beer, and did a bunch of dancing and singing along with the live band. We ended the night with late night pizza at the house... and more dancing (at least on my part). Based on how much fun we all had Saturday night, I'd say the taste testing was a success!

Painting Party

Well, I'm way late on posting this one, but forgive me - I've been knee deep in making tissue paper flowers til my fingers hurt. It will all be worth it in the end (or so I keep telling myself)!

Speaking of the end. It's in 2 weeks. Wow. I think I'm sort of in denial about the whole thing, and I'm already a little sad thinking about how I'm going to be done with wedding planning - forever. (Unless of course I manage to start a wildly successful wedding planning business like I've been saying I should do for ages).

So anyways, Bridget and my mom came over a couple weeks ago and we repainted ALL of the vases. Remember how I was all slaphappy excited about them being done eons ago? And then I put them out on the front porch and the sweltering summer heat caused the paint in all of them to crack and bleed? Yeah, it was awesome. Thankfully, the paint all washed right out and we were ready to give it another shot (good thing I'm using fake flowers because these painted vases are NOT water friendly).

Before we started painting, the lovely Bridget helped me lay out a fake table setting on the living room floor, so we could pair off the vases for each table based on size, shape and texture.

As we paired them, my mom wrote letters on the bottom of each, so we knew which ones went together.

Bridget mixed up two different shades of gray paint, and my mom and I started with the turquoise. My mom bought a bunch of dollar store cooking racks for the vases to stand on upside down while they dried, so that as much extra paint as possible would drip out (hopefully avoiding further cracks). This proved to be a good idea, but also caused several panic attacks from all of us because if one vase tipped... about 20 others would follow. Trust me - the sound of that much glass clinking together is NOT a good one.

Dan helped finish up the last few when he got home -

Thankfully, it's been a couple weeks now and the vases still look pretty and perfect. There were 5 (out of more than 50 - so not bad!) that need to be repainted for one reason or another, but other than that, this project is complete! Now if I can just finish the flowers that go in them...

1 down... 5 to go

My mom, gramma and Manda came over last night to work on tissue paper flowers with me, but thanks to some great finds by my mom in the remnant bin at the fabric store - I spent the evening working on a different kind of flower. That's right, I FINALLY have a flower for in my hair, and considering I DIY-ed it - which was certainly not the original plan, I am thrilled with how it turned out.

I know the dirty background of my dining room table isn't much of a backdrop, but isn't it pretty?!?

I didn't take any pictures of my progress, mostly because I totally winged it, and also because the project involved an open flame and it was making my mom nervous every time I got my fingers too close. But for reference, I used this awesome tutorial I found thanks to some googling. Since I didn't know if my satiny fabric find was the same that was used on the blog I found, I used the same process - cut out shape, singe the edge - but just did different sized "petals" that I layered together instead of cutting out flower shapes like in the original tutorial. I'm actually really pleased with how the flower turned out considering it was my first shot at it! 

For the center of the flower, I decided I really wanted to use one of my grandma's old buttons. I originally planned to use them to make boutonnieres for the guys, but since we decided not to do bouts at all I realized I wasn't "involving" the memory of my grandmother in any way like I wanted to. So, Manda and I searched her button jar for something sparkly or silvery... and came up empty handed. What we did find was a gold button that we loved the shape of, so Manda got to work painting it gray with a little brush, and then used a toothpick to dab tiny white dots in all the little crevices! We experimented with different glitters to give it a little sparkle (which actually involved Manda having to paint a second button - sorry kiddo), but for now I'm leaving it alone while I figure out exactly what I want to do with it. My mom suggested tiny little rhinestones sporadically on the petals and while I'm not crazy about that idea I'm thinking they would work placed very carefully on the button where the white dots currently are. We'll see.

In the meantime while I figure out the center of my flower, I'll be starting on making smaller gray versions of this project for the bridesmaids to wear in their hair on the big day. Since they each have a different style dress and will have different shoes, hair and jewelry, I'm excited for a little something to tie them all together!

18

Thanks to the extra day off for Labor Day, we had another insanely productive weekend full of wedding stuff, and I'm actually feeling VERY good about everything left to do with just 18 days to go!

Here's my typical iPhone photo rundown of the latest...

We got our marriage license this morning! I found this part of our planning to be a huge stress thanks to us going in the wrong building, having a camera in my purse that was not allowed inside, and everyone there just being unfriendly in general... but it's done and we can now legally get married! -

My mom and Manda came over last night and together with Dan we made major centerpiece progress! Dan cleaned up the messy painted edges on the vases (I still need to post pictures from last week's painting party!), and my mom and I experimented with more tissue paper which ended up being a great success as we came up with 3 more easy flowers that look AMAZING when they're all bunched together! Here's my mom showing off one of our bouquets -

And here's a close up of one of the new flowers I figured out. They remind me of peonies, which are my favorite flower, so I'm thrilled with the outcome -

While we worked on flowers, Manda got busy painting the "Here comes the bride" sign for Michael to carry down the aisle at church. I did the second coat later and added a gray edge to the plaque, and tonight I'll string some ribbon through at the top for him to hold and this project will be finished! -

Earlier in the weekend Dan put together and labeled all of the cupcake boxes, and we decided we'll use a bushel basket that I picked up at Pier One on clearance to hold a bunch of them up on the dessert table. -

I'm not too happy with how the labels turned out for the boxes, but I practiced "letting go" and decided it's ok if they aren't absolutely perfect. But, at Dan's prompting I wrote a quick complaint email to the company the labels are from because a bunch of them weren't cut properly and ripped when we tried to remove them from the sheets, and their online templates are FAR from user friendly. This morning, I got an email from the company that they're sending me a care package full of their products as an apology! Here's hoping it shows up before the wedding... I'm SURE I can find something else to put labels on :).

We also did a ton of shopping this weekend, which resulted in finishing up all of my bridesmaid gifts and small thank you gifts for most of the people involved in our ceremony. I spent Sunday at the mall with Rachel and Allie doing bride things as well - including purchasing my wedding day earrings (which are PERFECT and match my ring!), a potential day-of nail polish color, aaaaaamazing heels for the rehearsal dinner, and other little bridal necessities.

With less than 3 weeks to go, I'm an odd kind of calm (have no fear, I'm sure I'll still have plenty of panicked moments). I really just can't wait to see how all of our hard work comes together on the big day!

Mrs.

Look what the fabulous Rachel got me for my birthday!

While I was super excited, Dan had a typical guy reaction and just looked confused while he said "um, it's a hanger". But clearly, it is not JUST a hanger, it's a personalized with my almost-new-name snazzy fancy hanger that will make photos of my lovely dress that much more exciting! Seeing as I've loved these little hangers since I first saw a picture of one, I'm giddy to have one all of my own for the big day! It's a little odd to think about the fact that I'm going to be "Mrs. Lawler" since that's what I've always called Dan's mom, but I'm thinking I'll get used to it :).

Thanks for the awesome birthday present, Rachel!

Details

I cranked out a bunch of little projects this weekend with the help of Manda and Dan, and as I have expected from the beginning, these little details are the parts of our planning that I'm loving the most. To me, the tiny personal touches are what's going to make our wedding really "ours", and not just a cookie cutter day. As usual, I documented everything on my iPhone - although the photo quality isn't as great as if I were to use my fancy camera, it's just SO much easier to snap a picture on my phone and email it to myself for easy blogging.

Here's a photo recap of the weekend!

Saturday morning was my hair and makeup trial, which I did at my gramma's house while Dan played with Louie and my gramma's dog Abby in the backyard. I am in looooove with my hair when it's all in curls, and was also a huge fan of my makeup. The girl that is doing my makeup used to volunteer with us when she was in high school, so I've always known her as "one of Dan's teens", but I've been telling her for years that when I got married I wanted her to do my makeup, and here we are! The hair stylist is her best friend, and it was great to have the 2 of them already so comfortable working together for my trial. I have no doubts that all of us girls are going to look gorgeous on the big day thanks to Irish and Caitlin being there to help us get ready! Here's a shot of the back of my hair -

After my trial, we headed out with Manda to pick up our wedding bands. While choosing mine was a simple "I just want it to match the band of my engagement ring", Dan had a bit more trouble finding something he loved. He finally found one at Kay's a couple of weeks ago (despite me hating their "every kiss begins with Kay" campaign) -

When we picked up my ring a little while later at a different jeweler, Dan found a DIFFERENT band that he liked more... so we bought that one and went back to Kay's to return the other one. Thankfully, we saved $75, and the new band he picked out can NOT be returned, so he can't change his mind again ;).

Manda spent the afternoon and evening with us, and spent the night Saturday. On Sunday, Dan headed to Great America for work and Manda and I decided to stay in our pajamas all day doing little projects and visiting gramma. I typed up a quick little card to explain the significance of the wood we used for the table numbers, and Manda helped me mod podge them on to the backs of each number out on the front porch. Dan and I later added a quick layer of mod podge to the fronts as well to give them a little shine -

Even though he was exhausted from a long day of roller coasters and water rides, Dan came home and helped a TON with getting the hotel bags all finished! I made a little tag for the candy, which reads:

"Hometown Goodies - The Ferrara Pan candy factory is in

Forest Park, just blocks from Dan & Kelly's house!" 

Dan helped hole punch everything and I tied them up with teal string -

Then Dan turned the dining room table into an assembly line, and the two of us walked around in circles dropping all the different items into each bag -

We also managed to get our handy printer to run these hangtags through, so we could print an "Enjoy your stay" design on them. We hand wrote a little note on the back of each tag in teal and coral, tied them to the bag handles with more teal string, and called this project complete! -

On the schedule for this week is putting together our "must haves" song list for the DJ, painting vases Wednesday night with Bridget, confirming all of our rentals, potentially (finally) finishing up cake plates, and hopefully finding time to make more tissue paper flowers. I'm grateful that this coming weekend is an extra day long!

I Spy

Several people have heard me refer to our house as "Wedding Central" in the last couple of months, so I thought in the spirit of full disclosure I would give my 6 readers a peek into what our life currently looks like nearly every evening and most weekends :). This, my friends, should be pictured in the dictionary under "organized chaos".

Exhibit 1 - The "clean" half of the dining room table. I spy... the ever-handy macbook with a sneak peek at the menu belly bands, my new cutting mat, a ruler and exacto blade ready to score the now printed menus, a packing box full of tissue paper, paint and brushes for the centerpieces, and a cupcake box awaiting labeling...

Exhibit 2 - The not so clean side of the dining room table. (This changes almost daily - and earlier this week nearly the entire table was clean for a whole hour while we ate dinner!) I spy... a vase full of pipe cleaner "flower stems", a plastic bag full of MORE tissue paper (in new fun colors!), striped cupcake wrappers, new ink cartridges for our printer that's working overtime getting everything done, a mini glue gun, the perfect teal ribbon that will wrap around each layer of the cake, random tissue paper flowers, a cup that houses all of my current daily "tools" - pens, glue sticks, exacto knives, paint brushes... 

Exhibit 3 - The fiance, hard at work cutting out menus! I spy... teamwork at it's finest.

So, um, yesterday marked just ONE measly month until the wedding, and I couldn't be more excited. I had a few moments at work when I would think I was going to hyperventilate thinking about it, but in all honesty, I feel fairly good about where we're at with everything for the time being! Whenever it hits me how close it all is, I often think about my friend Lauren's vows, which stated "Today, I marry my best friend..." So simple, and so true. I can't wait.