Top 5 Wedding Things: #1- The Bridal Party

When you think of weddings you think about so many things, but I really feel like the most important thing we did for our wedding was picking our bridal party.

For both Sam and I, we think of our friends as extensions of our family. I mean we love our friends so much that we asked them to join us on our honeymoon- not too many people would do that. So when it came to picking our wedding party, we wanted to include some of our closest friends.

When it came to picking the boys, I knew that Sam wasn't going to have too hard of a time picking. To start, he knew he had to include his two brothers.

Being that they're brothers, they have always supported our relationship and have always made me feel like family. These boys are characters and I was glad to have them join us on our special days.

Sam and Mike have been friends since junior high. Mike is one of Sam's oldest friends and it was a no-brainer that would be in our bridal party.

Tommy has been our of friends since he was in 8th grade. We were introduced to Tommy through Mike, but Tommy quickly became on of our good friends. Many of our stories from high school were at his house and/or he played a major part of the shenanigans that were had. He's fun, crazy, and knows how to have a good time.

Finally you have Chris. He is one of our newest friends, but he has a huge place in both of our hearts. He is crazy and he always makes for a good story (aka- the garter fight). We always have a good time when we are with him, but we also know he always has our back. When you think of people you want by your side during the zombie apocalypse, Chris is that guy!

 When it came to the girls, I also knew pretty quickly who I wanted to join me during my big day.

My sister was a pretty easy choice. Being that she's my only sibling, I knew I needed to make her my maid-of-honor. Even though it has taken us many years of fighting while growing up, we are finally starting to understand each other. I feel like as the years go on, we continue to grow closer and closer. We always have each others back, even if we don't express our love for each other as much as some other siblings may.

These three girls were very obvious picks for me. We have been friends since high school, but our relationships have only got stronger as we get older. I have been spent countless hours with these girls over the years. I know if I every need anything, all I have to do is pick up the phone and call. If I went into how important each of these girls are to me, would be it's own blog post. So simply put, my wedding wouldn't have been the same without them.

Finally, the last of my girls was my friend Cathy. She's been my friends since high school, and is always my shoulder to cry on. I have always had this connection with her that I've been able to talk to her about anything. She was great during the wedding process to help me with some of the things I just didn't want to deal with (my flowers, my dress, my favors, etc.). She was always willing to offer a helping hand in whatever I needed.

Without our friends I know Sam and I wouldn't be the people who we are today. Each person in our bridal party has played an important part of our lives, and I'm so happy they decided to share in our of special day.

Top 5 Wedding Things: #2- The Dress

I hope everyone's weekend is going well so far. I think that after watching 3 or more "Say Yes to the Dress" episodes in the last 24 hours, this post comes at the right time.

#2- The Dress

When it came to dress shopping, I wasn't too excited. Like many brides I wanted to lose a few pounds before the big day, so I really didn't want to go shopping until I had lost a few pounds first, but my bridesmaids had only plans. Even though my wedding wasn't until October, for some reason I had to get my dress by the end of Christmas break. So on New Year's Eve after 3 different bridal stores and many dresses tried on, I found a keeper.

I won't lie, I didn't cry or freak out when I found it. However, the sample dress I tried on was about two sizes too small and the dress was white. Like really really white!

When I first started dress shopping I figured I would get a white dress; but after seeing ivory dresses and how they looked with my skin tone, white just wasn't going to work for me.

Of course when the dress came in the store was willing to do the alterations for an additional cost; however, I have heard too many issues of brides who got the alterations done at the store and had been unhappy, so I figured I would go to someone who I really trusted... my cousin Carla!

So I packed up my wedding dress and brought it to Michigan just to have my cousin do the alterations and make the bustle. I loved that I was able to visit with family and get my dress completely altered in one weekend. It was awesome!

Come the big day, I was so happy with the how the dress made me look and feel. It made me feel like a real bride. Plus I could tell by the look on Sam's face, I picked the right dress. 

Top 5 Wedding Things: #3- Music

It's the weekend! YEAH! I hope you have exciting weekend plans. And exciting totally can include doing nothing, because life is sometimes just too busy. But on to other business...

# 3- Music

I can't tell you how important music is to a wedding. I have worked enough weddings to know that the music can either make or break a wedding. However, being that I have worked so many weddings over the years that I really didn't know what I wanted my first dance song to be.

I knew that more than likely whatever song I picked I would have already heard it many times at other weddings, and it really wouldn't be that special. So I did something most brides wouldn't dare to do... I let the husband pick our first dance song. Not only did he pick it, I also didn't know what he had picked until the moment it started playing at our wedding. And this the song he picked out... (fyi it has a long intro, so if you don't want to listen to the whole thing- I understand)

My wedding day wasn't the first time when I heard this song. In truth I had heard the song probably hundreds of time before because this was one of Sam's favorite bands in high school, but I never would have thought about using it as a first dance song. However, it was perfect. These are my favorite lyrics of the song...

Your arms in mine, anytime
  I wouldn't trade anything
You're still my everything
To my surprise, before my eyes, you arrive
Don't worry I'll catch you
Don't ever worry

I think that your first dance song should be something special that you and your spouse will remember for a life time, and this song was that for us. The lyrics are prefect and it was a prefect song for our first dance!

Top 5 Wedding Things: #4- Garter Fight

#4 - Garter Fight

Everyone knows that some women can get a crazy when a bouquet is tossed their way, but typically the men try to stay as far away from the garter as they can. Well this was not the case at my wedding. 

There not much else to say other than we had a full blown garter fight at our wedding... and it was awesome! I'll let the pictures just tell the story.... with my side comments.

Sam gets the garter...

 He's ready to throw... (and he does, but there no picture)

And Chris takes my cousin Travis down!

Chris goes for an arm twist.

Travis is still hanging on and fighting back.

Travis gets up to hoping get an advantage.

But Chris is not going down that easy! He's so intense!

  No guy wants to be in that position. This could get bad for Travis if he doesn't let go.

And the winner is...

Chris!

If you would like to see the whole thing on video my DJ got some pretty good footage of the whole garter fight (but the fight not until the 8 min 50 sec mark). Check it out here!

Top 5 Wedding Things: #5- Decor

Being that my 1st Anniversary is 5 days away, I thought it would be fun to do a "Top 5 Wedding Things" count down. One of the main reasons why I started this blog is because of my wedding, so I thought I would be nice to reflect on journey that got me down that aisle. 

#5 - Decor

One of my favorite things about my wedding was getting to do some DIY projects to make my wedding more unique and to fit my personal style. 

Different projects included my centerpieces, my card box and my cake topper. I think my cake topper was my favorite out of all projects I did, but the projects started with a simple card box.

In my second blog post ever this project started the snow ball effect that would become all the my do-it-yourself projects that I decided to undertake.

The centerpieces took the longest time to figure out, because I want a few different types of centerpieces to give the room a little more interest. There was my short centerpiece-

There was my tall centerpieces-

 There was the feather one-

And the weird one- (there is no other way the describe it)

 

In the end I really like how all of them turned out, but now- after almost a whole year, all the centerpiece stuff is still sitting in the dining room of my mom's house. I have told all my friends who are getting married- if you want to use any of this stuff, let me know because I have no clue what to do with it.

My decor wasn't completely all DIY projects, I got some help from Sam's aunt. 

I love that I've been able to reuse these wedding decor items in my new house. Sam's aunt carved some fake pumpkins (from left to right) with our names, our wedding date, and a set of wedding bells. Also, I was able to make guest book more functional by having it become a piece of art by having a "thumb print" tree.

Originally I was planning on just ordering a the tree from online, but having Sam's aunt paint the tree base makes it even more special. 

Finally, I couldn't talk about my decor without bring up the one item I knew I had to have the moment that I saw them at my cousin's wedding in 2003-

My glass unity candles. I love glass things and I love candles- so I had to have them. Plus I love that I could buy colored oil. 

The only thing we should have done was test the candles before the day of the wedding. Little did we know that the candles were a little more like flamethrowers. Check out how big the flame got just on that first tapper candle compare the the alters candles.

  

Everyone was a little worried that we we're going to burn down the church, but we were lucky and everything was fine. It's things like this make a wedding unique & memorable- well, it would have been more memorable if something did set on fire, but it was better this way.

Mixing Work with Friends

On a typical day I may never leave the four walls of my office. However, today wasn't one of those days. Once in a while I get the chance to leave my office and go out on recruitment events. I have to say like when I can get out of the office; but I love when I get the chance to mix a work event with visiting friends. Today's recruitment event was down state, so I use this as an opportunity to visit some friends that still live in the town where I attend college at last night.

On a random side note: During this trip my car hit a milestone in it's car life-

My car turned 150,000 miles! I know this may sound kind of stupid, but I love that I've been able to drive this car so long. This is the same car I've been driving since high school and I had some great memories with it. I know the day is coming when I'll have to get a new one, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Back to the trip-

It was weird going back to the town that become home for 4 years, and seeing what has change and what hasn't. Part of me felt a little home sick being back there because I have some great memories from that town and these people.

Chris and Lindsay were nice enough to let me crash at their place for the night.  On any trip I would totally prefer to stay with friends than at a hotel by myself. We went out for dinner lat night and was later join by my grad-school friend Brittany.

It was nice to get to see her because I have only seen her one other time since our wedding last year. Being that she's getting married in the next year, we talked about how "fun" (aka- stressful) wedding planning can get.

I'm glad that I was able to visit with my friends I don't get to see often. This trip reminded me that the drive to visit them isn't that long, so I need do it more often. I always say "You have to be a friend to keep your friends", and I think this trip helped make these friendship a little stronger.

All in all the trip was a success and a nice day out of the office.

Making the Most of My Day

This may sound weird but I have always loved when I can getting a lot things done in one day. I feel like I don't often make the most of my time during a single day. However yesterday was one of those days that I got many things done, and at the end of the day my life felt fulfilled. Here the breakdown of how my full day when:

7:00am- Wake up. Eat breakfast.

A few days ago I make some chocolate muffins. What can I say, I love my some chocolate in the morning.

8:00 am- Drive to work.

8:30am to 1:00pm- Work. I love that have a traditional Monday-Friday job, but every so often we have an event that I have to work on a Saturday. Oh well.

1:30pm- Get home. Clean up the kitchen a bit. Make lunch plans with Jen.

2:00pm- Met Jen for lunch.

3:00pm- Stopped by Sam's parents house to start doing our laundry for the week.

3:45pm- Went to church with my dad.

5:00pm- Went back to Sam's parents to finish our laundry. In Addition I got caught up on my reality TV without my husband judging me. I can't help that I like "19 Kids and Counting" or "Married to Jonas".

7:30pm- My college roommate Jen (different Jen then the one I had lunch with) had people over to her house for a "Pintrest Party".

She is a big fan of Pintrest, so she wanted to try out some of the things she saw.

Plus, she started her own small cupcake business, so we she made us a seasonal punkin spice cupcakes with a cheesecake filling. She makes some good cupcakes, so if your looking for cupcakes for a party and are from the south suburbs of Chicago, you should check her cupcakes out here. 

11:00pm- After many laughs, tasty food, and hang out with good people. It was time to go home.

11:30pm- Spent a little time with the hubby getting caught up on our day.

12:15am- Go to bed.

Today was a great way to spend my time, and I hope to have another fulfilling day today! (I can check off updating the blog off my to do list!) I hope you have a great rest of your weekend!