I'm a MRS!

So I got so carried away with the preparation of the day that my final Miss post got lost in the moments that went flashing by! I can't tell you how much the hive has meant to me and how incredible the experience of being a Bee has been.

I married my best friend yesterday. It was the best day of my life. Frogger, you make me happier than I ever thought I could be, thank you for making me complete. Forever has never sounded so good.

Thank you to the hive for your support throughout this journey to the altar - it wouldn't have been the same without all of the readers, comments, ideas and unconditional support.

I cannot wait to share the day with you...until then - the only photo I have, a teaser from my wonderful cousin who snapped this just after our first look!



Lots of love,

Officially MRS. Frog :)

Our talented guests continue to impress

A while back I shared some of the RSVPs we received back from our guests. After waiting for all of the stragglers, I have a second installment for your viewing pleasure. I have to say, this might be one of my favorite ideas – it’s been highly entertaining!

Oh and before I get to the RSVPs, did I mention we received a letter back from The White House? That was very fun!

Now, without further ado…

From our Matron of Honor Banannie and her hubby – a very talented artist!

From my very creative aunt, uncle and cousin

From my dear friend in NYC

From my fantastic step-sister

From one of Frogger’s good friends – he also happened to teach me how to wakeboard back in the day so this one is very fitting!

From Bridesmaid Berk and her soon-to-be hubby

From my aunt, uncle and two adorable cousins – a family of many talents!

I saved my favorite for last…

From my extremely talented and creative Mama Frog – isn’t she the best?

These have been so much fun to receive, we can’t wait to see all of our talented guests and thank them in person!

For the kiddies

We don’t have a lot of kids coming to the wedding but it was important to us to recognize our pint-sized family members in at least a small way.

A while back I came across a posting on Martha Stewart Weddings where they had created a version of I Spy as a conversation starter for a wedding. I just loved the idea so I decided to create my own version for the kids.

Martha’s version

Since I basically went into Photoshop, came up with fun photo opps and then used fun fonts, there’s not much of a DIY here. I used the same design as our invitation suite and some of the other paper elements for the wedding. Wanna see?

We came up with a very simple rhyme for the introduction and we will be supplying each child with their own disposable camera. We’re excited to see what shots they come up with and I’m particularly interested in the angle since they are a good 2-3 feet shorter than most of our guests. :)

Did you do anything fun for the little ones at your wedding?

Easy as pie

Way back when, I shared our dirty, little secret – we don’t like cake. After going through all of our options, the most logical choice was pies made fresh with all of the local berries and fruit that are available in Washington in the summer. We found this adorable little bakery called, get this, Sure To Rise – how cute is that?

We settled on 3 large pies and 80 mini pies in varying flavors (blueberry, strawberry rhubarb, apple, peach and triple berry). Because I wanted the pies to be displayed sporadically on the pie table, I knew I needed a way to identify the flavors for our guests. Enter pie flags.

Pie chart…ha, get it?! I’m funny.

Since we are using a large pie for our “cake cutting” I needed some sort of topper for people to recognize that this pie was significant. For the record, we’re going with blueberry – lord help me if I get it down the front of my dress. To match the mini flags, I made larger versions that I’m planning to group together to create a topper for our pie:

Front

Back

Although they were a tiny bit labor intensive, overall they were pretty easy to put together. I loved coming up with different ways to design them and in the end, I think they will be really helpful for our guests come dessert time.

What are you doing for your dessert?

Phoenix Bee Meetup

Thanks to the local Phoenix bees that decided to arrange a quaint bee meetup through the local boards. Clearly I’m slacking on my bee duties! :)

We had a great time at Kokopelli Wine Bistro in Chandler – enjoyed some tasty appetizers, delicious wine and great company.

lemondrop, az2wa, azwinelover and moi

And super huge shout-out to azwinelover for the too-adorable-for-words bee cake pops! Check out the cuteness:

Bee pops a bloomin’

Before the AZ sun got the best of them…

And the heat has set in.

Thanks girls for a fun afternoon – looking forward to our next one!

Gifts for my girls

Hello friends. I’m so sorry to have been absent for a bit. I found out just a couple of weeks ago (nearly a month before my wedding) that I was being laid off from my job. It was a very big surprise as the company had not informed us that they were in any sort of trouble. Sparing you of the many details, I will say that I needed that couple of weeks to sort out my job situation and find a solution. I promise to fill you in on some of the exciting developments that are happening but first, I need to get back on track – there’s so much to tell you all about!!

Now that we are getting so close to the wedding, I am pulling together the last few bits of the gifts I’ve created for my maids.

These five girls have celebrated Frogger and I as a couple, supported me, kept me sane and there’s no way I would have been able to survive all of the wedding planning ups and downs without them.

Girls – you know you shouldn’t be reading this…so get lost. Kisses.

(source)

———

Are they gone? Okay, good.

So first off I knew I wanted to do something that would celebrate how individual they all are. I’m having them all wear different dresses in the same color family and so it only made sense to continue that idea through to their gifts.

First, I searched through etsy (of course) and found some great handmade clutches. After looking through multiple designers, I knew I wanted to be able to customize them completely so they could really speak to each girl.

I found ModDotTextiles and couldn’t have been more thrilled with what she was able to do for me. She helped me find the fabrics for the bags, offered suggestions for the inner lining colors so they would coordinate and was genuinely interested in my thoughts for each bag. So…you wanna see them?

Ta da!

I decided there were certain little things that I wanted to give them all in preparation for the wedding day. Behold the inner contents:

Please disregard the chipped nail polish and cat hair covered pillow…classy.

Roll call: Nivea lip gloss (my favorite), blotting papers and SoleMates, holla!

I’m planning to wrap them up in tissue and tie with baker’s twine or possibly rafia. They will also be getting the hangers I created for their dresses as part of their gift as well. And of course, each girl will get a hand written note from me, telling them how very much they mean to me and how special it is to have them there on this most important day.

How did you decide what to give your maids?

The boy and his bling

I’ve already talked about my bling…now it’s time for Frogger to have his moment. This past weekend, we went to our jeweler (our locally-owned shop that we absolutely love – for those in Phoenix, go see Marc at Burland Jewelry Center) and looked through wedding bands for the boy.

I knew we would have a challenge on our hands when we began driving over. Our conversation:

Me: Soooo, are you excited?

Him: Yeah…but I don’t really know what I’m going to like.

Me: I know but I think you’ll feel differently when you get there and can try some on.

Him: …I don’t know.

Me: What’s the matter?

Him: I don’t really wear any rings and it’s not like I go around looking at guys’ wedding bands. I just don’t know what I’m going to like.

Me: Well, I think you need to just take your time, try on a bunch and don’t settle until you find one that you love.

Him: What if I don’t know what I love…what if I like a few of them? Just make sure that you give me your honest opinion.

Me: Has that ever been an issue of mine? Don’t answer that. I will give you my honest opinion but not until you give yours. I don’t want to decide on the ring for you, I want you to love it and I’m happy to weigh in but ultimately, you need to love this – it’s your ring.

Him: But I want your opinion, I trust your judgment and I don’t really know what I want.

Ugh.

Please tell me someone else had this same discussion? Are those crickets I’m hearing?

Luckily this story ends happily.

We arrived at the jeweler and began looking through the bands. There are a LOT of men’s bands. Plain or ornate, bling or no bling, multiple metal types, millimeter width, etc. I thought chicks had a lot of options…good grief.

(source)

After trying on quite a few, he began to find a style that he seemed to gravitate toward. He wanted simple and classic but not plain. Did we nail it?

Obligatory wedding band glamour shot

And here are our rings together – don’t they just look so happy?

Shout out to Frogger for the photo set-up, good job stud

Did you have a roller coaster ride when you picked out your love’s wedding band?