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?

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?

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?

How To Be A Rebel Bride - Wedding Registry Edition

Hive, it's done! I've finally completed our wedding registries. It only took 6 people 5 months to do it, but it got done. I feel like I managed to register for exactly what we needed and wanted. There are all these suggestions of what we should be registering for. In fact, I printed off a three page list with suggestions, But I tossed those suggestions right out the window.

Well, I didn't throw it out the window, but I did get rid of the list. I thought about Mr. Kettle and the life we plan to have in the next 10 years or so.

We definitely needed some classic wedding registry stuff (such as wedding china), but we also needed some non-classic stuff (such as bicycles). Our registry planning got off to a slow start, a real slow start. To illustrate, I've done a cartoon. I had to edit it so you could actually read it this time.

Personal Cartoon

Personal Cartoon

Personal Cartoon

Personal Cartoon

 The first thing we registered for was our wedding china. Momma Kettle and one of her best friends came with Mr. Kettle and I to Macy's. It only took us four hours (only!), but we got it done! After that ordeal, it took us a long time to get back on board with finishing the registry.

During my birthday weekend, BM Law and BM Libra (who's birthday weekend it also was), were with me while I finished my registries at Crate and Barrel and Williams-Sonoma. I still had to finish Target (yay for bicycles), but I figured I'd do that online.

If I've learned a couple things from doing my registry, it's this:

• Don't be afraid to price compare between your registries. The KitchenAid stand mixer was available at all 4 stores, but I went for the one that looked the best at the best price.
• Keep track of your password. Target updated their online registries and I forgot my password so I had to start a new one. Hopefully, our guests will know the correct one is the one with more than one thing on it.
• If it works better for you, add to your registry both in-store and on-line. I never would've started or finished without both those options.
• Decide for yourself what works best for your registry. If you want a jump rope, add it in!

Also for your viewing pleasure, some of my favorite registry items:

Image via: Target / Huffy Ladies Fresno Cruiser Bike - Purple

Image via Macy's / kate spade new york Dinnerware, Palmetto Bay 5 Piece Place Setting

Image via Williams-Sonoma / Mauviel Copper 12-Piece Set

Image via Crate and Barrel / KitchenAid® Artisan Copper Stand Mixer

 My new favorite kitchen metal is copper. Too bad all my old stuff is stainless steel. I think that I will find a way to make my old stainless steel work with my new and fabulous copper!

Have you finished your registry? How long did it take you to do it?

Wedding Registries And Marriages

I'm going today with BM Libra and BM Law to add more items to our registry. That got me thinking about this post I wrote, but never got around to posting. Maybe... ahem... because I still haven't done my post on the first trip to the registry with Momma Kettle and Mr. Kettle.

I looked up our registry info to confirm our China selection to comment on one of Miss Teacup's posts. It turns out there are three, count them, three grooms with Mr. Kettle's exact name getting married in the next 6 months.

To my bride brain, this was ridiculously funny. Don't ask why. I texted Mr. Kettle to see if he was secretly a polygamist. It wouldn't be so secret since he used the same name, but I found it hilarious. It's nice to have the escapes from all the serious things that must be considered and mulled over in the wedding world.

What would you do if you found out your fiance was a polygamist? Sounds like a Lifetime movie, right?

Well, Mr. Kettle did confess to being a polygamist and didn't seem too upset that I'd caught him. It's not like he was trying real hard to hide it. If you knew him at all, you'd know this was his oddball humor. I love his sense of humor and we had a hearty laugh over it.

But it got me to thinking about non-traditional marriages. I know polygamy isn't America's thing, but there are all types of different marriages. There are brides (and grooms) who are on their second, third, or fourth marriage.

There are blended families where they're raising kids from several different mixes of parents. There are marriages where they come from completely different cultures/backgrounds/age ranges. There's the occasional mail-order bride (does that still happem?)

Mr. Kettle and I come from similar backgrounds and home lives. We were both born in 1984. Both of our parents have been together for around 30 years. We both have a college degree with an interest in getting an advanced degree. We both grew up in the south side of the Chicago area. Neither of have children, but we both want a lot. We even went to the same music conservatory as kids, moving in lightly interconnected circles our whole lives. I don't know if that makes things easier, probably not, but there is a level of familiarity there.

I 'd love to hear from you hive. What kind of marriage are you having in terms of backgrounds of the bride and groom?

You're Not Seeing Double, No Need To Adjust Your Screen

In our wedding, we have lots o' people. That may have been mentioned once or twice so far. Our wedding will look like this:

Image: 34 Person Wedding Party / Photography by Digital Photography School

That wedding had 34 people. Ours is just shy of that. We are including everyone in our count because they're all important. Mr. Kettle and I both have a Best Man and Maid of Honor. So that's 4.

He has 8 more groomsmen, bringing our total to 12. I have 2 more men standing up with me which brings our total to 14. I also have 6 more bridesmaids, bringing our total to 20. Add in 2 jr. bridesmaids and we're at 22. Then 2 ring bearers and 2 flower girls and we're at 26. Tack on 3 hostesses and 2 ushers and the number is now 31. Don't forget our 2, yes 2, officiants and we're at 33. Don't forget Daddy Kettle, Mr. Kettle, and me. That makes 36! Yup. 36 people.

I want to take this time to answer I've gotten in comments on previous posts. The question was about our hostesses and ushers and what exactly they were. Some people double groomsmen as usher, helping to seat people as they arrive to the ceremony. That's not the case with us.

Momma Kettle, ever the etiquette stickler (I get it honest, you know, so I  know exactly what to rebel against), tells us we should have one usher/hostess for ever 50 guests. This is particularly important when our venue is at a house that has thousands of square feet spread over 3 stories. We'll need people to help get all those people into the ballroom conservatory for the ceremony, out to the rest of the house for cocktail hour, then back into the ballroom for the reception. They'll need to know where to sit and when. The mansion provides staff to do this, but having extra people on hand could only help out.

Think of a combination between a hostess at a restaurant mixed with a regular usher at a wedding, and that's what our hostesses and ushers will be. Why not make them honorary bridesmaids and groomsmen? Well, because then they'd get their names on the programs and we'd get no work out of them! Just kidding, but I know they'd want to be involved more than just in name.

One of our hostesses is my niece, Hostess Cheery, who's 19 and too old to be a jr. bridesmaid. The other is a high school girl I mentor, Hostess High,  who's friendly with Mr. Kettle ever since they were both in the wedding I met Mr. Kettle at last summer. The third is one of his nieces, FNIL Sniffles, who's also in college and also to old to be a jr. bridesmaid. One of our ushers is my god-brother and the other is Mr. Kettle's cousin. They're both in high school.

Our wedding has been used as a tool to accommodate all our close family and friends that have been in our lives for a long time. Besides the flowers girls and ring bearers who are both 6 years old, we've known everybody else in our wedding party at least 10 years (including the officiants).

So, yeah there are a lot of folks, but they're our close friends. We're both just super friendly people who are close to our families. It happens.

And now for your viewing pleasure, some lovely photos of random wedding party members.

Personal Photo: our two flower girls. My lovely new nieces. Aren't they adorable twins?



Personal Photo: our two ring bearers. They're also twins, they just don't look it as much.



Personal Photo: FNIL Sniffles and Hostess High at our engagements party.

GM Hubby, MOH Sis, GM Mac, Mr. Kettle, GM Cuz, GM Light at the engagement party. I really should do something special for whoever can keep all these folks straight!

BM Doc, BM Mon, BM Law, BM Libra, BM Milk, me at our engagement party

 BM in this case stands for Bridesman and Bridesmaid. We're still sorting out exactly what to call everybody in our wedding party.

Personal Photo: GM Dark at a gig we all went to. I love the look on his face. He was resigning himself to being the only single and never-married one of his friends. His level of melodrama fits in nicely with Mr. Kettle and I.

Personal Photo: I love this pic.
From left to right: FNIL Tiny, Mr. Kettle, FNIL Sniffles, and BM Cuz's daughter who's my new great-niece.

Soooo many people. Judging by the engagement party, I know our wedding will be exactly what we want: a big party that includes all the people we love and cherish. I will now stop alluding to our engagement party and actually give recaps in my next posts.

Bridesmaid Dress Stress, But A Solution Arises

In my last post, I left off with ominous words. Yes, we left David's Bridal and headed to Eva's Bridal. This wasn't the Eva's Bridal in Tinley Park where I bought my dress. This was the Eva's Bridal in Orland Park. They had dresses and were up the street, so we figured we'd check them out so the day wouldn't be a total waste.

After the magic with the first dresses, I didn't think we'd find it again. But I went through the same routine nonetheless:

1. Have the girls pick out dresses they all seriously like.

2. Veto the ones I hate on sight.

3. Have them try on the dresses they picked.
4. Have other girls try on dresses as I decide they work on each successive girl.

We changed it this time and made Step #3 "make sure the dress is available in our color choice." We looked at all the purples and ultimately chose that same blue-ish purple color we now know is called Regency.

I didn't have high hopes that we'd find yet another dress that looked amazing on every girl. They're just too different. They have seriously different body types. Kind of like this.


Image: Keen Eye Style post on Body Types

 We did manage to find something that worked. After trying on a number of dresses...

Personal Image: MOH Sis trying on a great satin dress and looking super tiny. I really didn't like the dip in the back though.

Personal Image: BM Law trying on another great satin number. Can you tell I was trying to stick with satin at this point? And who doesn't love pockets?

Personal photo: sorry for the skinny photo. I had to crop out half-naked MOH Sis. Apparently, not wearing pants runs in the family.



Personal Image: BM Libra trying this one on. Still cute. At this point I'm thinking maybe my commitment to satin isn't so firm.

Personal Image: BM Law trying it on too. Still cute! I was pretty much sold at this point. I just needed the girls to okay it.

This A-line, floor length was really the ticket, even though they all have great legs. The surprise to me was the empire waist. I figured a natural waist would be more universally flattering. I don't care about being wrong because this dress is just fabulous.

Here's the dress we ended up deciding on that day.

Image: BIll Levkoff #537

We're getting it, of course, in Regency.

Personal photo: Regency is the one all the way to the left.

 This dress is all over weddingbee, much like my wedding dress. It's because it's awesome and fits a variety of body types. Momma Kettle worried that putting my bridesmaids in a dress longer than mine (dress hint!) would be backwards, but I figured it would be okay.

We let the jr. bridesmaids also try on dresses though we knew at this point we'd just get them the coordinating dress.

Image: Bill Levkoff #53702

Personal photo: This looks too much like an overgrown flower girl dress in my opinion, I wanted my girls to look like young ladies.

Personal photo: Even worse. I just had to show this photo of when bustles go wrong.

So we were all set, right? Not even close. I don't want to get into all of it here so I will gloss over the details, but just know that this whole situation made me bury my head in the sand for a few days and not answer phone calls or texts from my girls for a few days until they worked it out amongst themselves.

The price was an issue. BM Law expressed on behalf of some of the other ladies that they couldn't afford the price at Eva's. After some drama in which she ended up apologizing for speaking for people out of place, we settled it. They really wanted this particular dress, so they would make it happen.

I had already talked to each of my girls about what they could afford, but I ended up finding the dresses for much cheaper at >House of Brides online.  If we order them all together, we'll save a bundle on shipping and insurance. So I'll be collecting everyone's money this week and ordering the dresses.



Our bridesmaid dresses will be here by mid-December. Mima Kettle just informed me the flower girls dresses have arrived (let's pray those 5 years olds don't grow too much in the next 6 months!). Now we just have to find 7 more dresses and we're done.

What 7 more you ask? 3 dresses for my hostesses. One for Momma Kettle, Grandmother Kettle, Mima Kettle, and FSIL Grand. They're very important ladies in this whole thing too!

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.