april 2010

Sorry it has taken forever to finally get around to this! Life is crazy as usual in the big apple, and my computer died (and was fixed very quickly, thanks to the amazing people at the 5th Ave. Mac Store - and $150 of my hard earned cash). I also wanted to take some time to play around a bit with new ways to frame images in Photoshop or Illustrator. I finally just figured it out! So - at last, here is some of what happened in the weeks before our big day :)

the beautiful dyson vacuum

my parents got us for an

early wedding present

derek "putting the vacuum together"  :)

easter sunday at our church in hoboken

neff family pictures in freeburg

for dave and lisa's 30th anniversary

a fun night in the NJ

apartment - 4/2/10

(making margaritas!)

lunch break on the steps

of the main NYC post office

at 32nd and 8th

working on table place cards

for the wedding reception

norma from work made me

a handmade "bride" card... 

...and some for all of

my bridesmaids (made to

resemble their dresses) - so nice!

More to come soon!

friends, food, and fedex

Oy... rough day at work. The cure? A nice cold Bud Light Wheat, Derek's home cookin', and a good ol' blog entry...

(where I spend 40-50 hours a week)

This past weekend I was lucky enough to spend time with two of my best friends & bridesmaids, Lisa & Corinne. It was just so nice to spend the whole day together. I always feel revived after seeing them. It was also so nice to see Justin & his gal Jordan, Lisa's boy Jim, and meet Nick (Jim & Lisa's awesome friend)! Definitely need to plan another trip immediately after the wedding. We've been doing a pretty good job of meeting up every so often, whether it's here in NYC, at Justin's in Southern NJ, or Baltimore, at Jim & Lisa's current home.

(the whole crew - minus me - out on saturday night. pardon the iphone quality)

So let's see... where are we in wedding planning land? Only 25 days until "the big day". Yesterday was the RSVP-by date, and we still have about 55 people to hear from yet. So... that will be a fun project next week - calling the stragglers. If you're reading this and haven't sent back your response card - please do! :)

Over the Easter weekend, Derek & I stayed in NJ to just take a break from our long drives home. Granted the drive is only 3 to 3 1/2 hours, but it wears on you after a while. And our trips home have been so packed with wedding craziness that it was nice to just go to church and relax at our own apartment. I look forward to post-wedding trips home so we can just veg out with our families and friends.

(Pictures taken on my iPhone on our last trip home)

(Singing to the pup... or trying to get him to howl)

:)

Our Easter feast? Italian Dinner at Benny Tudino's in Hoboken. So good!! We shared a huge plate of bruschetta (none of that wimpy hors d'oeuvres business), and I ordered a crab raviolli a la vodka. Oh my gosh. I definitely recommend it!

Earlier that weekend we tackled a bunch of wedding projects that had been on the 'to-do' list for many weeks. I finally stopped playing around with the ceremony program design and actually printed them. I think in the end, I had about 20 different versions. So I hope you like them! :) We lucked out at FedEx/Kinkos. They printed all the ceremony programs and table menus (1 per table), AND cut them for under $50!

I also picked up some special wedding makeup at the Benefit counter at Macy's with a giftcard I had leftover from Christmas. I'm not one for expensive makeup (Covergirl works just fine for me baby!), but it really was fun getting a little mini makeover and actually buying the things the girl lathered on my face. It didn't hurt that she threw in a bunch of freebies. :)

Also... picked up the bachelorette party dress (also at Macy's - gotta use that discount!). It's a little black and hot pink number. Can't wait to wear it this weekend!! I got a dress for the shower at Target a couple months ago.

(bachelorette party get-up!)

We're not going to really nail down seating charts or those sorts of things for another week or so, but I got really excited after we'd gotten a good chunk of the response cards back and started writing out table place cards without the table numbers. I think (and hope) everything will look really nice when it's all finished. It's been a lovely year of planning, and it will be so rewarding and exciting to see it all come together.

(getting a start on the place cards)

Next weekend - home for a jam packed day of bridal shower & bachelorette party amazingness!!! Can. Not. WAIT!

bridesmaid footwear

Yesterday the bridesmaid shoes were officially chosen and bought! They're the same Payless shoes I wrote about a couple weeks back. We (okay, I) just took the plunge and said let's do it. They're so cheap and I think they're so perfectly fitting for our naturey-rustic-vintage-farm theme.

I'm also in love with one of the necklaces from Target. It's just a little too expensive at the moment. I want to see if it'll go on sale at any point...

progress

Well, let's see... A few major decisions have been made since the last post! On Saturday, Lisa, Corinne, Court, and Kelsey accompanied me to the Priscilla of Boston in Wynnewood, PA (near Philly), and we found their bridesmaid dresses! I'd rather not post the picture of the dress, as I want a little bit of a surprise factor to still be in store for the guests, but I'll tell you it is not one of the originals I had picked out! I suppose I will let you know the colors though. Two of the girls are wearing a dark gray color called "smoke", and the other two are wearing a very light grayish, blueish green called "seaglass". They'll most likely be wearing these shoes from Payless, which I'm so tempted to buy myself:



I'm looking at these necklaces for them from Target. I just ordered all three online, as I can return them to our local Target (they didn't have them in store), and shipping was free!



And here are my potential shoes, although my mom is currently trying to find the shoes she wore the day she married my dad. She said I could sort of embellish them myself and make them 'my own'. She thinks they might be sort of low though, and she knows I want probably a 3- or 4-inch heel. But if she can find them, I'd be honored to wear them and have a little piece of her attached to me all day. :)


On Wednesday of last week, I met with our cake baker, Cindy Strawser ("The Cake Lady"). She was so helpful! I really think our cake is going to be gorgeous. Also not going to post a picture of what it will look like, but it is one of those I posted a few days ago! Can you guess? We picked two flavors: carrot cake (because Derek loves it) with cream cheese filling; and white cake with chocolate fudge (because I love it) and raspberry mousse filling! We were able to taste test the latter flavor, and it was amazingly good. Cindy also brought out some fondant peonies she'd just recently made, and they looked like the real thing. Can't wait to see it in real life!

my backup singers

Some thoughts on bridesmaid dresses for my gorgeous friends, family & soon-to-be-family:

melissa sweet #223

melissa sweet #215

melissa sweet #215 (back)

priscilla of boston #214

priscilla of boston #313

priscilla of boston #313 (detail)

vineyard #1302

vineyard #1507

vineyard #1508

vineyard #1510

All are from Priscilla of Boston or their sub-brands Melissa Sweet or Vineyard... we're all going on Saturday to look at them in the Philly area.

*all images from priscillaofboston.com*