Friday, May 27, 2011

How I asked my bridesmaids...

I wanted to ask my bridesmaids in a special way, so although it took longer than I expected, I put these fun little gifts together and gave them to each of them...

The photos of the gifts in this post are of the "Will you be my bridesmaid" gift for my best friend from Alabama - we've been friends since sophomore year of high school -- hopefully she won't mind I've used her pictures. :) And I apologize they aren't the best quality... I took them with my phone camera.

First I went back through hundreds, and hundreds of of photos and collected the best ones of me and each of the girls. It was super difficult to narrow it down. Then I used Snapfish and created 5x7" photo books for each girl of photos of the two of us over the years. I tried my best to do it chronologically too - which was sometimes difficult as well.

Each cover had a picture of me and the girl and a friendship quote below it that I felt represented our friendship the best. For my friend in these photos, the quote says "Good friends are like stars, You may not always see them, but you know they are always there..." Her and I rarely see each other since she's in Birmingham and I'm here in Charleston - but when we do see each other, nothing has changed and we remain best of friends.

At the end of each book, I put in a photo of my fiance and I's engagement (if they were there, which most of them were) and a photo of our Save the Date boat. Then I created my own graphic that said "Will you be my bridesmaid? {pretty please}", with a photo of a girl wearing a navy dress (since they will be wearing navy dresses) and holding flowers. I created a version of the graphic with different color hair on the girl -- so each book had the photo that corresponded with their hair color... lol. My best friend Jenny has blonde hair, so her 'bridesmaid girl' image had blonde hair.

I wrote a special note on the back page of each book that basically said how much they meant to me, etc. and told them how honored I would be if they would stand next to me as I marry my best friend. The back cover just had a little small photo...

It's not a secret that I love Anthropologie -- and for a while, when you ordered from them online they put your receipts in these cute little draw string canvas bags. I collected them because they were too cute to throw away and being crafty (sometimes) I knew I might want to use them again.

So, I bought some cute stamps from Michaels and ink pads in our wedding colors. I decorated the bags with each of the girls' names and our wedding date.

Then I purchased a nail polish and lip gloss in a pretty, pale pink shade from Target - one of each for each girl.

I also wanted to give each girl a monogrammed koozie in our wedding colors -- I was feeling super crafty and wanted to create them on my own with fabric and ribbon I had purchased at Hancock Fabrics. It was quite an undertaking and I created one - which took me an entire Saturday!

And I needed to make 8... crap!

So I scratched the whole 'made by Christy' plan and reached out to fellow Charleston blogger and koozie extraordinaire, LAS Lowcountry. She has her own Etsy store and makes the cutest customized, monogrammed koozies. She found an adorable green fabric, and monogrammed each koozie in navy thread with the girls' initials. She had them finished and mailed to me in barely a week... and they were way better than the one I made in an entire Saturday, lol.

So I put the koozie, nail polish and lip gloss in the little decorated canvas bag and wrapped it up with the book in pretty tissue paper.

I gave each gift to the girls in person, or if they lived far away, I sent them in packages so they got them in the mail as a surprise.

Luckily every one said yes! Phew... :)

So now it's time to start looking for navy bridesmaid dresses.... any suggestions? I love Lulu Kate, but that's way over everyone's budgets. We're hoping for something lower than $200... which nowadays is so unrealistic..but we're going to try. But I would say we are looking for $250 and less....

Have you ever been asked to be a bridesmaid in a fun or unique way? How did you ask your bridesmaids?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Miscellaneous Musings

Tonight we have Willow's final training class - his big test. We've been practicing and he can even do commands with just hand signals -- but -- he has to be calm to pay attention. When he's in hyper, excited puppy-mode, it's hard to get him to listen, let alone sit still. Wish us luck tonight! I hope he gets a cute little graduation cap.


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I really need to trim down my blog reading list -- but it's so hard.. I keep finding more blogs to follow instead of blogs to not follow. Yesterday alone I think I found four new Charleston blogs to follow - check them out in my right column. And they are all way cooler than me...

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And speaking of Charleston - this town is 'small'. Really. I feel like every day I meet someone who I know through some sort of crazy six degrees of separation. And now it's happening in the blog world... I just read on one fellow Charleston girl blog about a guy she hung out with one night last week... who just happens to be the same guy who stood up my best friend for drinks on Friday night...as in didn't even have the you know whats to send her a simple text and say he couldn't go. Geez....it's a small world after all.

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And speaking of Charleston bloggesses...and all of you bloggesses... I'm constantly amazed by how all of you can keep your blogs updated daily, work full time jobs, wear fabulous outfits EVERY DAY, exercise for at least an hour EVERY DAY, cook amazing meals (and have pictures posted on your blog to prove it) several times a week, paint your nails AND your toe nails a different color every week, go out on the town AND STILL HAVE TIME to reply to all of your blog post comments by email....

I often wonder what the heck is wrong with me... I somehow manage to get home from work at a decent time, do some sort of exercise (almost daily, but never daily), take a shower, eat dinner - which is usually some sort of microwavable meal, and barely get to bed at a decent time.

So really ladies -- HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Reading your blogs makes me think I need to take more time for cooking, going out, enjoying this amazing town that I live in...and not be so caught up in the rat race...sigh...if only it were that easy.
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Last month Southern Weddings Magazine put out a call for REAL reader couples - dating, engaged, or married - who live in Charleston for a photo shoot for their next issue. Since my fiance and I are REAL people and are engaged and live in Charleston...surely Southern Weddings Mag would totally pick us. They asked for models though... and headshots. Huh? But surely they want real people to accurately depict love and authenticity... so, maybe I could just send some fun, cute pictures of my fiance and I and surely they would pick us... and add in a cute email that talks about how in love we are, how we're not models, but we're fun, etc. etc. etc.... perfect, right?

I never heard back from them - not even a "We're sorry, but we found someone else" email. Or a "Sorry, we don't take pictures of short 5'3 girls with short, stubby legs and thin hair - we're looking for those beautiful Charleston girls that weigh 90 pounds." Nope, not even that. I got nothing.

And just yesterday they tweeted about the two 'awesome' couples that were 'so fun' for the Charleston photo shoot....

Blah. blah. blah. blah.

Yeah. I'm bitter. Lol.... I don't know why... but I AM! Ha ha... And yes this is dripping with sarcasm, so try not to take me too seriously.

Have you ever applied for something like that and were convinced you'd get picked - even as unrealistic as it was -and then when you didn't, were really bitter about it?

Yeah, yeah.. I'll get over it. But let me stew just a little.

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And can someone please explain to me why it's so crazy hot this week in Charleston? It's only May and it's already this hot!?!?! :(

Taken in my car on my way to grab lunch today - if you can't tell, it says 100 degrees F. Yup...100!

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And...it's official! My bachelorette will be in Vegas! Alright ladies -- all of you that have any kind of Vegas connections, it's time to help your 'ol blogger friend out here. :)


One of my best friends and I in Vegas last year for her 30th

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Ok...enough out of me. How is your week going? Who's ready for the four day weekend -- ME!!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Friday Fancies: Come on, Beach Happy!

Linking up today for Friday Fancies at {long distance loving}.



Thursday, May 19, 2011

Save the Dates are sent!

Since 90% of people now have stainless steel fridges, we decided to forgo the typical magnet Save the Dates and instead decided to do a fun postcard.

And to make it fun, we decided to paint the Folly Beach Boat -- a boat that washed inland during Hurricane Hugo. It's on the main road that heads to Folly Beach in Charleston. Many years ago somebody randomly painted it -- and it soon became a tradition. People paint it for a number of reasons - happy birthday messages, congrats messages, save the dates, etc.

Here's a snippet from the Folly Beach website about the boat:

Everyone who comes to Folly Beach for the first time asks about "the boat". It is a very curious thing.

In September of 1989, Hurricane Hugo washed this boat ashore. It still sits today right where Hugo left it.

No one ever claimed the boat – so a year or so after Hugo, someone had the smart idea of painting a message on it. And ever since, layer upon layer of paint has been applied. Many very artistic! For birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, "I love you’s", "marry me" and just about every other message you can imagine. The Folly Beach Boat has become a landmark here on Folly and will probably be here for years to come.

In the early summer of 2005, the paint became so thick it just fell off in huge chunks. But that didn't stop them....they just kept on painting.
So on a chilly morning back in January, on my fiance's birthday to be exact, we headed out to the boat with paint brushes and cans of paint and spent the morning painting the boat... it was a lot of fun and it turned out great!

And yes...that would be a Michael Jackson song quote on the back of the postcard -- my fiance is a HUGE Michael Jackson fan...seriously, lol...and so it's appropriate, trust me.

Finally all 200+ (yes...you read that right) Save the Dates are in the mail! Whoo hoo!


Up next... how I asked my bridesmaids... stay tuned. :)

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Catching up...

Wow... once again I've failed to blog for an extended period of time. I get in these pockets of crazy busy in all aspects of my life and so this poor little blog has to take a back seat.

First and foremost, I am still thanking God every day for keeping my parents and my house in Birmingham safe during the tornado craziness that hit three weeks ago. The tornadoes went above and below the town I grew up in and where my parents live now. The map below was emailed to me by my mom - the blue dots represent everywhere a tornado touched down and the red dot is where my parents live. Insane.

I was on the phone with my dad as we watched the tornado go through downtown Birmingham -- and I'm pretty sure The Weather Channel was broadcasting from the balcony of my wedding reception venue.

It's been very sad to see updates from my Alabama friends on Facebook - everyone was posting photos and videos of all of the damage after it was over. So sad how random tornadoes can be.

Central Alabama has always been notorious for tornadoes - growing up I remember always being woken up in the middle of the night and going down to the basement. I don't ever remember it being as bad as this though... Truly heartbreaking. It really puts a lot of things into perspective.

On a happier note, we had our engagement photos taken! Yay! First a vintage shoot in downtown Charleston - very Mad Men-esque -- and then a casual shoot on the beach. The photos turned out amazing! I haven't gotten the full CD yet, but here are some sneak peeks:

Then we had a short week and then took off for our annual Emerald Isle, NC beach trip with our friends. It's always a fun, relaxing, get-away-from-it-all trip... we couldn't have asked for better weather. I was inspired by our engagement photo shoot and decided to play around with my ring and our Clemson rings to get some photos on the beach.

We completely forgot to get any pictures of our Clemson rings, and the lighting wasn't so great during the sunset to get pictures of my ring... so I decided to give it a try myself and I am very happy with the results! Our engagement photos photographer asked me to send them to her so she can play around with them, etc. I especially love the Clemson ring photos!

You should have seen the poses I was making on the beach to get these pictures, lol.. my butt was straight up in the air. All of our friends on the trip were laughing at me the whole time...but I don't care, it was worth it! :)

This week has been busy with work and wedding stuff - I finally finished our wedding website and Save the Dates are going out by this weekend! My goal - it shall get done!

How is everyone's week going? I have so much blog catching up to do... sorry I've been MIA with my comments... not that I'm ever good at that anyways. Sigh. :(

Just taking it one day at a time...