- {DIY} Candied Pecans - Part II -

Addendum to the previous post:

*ahem*

While men may not be quiiite so stellar at multi-tasking, I have to give our boys some credit for their help earlier this week with the hotel gift bag project.

Lesson learned: Let them operate the heavy-duty machinery, and they're good to go!

Thanks, guys! 

- {DIY} Candied Pecans -

Everyone knows women are stellar multi-taskers, and Resa and I were no exception tonight! We used half of our energy to cheer on our St. Louis Cardinals and the other half to bag candied pecans for our hotel guests.

Before the bagging started, we stamped a special message on each card...

[I wish I could take credit for baking the pecans, but that was ALL my sweet momma earlier this week!]

Cardinals clinch the series: 1 day!

I marry my best friend: 20 days!!!  

- {DIY} Boutineers -

Groom, groomsmen, mothers of bride/groom, fathers of bride/groom, grandparents, musicians, lectors, program attendants, and wedding hosts: you officially have finished boutineers!

We [and by we, I actually mean my dad] used today to wrap flowers and put final touches on everyone's boutineers/corsages/wrist bands.

They are gorgeous! I love the purple feathers on the groomsmen's boutineers.

Thank you in advance to whoever gets stuck pinning all of these on wedding day! [Hopefully you won't LITERALLY be getting stuck! ;)]

- {DIY} Party Favors -

The past few weeks have been busy busy busy with finishing up our DIY-projects; one project we wrapped up was the party favors. Each plate at the reception will get a silver-tied baggie of these chocolate nuggets!

Brian and I spent [you don't even want to know how many] hours working on the favors one night, and only 75 were finished when we were ready to throw in the towel.  Tons of thanks to my grandparents, aunt, and cousins for creating an awesome assembly line  this week to finish off the rest!

[Squeeze in for a picture!  I promise they weren't forced to work this closely all day!]

- Table Runners -

We are in LOVE with these gorgeous shimmery table runners, but man did they come wadded up and wrinkled!  30 minutes and 13 runners later, I was SO over the ironing board...

...So Grandma to the rescue! :)

 

Perfecting the hanging technique was Grandpa's job. We don't want those bad boys to acquire one more wrinkle before November 10!

With her 42 and my 13, the reception hall should be set to go. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!  [Sorry you got the grunt work.]

- {DIY} Wedding Wands -

Wedding wands are almost finished! Thanks to my sweet aunts and grandma for helping in the assembly line this week. 

The wands will be taking the place of bubbles, rice, and rose petals [or anything else you were hoping to throw at us!]. Get ready to wave them loud and proud!  

[One month to go!]

- Catholic Masses -

For all the Catholics in the group who will be looking for a Mass in St. Louis, here are a few of our very favorites:

SATURDAY VIGIL:

St. Vincent de Paul
1408 S. 10th St.
St. Louis, MO  63104

• 4:30 pm

[I song lead here on Saturday afternoons and hold this parish and these parishioners very close to my heart! Perfect fit in between our ceremony and reception...and only a few blocks away from The Cedars.]

*****
SUNDAY:

St. Vincent de Paul

1408 S. 10th St.

St. Louis, MO  63104

• 9:00 am
• 11:00 am

*****

Saint Francis Xavier College Church
3628 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO  63108

• 8:30 am
• 10:30 am
• 4:30 pm
• 9:00 pm (Our favorite Mass EVER, hands down!)

[The church where we are getting married! :)  Also the place where I song led in college and where Brian and I started going to Mass together. The 4:30 and 9pm Masses are led by SLU students.]

*****
Shrine of St. Joseph
1220 N. 11th St.
St. Louis, MO  63106

• 11:00 am

[I song led at a military conference here last month. Huge, beautiful church. Can't wait to go back!]

*****

Cathedral Basilica

4431 Lindell Blvd.

St. Louis, MO  63108

• 8:00 am
• 10:00 am
• 12:00 noon
• 5:00 pm

[For all you traditional Catholics... ;)]

*****

If none of these suggestions fit your schedule, you can CLICK HERE to use this awesome Mass finder on the Archdiocese's website! 

- Bridal Shower -

My aunts hosted an amazing bridal shower at the Wooden Nickel Winery last weekend! I was so excited and am still so honored by everyone who came to celebrate.

This cute groom crashed the party towards the end!

Thank you hostesses! 

With all these awesome shower gifts, I'd say it's time to turn this bachelorette into a wife! ;)

- {DIY} Thank You Cards -

Welcome to our card shop! My mom and I love to stamp and cut and tape and be creative, so we thought we'd get ahead of the game with a little card-making this weekend. [Thanks, Mom, for letting me dip into your stamp collection!]

Bridal shower thank yous, bachelorette party thank yous, musician thank yous, and wedding gift thank yous are ready to "THANK YOU!"

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! 

- Rehearsal Dinner -

Attention family, bridesmaids, groomsmen, musicians, readers, and anyone else who is involved in our Mass: this post has tons of important information for you! [So take notes.] Practice makes perfect, which means you're invited to our rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding! :)


Friday, November 9, 2012

Rehearsal is at 5:30pm.

Saint Francis Xavier College Church

(at Saint Louis University)

3628 Lindell Boulevard

Saint Louis, MO  63108

Please save time for maneuvering through city traffic, parking, and walking! Park in Laclede Garage on the corner of Grand and Laclede. [CLICK HERE for directions.] We have free parking passes that will be distributed inside the church once the rehearsal is finished. 

*****

After the church portion, we will head to the hotel for dinner. [AKA - the "Last Supper!"]

Appetizers and cocktails begin at 7:00pm.

[Dinner to follow.]

Drury Hotel at the Arch

2 South 4th Street 

Saint Louis, MO  63102

The dinner will be held in the Lewis Room of the hotel.  

*****

Map from SFX College Church to the Drury:

Click image to enlarge or print.

Point A (church):

3628 Lindell Boulevard

Saint Louis, MO  63108

Point B (hotel): 

2 South 4th Street 

Saint Louis, MO  63102

*****

- Mailing Monday -

It's mailing Monday...

...which means the invitations are making their way to your mailboxes! :D

- {DIY} Flowers -

My parents' house is spewing flowers, flowers, and even more flowers... Let me just say one thing: planning a wedding gets a LOT more interesting when the father of the bride is also the FLORIST!!!

The week after Brian put a ring on it [literally...a week...or maybe it was only like 5 or 6 days], we were raiding every Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Jeffrey Alans, and Old Time Pottery within a 65-mile radius of our house. 

...Annnnd we basically bought out the purple section in every Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Jeffrey Alans, and Old Time Pottery in that 65-mile radius.

"What do you think of these?!"  ...It's fine Dad, it's fine...

He's one of a kind...

Good thing there were no other shoppers!

By the end of our twenty-something-th trip, I was over the wedding flower business and onto the BABY business! ;) ;) Joking, of course. [Luckily, the FOB was too engrossed in flower picking to notice this pose!]

So proud of his purchases!

Cheers to the winter/spring/summer/every season/never-ending flower project in our basement! Goodbye, Dad... See ya in November!

- Fr. Meconi -

Meet our fabulous priest, Fr. Dave Meconi! After the first day in his theology class at SLU, he was instantly added to my "let's be friends forever" list. 

He. Is. Wonderful. Like really, really wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that he and the church were the first things we "booked" after the engagement.

Bridget: Will you marry me?!

Fr. M: ...*pause*...If you mean will I marry you and Brian, then yes!

Yeah, sure, I guess that's what I meant. ;) 

We are so grateful to have him as our celebrant and so blessed to call him our friend!  

[...And in 1.5 months, YOU will be lucky enough to meet and love him, too!]

- {DIY} Invitations - Part II -

Happy "Stuffing Saturday" to us! ;) 

We sat around my kitchen table for several hours stacking, taping, sticking, folding, and stuffing [and even squeezed in two meals during the process!]. At the end of the day, the invitations were finally completely assembled and ready to go! Yeah!

What a relief! Now we're just counting down to the 8-week mark so we can drop these guys in the mail... So excited! 

- Love Story -

I stole this idea from Pinterest, and it was the perfect project for a rainy day. Love it! 

~ Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite. ~

- Today and All Days -

Wednesday night, we graduated [summa cum laude, of course] from four weeks of marriage preparation class! 

4 nights x 2.5 hours each time was totally the way to go. I couldn't imagine sitting in this thing for 8 hours straight and trying to soak it all in in one day... Wowza. 

Our instructors were the cutest people; they have been teaching marriage prep for 20 years and have been married for even longer! We thought it was so valuable to have both a male and female perspective, and we loved hearing all the personal stories they had to share. [PS - Who knew that couples actually fought about what color of Christmas lights to have or how to replace the toilet paper or how to fold socks...?! For real?]  

The main theme that we took away: it's all about communication, communication, and more communication! Speaking on behalf of both of us (really truly honestly, I promise Brian would say the same thing), everything about this class was so fruitful and brought up lots of topics and questions that we had never discussed before.Thumbs up for the St. Louis Archdiocese and their efforts to effectively inspire and impact engaged couples. 

Cheers to today and ALL the days of our lives!

- Rings -

We got the rings back from Chicago today! The world's best fiance brought them over in a bouquet of pink roses. ;)

It's sooo hard to leave this sparkler in the box! 

[Speaking of rings,] I'm just going to let the cat out of the bag that Brian has been breakin' in his new band, too! Marriage looks good on him, yeah?!

Not that we need these physical reminders that we're in love, buttttt...

[Is it November yet?!?]

- {DIY} Invitations - Part I -

After lots and lots and LOTS of intricate measuring and Photoshop editing and last-minute tweaking [and maybe a little bit of rational arguing]...

...our invitations are off to George Press for printing! Phew!

Brian and my dad were AWESOME at transforming my [really picky] visions to words to sketches to computer files!  Making the invitations ourselves was one of the things we were most excited about in the wedding planning, but it also definitely proved to be the most work.  

[Like literally mind-exhausting work. And Brian earned his sainthood!]

We are so ready to get these back from GP so they can be cut and taped and stuffed and addressed and MAILED! :)

[77 days and counting!]

- {DIY} Rose Balls -

Total bummer: our church doesn't allow flower girls to toss rose petals down in the aisle.

[What?!]

That's ok; we decided they will carry white rose balls instead!

Classy but fun, these balls are easily becoming the new hot wedding trend. We had an entertaining few hours tonight sticking and hot-gluing rose stems into a styrofoam ball -- another super easy DIY project! 

This groom is getting craftier by the day!

They turned out really cute [and will be even cuter as an accessory to our sweet flower girls]! :)

- {DIY} Table Numbers -

15 minutes with the MacBook...

...25 minutes with the paper cutter...

...35 minutes with the double-stick tape...

...and the table numbers are finished! 

[Here's to hoping that we get enough RSVP's to fill the tables! ;)]

- {DIY} Card Box -

Our DIY reception card box is painted, glued, nailed, and ready to rock-and-roll!   

To make this box, I ordered four 8x10 engagement pictures from Schiller's in St. Louis (this lab is WONDERFUL!) and bought four black picture frames from Hobby Lobby (they are 50% off every other week). 

Mesh those materials together with one super creative Dad who can OWN a wood shop (unfortunately, this guy isn't up for purchase), and the card box is set to go! 

One more project checked off the list! Yeah! 

- Chicago -

We took a quick roadtrip to Chicago this weekend [mostly] to have my wedding band made, but also [and more excitingly] to explore the Windy City! 

The first stop was ring shopping at New York Jewelers.  On the way out, I couldn't help but gawk at all these GIANT diamonds in the window! Wowza.

We took a quick walk through Millennium Park and [of course] posed for a touristy picture at The Bean...

NEVER dreamed we'd bump into my bridesmaid from Cleveland on the streets of Chicago...!!! Weird! We had a great time catching up. :) 

Wrigley Field was pretty sweet, but we made sure to advertise for our CHAMPION St. Louis Cardinals! 

The last part of the weekend was spent at the wonderful IKEA in Schaumburg!  LOVE. THAT. PLACE...

...and Brian did, too! :) 

We made it home safely from Chi-town, but my engagement ring has to stay for two weeks!  

...Fourteen days as a single lady...

What to do, what to do?! ;) 

- {DIY} Unity Candle -

If you haven't figured it out by now, we're loving all these "do it yourself" wedding projects! :) 

Today's endeavor was the unity candle. 1 sheet of 8.5x11 vellum + 1 big white candle + a few ribbons and embellishments from Hobby Lobby + [hardly] 1 ounce of creativity = 1 easy peasy project! 

3 months from today and we'll be lighting this beauty! 

PS - I love our unity candle song [almost as much as I love our fabulous pianist who's going to rock it]... Three claps for Vangelis! :) Stoked.

- Stocking Up -

We spent today stocking up on all of our favorite things for your hotel gift baskets! :)

Randall's: you've met your two new best customers!  

Our hotel blocks are filling up... Have you booked your room yet? ;) 

- Tuxes -

A thousand thanks to Jenn at Formals of Litchfield for helping us pick out the perfect tuxes!  

Dapper groomsmen: this is your [informal] invite to stop by Formals and get measured anytime before September 1. 

Thank you Jenn! Thank you Formals!  Thank you groomsmen!