Oh yes, one more piece of the picture: my sash. It would have been nice to find a dress perfect off the rack. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. The trend now is to have the brides buy a sash of sorts to personalize her look (and spend more money, of course). After much more toiling over this decision, I ordered this sash. I sure hope it looks great because it's not returnable...
I'm not for sure I will wear a necklace for the wedding day, but if I do, it will be this one. Since my earrings and dress are pretty dang blingy, I want something simple around my neck. This is an infinity sign meant for an infinite amount of love and friendship. Seems fitting for a wedding.
I also ordered my bridesmaids the second half of their gift. It's from the same designer on Etsy. I hope they like it!
I have been thinking, contemplating, pondering, comparing, and thinking some more about my accessories for the big day. I saw these earrings a month ago at Dillard's but wasn't ready to commit yet. Well, I did some looking today and couldn't find anything better. I love the teardrop shape and the mix of rhinestones and pearls (my gown has both too). I wanted a substantial earring since my gown is strapless, my hair will be all pulled back, and I'm wearing either no necklace or a small, simple one. They were very affordable too, which is always a plus in my book.
Within a week of sending out invitations, I got 3 RSVP's in the mail! It's very exciting to me to see who all is coming. Can't wait to get them all. Thank you Melissa and Stuart, the Hirsch's, and Allison B. for being so excited for our wedding you just couldn't wait to reply!
Today we met with our harpist for the ceremony. Lucas' co-worker had a harpist for his wedding last year, and Lucas decided it would be pretty awesome. I wasn't into it at first, but after hearing her play today, it's going to be super sweet. We are having Kristin Maahs play for us. Please note she is not the girl in the above YouTube video. She was very welcoming when we met and plays amazingly.
Every January Lucas' Wardenburg family gets together. This year, they decided to combine it with a bridal shower for us. That was extremely thoughtful of them. It was great to meet some family members for the first time moreover get gifts from them! Lucas has a very big, loving family. I'm super blessed to get to be part of that. Don't want to make anyone mad though and have an army out against me! Thank you everyone for welcoming me into the family and celebrating with us!
Today was a loooong day. It started off with mother of the bride dress shopping, my second dress fitting, lunch with the parents, work, and suit shopping on dinner break. Lucas, my parents and I went over to Berardi Bros in West Glen in West Des Moines to check out their suits. We met the owners at the bridal shower earlier this month. Their prices were about $30 less than Skeffington's that we'd checked out earlier. At either place, Lucas' suit would be free since we have at least 5 other rentals. But, he really liked John at Berardi Bros and wanted to save his groomsmen the $30. I'm fine with that. We ended up going with a light gray suit rather than a tux. We aren't big fans of the satin lapel on the tuxes. Lucas will have a matching gray vest, ivory shirt and tie (since my dress is ivory). The groomsmen will be wearing a herringbone eggplant vest and plain eggplant tie to match the bridesmaids gowns.
After all that, I needed a glass or two of wine. Lucas picked up the Big Red Monster for my enjoyment. I've never seen this brand before so I'm glad I got to try it. I probably would have picked it out myself based on the name. However, it was a very bitter red wine. I won't be purchasing another bottle.
One of my dreams in life is to own a home. I've lived in apartments ever since I was 19 and a part of me has always wanted to buy an old home and fix it up. One of my favorite pastimes is looking up homes for sale online. Lame, but true. Well, I decided to learn more about the home buying process so I picked up Gerry Willis' Home Rich on CD. She'll talk me through everything from picking a location, how much house you can afford, and where to invest your money in updates. I think I know most of this stuff from watching a ton of HGTV, but why not learn more so when I finally can buy a house I'll be super over prepared.
We were celebrating a late Christmas at my grandma's house. I wanted to pick up a fun gift for my youngest cousin who's 15. I figure a game is always a useful, fun gift. There's a lot of team games out there. But Buzz Word caught my eye as something different. Sure enough, within minutes of unwrapping it, we broke into two teams and played Buzz Word. It's a really fun game. You'll see on the score card my team killed the other team. To be fair, we played a second round and the other team killed us. By that team, we were ready to call it a night and didn't play a tie-breaker. There's always next time... Bring it on Reject Avengers!
Invitations are officially sent. I dropped them back off at the company for them to mail. The owner offered to do that since I got mixed messages about if they were Ok to mail or not (see previous few posts). I am confident they will make it to their intended recipients just fine. So glad to have this finally done. Can't wait to start getting the RSVP cards back!