Dress fitting (kinda)

I wasn't sure if I even wanted to post this. But here you go...Just a little background first. Remember when I talked about my dress here? And how much I was in love with it? Well about a month or 2 after that I started second guessing the dress because I started to compare my dress to other dresses. Big mistake. We thought about starting the dress search over, but I really didn't want to that. And, there were things I liked about my dress that we could work with. We decided to talk to a dress designer at Dornink in Des Moines to see what we could do to "customize" my dress. The first meeting was during Thanksgiving break and we talked about the different things we could do. So our second meeting was this past Friday.

So here is where the funny/embarrassing/motivating part comes... I stepped into the dress and tried to zip it up. Yea we TRIED. It did NOT zip over my butt-hence the embarrassing part. It was then when I realized how much I have really enjoyed my mom's baking/cooking for the past month and no rec center to work out in. All we could do is laugh, because it was quite funny. At least we got the hook at the top clipped so at lease we could make progress on the other things we wanted to do. In the end, I'm very happy with how my dress is looking now. Each time I look at the dress I like it more and more...

Now for the motivating part. How can this NOT be motivating?? In less than 6 months I have to fit into an expensive dress. Not to mention wear that dress in front of 300+ people. So I have started a wedding diet and start working out again! Our next meeting is during Spring Break so we'll see where I'm at then :)

ring bearer

so like I said I would do on Tuesday...this post is about our ring bearer. Garrett is my cousin Jill's son and he will be 4 next summer at our wedding. He's so much fun and whenever he comes over to our house he knows exactly where our toys are!

he always asks us to do the kissy face and points to his cheeks to take this picture

Have you seen these pictures before? The little guys are dressed in shirts that say "ring security"? cute!

professional

And these signs are cute, too! I've also seen pictures of the ring bearer holding a banner or waving flags.

I want to find Garrett a mini tie version (or just make a smaller tie) of what the groomsmen are wearing and some dark grey/charcoal pants. Kind of like this little man (in our colors of course). Simple and comfortable. 

Our wedding is so not country, but I thought this picture was funny :)

I'm really looking forward to having both Garrett and Avery in our special day!! I know they both will look adorable :)

flower girl

I just realized under our "wedding party" tab that I never added our ring bearer and flower girl so I just updated it :) Our flower girl is Sean's niece Avery and she will be 3 at our wedding next summer. I finally got to see her this past week; I can't believe how smart she is already and she's become quite the talker!

at Avery's 2nd birthday party

spring 2011

I have recently been really looking into flower girl attire. Here are some pictures of dresses that I like...

Sean's sister, Abby, found this one. It's colors are perfect!!

Avery has already grown out of a dress like this, but I thought it was cute :)

Later this week I'll be posting about our ring bearer :)

Lake of the Ozarks and bridesmaid dresses

Every year I get to spend a whole week at lake of the Ozarks with my mom's side of the family. There ends up being around 40 people in the house at some points during the week. We do a lot of overeating, sunning, floating on rafts, playing cards, laughing, and relaxing.

This was our mansion for the week. We stayed here last year and hopefully next year, also :)

This is a small group of us at our pool. The week we were there was so hot that the pool was not even refreshing when we got in...it was more like a hot tub.

The "party barge"

We had a couple bags tournaments, too!

I had so much fun with Garrett last week :) 

We played many games of spoons...it gets dangerous!

We made a trip to pirate's cove for some mini-golf like old times

 Garrett asked us to do the "kisses" picture

the bridesmaid dresses

The weather was not so great on Thursday of our trip so we went shopping. They have a very large and very nice outlet mall. We went to our normal stores: Nike outlet, Banana Republic, Under Armour, etc. Walking between stores we saw the BCBGMaxaria store. This was significant because I have been paying attention to this line a lot lately because I found a couple dresses (for bridesmaids) that I loved at Dillard's they just didn't come in the right color. We just ran in the store to check it out. We ended up finding the bridesmaids dresses!!!

Here is a sneak peak of Ashley, my sister, in the dress at the store.

I'm so happy to have that out of the way...I wanted to have coral dresses, but I was afraid of the color going out of season and we would not be able to find them anymore. But, we were very lucky and they had 3 dresses in the (almost) perfect sizes and they were in stock!

my dress

My dress is exactly what I wanted. It's simple, but not boring. Exciting, but not over the top. And, I wanted something that will look pretty going down the stairs, and it does it.

When i started looking, I wanted something soft, A-line, not a lot of bling, and a sweatheart neck line. First of all, wedding gowns look nothing like what they look like in the magazines. After my first appointment I kind of changed my view of what would look good; I found I liked the fit-and-flare look.

here are a few pictures I took to show what I liked

The day after my last final for the spring semester my mom came over to Iowa City so we could visit a couple bridal salons in the area. The next week we had a jam packed schedule before we went to the Florida Keys. Here was our schedule:

Friday, May 13th: XOXO Bridal, Tiffin 2:30pm
Saturday, May 14th: Heart to Heart, North Liberty 9:00am
Wednesday, May 18th: Christiani's (caterer), Des Moines 11:00am
            Saley's Floral, West Des Moines 1:00pm
            Schaffer's, West Des Moines 2:00pm
Thursday, May 19th: Caleb Jamin (photographer), Ames 1:00pm
            Storybook, Boone 2:00pm
Friday, May 20th: Bridal Connection, Ankeny 11:00am
            Bridal Boutique, Des Moines 1:00pm

We visited 6 bridal salons in a little over a week, and we estimated about 50 gowns. I was very ready to say yes to a dress. I found ok dresses at the first 3 places, but not the one. After we visited with Caleb Jamin (our photographer) it was kind of a spur of the moment idea to head up to Boone for the bridal shop there. Sean's mom, Katie, met us at the salon.

First, we looked on the floor and found a few to try on. Then the lady at the store brought down a gown from the upstairs. She said they didn't have it on the floor because the manufacturer was having difficulty making it. I could tell I reeeally liked it as she was walking down the stairs.

I tried on a couple gowns and they were really nice. But, then I tried on the one...i feel like i should name the dress instead of calling it the one, but I can't think of one. So for now it's the one. They didn't know for sure if they could order another dress in. Luckily, the dress fit me really well and it would only need minor alterations. I really wanted my sister to see the dress before we made any decisions so we left the salon that day empty handed.

The next day, my mom and I visited the Ankeny Bridal Connection and found a gown there that I really liked also. After Ashley got into town, my dad, my mom, Ashley, and Abby went to the Bridal Connection so they could see that dress that I picked out there. Ashley and Abby didn't love it and they had seen pictures online of the gown in Boone. On our way back home, I said yes to my dress (the one in Boone). Right away, my mom called up to Storybook just a few minutes before they closed to purchase it.

We still have to go pick up my dress...hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Thank you mom for taking me and watching me try on numerous dresses :) Also, I'm so happy that Katie was there to share in the enjoyment when I was trying on that dress. Thanks for coming Katie!

Here is a sneak peak of the one

the weekend and my wedding shoes

On Saturday, Sean and I went to Waterloo to watch Sean's niece, Avery, for a few hours while Abby worked. We had so much fun! We tried to go to the Waterloo farmer's market and ended up running into a parade. Avery enjoyed watching the balloons, animals, trucks, and tractors.

After Avery's nap, we went to the mall and got a little bit of shopping done...I even got my shoes for the wedding! We had already made a purchase in Dillard's and as we were walking by the shoes I thought I'd give it a quick look around...and then I saw them! They were EXACTLY what I had wanted. I couldn't picture anything better.

Here is just a sneak peak of part of the shoe.....this is probably going to be the most "bling-ed" out thing at our wedding. Even though I normally don't like things with a lot of rhinestones and such, these I reeeally like.

Abby ended up buying them for me (the Hagan's are very stubborn when it comes to these situations). I am so very happy that Abby was there to help me pick out an important part of my outfit for the day. Thank you again Abby!

After the some merry-go-round riding and some other purchases we went out to eat at a local dive in Waterloo. It was called Hickory House. I got the fried chicken dinner. SO GOOD. Sean and Abby both got the ribs and chicken dinner. Everything looked and tasted delicious! It was like a 5 course meal. They first came out with a relish tray. Then your soup. Then salad. Then bread. Then you got your meal and your potato. We were all so full after that meal, but I would definitely go again. Thanks to Abby again for dinner :)

Today, we have just been kinda lazy. We went to the mall to return something, and ended up buying more. Then went to Olive Garden for lunch (we used Sean's gift card from my parents for Easter). Then we walked downtown where the Iowa Arts festival was going on. We first walked through some photography and craft booths and then we found the food carts!! I love going to places where there is fair food, carnival food, or just food in carts. I truely don't know what it is about it. I just love it!

We got some overpriced fresh-squeezed lemonade and a funnel cake. They also had fried rice, our favorite dipped ice cream popsicles, corn dogs, etc.

Yummy!!