My MOH planned a fantastic Bachelorette weekend in Cleveland.

The entire event began with goofy bachelorette presents including feather boas for everyone and some seductive items for me…

Then we headed out for a photo scavenger hunt.

That included finding goofy sunglasses for everyone

While running around doing the scavenger hunt, several people seemed to think it was my birthday which resulted in a large group of teenagers singing happy birthday to me as they walked behind us.

Then we all went to see the movie Bridesmaids and had a lot of laughs.

We grabbed some food, changed and hit the town for an evening of dancing… on speakers.

In the obligatory bachelorette gear of course!

Gear: bride banner, penis hat and veil

All photos in this blog are courtesy of my friends.

The Bachelorette Party:

Myself and a few friends are headed North to the closest “big city” for a weekend filled with a photo scavenger hunt, some pottery, possibly a movie (Bridesmaids, of course!), the traditional bar hop and an epic slumber party. This sounds amazing to me!

{photo from cle.com}

The Bachelor Party:

My groom and nearly every guy he knows are headed South to the country for a camping trip that includes four wheeling, target shooting, grilling, drinking and sleeping in tents. (As well as I’m told, burping, farting, not showering and all those things you can’t do around women)

...and there's a vodka watermelon involved somehow {photo from my iPhone}

So opposites attract right? We have planned and planned for so long that it’s great to kick back and enjoy some fun our style with our friends.

I enjoy that we aren’t basically doing the same thing as each other except in different places.

Here’s another idea that I had with the heart stick props.  This one, you can do so much more to make it more personalized.  Since the hearts are chalk friendly, you can write anything your hearts desire.  You can use these chalkboard hearts for your photo booth, engagement session, save the dates, or just for fun!  It’s an easy DIY project to do and budget friendly.  =)

Chalkboard Paint

Glue Gun

Large Popsicle Sticks

Pre-Cut Large Wooden Hearts

The other day while I was getting more supplies for my wedding invitations, I came across these really cute red hearts.  I thought, why not just play around with them and make something fun!  So I went back home, thought of an idea…and walaa…I made hearts on stick that can be used for engagement shoots, DIY photo booth, or you can even make a whole bunch for your guests as fun favors!

They’re super easy to make, not time consuming, and most of all…budget friendly:

Optional #4: Put more glue on other side of Large Popsicle Stick

Optional #5: Stick other heart on back.

Fini!

Other options: You can write something on it, leave it blank, or do whatever you want!

My Maid of Honor along with my bridesmaids threw me a lovely shower a couple of weeks ago. It was held at the beautiful Sippo Lake Clubhouse. It was a shower-themed shower.

MOH made the centerpieces with her Cricut. I think they were really pretty and sparkly.And the favors were bath salts and loofahs in greens and blues.

So, even though I’m going to talk about my shower… I hope that I can spark some ideas for any shower-planners out there!

We played some great games and almost everyone ended up winning a prize (bath baskets or hand soaps). The most entertaining game that we played was the bridal bathrobe game.

Modeling my fantastic robe!

We took a bathrobe and pinned/tied 15 bath-related items to it. I walked all around and showed off my robe of pretty items, then I headed into the other room and they had to write down all of the items from memory. (People frequently do this with aprons and kitchen stuff, but being a shower theme it worked with the robe.)

We also played traditional bridal bingo, interviewed the bride and had a timer going during present time and every 5 minutes when it went off, the gift-giver whose present I was opening also got a present.

Now to brag just a bit about my bridal shower… it was mostly family and it was great to see them all. They did shower me with some lovely presents.

My soon to be last initial!

And you can’t have a shower-themed shower without lovely rubber ducks!

Are you like me where you’re either afraid of going to the dentist, too lazy to get real teeth whitening, and just don’t want to pay for it if you don’t have to?  About a month ago, I got my yearly teeth cleaning and I asked my hygienist for non-professional teeth whitening options.  She recommended the Crest 3d White Strips.  Guess what I did the very next day?  That’s right, I got the Professional Effects 3d White Strips (Pictured on the left).

Results: Out of a scale from 1-5 (1 being no effects to 5 my teeth are blinding white!), my rate would be a 2.5 out of 5.  It wasn’t as white as I wanted it to be, but it did have SOME effect.   I thought about posting up pictures of my teeth, but I don’t want to gross you out!  =P

Would I Recommend this Product?
Not really.  I spent about $45 on it and the results weren’t what I wanted.  I thought about returning it to the manufacturer and getting my money back, but I just thought it was too much of a hassle.

What REALLY worked for me:

After the disappointment with the crest whitening strips, I decided to do a little research on other non-professional teeth whitening options.  I remember reading an article about the Crest Whitening toothpaste and it was the top rated one.  SO I went to the supermarket and got the Crest 3D White Vivid Toothpaste (pictured on the right).  I got mines on sale so I ended up spending about $5 for it.  Yay for deals!

Results:
After about using this for a month, my rating would be a 4 out of 5.  It was a pretty significant difference from the very beginning for me.  In the reviews it said that the Crest 3D whitening toothpaste worked the best; even though it took longer for the effects to come in.

Now I have a beautiful white smile!

At work I receive emails from a service that helps reporters and writers get content for their stories. It’s like a help wanted ad for sources.

Yesterday I ran across not one, but two different writers looking for “groomzillas.” We all know about bridezillas, but do the men really get that way too?

Image from hawaii-aloha.com

I joke about Lilac Dude having a lot of opinions, but by no stretch of the imagination could I call him a groomzilla.

So I have to consult the garden, what makes a guy a groomzilla?

And please, share groomzilla stories if you have them!

Olive Dude and I have not yet come to the decision as to whether or not we will be going with traditional vows, completely writing our own, or somewhat mixing the two. Either way, I stumbled across GeeZee, an amazing artist’s Etsy shop, and fell in love with this idea for after we say our “I Do’s”.

GeeZee takes one of your wedding photos and digitally mounts it onto canvas. Then, using a font of your choice, they superimpose that over the photo. It can be a cute line between you and your Dude, or (the idea I love) your actual wedding vows. What a wonderful way to honor the words you said to each other, and make one of your wedding photos into actual art! I will definitely get one of these after Olive Dude and I get married.

Has anyone else thought of anything clever/artsy to do with the vows you exchanged?

Ok, I’m probably not going to be on everyone’s good side with this post.

I’ve been engaged for a long time. That means I’ve been reading a lot of blogs, magazines, and other websites on top of watching some wedding television. There is just something that I’m baffled by in all of the wedding world’s chaos. Why all of the dead people?

Product and photo from foreverwedstore.com

My point is in this blog title. But before you start hating on me or think I’m completely down on having any “memorialization” in a wedding, know that my fiance and I have loved ones who will not be able to see us wed.

It is difficult to lose a loved one, especially when he or she is also supposed to be a part of your wedding.

Brides light candles, they put memorial lines in programs, they have legacy tables, they carry pictures, they make a slide show, or they have an announcement made. Sometimes they do it all!

Product and photo from foreverwedstore.com

This is where I’m confused. I have zero problem acknowledging special people in your lives and I have zero problems with a form of memorial. The thing is, sometimes the focus is so much on the person who has passed away and not on the couple being married.

So to minimize anything depressing on our wedding day, there will be a line in the program stating that we “Have the honor of sharing a wedding date with Lilac Dude’s grandparents.” (both of whom have passed away, and everyone already knows that). And we’ll have a legacy table honoring our parents and grandparents, those who are with us and those who are not.

I’m afraid to step on anyone’s toes if I say more, so what do you think? How do you honor loved ones without turning your wedding into a mourning period?

The trouble with inter-faith weddings is finding someone willing to marry us!  Our specific situation is a marriage between a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman (me)!  Even though we have agreed to establish a Jewish synagogue affiliation and raise our children Jewish, there are very few Rabbis is the DC metro area that will actually recognize our marriage.

We have a few friends who have had the same issue so we bypassed all of the headache and heartache by playing off of their hard work.  We contacted their rabbi to see if he was available. Unfortunately, he is in high demand and already had our date booked. Bummer! Fortunately, he gave us a list of a few of his colleagues who would also recognize our marriage so we were back in business.  I set up a meeting with the first rabbi on the list and crossed my fingers that he was a perfect fit so that I could easily cross that off of my growing to do list.

Let’s just say that the meeting didn’t go as I had planned.  The rabbi was a perfectly nice man but I found him dry and odd.  Not the words I want to describe such an important man in my wedding.  I am not sure what I was expecting but it basically broke down to getting a marriage license from the courthouse and  cutting him a check for $800 for his services.

That’s it?  Maybe I’ve heard too many stories from friends and colleagues or maybe I have just tuned in to way too many movies, but I thought it would be more in depth.  I don’t want a background check by any means but come on!  What about our backgrounds? What about my religious beliefs?  What about the way we live our lives?  What about the future we want to build together? What about the plans we have for our future children? I find it very hard that none of this matters!  I want the rabbi to feel 100% comfortable marrying us because he is confident we will do what it takes to make our marriage work and uphold our responsibilities for the Jewish culture and community.  If all it takes is a nice big check, I will move on.    Believe it or not, I would rather have a rabbi bully me with questions then to just accept my money to recite, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The grass is always greener, right?

Needless to say, the search is on! Time for more rabbi meetings and perhaps lower expectations?!

I would like to think I was a good Maid of Honor to my sister. I think that if you asked her, she’d agree.

But as a bride, MOH, sister and friend I had so many different perspectives on Lilac Sister’s wedding day that I would like to share with any MOHs out there.

Toasting my sister the bride. Photo by Lilac dad

Anything that can go wrong will, is totally true. The bride and groom may not be the picture of health on the wedding morning and you have to deal with it, that may mean force-feeding the happy couple bananas or supplying Asprin.

My sister started off her wedding day with a request for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to arrive with me to the hotel. The day progressed from forgetting the veil and tiara to some road rage and delayed black table clothes. Finally, after I had been hit in the face by my own car door did things start to go right.

I feel that I will have a better understanding of what my girls are willing to go through for me on my day after what we did for my sister on hers.

And now to toot my own MOH horn, I ended up not wearing any lipstick because there was no time, pinning safety pins into the leggings under my dress so we’d have them just in case, tucking a tissue just under the flowers of each bouquet (my tissue was needed by the groom later in the day), and of course holding my sister 18,000 layers of tulle while she peed.

I love my sister very deeply and was honored to be there for her, the rewards came in the look on her face when I gave my toast and the plate full of wedding cake in my fridge.

Now for the advice part, be prepared for everything, including uncomfortable situations. You will have to help the bride go to the bathroom!

Have your own survival kit. Make sure it includes needle and thread, tissues, safety pins, asprin, and lipstick!

What advice do you have for the Maid of Honor?

I have an ethical dilemma ladies that I would like some advice on.

Should I tell my vendors that I blog?

Image from: zankyou.com

More specifically, should I tell them that I will blog about them?

I ask for multiple reasons but mainly because I have refrained for the most part from using names when I complain about bad vendors. But then I feel like I have the responsibility to let other brides know who to avoid. And I’m the kind of person who rates my professors so you can bet I’ll review my vendors places other than here as well.

I feel like I should let vendors know that I write on this website so they know to look for what I say about them and maybe direct other brides here. I also wonder if letting them know will let me feel better about talking about them on here.

What are your thoughts? Have any of you told vendors that you blog?

Oh tradition! It’s a great thing, something we both break and follow at different times. This summer I wrote a blog about tossing the bouquet toss. In the blog I shared a photo from my cousin’s wedding that Lilac Dude captured. Here’s the picture:

That's me to the left in green

The girl beside me in the pink sweater, who is obviously going to catch the bouquet is my second cousin. You can see that I’m not trying at all to catch the bouquet, even though many who watched scolded me saying that I had a fair chance to catch it.

Well, obviously I’m engaged… so is my second cousin. Traditionally her engagement and wedding should come before mine… but they won’t.

I could have caught the bouquet, but I didn’t. But I still get to be the first one in that group of ladies to get married.

I’ve decided to toss a bouquet, I think it’s fun even if I’ve never caught one before.

My sister is getting married on December 3rd. Shortly after she became engaged she asked if she should ask someone else to be her Maid of Honor. Since I’m planning my own wedding, I thought that would be a good idea, so she asked a friend.

As time progressed I found myself helping more with her wedding plans than I had expected and her maid of honor became more and more invisible.

My sister's photo of the two of us in the Bridemobile

One day my sister said to me, “You’re already doing it all, will you be my maid of honor.”

So now I’m the maid of honor for my sister in the midst of my own wedding planning. I love my sister and am happy to be there for her on her big day. I had never planned on having such a role in someone else’s wedding while planning my own, however it is a lot easier to help my sister out because we both have very clear visions of our own weddings.

Have you had a role in someone’s wedding while planning your own?

Although I don’t entirely agree with the saying, “When you marry the man, you marry the family” I think it’s really nice to “fit in” with my fiancé’s family.

I happened to have two well placed days off that allowed me to help Lilac Dude’s mom prepare for and run a garage/estate sale. I spent those mornings and afternoons with Lilac Dude’s mom and 15-year-old brother, while Lilac Dude was at work.

What was awesome to me was that we are comfortable enough to joke around even to the extent of me putting a 50 cent price tag on my future mother-in-law’s forehead.

Lilac Dude's mom and I at the airport (calling our own moms to report a safe landing)

Your own family is pretty easy and you don’t even think twice about one of your parents greeting you at the door with a hug or driving you to the doctor when you’re sick. It was significantly different when Lilac Dude’s father, whom I had known for 3 years at the time, drove me to the doctor when I was too sick to drive myself (Lilac Dude was taking an exam).

I know that I’m one of the few lucky brides with a good relationship with my future in-laws. I feel incredibly blessed that I don’t have to deal with the in-law drama that I hear about from other brides.

I wish there were a secret formula to a good relationship with your in-laws, unfortunately there is not. Like all relationships, it takes work on both sides. And if you don’t have a great relationship with your in-laws, just remember that you aren’t marrying the family… just the man.

Our house is getting ridiculous.  We have piles of wedding items all over the house.  Boxes of reception items, ceremony items, decorations, gifts, etc.  And that’s in addition to all of the planning items – binders, magazines, folders, templates, test pages, and more.

Clutter!

I am so excited we are bringing a good portion of it to the venue today to store until the wedding.  That, of course will not get rid of all of it, but it will free up some space.  We will need to be cleaning today as well, since my mom, aunt, and brother are all staying with us on Thursday night before we all head to the hotel for the rest of the weekend.  We’ll still have all the gifts here, and welcome bags, which we will deliver to the hotels on Wednesday.  Of course, there are still of lot of tasks to get done, and we’ll likely still have wedding clutter for many months after the wedding, but I hope to whittle it down over time.

Daily Candy – the fun company who sends out region-specific information on beauty, food, clothes, and more – has a whole site devoted to weddings!

From Dailycandy.com

From their website:

DailyCandy, a free daily e-mail newsletter and website, is the insider’s guide to what’s hot, new, and undiscovered — from fashion and style to gadgets and travel. As useful as it is entertaining, it’s like getting an e-mail from your clever, unpredictable, and totally in-the-know best friend. The one who knows about secret beauty treatments, must-have jeans, hot new restaurants — and always shares the scoop.

And that will give you the scoop on all things wedding! I know we are all a bevy of information here, but this gets delivered right to your inbox. Check it out.