First Free Weekend in Forever

Ok, so I REALLY need to start blogging again - sorry that it's been so long.  A lot has happened in the past few months.

1)  As may or may not know - we got a puppy.

2) I had my 5 year college reunion.

3) One of my best friends got married!!!!

4)  Before she tied the knot we threw her a magical Harry Potter themed shower (I'm waiting on pictures, but I will definitely post about that one).  And a fun bachelorette weekend too!

5)  We started building a deck for our house!  We're almost done - pictures coming soon!

6)  We did a couples photoshoot with a friend of my husbands!  More pictures to come - I promise!

7) I discovered Jamberry nails and signed up to become a consultant!

8) Another great friend of mine is getting married in October and I also in that wedding.  We're working on planning her shower and her bachelorette weekend now!

Bachelorette Blast

Yesterday I got back from my bachelorette weekend.  It was SO much fun - my ladies are the best!  We went up to the Finger Lakes for some wine tasting fun.  The girls arranged for someone to drive us around, so no one had to worry about drinking too much.

We ended the weekend hanging around at the hotel and having some more to drink.  I'm going to hold off on posting evidence pictures of our weekend shenanigans, since I don't know if my ladies want their pictures all over my blog.  I do have one to share though:  my souvenir to remember the trip:

If any of my bridesmaids are reading this, thanks for the awesome weekend!  You guys are the best.  <3

Rehearsal Dinner

Our rehearsal dinner plans are finally all set and I came up with some invitations.  And by came up with, I mean I borrowed an idea from Pinterest.  Below is what we ended up with.  We printed the following on some creme colored paper and might matte it on dark purple card-stock and then in the mail they'll go!

Who we're inviting to our rehearsal dinner:

-Parents

-Grandparents

-Wedding party & their dates

-Photographer (amily friend who's doing the photos for free & will take pictures at the rehearsal too)

-Reverend & his wife

The Bridesmaids

I officially asked my all of my bridemaids today and they all said yes!  I'm so happy.  My maid of honor and two of my bridesmaids are my three best friends from college.  My other two bridemaids are my two sisters.  In total, my bridal party has 5 people.  My fiance plans to match that and also have 5 people.

So, you might be wondering how did I ask them?  Well, since I wouldn't be able to see any of them in person, I had to think of a way to ask them long-distance.  I deciding that sending something wasn't a personal as I'd like it to be.  If I'm giving them a gift, I'd rather give it to them in person.  Since I'm seeing them in September, I plan to give them a gift then.  However, for now I came up with something to do.

I used kizoa.com to create a slideshow to send to my friends.  I made a slideshow of college days together and added in a poem about memories I had with them.  Each slide was a picture of us and a line of the poem.  The last line of the poem said, "And that's why I'd love for you to be party of by big day and in a very big way."  Then the final slide said, "Will you be my bridesmaid?"  The site was very easy to use and allowed me to send out the slideshow to my friends via e-mail. 

All of the girls loved it!  It brought back such good memories of all of us and left a couple of them crying.  (I know I wanted to when I was making it.)  After seeing the slideshow each of them called me up and said yes!

Now I just need to get my fiance to ask his best man and groomsmen.  Any suggestions?

Feel free to share how you asked your bridemaids and/or how he asked his groomsmen.