My Bridal Shower

June has definitely been a busy month for me, but it has also been a month of celebrating!  We started out the month by getting home from my Bachelorette Weekend and then 2 weeks later I celebrated the wedding date getting closer at my Bridal Shower! <3

Since these 2 huge things are now over, it has been time to focus on the actual wedding day...but it was SO nice to have a day to take a step back from planning and just celebrate what was about to happen in my life!  On June 12th, my mom and sister (MOH) threw me a beautiful, touching and if you ask me...pretty perfect bridal shower.  The most important thing to me was to spend some time with my girls, have some laughs and talk about all of the exciting parts about the wedding...& that's exactly what we did!

Me with my bridesmaids and MOH!

The shower was at my mom's house, and along with my sister, my aunt and some of the girls from my bridal party helping, everyone had helped turn her house into a perfect bridal shower venue.  As I walked into the house, I was excited to see some of my family and friends in what looked like a PINK & LIME GREEN decorated house!  From the food to the favors, everything had a pink & green theme, which I absolutely loved...of course.  It looked like just a preview of what was to come in our wedding colors:

Adorable decorations complete with the day we got engaged printed on the napkins!

 Since the shower was in the morning, they decided to do a brunch menu that were made up of some of my favorite things. When I walked into the kitchen I pleasantly spotted 4 different kinds of quiche, meatballs, cinnamon rolls, chicken salad, croissants, fresh fruit & veggies, cookies and Russian tea cakes just to name a few things.  YUM!  Everyone was politely waiting for me to get there before they ate, but I was anything but shy about digging in to the food when I got there.  Also, I was very delighted to see mimosas and cucumber water on the table next to the food...both of which are very refreshing and right up my alley! :)

As I started to fill up on all of the yummy things listed above, I felt my sister put a nametag on my back and right then we started the first Bridal Shower game: What Female Celebrity Am I? It's a simple game where everyone there gets a famous female celebrity, dead or alive assigned to them and each party guest has to figure out who they are.  Since the nametag is placed on your back, you had no idea who you were, but everyone else did.  The only thing you can do to figure out the mystery is to ask everyone yes or no questions, like "am I a singer?" or "am I alive?" Eventually, if you ask enough of the right questions, you will figure out who you are and the first person who did that first won the game.  The version we played asked everyone to keep asking questions until everyone figured out who they were and the last person to do so also got a prize.  I thought this was a very cute idea and after a pretty good amount of questions I finally figured out my mystery female celebrity was Jennifer Lopez.

After this game got the party rolling, it was time for the next one.  It was a scavenger hunt to see who has the most items off of a 20-item list in their purse.  One of my friends one this game hands down, with only missing 2 items!  It was pretty impressive how much she carries every day in her purse, but also proved to at least be useful items...unlike what I can say about my purse!  There was also a prize awarded to the most unusual item in your purse and what won that was scotch tape.  You wouldn't tape would be that unusual, but this came from a tiny wristlet the size of a wallet...so you can see how it automatically became strange to have!

After the purse scavenger hunt game and a few more refreshments, it was time to play "How well do the bride and groom know each other?" I have always enjoyed these games at showers, because you get to see the personalities come out as both the bride and the groom answer a set of questions about their relationship and experiences together.  For my shower, my future sis-in-law made a cute and ridiculously funny question and answer video of Mr. Hess answering the questions my mom and a few others came up with.  I posted this video a few weeks ago, but just in case you missed it, you can view it here: Funny Bridal Shower Video.

My future sis-in-law and my sister & MOH!

Mr. Hess was asked 15 questions from a friend of mine and for each question that I answered differently than him I had to stick a piece of double bubble in my mouth.  You wouldn't think that would be that bad...until you miss half of the questions!  I ended up getting 7 out of the 15 questions wrong...so apparently I didn't remember everything I thought I would about some of our "firsts" and details about him I guess I should have known!  But - in my defense, there were a few questions I think he purposely answered differently so that I would be forced to stick gum in my mouth....at least that's what I think.  7 wrong answers + 7 pieces of double bubble = one sticky situation!  By the end of the game I had to actually take out the gum to answer the questions...but it truly was fun, I learned some things I guess I should have already known about Mr. Hess & I almost cried from laughing so hard.  Great game! 
 

My niece's face here is hyseterical.  Love this one.

That's a pretty serious wad of double bubble!

Baby Ashtyn is SO precious!

After the Q&A game and taking a minute to rest my jaws from chewing and composing myself from laughing so hard, it was time to open presents! I guess that's one thing you know is coming at a bridal shower - being showered with gifts.  Everyone was so sweet and got me a LOT of great things off of our registry & they are already being put to good use at home!  I have to say, it was kind of weird and a tad akward opening everything in front of everyone, present by present.  I haven't done something like that since I was probably in middle school! Luckily, Mr. Hess will be there to open the rest with me, but it was fun while it lasted solo.  I kept trying to take some of the attention off of myself with one of my bridesmaid's 2 month old baby girl, who attended the shower...in lime green and pink no less.  She was a great diversion from me, and seemed to entertain the guests pretty well as we got through the presents.  I received a lot of great things for both Mr. Hess and I, but I also loved some of the more personalized presents for the honeymoon & for after the wedding!

JUST MARRIED sandals for the honeymoon...it will leave the words in the sand! How cute!

Mrs. Presh apron! SUPER cute!

MRS. Hess blinged out bag for the honeymoon, from my mom.

After the presents were unwrapped and the mimosas were gone, it was time to wrap up the shower.  As I was saying goodbye to everyone and thanking them for coming, it was a very surreal moment for me.  I couldn't believe they were all here for MY bridal shower for OUR wedding...I've said it a million times on this blog, but this year of being engaged has absolutely FLOWN by and it finally hit me that the next big day to look forward to after this was THE BIG DAY!!! For some of my guests, the next time I will see them WILL be on the wedding day...which is so crazy to me!

My Bridal Shower was just what I needed before the wedding day finally gets here.  I got to spend some quality time with my girlfriends and family without any stresses of planning to talk about.  I laughed so hard I cried, got tons of hugs, and left my parents' house that day knowing THIS would be a day I would always remember.  THANK YOU to my sister, mom, aunt, future sis-in-law and to my bridesmaids for throwing me a fantastic party!!! To everyone who was a part of such a special day for me, THANK YOU and I can't wait to keep the celebration going on our wedding day!

Only 24 days to go!

Presh

1 MONTH AND COUNTING!!

Well, followers - we've finally done it...we are on our way into the final stretch of the wedding countdown with: 

T-MINUS 1 MONTH TO GO!!!!!

Can you believe it?!

We celebrated the 30 day to go mark today by going down to the courthouse and getting our marriage license!  Pretty exciting stuff!!!! As we walked up to the counter I could feel my heart was racing, almost like we were getting married right there, right then.  Of course, that was certainly not the case, but it just felt so "official" that we were actually getting married.  When asked to "sign here" under the Bride signature I had such a surreal feeling and it felt like everything was becoming a reality.  I probably took the longest I have to sign something, but I wanted to savor what was happening.

I absolutely can't believe it has been 11 months since Mr. Hess proposed, and it feels like the last year was a blur.  We have spent days upon days, months upon months and meetings upon meetings pin-pointing and deciding every little detail to bring our wedding day together.  I can say I have truly enjoyed the experience of planning a wedding, but I am more than anxious for the day to just get here already!!!  Being SO close to the wedding day, I have SO much to share.  Unfortunately, what I don't have is TIME.  So...with that said, I'll be posting and updating when I can throughout the next few weeks to fill you in on what I feel you really need to know....but I know it's not going to be as much as I usually do. (sad face).

Me and my Roadster...aka Groom stand in.

 I'm actually looking forward to posting MORE about the wedding after it finally happens and I am excited to let you all in on the secrets I've been hinting towards the entire road of planning!  Fear not friends and family, because after the BIG DAY gets here whether you were there or not, I'm going to be able to share EVERYTHING!!! YAY! :)

But for now, all I can do is pop in every now and then with some hints, stories, and in this case videos.  Here I am (in my happy place...on our balcony) talking about the month ahead.  These next 4 weeks are absolutely going to FLY BY and I hope you're ready for it!  I know I finally am!

30 DAYS TO GO!!!!

Until next time,

Presh

Making those wedding day shoes MINE!

Let me just start out by saying I found THE perfect pair of wedding shoes for my entire dress/wedding ensemble.  I found these fabulous shoes after my first dress fitting back in last October, however I didn't get them then.  I fell in love with the look of my dress with these shoes, and also the accessories that just so happened to appear on my body (funny how bridal consultants can do that!).  So naturally, I saw the entire look together and had to have everything.

Well, I didn't get everything exactly from that day of wedding day dress up, but I did know the look I wanted when picking out all of my accessories.  I am pleased to say that shopping for my accessories is officially over, and has been for quite some time!

Now back to the shoes...after debating back and forth, I finally decided I needed THESE shoes for the big day.  GOOD NEWS! When I called the bridal shop, they informed me that this particular shoe was being discontinued and they were 50% off.  Well, that's alllllllll you had to tell me because that made justifying getting these shoes THAT much easier, so thank you Priscilla of Boston! :)

I've been storing my dress, my shoes, and my accessories at my parents' house for two reasons...1) because I know where it's at and everything has a place and no one will touch anything and 2) Mr. Hess can't go snooping around and find anything he's not supposed to!  About a week ago, I was at my parents' house and decided I was going to take my wedding shoes home to "finish them off"...and what do I mean by this?!

I knew from day one that I wanted to write something special on the bottom of my wedding shoes.  We had already used this idea in our Save the Date photo by putting the wedding date on the bottom of our shoes in the picture and I thought it would be cute to tie that in for the BIG DAY!  Some brides write the words "I DO" or their wedding date, or even their names in sparkling rhinestones.  When Mr. Hess and I created a logo with our monogrammed HBSH initials, I knew that's EXACTLY what I wanted to do!  I knew it wouldn't be the easiest thing, but I was determined...and I have to say it was a lot easier than I thought it would be!

I know it's not the most time efficient way to spend wedding planning hours, but believe me - this was just the mental release I needed.  Some might get frustrated with the tedious task of gluing every single little stone on the shoe just right, but to me it was relaxing.  I wish everything was like bedazzling! ;)

So, without showing too much of the wedding day shoes, here they are!

I know it's just the back view, but you can kind of see where I bedazzled them!

Adorable right?!  I thought so anyways :) Bedazzling your wedding shoes isn't as hard as it looks.  You only need a few things to make it happen, with patience being at the top of that list.  Besides that you'll need:

• Your perfect pair of heels (wouldn't work on the bottom of flats)
• Rhinestones (the smaller the better)
• Permanent Jewel Glue
• toothpicks
• paper towels 

You can order rhinestones online, but I just picked up a few packs of rhinestones from Michaels.  They come in all different brands, colors, shapes and sizes.  I chose to use the brand Crystazzi just because they had the small stones I was looking for and put a lot in one package for a good price.  They do sell swavorski crystals at Michaels, but this bride's been on quite the budget lately, so they proved to work just fine!  I bought a 3-pack of tacky glue that included the middle one being permanant jewel glue.  I wasn't sure how this would work on the bottom of shoes, and the glue didn't seem like it would work at first, but once it dried those stones stayed right where they needed to.  It's made to adhere jewels to fabric, but trust me...once it dries - you're golden!  I was getting worried when I could move the jewels around with my toothpick, but this also came in handy to move every stone exactly where it needed to be before it dried.  So, if you ask me it's the way to go over using superglue.

Bedazzling can be fun and a release of stress if you have a little bit of patience and time.  I actually looked forward to doing this project, and it took me about 3 full hours to do.

First, I stenciled the design I was going to be bedazzling onto my shoes with pencil on the soles of the shoes.  I was a little nervous about drawing on them, but the pencil line really helped me make the exact design I wanted.  Next, I laid out a paper towel and put the stones I would be using onto it, face down.  I put a dab of the jewel glue onto the paper towel (just be careful to put something under it so it doesn't go through onto your table).  From there, it was easy to take a toothpick, dip one end into the glue, and select the stone I was going to adhere to the shoe.  Like I mentioned earlier, the glue isn't going to immediately stick, so don't worry if it slips a little.  You can use this to your advantage by using the other side of the toothpick to move the stone on the penciled line exactly where it should go.

I decided to do the design facing the way I did so that when I'm wearing them my photographer can take a photo of them on and it will read the right way (from left to right).  If Mr. Hess and I were doing a kneeling bench at the ceremony (which we decided not to) I would have done the monogram facing the way that the guests would be looking at my shoes.

Stone by stone and letter by letter, you will get through it and the shoes you love will turn into your PERFECT wedding day shoes!  I know I am going to wear these shoes with the biggest smile on my face, knowing how much they mean to me.

 I hope this helped anyone who needed inspiration to get this look on their own...but if you have any questions at all, I love bedazzling, so let a sister know! ;)

More than just FLOWERS...

Today we met with our wonderful, creative, cheerful & simply amazing florist to go over all of the details of our flowers for the wedding.  I say he is our "florist", but what when it comes down to it, I really should say that he is our "wedding atmosphere & floral genius".  Lee Forrest of Lee Forrest Designs is not only the perfect florist for our wedding, but he made the process of picking the flowers we will see on our big day...a complete BREEZE!!!

I never thought that something like FLORAL would be such an easy category to check off for our wedding day.  I mean, c'mon - flowers are something little girls dream about when they try to picture their big day decades before the actual day gets there.  There are so many different choices and looks and shades and sizes to choose from, one could easily get overwhelmed when it's time to sit down and actually pull THE flowers you will be using for your wedding day.  So, needless to say...on our first consult with Lee, I was a bit nervous and anxious to say the least.

First, let me explain where the anxiety came from...

Before we met with Lee, we set up a consultation with another florist who we met at a bridal shower back in October.  He seemed to be a good florist and was great at coming up with unique ideas.  What I DIDN'T like about the first guy (which I won't list the name) is that we had to sit down and pick out every single little flower for every single little bouquet and centerpiece and boutonniere right then and there...on our FIRST consult!! What I thought would be an hour meeting turned into 2 and a half hours of tedious details I was NOT ready for whatsoever!!!  Mr. Hess and I both left the shop feeling drained, confused & overwhelmed.  And, the kicker is...he was charging a pretty hefty fee for all of "his" ideas!  

*Tip number one for any florist out there: DON'T DO THAT!!! 

So, you can imagine why I had the anxiety I did when going to meet florist number 2.  Luckily, just walking into his shop and meeting him quickly turned into a breath of fresh air.  Lee Forrest has such a cool, calm and collected approach to everything that makes me relax and enjoy the process of putting our dream wedding together!  What I thought would be another few hours of wanting to pull my hair out and re-using the phrase "I just don't know" a hundred times turned into an hour of excitement and pictures and talk about what our wedding was going to look like.  I didn't pick this flower and that flower, but instead we put together the "look" we were going for & I knew right away that we were in good hands.

Back in January, he even invited us to come see the set-up of a wedding at our venue that he was hired for.  He said the theme and look to their wedding was similar AND it was at our exact reception spot...so why the heck not?! I was excited to actually get to go see what a true wedding with his flowers looks like, in person & I was SO pleased.  What impressed me the most was how much he's willing to do for you.  Not only providing flowers, but an entire wedding theme...what a great day that was to see a wedding come together in the same very spot that our reception will be at! :)

Not exactly what our centerpieces would look like, but loved this creation of his!

Of course, there are a few staple flowers we HAVE to have in our wedding - and I'm sure you could have guessed one would be this one, if you know anything about what our colors are.  It's a very popular flower these days, but I have always loved orchids...ESPECIALLY in lime green & pink!!!

So, there you go...one flower you will for sure see at our wedding.  There are a few more must haves added to our list, but beyond a few we were totally open to whatever our florist decides to do!  After seeing his work and reading positive testimonial after positive testimonial, I feel 110% comfortable with what our wedding day flowers will be...and to be honest, I'm not even exactly sure WHAT they are! Isn't that crazy?!  We went over details of different centerpieces (which, I guess I'm telling you there will be some different ones) and chose some over others...but I can honestly say I really don't know what they will look like.  I didn't necessarily see a sketch of them, BUT I didn't ask for one either.  I seriously can't believe how much control I am giving up here....but I'm loving it.

As soon as I we got home tonight I had to sit down and share that for once, something about planning our wedding was just EASY!  After meeting with Lee today, I know our wedding will be filled with tons of beautiful flowers, pieces & ...artwork! It's a true miracle that I'm not worried about it one bit.  THANK YOU Lee Forrest for letting a bride-to-be breathe a month before the wedding day!!!!!!!

As you can see, I would highly recommend our florist for anyone looking for one.  Weddings, parties, private dinners or whatever...he can truly turn flowers into talking pieces & he is probably one of the easiest go-with-the-flow vendors I've met yet! You can find more info about Lee Forrest at his website: http://www.leeforrestdesign.com/

I absolutely CAN NOT WAIT to see how everything turns out!  

But I guess we'll ALL have to....

37 days and counting...WOW...

Presh

Funny Bridal Shower Video

TODAY was my Bridal Shower!!! YAY! I can't believe this day snuck up on me like it did & I know the wedding is going to do exactly the same thing.  I think I'm finally starting to be ready for it to get here already! ;)

A shower celebrating me and Mr. Hess getting married was a very exciting one for me.  I had a great group of family & friends there to help cheer me on and shower me with gifts and love.  What's not to love? It was nice to take a break from all of the planning and nonsense a Bride-to-Be goes through at this stage in planning...so

THANKS ladies for an amazing afternoon!

I know I'll have MUCH more to share in a following post about this special day, but I just couldn't wait to share this hilarious video.  My future sis-in-law Jaclyn made a video of my friend Megan interviewing Mr. Hess with a series of questions for me to also answer at the shower.  Whatever questions I answered differently than Mr. Hess, I had to stick a piece of double bubble in my mouth...and man did THAT get sticky! Let's just say I only answered half of the questions correctly so my mouth was full with 7 pieces of double bubble! (Which really is like...14 since it's double, right?!)

I'm sure some of you have heard of this game before, but I can GUARANTEE you have never seen a video answer reel quite like this one.  Leave it to Mr. Hess to be a little bit "different", ridiculous, & borderline embarassing....

But, what can I say?

I LOVE HIM & his crazy self...ENJOY!

Hey, I tried to warn you didn't I?

Mr. Hess is QUITE the character and yup, I know you're probably thinking I've got my hands pretttttttttty full.  Well, you're right, but I have to say there's never a dull moment in the Hess household & I'm loving every minute of it!

Stay tuned for a post coming soon about my wonderful bridal shower...can't wait to see and share the pictures!

Until then...

40 days and counting,

Presh

HBSH Wedding Invitations!

Today we got our first RSVPs back, so you know what that means...

our invitations have officially made it to their new homes!!! 

First, let me just throw out there that I think our wedding invitations turned out absolutely PERFECT!!!! I'm not trying to toot my own horn here - by any means, but I am very excited to say they turned out EXACTLY how we wanted them!!!!! What Mr. Hess and I were thinking of what our perfect wedding invitation would be has actually transferred from inside our heads, now onto paper and into our guests hands!  Achieving EXACTLY what you wanted in your wedding invitation is not something everyone can say actually happens, and I am SO beyond excited that after all of the man hours of talking about them, editing them, messaging our invitations girl back and forth, & arguing with Mr. Hess (hehe) finally paid off.

So without further adieu, and trying to strategically cover up the details not everyone in cyberspace should know...

here are our official HBSH Wedding Invitations:

I wish I could put the actual invitation up on here, but I just can't! Don't want any crazies running around crashing our wedding...ya know?! lol.  But, to give you an idea of what's on them here's a rundown...

For the main wedding invitation, we used a modern approach of run-on paragraph writing to give the details of the ceremony.  Our lovely invitation lady, which I will list all of her information down below, came up with this suggestion for us when we told her about our fun & contemporary wedding style.  We chose to announce ourselves, rather than having our parents announce our marriage for the same reason.  I LOVED the wording at the top which reads "We invite you to share in the celebration of our marriage"....below that was the monogram she created with our names that turned out absolutely perfect! Here is a snapshot of what it looks like, except on the real one it also lists our last names in a script font:

Over and under the names there is a line of outlined, lime green & black circles.  They were randomly colored in and there was a touch of bling to the each of the 3 lines on the page by adding a crysal rhinestone.  The bottom listed the reception to follow in a pink script font, followed by the name of the reception venue.  It's hard to do the invitations justice on here, because in person the colors are PERFECT!!!! The pink is a bright & shiny pink and the green is the exact lime green color used in our wedding.  Kudos Angela (that's her name) for special ordering that shade and making that happen!

In front of the main invitation card, you will see the CELEBRATE card & the RSVP Postcard.  We decided to do one enclosure card with the reception information, as well as a listing of our wedding website.  We decided it would be easier to give guests directions at the end of the ceremony rather than take up all of that space on the invitation cards, so we simply put the venue information & included the website so they can answer most of their questions by going to it.

Here is a snapshot (but again, not doing it justice) look at the top of our celebrate card:

Lastly, we decided to do an RSVP postcard rather than the traditional mail-in envelope back to us.  We wanted this for two reasons: 1) being a little more fun (& maybe something people haven't seen before) and 2) stamps for this were 29 cents each rather than 44! So, once again...great suggestion Angela!  Here's a look at what we're talking about:

Just fill it out & you're good to go!

Oh, and how could I almost forget to tell you we had our logo put on the return address of the envelope and finished it off with our customized stamp?!

When the design work was done I was confident that they would turn out great, but I had no idea how OBSESSED I would become with them when I saw them finished and in my hands.  I am so happy with how everything turned out and I know Mr. Hess and I both got exactly what we were hoping for!

As promised and to give her the HUGE amount of credit that she deserves, here is the information on who we used to get our wonderful invites:

The company is called Paper Charm Custom Design, and the owner's name is Angela Palacio.  She is an absolute delight to work with and wants nothing more than to give you exactly what you're looking for in your wedding invitations, as well as many other customizable objects.  We just met with her today about our ceremony programs and other little things you will see here and there on our wedding day and YUP - they're all going to be done by her!  We branded our wedding ceremony and reception with the same theme and colors, and she has done a great job keeping that consistent throughout anything we create together.

You can contact her & see more of her work here:  http://www.papercharmcustomdesign.blogspot.com/

I can't wait to see how the rest turns out!!! Thanks, Angela for helping us create our perfect wedding invitation!!!!  As you can see, I'm pretty excited that those are done and getting the first of our RSVPs back today made our wedding day feel SO REAL!!!! It's here..it's happening and it's almost a month away now!!! I'm starting to run around like a crazy woman, but I know it will all be worth it in the end.  For now, this is what keeps the great big smile on my face...

Stay tuned for more updates, stories & photos of how wedding planning is going now that we're getting "down to the wire!"

42 days and counting...
Presh

Wedding Hint #8

There might be an entire post coming soon about what this is and why I'm in the process of making my own...but for now I'll leave you with this picture as the next Wedding Hint:

Not sure how much I want to give away about it, so we'll see how mine turns out and go from there...

45 DAYS TO GO!!!

Presh

Bachelorette Weekend: bridesmaids, boas & beaches!

I say it almost every post I put on here, but it feels like the wedding is FINALLY sinking in & that things are actually starting to happen!

Last weekend the girls in my Bridal Party arranged to take me on a weekend getaway to relax, hang out, get dolled up & go out one last time as a group before the big I DO! It couldn't have come at a better time and not all of my girls could make it, but I had an absolute BLAST with everyone who could and told them over and over how nice it was to be taken away from the craziness of life for a weekend.

First, let me just say I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing...but I knew wherever we went and whatever we did would be GREAT.  About 11am on Friday I got picked up by 3 of my bridesmaids, was handed an AMAZING funfetti cake that isn't appropriate to post on here and before I knew it we were on our way to a Bachelorette Weekend Celebration!  Don't worry guys, there's nothing TOO crazy I'm going to share with you on here...the weekend was simply the classic girls weekend filled with pool & beach time, girl talk, going out & even movie time.  NO CRAZY..."I left my shoe here and woke up in a stranger's bathroom with Mike Tyson's tiger and a baby in the closet" type of situation here, and NO I did not end up waking up on the rooftop of our hotel, either.  Although the thought of re-creating The Hangover sounds like a lot of fun, my girls know how to show me an exciting, but classy time!

So here's where the story starts...

Half of the girls came to pick me up and the 4 of us are driving, singing funny songs & chatting it up on the way to our destination.  I was so happy to just be with females and have a weekend to relax and spend some much needed quality time with all of them. After a little over 3 hours (we had stopped for lunch at one of my fav spots), I was told to take the dress off of my eyes - and yes I said dress, not blindfold...lol) and saw a HUGE PINK hotel with a HUGE castle like entrance in front of me.   Is this real?  Are we really staying at a great resort...beach side?!? SCORE!!! My girls know me well...it's nice, ON the beach & it's PINK...none other than the Don Cesar Resort! I have never been to a DC before, but I knew pulling up that we had quite the weekend in store for us.

Pulling up to the "Pink Castle"...I'm SO excited!!! :)

YAY! So that's where the surprises began...and they continued when I got to my room - which had apparently been taken over by the "Wild Girls" as the hotel staff called us....

What a great start to a great weekend! When I came into the room I was greeted by my sister (my MOH) and my future sis-in-law, & my bridesmaid HM as a welcoming committee!  I was blown away by how much the girls decorated the room & put into making my weekend so special!  Right away, we celebrated with mimosas and then took a tour of the hotel...I kept thinking how great it was to be here with all of my special girls!

These girls had definitely pulled a fast one on me.  I was so excited to be staying a weekend at such a nice place with the women I love the most by my side.  After we settled in, it was time for the real fun to begin!  The first night we agreed to go ALL OUT, get dolled up & flaunt the fact that this "Barbie Bride" (their words not mine) will officially be off the market in t-minus 51 days!!!

So we got dressed, took some pictures & played some fun games to get the night started.  I have to say, my girls were looking good & I felt very lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful women.  When we got downstairs we found the perfect backdrop to take our group photo complete with baby grand piano and pianist.  When someone asked if I could sit on the piano I didn't think he would let me...but I think the boa spoke for itself & he couldn't say no.

Ready for a fun night out with the girls! <3

After we took some photos we headed out to eat at a place verrrrry similar to one of my favorites in Orlando - here it's called Taverna Opa but in St. Pete they have Acropolis.  I love this place so much not only for the great Greek food...but also because about every 5 minutes the entire staff runs around throwing napkins at you and shouts "OPAAAAAAAA!" So much fun! After appetizer after appetizer & hummus plate after hummus plate we were a full group of girls and headed out to a few local bars to dance the night away.  I'm not lying when I say we simply had a fun girls night out...and stayed pretty under the radar.  I was happy to find another bachelorette though who happened to be wearing all white, just like me.  I found her at the point of the night where I had to check off of my Scavenger Hunt to make a veil out of TP.  Since one of my girls, Ash is getting married in 3 DAYS I told her we could make veils for each other...

I dunno...you might see these veils on our wedding days! lol.

We had such a great night out and not only got to celebrate my Bachelorette Party, but at midnight it was also one of my bridesmaid KDO's birthday!

HAPPY HAPPY Birthday KDO!!! :)

 So you could say between my Bachelorette Weekend, Ash's last weekend as a single lady & KDO's birthday we had A LOT to celebrate!!!! And we were dressed for the occasion, let me tell you...I'm just going to show you 1 picture of my complete "Bachelorette" outfit...so enjoy that...because it's RIDICULOUS.  We also had some very bright light up rings...and proved to be handy when trying to find each other in the crowd! What a FUN NIGHT! :) :) :)

All in good fun...amazing job putting this outfit together ladies! haha.

After a fun night out, it was time to hit the BEACH! I can't tell you how long it had been since I've layed out in the sun, much less actually put my toes in the sand...so you could imagine how excited I was!!!! PLUS another one of my bridesmaids showed up, Meggo!!! What a great surprise!! :) :) :)

LOVED staying here!!!

After a long day in the sun, my girls and I figured out the perfect way to spend the evening...seeing the movie BRIDESMAIDS!!! I have been wanting to see this movie for a while now, and what better time to see it than with your bridesmaids by your side?! Plus, I was excited that my girls were going to wear the shirts I made for them.  They all know me well enough to know I love a great "easy" night at the movies or night in just as much as a fun night out...and it was perfect!

So we grabbed some sushi, enjoyed some Memorial Day martini's & headed over to see the movie!

 

One of my favorite pictures...EVER!!! Look at those 'tudes!

Okay...for the record, BRIDESMAIDS was one of the FUNNIEST movies I have ever seen! People have compared it to the female version of The Hangover, which it very well could be. BUT...guys, don't think it's just for the ladies - I was literally laughing out loud almost the entire movie!!! SO GOOD!!! :) A perfect way to spend a night with my girls.

The next morning was Memorial Day and we spent most of the late morning & afternoon poolside...and it was fabulous. The girls went down early to get us some lounge chairs and we relaxed and enjoyed the last day together laying out and playing some games.  You never know when a good game of "Would You Rather" might come into play, but poolside proved to be a great opportunity.

HB & HM <3

Hanging Poolside with the girls & Leroy...our favorite groupie of the weekend.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend to get away with my girls.  I am very fortunate to have them by my side not only for the BIG DAY, but for everything leading up to it.  I am very blessed to have such thoughtful, fun, caring & all around true friends...

THANK YOU for such an amazing weekend!

Bridal Shower in 11 days & the WEDDING in 51!

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