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!

Getting My Butt Back to the Gym!

Now that we are pretty much moved into our house, I have finally ran out of reasons why I can't make it to the gym. Well, I ran out of reasons that aren't completely pathetic. So today the hubby and I hit the gym!

Being that we have moved to had to go to a different gym- well it's the same gym company but a different gym location. This gym location just opened a few weeks ago and they have different scales than the other locations.

When I saw this scale all I thought was "Isn't this the type of scales that they weigh cows with?". Nothing better then feeling like a cow when weighing yourself... not.

It's not the worst number I've seen on the scale, but I liked it better when it was in the 170's.

My hope is that if I want to wear a bikini come the cruise in March that I'll be comfortable enough in my own skin to do so. What it says on the scale is second to how I feel. And currently I feel like I sit on my butt for 8.5 hours at work, come home and sit on my butt some more, and then go to bed- so getting up a moving more is going to help make me just feel better.

Wish me luck!