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

The Bachelor Party... Part II

AKA “Teddy got Mugged”.

All is well in Joeyville. All of the guys made it back alive- yes, even Teddy. Still awaiting photos from Mike Lupton, picture-taker extraordinaire. The guys arrived back to our place around 2:00 yesterday afternoon. Joey was actually the most chipper looking of the lot. After they said their goodbyes, Joey settled into his favorite chair with his favorite dog and began to fill in the blanks.

Friday morning they put him in his own truck, and blindfolded him. Teddy turned on the truck and realized there was no gas and the truck needed oil. [editor’s note: if they had TOLD me they were taking his truck maybe I would’ve clued them in to the fact that the truck needs a S-load of gas and an oil change.] $100 later, they were on their way. They headed to McDonalds for lunch and handed still blindfolded Joey a HUGE bottle of Gentlemen Jack- which he managed to slug Tumbles with later because he was trying to put it in the backseat and was still blindfolded.

Funny anecdote: apparently no sooner had they crossed over the bridge into Jersey than blindfolded Joey says, “What is that smell?! It smells like Jersey.” And everyone tried not to laugh.

They stopped and all got out of the car and asked Joey where he thought he was. His answer? “What’s our tee time?”. They were all taken aback and asked how he knew this, “Judging by the sounds of golf carts and people teeing off, I’m guessing we’re at a golf course.” Good one.

After being bro-iced one too many times, Joey and his now posse of quite a few (there were about 13 guys total) headed to Atlantic City, NJ. Friday night was completely crazy, and there were many details lost here. I guess I’m pretty glad about that because do I really want to know everything? The answer is no.

Saturday it was more gambling and drinking. Joey was feeling a little rough (can’t drink em like we used to!) but was a good sport about everything. There WAS an attempt at a strip club however it was BYOB and the B store was closed. So it was back to the casinos.

Funny anecdote 2: Not sure which night this was, but as they were all waiting in line for a cab, Zach/Brian (I forget who it was, but hey they are interchangeable) disappeared and returned with a limo. The guys all thanked the driver profusely, who told them he could normally fit 8-10 big dudes, or 12 asians.

Again, many details of the night were lost (or intentionally omitted… either way, I don’t want to know). Early Sunday morning, Teddy was walking in the ghetto of AC that separated the hotel from the boardwalk, wearing white pants and a white shirt, talking on his iphone to his girlfriend, when BAM. He was hit on the head with a mini-baseball bat, aka a Cracker Whacker… in an attempt to rob him. He threw his $60 on the ground and took off running. The thugs chased him for 2 blocks or so before he got away. He’s left with a sore jaw, $-60, and a great story.

Like I said before, everyone returned home safely and I am anxiously awaiting some photographs to add to the Events tab on this site. So keep a look out!

Thanks to all the guys who attended and kept Joey safe.

Next up, MY bachelorette party…. In 2 weeks :)

41 Days to go!

Love,
Sarah

The Bachelor Party... Part I

It all started with a car alarm.

Friday morning. 4:45am. I’m sound asleep when I’m awakened to 5 little beeps. I can’t figure out if it was a dream or not, but I look at Joey and he’s awake too. “I’m not sure if it was a dream but your keychain is bee-“ “I know.” He gets up and looks out the window. Sure enough, there is Peyton’s truck, Peyton, and 3 other guys snooping around the outside of Joey’s truck. They don’t realize that Joey’s car alarm keychain beeps a warning if someone gets too close. So we decide to mess with them. Peeking out the closed curtains, we set off the car alarm. The guys jump straight into the air and dash into the woods. We’re laughing hysterically until Doc catches wind that there are people outside our window and starts barking. Peyton, Teddy, Tumbles and Joe come into the apartment and Doc goes nuts. Luckily he knows all of them and calms down quickly. We say a quick goodbye and the boys drive off… in Joey’s truck.

Doc and I go back to sleep (read: attempt to). 25 minutes later Doc is barking again. Peeking out the keyhole I see Warner and Lupton outside my door. Me: “They already left!” Warner: “I know, we’re here to get some stuff!” [holds up a cute little list on notebook paper]. He and Lupton come in, but Doc doesn’t know Lupton and refuses his entry, plus he’s wearing a baseball cap so that immediately makes things 10 times worse. Lupton waits outside. We gather Joey’s golf clubs, a nice outfit, and some polo shirts. I ask if I should be expecting any more visitors. Warner says no, and the guys disappear into the darkness.

Checking Facebook, I see that they stopped at a McDonalds and are playing golf somewhere in NJ. Peyton’s status of “VEGAS” is a total lie, and at the end of the day, I get a pix message from a ridiculously awesome looking hotel room in Atlantic City.

This brings us to today. Doc and I spent the night at A Love’s with Jax. We watched “The Hangover” and laughed at the possibility that these exact antics could be going on at that very moment.

This morning at 6:30 my phone rang. It’s Joey! He says he’s the only one left awake. Not surprised. My fiancé can party with the best of them. Plus all the guys apparently stayed up all night on Thursday preparing for the weekend. Good news: he’s up 200 and still alive. Bad news? There’s still another night to go…

Part II Coming your way soon!

Housekeeping!

I wanted to make a few housekeeping notes about the site. For one, I really shouldn’t be allowed to touch it but when I got the new pictures I got REALLY excited about adding them to the site and thus screwed a few things up. Like for instance, my bio is now gone. It has gone away without leave and it didn’t tell me where it went. I now have to go back through my e-mail and find it and/or re-write it. So sorry. Also, you may have noticed that the guest counter went back to zero. That would be my fault as well, since I was so pumped about getting the new pic up on the home page that I accidentally got rid of our super fabulous over 1100 visitor counter. Boo. Basically anything that is screwy about the site you can just chalk it up to my incompetence. You can also e-mail us at thegishwedding@gmail.com and tell me about any errors or problems that still exist with the site. I’d really appreciate it, that way I can fix them. Because as much as I like stalking myself and pretending I’m seeing the site for the first time (you don’t do that?) I still might miss something!

In other news, Joey’s bachelor party is THIS WEEKEND!!!! Neither of us have any clue where he is going/what he is doing. So expect a post about that as soon as I know and another post as soon as he’s home safe. Check out the “Events” section for photos because I’ve put one of his pals up to the task of ensuring there is at least ONE picture taken for the website.

I think that’s it for now. 45 dayssss!!!

Love,
Sarah

Tea Party!

After another long weekend- where by the way, we passed the 50 day mark!!!- I finally have some time to write about my Bridal Tea which took place on August 14th in Pennsylvania. It was hosted by a family that has been in my life since before the womb- my parents’ very close friends, the Vesseys.

The Tea Party theme was something I picked out when I was 7 years old. No, really! My 8th Birthday Party was a Tea Party and all my friends brought their dolls and we drank tea catered by A Taste of Britain and we dressed our dolls in outfits matching our own. Fast forward to my engagement… I always thought a tea party bridal shower would be so fun! So I mentioned this to my Mom. And here we are!

The invitation said that hats and gloves were optional… but not for me! I completed my entire outfit almost a month beforehand and even modeled it for bridesmaid Kendayl who swore she was going to steal my dress (you can borrow it Kens!). Here I am with my Mom, who is wearing a “Mother of the Bride” hat with a peacock feather stuck in it, courtesy of my Aunt Patti… AKA The Queen of Hearts….

The color theme for this shower was matching our wedding colors… so, if you haven’t picked up on this already- purple with a splash of orange. My Mom also incorporated the color of her dress into the nametags. It was small and probably can’t be seen from this photo… oh well, another surprise!

Another cool thing about the way this shower was done is that there was a lot of family history hidden around the house. For example, my Mom wore the necklace she was given as a member of my Great Aunt’s wedding party when she was 9 years old. She also found a towel cake that my late Great Grandmom Helen had made for my Mom’s bridal shower! How COOL?!!?

Finally, around the dessert table (which included the cake made by my lovely sister and MOH Laura) were two marriage certificates. One was my Grandmother’s parents from the 1920’s, and one was THEIR parents’, from the 1900s. Awesome. (And totally more beautiful than the ugly blue and white one that Joey and I just got…)

Here is an up close and personal picture of the gorgeous cake. Laura worked really hard on it (there was A LOT of cake in the kitchen when we arrived…) and it came out great!

The tea party was a huge success and I was so lucky to have been blessed with so many friends, family, and gifts. The last thing that I will leave you with is that if you’ve ever seen Alice in Wonderland, you know that you can’t have a tea party without…..

The White Rabbit, Alice, and The Queen of Hearts…

Only 48 days to go!! Things are getting very crazy so I apologize in advance if I’m not able to get updates out as soon as I want to!

Love,
Sarah

Wacky Weekend

OK I realize I have been severely slacking on the blogs. Life has been a little nuts lately and last weekend was wedding-central, like it is every time we go up to PA for a weekend. Since all of our vendors are there, we have to do all our appointments on the weekends when we are at home… this leads to some extremely busy weekends!

First things first. Our photos came back from our wedding photographers, John and Kimberly Sanderson. They did an amazing job and you can see some of their work around the site, and on the newest photo album tab. We have received so many compliments on the pictures but really the credit goes to the photographers themselves. I cannot wait to see our wedding pictures!

So last weekend. Um.. where do I start. I guess I’ll start at 10:30pm on Thursday when Joey got off work and we packed Doc into the suburban and headed out of town. Fast forward 3.5 hours to find me driving the suburban, Doc lucky to be alive, and Joey eating a Wawa hoagie. That’s how our weekend started.

Friday morning we woke up bright and early, and left Doc with my Mom while we went to get our MARRIAGE LICENSE! Wooohoo! It’s so funny how you learn things about someone you thought you already knew… like that time he announced he plays golf. Or that time when we went to get our marriage license and he knew EVERYTHING about what you can/can’t take into the courthouse. Um.. is there something you aren’t telling me? Anyway, the marriage license process was easy and fun. Yes, fun. We giggled when they asked us if we were related or if we were insane. Mature? Not us! After about 5 minutes we walked out there with this little piece of paper that once signed, binds us for life!

After returning to our illegally parked car, we headed off to Exton to meet with our pastry chef who is designing the cake for our wedding. We tasted 5 different flavors of cake and mousse icing, and they were all delicious. I think we are going to go with the raspberry mousse… trust me it’s delicious.

We also discussed the design/look of the cake. That, my friends, will have to be a surprise!

It was only lunch time, but we had already gotten so much done! We went back to my parents where Joey got to relax and hang out with Doc and Dakota for the rest of the day. Laura (my sis and MOH) and I had to get back into the car and go to my very first DRESS FITTING!!!!! Maria, the woman who is doing my alterations, is so wonderful. Bridesmaid Steph recommended her to me (Thank you!). My dress actually fit really well! Other than the bustle and a little in on the bust area (yes, IN), I didn’t need any other alterations. It was really fun to finally be able to put on the dress I’m going to be wearing on my wedding day!

After the dress fitting, it was time to relax and have fun. My Mom and Laura went to the Vessey’s to prepare for my AMAZING Tea Party and Joey and I decided to meet up with my brother, Alex and his girlfriend, Corinne, at the local bowling alley.

Craziness ensued.

Saturday I was treated to the most lovely tea party and bridal shower by my Pennsylvania friends and family. It is really hard having two families in two very different states, and the only option to allow relatives that can’t travel was to have two. It was really lovely, and I’m going to do a separate post about it so I can share lots of pictures.

Joey’s Mom came up for the shower on Saturday (so nice of her!) and she drove Joey back home afterwards. So I was stuck with our naughty child for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday my cousin, Jaime, and I went to meet with our DJs and we had a great visit. I know our party is going to be so much fun!! With a few surprises, naturally. After the meeting was over, we packed up the suburban, I clipped Doc into his carseat (calm down, it’s a harness with a loop for the seatbelt), and we headed back to VA in the pouring rain and terrible traffic.

Whew. After lugging all our loot up the stairs into our apartment, it was starting to look like we had just moved in. We got so many wonderful gifts and I am so thankful for each and every one! Now to unpack them……

52 <- almost to 50! Days to go!
Love, Sarah