it's all about the details

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately! I've been busy working on all the little details for our wedding which, by the way, is only 17 days away!!

We are trying to make a lot of things personable and do them ourselves to help bring people (aka our guests) into our life together. Oh, and to also save money :) You'll just have to wait and see all that I've been working on for just a little while longer!

quick trip home Wednesday

This past week I made a quick trip home for a few wedding related appointments on Wednesday. My first appointment was my last dress fitting. I'm so SO happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to put it on in 3 weeks again!! However, the feeling is a little sad about it, too. Just because I have had many visits there and I have truly enjoyed working with Faythe at Dornink.

Me with Faythe in my dress. Sorry you only have to wait 3 more weeks to see it all :)

going to miss visiting

After the dress stuff my mom and I headed to the mall for my make-up trial run. It went well, but it felt so weird being pampered and it taking so long to put the make-up on. My usual routine takes about 2.5 minutes and this one took almost an hour...

So after the make-up and some shopping (I even got Sean his wedding present) we had our final meeting with the caterer to finalize the menu and get everything else finalized. It's surreal everything coming together and making decisions. But, also sooooo exciting. 

the best weekend EVERRRRR

If you can recall reading the story, here, from the Meet the Couple tab Sean wrote about what he thought a perfect day for me was. And, we lived it (well close enough to it) on Saturday. It was an Ah-mazing day :)

First, we headed to the Cedar Rapid's Farmer's Market. I had been counting down the days since Monday. Even ask Sean. I'm weird like that. We got the usual, breakfast bowls, breakfast burritos, donuts, and a slushy. YUM!

Sean's "Ship Wreck"

my burrito we looked all morning for

quadruple berry slush

After the farmer's market, we spent the afternoon by the pool. I got to read some of my book (it's the 2nd of the Hunger Games trilogy), jump off the diving boards a few times, and catch some rays.

yay pool time!

Then, we came home took showers and ran to Walmart for some things and stuff for dinner. Even this made it perfect, because I love doing low-key/normal stuff with Sean! After Walmart, we made our Pad Thai dinner. And, it was really really good for coming out of a box :) But, we added a few of our own fresh ingredients to make it better...

Then we ended the night with strawberry and peach shortcake, a movie, and a rainbow!!

it was even a DOUBLE rainbow

Sean's new favorite

The next day was Sunday, I got up to work out and when I got home Sean made me breakfast. ALL of breakfast...it's definitely a first :) We spent the day laying around, doing laundry, and starting making the seating chart. 

The only thing that would have made the weekend more perfect was if we got to see our families on Sunday for Father's Days! Hope everyone else had a great weekend :)

I'm looking forward to spending many more low-key FUN weekends with the future hubby in many MANY years to come!!

We at the hotel, motel, Holiday Inn

I'm talking about Pitbull's Hotel Room Service song...1. because many of you don't know, but Pitbull is one of my favorite singers/artists!! and 2. because I would like to remind everyone to book a room for the wedding soon!! All the information you need is on the accommodations tab, here. As I have said many times, the weekend of our wedding is also the weekend of Ankeny's annual summer celebration, Summerfest, so many rooms will be booked. So this means you should book soon!!

Oh! and just to clarify any confusion...Holiday Inn (from the title) is NOT one of the hotels we booked rooms for, it's just part of the song lyrics :)

it's even more official

Last Thursday we made it even more official when we turned in our marriage certificate application. Sean's friend/one of the groomsmen, Brian, was our witness that went with us. I was expecting a DOT-like (Department of Transportation) place with a few windows, long lines, and grouchy people when we went to the Johnson County recorder, but it turned out to be really easy, quick and the lady was really nice! After our short stop the 3 of us went to Short's for some burgers. As always, they were amazing!!!

Other than getting that checked off, according to theKnot.com here is what else we will be finishing up the rest of the month prior to the wedding....

• Apply for a marriage license. Check with the local bureau in the town where you'll wed.
• Bride: Have final gown fitting. Bring your maid of honor along to learn how to bustle your dress. Have the dress pressed and bring it home.
• Call all bridesmaids. Make sure they have their gowns ready for the wedding.
• Make last-minute adjustments with vendors.
• Create a wedding program to hand out to guests.

1 month countdown

I can't believe we are finally here and we hit the 1 month countdown; our last one!! I know I say this just about every time, but I really do feel like I was writing the 6 month one just a week ago. Wow how fast time flies!!

But, for the countdown this month we wanted to focus on YOU...our guest! We recently got (most of) our RSVP's turned in. Oh! And those who haven't RSVP'd please let me or Sean know ASAP so we can get started on the seating chart :)  Anyways, we just wanted to tell you that we looking forward to seeing you at the wedding celebration in just 1 month!! Each of you have contributed something to our lives through the love, support, encouragement, and laughter. Who we are today is because of you all. For those of you who will be there with us on the special day it means so much to us :) And, no hard feelings for those of you who can't make it...we are sad, but understand how busy the summer can be!

Sean and I hope you're getting as excited as we are because we (and our families) have been working hard to make it a fun day for everyone!!

our weekend

Sean and I had such a good weekend!! It's the first relaxing weekend we have had since the middle of April...and April wasn't even that "relaxing". It was crazy!!

Friday night we went out to eat with our friends, Matt and Katy. We ate at Red's Alehouse in North Liberty. Sean and I ran into the North Liberty Days parade on our trek there and had to find a detour, but we found it AND it was worth it! The food and atmosphere was amazing there! We got to sit on the patio and enjoy the perfect weather and amazing company! Thank you Matt and Katy for having dinner with us! We had a wonderful night!

our appetizer! YUM!!

what a good looking couple! (even with Matt's tongue out) lol

Sean's spicy thai flatbread

my burger

Then, on Saturday, I got to make a large and amazing breakfast and lay out in the sun with Katy. Later, Sean and I watched a couple movies, made dinner, ran some errands, and finished the night with some left over DQ cake :)

On Sunday I got up and made banana muffins. It was the first recipe I made from my recipe shower last weekend. It was Sean's aunt Cindy's recipe for banana bread. We were too impatient to wait the whole 40 minutes for the loaf to bake, so we put it into muffin tins instead. They were amazing!!!

our morning...Sunday newspaper ads and Sean's hunting shows

Later, we made another batch of the Mexican Queso and it was better than I remember!! Overall, we had a wonderful and relaxing weekend! Hope you had a great weekend, too :)

groupies

In case you are confused when you get our invitation I wanted to clarify what we'll be doing. The timeline on the invitation said "a group picture will be taken of our guests prior to sitting down to dinner" and that is exactly what we'll be doing. But, here is a little more clarification...There is a large staircase is the atrium of where the cocktail hour will be. Everyone will stand on the ground floor and our photographer(s) will be able to get a shot of hopefully everyone. We think it will be a special way to be able to remember all of our guests :)

Here are some examples...

Sean's Promotion

Congratulations my soon-to-be hubby on getting a promotion at work!! Around here, we celebrate with DQ cake and this time with a Batman DQ cake!

Saturday: Hickory park

I know this post may be boring or may not be that important to some, but in my life Hickory Park is important! Not only is it considered our first date site (in Sean's eyes), but it's also a place for some good eats!

On our way home from the wedding shower this past Saturday we stopped at Hickory Park in Ames for a late lunch/dinner. Abby just wanted the cheese balls, and I wasn't going to argue on a chance to eat there. They've got some good cheese balls, especially dipped in their ranch! sooo good!!

So we ordered cheese balls, our meals, and then you absolutely CANNOT leave Hickory Park without having ice cream so Abby and I split a chocolate shake and Sean got a cookie sundae.

our cheese balls!!

Abby

Wedding shower in Carroll

I had my last wedding shower this past weekend at Sean's aunt Debbie's house in Carroll. It was thrown by Sean's aunts Debbie and Kathy. I had a great time and it was wonderful being able to see everyone!

We ate some delicious food and played a few games, which I was terrible at lol. One of the games was a famous couple match game where it said one half of a famous couple and you had to write down the other half of the couple. I'm pretty sure I got maybe 5 of the 21 names, ha. Sean's aunt Nancy that won that game! Congrats again Nancy! Then, we played a bridal shower word scramble where there were 20 lines with jumbled up letters and we had to un-scramble them to make a word. I was better at this one, but Abby and Abby won that round! Good job Abby's!

Kellie, Emerson, Ella, and Hailey playing

the big winners of the scramble game...the Abby's and Avery 

After the games I opened gifts and then we had the reaaaallly good cake.

Sean's grandma and I with the Nativity set

I got a sewing machine from Katie, Abby, my mom, and Abby

the red plate from Ella, Emerson, and Hailey

Avery playing in the cute wrapping paper

the beautiful and amazing cake!!

Sean's grandma and Reese

group picture (minus Cindy)

And now for a small photo shoot of Reese and Avery...

Thank you everyone for such a fun shower and Debbie and Kathy for hosting it! Also, thank you for all the thoughtful and amazing gifts! We can't wait to see everyone again at the wedding!

Early Wedding Present

Sean gave me my wedding present a little over a month early. I had been wanting a bike for a long time...well since my old one was stolen last summer. I picked one out the weekend before finals week and it came in about 2 weeks later. I have been enjoying it a lot already :)

A few funny stories:
The night we got it I rode it home and the pedal fell off. I'm not sure if it was too greasy or if the one person didn't install it correctly. The screw part of the pedal was all shredded and it wouldn't go back in correctly when we tried to put it back on. So 2 days later I had to go back and they replaced the whole part. Now it works great!

I have also already had an accident :( You know when your tire gets stuck in the crack between the sidewalk and the grass?? Well I was trying to go around some people walking last week and when I was attempting to make it back onto the sidewalk the tire got stuck and it sent me flying to the other side of the sidewalk and scraped up a chunk of my left thigh and left a really sore bruise on my arm (I think this is where my handlebars hit me). One of the girls ran over and before she said "are you ok" or tried to help all she said was "I like your shorts". haha. My mom said she was probably just trying to make me feel less embarrassed, which is probably the case. But, I was still very embarrassed! But, it's all good now, the bike is still in good shape and I'm healing from both the embarrassment and the scrapes and bruises.

Thank you Sean for a great wedding present!! I'm looking forward to many more bike rides to come :)

finish this sentence...

I will be sure to hit the dance floor if you play this song ___________________________________.
(don't forget the song title AND artist please)

Just leave a comment by clicking on the pencil at the bottom of this post.

Sean and I have been hard at work trying to pick music to play at the ceremony, dinner, and the dance. But, we want to make sure all of your guests will dance with us! So tell us what you want to hear on July 14th and we'll play it for you!!