I'm Shooting For A Bakers Dozen...

I'm going to be honest here... I've been in a few weddings.  As of my last count it was 10.  By this time in my life I feel like I'm pretty much a pro at being part of someone else's big day.  The first wedding I was in was my Aunt Ann's and my wonderful friend Megan Wright helped me through the day.

Obviously I was thrilled.  Every time I look at this picture I find something new to laugh at.  Between my stance, the look on my face, and how my feet are, this picture is really a winner.  I look like I just can't stand the excitement any longer.  As the years passed I've become much more enthusiastic about weddings and I've honestly loved being a bridesmaid / candlelighter for my friends and family.  When all my wedding days are behind me I think I'm going to take all of the dresses I've worn and make a quilt.  It will be the most expensive quilt ever made. :)

Anyway, I thought I'd use this post to relive some of my past weddings via pictures.  As I thought about doing this post I was kind of sad to realize that I don't have a picture from every wedding I've been in.  How does that happen?  I have no freaking idea.  So here we go... 

After high school I was asked to be in two weddings pretty close together.  From a set of twins.  I tried to convince them to just get married on the same day since it was going to be pretty much the same bridal party, but they wouldn't do it.  *sigh*  The first to get married was Jackie:

I guess it was only fitting since she is three mins older.  I was reviewing these pictures and I was a L-O-T thinner back then.  I should work on that.  Next came Julie:

Now don't get fooled... I was sucking in with all my might and using the "scarecrow technique" made famous by Steph's mom.  I didn't really look that good.  Matty drove all the way from Columbia to surprise me by coming to the wedding.  What a wonderful man.  Around this time I was asked to be in my friend Ericka's wedding and I had previously been a last second candlelighter for her sister's wedding.  These are the two weddings where I don't have a single picture.  It's sad, really.  This is also the time when I got mono and looked fan-freakin-tastic.  If only I could get that again.  Next up was my cousin Alisha's wedding:

See?  Mono.  It was great other than the horrible weakness and sleeping for three days straight.  When I finally woke up I looked amazing.  After Alisha's wedding (which had 15 bridesmaids) I was asked to be in my friend Ginnie's wedding.  Her mom made my bridesmaid dress and it was such a relaxed ordeal I kind of wish every wedding was like hers.

I did my own hair and a friend of their family took that picture. Along with this gem:

We look like we're ready for a rumble.  And we were.  That same summer I was in my friend Steph's wedding.  It was a slightly fancier affair, but still so fun all the same.  Since her parents own a golf course we got to ride around in golf carts in our dresses.  It was awesome!

This picture's so cute and it's kind of funny because three of these lovely ladies are engaged now and one is married.  Now for my most recent weddings... I was in two weddings this past summer.  Both were my cousins and the first was Jennifer:

It was such a fun wedding, too.  Plus my hair was rockin'.  Now for my most recent wedding.  For this one I flew to Peoria and I can honestly say it was the fanciest wedding yet.  My cousin Emily got married exactly one year (minus a day) before I will.  It's so fitting since we're almost exactly one year apart, too.  We shared first communion dresses, our moms shared wedding dresses, you get the picture.

See?  Super fancy.  Just as a warning... my wedding will not be NEAR this level of class.  Of course, it wouldn't be mine if it did...

We Need To Light Up The Night...

I love lanterns. I think they’re absolutely fantastic in every way. They’re such a beautiful method of lighting up the night rather than the streetlights outside or the fluorescent lights in the community center. I think next time I’ll have to put up photos of exactly WHERE my wedding will be so that everyone reading this can begin to fully understand the little utopia I’ll be sending them to. But that’s next time, Ladies and Gentlemen… this time is going to be about lanterns. I mean, just look how beautiful this is…

You know, the lanterns in this photo are absolutely beautiful with the umbrella and the people gathered around, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the SECOND best thing about this picture would be the big old guy in the bottom right.  He seems like the kind of guy who would just randomly yell at people to bring him beer and spare ribs.  I wonder if we're related...

Other than my beautiful lanterns I've also decided to light up the dance floor with mason jars. Matt's mom, Sherri, was fantastic enough to give me a TON of her mother's old mason jars.  When we brought them back from Missouri all I had to do was wash them (since they had gotten just a little dusty from not being used).

 See?  I told you she gave me a bunch.  And some of them are so cool looking...

I'm going to try and find something extra cool for that guy.  I know that I'll use some of them from candles and hang them around like this...

And maybe set a few on the tables like this...

But I had never really thought about using them in a different way until I saw this picture...

First, I love love love peonies and have been kicking around the idea of having them in my bouquet for quite sometime now. I mean, they're HUGE so you'd really only need a few, right? Second, how cute is this to have flowers hanging from trees. I'm not a big "floral arrangement on the table" person so this could be a cool way to have some flowers around. I’ll have to do a post on centerpieces sometime because those are DEFINITELY a work in progress.   Much like the rest of my wedding...

And For My Lucky Ladies...

Because I've been in a few weddings myself (I believe it's been around 11 and I'm going to shoot for a bakers dozen by the time it's all said and done) I know what it's like to wait and find out just what the bride will be putting you into.  Now, I love every single one of my brides that I've been able to stand with as they said their vows, but that didn't stop my nerves before seeing the dress.  What if they picked a color that looks like something a toddler would throw up?  What if every other bridesmaid is flat as a pancake and I look like a floozy - note this is a constant fear of mine in bridesmaid dresses.  Never once in my life have I seen a bridesmaid dress and said to myself, "Oh there's no way my boobs are going to fall out of THAT."  N-E-V-E-R.  It's not the bride's fault... I blame mother nature.

Anyway, I knew a few things about what my bridesmaids would be wearing.  I knew it would be short and I knew it would be flowy.  Nothing makes me happier than when I can wear a flowy dress at a party.  It's so fun.  So I started looking around on websites and ended up on Mori Lee first and found quite a few cute ones and after e-mailing my bridesmaids with some options we settled on this one:

I love this dress and it's also the dress my friend Mrs. G had her bridesmaids wear so I knew it would look nice in a real wedding.  So we were done.  Until I saw other dresses.  Sorry Ladies!  The next thing I thought of was the idea of bridesmaids NOT matching.

Look how cute they all look in their jewel tones!  Then I realized that I've got more bridesmaids than that and chances are I would let everyone pick their own color and it would look very very strange.  Next came the idea of everyone having the same color, but different dresses.  Like this:

I even love the color of these... so fantastic.  Again, I ran into the problem of a lot of bridesmaids and maybe not having enough types of dresses.  I love the website Mod Cloth because they have the cutest dresses that you don't usually see in stores, however the problem with THAT would be finding a dress I liked, in the right color, and making sure they had enough in stock.  I gave up on that after about six seconds.  Who knew it would be so hard to pick out some dang dresses?  Flash forward to Thanksgiving '09 when I went with my mom and sister to pick up my wedding dress.  We decided to go to The Villager On Broadway and check out their stock of bridesmaid dresses.  After my loving little sister / maid of honor spent some time trying on different dresses we found a winner!!!

I know... it's different, but after the waist is tied with a champagne sash it's amazing.  Here's a close-up...

After thinking about all of my past bridesmaid escapades maybe I picked this one because I wouldn't have to worry about my top half putting on a show for the world to see.  Also, my dress has some lace on it that matches the flowers on the dress.  I love it.  I want to buy one for myself and wear it out.  I was so worried that my bridesmaids would hate it because it is kind of unique so I sent a big e-mail kind of explaining the sash and reassuring them that it's adorable.  God I hope it's adorable...

Soooo... You Wanna?

I was looking through this blog the other day. All three posts of it. When I realized that I never put on here how Matty proposed to me. It started when my Grandma called me months and months ago to ask if I wanted to use her engagement ring when he finally proposed. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the conversation went something like this:


After she initially asked I said, "Weeellll, what does it look like?" In the back of my mind I was picturing the worst case scenario... gold (I have almost zero gold jewelry) with a bunch crazy tiny diamonds. What if it was extremely unattractive? How do you even tell your Grandma that her engagement ring's a big fat stinker? Before I go any further and you think that I'm a horrible person for talking to my Grandma like I'm about to, I want to say that she's a sparkplug.

(Obviously)

Back to the story...  My Grandma pauses and says, "It's white gold and I loved it when your Grandpa gave it to me... the only thing is that it doesn't have any diamonds in it."

"What's that Grandma? You say you're giving me a cleaned out wedding ring? Is it made of gum wrappers, too?"

"Maybe... you'll have to wait and see."

"You're crafty, Grandma, but I'd love to see it. We'll talk after you prove it's not something you bought at Dollar General." - side note: I was being serious... she LIVES for that place

"Done."

Now,  if you're still thinking I was rude to my Grandma let me take a little detour and tell you a story about her.  I once asked her to knit me a white scarf because she kept going on and on about how good she was getting at knitting.  She agreed and a month or two later she gave me an adorable white scarf.  I wore it so proudly, telling all my friends that she had made it and blah blah blah.  She later confessed that she bought it at a flea market and lied to me about making it. 

(This is what she looks like when she's NOT fibbing about gifts...)

So the next time I was able to go to Missouri she showed it to me and I loved it. I gave it to Matty and he put diamonds in it. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. I got the ring in the early fall / late summer and I didn't get it until he proposed on New Years Day. Here's how it happened...

I guess before Thanksgiving Matty went to a park in town called Swanson Park that we like to take Chowder to (when we want to brave her crazy anti-other dog behavior) and walked to this pretty wooden bridge that I've always loved.

He had carved "Ashlee will you marry me" in a spot under the rail and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Come to find out, he really wanted my parents to be in town for it so he was totally ready on Thanksgiving.  They couldn't make it.  I couldn't figure out why he was so upset about it at the time.  I mean, I love my parents but he was super sad.  Fast forward to New Years Day and he said he wanted to take Chowder to the park since it was such a nice day.

After Chowder walked in the woods for awhile, we got back to the bridge and he said, "What's that say there?" Since we like to read the carvings I thought it was just some other random thing so I bent down to look and I said, "I have no idea what that says... Jerry... Jeffrey? Oooohhh" and about the time I figured it out I looked over and he was down on one knee with the ring out.

Adorable, right?  He's amazing.  If you ever want to see for yourself you can go check it out... it's on the post that says "Foxy Lady" on it.  Perfection.

You've Got To Have A Pretty Lure To Get The Best Fish...

Today I thought I’d spice it up and talk about something other than food for a post. Because you know for a fact that the majority of my posts will be about food. Just stating the facts. I think this post is going to be about my invites. I love them like crazy and I have my friend Mrs. Gerstenschlager to thank for the base of my ideas. I know what you’re thinking and yes I agree that her last name is amazing. It must take her a full 20 minutes to sign her checks. Anyway, here are a few invites I loved but just couldn’t settle on.  Again, if these are yours let me know and I'll give you the credit.  The first was one sent to me by Mrs. G because my fiance proposed to me by carving "Ashlee, will you marry me?" into a wooden bridge.  I know... he's fantastic.

I think it's so adorable and it really kind of ties in his proposal, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I could just see my grandparents getting the invite and wondering just what in the hell it was. Or using it as a coaster. Either one.  Onto another super cute idea...

or

True these are technically Save the Date cards, but I figured I could tweak it a bit and have a pretty kickin' invite. It's simple. It's adorable. I love it, but it really doesn't mesh with the rest of my wedding planning. Unless I want a carnival themed wedding. Which would be amazing. I have tons of pictures for that saved on my computer, but I thought it might be a little TOO weird. Maybe I'll post those next time. The suspense must be KILLING you guys. Right. Now onto where my final invite got inspiration. I found this one somewhere on the internet and for the life of me I have no clue where it was. So sad. At any rate it's so fantastic. I love the colors and I love how simple it is.

Amazing... I know.  We're planning of having our dance outside under the stars with lights strung up everywhere, so this invite would have been perfect for that.  I almost ordered it and had pretty much decided that we would use this one (if I could ever find it back) when my amazing Mrs. G sent me this one...

Because Matty carved my proposal into wood this was almost perfect for an invite. I love how the tree is just an outline and the sweet carvings on its trunk. We aren't having RSVP cards *another gasp* because we pretty much know who's going to make it and who might not. We've decided to set up an e-mail address instead and print it on the invite. Who knows if it's going to work. It could be fantastic or it could be a massive disaster. I'll let you know which one! Back to the invites, I ended up sketching out this beauty for our final choice...

Now, I realize this isn't the best picture, but it's good enough to give you a general idea.  I combined the amazing tree with some of the lights from the other invite and if you look to the left of the trunk you can see a small figure that, I'm not going to lie, is Chowder our dog... with her tennis ball.  She was there when he proposed and she's the coolest dog ever so it was only right to put her on there.  I couldn't be happier with this invite if I tried.  I even love the wavy lines on the side.  When it comes to the writing, the rest of the invite will be similar to the other tree invite.  I think it's such a simple and sweet invitation and I love how it fits both the proposal and the wedding.  Now if I could just find some place to print them off...

Ooooohhhh Wedding Planning...

On January 1st my fiancé and I celebrated the fact that we've been engaged for a year... and we're still not getting married until September. Why the long engagement? Well, there's quite a few reasons in all truth. We live in Kansas and we'll be married in Missouri so planning from a different state is complicated. More than that, however is the fact that I come from an obscenely large family and we had so many weddings this past year if I would have said my wedding was September 2009 I'm honestly not sure if anyone would have come. The only person with a liver that could have handled it would have been my amazing Uncle Ron and since he passed away there's no one that can fill his koozie. I thought I'd start putting a few things on my lovely little blog about my wedding planning because I just KNOW that everyone's dying to hear about it. Right guys? Right? Hello? Screw you guys... I'm doing it anyway. Where to start........

I think I'll start with the wedding cake, because I'm not having one. *GASP* Yah I said it. Matty and I were talking and we both agreed that we don't really like cake. Especially not wedding cake. So why in the world would we spend a ridiculous amount of money on something we could care less about? The answer my friends is we aren't. Here’s how we came to this decision.

At first we wanted a cake because… well because that’s kind of what people DO. We talked about what shape we wanted, what color, what flavors, you name it. However, while we were talking we realized that we just could not get excited about a dang cake. I called my friends who recently got married and a few of them admitted that they don’t even REMEMBER seeing their cake. No dice. We weren’t going to pay a butt ton just to never see it. Forget it. So what would we have? For awhile we talked about having a cookie bar because I l-o-v-e cookies. I love to bake them, eat them, decorate them, you name it. Here were some picture we found (side note: it’s been so long since I found these photos that I have clue where they came from so if they’re yours let me know).  The first one is just a bunch of cookies in jars.  Simple.  Perfect.

How cool is that?  Cool enough for me to bake a bunch of cookies the days before my wedding.  Not really.  I was really doubting the whole "cookie bar" idea and then I found this picture:

Still adorable, right?  Still not cute enough to motivate me to bake like that.  Typically I love baking cookies (as I said before), but typically I don't bring any leftovers home.  That means that no matter how many cookies I make they either get eaten or someone throws them away on the sly... either way that means a BUNCH of cookies.  Next we were thinking that maybe candy.  Yah!  Candy bars are really popular now.  I found some super cute pictures of those, too.

We even found an adorable kid's table idea:

I think we're sticking with the kid's table idea, complete with the brown paper and crayons for all the little ones running around.  Hopefully they look happier sitting at the table than the kid in the picture above.  Did they force him to sit there?  Anyway here's what we ended up choosing for our dessert... get excited...

PIE!!!!!!!!  We're going to have wedding pie.  I couldn't love this idea more if I freakin' tried.  Both Matty and I love pie and, really who doesn't love pie?  Crazy people, that's who.  Now, don't panic all your cake eaters... there will be cake there.  Just not a whole bunch.  We're going ask all our bridal party what their favorite pie is and make sure they either get a slice or, if we can swing it, their own personal pie.  The cuteness will be OVERWHELMING.  Matty and I are even going to cut a wedding pie.  Now if we could just agree on a flavor for that...