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?

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.

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?