Unveiling The Veil

Before I get into the recaps, I still have to finish the rest of my pre-wedding posts I didn't get to. First up is to talk about my veil. I found a veil I loved that perfectly matched my dress at the dress shop. Unfortunately, this lovely perfect veil was ~$300. That didn't work for me. That much money for 1.5 yards of fabric glued to a comb? Um, hell no.

We thought about ordering extra fabric from the designer and having the veil made. The store offered to do it for $275. Solution fail. I sat on it for a while. I read post after post on the Weddingbee blog and boards and then it hit me. "Stop acting like you don't have other ways to fix this problem crazy lady"

I turned to Etsy. I checked out really affordable veils by several Etsy stores I loved. I sent custom item requests to two sellers who's stuff looked very much like the veil I loved and in a price range I really loved.

Image: Forget-me-not 30x36 wedding veil by Etsy seller simplebeautyveils

Image: 2 Tier Fingertip Bridal Wedding Veil by Etsy seller BellaBridalVeils

I knew I couldn't care less if the actual veil was the exact, expensive but oh-so-soft, material of the dress skirt. I just wanted the color and a comparable material. After I sent the messages, I waited with bated breath for a response that would make me happy. I thought about messaging more sellers. But y'all know how I roll, hive. I see something I like and then I go with that, not looking at more than 2 options if I can help it before I make a decision.

But these first sellers didn't respond to my private messages, so I moved on. I found Joyous Illusions. This woman responded quickly and often to me. She messaged me back and forth well over 10 times.

She sent me samples, in the mail, of what veil options I had based on what I described I wanted.

Personal Photo: only a handful of the sample options she sent me.

After I finally made my decisions, she made a beautiful veil for me and sent me the pictures.

Picture from Joyous Illusions

Picture from Joyous Illusions

Picture from Joyous Illusions / Detail shot of the Swarovski Crystal appliques

I hopped over to my private Etsy listing and bought my veil. She shipped it to me immediately. I was so happy to have taken care of a detail that haunted me for months, and I was really glad I didn't have to pay $300 for a veil.

Mr. Kettle and I posing before our ceremony.

Guess What Mrs. Kettle Has?

I decided not to leave you guessing. I've got pictures!! I'll be finally finishing the posts from pre-wedding land and then launching into my recaps.

Here are a few more photos to whet your palate. All photos have been released to me by my fabulous photographer Jolie Images. So all captions on pictures will be my commentary on the wedding moment, not a reference line.

Sneaking outside for a quick pic in the snow.

A lovely detail shot of our seating chart.

This is one of my favorite pics of all 1500 of them. It's Mr. Kettle and his 10 attendants.

Getting ready to put on my dress; it went so differently from how I pictured it.

Getting married, having prayer, feeling close.

Mr. Kettle and me with my immediate family.

Mr. Kettle and me with his immediate family.

How Procrastinating Saved My Wedding

Getting a marriage license in Illinois is no small matter. You have to get your license in the county in which you will marry.

For Will County, where Mr. Kettle and I had our Big Fat Fancy Wedding, you could get your license anywhere from 24 hours to 60 days before your ceremony. Once we hit the 60 day mark, we kept making plans to get our license, and those plans kept falling through.

Mr. Kettle is a teacher. You'd think that with 2 weeks off from school plus my light holiday schedule at work, we'd make it happen. Not so. And as we got closer to the wedding and I got more and more resentful, we really couldn't find the time to make it happen.

It wasn't until Mr. Kettle suggested we move up the actual wedding day with a private ceremony ahead of time that things got real. With three less days to finish planning, we finally got into action. Once our officiants agreed to do another wedding for us, we got our license that same day.

There were still a couple days between that and telling our parents, but at least we got it done. I was almost eager to get the license in Cook County where our early wedding would be.

If we had managed to get our Will County license, things would have been much tougher. We would have had to send in the previous license and have it cancelled before we got the new one, and we just didn't have that kind of time. I feel very blessed that it worked out for us.

Has procrastinating on a major aspect of your wedding planning worked out in your favor?

Getting Married Once or Twice, Part Three

When I left off, Mr. Kettle and I got our wedding license in a county other than the one we were supposed to get married in on our wedding day.

We had one more meeting each with our two officiants. At this meeting, we let them know of our intentions to get married early. They were both a bit taken aback, but in support of us doing it as long as it wasn't some faux-elope attempt on our part. When we said we wanted our parents and immediate families involved, their relief was palpable.

Once we had a day picked out, a wedding license, and the cooperation of our officiants, we told our parents. My parents were not okay with it at first. They didn't advise against it, but their displeasure was obvious. If you had shelled out thousands of dollars for someone's wedding, you'd be pretty upset that they chose to have a different wedding too.

Mr. Kettle's parents were more okay with it, but their general response to him is usually okay. If he thinks it's a good idea, they do too, generally. My parents weren't thrilled, but they were on board. All that was left was inviting our siblings, my grandmother, a couple of close family friends, and a musician to play the organ.

I told Mr. Kettle I wanted 12-20 people there. Including us, there ended up being exactly 20. It was very intimate and private and special. We just wore whatever and my maid of honor got us flowers on the way over for the day.

We had a simple ceremony. Vows, exchanging rings, communion, and a lot of tears. When I get around to re-capping the ceremony on Saturday, you'll see it was such a different atmosphere.

After the ceremony, everyone looked so happy. My parents were wiping away tears and so were his parents. It felt so rigth to me to be getting married with just those people. There were a lot of family and friends who weren't there that Wednesday who were there on Saturday, but I was okay.

I looked forward to Saturday after that. All I'd wanted Saturday to be was a big party and a celebration with a lot of people we care about. Now that's all it was in my head. No more 600 eye nightmares. Just looking forward to wearing a beautiful dress and eating some fantastic food.

Our first of two wedding days.

There is an extra benefit to getting married earlier. We chose our wedding day because of it's proximity to Mardi Gras. I wanted our anniversary to fall before Mardi Gras every year. By moving it up 3 days, we will have that now. Since Mardi Gras is an important holiday to us as a couple, I'm pretty psyched by this development.

Okay, before I start my recaps, I'll finish with the DIY projects I completed before going into my guest-list funk.

Did you chosen wedding day change for any reason?

Getting Married Once or Twice, Part Two

Where we last left off, I was having nightmares about the size of my wedding. Sure I wanted 35 people in my wedding party, but I didn't want 10 times that many people eye balling me out in the crowd during the ceremony.

So I just stuck my head in the sand and avoided all wedding talk I could. They didn't try to talk to me about it, but everyone from my parents to my maid of honor and definitely Mr. Kettle could tell something was wrong.


About 10 days before our wedding, I asked Mr. Kettle, "Do you really want to get married next Saturday?" That question, understandably so, freaked him out. After a confusing 15 min or so, he figured out that I wasn't trying to suggest I didn't want to marry him, I just didn't want to get married on that day.

He then suggested, "why don't we get married before that day?" He knew I didn't want to call off the wedding. He knew eloping wasn't an option. He figured we could just get married a couple days before Saturday. That was on Saturday, we'd be married and I wouldn't have to feel like I was sharing such an intimate moment with all these people I didn't even know.

As soon as he said the words, I felt a million times better. I didn't even know I could feel better. I had resigned myself to feeling more anxiety and resentment than anything else. And with one short sentence, Mr. Kettle made everything better.

I knew it wasn't that simple. Our parents were probably not going to love the pre-wedding idea. We'd have to pick a day when our immediate family would even be available to come to a pre-wedding. We had two officiants, and we wanted both of them there, so that had to be worked out too.

Oh, and there's the marriage license dilemma. In Illinois, you must get your license in the county you'll get married in. Saturday was in Will County. But everyone lives in Cook County. We hadn't gotten our license yet because of timing and business, so that kind of worked out. We just went to the Markham Courthouse, which was much easier to get to, and got our license for Cook County.

Next, I'll talk about breaking the news to people, and getting married for the first time.

Getting Married Once or Twice, Part One

I know I went M.I.A. right before my wedding, and I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to, it just kind of happened. If you know my posts by now, you know there's a story leading up to this, so I'll just dive right in.

In the weeks leading up to my wedding, I really began to resent the wedding. I didn't want to talk to Momma Kettle about the guest list. I didn't want to talk to Mr. Kettle about the honeymoon. I didn't get any work done on my last few DIY projects. I never went to pick up my wedding dress.

I didn't have cold feet. I had an ever-growing resentment towards all things wedding that was only getting worse. I didn't want to blog about it because I didn't want to be a Debbie Downer. Who wants to read about the bride who's about to have the most fabulous wedding ever being resentful of it? No one, that's who.

What was I so resentful of you ask? Well, mostly the guest list. There were a lot of people on the list. Waaay more than I wanted. Before we were even engaged, I told Mr. Kettle I wanted a small wedding of no more than 75 people. After talking with his mother, he realized the guest list would have to be way bigger than that because his family is so large.

Then my parents agreed. The guest list went up to 150. Then 250. Then 350. It just kept going up. The final guest list kept inching up and up. Even after all the RSVPs were in, the list kept going up. One day it was 286. Then it was 289. I was furious that everyone kept adding people.

The final straw was when the pastor at the church where my brother is youth pastor invited himself to the wedding. I've never met this man and wouldn't know him if I saw him on the street. So all the talk of how grateful I should be because so many people love me and want to share my day seemed like a load of bull.

I kept imagining how this intimate moment of exchanging our vows was no longer that. My 75 person wedding had quadrupled. And every final decision that had to be made was out of my control. When it came to the things I really cared about, I was being told my opinion didn't matter or was wrong because there was a certain way things had  to be done. When it came to tiny details I could care less about (like the color ribbon on our jumping broom), I was told I was being ridiculous for not wanting to make decisions.

I was miserable. I wasn't feeling elope-y or anything like that. I just had lost all my enthusiasm for this big ass wedding I was about to have. The parts I wanted to be big (i.e., the wedding party, my dress, the fanciness of the venue) weren't enough to outweigh how I was feeling about the guest list.

I started having nightmares. I would be walking down the aisle with my dad. Then he would disappear and it would just be me standing there, with 600 eyes all staring at me. I couldn't recognize anybody, and I couldn't even see Mr. Kettle past all the eyes. Those nightmares were pretty unbearable.

I'm not sure how all this sounds, but I'm just telling my story in case someone else went through anything similar. There are compromises and decisions you make in the planning process that aren't your ideal. But what do you do when you're faced with those decisions ballooning out of your control later and feel trapped?

In the next part, I'll explain the solution Mr. Kettle came up with to our problem.

Mrs. Kettle Reporting In

Hi Hive!!

I've missed you all so much. So much happened in the weeks leading up to my wedding, there was just too much to say. I've gotten married, gone on a fabulous honeymoon, and I'm back!

I've got to de-wedding my apartment, finish the paperwork to get my name changed, and send-out thank you cards. It all feels a bit overwhelming, but I'm glad to be married, and all the rest is just extra duties to get over the no-longer-single hump.

My fabulous photographer already has our pictures online, but I haven't gotten my disc yet so I can't put up photos just yet. I've seen a bunch of pictures on Mr. Kettle's Facebook page that are pretty amazing. I will leave you with one photo that is currently my wallpaper on Google and my Blackberry until I can deliver more.

Wedding Weather

Now that my wedding is less than three weeks away, looking at the weather has become a bit of an obsession. I know they never give real predictions further than 10 days out, but I can't help it. I'm obsessed.

I remember talking to Mrs. Sunhat (who lives in Indiana, not too far from me) a couple days before her wedding and lamenting that she wouldn't have the snow she desired. I want snow for my wedding, but I'm trying to be realistic. In this weird Chicago winter, I really can't be sure of anything.

I happened to go to weather.com and look at their 10 day forecast, and their forecast finally included February!! February 1st was on the forecast. That's so close to my wedding and I'm super excited that it's so close.

I don't know about snow, but I now have an obsession with how each day's weather lines up with the average weather for that day. I guess I feel like doing all this pointless analyzing will give me a firmer idea of what kind of weather I can expect.

All I know so far is that it will likely be very very cold with temperatures in the low 30s or upper 20s. Thank God my wedding is indoors in only one location.

Screenshot of January Joliet weather from The Weather Channel

Did you worry and hem and haw about the weathe leading up to your wedding? Did your predictions prove true?

And The Dress That's No Longer My Enemy

When we last met, my wedding dress and I weren't agreeing. Things have improved since then. My second dress fitting made me feel like slightly less than a fat ass. Slightly.

It didn't take two women to zip up my dress. I could breathe in my dress. I didn't get bruised ribs!

But the dress was still too tight. The seamstress thinks that if I lose another 1-3 pounds, I should be fine. Seeing as how I didn't get back into exercising like I should have, I could probably squeeze in 1-3 yoga sessions and accomplish the goal the seamstress set for me.

It's such a relief to know that I may get into the wedding dress without any alterations. They're steaming the dress, and I'll pick it up next week.

To celebrate a dress that finally fit, I went shopping. I bought a great hat for the honeymoon and a beautiful hair flower/fascinator for the wedding reception. I've always wondered about the difference between a fascinator and a hair flower. Is is the feathers that make it a fascinator?

Well, what I purchased has feathers, a tulle, and a flower. It will be perfect for my hair for the reception when I take the veil off. Speaking of veils, my lovely wonderful Etsy shop of choice, Joyous Illusions, and the angel behind it is currently working on my veil!

My veil will be done by next weekend, and then I will be ready for the big reveal of my whole wedding outfit. There will be dress, veil, fascinator, shoes, stockings, jewelry, and undergarments. So many details went into choosing the whole ensemble.

How long did it take to put together your entire wedding look? How many dress fittings did you have?

Over-Achieving My Dress Goal

My final dress fitting has happened and once I order my veil, every part of my wedding ensemble will be in place. I can't wait to tell you how the fitting went. After that, I will share the entire outfit.

But first, I have to tell a tale of woe. A story about a petite girl who ordered a dress and then feared that dress would be too big.

That girl is me. When I first picked out my wedding dress, the sample size was 10. That dress swallowed me up. They took my measurements and found I was a 6-6-8. You know, size 6 boobs, size 6 waist, size 8 hips.

After the initial shock of feeling extra huge because the wedding sizes run extra small, Momma Kettle and I decided on the size 6. The dress had an A-line ball gown skirt, so we'd rather fit the boobs than the hips in this case.

I worried about the dress fitting too loosely. The top has 3D flowers all over it and wouldn't be easy to alter. I didn't want to risk ending up having to fidget with dress all night long or having a saggy tube top dress. If you've ever had a saggy tube top, you feel my pain.

Well, I didn't do much exercising because I was terrified of losing weight. The size 10 was huge on me, the 8 would be too big, and the 6 might even be too big. At least that's what was going through my head after we ordered the dress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened next. I got to my fitting, eager to try on my dress.

I got into the room with my consultant. She tried to zip up the dress. It wouldn't zip. She called for help from the front of the store. One woman had to hold the dress together while the other one zipped. I was almost tipped over several times.

And my dress has buttons. Those little buttons that require a special little hook to get closed. Again, one had to hold it closed while the other buttoned. Then the consultant pulled on the skin of my back. It hurt. When I said ouch, she replied, "I just want to make sure you don't have a back ass." That's a verbatim quote.

I had back booty, Oprah arm, and side boob everywhere. I had achieved my goal of not gaining weight. I had over-achieved it. The consultant began assuring me the dress could be taken out all would be fine.

Momma Kettle told her no. She said I would go back to yoga and I'd be tiny again in a few weeks. Then she had me walk, sit, dance, and twirl in my dress so she could make sure it would stay up (that dress wasn't going anywhere!) and see how it looked.

She took some pictures and I loved the photographs. But I couldn't breathe, and my ribs got bruised, and I was sure there was no way I could eat and dance and breathe all night if I wore that dress that way.

I firmly believe in not forcing myself to conform to some image of how I'm supposed to look, but it's not like we have the time or money to rush order some other dress. So I will take my butt back to yoga so I can wear my wedding dress while eating, dancing, and breathing all night long.

I care more about my health than my appearance, and if I'm honest with myself, I honestly haven't been behaving as if I cared about either since we ordered a dress I was afraid would be too big.

Since I'm Miss Kettle, I had some images saved on my computer of kettle in case I need them. Remember Miss Potts from Beauty and the Beast (on 3D in a theater near you, woot!)? Yeah, I feel like her right now.

Image via Disney Wikia / Happy and loved, but overweight is she.

How did your first fitting go? Did you dress have to be altered?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Wedding Vows Edition

Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own, I don't. We're like the opposite of Miss Doily. Mr. Doily didn't want to write their own but she did.

Mr. Kettle is the king of compromise and taught me an awful lot about the beauty of compromising. My main issue with with the vows is that I've felt a bit on display with all the pre-wedding events. I know, I know. I'm a bride. And with a large wedding, I will definitely be on display. But I just didn't want to have to write those vows to him and have to feel like every one was watching and listening, and yes, maybe judging.

Hive, I know this is probably a ridiculous feeling, since everyone there is there to support the start of our marriage, but I just couldn't get past it. But Mr. Kettle really really wanted us to write our own vows.

So we came to a compromise.

We wrote our own vows. Together. We will say the same vows to each other. Mrs. Eggs Benedict is the one that first gave me the idea. I liked the idea so much that I included it in a Weddingbee post.

Mr. Kettle and I sat down the other night and wrote our vows. I won't share them until after we say them at our wedding, but I can say that they were ridiculously easy to write.

I was surprised at how easy they were to write. We focused on our tripod foundation for our relationship: Love, Trust, Communication. We knew we wanted to include lots of Jesus/God stuff as well. Since we talk about those four things a lot, the vows pretty much wrote themselves.

Also, Mr. Kettle is wonderful with words when he thinks them through first. After 20 minutes, we had 8 lines to say to each other. Well 9 lines. We're starting with a line we joked about including in our vows almost a year ago and decided to go ahead and put in just for us.

I didn't put a lot of thought into our vows before we wrote them, so it didn't add to my stress. Checking it off the to-do list, however, did relieve a lot of stress. Every little thing that gets checked off lifts weight off my shoulders.

Did you write your own vows? Did you write them together? Was it easy to choose what to say?

How To Over-Complicate Decisions - Father/Daughter Dance Edition

Daddy Kettle isn't a dancer. He doesn't seem to enjoy dancing very much.

Image via

Okay, Daddy Kettle isn't quite that bad. He can dance. I know this for a fact because we danced at my cotillion when I was a debutante. He just doesn't do it often.

For my wedding, I expect things will be even better. It's not a church event, so Daddy Kettle will probably have had at least a beer or two and will be more relaxed. Also, my dress is tea length and we won't have to do special maneuvers to avoid tripping and falling over a dress that's too long.

There's only one problem: we haven't picked a song yet. I've asked him at least three times. The first two times, he didn't even respond. Literally nothing. No looks, no words, no nothing.

My Daddy and I have a great relationship, so I don't take the avoidance personally. I just feel that it's a decision he's probably not sure how to make. The song selection is very important. I haven't been pushing the issue because I can't even think of a good song myself!

There's always My Girl by the Temptations. There are several others that are popular choices, but none seem perfect. We're down to 4 weeks, and we need to let our DJ know in just 2 weeks.

I'm at a loss here and I need help from the hive. Any good song suggestions?

The Kettles Approach The Finish Line

My wedding is less than a month away now. Yikes!! It's so exciting and so nerve-wracking all at once. I'm so excited to marry Mr. Kettle and I can't wait for our wedding day. But on the other hand, there are a million and one things left to do that I likely don't have the man hours to complete.

There are big things that happen around the 30 day out mark that any bride should be aware of. These things were not on any of my checklists!

1) Make final payments to vendors. Unless your vendors are magical elves who will take a credit card payment over the phone or internet, you'll need to schedule time to make these payments. Between Momma Kettle, Daddy Kettle, and myself, we've been running around the Chicago/Joliet area like chickens with our heads cut off delivering certified checks to all our different vendors.

2) Confirm all details on all contracts. Again, unless your vendors are magical elves who have Ivy League or Oxford proofreading skills, check your contracts. There were errors we caught in contracts from our florist, our venue, and our photographer. They were small fixes, but they were details that were important to the vision of the wedding.

3) Make sure your wedding party knows their schedule for the next 30 days. This is especially true if you have wedding party members who live out of town or have a hard time taking off from work. They need to know when and where you expect them in town. If you need to send out a newsletter or make 20 phone calls, make sure they know, otherwise you'll be missing a bridesmaid from your wedding rehearsal, and you don't want that.

4) You will have a lot of final details to decide, keep a list!! This one is important. You don't want to leave things like assigning someone to pick up grandma from the airport until the last minute.Sort out these final details and decisions as soon as you think of them, and keep a list so you know who is responsible for what. You will thank your self later when you aren't nearly as stressed as you could be.

These are things I picked up in the last couple days I just wanted to share with you. I climbed from underneath a pile of ribbon, satin, and tulle to keep you in the know. I'm looking forward to sharing posts soon about the frame I made for the sweetheart table, the (finally finished) ring bearer pillows (again!), and the flower girl baskets.

But before I go, I also want to share one of out final details. Mr. Kettle and I had a mini photo shoot with our wedding photographer. She was amazing and I'm so excited to work with her in a little under one month. The photos that she took will be used for our Poster Guest Book and also our personlized photo order cards that the photographers gift to the guests at the wedding. Want to see the photos we picked? Of course you do!

Image via Jolie Images

This shot will be for the poster. They are going to de-saturate the color so that the guests can sign all over the whole page. I've purchased purple, black, and gold permanent markers for them to sign.

Image via Jolie Images

This photo will be used at the photo card. This will go at every guest's seat at the reception so they know where to go to order photos from the photographer after the wedding.

Any tips for getting through the last 30 days before a wedding?

Configuring The Kettle Tea Party: Wedding Favors

Hi hive. I know I've been missing for a while...

Image via ishqinabackpack blog

Twenty days to be exact. I'm sorry about that. Really, truly, I will do better. But the holidays were a rough time. I can't even remember the last time I uploaded the pictures from my camera into my computer.

I've been keeping up with your activities, commenting here and there as I found a lone free minute at work. I promise to be a better worker bee from here on out.

I've been up to a lot. I finished the ring bearer pillows (finally). I finished purchasing the gifts for the bridesmaids, and picked out the gifts for the men. We started getting RSVPs back in (and only one family said no, yikes!!). There's been a lot.

But this post isn't about any of that. As the title says, it's about favors. Our favors had to fulfill a number of purposes. 1) They had to fit our theme. 2) They had to fit our color scheme. 3) They had to do double duty because we weren't having place cards on some table at the entrance to the dining hall. 4) They had to be pretty and/or shiny.

That being said, there was really only one option: gold picture frames!

Image via depositphotos.com

Momma Kettle bought samples of several frames. After comparing for price, durability, and checking if it was the "right" gold, she landed on the perfect frame. She ordered them in bulk and now we have our favors.

We just have to find the time to fill them all in with the place card names we'll make for each guest. Thank Gawd we have a day-of coordinator. It will be the job of her and her team to get those tiny little frames to the right spots for the 20-30 tables next month.

Next month! It's getting close now.

What did you use for favors? Did you go useful, tasty, or just plain pretty?

Invitation Celebration

Our wedding invitations are done!! They were mailed out last week, and I'm quite certain everyone has received them. Well, everyone except my cousin who live in Mexico. Hers was returned to my parents' house.

There were some hiccups on the way to getting these invitations all done and ready to be sent out, but this is a celebration, so we're going to focus on the positive. A group effort between me, Momma Kettle, Daddy Kettle, and a couple family friends got the job done.

The invitations were designed by an amazing photographer/graphic designer who's dating one of Mr. Kettle's friends. She did amazing work and I'm super excited about how they turned out. They perfectly fit my vision of the wedding of being a quirky twist on a classic. So enough talking, on to the pictures and captions!

Personal Image: I took this without the flash, so you could see the more ivory cream color of the outer envelope



Personal Image: Return Address on the back!



Personal Image: You open the outer envelope to reveal an inner envelope just for you.

Personal Image: You open the inner envelope to reveal the cutest liver EVER and a wonderfully purple invitation.

Personal Image: A shiny envelope with a satin belly band held together by our monogram.



Personal Image: Open it to reveal the invitation suite. My favorite part is how the design at the top of the inserts coordinate to make a complete design element.



Personal Image: Directions page with the cute map the venue provided for us.



Personal Image: Accommodations card which makes the best use of white space ever.




Personal Image: RSVP card. Hive, you can bring 3 people with you!



Personal Image: The whole suite all together. I love the sheen on several parts.

I was so impressed with how our designer took into account my suggestions and decor desires and made this lovely suite. It took us... days... to put these together, but it was a labor of love. I'm so happy these have gone out. I can't wait until the RSVPs start rolling in!

Did you go with a non-traditional source to get your invitations? How long did it take to receive your first RSVP response?

It's So Fluffy!!

Hive, I've been a tease. I talked about all these DIY projects I had coming up, and then I immediately started talking about everything else but that.

While I did have my bridal shower this past weekend, I will give you at least one DIY post before I get to re-capping that loveliness. If my title wasn't obvious enough (everyone hasn't seen Despicable Me, although they should!), this screenshot should help.

Image via Hello Again Girls / Screenshot from Despicable Me

What's fluffy, but not a stuffed animal? A pillow of course! For my first DIY project I've (mostly) finished, I made the ring bearer pillows. Okay, okay, so I've only made one so far, but I wanted to share it. And the other will be identical, so there will be nothing new there.

I first learned to make pillows as a girl scout at age 10. I do have my beloved sewing machine that belonged to my grandmother, but I preferred to make these pillows by hand.

Step 1: Get fabric, thread, needles, pins, scissors, and other sewing supplies.

Personal Image: thread, needles glue, rings

Personal Image: fabric, stuffing, possible ribbons

Step 2: Fold your fabric over on itself to cut out the pattern for the pillow. Figure out the size pillow you want and trace onto the fabric. I was using slippery satin, so I pinned the two sides together (inside out!) to ensure a smooth pattern. I wanted a size similar to a box I had in the house, so I just traced that and cut around it.

Personal Image: I used a sketch pencil to trace the shape I wanted.

Step 3: Pin the fabric together at intervals around the line you've traced. I wanted a ribbon to go across the front of the pillow, so I pinned the ribbon also to keep it in place.

Personal Image: Pins all around with a ribbon for flair.

Step 4: Begin to sew along the line you traced. Take extra care at the corners to ensure a tight stitch. It's easy to just go around the corner and end up with loose stitches that won't hold their shape. If you don't know how to sew, Google it, and watch one of the videos.

Personal Image: See how the stitches get even tighter at the corner?

Personal Image: Kitty Kettle thought trying to eat the thread was helping. She's so sweet.

Step 5: Leave a bit open on one side to stuff the pillow. turn it inside out and make sure the stitches are strong, if there are any weak spots, re-sew them. I chose to leave the side with the other end of the ribbon open so I could hand sew it after I knew how full the pillow would be stuffed. If I hadn't done this, the ribbon on the front might pucker.

Personal Image: See how sharp those corners are?

Step 6: Begin to stuff your pillow. Start with the corners, making sure they'll stay stuffed and keep their shape. Don't overfill the pillow or you won't be able to hand-sew it shut. Also, make sure not to pull on the threads you've already stitched. No tearing seams, especially if you are using delicate fabric.

Personal Image: Just when you think you're done stuffing, you should probably add a bit more to the corners.

Step 7: I added gold rings here that I'll use to tie through the ribbons that hold our wedding bands. Pin the other end of the ribbon to the fabric and sew really small stitches to close the pillow. This uses a different stitch and might require another Google search to confirm your stitch before you begin.

Personal Image: Fold the extra ribbon end so it's tucked into the finished pillow.

Step 8: Have a glass of wine and admire your work!

Personal Image: Wine not pictured.

I do wonder if I should jazz up the pillow some. I wanted a very simple clean look, and that's what I got, but I anticipate concerns of it being too plain. I'm using sparkly ribbon when we actually tie the rings to the pillow and the ring bearers are 6-year old twins who are guys' guys. What do you think?

Personal Image: Too much ribbon?

Have you ever sewn by hand? What was your first DIY project you'll actually use at your wedding?

Last Friday Night (TGIF)

No dancing on table tops or maxing out credit cards, but I'm sure at least one person woke up wondering if they had a hickey or a bruise. This post is all about partying without having a truly good reason to do so.

The one benefit of having such a large wedding party that's comprised of people I spend a ton of time with already is all the extra hanging out that takes on a wedding theme. We already have 5 official wedding-related events. But this post is about the unoffical events. We had a bridezilla pizza party, we're coming up on Part 2 of our three part makeup-for-the-chicks party. And last Friday night, we had a signature drink party.

Purple Signature Drink Image by Wedding by Color

Our venue has a number of drink packages to choose from for the reception. The one we went with includes a signature drink. They had several options we could choose from or we could develop our own. Mr. Kettle and I quickly decided to develop our own.

We also quickly decided to include a good number of our friends who will be in/at the wedding. BM Law's birthday was Saturday and we went to dinner on Friday to celebrate.

Personal image: BM Law after she was crowned birthday girl.

The after party for her birthday was the signature drink party. By the way, how many times can one use the word "party" in one post?

Earlier that day, I went to a liquor heaven store with BM Milk and BM Libra and we bought what felt like one of everything. I just wanted to be sure we had options for everything I might want in a drink, and it happened to be a lot. Just look at the picture.

Personal image: We certainly had a lot of options to choose from for mixing.

We had those bottle, a blender, a bag of ice, and a measuring cup. Everyone took turns making drinks. The funniest part was trying to keep track of recipes. Measuring in ounces instead of  "a splash of this and a drop of that" proved quite amusing. We all had tiny tiny shot glasses we used to try tiny tiny samples of each drink. The ones that were good were up for a vote. We asked, "would you drink this all night?"

If more than half the group voted yes, the drink became a contender. There were about 20 of us there, and after a couple hours, we were all tipsy and had three really strong options for our signature drink.

Eventually, Mr. Kettle and I will make all three for our parents and then we'll pick one and name it. I have to admit that I'm making this decision waaaay more complicated than it should be. But it's worth it because we had a lot of fun with our friends, and we won't have to worry about stocking our bar for at least another 6-12 months.

Did you have a signature drink at your wedding? Any suggestions for a cute drink title? Do you spend a lot of time with your wedding party?

Ideas Borrowed From Weddingbee

I've gotten a lot of great ideas from Weddingbee over the months. I know it's my job to put out inspiration and give the details of my plans for others to read, but I've gotten as much out of it as I've put it.

I decided to put in a sampling of some of my favorite posts that have given me some amazing ideas for my wedding, for posts, or hell just for everyday life. These are my top 9. I guess I could have found one more, but I figured I'd just stick with the ones I've been saving up for months now. If you're new to the hive, I suggest you read these. They may give you inspiration anew!

Mrs. Hyena's idea to put the garter on the football was genius. We have a ton of young un-married people coming to our wedding (at least 50 on the guest list). I am looking forward to the garter and bouquet tosses. But most weddings I've been to feature reluctant catchers. If he puts my garter on a football, they guys will actually want to catch it. Plus, it's a great reminder of the day we moved into together and an inside jokes amongst all our friends that our football belongs to me and not Mr. Kettle.

Mrs. Macarons idea to use Nailtiques for nail growth changed my life. If you've read any of my posts, you can tell I have a flair for, ahem, dramatic language But seriously, the Nailtiques was amazing. Seriously, read my post about it. And it turns out Mr. Kettle loves long nails. Like, really really loves them. So I'll be using Nailtiques long after my wedding to give my man what he wants.

Mrs. Swan's Natural Hair information is super useful. My locs aren't as long as hers were when she got married, but if you are looking for unique hairstyles or natural hairstyles, check out this post. They can be done even with hair that isn't locked, and they're just so pretty!

Mrs. Eggs Benedict gave me a great idea for doing the same wedding vows even though we've written our own. Mr. Kettle wants us to write our own vows, but I'm not so comfortable with that huge display of affection coming from me in front of all of those people. Somehow, the thought that we'd be saying the same thing makes me more comfortable. I hadn't thought of it until I read her post.

Mrs. Hyena's name change suggestion. One thing about getting married I'm dreading (I know, I know, there should be nothing to dread) is all the paperwork involved in changing my name. If you have a ton of things your name is on (license, bank account, insurance, credit cards, cell phone bill, lease, etc.), check out this post for a tip on how to make the process go easier.

Miss Cannon's post on trends was dead on for the summer. If you want to know what was all the rage in the summer, check out this post. It's interesting to see which trends are still popping up and which ones aren't. Are you embracing or shunning any of her mentioned trends?

The comments on Miss Sunhat's post about the guest book had amazing ideas! I've already done a guestbook post myself, but the comments on this post were some of the most unique ideas I've heard.

Mrs. Waffle's illustrations inspiring me to pick up a sketchbook and colored pencils. I've put a couple of comic strip thingees that I've drawn in posts. They're meant to be funny or cute. I don't know if I've accomplished my goal, but the idea came from Mrs. Waffle. How cute is that pic of her in the bee costume?

Miss Fox and her great idea about wedding bands influenced my rings. I just linked to this in a post yesterday, but in case you missed it, here it is again. There are a lot of halo engagement rings in the hive, and if you're looking for the options for your ring, this post covers most of them.

Have you found any great ideas on Weddingbee you'd love to share with someone who may have missed it?