this time last year

On a drizzly day in front of all the people I love,

I vowed to be by his side from now until forever…

…because he’s my favorite.

Happy anniversary, my love.

My Bustle

Hi everyone! I’ve had lots of inquiries about my bustle so I decided to put as much info as I have about it here for you.

Here’s what I know:

My seamstress at David’s Bridal called it a ‘ballroom bustle’ but I now know that’s not the proper term for the style. One site I found refers to mine as the ‘train flip’, found here (last one on the page) although I did a google search on ‘train flip bustle’ and nothing came up…I’m guessing that’s just her term. Anywho, whatever you want to call it, I made a Photoshop mock-up of how David’s did it…

(picture the dress as see-through and everything I’m showing is on the underside of the skirt)

The red circles are buttons, and the black curvies on the end of the train are fabric hooks, all sewn to the underside. So basically the buttons come up right under my butt and the hooks are along the edge of the train, face down touching the floor. 

To bustle (again, this is all on the underside of the skirt so you don’t actually see any of this when the dress is on):

Easiest way is to start on one SIDE of the train, find the first hook and loop it over the first button, then work your way up and around the skirt till you get to the last hook and button on other side. So basically my friend ended up under my skirt in a very compromising position at one point It took 11 hooks & buttons to get my skirt up and the bottom to lay flat.

A few things to note:

My dress was asymmetrical. So if your seamstress tells you it can’t be done because your dress is asymmetrical, either I’m the exception or he/she is wrong. All it takes is a little tweaking of where the buttons would be attached. I’m certainly no seamstress but I honestly can’t think of any kind of train that this wouldn’t work on, unless of course it’s so long that pulling it up to your butt wouldn’t actually get it off the floor. Even then though, I imagine you could attach the hooks higher up the train so it folds over itself.

And here’s every picture I have that shows off the bustle (if even just a little bit):

I really hope this helps! And if anyone knows the proper term for this bustle style, I’d love to know!!

Proud Momma

One of my friends got married a few weeks ago and it was a beautiful ceremony and reception. She was the perfectly calm bride who figured she had done her best to plan her wedding and if anything went wrong, such is life. I appreciated all of the details she incorporated into her day, things I didn’t have to consider when planning my destination wedding: bridesmaids dresses, all things flowers, color schemes, music lineup, etc. Then I stumbled upon this and I was so proud!

She made my card box and it looked so great! She even made the bow like mine and sewed the lid to the base using pieces of hanger, a la Mr. Nachos-MacGyver.

She put her own twist on it by decorating it with her bouquet instead of making the “Cards” tag. So smart!

Have you tried any of the Bee’s DIY projects? Did yours turn out like the original?

Thank You

Well everyone, it seems all things wedding are over for us and if I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Our thank you’s went out on Saturday and to me, putting them in the mail marked the closing of the wedding chapter and the beginning of the rest of my life with my husband.

For those that came with us to St. Thomas, we sent pretty postcards that we bought on our trip:

And clearly not being one to worry about little details, I decided to finally use my old stamps, heehee:

Those that attended our home reception and people that sent gifts were written nice little notes in traditional thank you cards:

Ooh, and I wrote you all thank you cards, as well! In case yours gets lost in the mail and Miss Seashell doesn’t find it, I wrote you the following:

“Dear Bees,

Thank you so much for being there for me through all of the ups and downs of our wedding planning. It would never have been the same without you, all the support, love and advice you have given me truly made the last 7 months a time in my life I will never forget. You encouraged me through the rough patches when I was feeling defeated and overwhelmed, and you shared my excitement and butterflies when I felt like I was walking on a cloud. You are a friend for life, and if you ever need anything – an ear to listen, internet hugs during the rough patches, or just a smile – I will always be here for you. I promise, I’m not going anywhere. Always know that I am here with you no matter how far away you may be, smiling and excited for you and all that you experience, just as you were and are for me.

Love you all,

Nachos”

p.s. If you’re not sick of me and want to follow my post-wedding afterlife, you can find me over at my personal blog, Rabit Stew. Happy wedded bliss everyone!

We’ve Been Busy Bees!

I can’t believe it’s been almost 7 weeks since we got married! In the almost 2 months since we said ‘I do’, Scott and I have actually been pretty busy…

First off,

We’re under contract!

(picture it white, we’re gonna paint it)

Yep, we’re moving to the ‘burbs and I’ll completely miss the city, but we found a quad-level, 4-bedroom/2-bath house in Glenview that we fell in love with during our search, and bonus, I’ll be closer to my parents. It’s a short sale so it’s taken a little longer than usual, but the timing has actually almost been perfect. Although we were about a month too late to get the tax credit, we’re under contract and set to close in July. No more apartment renting!!!!! So many levels to decorate and find the perfect place for Scott’s “My Best Fart” jar!

Secondly,

Our registry is almost complete!

(my new favorite word is fulfilled)

Yes, the registry I didn’t even want in the beginning and I have since become obsessed with. After our party, we had a blast opening gifts, and I’m now at the point where I’m buying little things here and there off of it that we didn’t get, like the last few sets of our dishes. I’m holding off on the big stuff ’til after we close on the house, just in case. It’s killing me not to be able to order those cute tables and rugs I have all laid out in my soon-to-be living room in my head, but I can wait!

Thirdly,

My tan is gone, but so are the bug bites!

Oh those nasty no-see-ums. Seriously, they were my only complaint from our trip, the bugs that I oh so briefly mentioned in a post not so long ago. If you’ve never experienced no-see-ums, they are exactly what they sound like: little bugs you can’t see that bite you relentlessly and cause really itchy welts that take weeks to heal. They are a big problem on islands and in the mountains, and we were technically on both at once. Luckily they waited to get me above the waist until after the actual wedding, but this was me 2 days after the ceremony…

The super duper close-up shots are SO gross but I figured I’d spare ya’ll a little by shrinking them down. We bought bug spray out there and I even started spraying down the bed before we crawled in. In the beginning, Scott wasn’t convinced they were in the bed until the first night I only sprayed my side because he didn’t want to sleep in bug spray. His arm the next morning said it all. We asked the bartenders how to get away from the bugs and they all either said the bugs didn’t bother the locals, or they had various treatments we didn’t have handy – dryer sheets, citronella, Neutrogena Sesame Body Oil, etc. So if you plan to go to the islands, I suggest you bring mega bug spray, ‘they’ recommend above 30% DEET for no-see-ums if you can find it. I have never had this problem on the other islands I’ve visited in the Caribbean except for Jamaica, although I’ve never stayed somewhere down there for 2 weeks either. For the St. Thomas trip we had 29% DEET and it definitely helped for a few hours after each spray down.

And finally the one I’m most excited about and proud of,

We quit smoking!

Smoking was an awful addiction we both had that I didn’t advertise in my blog, but I admit it, I’ve been a smoker since I was 16. Um, that’s almost 17 years of smoking (minus a year-and-a-half when I quit in my 20′s), but Scott and I had planned our quit date about 6 months ago, and set it for the day we got back from St. Thomas. And I’m happy to report we’ve stuck with it thanks to the patch on me bum. Main motivation for me? Future babies. Happy, healthy future nachitos. Oh, and this!

That’s just in 6 weeks since May 1st – $7.50/day/ person adds up quick! And the sad thing is that we spent so much money over the years and had nothing to show for it aside from gross lungs and smelly hair. All that money now is going in savings and will be put towards fun house stuff. Love it! So for anyone contemplating quitting, my advice is to set your quit date far in advance and psych yourself up for it – you really have to want to quit. And the patch has made it surprisingly easy, I’m seriously shocked.

So it seems we are moving full steam ahead and I love all the new challenges and adventures I’m going through with my partner in crime. None of this would have been the same without him by my side!

What big challenges or adventures have you enjoyed taking on with your SO/FI/husband/wife?

Photoshop Tutorial

So I wanted to show you all something…remember this picture from my TTD post not too long ago?

Looks like we had the beach all to ourselves, right? Wrong. This was the original picture…

Boats, buoys, swimmers…we were definitely not alone. Scott and I had typed up a release of rights for our photographer who also happens to be a good friend (so we knew he wouldn’t object). Basically it gave us full rights to the pictures - free reign to legally edit, copy and reproduce our photos. And here’s how I made the public beach our private oasis in Photoshop 3.0 .

Open the picture and click on the ‘Rectangular Marquee Tool’…

Next, zoom in close and draw a box around the water right next to what you want to hide. Make your box similar in size to the object you’ll be covering. Sorry, the box is kinda hard to see in this picture but look just right of the boat…

Click Edit /Copy, then Edit /Paste (or ctrl+c, then ctrl+v). This will create a new layer with just your square that you copied from the picture.

Go back to your picture layer and change the opacity so you can see the new box/layer through it.

Select your new layer on the right so it’s your drawing layer.

Select the ‘Move Tool’ (little arrow with the cross looking thingy on the left) and drag your new box over what you want to cover.

Go back to your picture layer and change the opacity back to 100% so your picture looks like this…

Next you want to smudge the box you made to blend in with the main picture. I like the ‘Mode’ set at ‘Normal’ and the ‘Strength’ at 25%.

Um…..what boat?

I repeated the process over and over to cover everything and make us our own private beach picture. I also found that this process is very easy when using pictures with water because it blends very well.

So we went from this to that…

And how dare this woman try to grow out of Scott’s arm. Photoshop to the rescue!…

Good luck!

Party Time!

A few weeks ago we finished up the last of our wedding festivities with our home reception at Vines. We had such a great time partying it up with about 80 people who came out to celebrate. The food was a hit, although I literally got 2 toasted ravioli, 1 coconut shrimp, and zero cake. Everyone else got cake though. Lucky duckies.

It’s ok though, I found out that it’s hard to balance hunger with a dress you can’t breathe in and trying to have a decent conversation with that many people in 3 hours! We started out the evening hanging with Amy and her awesome cake creation…

The centerpieces were set up and although Vines’ presentation was a little lack luster, the centerpieces did the job and that’s all that mattered in the end. Insert silent grrr here.

My creation/Their, um, creation

Ah well, what can you do if you can’t do it yourself and make it perfecto? At least they made some of them look nice…

And 30 minutes into the party I realized they forgot to add the floating candles. Not a big deal in the long run, but I paid $40 for those babies, damn it, and they were going to be used!

Ok, enough of my centerpiece rant, back to happy thoughts. The most important thing is that we had a fantastic time with everyone. It was kind of surreal having everyone from all the different facets of our lives in one room…

(that’s Mrs. Deviled Egg’s clutch I’m holding)

(and Mrs. Tiramisu’s bracelet made another appearance, I was decked out in Bee goodness!)

And when it was getting close to 11pm, our event coordinator approached me and let me know that we were under the minimum $5,000 we would be paying no matter what. And the difference equaled a whopping 56 shots! I told her to bring them on out, we were paying for them anyway!

Cheers! Uh, that’s my boss below on the left, hehe – I love a good blackmail photo. I smell a day off coming soon…

11pm rolled around quickly and we were presented with the bill…

…and I almost had a heart attack - it was about $1,500 more than we were told it would be! I was ready to hurt someone until the coordinator came over and realized the bill was wrong. She gave us the correct check and we happily signed. The evening ended with a smile, and we headed back to our place with a few friends for some 4AM beer pong – the perfect end to the perfect party.

Nachos Nuptials: The Honeymoon

Our families left on Saturday but our friends Blair and Giselle stayed for one more day and we had a blast with them! We hit the water to swim with the fishies (I highly recommend wearing an inflatable life vest if you’re going to be out for a long time, it’s much less exhausting!)….

That evening we decided to have a nice dinner at the Manor House, one of the nicer restaurants on the resort, but we made a bar stop first. One of my favorite pics of us oozing class – this one’s for you, Blair!

At dinner I tried escargot for the first time and absolutely loved it! We ate steak and shrimp like champs and had to call it a night.

The next morning, the last of our buddies left and we ended our week with them the same way we started…

We were sad to see them go, but them leaving meant our honeymoon beginning!

Our first afternoon alone, we realized just how relaxed we were when a woman came by with a tray of pineapple and the conversation went as follows:

Lady: “Would you like some pineapple?”

Me: “Oh yes, thank you! (turns to Scott) Scott?”

Lady: “Scott’s sleeping.”

Throughout the week, we enjoyed relaxing and playing at the resort.  

And inside the mini-golf building, I saw this on the wall and had to get a picture It’s like they knew I was coming…

We met lots of friendly kitties throughout the week.

One morning we woke up at 6AM to watch the sunrise over the water which was just breathtaking, something we never get to see from our Chicago apartment. A girl could get used to views like this…

We went into town during Carnival and did some shopping and exploring. We stumbled upon a teeny tiny bar called Coconuts that we ducked in to get out of the heat for a bit.

We both agreed that if we lived here, this would be our watering hole. The place was a hoot and completely covered floor to ceiling with anything and everything. Case and point, this was just a small portion of the ceiling…

Every time we were in a taxi driving up and down the mountain, I was mesmerized by the fact that houses are literally built into the side of the mountain. I’ll take this one please…

And speaking of taxis, we read a lot about how the taxis in St Thomas are super expensive. We found out that yes, if you take a van or car, it usually costs $10 per person. BUT if you hop on an open-air taxi, it’s a whopping $2

Make sure you tell the driver where you’re going though or you may or may not end up at the cruise ship dock otherwise. Erm, cough, that’s what someone told me once.

The week was so so so great and writing this post for you makes me want to be back in a place where there’s nothing to do but wake up and melt into the sand.

But after 2 of the best weeks of my life, we sadly had to pack up our room and find somewhere to put my dress. Hmmm, carry on anyone?

Goodbye room 150, I’ll miss you tons.

And in case you missed it…

• I’m Back, Did Ya Miss Me?
• Nachos Nuptials: The Adventure Begins!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 1 – We Made It!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 2 – Pre-Wedding Prep
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Getting Pretty!
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Deep Breaths…
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – The Ceremony
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It (pt 2
• Nachos Nuptials: TTD (part 1)
• Nachos Nuptials: TTD (part 2)
• Nachos Nuptials: Last Days with the Family

Nachos Nuptials: Last Days With the Family

After we had our fun jumping in the water in our wedding duds, we had a few more days to enjoy with the families before the honeymoon began. We played life-sized Jenga in the grotto…

We built sand castles with the kiddies. Yes, that is supposed to be a castle, don’t judge. I’m apparently much better with rhinestones and a glue gun than I am with sand…

We had fun-time at the pool with our tropical swirls – think orange dreamsicle meets blue curacao. Mmmmm…

We all hung out in the bar. A lot. If you hadn’t noticed, we did a lot of drinking in St. Thomas – it’s hard not to when the drinks are included!

We also greatly enjoyed eating basket after basket of fried pickles. Seriously, those things are like crack.

We covered everyone with After Bite and I think I had a little too much fun doing so, hee hee.

Oh the bug bites! That one will get its own post all unto itself. After a few days of our combined family vacation, it was time to say goodbye to everyone.

They took off in the open-air taxi and had a long day of traveling, delays and bad weather back home, but luckily no one lost their luggage this time around!

Up next: one more day with some friends, then the honeymoon begins!

And in case you missed it…

• I’m Back, Did Ya Miss Me?
• Nachos Nuptials: The Adventure Begins!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 1 – We Made It!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 2 – Pre-Wedding Prep
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Getting Pretty!
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Deep Breaths…
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – The Ceremony
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It (pt 2
• Nachos Nuptials: TTD (part 1)
• Nachos Nuptials: TTD (part 2)

Nachos Nuptials: TTD (pt 2)

Ok everyone, I had been waiting for this moment for a while, pretty much ever since you all asked me if I was planning on jumping in the pool way back when. I present to you our trash the dress photos part 2 – my favorite pictures from the whole trip. All photos courtesy of Blair’s Eye View Photography… 

 

 

 

 

 

After the ocean, we made our way to the pool… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, we did! 

And for the animated version click here 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course Mr. N couldn’t resist dunking me… 

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t tell you how much fun I had during this photo shoot. If you’re throwing around the idea of a TTD session, I say without any hesitation to DO IT! 

And in case you missed it… 

• I’m Back, Did Ya Miss Me?
• Nachos Nuptials: The Adventure Begins!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 1 – We Made It!
• Nachos Nuptials: Day 2 – Pre-Wedding Prep
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Getting Pretty!
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Deep Breaths…
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – The Ceremony
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It
• Nachos Nuptials: Wedding Day – Winging It (pt 2
• Nachos Nuptials: TTD (part 1)