o, holy night!

Even though the church was the first thing we booked upon getting engaged nine months ago, Gianfranco and I only met with the priest for the first time tonight. As I may have mentioned before, we are getting married on January 15, 2011 at 3pm at the Church of St. Clare and the Monsignor of the parish, Father Richard, will marry us.

My family was never very religious so I will admit that I was a bit nervous about tonight's meeting. But after my initial conversation with the Father, I felt a lot better about the whole situation. Father Richard was friendly and warm and genuinely seemed interested in getting to know us. I look forward to future meetings when he can learn enough about us to deliver a really personal ceremony.

Included in our church materials was a really interesting article from Catholic Update that presented ten questions each couple should discuss before marriage. At first glance, I assumed the article would be filled with outdated religious advice. When I acutally looked at the questions, however, I was surprised to see how relevant the topics were.

So after reading the article, I've decided to start a little mini-series of blog entries surrounding each question. I'd love to get input and opinions from everyone, married or not.

Stay tuned!

engagement photos!!!

We took our engagement photos on Sunday at Horse Sleigh Farm and boy, did we have a fantastic day! Our photographers, Papillio Photography, whom I'm constantly praising, did such a great job at capturing me and Gianfranco at our best.

I plan on posting a couple of my favorite pictures once I get a DVD from Papillio but in the meantime, feel free to check them out yourself.

Go to

www.collages.net

username: my last name (if you don't know it, you can email me)
password: 27551-my last name

Enjoy!

Wedding Tip #12

Here's a tip for brides who've finally finished their seating arrangements and want a quick and easy way of transferring the arrangement from paper to placecard.

Nancy had thought her RSVPs were no longer important once the final list was compiled but I had other ideas. Her responses were already somewhat organized by last name but we started by putting them in alphabetical order.

Then, we first marked the table number in the top right hand corner of each card. We also confirmed the names indicated on the RSVP. We figured most guests responded to the wedding the same way they'd want to be addressed on their escort cards.

When it came time to make the placecards (we printed them ourselves), all we had to do was type in the names and table number already marked on the card. They were already in alphabetical order so once they were printed, they were ready to go to the hall!

here come the brides!

I am older than my only sibling, Lyndsey, by 3 years. It's actually 2 years and 50 weeks, but who's counting? And while I am entirely grateful for having a sister now that I am an adult, I didn't feel as lucky as a kid.

Having a little sister then meant sharing toys and attention - two things that had been soley mine in the years before her birth. If you've ever been honored with the chance to watch my home videos, you would see how the footage drastically shifts from Nicole (their firstborn!!!) to Lyndsey (the BABY). In the background, you would see my desperate attempt to hold onto their focus, but to no avail.

But as we got older and developed our own personalities and friends and interests, we began to appreciate each other instead of envy. Somehow, my annoying sister became my closest confidant.

Now Lyndsey and I are planning our weddings together and we'll be getting married about two months apart from each other. People ask if I'm upset my sister is getting married before I and I truthfully tell them no. Lyndsey and Eric have been together for 8 years so I had already gotten used to the fact that my baby sister would be married first. I am thrilled about their engagement and so honored to be part of the planning process. I suppose it's the short 7 weeks between our two weddings that concerns me the most. How are we ever going to manage being both the bride AND the Maid of Honor?

As Nancy's wedding is approaching, I've been helping her out with all the last minute details. I just want to make sure that my own wedding plans won't interfere with my ability to be my sister's go-to girl when her time comes. On the other hand, I also don't want my sister's Maid of Honor duties to make her even more stressed as she gets closer to her big day.

So what do all of you think? Has anyone else out there been in the same/similar situation? How can we balance the two weddings without going nuts?!

another website to love!

Found this cute and affordable website while I was helping my sister's future sister-in-law with favors for her son's upcoming Christening. Thought I would share it to all my readers. It's called LMK Gifts and they offer edible favors at a really reasonable price. They also have some invitations that are even cheaper than my favorite site, Tickled Pink Design!

Definitely check them out!

wedding dress - CHECK!

I know I promised to write about my experience dress shopping and then I got lazy. Damn Sims 3! But here it is:

I went to get my bridesmaid dress fitted at Park Avenue Bridals the other night for Nancy's wedding and decided to try on a couple of wedding gowns myself. With the wedding still a little over a year away, I really didn't want to make such a big purchase so far in advance but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try some on.

About five dresses in, I put on this beautiful gown. It had a beaded bodice and a beautiful train. Momzilla loved it, MoH loved it, even Grandma loved it. I loved it. But when MZ asked if I wanted to buy it that night, I hesitated. I claimed that while I loved it, I just wasn't ready to decide just yet. As I stepped out of the dress, the consultant gave me this piece of advice:

"Buying a wedding dress is like finding Mr. Right. When it's the right one, you'll just know."

As she said this, I nodded my head but didn't really believe her words. I mean, I tried on some gorgeous dresses at Enzo but still wasn't ready to commit. Why was this time going to be any different? And yes, I was sure about Gianfranco the minute I met him, but I was pretty indecisive about all the relationships before him. I just didn't think I'd be able to make this decision as easily as the consultant hoped.

So now I'm down to the last two dresses. Momzilla is yelling outside of the dressing room that the shop is closing soon so I make a quick decision to try on just ONE of the dresses.

Let me tell you, I fell in love the second I put it on. I walked out to the mirror and just loved how I looked and how I felt. I thought of the church doors opening and my walking down the aisle in this dress. I thought of how Gianfranco would look when he saw me in it. And as the tears started swelling up in my eyes, I knew that it was the dress for me.

Note: While I love sharing the excitement of finding my dress, I will NOT share the photos until after the wedding day! Gotta leave some surprise for my guests!

So we bought it! And as luck would have it, Lyndsey, my sister, ALSO found her wedding dress! It was a gorgeous gown displayed in the window that was actually made by the same designer as my dress!

The wedding dresses are done for me and Lyndsey and while I am so happy we both found dresses we love, trying on dresses together wasn't the best idea and I'll be discussing the pros and cons of sharing the wedding planning process in my next entry.

Stay tuned!

flower shower

I know it's been forever since I've last posted but I have a legitimate excuse! Gianfranco bought me Sims 3 for our 2 year anniversary and if you've ever played the Sims, you'll know where the hours in my evening have gone.

So without further delay, I present the little details from Nancy's shower...

First, the invitation. If you've been following my blog you won't be surprised to know we ordered these cute "Here Come the Bridesmaids" invitations from Tickled Pink Design. Once again, I can't say enough about this place! The stationery is affordable and adorable and the customer service is great. Since February, I've already ordered 3 sets of invitations and have been really pleased with all of them. Below is a copy of the invitation that was framed by one of Nancy's mother's friend's. Look how cute!

Included with the invitation was this poem, which was (mostly) written by yours truly:

"Nancy will want her house to be spic and span
And in order to help, we've come up with a plan
Of a wishing well of items to pick up the dirt
Like sponges and dusters and Windex to squirt
Paper towels like Bounty or detergent like Tide
Will all be appreciated by our soon-to-be bride
So wrap it in tissue paper and your name do not spell
It's just a little something to wish Nancy well!"

To make her wishing well a little less traditional, I copied this creative idea from my sister's future sister-in-law's shower. We took a mop and stuck it upside down inside a hamper. I blew up a picture of Nancy's face and taped it to the mop so that the yarn looked like Nancy's hair (even though she's a brunette!). We also tied an apron around the mop to give the illusion of Nancy's body. It was quite a hit!

Next were the favors. Luckily for us, Nancy already knew she wanted lip balms so all we had to do was find the cheapest vendor. Danielle, Nancy's cousin and Maid of Honor, found us a great deal at Accent The Party. Definitely check them out!

Of course, these weren't her favors (those aren't their names!) but I wanted to give you an idea of what they looked like.

Nancy loves Gerbera daisies so we thought using them as a centerpiece would make our bride happy. I had seen a picture of gerbera daisies in a square vase with green lime slices floating around in the water. I fell in love. Unfortunately, these centerpieces didn't really fit in our budget so we decided to use tall vases from Ikea instead. We still added in the limes and for an extra effect, we placed them on round mirrors.

I think they came out really pretty!

Initially, I had suggested assigned seating for the shower. I thought flower chocolate lollipops would be a cute way of leading guests to their seats. In the end, my future mother-in-law decided against it (which she later regretted - so words of wisdom!) but we had already bought all of the ingredients so we made the lollis anyway.

Using flower molds, we first "painted" the inner circles with yellow chocolate and let them set. Once they were hard enough, we then filled in the rest of the flower with different colors - red, pink, orange and purple. We covered them in clear bags and stuck them in a long green styrofoam board. When we were originally conceiving this idea, we were going to glue fake grass on the foam board to give the illusion of a "garden" but since we were only going to hand them out at the end of the party, we decided it wasn't necessary. Either way, they still came out adorable and delicious!

Now if someone can show me how to upload files on Blogger, please let me know! I'd love to share the games we played: "Wedding Word Scramble," "Purse Pursuit" and "A Lesson In Nancy." If not, the first two can be easily found online and the last one is just a personal version of "How Well Do You Know the Bride?" We also found out how well Nancy knew Jay, her fiance, by asking him questions before the shower and seeing if Nancy could match them. For every right answer she gave, she got to kiss a blown up picture of Jay's face. For every wrong answer, she had to chew another piece of bubble gum. All in all, she did pretty well!

It was a great shower and all the hard work paid off. As I mentioned in my last entry, having all of the bridesmaids work together was really the key to success. Brainstorming, creating and executing everything is too much for just one person. I'm glad we didn't have to learn the hard way!

Stay tuned for more wedding plans...