The Sams

An adventure in Millennial Home Ownership + Wedding Planning

[the-sams-blog]

There’s a large part of wedding culture that emphasizes the bride getting whatever she wants for her wedding day. That it’s the ONE DAY you get to be the star and you better not blow it. I honestly think this is largely ridiculous. First of all, the bride is marrying SOMEONE, and sometimes there isn’t even a bride, so it should at least be whatever the couple wants. Second of all, the couple of honor is really acting more as a host these days than as the honored guests. The bride and groom are making all of the decisions, and while my parents graciously paid for the wedding, and therefore were the hosts by definition, they didn’t give too much input beyond who they wanted to invite.

With this “hosting” thing in mind, I set out to not only have the wedding of my dreams, but also the wedding of my husband’s dreams, and a wedding that was at least very enjoyable for everyone attending. I wanted everyone to have fun! I wouldn’t say that I necessarily sacrificed anything I really wanted to accommodate someone else’s needs, but there were definitely things done a certain way because they would not work well the other way.

My maid of honor, as I’ve mentioned before, has CP. Her CP makes it difficult for her to walk unassisted, on uneven ground, or stand for any length of time. She also has incredible difficulty finding shoes that she can wear. Being her best friend, I’m used to adjusting my habits when I’m around her by walking slower and making sure she has something (my arm, a handrail) to hold onto when she needs it. To make sure she was comfortable, I chose long maxi dresses as the bridesmaid dresses, and then let my bridesmaids pick whatever shoes they wanted, as long as they were flat or low wedges. So Amelia could wear her trusty pair of brown sandals, and the rest of my girls wouldn’t have to sweat buying expensive wedding shoes either. I also had everyone escorted both up and down the aisle. This way no one looked out-of-place, and Amelia had a stabilizing partner to hold on to, preventing falls. Lastly, I had chairs placed up front for my bridal party to sit in during the ceremony. Our short, nonreligious ceremony, would normally have the bridal party standing the entire time (unlike a lengthy Catholic ceremony, for example), but chairs made it more comfortable and also helped when the toddler flower girls and ring bearers wanted to sit up front with their moms… or the Best Man!

These changes I made during the ceremony I applied to everyone, so as not to draw attention to one person being different. After the ceremony, Amelia used her motorized scooter to get around the venue without issue.

My adorable niblings. They ranged in age from 1-2.5 at the time of my wedding and I was determined to have them IN the wedding because I wasn’t lucky enough to be in a wedding as a child (and now there is a flower girl sized hole in my heart). But they’re toddlers, and toddlers are WAY too young to plan around. So I tried my best, and told their moms (my sisters) that I was going to be extremely flexible around them. I told my sisters that their priority during set up was keeping the kids alive and happy. If the kids needed to nap, or the family needed be late due to nap time, etc then that takes priority over set up.

Their clothes: my ring bearer king (2.5) was pretty simple, as he was old enough to explain what was going to happen. He was just getting into dress-up, so explaining special wedding clothes worked well. He got to wear a crown (just like Prince Wednesday from Daniel Tiger, thank you very much), and a clip-on tie. He actually got this idea of “special wedding clothes” into his head so much that he didn’t want to put them on in late September, a solid 3 months after the wedding, because he thought he needed to save them for my wedding when it happened again (he then had to be told that Aunt NooNoo’s wedding is “closed today”). The flower girls bloom babes were 12- and 17-months-old at the time of my wedding, and therefore much harder to plan around. They had 2 outfit options, originally chosen for ceremony and reception (reception clothes being more  play-friendly). The ceremony clothes were going to be a onesie and a tutu that I hand-made. But the tutu wasn’t pleasing the 12 month old, and the 17 month old just immediately took it off with a look of triumph on her face. Floral leggings and a tunic it was. They had matching shoes, but the shoes that came in were way too big, so the 17 month old wore the pair we got for the 12 month old, and then the 12 month old wore Nike sneakers because her feet literally wouldn’t fit into any other pair of shoes! The beauty of little kids in your wedding, is everyone will think they’re incredibly stinkin’ cute no matter what they’re wearing.

I told my sisters that any way the kids made it down the aisle was the perfect way. Their dads could carry them, there was a Cookie Monster Wagon backup, they could walk or crawl. What ended up happening was my sisters stationed themselves at the end of the aisle so the kids had a target, the ring king ran down the aisle (saying to his mom “I ran!” at the end, which my sister heard as “I won!” so we thought he was racing his sister and cousin), one of the bloom babes made it down perfectly fine, and the other made it a third of the way and then wanted to be carried the rest of the way (interestingly enough, she stopped at the first red “STOP” square!).

I also told my sisters, whatever the kids needed to do during the ceremony was also fine. I would rather have them content than screaming. So the ring king sat on his mom’s lap, the 12 month old bloom babe hung out with her dad, the 17 month old was with her mom, then started an adventure and went to hang out with the Best Man (whom she had only met the day before!) and then got passed to my mother-in-law who passed her to my sister. This might be something some brides dread, but it was one of my favorite parts of the entire ceremony.

The kids were fine for the whole reception, they are exceptionally good stroller sleepers so they dozed off there when the partying went late. During the toasts, the ring king sat on my lap so he had a “safe base” while his mom was toasting and wasn’t running rampant around a bonfire (his dad was with his baby sister!). Just because I was the bride, didn’t mean I stopped being an aunt! This is another one of my favorite memories from the day, because whenever I went to hold my shiny new husband’s hand, this adorable toddler went to intercept. He definitely loves his Aunt NooNoo.

Sam and I opted for a sweetheart’s table and 3 VIP tables instead of a head table. This way, our bridal party could sit with their dates, and my sisters could sit with their husbands and kids. With our free-flow reception, I didn’t feel the need to have a head table anyway since we weren’t eating all at once.

Other things I did: I let all the moms with babies know about the bridal suite, which was just off of the main Vistaview Hall area, so they had a quiet place to take the baby to nap, feed, or get changed if desired. I had a special plate of food prepared for a single guest that has dietary restrictions (we also had plans for a vegetarian meal, but no one claimed that option on the RSVP cards–We were going to have pulled tofu BBQ!). We bought some non-alcoholic beer for a few guests who like it, we let my mother-in-law have lots of input on who went at which table and where those tables were placed. I tried to introduce people who didn’t know anyone else to other people they would like during the welcome reception so they wouldn’t be alone during the wedding.

All of these details made very little difference to me, but made huge differences to those who it benefited. By having the people around me less stressed out, I was able to enjoy the day more. Above all, I made sure I adhered to #10 on my list, I made sure I enjoyed myself!

All of the pictures featured in this blog post were taken by the incredibly talented Kathryn Michelle Photography, based out of Richmond, VA.

#SamSquared2016: Accommodating Others on My Wedding Day There's a large part of wedding culture that emphasizes the bride getting whatever she wants for her wedding day.

[the-sams-blog]

When we planned our wedding, we aimed to change things we didn’t really care for about the traditional wedding day. Quite frankly, we think a lot of weddings are pretty boring. People spend all this money to put their own spin on the details, but don’t often put in the effort to change the format of the day itself. So let me start with the disclaimer that we don’t think your wedding was or will be bad if you use the traditional wedding timeline. That timeline just wasn’t right for us, and we wanted to share how we did it differently.

The Day Before

Our venue often has a wedding on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in a given week. To accomplish the logistics of this, they have the rehearsal happen from 9-11 AM the day before your wedding. So we had our wedding rehearsal at 9 AM on a Friday. We used this time to unload our cars into the venue’s storage area and ran through our ceremony, our rain plan for the ceremony, and the logistics of the first part of the reception—primarily where the bridal party gets introduced.

We really don’t like how the bride and groom usually don’t get to visit with family and friends the day before the wedding because they’re at their rehearsal dinner. Almost all of our guests were from out of town—most from over 600 miles away. We really wanted to see them the night before, knowing full well that we wouldn’t be able to visit much at our actual wedding. We also wanted to keep our rehearsal dinner small to avoid having essentially two wedding receptions on one weekend.

With our rehearsal in the morning, we bumped up our rehearsal dinner to lunch time. This freed up our evening so we could be with our guests. Sam’s mother came up with the fantastic idea of a welcome reception in the hotel lobby. The idea was to greet people as they were checking into the hotel, but most of our guests had arrived hours beforehand.

The wonderful staff at the Cambria Suites set up some appetizers and water and iced tea. We took over their lobby, which has a nice large seating area, and the hotel bar was just three steps away if someone wanted an alcoholic beverage. I can’t tell you how amazing this welcome reception was. Probably about 90% of our guests came, it allowed everyone to shake off the cobwebs and get past the small talk of not seeing your family in a while. It also allowed our two extended families to meet beforehand so everyone could just enjoy themselves the next day.

I much preferred it to the alternative idea of having a huge rehearsal dinner with out-of-town guests at a big sit-down meal. At a sit-down meal you’re only visiting with the people in your vicinity. With our welcome reception, people were able to move and mingle and see everyone.

Our Wedding Day!

Let me lay out the venue for you. Silver Hearth Lodge is a mountain top venue, mostly outdoors with a few weather sheltered pavilions. This place is gorgeous, has a killer view, and is quite large and spread out. Vistaview Hall is the largest space, and is at the top of this shallow hill on top of the mountain. If you’re looking from Vistaview Hall: down and to your left is Overlook Pavilion which stands right on the edge of the mountain. Slightly to your right is the ceremony site under the rod iron gazebo, and directly to your right is the large firepit. If you go down and to your right, you’ll end up at Virginia’s Smallest Church, which is Silver Hearth’s second ceremony location (it’s actually a chartered church, which is great for religious brides who still want an outdoor wedding!). On the way to the Church, you’ll pass the Sky Shelter which is a small pavilion with a large table and benches.

We really wanted people to explore the whole venue, and not stay put in the main pavilion where our tables and buffet were set up. To accomplish this, we set up events all around the venue. We moved our dance floor for the last third of the night, and nothing happened at the tables except for eating.

So here’s our wedding day timeline:

9am-11:30am: Hair and Makeup at Hotel

Noon: Arrive at Venue, start setup

12:20pm: Bride and Groom get dressed and do first look and portraits. Everyone else (Bridal party, etc) continues setup

1:20pm: Bridal party is dressed and does group pictures (ushers keep setting up)

2:45pm: Immediate family pictures

3:15pm: Setup finished.

3:30pm: Guests arrived, Bride hides [Our busses were a little late, but we had buffer time for our ceremony to run late, so it didn’t knock the day off track]

4pm: Ceremony begins

4:30pm: Ceremony ends, receiving line immediately afterwards, immediately followed by large family pictures. Cocktail hour from 4:30-5:30 pm.

5:30pm-ish: Intro of bridal party into reception, followed by special dances and shoving cake into each other’s face.

6pm-8:15pm: Buffet Open

9pm: Smores and Toasts at the fire pit

9:40: Faux exit with sparklers

10pm, 10:30pm, 11pm: Buses Leave.

And here’s what we told our guests, in the program (which was more of a guide to the whole day than just the ceremony):

So how did it go?

Smashingly! I had everything packed in a way to streamline the setup process, doing as much work beforehand as I could (for instance, I had all the board games pre-packed in 2-3 boxes instead of 20 boxes!) By doing pictures beforehand, we got all the tedious stuff out of the way first and then could just enjoy ourselves the rest of the evening. We actually had a lot of extra time left before the ceremony was supposed to start, and then the busses were late so we had even more time! (Time I used to have a snack!)

We took care to place things so the flow of traffic made sense. We had our receiving line between the ceremony site and the bar, and we had ushers stationed at the end of our receiving line to prep family members on the family pictures. We did a receiving line, so we could greet each guest and thank them for coming without having to go to each table. With our open eating time, we weren’t sure if everyone would even be eating at the same time! We also arranged our receiving line with the bride and groom first. I don’t always want to talk to the parents of the newlyweds, because I’ve often never met them! This way people could duck out after giving us a hug.

For our guests, this segment of the day flowed like this: Receiving Line–Ushers for Info–Bar–Appetizers at Overlook Pavilion (where we had a secondary bar set up)–Family Pictures. For us, the bride and groom, it went Receiving Line–Grab Lemonade since we were dehydrated–Family Pictures. We had the family pictures right next to the Overlook Pavilion, so family was already corralled into one place. It was so efficient! Sam’s dad’s family is huge. 33 of them made it to our wedding, and that was only 2/3 of them! I have seen it take 20 minutes to get them together to take a family picture. This was definitely the way to get the family pictures taken and out of the way.

  After the family pictures we did the bridal party introductions right into the first dance. Most everyone was standing, but we did have some seats available and had our grandparents seated where they could see. We did our first dance and then the cupcake smash (we didn’t get a cake to cut) and then the parent dances. We did it in this order in case people wanted a good excuse to duck out and play yard games before the parent dances started, but I don’t think anyone did.

After the parent dances, the buffet was opened and stayed open for just over 2 hours. We didn’t want to dictate when people could eat, so you could either eat right away, dance some first, or play yard games. I didn’t see a line, but talking to guests a few said they did wait in a line. Typically with a buffet, everyone’s seated at their tables and they are dismissed by table to go get their food. We didn’t want any hierarchy of tables, which is one reason we didn’t do table numbers, so we didn’t want to dismiss people by table. The way I see it, you’re going to wait for a buffet no matter what: either you’re waiting at your table to be dismissed or you’re waiting in line. With our plan, you could elect to hang out anywhere until the line looked short enough for your preferences. It also meant that people didn’t HAVE to eat right then. Sam and I got our plates probably an hour into dinner, most people ate before us, and it was totally fine!

Between dinner and the bonfire it was a total free-for-all. People bounced, danced, played, and just visited with each other. It was wonderful. Our guests participated so fully, even beyond what I thought they would. One of Sam’s aunts grabbed our giant scrabble tiles to make signs for more specific family pictures. It was so cool and they are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding.

We had a s’mores station at our venue’s large fire pit and did our toasts there. Again, we didn’t want to hold guests hostage at their tables while they listened to people talk about how much they loved us. Also I liked the pun of toasting your marshmallow–get it? Most people didn’t have drinks with them, but it didn’t matter. It definitely reminded me of bonfires at my old summer camp. During toasts, the DJ got settled up at Vistaview Hall where we had the last segment of dancing.

After the toasts, we did a sparkler faux exit. We did a faux exit because we had 3 different bus departure times but wanted most people there for sparklers. One word of advice, if you have a lot of sparklers (like more than 25–I had over 100!) and you’re lighting a walkway with them, light them in the direction the bride and groom are walking. We did not, and even though we had long burning ones we had to rush to the end of the sparkler line. We did the sparkler line where we had our receiving line, so it led people straight from the bonfire to the dance floor. The first bus left right after sparklers.

We actually ended up cutting the dancing short when Sam’s old improv group, 9PE, volunteered to do some improv to end our wedding day. The impromptu improv was the perfect end to our day. We ended the dancing with “Closing Time” and then pulled chairs onto the dance floor for a few improv games!

After the last bus left, we stuck around and cleaned up the decor. Packed it away into cars and went back to the hotel! The person working front desk that night was ALSO named Sam, so it was a good time.

Would I do anything differently?

There are a few things I would change about my wedding (namely, I would have Giant Jenga in a different place), but I don’t think I would change anything about the timeline. Things went really smoothly.

If I did change something, I would move the cupcake smash and the cupcakes to a more central location. Apparently a lot of guests didn’t even know we had any. Oops!

The most important thing in making your day go smoothly is to take things in stride, and build in time for things running late. We had over a half hour extra built in between ceremony and the first dance, and most of that got eaten up by the busses running late. Our ceremony started late, but dancing started on time. This buffer time is especially important if you do not take your wedding party and couple pictures beforehand with a first look, many couples report feeling rushed through their formal portraits between ceremony and reception. By bucking tradition and doing the first look, we definitely felt more relaxed the whole day. (And, if you were wondering, Sam said it did not diminish the feeling of me coming down the aisle, and he still cried…a lot!)

All our wedding photography shown here was done by the talented Kathryn Michelle Photography!

  We bucked tradition and did the reception all out of order. Read why it worked for us here! When we planned our wedding, we aimed to change things we didn’t really care for about the traditional wedding day.

[the-sams-blog]

Guys I'm almost in tears because of how happy I am right now. This cabinet has been a PAIN! Especially since we got new pots and pans for our wedding. Went to @ikeausa today and got 3 Variera from the kitchen organization section. Now all of my lids, skillets, and baking sheets are stored vertically. Maximizing my space and easy access because less pots are stacked up! Oh did I mention Variera are only $6 each?! #beforeandafter #kitchen #organization #ikea #variera #tidy #clean

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Check out this #beforeandafter video I made using #ios10 new photos app! #livingroom #painting #homedecor #homeimprovement #decor

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New board game display! Lots of monopolies are hidden away to better showcase box art. #livingroom #boardgames #homeimprovement #display #expedit

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Our accent wall features an antique buffet that I painted years ago, the white cabinet is from Ikea. The amazing lace is from Ireland where @ameliacoonrod_msw bought it for me. It was handmade there and had embroidered shamrocks on it. On the ikea cabinet you can see our wedding china, a collage of our engagement pics (📷: @sidneyleighphoto collage from my sisters) and a few trinkets from our wedding (ring bearer pillow, glasses, and our knot we tied. Bonus points if you can find the snuggling elephants @katiegracemm got us on there too! #livingroom #livingroomdecor #home #house #homeimprovement #wedding #ireland #chinacabinet

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We also did our front door. Amazing what a different shade of the same color can make! #frontdoor #beforeandafter #homeimprovement #zestyapple #green #painting

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Other view of the living room featuring my husband who apparently only wears football jerseys. #livingroom #home #house #homeimprovement #mint #coral #painting #beforeandafter

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Our living room is done!! #beforeandafter #painting #livingroom #homeimprovement #house #home #mint #boardgames

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#SamSquared2016: The Tables!

Check out the process behind our board game centerpieces, including how much it cost!

Ok! I’ve covered the aisle runner and the dress. You can also read an overview of our board game vision. Now it’s time to talk tablescapes! We knew we wanted to have a board game per table once we settled on our Fun & Games theme, but I also wanted to add some height to the design since board games are so low profile. It was very important to me that the tall item was slender enough to see across…

View On WordPress

[the-sams-blog]

If I could go back in time and tell Dolores one thing it would be to USE EFFING PAINTERS TAPE. . . . . #painterstape #homeimprovement #baseboard #livingroom #painting

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Anyone else dream up crazy renovation ideas for their house? Things that wouldn't add a cent of value, but would make you happier.

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Up next... The living room! This room has 3 different shades of the same not very pretty green. We will be changing it to Mint and Coral! #house #painting #before #home #livingroom #homeimprovement

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We painted a bathroom! #beforeandafter #homeimprovement #home #bathroom #painting #house

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Zombie Wendy's. The stuff of nightmares

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Best part about having 2 bathrooms as a couple? Having a bathroom to use while the other one is getting painted.

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Now that you’ve heard about the biggest project: our Game of Life inspired Aisle Runner, I’ll move onto something almost every bride deals with: THE DRESS!

I went into wedding dress shopping completely clueless. Despite my degree in fashion, I had never once gone shopping for fancy gowns, not even for prom (since I made both of those dresses out of duct tape–sorry for the terrible image quality).

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So I had no idea what I wanted, no idea what looked good on me, and no idea what would fit a casual board game themed wedding. I went into the process feeling the pressure of “this is the dress of your lifetime” but also “don’t overdress your own event.” I wanted the dress to be special enough to be a wedding dress, but I couldn’t quite play ladder golf in a full drama mermaid gown.

Pinterest was completely useless because you’re looking at dresses on a model, so they all look amazing. Designer websites give you no hint as to how much a gown costs, and I was terrified to fall in love with a gown only to find it cost half of my wedding budget. [By the way, you can find out general ranges through searching the designers name with price. Often resale sites also list the original retail price to give you an idea for your budget.] I was disillusioned about how much wedding gowns were supposed to cost thanks to Say Yes to the Dress, where they scoff at you if your budget is under $3000, but according to The Knot the average bride’s dress costs about $1000. I was torn on if I wanted a separate reception dress. I only knew one thing–and that was that I was not going to wear heels and I had to be comfortable standing, dancing, and sitting.

So, inspired by TLC’s shorter lived I Found the Gown–where brides go to a less extravagant store that buys other store’s sample gowns at a steep discount–I found my own local sample store, Glamour Closet (They have locations in Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and New York). I went in with zero expectations on finding the gown, but instead I just wanted to get an idea of what felt right. I picked a weekend my mom was in town, and went straight from picking her up at the airport to the store so we could be there when it opened. I only went with my mom because I didn’t want a ton of opinions confusing me, and I really didn’t think I was going to find the gown that day.

Here’s the thing about Sample Stores: you get a big discount, you get to take the dress home with you, but you have to be a sample size. Glamour Closet in Chicago did have a smaller “plus size” section, which wasn’t real plus size but corresponded to about a street size 16-18. Sample stores will have the most variety in street sizes 4-8 typically, with a fair amount of selection just above and below those sizes.

The store is very simply laid out, with about 8 rows of dresses organized by style. In the back of the store is a wall of mirrors and 4 simple dressing rooms with a chair and curtains for privacy. Every dress has its street size marked, as well as its retail price and the discounted price you’ll pay. These stores do not give you the “works” with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, they are much more industrial and no frills.

Once you go in and get settled, the associates give you a pouch of colored clips and let you go choose which gowns you want to try on. You put the clip on the hanger and the associates bring the dresses to your dressing room. I kept a top 3 in my dressing room and chose more gowns as we went, systematically working my way around the store trying on anything that even remotely appealed to me on the hanger. This is dress up for grownups, so I had fun with it!

And then I had the final 3!

I LOVED the first one above. It was such a close second. The asymmetrical bodice was so flattering and the detail was subtle. The main reason I didn’t go with it is because it’s strapless, and I couldn’t envision straps on it. I didn’t want a strapless gown because if pictures are cropped too high then the bride looks naked in a strapless gown. The third one above has such a beautiful illusion neckline, but overall the dress was too matronly.

The middle one was our winner. It’s so wrinkly above because the staff had just put it out that morning and didn’t have time to steam it! I didn’t cry when I put it on, but I definitely felt butterflies. It’s a 2012 Martina Liana and I got it for about half off the original retail price. The dress was slightly damaged as one of the buttons on the back was missing. The dress is a champagne satin with lace appliqués sewn onto that layer and then 2 layers of tulle overlay. It has approximately 4 layers of crinoline underneath for that extra poof.  Here’s the designer’s runway pictures:

I got it in February of 2015, and started searching for a seamstress to alter it in December (Our wedding date was June 2016). I needed to take the dress in, hem it, add simple illusion straps, change the waist ribbon, add some more beading to the appliqué at the waist, and add a bustle. I emailed a few people that I found on Wedding Wire and got some laughable quotes, one was actually for more than I paid for the dress itself. I ended up going to my town’s community Facebook page asking for recommendations, and with those suggestions settled on Alterations by Rachel, a one woman shop who operates out of her home with some assistance from her daughter. I chose her because of her before and after transformation pictures she posted on her Facebook page–mainly one of altering a dress that was far too small to make it fit. If she can do that, she can handle adding some straps to my dress.

I got all my own materials for my dress, picking up the ribbon and beads from JoAnn Fabrics, and the tulle fabric for the straps from Rainbow Fabric in downtown Chicago. It is worth going to a specialty fabric store to match your specific shade of ivory. I spent less than $10 in materials for my dress! My total cost of alterations was very reasonable for the quality of work Rachel puts out.

The straps I chose were based off of this bridesmaid dress:

I love this strap style, because it could be easily added into my dress while still looking like they belonged there. I didn’t want a seam at the top of my bodice, and these straps just fastened tidily underneath my ribbon at my waist. I changed the ribbon color to match my bridesmaid dresses, and I added gold beading to bring in the gold accents from around our wedding and to match my gold shoes.

I picked up my dress at the beginning of May, it took 3 full months, but 1/3 of that was me deciding what materials I wanted to get. They really appreciated me doing it early, as they get swamped around prom season. Once I got to VA, I got the dress professionally pressed as it got wrinkled on the road trip!

The straps did slide down my arms a bit, especially during the ceremony. I was so conscious of not adjusting them, so they look a little off in my ceremony pictures, but I’m glad I don’t have video footage of wardrobe adjustments during my I do’s.

All in all, I love my wedding gown. I haven’t even peeked at it since my wedding day, and haven’t decided if I want to preserve it or do a trash-the-dress shoot (probably rock climbing!).  I do know that my dear husband stepped on it when we were swinging, ripping the tulle before we even got hitched and then I felt it snagging on wood around the venue throughout the evening, so we’ll see!

Oh yeah, a tip to outdoor brides, you WILL get bugs in your dress! It wasn’t even a buggy day out, and about every 10 minutes we had to lift up the tulle on my dress to clear out the little bugs hanging out in between the layers!

Join me as I tell you about my journey of getting my wedding gown! Now that you've heard about the biggest project: our Game of Life inspired Aisle Runner, I'll move onto something almost every bride deals with: THE DRESS!