Please no more umbrella pics

So, I have been told that beyond 5 days out, the farmers almanac is actually more accurate than the 10 day weather forecast, but I just can't help myself from checking the weather everyday - multiple times a day.  Today the 10 - day forcast is calling for 60% chance of rain on Thursday-Sunday next week.  Ugh.  It rained for our engagement pictures and we got some cute photos with the umbrella, but almost every picture frame in my house right now is a picture of Jon and I under an umbrella - I would really like to fill some with sunshine pics.  Paleease change, weather forcast, palease!!! 

Final days

Its been a while since I have posted about wedding things and thats because Jon and I bought a house about 3 weeks ago.  The final few weeks leading up to actually closing were pretty stressful and it seemed like everyday there was a new issue that arrived.  We ended up closing on the day that we originally had planned on and then Jon and I left as soon as we were done signing the next 30 years of our life away for our bachelor/bachlorette weekends. 

Since closing on the house I literally feel like every second of everyday is planned out.  People keep asking me how I feel that the wedding is getting so close and to be honest - that changes by the hour.  One hour I am completely overwhelmed by vendors calling to check-in, a contractor calling to come finish work at our house and a furniture delivery guy calling to say hes running behind and the next minute I just feel excited and anxious. 

Truth is, buying the house was a great decision- we are very happy with it, but I just wish I had more patience for our life to be out of sorts for a little while- its killing me that there are still unpacked boxes, packing materials and rooms that need to be painted and I know I just need to tell myself to slow down.  After all, I will need some projects to work on when we get back from the honeymoon or else I might go into depression that the wedding is over and I don't have anything to plan anymore. 

After moving in a hurricane this weekend, I had goals to refinish two pieces of furniture this week and decided that I need to refocus on wedding things and start to get myself excited because last week I was so stressed I wasnt even excited, I was just overwhelmed.  Between coordinating 3 contractors, 2 pieces of furniture being delivered, scheduling a moving truck, a washer and dryer to be delivered, working our move around an imending hurricane, all while trying to keep my final dress fitting appointment and final stationary arppointment and working my 8-5 job - I didnt sleep for 3 days and I think I only ate 2 meals in that time span.  These are my final days as a bride-to-be and I really want to enjoy them. 

This week I feel better, the house has enough furniture for us to sleep and eat in for the few days that we will actually be here before the wedding and I have moved all the unpacked boxes into one location so we arent tripping on them. I have been able to switch my focus back to seating charts and floral arrangements, and packing for the honeymoon!! 

One of the Best Parts

I would be lying if I said getting shower and wedding gifts wasn't one of the best parts about getting married.  I can't ever remember a time that I ever recieved this many gifts - not one Christmas, Birthday or Graduation called for as many packages to be opened.  And thanks to modern technology and the genious who invented wedding registries - I like every.single.gift.  Even though I selected the things we wanted as shower and wedding gifts, it was still so much fun to open things becuase I had no idea who had purchased what and it was fun to sort of see people's own personalities and styles in their selections. I could tell that even though I had narrowed down the selection for people, that everyone really put some thought into what they chose to give us.  A lot of people would write little notes in my gifts and say something like "I have this and love it! you will too..."  Others would buy something that I had picked off my registry and then add a few of their own ideas too -- like a group of my lake friends picked crystal wine glasses off my registry and then added a whole basket of wine-themed accessories, complete with Jamie & Jon personalized wine bottle lables - how creative is that?!

Since Jon and I were living long distance until May and we are still not living together and I am in a small temporary apartment until we close on our new house and move in after the wedding - figuring out where to have gifts sent and where to store all of the gifts we recieved was a logistical challenge. Some needed to be sent to Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh showers, some were sent to Jon's parents house and then transported for my Baltimore shower and some were just sent to my  parents house or Jon's parents house.  Thank goodness for Jon's parents enormous basement that I very quickly turned into my wedding gift storage unit. 

(before) 

Those gifts have been shipped from warehouses to homes, from stores to homes, from homes to parties, from parties, to home, from Pittsburgh down to Baltimore and from parties back to Jon's parents house.  And thanks to Jon and his Dad I haven't had to cart all those boxes up and down any stairs.  So to say thanks for carting all these gifts around I figured I would take some time to organize and try to make the most out of re-packing everything so that its fewer boxes to move when Jon and I move into our new house.  I think I was quite sucessful if I do say so myself.

(After) 

Each one of those boxes is labled and categorized so that we know exactly what we are opening when we have to unpack.  And I think I reduced the number of boxes that we are going to need to transport yet again by at least 15 boxes - thats like 10 trips up and down the steps that we wont need to take.  Jon thinks I am crazy but I think he will thank me come moving day.

Bridal shower #3

This past weekend was my third and final bridal shower, followed by a bridesmaid luncheon on Sunday.  All three of my bridal showers were great - each of the hosts thought of my personality when planning and without me giving too much direction made each of the days exactly how I would have planned them for myself.  I am not going to play favorites, but I had SO much fun at my third bridal shower.  My third bridal shower was hosted by my MOH, her mom and my 8 bridesmaids.  The first thing that I loved was that my MOH ordered invitations and then took the invitations to the stationary store where I got our wedding invitations made and had the owner match the graphic on the invite to make a registry card - I loved it. The second thing that I loved was how they chose one of my favorite recipes to serve -- Grilled chicken sandwiches with mozzarella, pesto and sun dried tomatoes on cibatta bread -- my MOH's mom's specialty and I would always request it if we were ever having parties and our parents offered to send food.  I had totally forgotten about how much I loved it until I caught a glimpse of her mom in the kitchen putting the sandwiches together.  Check these out :)

So the food was great, there were yummy drinks - hand purred peach Bellinis - and then we moved onto opening gifts, which is always fun for the bride, but sometimes can be a little painful for the guests, to all my friends who get married after me, I promise I will ooo and ahh at all of your kitchen accessories because I know how excited I was myself to receive them. Something happened at this bridal shower that made me laugh so hard - I never thought it was possible to laugh this hard at a bridal shower.  I am going to try to tell this story, but it might be one of those things where 'you had to be there' - but I am going to try....

 While I was in the middle of opening up gifts, I was handed a card and a package in a white bag - the name on the card said "Pa P!" I thought this was weird - but I have a lot of nick names and I thought maybe this was just one that I had forgotten about, so I continued to open up the card.  When I opened the card the front of it said "Grandpa, on Father day...." so I started laughing, I thought, hmm this must be a joke and when I open the card I am going to 'get it'.  So, I continued to open the card and when I read the names on the bottom of the card I got even more confused it said Love,  Mya (I have a cousin named Mya), Michael (my brother's name) and Abby (My brother's dog). I kept repeating the names "Mya, Michael and Abby" thinking that someone in the crowd was going to speak up and say something....While I was repeating the names, one of our friends from our lake house was sitting in the back saying to the people around her "Why is she saying my grand kids names?" This went on for a good minute or two and finally after laughing so hard that I was almost crying she figured out that she brought in the wrong gift and wrong card and she jumped up and grabbed it from me.  Here is a picture of me opening up the father's day card. 

Definitely made watching me open my gifts a bit more entertaining :)

There were a lot of other things that I loved about the day but the last thing that was a surprise to me, but I loved it and I can't wait to make it an ongoing tradition as the rest of my friends start getting married is a charm cake!  I had never heard of a charm cake before but apparently it is a southern tradition.  The idea is that a baker will place a charm on a piece of ribbon  for the bride and her bridesmaids in the cake while it is being iced and then everyone pulls out the charm at the same time.  Each bridesmaid and the bride gets a different charm with a different meaning. 

I got a four-leaf clover which symbolizes good luck (how fitting for a bride-to-be?!) and the other ones were: 

A tree of life, symbolizing a life of stability
A wishing well, symbolizing that a wish will be granted
A Palm Tree, symbolizing a life of relaxation
An Anchor, symbolizing a life of stability
An Engagement Ring, symbolizing a happy marriage or to be the next in line to wed
A Fleur de Lis, symbolizing wealth and prosperity
A Flower, symbolizing a blossoming relationship
A Shell, symbolizing eternal beauty

It was such a fun idea and the cake was delicious....another one of my favorite things :)

The day after the bridal shower, my grandma hosted a bridesmaid luncheon for me and my bridesmaids which was so great because since we are scattered all over the place it was nice to be able to have some time to sit around a table and eat and talk, but once the luncheon was over and all the out of town guests left, let down was starting to sink in....the weekend went by so fast.  I guess I should start preparing myself for what the wedding weekend will feel like.  The only thing that is helping me be OK with thinking about the wedding being over is that Jon and I get to go on vacation.....well, and I guess I have being married to look forward to also :)

Praying for one of these

  Here are a few pics from this weekend....I can only hope for one like any of these on the night of our wedding :)

How does this last?

Its been a while since this soon-to-be bride has written about wedding planning because since I have moved to Baltimore I have been so pre-occupied getting adjusted and enjoying my new home and life that I have really forgotten about all of the details of the wedding! Ok, maybe not forgotten, but I think the last dream I had about half full jars of candy was at least 2 and a half months ago :)  My type A personality doesn't really allow me to not worry about anything, so I have resorted to worrying about where Jon and I are going to live.  We have started the process to buy a house and have a few leads going-- wish us luck!!  I think I might be crazy for trying to learn a new job, buy a house and get married all within the span of a few months, but hey thats what keeps life exciting, right?!

Moving onto wedding updates! I had 2 wonderful bridal showers this past weekend and the weekend before.

After almost a year of planning the wedding and stressing over all the details, it was a nice change to know that someone else was doing the hosting and all I had to do was show up and enjoy myself.  I was so fortunate to have multiple people offer to host a shower for me - my mom and I thought it would be best to split the showers up into 3 groups - one for my family and mom's friends, one for Jon's family and his moms friends and then my friends from college who live in the Baltimore/DC area and then one with my bridesmaids, their moms and our lake friends. Two weeks ago my Aunts had a cocktail party themed bridal shower for me and then this past weekend Jon's mom's friends hosted a pink and black themed dinner party shower for me.  Both were so great and I was so humbled by all of the work the hosts put into making the evenings special for me.

At the cocktail themed party, my Aunt, whom I will call A.H.  decided that she wanted to have a signature cocktail drink - something like a cosmo or cranberry martini but didn't want to use martini glasses because they took up too much space.  She knew that she had champagne flutes which took up less space and still went with the cocktail party theme- so Bellini's came to mind.  A.H., my mom and her friends are the type of ladies I aspire to be for reasons like this -- A.H. knew it wasn't proper to serve Bellini's at an evening cocktail party because Bellini's are morning drinks.  HAH I would have thought, champagne, peach nectar, sounds like a party - no A.H. knew she needed to get a little bit more creative - so she and my uncle opened up their liquor cabinet and spent an entire evening playing bartenders and taste testing the perfect signature drink for my bridal shower.  What did they come up with? A Can-Bellini-tini which took a component from a cranberry martini and a peach Bellini to make a hybrid drink proper enough to serve at my evening bridal shower.  They were quite delicious and I appreciated the effort in making sure the signature cocktail was appropriate for the time of the party :)

The shower that Jon's mom's friends hosted for me was unique in itself because none of the 5 ladies that planned and hosted the shower for me had ever met me. They had no idea what my tastes were or anything. Either Jon's mom did a great job of explaining what I like to them or we all just have similar taste because everything was wonderful.  The decor was so cute - everything was white and black with pink accents and included fun personalized details like pictures of Jon and I together and as we were growing up with "fun facts" on the back like "Jamie and Jon met at a frat party" or "Jamie and Jon have estimated that they traveled over 36,000 miles visiting each other over the past 2 years".  There were even 3 beautiful hand made cakes that went along with the theme, which was the perfect ending for a girl like me with a massive sweet tooth.

Dessert was served to all the guests while I started opening up gifts, so I didn't get to enjoy it with everyone else, but once I was done I went over to try the cake that everyone had been raving about and the lady who had baked them asked me which one I would like to try?  I had my pick of vanilla and raspberry with butter cream, chocolate, dark chocolate and butter cream or Chocolate cake with Bailey's creme filling and chocolate icing.  I said "Could I have a little taste of each?" and her response was "You can have whatever you want?"  I thought to myself, "wow, this is pretty amazing" and said "How long does this last? that I can get whatever I want?" and her response was "Until the day after the wedding".   Darn.  Its a good thing Jon and I have a butler on our honeymoon, so I guess the real answer is September 19th - the party is over and its up to Jon to keep me happy after that.  Good luck, J.Ro ;)

Never Say Never

I should have listened to J. Biebs.... I said for the first 9 months of our engagement that I would never want to have engagment pictures taken.  I really didnt see the point in them... until I started thinking about how awkward I felt when I had my senior photos taken "working the camera".  I am not a model, and while any sorority girl knows how to smile for the camera, taking pictures in front of a professional photographer feels different.  So after these thoughts I starting thinking about how this photographer whom I have only met once is going to show up on my wedding day and is going to capture all these special moments and I really didn't want to feel awkward - so I thought getting engagement pics might be a good way for Jon and I to "practice".  I am glad we did them...it was a great chance for us to work with our photographer and I also had my make-up artist test out false eye lashes on me so I could see what they looked like in pictures.  I am glad I did that too because even though I had already had a trial run for my make-up I got to see the way it looked in pictures and I now can give her direction to tweak somethings for the wedding day. 

Here are a few samples - all photo credits go to Michaelwill