1 year pre-versary

365 days until our wedding! So what did Sean and I do to celebrate? Well Sean worked all day and I am at home recovering from my wisdom teeth being extracted. I know...we are very un-exciting. BUT next weekend we may be heading to Chicago!!! YAY! I really hope we can make it because I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself (me likey Chicago a lot). I haven't been there in over a year and it's been over 2 years since we have been there together. I feel that it is time to go back! And this time I really wanna go to the Shed Aquarium. The spring break of our sophomore year we stayed for just a night downtown and we walked by there. I think we did a lot more walking than Sean would have liked on that short trip :) we walked all the way from our hotel, which was a couple blocks from the Hancock building, all the way out by Shedd Aquarium, and then to the Sear's Tower to catch the train. Luckily the weather was nice those days. Also, on that trip we went to the Natural History museum...not really my thing, but there were a couple neat exhibits. This time we are going to see dolphins!!!

Shedd Aquarium with the Chicago skyline and even some of the lake!

I am also looking forward to Yolk for breakfast. I have been telling Sean about this place since I went there with my family last year when we there for the Taste of Chicago. I have talked this place up so much I hope it meets his expectations now!

In addition, I'm hoping we have time to go to the beach for part of the day and go shopping (we have engagement pictures August 7th).

 

If we don't make it to Chicago we have a lot of other stuff we could be doing. The big thing being cleaning/packing since we are moving into a new apartment on the 27th! Sean and I are moving to the west side of Iowa City with my sister, Ashley. I'll be sure to post more on that later...but I'm excited to leave my current apartment for a NUMBER of reasons!!

 

I also just want to thank everyone for reading our blog :) Sean and I can't wait for a year from now when everyone comes together to help us celebrate! This next year will be full of planing and trying to make everything perfect with the hope that you all will enjoy it! Thank you for all the support and love!!

engagement party invites

So both Sean's and my parents wanted to have an engagement party for our families this summer. One of my duties this past week when I was home was to help make the invites for the party. Last Tuesday my mom, Abby, and I made an assembly line; my mom was in charge of inking, I was in charge of "powdering", and Abby was the embosser or heat tool-user. I really enjoyed making these invites and thank you mom and Abby for helping!! They turned out awesome! The invites were designed by my mom around a stamp that I made.

The stamp was from earlier in the summer when I felt like being crafty. I had seen it done in magazines and online a few times so I thought I would give it a try (at that point I had no idea what it would be used for...I just wanted to make one). I had to go to the art supply store and buy all the supplies...a rubber mat and a carving tool. Then I looked up online different tutorials for how to make it turn out the best. First, I made a design on the computer that I wanted. Next, I printed the image out and traced over it with a pencil. I then rubbed the image onto the rubber mat to have the image show up. After that, it was just a matter of carving around the letters! I LOVE the way it turned out!!

Like I said before, my mom did all the inking of the stamp. So she used the ink pads and made a tie-dyed type of look and then stamped onto white cardstock. Next, while the ink was still dry, I sprinkled the embossing powder onto the image. After all the excess is removed, Abby used the embossing tool to "crystallize" the image...pretty much the powder is like a wax or plastic material with a low melting temperature. Once it cools down and dries it leaves the image looking shiny and awesome! Here are some pics of the process:

When we were ready to put it all together it was easy. My mom had already cut the cardstock for the cards and made the inserts with the information of the party. All we had to do after we were done stamping the front was trimming the image and then gluing it all together.

We put them into the envelopes and the next day I went to the post office to find out the postage cost and got these sweet stamps :)

the Venue

We began looking for places to have the wedding almost immediately after we got engaged. We looked at places in Iowa City, Des Moines, and Ankeny....hotels, arboretums, golf courses, and many more places. We quickly narrowed it down to a few places that would accomodate our group and also had the look we were going for. Ideally, the look I was looking for was outdoors.

here are a few pics of inspiration

However, with the weather in Iowa being so iffy we threw that idea out the window. I still wanted the place to be comfortable, fun, "not stuffy", and bright. The place we chose is as close to the outdoors as we could get.

The venue is the Enrichment center on the Ankeny DMACC campus. I remember when my mom first found the place. She was on the phone talking to me about different venues in Ankeny to go visit. She was still looking online at places as she was talking to me, too. When she came across this she said "oooooh!! No I just found it. I found the place!" I was a little bit hesitant at first, but now I do believe it is the perfect fit for Sean and I.

Overall, the place is a white, modern, blank slate for us to make beautiful. The first area that you walk into is a large atrium that is floor to ceiling windows on 3 of the walls. One of the walls even has like a garage type door that can be opened to the outside. This is where the ceremony will take place. Also, it will be conveniently be converted into the coctail hour location. A large glass stairway is in the middle of the room. These are the stairs that I will hopefully NOT be falling down during the ceremony.

This is kinda the lay out for the ceremony site...well you can kinda get the picture.



The reception room right down the hall has TONS of windows that face west so we can watch the sunset :) (hopefully it will be pretty that night).

I'm not a fan of the chairs provided nor do I like chair covers....yuck. So we are renting fancy-shmancy white chairs that will be used for both the ceremony and the reception.

A few other important things this place has is plenty of nice bathrooms and tons of parking. :)