BACHELORETTE party

Last Saturday, my sister and friends threw me an AWESOME bachelorette party. The whole night of fun was in Newport and it seriously was a blast from the beginning to the end!

All the ladies met up at my parents' house and then (after a few cute pictures) we headed to Newport to catch the Newport Dinner Train. That night, the train was putting on a broadway revue show for their guests. They sang songs from musicals such as Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, and the Sound of Music. Let's just say it was ... pure CHEESY! The singers weren't professional enough for it to be an awesome show, so instead, we enjoyed chuckling to ourselves at the ridiculousness of it all and singing along to the best songs. At one point, I even got called up to help the singer dance to the number "Dancing Queen" from Mamma Mia. The whole train was clapping and cheering for me. I hammed it up big time and a few guests told me I stole the show!

From there, I knew we had to go to karaoke next. So I suggested it and when you're the bachelorette... ask and you shall receive! We headed to a bar we found online (searching on the train) called Jimmy's Saloon. It was basically empty when we got there which was great because we got the stage first! I started with a little Alanis Morrisette and nailed it. I love karaoking that song. I also did "Oops! I Did It Again" by B. Spears and dedicated to my hubby-to-be. Obvi I was aiming for ridiculous/hilarious. Then the ladies also did other songs like, "It's Raining Men," "My Humps," "Love Shack," and "No Scrubs." Lauren and I ended the evening by singing, "White Trash Wedding" by the Dixie Chicks. Very appropriately hilarious, if I do say so myself.

We seriously all just had a fab time being goof-balls, enjoying the people watching, dancing and singing the evening away. It was perfect and I'm so thankful to my sister for putting it all together for me... and to my great friends/family for partying with me too! And I must throw this out there... probably the best part of the evening was watching the REALLY awkward loner at the bar (the one who sat alone the whole time and got up every once in a while to karaoke some random rap songs) get up to dance to a Rhianna song, shaking his little booty and gyrating his hips faster than I've ever seen. Good thing Sarah got video. We'll remember that forever.

Thank you so much ladies! You made the night better than I could have ever imagined.

Here are some pics of the fun/happy/silliness:

All the ladies, ready to head out to Newport

Dancing on the train to Dancing Queen
It was very tricky to pull off, with the train moving and all!

This one's hard to see, but we're all posing in front of the Newport Dinner Train.

The ladies singing "It's Raining Men"... getting the crowd pumped!

Dancing to "SHOUT!" The guy in the plaid was AWESOME
at karaoke. Great voice. Fun dancing :)

 

everybody's workin' for THIS weekend!

Well, the ball keeps rolling. I've gotten almost everything on my ta-da to-do list finished... and with no surprise, there's still more to do! It's pretty great though. I feel like the end of all the planning is almost here and soon it'll just be time to relax and enjoy the wedding! If there's any advice I have to give about the final week of wedding planning, I'd say get it all done by two days before the wedding at the latest, if you can. I've been working my tail off these past two weeks, but the pay off is that the two days leading up to the wedding, I can be a calm-as-a-cucumber, to-do list free bride. So here's what I've gotten done in the past week:


Perfect programs for the ceremony
My brother Matt took over on this project and they look great! They still need to be printed, but they're basically done.


Design and print signs for the reception hall
These are all set! Matt designed these as well. He used the fonts the we used on the invites and save-the-dates so all the printed things sort of go together. I'm not going to show pictures of any of these now though... I want them to be a surprise to all the guests.

Design and print inserts for the luggage tag favors
Matt designed these as well (seriously, he's awesome) and FedEx Office took care of the printing today. I tried Staples first but they were going to be a bit more expensive. Lesson learned, if you have printing needs, choose FedEx Office. Other lesson learned: FedEx Office = Kinkos. Kinkos doesn't exist anymore. That was confusing for a little while. 


Make the tack-the-map board
My dad helped me put this together tonight. We decided not to use a map of the whole world because all our RI guests wouldn't have had room to fit their tacks on the map (insert RI-is-super-tiny joke here)! Plus, we don't have anyone coming from out of the US. Problem solved! So, we ended up finding a great vintage map of the US at Staples the other day that we glued down to the cork board tonight. We had to glue blue ribbon borders around the map since it didn't quite fit on the large cork board we had. Oh well! It actually looks really neat. Can't wait to have our guests tack their locations on to the map! It'll look even better. 

This was before we added any of the ribbon...
 a very early version of the tack-the-map project.

Meet with the DJ
I met with the DJ (my brother's friend Chris) about a week ago, the same night I worked with my brother Matt on all the printed stuff for the wedding. It seems like the night will flow smoothly! He knows all the songs I want to be played (which will be collected by my brother, loaded on to my computer, and played from my iTunes on the night of the wedding... saving money!), when to introduce things, who to introduce, etc., etc. I was a little nervous about music before I met with him, but I'm much more comfortable now. We still have a lot of music to find and load on to my computer, but this should come along over the next few days. 


Work on speech for rehearsal dinner
I let John take care of this and he did an AMAZING job on our speech, trying to convey our deepest gratitude for all the wonderful things our friends and family have done for us... not only to help in planning the wedding, but just overall throughout our lives. I'm so glad I let him take over on that. It should be very moving that evening :) 


Make bags for out-of-town guests
This wasn't on my original to-do list, but my mom had the idea to put together some bags for the out-of-towners staying at the Radisson. We found some of those reusable grocery bags and filled them with information about Newport, RI, directions to the church, water bottles, snacks, my dad's ideas for touring Newport, RI and my top 5 list of things to try in RI. I'm excited for our guests to see/use them!


Perfect the seating chart
This was one of my most challenging tasks in prepping for the wedding. It was just really difficult to get the right combinations of guests in the right numbers at the right tables. Then, after finally figuring it all out, I had to write it all out for the Radisson, which ended up being a stressful event in and of itself... because included with writing it all out, I had to list the food counts... chicken vs. beef vs. vegetarian vs. kiddie meals. The numbers kept turning out  wrong. We ended up with 130 guests, but the food wasn't adding up! It took me a little while of counting and re-counting and re-re-counting, but eventually I figured it out. All's good in the hood now! My suggestion though... don't offer more than one meal option. It'll make the seating and organizing WAY earlier. Just my two cents!


While I'm here in RI working on all this wedding stuff, John is still back in Houston putting our apartment together! He is about 96% moved out of his apartment as I type this and has been working on moving all his stuff over for about two weeks now. I felt bad leaving him behind to put our new place together, but he's doing such a great job! It's so exciting to talk about "our" apartment! I'm not used to saying that. Can't wait to be his official roomie!


And even more exciting is that I get to see him again in about 48 hours. He arrives in RI on Wednesday late into the evening. Before he arrives, we'll be having dinner with his parents and siblings (because they fly in before him!) at my parents' house on Wednesday night. Then, after that, just a few short days left til the wedding! I really can't believe this... it's almost here!! 

Bride on a Mission

I'm getting stuff done! Here are the few things I've checked off my to-do list.


Travel home to RI
This was probably the easiest task on the list. Not going to lie, it was a stressful day of travel (had to deplane the first plane for mechanical issues and got pushed to a flight 5 hours later. Then had a "lost luggage" scare in RI after landing.) A long day, but made it home safely with the gown!

Run to the craft store to buy stuff for reception hall decorations
This has taken us two days. I'm pretty sure we've gotten all the supplies we need. We've been to about 10 different stores buying lots of different do-dads (corkboard, vases, string, sharpies, etc.). We'll probably need to do a few last minute runs, but I feel good about getting almost all the shopping done. 

Make the seating key cards and attach to keys
It's taken me a few hours to get this all together. Yesterday I stamped every one of the envelope cards, then labeled all of them with guests' names. Today I attached the keys to each one. All that's left is adding the table numbers... but we haven't 100% figured out where everyone is sitting yet, so we'll have to wait for that.

Finish bridesmaids gifts 
They're all bagged and ready to go! I had lots of fun putting these together. Can't tell you any more because my b-maids are probably reading this now. 

Have a make-up trial run
It turned out great! This was a pretty easy task too. Just sit in the chair and let the professional make you pretty :) We had to adjust the lip color a few times, but in the end, I think we got it right. Loving the smokey eyes...

Have another final fitting with my gown
Well... there's a bit of craziness to this one. I mentioned a few posts ago that after my final fitting in Houston, I wasn't 100% happy with the way the gown was fitting. So, I set up an appointment at Sassy & Classy here in RI and went in expecting to make just a few small adjustments. An hour later and that wasn't the case... one look at the dress and the seamstress could instantly tell that it needed a lot of work. We took in the sides more, fixed the completely crooked hem, changed the bustle completely, and even discovered some pins that the seamstress in Houston had left in the gown! Talk about crazy. I'm a little stressed about how much it's going to cost to fix it all, but to be honest, by the end of the appointment I felt SO much better about the way the gown was fitting. Looking back on pictures from today, I can finally say that I feel that I look like a bride in my gown, whereas before (after fittings in Houston) I never quite felt that way. Sorry I can't show you pictures of this one, but you only have to wait a few more days to see anyway :) I can't believe I've kept it a secret for this long!!


Tomorrow we have another meeting at the Radisson to finalize plans with Linda, the event coordinator. There will probably be more to report in the afternoon. Stay tuned!