With 4 weeks and 6 days to go…
…I’ve been reflecting back on the journey. All the great people, fabulous vendors, and other brides-to-be that I’ve met along the way; getting married and planning a wedding has been memorable. But, none of us could plan our dream day without all of the amazing sources of inspiration available to assist in making our day unique. Kind of crazy how ginormous the wedding industry has become!
So, for some fun Sunday reading (especially for my bride friends), thought I’d share my favorite wedding blogs that I’ve been tracking for the past 16 months. And a special thanks to these folks for continually helping to spark ideas, stir up a giggle or a tear, and share tips and tricks for surviving the process without a hitch :)
Love and Splendor, Brooklyn Bride, DC NearlyWeds, Etsy Wedding, Hostess with the Mostess, In This Instance, Orange Tree Wedding Blog, Southern Weddings, Style Me Pretty, thoughtfulday, Wedding Paper Divas, Weddingbee, What Junegub Loves, ritzy bee blog
wedding | Comment (0)Another Public Announcement
Hello everyone!
For those of you (family and bridal party) who received a Rehearsal Dinner Invitation… this message is for you. Please make sure to put your name on the RSVP card when you send it back. Linda received 2 RSVPs today that didn’t have names - if that was you, please leave a comment, shoot me an email, or give Linda a ring.
LINDA - One of them was my mom :) So whooooo was the other culprit?? Please step forward!
Happy almost weekend!
wedding | Comments (2)My first wedding mishap.
I feel like a tool, but I made a wedding mistake!
Here’s the story…James, my mom and myself got together tonight to stuff and assemble all of the wedding invitations. I’ve been anxiously awaiting their arrival in hopes that I could get them assembled and mailed out by Labor Day weekend. Well, I received everything this afternoon, and I made some last minute arrangements to have a mini stuffing party at my moms tonight. Everything was going great until I realized (about half way through the stuffing process) that we had stuffed and sealed about 70 invitations without putting stamps on the inner RSVP envelops! Those are the little envelopes within the invitation that you’re suppose to send the RSVP back in and TYPICALLY they are already addressed and stamped! I guess the good news is that they are addressed, the bad new is that I totally forgot to put the stamps on! I feel like a total idiot. James and my mom keep telling me, it’s ok - not a big deal and people will get over it.
But I will notice it! I like things prefect! I’m anal! I am brideziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiila! Boo!
So I am here to publicly apologize to those of you who are getting an invitation without a stamp. I owe you a stamp :) And please still come to our wedding!
The below picture was taken before I learned of the stamp mishap. After the mishap, I curled up on the hardwood floor, with my wine, and cried for my mommy.
Stuffing crew: James, Moi, and my mother who has been so helpful with all the wedding craziness. Thanks Mom!!! And thanks to James for still loving me when I freak out over stupid things. And thanks to dad for making an appearance at the stuffing party - good thing you had chocolate cake!
wedding | Comments (8)Democratic National Convention
James and I took a wander downtown this evening to check out the madness and… it was just as we expected. Lots of traffic, lots of tourists, lost of police, lots of dudes in suits with special badges, lots of press, lots of t-shirts for sale, and really nothing all that exciting! We had some pizza, walked to the Pepsi center until we hit the barricades, and then took a cab home! I will admit that it was kind of cool to see all the hoopla and in a way, be a small part of history. But seriously, how were we to concentrate on such an important world event when we have a Wii at home?! Obama’s not THAT cool.
ANYWAY, here is one pretty entertaining thing that we saw - a totally pimped out Volvo from Cali completed wallpapered with Obama bumper stickers. This person obviously doesn’t have a Wii.
Hello world.
Friends always warned me that the wedding planning process gets a little crazy during the final weeks leading up to the “I dos”, however I’ve always thought to myself - I’m organized and anal therefore it won’t be AS crazy. Boy was I wrong! I’m as organized and anal as ever, and I still have so much freaking work to do! Holy moly. But, it’s been fun, and I can’t believe the big day is finally on the visible horizon. Unfortunately, due to the craziness, there has been an incredible blog post deficit. So here is a quick summary of what’s gone down in the past few weeks…
Kiley & Charlie’s Wedding
Kiley is a high school friend of mine who was married in Durango 2 weeks ago. James and I drove down there and spent a few days with the Durangatangs, which was great. I had never been there before and I must say, it’s a really neat town and quite beautiful. The wedding was gorgeous. They had the ceremony outside and they were blessed with the most stunning, sunshiny afternoon. I had a blast catching up with old high school pals, a few of whom I hadn’t seen since graduation day! Definitely reminisced about life almost 10 years ago when weddings and marriage seemed light years away.
Mr. & Mrs. Appleton!
The girls: Jasmine, Cami, Jess, Julia, me, Leah
Us!
All 10 of us packed in the van on our way back to the hotel!
Chalouxpa’s Bridal Shower & Bachelorette Party
My dear friend Christie Chaloux, also a fellow UVM alum, is getting married in Vermont the weekend before James & I. Christie and I have had reoccurring Friday lunches for the past year where we’ve planned and kept each other on track with our wedding planning adventures. She had her bridal shower and bachelorette party, which was an all day event last Saturday in downtown Denver. It was chalk full of delicious cupcakes (her favorite thing), pedicures, and sangria at Tamayo followed by mojitos at the Samba room. Good times.
Drinking wine and getting pedicures… not a bad way to spend an afternoon!
I turned 28!
My birthday was full of love from friends and family and is continuing until next Saturday! James and I celebrated our birthdays with his family last night and my family next weekend. I just love birthdays :) I have to give a big shout out to my future in laws who blessed us last night with a brand new shiny Wii!!!!! James and I both can hardly move because we are so sore from HOURS of intense Wii battling this evening. I’m not sure we’re ever leaving the house again!
Skiing on the Wii Fit - I beat James over and over and over!
Jen’s Surprise Party
My brothers wife Jen just recently graduated from school and Kiel threw her a surprise graduation party on Saturday night - and surprised she was! Kiel did a good job of planning, hosting, and dodging any chance of letting the surprise slip. We had a good time mingling with Jen’s sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and parents. It was a good time and great to finally meet the Airy clan!
Jen walking in the door with her mom, totally shocked!
The Birthday Boys
James turned the big 3-0 on Saturday and my Grandpa Cannon hit the even bigger 8-0, also on the 23rd. Happy birthday to both of them! We had a mini shindig on Saturday night at our place (after Jen’s surprise party) that was way more eventful then we expected. There were only about 15 of us, but we somehow managed to have random neighbors show up at our door and crash our party - who does that when you’re not on a college campus? And, while they were here, for all of 10 minutes, “random wasted dude” (and possibly very high on something) managed to drop and explode a beer all over our floor. Awesome. Then cops swung by and shined their flashlight up to our 10th floor balcony to tell us to quiet down. Um, again - I kind of felt like a college kid. None-the-less, we had an awesome time and James entered his 30’s with good friends, a 40 of OE, and Nerf gun battles. All major Candahl parties somehow always seem to end with Nerf Gun battles!
Birthday cupcakes! Some went missing before the candles even made it on!
James, Eric and Brandy getting ready to be the Nerf Gun target.
Group Photo: Molly, Michael, James, Moi, Cassie
Sophipia
Nisreen is in Cali visiting friends and family, so we are babysitting miss Sophie for a few weeks. She’s been a very pleasant house guest especially since she keeps James’ lap warm all day long while he is working. Literally, she does not leave his lap from 7am-5pm Monday - Friday. She must be learning a lot about SEO!
She’s on vacation.
Wedding, Wedding, Wedding
Seven weeks, everyone! I’m not really sure what to say here, except that everything is moving along as planned and I am pretty excited to celebrate with all of our friends and family. Invitations should be in everyone’s mailboxes in about a week!
And my marathon post is officially over! I am hoping to get my photos uploaded to Flickr here soon - I am a little behind in that department as well. But now that we have a Wii - might not be until next summer! Hope your August is treating you well :)
Family, Friends, James, animals, holidays, wedding | Comment (0)Back from Durango
James and I just got back from a great weekend in Durango for Kiley and Charlie’s wedding - photos to come. For now, I’m a happy camper because…
1) I am no longer eating gas station snacks
2) I am watching olympic gymnastics (my favorite!)
3) I am drinking a glass of vino
4) I am in my PJs, and…
5) this is outside our window!
I keep hoping to see a leprechaun pop out with a pot of gold for me, but no such luck yet!
Hope you all had a great weekend!
Vacation | Comment (0)10 weeks ’till nuptials
Howdy! We are about 10 weeks out from the big day and I am officially feeling a little overwhelmed with my monstrous wedding to-do list. Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited and enjoying every moment of this, but HOLY MOLY - 10 WEEKS! So… my posts are going to be sparse, as I have much to do and so little time, but hopefully I’ll be able to hop on and share the latest and greatest every now and then.
So, for tonights post, I had to share the cutest Save the Date that I recently saw on Weddingbee, one of my favorite wedding blogs. Some people are just so darn creative!
Meet Krames
I received the most entertaining email today from Kiel…
Ever curious to know what your future children might look like? Well, wonder no loner with Maury’s Baby Maker!
If our child is blessed with James’ features, our child will look like…
And, if it has my features… is that a goatee?
And, you don’t even want to KNOW what it looked like with both of our features! Horrifying!
Funnies, Us | Comments (5)Missing In Action.
Between wedding planning, summer activities, and work… it’s been a little tough to keep up on the ole blog. BUT! Since I worked all weekend, I felt that a quick break was necessary. Received the below video on Friday that made me laugh (and cry) because this folks, is how I spend my time from 8:30ish-5ish every day. Seriously.
Have a good week!
Funnies, Work | Comment (0)Random Nothings
HI EVERYONE!
Apologies for the lack of posts. To be honest, I haven’t had anything exciting to post about, which is surprising because we’ve been so busy that you’d think there must be something notable to write about. But, no. Not really. So, tonight I decided that I’d at least post something random so that my frequent visitors (Hi Grandma!) don’t start to panic with my abnormal absence.
Let’s see here… so last week, we babysat Molly, Abbie and Brandy for one night. In the first 20 minutes of our babysitting duties, Brandy got stung by a bee in the foot and had to go to the vet. This is her, doped up on a shot of Benadryl - you unfortunately can’t see her fat paw. She wasn’t too enthused by the situation.
And… had another fun night with ladies at Tastes Wine Bar. As usual, ate too many tapas and drank too many bottles of wine. I highly recommend you go there.
Had a super fun evening with Molly and Michael on Saturday night… started out at Little Ollies for some delicious Asian cuisine. After totally stuffing ourselves, we headed over to the Can-Dahls for an intense game of Apples to Apples on the balcony. As always, it was entertaining.
The night ended with James taking out an entire drawer in our bathroom due to his shorts getting caught on the drawer knob as he was exiting the bathroom. All I remember is James coming back out to the balcony to report the catastrophe, me ignoring him, and then going into our bathroom 3 hours later to find the contents of one of our drawers dumped all over our bathroom floor. I rolled on the floor with laughter - you can’t even see all the things that rolled under the door and flew onto the rug! The funny part is, he thought it was best to leave the giant explosion all over the bathroom floor until I saw his accomplishment. I have to admit, it was pretty darn funny. And honestly, these are the sorts of things we are typically giggling about here at the Can-dahls. Case in point…….
I stayed home from work today due to illness, and I spilled an entire box of Angel Hair pasta on the floor. Fortunately, since James works from home, he was here to witness the mess, make fun of me, and take a picture. Word to the wise, next time you pick up a box of pasta, make sure the open end of the box is pointing upward!
Happy Monday :)
Food/Wine, Friends, Funnies, Us, animals | Comments (2)