Wedding recaps part one: Getting Ready

I was pretty calm almost the entire wedding process, but I remember three distinct days of pure panic in our two-year engagement. 

One month out, one week out, and the night before the wedding.

One of my best friends stayed in the suite with me the night before the wedding, and it took a little while to fall asleep. I remember FREAKING out, telling her that the wedding was some ritual I apparently had to get through to be married. I didn't have cold feet about my marriage; I had cold feet about the wedding and all. those. people. Why did we invite so many people?!

Luckily, she reassured me and I fell asleep feeling sick but a little excited. 

I set my alarm for 6:15 a.m. The hair stylist and makeup artist were showing up around 7:30, and I knew I wanted the hotel's complimentary breakfast beforehand. I am a major morning person and breakfast is one of my absolute favorite things in the world. So when 6:15 rolled around, I woke up feeling refreshed and mostly excited about breakfast with a few of my bridesmaids.

The weird part was that I felt completely, 100% normal that morning. No more nerves, no more panic. And I felt that way the entire day. I don't think I felt nervous the entire wedding day. 

My mom did my hair (and Tom's!), which was fun and special to me. She's being doing my hair since I grew hair...I was bald until I was two or three...so of course, I wanted her to be the one to my hair on my wedding day.

Getting ready was one of the best parts of the day. My friends live all over, so having them in one place at one time was like a dream. Also, my aunt owns a martini bar and my grandma bakes pastries for their "coffee haus" in the mornings, and they brought the most AMAZING scones and mimosas for everyone!

View from our suite on the wedding day.

All of the delicious scones.

My great-grandmother's amethyst ring. Also my birthstone!

My friend/roommate of 4 years made this card for me, and it was exactly what I needed to hear the night before the wedding!

Makeup on, scone in hand, two different socks.

My gorgeous sister-in-law, Sam.

The girls in their new robes!

This dress had a million buttons. Thanks Sandy!

The guys and their Fireball!

My handsome groom :)

After all of that was taken care of, we made our way to the first looks!

Weekend Things, and 6 months to go!

Happy Monday!

This weekend was lovely. Tom and I celebrated 6 months till our wedding day on Friday night at Olive Garden. And we saw Age of Adaline, which we both really enjoyed! Definitely a feel-good romantic movie, with some made-up science thrown in. It was fun.

I can't believe we have hit the 6-month mark to our wedding. We started out at 25 months! Yikes. And the to-do list just keeps growing.

One thing on that list is to keep growing my hair. It isn't easy; I usually chop my hair up past my shoulders once a year. But my mother is a hair stylist who happens to love long hair, and she wants more hair to work with for our wedding day, so there you have it. No chopping allowed until November.

Saturday night we made this chicken which was delicious. We've been doing lots of cooking to prepare for living on our own, and so far, everything we've made has been a hit!

And then I made these cupcakes again. Almond cherry. They are ADDICTING. I made 24 of them and six people polished off all of them by the next day.

Yesterday Tom and I took a walk in the woods to find some large branches to make an arch for our wedding. We drew plans all over the driveway in chalk, which was fun, but not as fun as hopscotch.

Hooray for warmer weather!

My birthday and wedding rings!

Happy Monday, friends!

I am just coming off a weekend filled with food, fun, cake, male dancers and more food. (More on some of that later.)

Today also happens to be my very first day at my new job! I've definitely got those first-day jitters going on.

I'm excited because I actually have posts set up for this whole week. Yes, this past weekend warrants an entire week to recap.

First: My birthday.

Friday was my birthday. Tom and I had the day off, and Thursday was my last day at my full-time job. Friday morning we got up and went to Starbucks to finalize a part-time role I am transitioning out of. That was a big weight off my shoulders; I'm finding that a full-time job and writing my books are enough to keep me busy right now.

After that, we walked around Bed, Bath & Beyond and then went to look at wedding rings. I didn't think I would want one that matched directly up against my ring, but I found this one and loved it. It didn't come with my ring, but it happened to fit perfectly. What do you think?

After that, we came home and relaxed before heading off to one of my favorite local restaurants: The Mackinaw Tearoom at the Depot!

We left completely stuffed, but we had more eating to do. We had a wedding cake tasting that afternoon! I have a separate post for that coming up on Wednesday. After that, we went to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner: Rasoi.

We finished off the night with a movie and eating the rest of our cake samples. It certainly took awhile to recover from all that cake.

So far 24 has been treating me well! Enjoy your week!