Checking off the To-Do's

My my my, it has been a while.

But can I just tell you - we have been so, SO productive!! Through the holidays, the time off of school (which I'm now back into), and everything in between. Productive, productive, productive.

A few highlights of items checked off the to-do lists:

• Bridesmaid Dresses - check! Since we have such big bridal parties, I'm letting my lovely ladies pick their own style of dress. They'll all be from the same manufacturer, the same length, and the same color, but the style is all completely their own. I want my ladies not only to be comfortable in their dresses, but if they feel comfortable they will look even more fabulous than they already are. Plus, I love how everyone is going to look unique. Woo!
• Groomsmen Tuxes - check! We were able to get our account set up with Men's Wearhouse, and all of the men will be looking dapper in their tuxes. The guys have it so easy - they just get measured and it's done.
• MY Dress - check! Yep, you heard right. I have a dress. But that's all you're going to hear about it ;)
• Wedding website - check! I was finally able to take some time and update our wedding website with all of the event, travel, and accommodation information for our guests. Hopefully it's helpful for people, but I definitely enjoyed putting it together. Check it out at: www.allenandkaitlyn.com.
• Registry - check! Well, at least one part of it. We did a partial registry at Bed Bath & Beyond, but will also be hitting up Crate & Barrel in February and possibly Macy's if necessary. At first I wasn't sure how much Allen was going to enjoy registering, but once he got that scanner gun in his hand I think he felt a new sense of power. I think we both got a little scanner-happy at some points (everyone needs a wine refrigerator, right?) so we may be doing some editing once we get our other registries taken care of.
• Wedding bands - check! A super easy night out resulted in us walking out of the mall in under 45 minutes with our wedding bands. I think we both just went in with clear ideas of what we wanted, and it was just quick as can be. We have them at the house, and it's fun for me to just take a quick peak at them whenever :) So fun.
• Honeymoon flights - check! We were able to secure our vacation time for the year, and are now booked for our TWO WEEK honeymoon! We'll be flying into Barcelona, spending a few days there, then fly into Rome, spend a few days there, and then spend the second week touring around Italy. I don't remember ever taking a full two week vacation (at least not since I was much younger), so I am really excited for our adventure!
• Save the Dates - almost check! I've been working on our save the dates for a while now, and after many, many, many drafts, revisions, theme and color changes, format changes, etc. I think we finally got our favorite nailed down. I really, really love them. I'll be sure to post more up once they finally go out, but I'll be releasing the art to the printer this weekend and putting them together in the coming weeks. But MAN! If I was this indecisive and nit-picky over our save the dates, I can't even imagine how I'm going to be on our invites.

It's been really great and a huge relief getting a lot of these items taken care of. I'm so excited to keep getting things checked off!

Say "eh" to the dress

For most girls starting their wedding planning, finding and buying their wedding dress is one of their favorite and most exciting parts of the process. For me...not so much.

To put some context around this...I'm not really a shopper. Never have been. I go to the store for what I need, I leave with what I went in for. I don't browse, I hate having to dig through racks, and I hate shopping without knowing exactly what I went to the store for. More importantly, I hate dress shopping. In going shopping for dresses for other special occassions (proms, homecoming, friend's weddings, etc), I always felt a ton of pressure going shopping for a dress.

Now, imagine having to shop for THE dress. Yeeeeeeeeeeesh.

I've seriously been putting this off for a good 14 months now. I went once with my mom and sister and pretty much felt uncomfortable the entire time. One good thing came out of the trip - I realized (as most of you may know), I am not a poofy dress kind of girl. So at least that part is narrowed down.

Luckily, I've gotten to the point now where at least I'm looking at dresses online and getting ideas of ones I like. This is progress. Most people have told me that the dress style they originally went in looking for was not the one they ended up with. Honestly, I don't really know that I have a specific "style," (other than not poofy) I just want to look good and feel comfortable. So, the search continues.

Things I'm loving right now - Television edition

Welcome to another edition of "things I'm currently loving on" here in my little world, TV-wise. Enjoy!

#1. HBO's miniseries "The Pacific"
I beg any of you who have HBO to seriously start watching this series. Allen and I are living and breathing by it right now - we just can't get enough of it! The series is produced by the same "Band of Brothers" crew (Spielberg, Tom Hanks, etc), so if you are even remotely a fan of that series, you will love this. I haven't even seen "Band of Brothers" (I know, I know, Allen already yelled at me) but I'm absolutely going to watch it now that I'm crazy hooked to "The Pacific". The series is based in the WWII era, and tracks the real-life stories of three Marines who fought in the Pacific post-Pearl Harbor, and it gives a totally new perspective than what we usually see on WWII (mostly the European, Nazi regime stories - and I'm not devaluing them, I'm just saying, it's a totally different perspective). I love, love, love everything about this series. If you have HBO, they play re-runs of it all the time. Even if you don't have HBO, come over to my house and watch with me, or just wait for the DVDs to come out. It will not disappoint.

#2. The Discovery Channel's "Life"
So clearly, I must be on a documentary kick lately, but this is another one that is totally worth catching. In the same way that "Planet Earth" rocked the Discovery Channel a few years ago, "Life" takes on all kinds of different animal behaviors and how they adapt to their surroundings. It is full of all of the same jaw-drop amazing videos that had me saying "How on earth did they ever capture that image" at least 50 times. Last night we watched the episode on fish. (And let's be clear, anyone who knows me knows that that freaked the crap out of me to no end). Despite the fact that fish freak me out, it was so incredible watching some of the habits and imagery that they were able to capture. I recommend seeing it on a big screen if you can, and most definitely in HD if possible. No matter what though, you will love this. I honestly think Allen was a little unsure about the series to start, but by the end of the first episode he watched he was definitely glad he caught onto it with me.

#3. HBO's "The Ricky Gervais Show"
Ok so off of the documentary track for a few, "The Ricky Gervais Show" is slowly becoming one of my new favorite shows. I loved their podcasts through iTunes, but the added animated affect is awesome. Basically, the premise of the show is for Ricky (the Fred Flinstone looking cartoon) and Stephen to basically rip on Karl (the one on the right) the entire show. But, to be fair, Karl earns the ribbing. It continuously cracks me up every week!

Other than that, things have been pretty tame around here lately. I'm ramping up for the end of the semester (yay!), ramping up for our busy season at work, and ramping up for some finalized wedding plans here soonish. We also have Easter weekend, with my sister joining coming up for the weekend so I'm super excited about that. I'll be doing my first pass at dress shopping with her and Mom on Saturday so wish me luck! (eeeeeek!) We also have our traditional kielbasa making over at my uncle's on Saturday so that will make for some yummy food. Oh, and did I mention that MICHIGAN STATE IS IN THE FINAL FOUR?! HOLLA! GO GREEN!

PS: one more thing - Happy Birthday to my old roomie Erin! Love you girly!