Heating Up For The Kettle Wedding: A Bridal Shower

After our amazing engagement party, the next official party we had was the bridal shower. Like so many other aspects of this wedding, the shower was larger than one would expect. There were 50 invited women. There ended up being 55 in attendance. I arrived horribly late, just like I was for the engagement party. I marveled at how gorgeous the decorations were as well as how many presents there were.

Personal Photo: Decorations/Favors for each hour of the day.

Personal Photo: More decorations/favors.

Personal Photo: An obscene amount of gifts, mostly from Victoria's Secret. They covered the whole table! If giving gifts measured love, I was feeling the love.

In my defense, I was coming off a 3-day (night) work shift and had only had 3 hours of sleep in between getting off work and getting to the shower. But I arrived and went to each table snapping pictures and saying hello.

I sat down to eat and finally got to have some sangria out of the special bridal shower glass my mother purchased probably 2 weeks before I was even engaged. The food was amazing. We were at one of my favorite restaurants, Buca di Beppo. Lots of laughter and chatting happened all around.

Personal Photo: I wish I'd taken a better photo, but you can see the "Sho" of Bridal Shower if you look hard.

Then a delivery arrived that made everyone ooh and aah. Mr. Kettle's entire family took pride that they raised him right. My whole family cooed that I'd found a great man.

Personal Photo: Mr. Kettle had them delivered during the party. He's such a sweetheart!

After we ate, it was time to start the games. There was the game I'd been dying to play: Toilet Paper Wedding Dress.

Personal Photo: These women got outrageous with their designs. This one had an 8 foot train.

Personal Photo: They were weaving a crown with ribbon. There were lots of non-toilet paper items ending up in these dresses.

Personal Photo: Me posing with the lovely models. I wish I could remember who I chose as the winner. But I was impressed with these dresses. Off the shoulder, two tier skirts, halter tops, belted waists, they weren't playing!

There was Who Knows Miss Kettle Best. That game was very interesting because no one knew everything. I started to feel as if I'd compartmentalized my life. People I'd gone to dinner with knew my favorite foods and wine. People I'd known as a child knew what super hero I'd be. Hardly anyone knew my actual height. I resolved to have more well-rounded discussions with people.

My mom brought her dance instructor to teach us all a dance. It was far too complicated for our group that had been drinking sangria, but it was fun.

Then it was time to open the presents. There were so many! It took forever. My mother and bridesmaids came up with a clever theme for the party. The decorations and invitations and everything went with it. The theme was around times of the day. Each guest got a time from : Breakfast Time, Lunch Time, Dinner Time, Cocktail Time, Exercise Time, Bath Time, Bed Time.

Personal Photo: One of the nicer lingerie sets I got. I figured I could show this one on the internet. It got much worse (or ahem, better) from there.

Personal Photo: I got excited when I got a gift that wasn't lingerie. 

No one told me, but apparently, every time is time for lingerie. I joked a lot about how I couldn't believe all these women were cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner in lingerie. My closet it still full of things we haven't used yet. I used to have half a naughty drawer that really just held random stuff I picked up at a friend's bachelorette party back in 2010. But now, we have two full drawers of naughty stuff. That's not even including the lingerie.

After the gifts, the party wound down. We gave out favors and cleaned up and moved on with our day. All the bridesmaids came back to my parents' house and we had a snack of the leftovers. Mr. Kettle met us there and was promptly embarrassed by me showing him some of my gifts in front of my father. I wanted to tell him that we were getting married and the whole world knew what we would be doing as a married couple, but instead, I just laughed and ate more pasta.

How did your bridal shower go? Did your guests go lingerie crazy? Have you used all your gifts yet?

Kettle Chicks & Mary Kay

I've been trying to plan a party for my bridesmaids for quite some time. Because there are a bajillion of us, it's been hard to get a time that works for all of us. A friend of mine sells Mary Kay and she doesn't live in the city, so that was another person to coordinate times with.

But last night the stars (and our schedules) aligned and we were able to all get to my apartment at nearly the same time and have our party. We have chicken, pizza, salad, and screwdrivers. And we had music and good conversation.

But most important was the reason we were there. We were there to sample Mary Kay products. This event was all about skin care. We will get together next month and that will be all about makeup (I think) and then we will get together one more time.

The end result is that each girl will have a color palette for her makeup especially designed for her skin tone and the color of the bridesmaid dress. If you know someone who sells Mary Kay, by all means, host the bridal makeup party. It's like playing big girl dress up. And if you live in central Illinois or further north in the state, I can give you the hook-up on a great consultant.

Personal Photo: My consultant, and friend, setting up our skin care sample sets.

The Kettle ladies vary in their knowledge of makeup, so starting with the basics was a fantastic idea. We learned about skin care and how choosing the right foundation is actually an important part of skin care.

Personal Photo: That's MOH Sis holding her sample. There seems like quite a bit of steps to get great skin, but the end result is worth it. I use about 5 products myself daily.

Personal Photo: MOH Sis, BM Law, BM Milk BM Libra, BM ATL, and BM Shhh. Momma Kettle is there hiding in the back too.



Personal Photo: You can see BM Shhh's makeup, we liked how smooth it made her skin look. Me and Momma Kettle laughing about something.



Personal Photo: Testing out my foundation. I wasn't a huge fan, I think I'll stick with my tinted moisturizer and mineral powder.

Personal Photo: BM Law all tuckered out. She's the old lady in the group. Not in age, but in behavior. I should have juxtaposed this with a picture of Momma Kettle dancing to Michael Jackson music at that same moment.

The ladies really enjoyed the products and a couple of them bought some stuff. Yay for Mary Kay converts! Next month, we'll be playing with eye shadow and lip color. I can't wait!

Did you do anything to prepare your girls for their makeup for the day of the wedding? Do you have a skin car regimen?

Trying To Clothe The Kettle Ladies

I didn't want to make a big production of finding bridesmaid dresses. I had my maid of honor and Easy's maid of honor look online for the last month or so. We found a couple of great options. David's Bridal seemed to be the place to go to in order to fit into a certain price range and style selection. I made an appointment for a Wednesday when most everyone was available.

My maid of honor, MOH Indy, lives in NYC, so she wasn't available. But Easy's maid of honor, his sister was available. As were her twin daughters who are our flower girls. Also available were all my bridesmaids except one. Our two junior bridesmaids were also there to try on dresses. Throw in my mother, Easy's mother and sister, and we have a group of 14 females, only 4 of whom weren't trying on a single dress.

It was so much more fun than you could imagine. I was going around ooh-ing and aah-ing at all the pretty dresses and taking pictures. The flower girls didn't want to take off their "princess dresses".

Personal Image: Vera Wang shoes that we still drool over in memory.

Personal Image: BM Shorty trying on a dress I'd love if it didn't look like it was trying to be a one-shoulder gown.

Personal Image: One of the twin flower girls looking adorable in a princess gown.

Personal Image: BM shorty in yet another that didn't make the cut. Just too much... everything.



Personal Image: both twin flower girls in more pretty dresses. The one on the left is the one we ended up going with.




Personal Image: JB Cousin trying on a possible jr. bridesmaid dress, right color, but not quite perfect.



Personal Image: FNIL Tiny trying on another jr. bridesmaid dress contender. I was feeling this one since we were leaning toward satin at first.

Personal Image:  BM Law trying on a nice dress that I loved more for the cummerbund waist than anything else.

Personal Image: BM Libra looking good in everything she puts on, as usual. I really liked this one, so we had our coordinator round up some more of this in everyone's size.

Personal Image: BM ATL, with whom we hadn't been having much luck, looked super cute in this one too.

And then something magical happened.

Image: Magic Desktop Wallpaper via Wallpapers Desktop DiQ

Somehow, one dress looked great on every single bridesmaid. And it just so happened that the only 2 who weren't there look good in literally everything they wear.

I was so excited. They didn't have my color swatch match though, major color fail. I thought of the Thank You wreath I'd worked so hard on. But then I realized this dress looked good on every single bridesmaid. I had achieved something that should have been unachievable with that many girls, so I focused on what really mattered in that moment. I asked for all the options in purple.

Personal Image: All the options in purple.

Our coordinator went to get the swatches and we picked this lovely color that looked like a rich purple but photographed kind of blue. That made me super excited because blue is the color I originally wanted.

I had all the ladies pose for one giant photo as proof that they truly all rocked the dress. I could see it in that great purple-y blue color. I was already editing invitations and color schemes. It would epic! It would legen-wait-for-it...-dary!

Personal photo: even ill-sized and wrong-colored, they all look fabulous!

And then...

Image: Luke Himself

Our happy parade came to a screeching halt. She informed us she was mistaken about the dress being available in that color. The only options were a horrific burgundy color and this other dusty de-saturated purple-y shade.

I was immediately ready to leave the store. She apologized too many times and I told her we were going down the street to Eva's Bridal. We will still be getting our flower girls' dresses from there though, since they would coordinate perfectly with my dress.

We went to another store where things only got worse. I thought the dress shopping would be hard because of all the different body types. But nope, it was something else entirely.

This post by no means should reflect poorly on David's Bridal. The dress had just been changed to unavailable in my color a day or two before our appointment. And anyone who can deal with the dress flurry fury we presented with deserves a big hug or a cookie or maybe even some sort of award.

Pack Your (Tea) Bags

Mr. Kettle and I both lived in the Chicago area when we met 4th of July weekend 2010. Six weeks later, he got a job offer to teach in St. Louis. Wanting to be a gainfully employed adult not living with his parents, he gathered his things and moved there less than a week later.

This wasn't an issue at first. I was unemployed, desperately applying for jobs and getting tons of "thanks, but no thanks" e-mails each day. I had a ton of free time and spent a lot of in down in St. Louis. I think that's partially the reason our relationship was able to move forward so quickly. We simply had the time to focus wholly on us.

When we began discussing marriage, we had to figure something out. Mr. Kettle first suggested I move down to St. Louis with him. I was worried about being an unemployed mooch/kept woman/short order cook. I was also worried about being a complete and utter disappointment to my parents' hopes for both my career and my chastity.

While we were discussing options, he was getting increasingly frustrated with the long-distance-ness of our relationship. It was more about missing me than anything else, which I find really sweet of him. He had gotten used to waking up next to me, and hated going back to it when I reminded him I still needed to spend at least some time at my house in Chicago.

Right around this time, I got the job interview with my current job. That whole process from first interview to hiring took a little over a month. Also during this time, Mr. Kettle was moving not-quite-so-subtly towards proposing to me. Further complicating things, his boss informed him they were interested in giving him a promotion to being in charge of multiple schools in the district as they were changing their arts program throughout the school district. It would be a great promotion with a lot more money. Things had just gotten complicated. Real complicated.



Image: Alliedow's Blog

We came up with three options.

Option #1
Commuter Marriage. We both hated this idea immediately, but we felt compelled to consider it. I was still on the fence about living with him before we were married. That was mostly from worry about the judgement of my parents. Knowing we were trying to have a wedding for them, I didn't want to do something that would make them feel less than supportive when it came to paying for the wedding. But with me having a great job offer in Chicago and him having a great job offer in St. Louis, it just seemed hard... to figured out how to get us both to one place. How would we pick who's job was more important? If we lived in different cities for a while, I could see about transferring to him later or something like that. Sucky option, but still an option.

Option #2
Push Back The Wedding. This was another idea we both immediately hated. Had we just gone and gotten married when we first talked about it, we wouldn't have to worry about pre-marital co-habiting. But if I started my job and he got his promotion, it would be hard to live apart. Neither of us wanted to be newlyweds living in different states. Pushing back the wedding would give us time to work and save money. But then we had a Sonny & Cher moment and realized we didn't care that much about money. What we cared about was being together.

Option #3
Suck It Up And Risk Parental Anger And Live Together Now. I wasn't comfortable with this option because I felt like I had done enough in the last year to disappoint my parents (the whole med school thing) and I didn't want to only further make them question their parenting abilities. Did I mention I was worried about what my parents would think? Plus, choosing one of our careers to prioritize didn't really sit right with me.


Momma Kettle and Daddy Kettle are really very supportive; It's me, not them (personal photo)


Mr. Kettle saved the day. His logic and reasoning really helped me get over myself and be honest about adult decisions that needed to be made for my life.

Right after I was officially offered my job, Mr. Kettle made the decision to move to Chicago. He said he would figure out what to do about a job once he got here. Luckily, he's a very good musician, so he plays a number of gigs around the city and state and Midwest and country so he's always got some income.

He told me to trust him that we wouldn't have to talk to my parents about living together until we were engaged and told me to start looking for apartments. My man is nothing if not subtle. Yup, he's sure a subtle guy...

He proposed the day before Memorial Day. He then went back to St. Louis and gathered his things and moved back to Chicago. Luckily, his roommate was getting married the following weekend and more than happy to take over the entire rent in exchange for not living out some weird reverse Three's Company.



Image: City of KIK

That next week, my mother suggested Mr. Kettle and I move in together. I was shocked, but quickly jumped on that band wagon of thought. From there, it was less than a week before we picked out an apartment and signed our lease. Less than a month after getting engaged, we'd moved into our new apartment in Hyde Park. Moving day was a bit like our first wedding party hangout since we have so many of our friends in the wedding party.

Want to see pictures? Sure, why not.


Mr. Kettle is getting ready to take a video of our possible apartment. This is our huge bedroom. The closet door is broken because they hadn't fixed it yet.



The last tenant left the apartment in a mess. A hot mess. But I could see potential. Can you see the pendant lights above the granite bar counter? Oh yeah, I was feeling it.

This is our kitchen on move in day. They had really fixed the place up. Or at least they did a major de-crudding.

That's BM Libra having a "bright idea" with the light bulb from one of my lamps. BM ATL ('cause she lived in hot-lanta) looks tired. And hot.

She looked that way 'cause I haz a lot o' stuff.



That's GM Cuz ('cause he's a cousin) really happy the food finally arrived we said we'd get them for helping us move. That's BM ATL again, looking sleepy. That's also BM Mon's ('cause his people are from Jamaica, mon!) elbow in that shot.



This was after we loaded in the boxes that had to be unpacked and somehow actually fit in this space. How would we get it done? Magic.

So we settled into our new place and promptly forgot we still had to go through the process of getting married. Luckily, we had things coming up to get us going, such as our engagement photos.

Up next, I'll talk about the first three DIY projects I had going. They were made to formally invite our wedding party and as props for our e-photo shoot.

All photos personal unless otherwise stated.
Did you and your FI live together before you were married? Did you wish you could skip all the rest of the wedding stuff once you were settled in? Do you have lovely friends to help you move?