Wedding Plans

I have been in wedding planning MODE this month, I'm not sure what my problem is after doing pretty much nothing wedding-wise all summer. My vision is all starting to come together and I'm very excited for the big day :) Only 266 more days to go! Here's a little about what's been in the works this past month.

I FOUND MY WEDDING DRESS!!! I have looked at the picture online literally every day since we bought it. It's just what I pictured but 1000x better. I so badly want to share it with you but obviously Kevin can't see it. I was/am VERY tempted to show him, but I'm holding strong! I can't wait to wear it :) I will give you a hint. It's a mix between these dresses:

I will definitely need to hire some men to hold my hat up for me when I walk down the aisle. I've already got that expense budgeted.

We also booked a videographer! Our photographer recommended him and I'm very excited about it. The name is Gabe Noll of Dust Studios. His prices were extremely reasonable (some videographers can be SO expensive!) and he is very talented! Here is a look at one of his videos, and here is the link to his website if you're in the market for a videographer. Here is also a link to my post about our photographer, who is equally talented, and his website. Both gentleman are recent college graduates and I'm excited to work with them!

Megan + Joey - The Wedding. from Gabriel Noll on Vimeo.

Another BIG check off my list was finding bridesmaids dresses. I have been searching for a loooong time and trying to figure out exactly what look I wanted. I don't really have a color scheme I'm working with, so it was a little harder to narrow down. Looking through my wedding board on Pinterest, it was clear I was drawn to a mint/blue color, and that's what we went with. I had pinned this dress a looong time ago and even posted about it once. I'm not sure why it took me so long to make the decision. I'm thankful to Heather for already having the dress and bringing me to my senses :). Here were my must-haves:

1. A little more casual/vintage. Our wedding won't be fancy and elegant, it will be fun and unique. I want the dresses to reflect that.
2. Something cost effective. Being in a wedding can be expensive! From hotels, to gas to drive to bridal showers/bachelorette parties, etc., costs add up. I didn't want my bridesmaids to break the bank on their dresses.
3. Along the same lines, something the girls will ALL feel comfortable in and something they can wear again.

I even ordered one for myself because I love it so much and didn't want to miss out on all the fun! We are going to dress it up with a belt and perhaps a broach. I'm going to have the ladies accessorize themselves so they all look like their fancy selves. Gah I love this dress. Here's the link if you want one!

I also have a firm idea in my mind what our decor will look like. I got to the point where I needed to stop collecting ideas and make decisions. Here are a few pins that have inspired our decor:

I love the look of vintage bottles with wildflowers. I'm not into flowers and I think they're a huge unnecessary expense, so we will be saving on costs and sporadically using wildflowers and baby's breath.

We are doing pretty good on our mason jar collection. Our plan is still to use them for drinking glasses. I'm looking forward to having an assortment of paper straws in each mason jar all ready to go at the tables (even though the majority of guests will probably be drinking beer NOT out of a straw, this is a necessity.)

This picture is my main inspiration for our table decor I love the look of the sliced wood. I've been collecting vintage handkerchiefs, and will add those to the mix along with vintage jars and wildflowers.

I found our suitcase at an antique store last spring and it's currently decorating our coffee table. I am very excited about this as well.

 Another lovely use for mason jars :)

Kevin's dad got a chain saw for Christmas that he was pretty excited about, so I'll be sure to put him to use for our cupcake stands!

Finally, my brooch bouquet is back in the works thanks to Andrea! I was getting frustrated because I wasn't finding any "good" brooches. She gave me the brilliant idea of having a "brooch shower" kind of thing for my bridal shower, asking guests to bring a brooch if they can. This would add to the sentimental value of my bouquet! I also hit the jackpot on Etsy and bought 20 (no-so-vintage) brooches for a steal! (Ok, so I cheated a little on the "vintage" aspect...)

It's a little blurry, but they look like legit brooches and I like that they're sparkly. I'm looking for lavender, mint, aqua, and silver brooches to hopefully create a more uniformed look to my bouquet. We'll see what I end up with! I did a little research and I think I'm going to attempt to make it myself. This tutorial makes it seem do-able, anyway...

This weekend I'm off to celebrate our good friends Chris and Allison and their new life together! They are getting married this weekend and I have a feeling this wedding is going to be an epic one. Allison and I are very similar in style so I can't wait to see everything! Kevin is in the wedding which makes it extra fun!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Thanks for not giving up on my little blog :)

Life in the Village

Say whaaaaat? Yes, that's right. I'm blogging again. I'm not sure what came over me, but here I am. I also want to mention I have had a peculiar amount of activity on the blog since I've stopped blogging. I still get over 100 views a week. I will thank Pinterest for that, as my pins are still floating around of the crafts I blogged about. I figured maybe I should bring back the blog every once in awhile. It's a very fun time in my life, and I kind of do want to share it :) I had a moment today after school when I just thought to myself, "I have a pretty awesome life." Though it's a bit of a stressful time in my life (ya know, being a first year teacher and planning a wedding), it's very exciting and busy is good in my book. I am so thankful!

I wanted to share the happenings of our little life down here in the East Village in downtown Des Moines. I must say it is better than I could have ever imagined. I reallllly hope we stay down here for more than one year. There is SO much happening all the time. I love the culture, the music, the street parties, the shops, everything! It's so awesome. Everyday I come home I just get so happy about living down here!

This is going to be a picture overload, but that's what happens when you don't blog for 3 months. I'll start with the "grand" tour! It's won't be long, as our loft is a mere 600 square feet :)

This is the view when you walk in. This is our living room. I loooove the brick walls! That is definitely our favorite part. The ceilings are SO high, which makes the apartment feel bigger than it is.

Kitchen. It's got a little bit of an "industrial feel" with the exposed ductwork and metal fixtures. The kitchen is plenty big, they definitely used the space well!

This is the view from the back of the apartment.

This picture kind of shows you juuuust how small our apartment is :)

This is our little "office/craft" space that fits nicely behind our living room furniture

This is our "bedroom", though I can't really call it that because there is no door. This was the part I was most nervous about, but it isn't an issue at all. We thought about getting some sort of vintage screen or tri-fold door, but we like it open now. Our queen size bed fits nicely with plenty of room to spare on both sides.

Another thing I was nervous about was closet space. I imagined a loft being open with no closets, but that is not the case at all. We actually have plenty of storage. This is our walk-in closet. It looks cluttered and cramped because I have a lot of clothes, but there's always room for more! :) A closet door would have been a nice touch so I could throw all our mess in there when we have visitors, but living in a loft like this definitely encourages us to keep clean!

This is our bathroom, which is bigger than it looks in this picture. We have a linen closet just to the left of the vanity, which is where we keep pretty much all our bathroom things Our shower is around the corner to the right. It's a half size which is annoying after coming from a giant shower with a bench! Shaving my legs is not fun in this shower, that's for sure. We also have a big utility closet next to the shower, which is where we store the vacuum, boxes, recycling, our cooler, golf clubs, things like that! (I'm sure you were all wondering what we store in our utility closet...)

Please also note the embroidery hoops and vintage handkerchiefs on the wall. I was pretty proud of that idea :)

One of my favorite features of our apartment...the patio! It's huuuge! 200 square feet to be exact (which is about 1/3 the side of the inside of our apartment, so total we we have about 800 square feet of outdoor and indoor space.) We haven't done much with furniture yet The two chairs here were the barstools in our old apartment, but  our bar is too short here. We're on the hunt for a tall table, so for now we use lawn chairs. I enjoy sitting out there doing school work. It's a covered patio, but it was really rainy this day Usually we stay pretty dry from the rain. This is also where I go when Kevin makes me mad.

This is the view from the balcony. We have 1 parking spot that is included in our rent, so we leave Kevin's car there because he walks to work. Parking on the street is NEVER hard to find, I usually park right out front. It's free to park from 6pm to 8am and on the weekends, and I'm usually not home until parking is free! I was worried it would be a hassle, but it's worked out.

This is what I wake up to every morning :) (Ok, I guess it's dark out now, but you get the picture...)

Ok, onto the fun stuff! Here are some of the happenings of our life in the East Village!

We have a wall outside our apartment that is a HOT SPOT for photographers. There is a constant stream of photo shoots, from senior pictures to wedding parties. I quite enjoy being a creeper and watching them all. We're getting our engagement pictures taken in a few weeks and I'm sure we will be using this wall!

Running downtown has been very enjoyable. There are some nice trails nearby and some pretty scenery along the river (though sometimes it's very smelly.) I have also been running the steps at the Capitol and in this little area by the river.

We often hear random live music playing and wander down to investigate what's going on. This is absolutely one of my favorite parts of living in the East Village! We love going to this on Sunday's. I couldn't imagine an event more suited to me.

My favorite store in the East Village! Hill Vintage and Knits. They sell yarn and vintage clothes. Yes please!

Another favorite shop is Raygun. They make the Des Moines: Hell Yes shirts you've probably seen around. I love seeing the hilarious shirts they come up with How can you not like a store with a street sign like this?!

Here are a few of my favorite gems from Raygun:

( I have to be honest Kevin and I both got that last shirt...it was on the $3 rack and we couldn't resist.)

Another favorite stop is City Bakery just down the street. They have AMAZING pastries that remind me so much of Italy. We usually go once every weekend if we're home.

Street party sponsored by our neighborhood gay bar! Always a fun time :)

Our favorite bar is right around the corner, Quintons. They have crazy good drink specials (that margarita was $4...every Friday!), darts, foosball, and play good music like the Beatles and 90's hits.

When we moved we also decided to do away with cable. Both of us stay very busy with work and decided we didn't need to watch TV so much. We have our basic channels and it's going well for the most part. The Packers games aren't always on, so we go to the bar (Quintons) to watch them. I usually take some work with me when we go :)

 We have also frequented the Downtown Farmer's Market which is HUGE and awesome.

 Another one of my favorite parts of living downtown is being able to properly entertain! Tonia came down for a weekend and we bar hopped all over downtown and met some very interesting characters, including this bunny.

There are also soo many festivals down here I never knew about before! We went to the Latino Heritage Festival a few weekends ago to enjoy some culture and yummy food. This quesadilla was scrumptious.

The World Food Festival went on last weekend on our street. That's our building to the right. Literally right outside our doorstep. There was food from all over and Heather came down for the weekend to enjoy it as well. My favorite dish was the French Toast Crepes from the French food stand. Kevin and Heather tried Bosnian, Mesopotamian, Ethiopian, and Cajun (I was not so adventurous.) I like the shot of the Capitol in the background.

So that's our neighborhood! I love it so much down here. I am so glad we decided to move downtown. There is so much to do and it's always right outside of our door!

I will leave you with this adorable picture one of my students drew of her pregnant relative. Gotta love the innocent and simple mind of a child :) 

I may be back next week with some wedding planning updates! I have gotten SO much done this week! YAY!