Wedding Week!

Wedding week has officially begun!  

We kicked it off Saturday night with some bachelor party fun for Nick and a second round of bachlorette party fun for me (I will share pics soon).  My St. Louis friends who couldn't make it to Indiana for the first bachlorette party decided we needed to have a little fun in StL.  We had a great night of dinner dancing and fun- thanks ladies!  

Going out "dressed" in bachlorette garb was definitely a conversation starter and inevitably the "when is the wedding?" question came up  When I would answer "next weekend"  a flood of other questions such as "Wow, are you ready?" or "Are you excited?" or "Are you nervous?" would follow.  I was never really quite sure how to answer any of the questions and while I knew logically the wedding was 7 short days away I don't think it had really sunk in yet.  That was until I woke up Sunday morning and realized that the next time I wake up on a Sunday I will be MARRIED!  

5 more days....

ps if you would like to follow the wedding week fun on twitter or facebook the official hash-tag is #mcwedding

Boots and Baseball

I believe at this point most of you have received your Save the Date or have seen the post on Nick's blog (yes be finally blogged for the first time since early January!), but just in case you missed it I won't keep you waiting any longer.  Here it is:

We decided to design them ourselves and are pretty proud of how they turned out!  Nick does a pretty good job on his post explaining the meaning and the process so I will refer you there for more detail. So for now- see you on 9-3-2011!

200

Yikes only 200 days until Wedding Day!  I really don't know where the time has gone.  Luckily I think we are in a pretty good place in terms of my to do list and there are only a few more major things to cross off and then it is just my little projects and random things that have to get done! Ask me again when we get to 100- not sure I will be as calm, cool, and collected.

And now I am going to brag for a minute about my wonderful fiance.  We had decided a while ago that we weren't going to do anything for Valentine's Day. We were out of town all weekend and both had busy Mondays so going out just didn't make sense.  We are also saving for a house and a wedding and neither of us really need anything so we decided not to buy anything for each other either.  Well then I came home from the gym last night at about 8pm to a lovely candlelit dinner.  Not a bad way to celebrate Valentine's Day or the 200 day mark!

Engagement Pictures

I just realized I promised to post these pictures long ago and never did!  We had a great time with our photographer taking them.  We decided to hit up some downtown locations so we wouldn't have to make the trek all the way downtown on wedding day.  So we started at Busch Stadium.  Even though it isn't my favorite place (I much prefer Wrigley Field!) I do think it reflects an important part of "us"- our love of baseball! I also wore my Cubs jersey so it made it just a little better.  After pictures at the stadium we headed to the Arch for pictures with the Arch and for pictures with the fall trees on the Arch grounds.  Some might say the Arch is a little cliche but how many cities have one?  All in all I think it was a pretty good combination of locations.  Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing pleasure:

You can check out all of the pictures here.   
You may have to enter a username (Leader) and password (7405).  It will then ask you for your email.  Also another tip.  This website has interesting music that you can turn off by clicking on music options in the list on the left of the page. 

How is it already this time of year?

Nick and I just got back our engagement pictures (which I will post about soon) but first we need some help on a more pressing matter!

We all know there is a major holiday right around the corner and Nick and I have decided to take the plunge and send out joint Holiday cards this year.  Since we just got fabulous pictures taken it only seems right to make them photo cards. (I would typically wait until after Thanksgiving to start all this but if we decide to go the photocard route we have to make sure we have enough time to design and order them) I have used Shutterfly before for prints and photobooks and liked the results and I also found an incredible deal**! So we thought we would start there for inspiration and inspiration we found- way too many cool ideas to choose from!

Here are some of my favorites:

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 I also like something like this so we can use more than one pictures:

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 So clearly I prefer simple, clean designs and I am leaning towards a black and white photo with splashes of color in the design.  Being the indecisive person I am, I really just can't decide!  So faithful blog readers, which do you prefer? 

**Check out more Shutterfly cards and learn how to get 50 free cards here.

Who Knew Engagement Rings Were So Smart?

Who doesn't love opening a trashy magazine and finding a quiz entitled "What your shoe choice says about your personality" or "What your handbag says about your spending habits"  Well I received one of my many weekly wedding emails and in trashy magazine style this week's had a link to an article titled "Engagement Rings: What Your Engagement Ring Says About You".  So of course I clicked.  According to this article the type of engagement ring you want or in my case have can tell you everything about your style, relationship and wedding...who knew!  I found this all the more intriguing because Nick was very proud of the ring he purchased for me (reminder I had absolutely no input but was also very proud of the job he did all by himself).  So to refresh your memory here is a picture of the ring:

Simple, round solitaire.  So what does that say about me, you ask?

Round Engagement Ring

Your style: Traditional. You always look utterly put together.
Your relationship: Bottom line: you're marrying your best friend. Here's to a lifetime of sharing inside jokes and having someone really get you.
Your wedding: Relaxed, romantic and unfussy. It takes a lot of planning to make things look this effortless, but you'll pull it off.

If you recall Nick's post "The Ring" he chose my ring because "[It] reflects some of the great things about Martha. It is simple and its traditional..." So I guess Nick got that part right.  I'm not sure I always look put together let alone utterly put together, but I can aspire to do better at that if nothing else.

The other two I think are right on.  That describes our relationship quite well and the description of our wedding being relaxed, romantic and unfussy is exactly what we have in mind.

So maybe these crazy articles have a bit of truth in them after all.

If you are curious what your ring (or dream ring) says about you, here is the link