From Miss to Mrs.: My Wedding

Even now as I type this exactly one month after dear husband and I said "I do" it still feels so weird to describe myself as a married lady. I feel like I should wear a badge or something to let the whole world know--oh wait that's what the second ring on my left hand means?? Alright then!

In all honesty though, I struggled with how to post about the wedding because there was soooo much leading up to it (I tried to share most of it) and then the day itself had so many details, moments, memories, and I can't help but want to share all of it! However, after quickly realizing that a post about all the minutia of the day would result in one MONDO (and yes, probably boring for you) post I decided to try and stick with the highlights of the day. Of course, this post is still going to be long but, what can I do?! Before we get into anything though I want to give a huge shout out to my wedding photographers! The Artist Group did a PHENOMENAL job and all of the photos are from them!

A la the Royal family and Prince William and Katherine Middleton, this is our "Official Wedding Portrait." Lol.

We had a medium-sized bridal party that consisted of friends from high school, college, and family members. And yes, my one bridesmaid (you might remember my bridezilla post) successfully retrieved her dress from the closed and out of business store (thanks to many phone calls and emails to the lawyers by yours truly). For her protection, she shall remain nameless. Haha! But don't they all look amazing?! I had such a gorgeous crew of girls with me that day.

Some more details:

Bridal gown: Alfred Angelo Style 205, also known as "Cinderella" from their Disney line.

Bridal shoes: Badgley Mishka  Tad Ankle Strap Pump. These were comfy and all until about 10 pm....then it was GET THESE CLUTCHES OF SATAN OFF ME.

Bridesmaids' Dresses: Alfred Angelo Style 7290L in the color Once Upon a Time.

Paper products: Invitations were from Paper Source and the rest were DIY.

Rings: Tiffany & Co.

Flowers were by Zenplicity Florist. They cost a FORTUNE but I guess it was worth it? Look how pretty the ceremony pieces turned out. Not to mention the bouquets and centerpieces!

Our cake was by Isgro's Bakery. Speaking of cake...

Clearly we love cake. For our cake we decided to go with chocolate and vanilla marble with white buttercream. The top layer had our monogram in the Once Upon a Time color (so it matched the bridesmaids), the middle layer had quilting and blue dots, and the bottom layer had blue dots and a bow (you can't see the bow in these photos). 

And these are some of my favorite portraits from the venue, which was a gorgeous ballroom.

And my favorite bridal party shot:

Overall, it was the perfect day complete with absolutely PERFECT weather (72 and sunny with NO rain), a beautiful bridal party (seriously look how good they all looked!), and memories to last a lifetime. I could not be happier and now I am officially a Mrs.! I look forward to married life and all of the ups and downs that get thrown at us! I want to share SO many photos with you all but I think that would be overkill. Ughh the struggle is real!

One last note: Before anyone asks if we're planning on having kids (seriously I've been married for a months and already a dozen people have asked). The current answer is NO NO NO, not at the moment. We have too much we want to do and accomplish ourselves for us to even consider any of that nonsense. Call us selfish but we'll get to it when we get to it.

Bridezilla Mode...Activated

As many of you know I am getting married in September.  Planning a wedding, I've been told, is a stressful endeavor. There are so many things to consider.

• Do we go with this DJ or that DJ? (hint, just pick one they're all playing the same playlist). 
• Do we go with these flowers or those flowers? (hint, who cares? They die anyway and no one cares about them.) 
• What do we give as favors? 
• What about the cake? 
• What about the linens? 

And, of course, let's not forget about the dresses, dresses, dresses! There's the bridal gown, bridesmaids' dresses, Mother of the Bride dress, Mother of the Groom dress, flower girl dress, and all the dresses in between for the rehearsal dinner and bridal shower. Well, as if the wedding planning isn't time consuming and stressful enough, let us add this little development in, shall we?

I'll just let that sink in a little.

Everyone has so much advice for brides to be about what colors to go with, how to wear your hair, who should be in your bridal party, etc. Well, I would like to hear some advice on what to do when your damn dress store goes out of business. Now, don't let me fool you. I have all of MY stuff. I have my bridal gown and all accessories. My mothers of the bride/groom have their dresses. And my four bridesmaids? Well three of them have their dresses. What I do not have is ONE.DAMN.BRIDESMAID.DRESS. 

Long story short: My girls all ordered (and paid in full for) their dresses in March -- I was there when they ordered them. Then the dresses arrived in May (May 14th to be exact) and all of my girls were called by the store and told to come and pick their dress up. Three of my bridesmaids can follow directions and did just that. They picked their damn dress up. The last bridesmaid, however, was apparently too busy to pick it up that weekend. No problem, right? She'll go another time, right? WRONG. For two entire months she failed to find 35 minutes to go and pick up the dress. (By the way the store tells you that you have to pick up your dress within 2 weeks of it coming in when they call you).

Then, on the darkest day in July (July 14th to be exact) Alfred Angelo nationwide CLOSED. Like bye bye see you never. Peace out. Out of business. Shut the door and throw away the key. And guess what? That dress that my stupid bridesmaid was too lazy to go and get despite it being 6 weeks until my wedding and despite the dress having arrived two months ago.....yeah, that dress was hanging somewhere inside the now closed store. It and the perfect wedding I had in my mind being held captive from my unfortunate, desperate, and out-of-luck grasp.

I have no idea what to do. I need her dress and I'm pissed as hell that she didn't think to go and get it. Sure, who could foresee the store declaring bankruptcy and closing? I'll give her that. But who leaves something they already paid for just sitting at a store for TWO months? I mean really? REALLY? There have been reports that some Alfred Angelo stores shipping the dresses that had already arrived in the store prior to the closing but this has not been confirmed by my particular store. So I have no idea (1) where her dress is, (2) whether it will be shipped to me, or (3) when we might receive it. And my wedding is in less than 60 days. 

So moral of the story? Next time someone starts complaining about wedding planning and bullshit details like napkin color or who to sit next to weird Uncle Dan I'm going to look them in the eye, smile, and say "let me tell you a story..." Because I'm pretty sure whatever you hated about planning your wedding was nowhere near this level of catastrophe. AMIRIGHT?

I'm Nikki. And things just happen to me to keep my life interesting. Well, hey, positive thoughts are key: At least I won't be the one walking naked down the aisle.

Our Wedding Invitations Arrived

Ahh, our wedding invites arrived! 

I searched and searched online and finally found a design I loved at Paper Source. They are seriously GORGEOUS. It's funny because it literally took us four hours to design them with the Paper Source designer. FOUR.HOURS. But what can I say? It was worth it.

I am obsessed. We were going for a traditional and classic invite without a bunch of colors. If fact, it ended up being silver, white, and dark gray. This is what the full suit looks like:

Because of the silver foil we went plain for the details and rsvp cards. However, leaving the trifold alone looked unfinished. We decided to do a ribbon band with a stamped and embossed monogram of our last initial. That was the only thing we had to assemble ourselves but believe me it took forever. First we (I) had to cut 80 portions of the blue ribbon. Then I had to cut equal amounts of the silver ribbon. Then we had to punch out the bigger black squares. Then we had to punch out the smaller silver squares. Then we had to stamp each one, layer the powder, and use the embossing gun (which is super fun BTW and that might get a post of its own) and then we had to adhesive it all together. We wanted the monogram to be attached the band of ribbons but make it so the band of ribbons would slide off the invite.

And then this is what the invite looked like before it was ready to be stuffed in the envelope. We printed the envelopes in a faux calligraphy (calligraphy is SO expensive I found out and I was too chicken to try to DIY that).

Apologies for the poor photos. I only used my good camera for some of them! Alright, so we have to get these in the mail and then start the nail-biting-inducing process of waiting for the rsvps to roll in!

My Parisian Themed Bridal Shower

Yet another wedding-related post. I promise we're almost finished with all the wedding-related stuff and I'll go back to just nails (and then some). But for now, I'm sharing a peek into my bridal shower! My bridal party planned a *surprise* Parisian-themed bridal shower for me. It was nice to see everyone and I was blown away by the fact that one of my closest college buddies showed up -- she had to drive 3 hours each way! Unfortunately, I don't have the digital files for photos so we'll have to do the whole photo-of-a-photo thing.

Full disclosure, it was not really a surprise. Hence I wore the white pants. The rouse was that Andrew and I were going to lunch with my future in-laws. The problem was not that we never go to lunch with them--it was that we do that somewhat often and we only ever go to one restaurant (it's my father-in-law's favorite). So when Andrew told me we were going somewhere else I was immediately suspicious. It was easy to put 2 and 2 together and I decided to wear white pants because that was bridal but non-committed in case I was wrong. After all, it's summer and people wear white all the time.

It was a buffet brunch with mimosas and delicious food. Andrew's family was there, my family was there, my friends, and my mom's friends, too. And how cute is this little cake?! The black bow? So precious! They also gave out Eiffel Tower cookies and a compact mirror with an Eiffel Tower as favors.

Overall, it was a nice time. The opening presents while everyone watched me was a little awkward and I got SO MANY KITCHEN things I could open a second kitchen. By far the best gifts were the Himalayan sea salt lamp (from my future sister-in-law) and the creme brulee set (my college buddy).

 One step closer to the wedding!

Weekend Recap: A Visit to the Wedding Venue

This past Sunday we attended an open house and food tasting at our wedding venue. Can I just say...I adore our wedding venue. It's the perfect combination of special and luxury that I always think of when I picture a wedding. It has the most stunning staircase as soon as you walk in and then it has multiple different cocktail hour and reception rooms for you to choose from. I can't wait to share photos of the venue from our wedding day!

We're not doing gold for our wedding but how beautiful is that tablescape in the photo above? I almost reconsidered our choice to do silver instead of gold.

Let's be real though. The decor was nice and it was great to see all the different color schemes and possibilities. However, we were most interested in the fooooood. And man was there a lot of it! Including a seafood bar. Okay, mini crab cakes and scallops (not so mini) are a MUST have for the wedding but I think I'll do without the lobster. The lobster was good, but it was just okay. 

And what would a venue open house be without cake, cake and more cake? We met both the in-house bakers as well as a few venue-preferred bakeries. How cute is this little cake??

The in-house bakers had huge sample cakes, including all different flavors. My favorites were the raspberry marble, vanilla pound, and chocolate marble. So delicious! How will we choose when it comes time to design our wedding cake?!

Thanks for reading!

My Wedding: Shoe Selection

Now that I have finally decided on a dress (I can't stop googling it and looking at photos of it by the way--I'm obsessed) I can start looking for jewelry and, even more fun for me, shoes! I've been combing the internet trying to find the perfect pair and I've come across these:

They are both from the Blue by Betsy Johnson line and I like them because they're silver, sparkly, and have a pretty blue sole. They can serve as my "something blue" on the wedding day. The pair on the right are called Teena the and the pair on the left is the Tee heels. I think I'm leaning toward the Teenas BUT there were some other options too.

The ones on the left are called The Harlow by Touch Ups. I like them in the white but they also have them in silver. I'm thinking if I don't choose these for the wedding day I could always choose them for my friend's wedding in May. The shoes on the right are the Golda pumps by Adrianna Papell. Interesting fact, Adriana Papell is the designer of the bridesmaids dresses Sarah choose for us to wear in her wedding. I really like these because of the rhinestone bottom -- the shoe itself is pretty simple but then there's tat a little bit of glitz.

It's funny when planning a wedding. Things that otherwise would be unimportant (I mean really, who cares what shoes I wear?!) become these monumental decisions. Too funny. 266 days until the wedding!

Weddings on Wednesday: Asking my girls!

Let's be honest, almost as soon as the future husband proposed to me I started considering how I would ask my girls to be my bridesmaids and stand by my side. I knew exactly who I would ask and so I just needed an idea of how to do it. Remember how my sister asked me to be her Maid of Honor? And when Sarah asked me to be hers? I decided on a DIY project that was simple, sweet, and was guaranteed to be enjoyed by my future bridesmaids.

I started with a set a small wooden crates, a set of champagne flutes, some metallic spray paint, and, of course, champagne! I sanded and painted all of the wooden crates with two coats of the metallic silver spray paint. Caution: DO NOT SPRAY PAINT WHILE WINDY. I left them to dry upside down while I prepared the rest of the stuff. Here is a quick photo of the drying stage.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. The silver is so shiny in the light but also understated enough that it's not overwhelming. They are also a lot smaller than the photo above makes them seem. Here's a photo with my hand for perspective of size.

I purchased some Armor Etch glass etching paint and stencils to add a personalized touch to the champagne flutes. I was really pleased with how easy it was to use. All I needed to do was align the stencils with what I wanted to write (the bridesmaids' names) and then layer on the etching cream. Note: You have to apply the paint really thick to ensure it etches smoothly and uniformly. Then I waited 3-5 minutes (although the instructions said 1-2 minutes was sufficient) and washed off under running water. Obviously I wore gloves to protect my hands from the etching cream since it would burn your skin if it came in contact with it! Here is my setup:

 And then I added a few finishing touches, including a personalized card and a mini bottle of champagne to each one. I arranged each in one of the wooden crates and called it a day.

For my sister's I added additional goodies because she is my Maid of Honor. I added macaron erasers and a cupcake-in-a-jar (also DIYed). How cute did they end up??

Needless to say, they each said yes!

On Wednesday We Wedding Plan

It's official everyone! Outside of getting engaged, Andrew and I have taken the next major step on the marriage front because we booked our venues! We will be getting married on September 8, 2017. I don't want to share our venue details just yet (plus I want to get really really good photos of it first) but since venue-hunting was such an interesting journey I wanted to post about the ones we considered but decided against. Let me just say, as fun as venue-hunting was, it kind of sucked too. We were stressed because one of the venues was booked up through 2018 if you can believe it! In total I think we looked at 8-10 venues (but these were our favorites).

We really loved this first venue because it was really close to our apartment -- but the lack of outside photo opportunities and almost-too-high-pricing took it out of the running.

See, the outside was just bleh. It did have some outdoor possibilities (see below) but Andrew and I went with a venue that offered us more outdoor AND indoor opportunities for photos.

The inside was spectacular though. The cocktail reception area had an open kitchen so you could see everything being done...

...and just check out this ballroom. It was the perfect size for our moderately sized wedding and I really liked that the venue only did ONE WEDDING AT A TIME. Some of the venues were clearly wedding factories where they wouldn't care to get to know Andrew and me on a personal level. We really liked this venue's dedication to one couple at a time.

The next venue had a really gorgeous chapel and plenty of opportunities for photos but the actual reception facility left something to be desired. Plus, they asked us to guarantee 150 people which we just could not do!

Seriously, how GORGEOUS is that chapel? I could definitely see myself walking down the aisle in that chapel. The reason we didn't go with this venue is because it had a shared outdoor space and could have 2-3 weddings going on at a time. I don't mind multiple weddings BUT I at least want my wedding space to be separate from their wedding space.

Definitely an ornate venue for sure though..how stately is this building?

Again, with plenty outdoor opportunities. Of course, I figure it will rain during my wedding so...outdoor photo opportunities is not as important as indoor photo opportunities!

And the indoors of the reception venue itself seemed a little dated:

The last venue we checked was way too over the top for us. Although I'm sure it could be stunningly beautiful for many brides, I think it was just a little too much for Andrew and I and it would tiptoe the line between elegant and tacky. Who wants to be tacky on their wedding day?!

We checked out a bunch of country clubs too but we just didn't like the county club vibe. Neither of us golf (or even like golf) so it didn't make sense for our wedding. Although they were definitely a bit more budget friendly than some of the other venues we looked at!

So what was your wedding venue like? Did you do a fire hall, banquet hall, hotel, outdoors, etc wedding?? Share below! And if you have any advice at all wedding related I'd love to hear it!

Wedding To Do List

Oh dear, even though we just became engaged about five seconds ago, there is so much to do!

1. Straighten Teeth!
2. Book Venue
3. Book Church
4. Compile Guest List
5. Pick a Date
6. Wedding Party
7. Bridesmaids Dresses
8. Florist
9. Centerpieces
10. Favors
11. DJ
12. Photographer
13. Invitations/RSVP Cards/etc
14. Church Programs
15. Save the Dates
16. Table Numbers
17. Seating Chart
18. Signature Drinks
19. Bridal Gown
20. Bridal Shoes
21. Bridal Jewelry
22. Bridal Shower
23. Tuxes
24. Bachelorette
25. Honeymoon
26. Gift for my *OMG* Husband
27. Postage/Stamps
28. Wedding Rings
29. Hotel Blocks
30. Transportation
31. Makeup & Hair Trial
32. Marriage License
33. Thank You Cards
34. Shot List for Photog
35. Song List
36. Cake Server Set
37. Toasting Flutes
38. Bridal Emergency Kit

Phew! Now that I'm good and overwhelmed I think I'll go for a run!

Our Wedding: The Proposal

For today's post I wanted to tell you all a little more about the actual proposal. Of course, I already shared with you all that Andrew and I got engaged mid-April (April 16th but who is keeping track), but I did not tell you the full story of how it happened. So here we go, read on if you're interested!

During the week of April 16th, Andrew started to ask what we should do for our sixth anniversary on April 24th. He threw out some ideas, including heading back to where we became an official couple, and also going to our favorite gardens spot in Pennsylvania, Longwood Gardens. We decided to celebrate our anniversary back where it all began so on April 16th we chose to go to Longwood to just have a nice picnic and spend the day. We used to go to the gardens all the time while I was in law school and it's one of my favorite. So here's where it began. We park and walk into the Longwood Gardens and I notice two things: (1) Andrew was wearing a jacket that was WAY too heavy for the temperature and (2) he kept patting his left side pocket....which was odd. Immediately my *engagement senses* started to tingle. I was expecting that he would ask on our sixth anniversary but I began to think maybe he tricked me and it was going to be at Longwood.  The map below shows all of the gardens. The purple are the flowers and fountains and GORGEOUS conservatory (which includes some bonsai trees!!) and the green is a "meadow" which is basically just a field you can walk through. I put the red heart over the spot we chose for our picnic.

We actually never had lunch there before and I'm not even sure it was open before but we found it that day and it was perfect. It had a bit of fence around it and only one entry and exit so there it was the perfect spot--no one was in there. We went in and sat on a couple of the flower beds until a single woman decided to get up and then we stole her spot for lunch. Here is a pre-engagement photo of Andrew. He doesn't actually look nervous in it!!

We had our lunch (which he ate in all of two bites) and then he kept saying "Want to just sit here for a bit?" Of course I said yes and then finally he grabbed my hands said he wanted to ask me something and then dropped to a knee and pulled out a ring box. My.heart.stopped. I knew what was happening but I still cried, said yes, and then that was the end. Funny story: he just kept putting the ring box near me until I asked him if he was going to put it on me. Apparently he thought the lady takes the ring out of the box and puts it on herself. LOL. He finally took the ring out of the box and slid it onto my finger. And there we go, engaged!

After all of that excitement we just walked the gardens and I took some photos. Here are a bunch:

An added thing for the day of our engagement was....we walked to where the meadow began and we witnessed another couple get engaged. Andrew isn't the only one who thinks Longwood Gardens makes the perfect engagement spot!

Pardon the creeper shot! I just had to. I wish I knew who they were because I would totally give them this photo.

We then went out to dinner, stopped home to tell my parents (and show them the ring of course), called my sister to get her out to the restaurant they were all at, and then came home and toasted our engaged status. 

Let the wedding planning begin!

My Wedding: The Ring

I wasn't sure about posting this because I really dislike when girls post pictures of their ring and tell all details about it. I see it on Facebook ALL THE TIME. But then I'm sure there are people like me who enjoy seeing the ring up close without finding out too much about the ring. So, for the people out there like me, who just want to see a pretty piece of commitment jewelry, this post is for you!

Andrew asked me to marry him and gave me this STUNNINGLY GORGEOUS and perfectly simple engagement ring. It is particularly special because when we had been dating for about a year we started talking about getting married (in the "someday eventually" sense not the "let's get this planned" sense). Every time I would tell him I had to ask him a question he would joke that I was going to ask him to marry me or vice versa and then he would send me a link to a beautiful solitaire round diamond ring. I always thought it was beautiful and I guess he realized that that after all these years it would be a perfect choice.

I love it and will wear it forever and ever. He was so sweet....after he put the ring on my finger and we sat down for a bit he mentioned that "I didn't have to worry about anything because it's insured." Does that mean he thinks I'm going to lose it?! Although he's not wrong in his worry since I lose everything (keys, phone, debit card, etc).

Needless to say, I'm loving seeing the stone flash and sparkle every time I look at it. Beautiful. 

Everyone I have some news!!

I am literally bursting to share this on my blog today. I've been dying until I had a moment to post and share the news with all of my blog friends, readers, casual visitors, and random stumble upon-ers of this blog. So it goes like this....Andrew asked me to marry him today!! 

Yes, we are engaged to be married!!

So now there are two weddings being planned here on The Files....including one of MY OWN! I will post a much more detailed story about the proposal (oh my goodness!) and everything else you might want to know about as soon as possible. If there's something in particular leave it in the comments and I'll be sure to add it in my post! Ghila, I'm looking at you girlie! Can't wait to tell you the story!