Well, I think everything that can be completed is....and things are now out of my hands! I'm just out to enjoy myself and have as much fun as possible in the next couple of days. All this endless planning is finally coming to fruition.
I'll leave you with the latest forecast, which is looking darn nice! How lucky are we?
I'll see you on the flip side, post honeymoon. I'm sure I'll have lots to share!
My girls threw me a fantastic bachelorette party about 2 1/2 weeks ago. We had quite the group...a mix of my high school and college friends...and I think everyone got along just great. We definitely made the most of our day together and had the best time!
We started off in the early afternoon with painting pottery. Let me just say, by the end of it we were all convinced that they should warn you not to pick too big a piece of pottery the first time, as you may get in a bit over your head! There were several of us rushing to finish as our time was up...
I also felt like my idea was good in concept, but I was pretty much convinced that my piece of pottery was going to come out looking like a 5 year old did it. I chose a nice platter that was divided into four sections. Becky has picked them up and is giving them out this weekend, so time will tell if it's a piece I will actually use....or one I will stash in the back of the cabinet, never to see the light of day again! 
From the pottery place, where we had yummy margaritas and snacks, we headed back to our hotel rooms in downtown St. Louis. We grabbed our "happy hour" drinks from the hotel with our drink tickets, some more snacks, and then headed back to our rooms, where I opened gifts. I got several nice pieces of lingerie, some "sexy bride" underwear, as well as a cool, sparkly Cardinals hat. Thanks girls!
After the gift opening, we got all spruced up for a night on the town!
I was given a lovely veil to wear, as well as a "suck for a buck" lei. 
Once we were all prettied up, we headed down to the lobby where the security guard offered to take our picture. 
From there, we headed to The Landing for some dinner and dancing. We all had lovely penis straws during dinner, so there was no doubt what we were out for that evening!
See them on the table there? I was also sporting a light up diamond ring, which is what I'm showing off in the above picture.
Here I am with my maids (Becky was running a half marathon the next day, so she only joined us for the pottery)...
After dinner we headed out to the bars. The girls had a game called "That Guy" which was basically a deck of cards, each with a different guy you had to hunt down in the bar. A couple of examples... "A guy from the band" and "Get a guy to show you his underwear" and on and on. We broke into two teams and tried to see who could finish first. It was a lot of fun. And we have photo evidence of our successes...
As the night wore on, I began raking in the money on the "suck for a buck" scheme...totaling $68 by the end of the night.
There was lots of dancing and lots of fun... And how often do you see a guy dressed in a kilt?
We closed down the bars at 2 AM...or maybe 3 AM....I don't know! We all headed back to our hotel rooms, changed into our PJ's, I guzzled about 3 bottles of water, and then shortly ended up like this...
Thanks for the great party girls!
I finally completed the bar menu today. And some would say, that's the most important part! I was waiting for us to finalize everything, as we were still buying wine and mixers this last week.
We're having a specialty martini, which I think is wonderful. And be careful, it's silent but deadly. 
We're calling it the "O'Fallon Orange-tini"...a little play on where we live, plus the actual flavor of the drink....and color of our wedding! It's a mix of vodka, orange juice, blood orange juice, and triple sec. Mmm, mmm.
We're also having Seagram's VO and my favorite, Wild Turkey, for mixing. Can't beat good whiskey. Along with the whiskey, we'll have some Smirnoff vodka for mixing as well.
Now for the wines... We've purchased a nice Columbia Crest Grand Estates Merlot for our red wine. Plus a little St. James Cynthiana for the Missouri folks. And then for the white, we went with a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. We had a little wine tasting for the whites and that's the one that won out.
For our beers, we'll be having Bud Select and Blue Moon. We thought about the Harvest flavor of the Blue Moon, which is an autumn beer with pumpkin flavoring, as well as cinnamon and other spices. But we figured that would be too seasonal and most people probably wouldn't drink it. So regular Blue Moon it is!
And then we'll have a few sodas, like Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Mountain Dew. And then a little tonic water for mixing. And last but not least, our water in the bottles with the personalized labels!
Happy drinking!
Saturday night before dinner, Berni and Dave brought upstairs a wrapped wedding gift. "What is this?," we asked. Well, after opening it, it turned out to be the most special wedding gift we have received thus far.
Nate grew up with Berni's sister Brenda's in-laws being just like grandparents to him. They are a little older now and couldn't make the trip all the way here from Washington for the wedding. Instead, they sent the most meaningful gift with Berni and Dave to deliver to us. You see, Virginia paints...she does pastels, oils, and lo and behold even paints on cermaics. She is 86 years old and is just incredible. It's so great for someone to be able to continue to do what they love and are passionate about, even at such an advanced age.
So our special gift? None other than a painting of the church we will be married in. Take a look...
How incredible is that? She got everything down to the detail of the Virgin Mary statue displayed out front of the church. After my pottery painting experience at the bachelorette party (more on that to come), I appreciate talent like this even more!
On the back was this:
It's probably hard to make out in the picture. It says...
You all remember my past posts about the pew cones, right? How I had wanted to do them, but then couldn't find a good way to make them. And then how my mom ran across some great instructions and we tried them after all? Well, this weekend was the culmination of that entire project.
Several, several weekends ago, my parents and I spent hours one Sunday covering, gluing and beautifying our Styrofoam cones.
It was a lot of work...and I glued the sh** out of those things with hot glue. The last thing I want is for them to fall apart before we even get to bathe in their beautiful glory.
So then fast forward to this weekend. Berni and I went shopping for artificial flowers yesterday for the pew cones and for our floating centerpieces. We then worked for several hours today, filling the already covered and beautified cones with the pretty fall flowers we had purchased. And I have to say, they exceeded my expectations. I think they look absolutely fantastic!
Here is how the floor looked at the beginning....lots of flowers, no strategy. 
However, after we worked out the kinks with the first one, it became a much more streamlined process. Here's our first cone, which we worked from for the others...
Pretty nice, right? Compact, yet fun and wispy. Well, I think with every consecutive one we completed, they just got better and better as we got more creative. Here's one of the last ones of the bunch...
The one unfortunate happening is that we ran out of flowers after cone #9. That means another trip to Hobby Lobby or Michael's to pick up just a few more stems. But if that's all that went astray, we can count ourselves lucky.
Here they are in their glory, all boxed up and ready for the car ride.
I think they're going to be a beautiful addition to the church aisle. They'll really give the church the pop of fall color that I was hoping for. And we'll finish the last three tomorrow night!
The news on the flowers for the floating centerpieces isn't so good, however. We had found these really snazzy berry branches to use...BUT, they kinda disintegrate in water. Um, not exactly what I had in mind. So on to round two on those....we are now on the hunt for "rubbery" flowers....
So I think I've mentioned my need for organization before, yes? Maybe a few times?! 
So this probably won't surprise you. Although, maybe it will. It surprised me how long it turned out! I admit maybe it was a bit over the top, but not for a J-personality type* like myself. And it was as much for my own sanity as it was for helping everyone else know where to be and when. That’s right- I created a 17-page “Wedding Weekend Packet” for all involved! It took me most of Labor Day weekend (with a couple of emotional breakdowns...) to really get everything right. Plus, my poor mom read over it more than once, but I did eventually get it completed and I sent it out to everyone on Sunday!
Now what could possibly take up 17 pages you ask? Here’s a glimpse into my pride and joy…
I began with a cover letter introducing the packet to our family and friends. The contents were as follows:
The Logistics Overview. A list of key wedding day contacts (aka people to call if you have absolutely no clue what is going on), key locations and their addresses, and a list of the key events taking place over the course of the weekend.
Overview of Weekend Events. A three-page more detailed list of all the key events taking place over the wedding weekend, including our rehearsal, our rehearsal dinner, the wedding, all the way through to a brunch the day after. Under each event, I provided the date and time, location, point person to contact, who was required to attend, and a brief description of the event.
Detailed Wedding Day Schedule. This was probably a little overwhelming for some (or all) at first, but I sincerely hope this will help our wedding go incredibly smoothly! It is a four-page schedule listing the main activities, underneath which I broke out specific activities, all in time increments. It listed each activity next to the time and the parties involved. Here’s a glimpse…
Map, Shuttle, and Directions. Pretty self-explanatory. This was a three-page section that included a map of Jefferson City/Loose Creek (which I created using Wedding Mapper and then just taking a screen-shot of the image), directions from the airport to the hotel(s), hotel(s) to the church, and the church to the reception site. I also included the shuttle schedule.
Description of Roles. This section was four pages long and detailed out the specific responsibilities of different people involved, preempting any last minute wedding day confusion. I included what activities they needed to be present for, what time to arrive, and what they were on point for. Of course, people didn’t have to read all four pages...all they had to do was jump to their section (i.e. bridesmaids, lectors, etc.).
Photo Sharing. This section was created in hopes that our guests will be taking digital pictures at the wedding. I setup an account on Flickr and provided guests the login and password information, so they can share their pictures with us!
That about sums up “The Packet”! I got crap from some people , but in the end, I do hope everyone appreciated it! If nothing else, going through the process of creating this at least gave me peace of mind, and will allow me to relax and enjoy my own wedding day…which was reason enough for me!
*I am referring to the Myers-Briggs personality types. A “J” personality tends to approach the world with a plan, prefers to be organized and prepared, and has a tendency toward closure and completion (as opposed to taking a more adaptive go-with-the-flow approach).
Read more...This truly has been a fantastic week! Each day brings fewer items left on my "to do" list. In fact, it's now shorter than a half page. I am definitely an organizer, planner, and list maker. I get such a thrill from scratching an item of my list. 
Anywho, I've spent the week confirming with all of our vendors: the florist, caterer, DJ, photographer, rental place, chair cover place, our decorator, etc, etc. And I'm feeling so good about things. All I can say is I've done my best and if anything goes wrong, oh well. I'm to that "let's just get on with it" point. I have definitely had fun planning and organizing, but I truly am just ready to get married. And I haven't forgotten that's what all of this is about!
One other huge thing that was accomplished this week was our seating chart. I pestered Nate all weekend because he told me he was going to help. Well, his "help" turned out being helping me figure out the two tables his family would be sitting at. Uh, hello? If I knew that was all he was going to help with, I could have started the thing on Saturday morning, instead of spending the entire weekend waiting on him and staying up until midnight on Sunday working on the stupid thing. It's partly my fault though. I mean, considering how much he has helped up until this point, why would I have expected more? Anyway, the good news is that after several calls to my mom, the seating chart is complete! And I have sent off the list to my aunt, to begin creating the escort cards.
Did I mention the wedding is in 8 days? Wahoo!
© Free Blogger Templates Photoblog III by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
