What I've Been Up To

I know posting has been sparse lately but it is because I have been working on creating a photo album for our parents. Whew, I know why photographers charge so much for those puppies... they are A LOT of work! Here is what I came up with:

Parents 1 by Brooke and Ryan | Make Your Own Book

Would you change anything? If so, what, and should I move it, delete it, add it?

Cruisin' in the Fast Lane: Practice Makes Perfect!

The day before our rehearsal my mom and sister came home from a shopping extravaganza with some new snazzy dresses to wear to the rehearsal. They pulled them out to show me and they were almost IDENTICAL to the dress I was planning to wear. Cue panicked drama!

This is the dress I was going to wear. Fear not though. I've owned the dress for forever and have worn it a multitude of times pre and post wedding.

Source

Source

So, of couse I had to go shopping. Duh. Ryan and I spent the morning running errands and then frantically hit up the mall to find a stand in. I finally found the perfect yellow dress to wear only to spill make-up on it as I was walking out the door. Doh! So I ended up in another dress that I brought from Kansas. Drama. Drama. Drama.

We arrived at the church a little early to preview everyone's outfits for the wedding since we hadn't seen most of our bridal party in 6 months to a year.

Some Walking

Tired Bridesmaids

The rehearsal was like most we processed, recessed, processed, recessed, processed, and recessed one more time for good measure. Once we had sufficiently walked over five miles we headed down the street for a little dinner.

We arrived to a beautifully decorated restaurant (thanks to MIL) and sat down to eat some grub.

 And finally we opened some gifts!

 Photos courtesy of Bridesmaids Aida and Lynsey!

When it Rains it Pours

Ummm... seriously the past five days have been the pits! Since my last post our new dog ate my wedding dress, I found a lost baby and proceeded to get attitude from it's "egg donor" (she doesn't deserve to be called a mother), my husband left for a three week training session during which we will have little no communication, and our car was side-swiped during a freak storm! WTH.

I'm over the dress. He's a dog and didn't know what he was destroying. I won't be repairing it because I had intended all along to get the dress made into a Baptismal/Christening gown for our future children and I know that is still possible using the undamaged parts. In case you're curious though here is the grizzy damage...

The other day we went to my husband's work's family day. There were a couple hundred soldiers, their significant others, children, dogs, etc milling about a park for an afternoon BBQ. As the day is wrapping up a little boy, had to have been less than two, came over and started petting my dogs. I noticed there was no one watching him so I kept an eye on him as he continued to mill about unsupervised. He found several other dogs to play with and even climbed into a couple's stroller and hung out while they were preoccupied. Finally, they announced the end of the event and the hoards of people began beelining it to leave. I immediately scanned the crowed for the little boy to see if he had been claimed. Of course, he hadn't. I was honestly worried that someone would run him over with their car so I scooped him up and began walking him around the crowd. After about ten minutes I was completely fed up and began asking any and everyone if they knew who's kid it was. I held him up above my head and walked the area several more times. About fifteen minutes into this furious search for the kid's parents this woman calmly walks over and says, "Uh, he's mine". The tone of her voice implied that I should not have my hands on her kid. I tried to play it off by speaking to the child and saying cheerfully, "WE FOUND HER!" and high-fived him. She made a disgusted gutterel noise, turned on her heel, and walked away. WTF. No panicked but joyous reunion. No excuses and explanations. Not even a f*ing thank you. Ugghh some people shouldn't have children.

and our car....

Cruisin' in the Fast Lane: It's Sew You!

We really wanted to get our bridal party gifts that they could a) use again, b) genuinely liked, and c) were meaningful. After brainstorming for a little while I decided I really wanted to get our flower girls American Girl dolls that looked like them.

My American Girl

So cute! I picked the hair color... blonde, the eye color.... blue, the hair style.... short, and clicked on the final result.......scccrreeeeaaaaccchhh. The dolls were $95 each. Not including any clothes, accessories, anything. $95 for a naked doll. Yeah, that's not happening.

And the search for the perfect doll commenced... I wanted it to be similar to the American Girl Doll but not a cheap knock-off. Our criteria included 15-18" tall, soft body and hard limbs, good hair that came in blonde, cute face, and cost under $40. After hours upon hours of looking Ryan and I finally agreed upon this sassy little girl:

Molly P. Originals

Although the baby doll was cute and I was sure our flower girls would love her I wanted to make her even more special. I decided to make the dolls dresses that looked like the flower girl dresses.

Flower Girl D modeling her dress

I started the dress making adventure by purchasing a Simplicity 18" Doll Dress Making Pattern (I used a modified version of the bottom left dress). I traced the pattern on some white silk and white lining I had purchased according to the pattern instructions. I then cut these pattern pieces out.

Pattern pieces cut

I had to cut a new pattern three times because the dolls we purchased were fuller than the 18" dolls the patterns were made for. I then began to painstakingly sew the lining to the satin, the back to the front, and the skirt to the top.

Dress

I also created bows with some leftover ribbon from my pomander project. I then added a sweater to cover the dolls half cloth/half plastic arms and a ribbon around the waist to complete the look.

The finished project

I was soooo pleased with how the dresses turned out and the girls loved their presents. One slept with hers and then carried it around the entire wedding. When I asked the other if she would like to take it out of the box she said, "No, I think this is a really special gift and that I should probably leave it in the box to keep it nice". She's five, people. Too cute.

For about $60 each of the girls not only got their dolls with the matching flower girl outfits, they got the autumn outfit the dolls came in, and mini monogrammed tote bags full of goodies like coloring books, crayons, and mini etch-a-sketches to occupy their time during the boring wedding events.

Cruisin' in the Fast Lane: Strike a Pose!

Our photobooth in action...

The photobooth was a HUGE hit with all of our guests especially the younger ones! We both thought it turned out great but there are a few things we could have done better...

1) Get another battery and have it charged. Our battery ran out about halfway causing us to have to close down and charge the battery up putting a HUGE dent in the photobooth momentum.

2) Get someone to take pictures. We used a remote and believe people mistakenly held down the button too long so we ended up with every other "picture" being a video. This also contributed significantly to the battery suck. This will also prevent people from moving the tripod or taking your camera off the tripod (yep, that happened).

3) Go to the photobooth. Neither my husband nor I set foot anywhere near our photobooth. Big tear. :(

Cruisin' in the Fast Lane: Accessorizing the Photobooth

Ryan and I wanted wanted our photobooth to be kickass so we did our best to gather up some fun and playful accessories. We bought a chalkboard, an empty picture frame, some vintage hats, a parasol, and we made some mustaches.

To make these bad boys I bought some crafting fur at Hobby Lobby for $2.99. One piece was enough to create 2 of each design.

[Source: Hobby Lobby]

I then used a mustache template that I found here and traced the mustaches onto the back of the fur and onto brown felt using a sharpie. I then cut out the templates, sandwiched a dowel rod in between the piece of felt and mustache, and secured with hot glue. Finally I touched up the mustaches by trimming them up with facial hair scissors.

Ruth + Jerry = Most Adorable Wedding Ever.

So while perusing my favorite haunts this morning I came across a wedding over on Southern Weddings that I just had to share. This is by far one of the most beautiful and joyful weddings I have seen in my years of wedding blog stalking.

The couple, both in their 80s, wanted a small intimate affair and were married at 2pm on a Tuesday with only a couple of people in attendance. The bride's grandson, also the photographer, Andy Donnan of Donnan Photo, was there to capture it all.