The June List: Recap

Remember that time I said the June list was overwhelming??? Well, there was a reason for that….

WAIT A MINUTE.  I just went to actually start crossing things off the list I had made for June…and ladies {and gents}…considering what a CRAZY month June was…I actually sort of kicked this list's butt!  I feel like it went so fast that I was expecting to go back into this and see all these things I had NOT done…but in actuality, I was pretty darn realistic about my list! #win for this bride.

Okay….before I lose you all with my rambling….let's review June!

The JUNE List:
- Buy Ant's belt - probably the easiest item on this list…but yet…here it stays
- Build all lawn games {groom will be doing this, but still!} - not done, but Ant and my dad are actively setting up a date to make this actually happen
- Make all table #s  - DONE!  Major thank you to my mom for helping me knock this one out.
- Start looking for Find MOTB dress  - again, DONE!  One majorly productive day at the mall later...
- Finalize menu for rehearsal dinner - DONE! All settled and ready to order.
- Decide on rehearsal dinner invites & order - DONE.  I give Ant 100% of the credit for this one. 
- Send out invitations {both rehearsal dinner and wedding} - DONEEEEEEE. YAYYY. 
- Send out friendly reminders about the hotel room block! - DONE.  A few times over.  With varying levels of friendly and naggy :)
- Complete FOTB & FOTG outfits - DONE!  Only thing not purchased is my dad's shirt.  But suits and ties are golden and that's enough for me!
- Go shopping for rehearsal dinner "things" {everything but the food & drink} - Had a very productive morning shopping with my MIL and we have just about everything we need for our rehearsal dinner decor!
- Celebrate my bridal shower!!! - DONE! You read the post here. :)
- Finish paint & names for place cards - Place cards are all painted, we just need to get the names on them, so they are ready for #s the week before the wedding.
- Mock up seating chart - Started playing with seating charts, and quickly realized it was a waste of time until I have the RSVPs in…so I didn't get very far, but it is also as done as it is going to get at this point...
- Finalize key songs - Not done, but thats why we made sure to successfully do the next item on the list…..
- Pick a date to meet with DJ in July - DONE!  July 17th poor Pat will have to help get this indecisive mess of a bride and groom organized with song choices and things.
- Send email to Noreen about flowers - DONE! I love Noreen.  She makes me happy, and her beautiful flowers make me happy. 
- Pay balance for honeymoon - DONE!  My credit card hurts but my heart is so happy.  And I got this beautiful welcome packet in the mail from Sandals shortly after!  I am so excited for the wedding, and often forget that we have this magical vacation immediately afterwards...
- Get in touch with caterer about drink menu - DONE!  We have made contact, I just need to finalize our decisions.
- Contact Mystic Market re: cake stand size - DONE! 12" cake stand, here we come.
- Hair trial!! - Again, let's talk about vendors making me happy.  I ramble a bunch of things about hair and soft and out of my way, and Brittni's amazing Aunt Amy creates something soft and beautiful.  Now we just need about 100 types of product to make it behave in the August heat and we will be golden!
- Second dress fitting - DONE.  It was the first time my dress felt like my dress…it was perfect and it made me the happiest person in the shoreline area.  I was giddy and giggly for the rest of the night.
- Wedding signage - An official WIP...
- Book transportation - So let me just tell you, this is the definition of persistence pays off.  I refused to pay 1200 dollars…so I kept calling places…and viola!  No one said transportation has to be romantic.  It's a ten minute ride!  So we're golden, and for a whopping $375.  Hallelujah.
- Bridal party gifts 100% - Epic fail.  and I'm totally okay with that…you can't win them all!  We did make progress…

Not too bad, right??  We are going to ignore the fact that the next list I write will be {essentially} my last list…and focus instead on how much I kicked butt in June! Not that I did it myself, I never would have gotten everything done without the support of my favorite humans on the planet.  You know who you are :)

Also, I realized I blog almost only about weddings…and went to a wedding this month and gave you almost NO pictures from it! So we are remedying this immediately.  With a major photo upload.  Stonge and Ina (now, Mr. and Mrs. St. Onge) got married in Newport on June 8th, exactly two months before Ant and I!  Their wedding at Regatta Place on Goat Island was absolutely beautiful.  They had the best weather and we had an amazing time!

When the Newport bridge is the backdrop at the hotel, how can you not take a million pictures??  

This outtake that I posted on instagram is actually one of my favorites…

Ant got artsy with his shots…

Ant and Will, his best man.  Being pensive and silly on the docks!

Our group of friends from UConn…we dress up nice!!!  Love all of these people.

A selfie with the groom is always necessary.

A couple of pictures of the pretty details of the day...

 My roomies, past and present.

I love this man, so so much.  So I give him lots of kisses.

The bride and groom <3 

How was your June???

The 6 Month Sprint: Week 12

My goal is to get through quite a number of "6 month sprint" posts over the course of the next week or so….I have a LOT of them to get to you! Let's pick up where we left off...

Friday May 16th: Emailed Rachel about timeline stuff.  Who knew how many times that pesky timeline would come up through this planning process...

Sunday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Monday:  Spent some time working with Jen, and figured out the map issue for our invitations.  LOVE the solution we came up with!

Tuesday: Resent out the check for part of my wedding gift….oh how I love the mail system.  I also went into transportation mode like whoa, and reached out to a number of places to get quotes.  The reality of the situation is that transportation is WAY more expensive than I'd guessed.  But you have to start somewhere!!  I also got the proof of the map for our invitations and got the final proof - okayed it and ordered it!!! YAY! Happy dance!!!! Sigh of relief.  And so on and so forth...

Wednesday: Reached out to my aunt to get details about +1s and addresses for my cousins to correct our guest list!  Now that our invitations are ordered I realized I should start auditing our guest list to make sure it was ready when we needed to start sending them out!  I also sent an email to the restaurant we are going to have cater our rehearsal dinner to ask about some menu options.  I also sent out another email to our cake baker to confirm the size we will need for our cake stand, so we can start to get that taken care of!

Thursday May 22: Paid for invites.  Then I got an email from AppyCouple about being on their blog!  AppyCouple had featured a picture of my engagement ring on their instagram account awhile back….and the woman reached out to see if we would be willing to share our proposal story for a blog series they are running! Exciting stuff!!! I obviously said yes.

Now that the nitty gritty is done…let's talk about my bachelor free weekend!  While Ant was in Vegas, I spent most of this weekend out in the sun with my roommate from college!  We spent Saturday on Block Island…and today we went to the town beach in Guilford!  Both are quite different beaches, but both were perfect relaxing days with one of my favorite people working on my tan :)

the snap we sent Ant & his groomsmen...

They were setting up for a wedding on the beach at Ballards..

Day 2 of sun!! Doesn't get any better.

Ant comes home from Vegas tonight, but won't actually get home until probably 1 am or so…so I will be enjoying one last "mevening" at the house.  While I have had a wonderful weekend…I can't wait for him to get home!!  I got this adorable/hilarious shot of him and his best man sleeping in the San Fran airport on their way home earlier….

Nick is right, I am a lucky girl.

How was your weekend??  Can you believe it is almost JULY??

My Bridal Shower!!

So, I just sent my fiancé off to work - and from there he will be leaving to go to Vegas for the weekend for his bachelor party!  There are 9 of them going…and all I ask is that they come back in one piece ;)

Now that I have the house to myself, I wanted to go back and tell you all about my bridal shower which was this past Sunday!  You can also read my MOH's recap of the lovely event here :)

My bridal shower was a complete surprise - I knew the date that is was happening, and that was it!  I did not even know what state it was going to be in…RI, where I grew up, or CT where I live now!  My MIL and MOH started telling me it was in Texas so I'd stop asking :)  The morning of - my fiancé and one of my bridesmaids drove me down…and we found ourselves at Latitude 41, the restaurant at Mystic Seaport!!  My mom could not have picked a better spot...Ant and I actually looked at this location as a possible wedding venue - the shower took place on the patio where they generally hold cocktail hour, and it could NOT have been more beautiful!  It didn't hurt that the weather was absolutely perfect.  

Below is the invitation - that I didn't get to see until that day!  My MIL did the centerpieces herself, and I think they came out absolutely stunning! I got to take three home that are currently decorating my living & dining areas.

This is the view of the patio from the water - it is a beautiful sperry tent that is set up and makes the perfect space for a shower!  It is also right on the water, so the views are stunning!

Everyone was so incredibly generous - and look how pretty the gift table was!!

Melissa did an awesome job of putting together a few games for the day!  First, she had a scavenger hunt, to see who had the craziest list of things in their purse!  Then, she had everyone play "He said, She said" - she had asked Ant and I the same 5 questions - then used quotes from our answers and had everyone guess who said each quote.  It was pretty funny to see what everyone's guesses are - I think we surprised a few people!  It was fun for Ant and I also, to see how we each answered the questions ourselves.  Some of them were hard!  When did you know he/she was "the one?" - Heavy stuff! and really fun to reflect on together.  The last thing was she had each person write out the recipe for a perfect marriage, that she put together for us to take home that day!  I loved seeing everyones responses on our drive home…some were serious, some were funny - and all had a lot of truth to them!!

I don't have many of the pictures that were taken that day, but here are a few that I was able to borrow & steal from people….Ant and my dad stopped by at the end, so we were able to snag a few family shots as well!

My amazing bridesmaids…these are my favorite women in the world.

Last but not least - the moms!!!  They were the perfect hostesses and I could not have asked for a more beautiful afternoon! I'm a lucky lucky girl :)  

It was so fun to have all of my family and friends together in one spot - it made me realize just how quickly the big day is coming up…and how much fun it is going to be!  The next few weeks are going to absolutely FLY by, and I'm just trying to make sure I take the time to enjoy every minute along the way!

Branford House RW: Michelle Gardella

If you follow my instagram (@theshorelinebride) - you know this week has been a SUPER productive one for me.  If you don't follow me, you probably should!  We bought my mom's MOTB dress, spent hours stuffing & stamping envelopes, and finished the table numbers!  Phew.  That being said, there hasn't been a ton of time for blogging…

While I am catching up on some of my other blog posts….I wanted to share this Branford House real wedding photographed by Michelle Gardella.  As always, I've posted a few of my favorites below….but you should definitely check out her entire blog post here!

This wedding initially jumped out at me because of this first picture below…I sent it to my florist as inspiration for the giant fireplace in the main room.  For us - it will be our dance floor, not a dining space…but we were brainstorming ways to dress it up without overdoing it….I think this couple had the right idea!  Below you will also find some pretty awesome shots of the groomsmen, and some insanely romantic portraits.

The 6 Month Sprint: Week 11

If there was something faster than a sprint, than that's what I would call the 2-3 months before the wedding.  My bridal shower is less than two weeks away, and the list of things we have to do is getting smaller! AH!  I already told you what I accomplished in May…but we'll backtrack to the 6 month sprint posts to see what those days looked like.

Thursday May 8:  Got call back from Kathy that she wasn't in town to walk the Branford House with us while we were there…worth a shot!  Ant, my dad and I all met with Marie, the Justice of the Peace we were looking to hire.  We had coffee and chatted about all sorts of things.  Then Ant and I left to go meet Pat at the Branford House.  He got lost on campus - which we took as a sign that we should definitely use direction cards as part of our invitation suite!!  We showed him the different rooms of the house, and brainstormed areas to set up his DJ station, and the photo booth.  He seemed really excited about the acoustics, which makes me a happy lady :) My mom was coming into town for my first dress fitting, and was close enough that we were able to actually walk her through the Branford House as well!  She's seen it plenty of times before, but not since we actually booked it as our venue!!  Then we went to my first dress fitting!!!!!! I got to try it on with both my shoes and my earrings, which was so fun to see my outfit come together.  We don't have to do a TON of alterations, so hopefully when I go to my next fitting it will be almost perfect!

Friday: We committed to the JP we had met with on Thursday, and paid our deposit.  We also signed the contract and paid the deposit for our videographer!! (One trend you may notice with wedding planning- there are a lot of contracts, and a lot of deposits.)  I emailed Kathy to ask her about the size of the tables at the Branford House, and confirm the location we wanted to put the DJ table would work.  I also sent an email to Jen about a small add on to our invitation suite.

Saturday: I heard back from Kathy that our DJ location would work!  She also gave us some good advice as far as table set up is concerned.

Monday: Ordered myself something pretty for the wedding day off of Etsy - we'll chat more about that later!

I wasn't going to see Ant on his birthday, so I surprised him with pie and prosecco the night before...

Wednesday May 14th: Celebrated my sweet fiancés birthday - by working all day.  We saw each other all of about 5 minutes, but that's okay because….

Thursday: Was the 1 year anniversary of when Ant proposed to me!!!  (Not sure if that's a thing people celebrate, but we don't turn down any excuse to celebrate)  We had the entire day off together and used it as a joint birthday celebration as well.  We spent some time working on the questionnaire that we had to send back to our JOP, which was a fun way to reflect on us for a little bit.

How is your wedding planning going???  Send me the link to your blog, I'd love to read about it!