Wedding Shower Recap!!

So, I don't have pictures yet, but I said I'd give a recap of the Texas shower and I have been receiving emails (mostly from my future sister-in-law, lol) about the fact that there's been no recap yet  :-D

OK, so we went to Su Vino winery in downtown Grapevine.  I absolutely love Grapevine... I grew up there and my first job was in a French bakery on Main Street.  J and I actually spend quite a bit of time up in Grapevine, too, so it felt like a perfect place to have a shower!  ALL of the people there were so great to work with and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a place to host a small event.

We had about 20 people, and the size of the place was perfect for that number.  Melissa and I made tuna salad and chicken salad and we bought rolls for those to go on.  My mom got us a cheese tray and vegi tray from Central Market and those were FANTASTIC!  Melissa also got an olive mix from Central Market that was so good with the wine.  I ran down to the bakery that I used to work at and grabbed a couple of loaves of bread and we had oil and vinegar with that.  My roommate/bridesmaid made angel food cake, brownie bites and lemon bars for dessert and there was PLENTY of wine to go around.

We had two reds and two whites, all of which were on the sweeter side because we felt like 11 am needed sweeter wine.  We also had almond champagne and raspberry champagne with our desserts.  The best part, any bottle that we opened but didn't finish, they re-corked for us and we got to take them home!  Anyone who wanted could try all of the wines and then decide which they wanted a glass of.  The other great thing about Su Vino is that it's cute and it's got cute gifts and just the character of the store/winery makes the party more fun.

So, we ate and drank and then about an hour in, it was time to open presents!  I have such great friends and I got some really great things.  I knew that one of the girls I used to work with would be getting me "all the things you never knew you needed" which is an awesome set of gifts that include things like woodpecker scissors, a shark bottle opener and a monkey vegi peeler.  With that set, I also got a swan teapot... to add to my collection  :-D

Everyone got me such great stuff and I think everyone really had a good time.  We only had about 2 hours before the store opened so we didn't play any games at this shower... we'll save games for the shower in Indiana, but with the amount of time we had, letting everyone eat, drink and visit was the best use of time.  There was a group of my mom's friends who came, so I know it was great for her to get to catch up with them, too.

The big surprise of the day was that we had a special visitor to the shower.  In my Weekend Recap I talked about Kelly from Su Vino.  She is the sweetest lady ever and she made our whole experience with Su Vino amazing.  SO, she stopped by on Sunday and said she was thinking of me and wanted to make sure that everything went well and she had a surprise for me... she made me a hand painted wine glass.

So the shower was a success and I think everyone had a great time.  I know that a lot of the guests decided to buy a bottle of wine (or 2 or 3) to take home with them, so I'm guessing they really liked it  :-D

Like I said, I don't have pictures yet (I'll share them when I do get them), but here are some pics I took after the shower...

My friend Mara from Houston get's the award for most creative DIY gift... she made this beautiful cake out of towels.  I wish I didn't have to take it apart!!

Also from Mara... she gave it to me the night before so I could use it on Sunday

A picnic basket full of goodies from my old neighbor

My mom and dad got us the one-cup coffee maker that we had on our registry, but it's up at their house, so she got me a box of coffee to give me at the shower.  I'm so excited for this gift!!

From my friend Leah... this is also as much as Jason gets to see for now  :)  I will say that it is very classy and cute!

And before the gifts went down to the garage, here are some pictures that show how wonderful my friends are...

I promise to put up some more pictures when I get them from Melissa and Mara!  It was such a great day!!!

Registry - CHECK!

I know I just posted about the first round of our registry process a couple days ago, but we really did the first round a couple weeks ago and last Friday, we went ahead and finished up (blame it on "auto-post" if you're confused).  

After work, we stopped by Bed Bath and Beyond to finish up our registry.  We only had a few things on our list to select:

1. Silverware
2. Towels and Bath Mats
3. Bathroom Accessories (toothbrush holders, tissue covers, etc.)
4. Glasses

WELLLLL, it was not as easy as it looks.  Two hours later, we were tired and hungry, but our registry was complete.  It's all because things look different in person.

I chose 2 shower curtains online that I liked.  One of them was in the store and the other wasn't.  Our registry now has two DIFFERENT shower curtains on it than it did after Round 1.  It took a long time to get to that point, but basically it's because we had issues finding towels and accessories to go with the first ones we chose, and so we went around and around and finally settled on two shower curtains, bath accessories and towels!  We are basing our registry off having at least 2 bathrooms in our eventual house so we have two full bathroom sets that we like both of so we could put either in the master bath.

We looked at bed sets and although there was one we really liked, it was on clearance, which means it was probably discontinued.  We decided that we'd stick with our original choice at Macy's.

We got to the dishes and found some great silverware.  We also found some great glasses.  They were really reasonably priced, so we were able to register for a wider variety of glasses (wine glasses, beer mugs, etc.) without having a lot of high end pricing on them.  THEN, I found some dishes.  This is what really threw a wrench into my plans/brain.  

Last time, I talked about the amazing dishes that I found at Macy's that J and I  loved, but that we thought were getting discontinued.  We found them online and it showed that they were still available so we registered for them, but as much as I loved the dishes, I was having a really hard time putting my kitchen and dining room together in my head.

via

So while we were over by the silverware and glasses, I found these fantastic dishes.

via

If you can't tell from this picture, they are green, blue, brown and gold paisley on an ivory base.  They are hand painted, but can still go in the dishwasher and microwave.  I really loved the fact that the other dishes could go in the oven and the freezer as well, but really, how often would I do that?

So we left the dish section with a decision that we were going to stick with our originals.  THEN, we looked at table linens and I just couldn't find anything that I liked to go with the original set of dishes.  We skipped the table linens and moved on to the kitchen section, and at that point, I knew that I wanted to love my dishes and how they fit in my dining room, my kitchen and my house!  So we went back and registered for the paisley dishes.  We decided that we wanted to mix and match, so we registered for 6 sets of paisley and 6 sets of the green that goes with it.  This also helped me to figure out what I wanted for table linens, so we registered for those too!

After we went though and snagged a couple other kitchen gadgets we were DONE!  Almost...

We did a quick update of the Macy's registry, and noticed that our bed set was on sale for less than half of the regular price!  It's a 24-piece set and it's awesome.  So, J and I had some Christmas money that we didn't have earmarked for anything so we just bought it.  OUR FIRST WEDDING PRESENT   :-D

Sidenote: that will be the only thing we buy off our registry until after the wedding, or at least much closer to the wedding.

So one more thing crossed off the list... registry - DONE!

Registering - Round 1

Well... we did it.  We are officially registered.  It was quite the ordeal and unfortunately, not as fun as I thought it would be, but it's done which is kind of a relief.

We started as Macy's and the lady there was very nice and helpful, BUT the store itself did not have a very good selection.  We also found out that the dishes that we saw and liked previously may be discontinued, or they may not... we are not really sure, but they were on the clearance table at the first store we went to.

So we were getting frustrated with the first store, so we got about 40 things on the registry and decided to go to a different Macy's to see if they had other things that we wanted to add.  We got down there and it was a pretty busy afternoon.  We looked around and although there were a few things that we were interested in, we didn't want to wait around to be helped by the poor lady that was trying to do everything for everyone and who had no help.  We decided that we'd go home and look online to see what else we could find, and also to try and figure out what our second store was going to be.

So, J got on Macys.com and I started looking at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond to see which one I liked better.  I know it sounds silly, but the thing that really made my decision for me was the shower curtains.  I have had the same decorative shower curtain for the past 5 years, at least, and I'm ready for a change so that was one of the things that I was really excited about registering for.

I found some that I liked and then just went through every category and picked stuff I liked and thought we would need/want/use.  Once we were both done, we compared lists to make sure we didn't have any duplicates and that was that!  There's a small list of things that we didn't register for because we need to go into the store and see it in person instead of online, but the list is very short!

I told J that we could add a registry at Sears for tools if he wanted, but he didn't like the selection there, so we got on MyRegistry.com and went to the Home Depot site and he picked some things (and even I picked some things) that are on the site.  I don't really know anyone who has registered at MyRegistry.com, so I guess we'll see how things go with it, but that was really the only way to get stuff from hardware stores.  They should really think about adding wedding registry to their stores... I think more people would use it than they think... especially know that Home Depot has a Martha Stewart Living line  :-D

So, Round 1 is done and Round 2 is coming soon...

Registry - The Quandry

This has been one of the most difficult parts of wedding planning and it has not really even started yet.  We have a huge guest list that is very diverse, and when I say diverse, I mean they are all different ages and from all over the country and there's a good number of them that, as far as J thinks, would never use the internet to look or purchase from a registry.

I feel like we should register for what we want and where we want, and not worry too much about whether or not it's at a store that our whole guest list can drive to and shop in.  When we went to J's cousin's wedding this summer at Target, almost all of the stuff left on their registry was not available in the store.  I just went to buy gifts for a co-worker's bridal shower and ran in to the same thing at Macy's.  I feel like this is an unavoidable situation no matter where we register, so I don't think we should limit ourselves to only stores that have physical locations in our hometowns.

This is all a moot point (or a moo point, if you're a fan of Friends) because we do not even know where we want to start with our registry.  We found some great stuff at Macy's and I think that will probably be where we start, but there's not going to be nearly enough that we can register for there to cover our entire guest list.

Our other concern is that the stuff we register for is going to get discontinued... especially things like dishes.  We are nearing 6 months away from the wedding and only about 3 months away from my first bridal shower, so I feel like we need to get started on our registry.  I hate not knowing what to do about dishes.  J and I have old dishes, but we decided that we'd upgrade and give our stuff to people who are just starting off on their own so the dishes will probably be the thing that we really focus on, especially it's something that can be broken up and someone could contribute to our dishes, no matter their budget.

So, the moral of the story is that I'm itching to get our registry at least started.  We have made a list of the stuff that we'll register for in the genearl sense, but I'm so ready to make some decisions on what our new life together is going to look like!  Hopefully I can talk J into starting in January when we're back to work, but before school starts again.  He's about to get really busy too, as we approach overlapping sports seasons, so I want to get this done before then.

I have a feeling there will be MUCH more to come on this topic...