The Home Stretch

Well, here we are. 12 days out and it’s slowly sinking in. Actually, it hit Joey like a bolt of lightning the other day. “Holy &$*#! The wedding is HERE!” Yes, it’s not something so far into the future anymore. It is right around the corner and ready or not, that day is fast approaching! Well it’s a good thing we’re ready then!

This weekend Doc and I went home to Paoli for the last time before the wedding weekend. We helped Mom with the table numbers, place cards, hotel gift bags, and program. We met with the DJ and Photographer (Ok, Doc didn’t come along to those meetings). We put things into boxes and labeled them so everything gets to the Desmond and where it needs to go. Putting finishing touches on everything really started to get me excited! What had been anxiety about getting things done has turned to excitement about the big day.

What’s left to do? Such little things that if I didn’t do any of them the wedding would still go off without a hitch. Just things like organizing last minute details like babysitters and where exactly to put the decorations after the ceremony.

Last thing to do? Pray for good weather!! We’d really love to have the ceremony outside. Although either way, at the end of the day we’ll be husband and wife so it doesn’t really matter where the ceremony takes place.

Also, is anyone else aware of the stink bug issue that southeastern PA is having?! They are EVERYWHERE. My Mom opened her gas tank and there were 10 of them just chillin in there having a pow wow…. Gross. The DJ said he did an outside wedding and his bag was FULL of them. Let’s just hope I’m not carrying any hitchhikers down the aisle with me…

Hope everyone’s Autumn is off to a fabulous start. I just love this weather! If you haven’t been by recently, make sure to stop at Bath and Body Works. They have some amazing scented candles and really cute Halloween soaps, hand sanitizers, etc.!

Only 12 days to go!!

Love,
Sarah

We're in the TEENS club!

Hi folks! 19 days to go! Can you believe it? This past weekend I went home real quick for my final dress fitting (woohoo!) and a really looong meeting at the Desmond where we talked about every inch of the wedding day from top to bottom. I feel really confident that everything is coming together!

This coming weekend is the last big weekend before the wedding, as we have the Everhart-Palmerio wedding on October 2nd! We’re going to be doing all the finishing touches on the arts and crafts, meeting with the DJ and MC for the last time, and putting all of the doodads into labeled boxes so that everything gets where it needs to go on the big day. I can’t believe it’s basically here.

Joey and I had fun last night going through his ipod and picking out all our favorite songs for the ‘Must Play’ list. There are some doozies on there, that’s for sure!

Next up? Doing all of the laundry that we’ve been neglecting lately and PACKING for our honeymoon!! We are so excited for this well deserved vacation.

In 2.5 weeks I’ll be a WIFE!!! AHHH!!!

Love,
Sarah

"5, 6, 7, 8..."

I guess it’s about time that I write about my Bachelorette Party since I’ve had almost a week to recover! What a weekend! On Friday, I worked a half day and drove to Dewey Beach, DE with two of my bridesmaids, Gage and Amanda. We sailed in the ship, “Damned Barnacle of Tortuga” and got many stares and honks…

We arrived in Dewey and hit the beach right away! Except when we got to the beach, the sun left and it was COLD. So we trashed that idea and got some adult beverages and headed to the hotel room where we worked on bedazzling my tank top for Saturday night.

The other girls slowly arrived one by one, and some in groups. Laura and my cousin Jaime suddenly appeared out of nowhere and wanted me to see my room… which was all pirated out!! I loved it!!

We all went out to dinner, ate really big hot dogs, I made a new friend, and had a fabulous time.

Saturday morning we were all up pretty early, and some of the girls even went for a run! (Crazies…) We had nothing else to do, and the weather was PERFECT, so we hit the beach for a good 5 hours. While we were there we had a mini photo shoot, which garnered the attention of the ENTIRE beach. We even got our picture taken for somebody’s Christmas card…

After beach time, it was finally PARTY time!! Everyone donned their outfits and we had a mini little pre-game party on the Poop Deck out in front of our hotel. I was showered with some awesome lingerie, champagne, a feather boa, and a really long task list. Oh boy….

From there we headed to dinner at Nalu, where we drank huge buckets of some kind of fruity, delicious drink and I downed a lot of pasta… I was going to need it!

After dinner, we headed to 3 different bars. Throughout the night, I met the guy who played Derice in Cool Runnings, the partial owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, sat in a convertible Bentley, danced on a stage with a band called Split Decision, met a bunch of Chi Omegas from the University of Delaware, and ended the night with Amanda on the beach and at a motel pool that was WAY too cold to swim in…

I had a blast and I am so lucky to have such wonderful bridesmaids and friends. Everyone did a wonderful job with the planning and I had the BEST time. We are getting so close to the big day, I can hardly believe it!!

24 days to go!

Love,
Sarah

ONE MONTH TO GO!

I can’t believe I am writing our one month out update. It seems like November 29th was only yesterday, and I cannot believe that summer passed by so quickly. I almost feel like we got gypped out of our summer. I was so busy planning and traveling to and from PA for meetings that I didn’t really notice summer happening. It makes me sad. BUT I love love LOVE the Fall. So I am ok with it for now. I don’t love Fall traffic in fairfax, and especially don’t love winter. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

What I am working on currently:

-RSVPs are due TODAY. I am hoping to receive most of the missing pieces over the weekend, and make the remaining phone calls on Monday.

-Which leads to: making the seating chart! I’m oddly excited about this.

-Arts and Crafts! Going up to PA the next 2 weekends to help Mom finish up the table
numbers, place cards, and program. Gage is making some ceremony crafts too!

-Dress fitting #2… is next week!

-Making final payments. Ouch.

-Finalizing my itinerary and wedding day spreadsheet. (This is actually fun for me…)

-Setting up all the final meetings with my vendors before the big day!

-Wrapping presents…

-Choosing honeymoon excursions…

-annnndddd going to my BACHELORETTE PARTY! Leaving TODAY!

Get excited for a nice write up when I return. Til then, enjoy the crisp fall weather, FOOTBALL, and go get a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. OMG.

30 Days to go!!

Love,
Sarah

Dirrrrty Dancing

If you know me at all, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a dancer. And by that I mean I practically danced out of the womb on July 18, 1984. Lately I’ve been tossing around some ideas for our first dance. Do I want to keep it traditional? Do we want to reenact Dirty Dancing a la Laura Lazarus Jessup (Congratulations!)? Do I want to create an entire production a la Greek Sing with backup dancers and props?

Part of me really wants to do something crazy and different, because I feel like it is expected of me. But then again, this is MY day so who are you people to have expectations?! I have a few surprises up my sleeve, mind you, but there won’t be circus performers, Jack Sparrow impersonators (um, I brought up the idea to a friend… wasn’t well received), Flower dogs, or Fireworks (but if anybody wants to foot the $5,000 bill I would LOVE YOU FOREVER).

Naturally, I turned to theknot.com because isn’t that where everyone goes for wedding advice? Don’t answer that. I found a quiz entitled “Which Choreographed Wedding Dance Are You?”. Go ahead, try it out!
http://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-planning/wedding-music-ideas/articles/which-choreographed-wedding-dance-are-you.aspx

Here are my results:

Your dance style: You’re willing to take a few risks, and you don’t mind having an audience.

Our advice: Push your comfort zone (just a little!) by learning an upbeat swing dance or even the Charleston. Warning: A big, white dress probably won’t fly for this one, so you might need a quick costume change into something you can move in. (Don’t worry; after the dance you can change back!)

The best part: The quick tempo will perfectly satisfy your taste for a bit of adventure, and the fancy footwork will wow your guests -- plus, as long as you keep moving, no one will even notice if you’re making up a move or two.

Well, my dance style is pretty accurate. I don’t mind pushing my comfort zone but I’m not going to change out of my dress. Also please note it is neither big nor white so we don’t really have that problem anyway! (ooh hints!) After reviewing my results, I think I’m going to go with an earlier plan I devised which I am obviously not going to share… it will encompass some creativity but no cardboard houses, toothpick bridges, or huge laminated dollar bills…

Oh stop complaining, in 33 days you’ll know EVERYTHING!! And, in 3 days I will be packing up my pirate hat and heading to Dewey Beach, DE for my bachelorette party!!! Expect tons of pictures and a huge write-up following this weekend. Because not only is it my bachelorette party, we are passing the ONE MONTH MARK on Saturday, September 10th. It is really almost here, people!!!

Lots of love,

Sarah