Bachelorette Party

Well, blog readers (all 10 of you- haha) I have a lot to catch you up on! The months of September and October have been a whirlwind! I actually find myself trying to think about my wedding day and not remembering a lot about it. The pictures help some of the memories come back, but for the most part I think I was on "autopilot" that entire weekend. It is very strange that the most important day of my life has already turned fuzzy in my memory. Thank goodness for video and thank goodness for my new sister-in-law who taped it for me (Stefanie is a lifesaver!)

Anyways, I very blessed to have had a total of 6 showers thrown for me! I'm still waiting on some pictures for a couple of them, but I will have to do a shower post soon. On to the bachelorette! (Sadly, it is highly likely that no one took pictures of Lowell's bachelor party and we may never get a post about his party...)

For the bachelorette, my bridesmaids and friends surprised me with an amazing get away! We went to Suncadia Resort near Cle Elum, WA. It is one of the most beautiful places in Washington! Lowell and I are definitely going back for a trip sometime... Check out the amenities!

As soon as we got there, we settled down and Emi told me I had an appointment to get a FACIAL! Oh my gosh, the spa there was AMAZING. I spent an hour soaking in their saltwater pool, sitting in the eucalyptus-infused steamer, and reading magazines in the fluffy sanctuary chairs before getting my facial.

The girls were so awesome, they had the room stocked with wine and food and gifts by the time I got back and we kicked off the girls weekend right away!

The next morning we went on a hike around the resort and laid out by the pool.

The bees were a sight to see. Christie and I both got stung. Rachel ran around like a crazy person whipping her towel trying to fight the bees. Emi let the bees crawl on her. We were also chased by a strange middle-aged man who insisted on taking our picture and following us out to the bar later on.... you know that saying, "it takes all kinds to make the world go around" always applies when you meet a character like that! He took this picture as a matter of fact.

That night I wore the standard bachelorette uniform and we went out to dinner at the resort!

A table of golfers decided to buy our table a bottle of champagne to celebrate with the condition that I present the tournament trophy to the winner at their table. I gave a heck of a speech.

Lastly, we went out to a traditional hick bar with a live band. My sneaky friends told the bar ahead of time that a bride named "Becca" was coming out so the band even put my name into a song of theirs!

It was so much fun until Emi fell off the bus... It was a bad one! When you are 4'10" bus steps aren't made for you. Especially in heels after a few drinks...

I was very sad for it to be over! I think one of the best parts about Suncadia is that you can be back to Seattle in less than an hour. I love it! Thank you to all of my amazing friends! What an unforgettable weekend!

High Tea!

For my bridal shower, my best friend/m-o-h (that's matron-of-honor), along with my bridal party planned an adorable "tea party" wedding shower for me! It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. I will let the pictures speak for themselves:

The dessert display ... mmmm

How adorable is this little tree Emi made? She hung a bunch of mini-spoons, spreaders, powdered sugar dusters, etc. along with the cake cookies. I got to take the tree home at the end of the party so now I have these little mini servers to use at my next party! The best part is the yellow spoons. Not only is yellow my wedding color, but matches the accent wall I painted in my house! 

As if putting together that tree wasn't enough, Emi also made HOMEMADE petit fours (a.k.a mini cake bites covered in fondant) with a "B" written in icing on the top of them! 

Tea sandwiches, homemade scones, yum yum! Emi even found napkins with a "B" on them to use. How does she think of everything?!

Enjoying our tea party out on the deck. I'm not smiling a big smile because my mouth is full of yummy food! My sister, Ashley/m-o-h (that's maid of honor) came all the way from Spokane to come to the shower. Thanks, Ash!

Us playing "Fiance Feud" (Emi's spin on "Family Feud".) The girls broke up into teams and tried to guess items in categories like "Lowell and Becca's Favorite Food" etc. Kelsey, who hasn't known me as long as everyone else actually got the most right! What a perceptive lady!

Then of course came present time! I told everyone I might have withdrawals after the wedding because I've gotten so used to opening presents. It's easy to feel like a spoiled brat! 

(Cute wrapping job, Amy!)

My ever-growing rehearsal bouquet and Mollie. She gave me the serving set that Lowell and I will use to cut our cake at the wedding! Isn't that sweet? 

As if Emi didn't go above and beyond enough, she also made me a cook book! She emailed my family members and asked them all for the recipes to their favorite dishes. She entered them into this website called Taste Book where you type in the recipe, add a photo and they send you a custom made book.  (With extra spaces for recipes to be added!) One of my favorite presents by far! It is very touching to flip through the pages and see what family and friends included. It makes me feel very loved! 

Thank you to all of my WONDERFUL FRIENDS! It always amazes me how much they are there for me and how much they care! I am so lucky! 

Arriving at a mail box near YOU

Our wedding invitations! 

Trying to be the most frugal bride I can be, I decided to make my own wedding invitations. It was a little extra work, but actually really fun to do it myself. I found the yellow color I wanted at a store called PaperZone. When I asked the lady who worked there about the paper, she told me some amazing news! The paper came in "parent sheets" - a.k.a. huge sheets of paper that PaperZone cuts down to the size you want it to be. The parents sheets were only $1 each and one parent sheet gave me 30 small sheets!

With my yellow paper already cut down to size, all I did was buy off-white card stock and printed 4 invitations on each sheet. (We drove all the way up to the Everett PaperZone that was going out of business to buy the paper at 30% off. We are getting really cheap in our old age!)

 

Then I hired a professional paper-cutter to cut them down to size for me. He's pretty cute for hired help, I'd say! He ended up not charging me a dime!

Once everything was cut down to size, my bridesmaids Emi and Mollie came over to help me assemble them. It took about 3 hours with all of us working together.

It probably would have taken less time if I wasn't such an idiot! I counted up our invite list to find that we were inviting around 210 people... so I planned to make 210 invitations... Thankfully, after making about 170 invites Mollie pointed out that most invitations went to houses of at least 2 or 3 people. Ahhhh! I have PLENTY of extra invites now! The next picture is of Mollie' fancy double-sided tape tool. It was a lifesaver and really fun to use!

Special thanks to Mollie, Emi, and my hired paper-cutter for making these effective yet inexpensive invitations possible! 

P.S. If you have received an invite, please RSVP as soon as possible! Also, don't forget to fill in your name on the RSVP so I don't get too many nameless RSVPs in the mail. It can be hard to figure out who they came from! :) 

Sleepless in Seattle

I haven't been sleeping very well because it has been so hot! I'm so cranky and SO glad it is finally Friday!

This weekend (Seafair) should be a blast and I'm delighted to say that the temperature should stay within a normal range. Lowell and I are having some friends over on Saturday to watch the Blue Angels perform since we live within walking distance to Lake Washington. They have been practicing right above our house for the past few days which has been fun to see (but extremely loud... poor Lulu is a little confused...) 

The rest of the weekend will be devoted to doing "wedding chores". It is getting closer and closer. On Wednesday we bought Lowell's wedding ring! I have yet to figure out how to take a good picture of a ring without the picture over-exposing. I tried my best! I'm not very good with jewelry terminology but his ring is white gold, (I believe "brushed" white gold) and those boarders on the edges are "millgrain". That's about all I can tell you!

On Thursday, my bridesmaids Mollie, Amy and Emi met me in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle to pick up my wedding dress! I need to get a couple things altered by a seamstress, but amazingly it fit almost perfectly for not being a "custom-made" dress (meaning I ordered a standard size.) Here's to less extra money for alternations! After stuffing the dress in Mollie's car, we went out for a dinner at a new Japanese restaurant and Amy addressed some invites for me in her wonderful handwriting. Sorry, no pictures of my dress YET. :) 

Also, please stay tuned for a post by Lowell! He has offered to do a blog entry about a hike we went on last weekend. I'm excited to see that guy's blogging skills in action! 

The Favors

More about the wedding...

For our favors, we are doing the coolest thing! Lowell has been homebrewing beer for about a year now and is pretty good at it if I might add! We have all the gear: stainless steal pots, a large propane burner, 2 kegs, a CO2 tank, and even bought an extra fridge to put in the garage to house the kegs. We have bottle cappers, sterilization solutions, pumps of all kinds and even our own hop plant growing in our yard. We are SO Washingtonians! 

We've slowly been collecting beer bottles people have graciously saved for us that we wash, sterilize, fill with delicious beer, and cap. We are saving them in boxes to be used to give away at our wedding as favors. 

Now here is the best part: the labels! I ordered 200 of these awesome labels in our colors with our names and date printed on them from http://www.myownlabels.com/ 

I had them leave the bottom text box blank where I write in the specific variety of beer as we have many different kinds such as "lager", "red ale", "alt" et. 

It's a lot of fun because Lowell has an excuse to try all these new brewing recipes and our guests get to take something that really is a reflection of us! 

Wedding colors

So of course, on to more import things: wedding colors! (BTW, This post is dedicated to Kelsey and Abby from our walk at Greenlake.) 

My favorite color has always been yellow and it also happens to be Lowell's favorite as well! My vision started with a harvest yellow, accompanied by two other fall colors. I still haven't decided between burnt orange, brown, and olive green. I like burnt orange, but finding things in this color has already been a little tricky. Brown and olive green are also nice and neutral. But what is a fall wedding without a pumpkiny-orange? Your thoughts are more than welcome. 

I found many bridesmaid dresses in yellow, but all of them more appropriate shades for spring. My sister Ashley finally found our bridesmaid dresses on sale at Banana Republic. They are a vibrant yellow and should be a fun pop of color! Not to mention on sale (good find, Ash)!

Our Venue

So the first and probably most stressful wedding detail thus far has been choosing a venue. Finding a reasonably-priced venue in Seattle was no easy task! I wanted to keep the wedding in Seattle because I wanted everyone to be able to drink a few glasses of wine and have fun without worrying about a long drive back to their hotel or home. I also felt that getting married in Seattle was a tribute to us- Lowell and I met in Seattle, dated in Seattle, and now own our town-house in Seattle. Seattle it had to be! 

After looking at some disappointing places, we finally found our place at the Hall at Fauntleroy in West Seattle. It is an old school house turned community hall where a local catering company operates out of. They have GREAT food and a cute little room and garden to have a ceremony and reception. Best of all, they had dates in October to offer us! I thought for sure we would have to go with a gray day in January at the rate we were going... So, we choose October 3rd, 2009 for our day. It also happens to be Lowell's oldest brother's birthday so we will have two things to celebrate that day! (Thanks, Adam!) 

Originally we wanted a smaller wedding for two reasons: to maintain an intimate feeling at the wedding, and also to save on costs. Our cap is at about 160 so the guest list has been a challenge! We finally had to decide we could not include children under age 21 with the exception of Caleb (Lowell's nephew) and Noah (Lowell's youngest brother who is almost 21 anyways). Even with kids out of the count, we are still over! Stay tuned for how this one pans out... 

This is the garden area where we will be having the ceremony if all goes according to Farmer's Almanac and its weather prediction for October 3rd, 2009! The sun will be setting right behind the alter so it should be very romantic. If it does end up raining, we can easily move the ceremony indoors. Hopefully guests can hang out outside though- look how cute the garden area is!