Boston Tea Party, part two

After chatting with all the guests and a few photo shoots, it was time for the main event.... Opening the gifts. A wedding is one of those times in life when your just so overwhelmed by other's generosity. Between this and our shower at the shore, we now have a fully stocked kitchen!
I was super careful to not break too many ribbons, because I was told that each ribbon you break means another child. I was also told back in the day everyone used pink or blue ribbon, so if you broke pink it meant you'd get a girl, and if you broke blue you'd get a boy. I broke about 4 at the Jersey shower and I don't think I broke any at the MA shower. Can you guess how many kids I want? :)
The Newport Girls and Newport Mom splurged and got us our entire bed set! We can't wait to re-do our bedroom to match our honeymoon suite! While we opened presents our guests were served cake. Cake was made by Sweet ResultsPracticing for October!
You may have noticed no mention of games in this post. I absolutely love games, Me, Mr. Newport, Sister Newport and BILN have game nights with our friends and I love games in general, but I don't like games that draw attention to me, so you may have noticed there weren't any games at the shore shower and the only "game" played here was the timer game, in which guests receive a gift if the timer goes off while their present is being opened.
Newport Flower Girl had fun "helping" with the timer game gifts!

There was no lack of sweets at the shower. As a sweet send off, there was a candy bar with bags for guests to take home. It looked so pretty! And the guests also got bottles of lemonade, which were pretty perfect, since they have a husky them! A fun way to include Sky in the day.

It was so amazing to have almost all of my favorite women and Mr. Newport in one room. I can't think of anything better, other than the wedding!

photo by family friend

Did your shower get you excited for the big day?

All photos unless noted by our wedding photographer, David Bibeault

Boston Tea Party

A few weeks ago, the Newport Girls and Newport Mom threw a beautiful shower at the Sherborn Inn in Sherborn, MA. The Newport Girls and Newport Mom filled the shower with a lot of my favorite things; friends, family, tea, chocolate, diy products, and beautiful flowers. The room was filled with yellow details. Everything from the linens, the candy bar, the cake, the paper products, the flowers, some of the guests attire and even most of the gifts. Yellow just makes me smile, and I couldn't stop smiling the entire time.

All of the flowers were arranged by Newport Mom, she also did the flowers at Sister Newport's shower. I think she should go into business. Sister Newport did all the paper products including invitations, table cards, escort cards, and menu cards. She had a friend help with the calligraphy. She found cute teapot and tea cup stamps on etsy, that I may need to borrow in the future!

personal photo

Aside from everything being gorgeous, they also included some of my favorite foods. They created a traditional tea menu of scones, finger sandwiches, and delicious desserts, including chocolate mousse cups! I was so busy, I didn't have a chance to drink a cup of tea.

After taking in all the details, I spent some time with the bridesmaids and Mr. Newport and got to take some really fun photos. One of the coolest things they did was hire our wedding photographer, David Bibeault, to take photos of the shower! It was a pretty cool surprise. I'm already in love with his work, but after seeing the shower photos, I love his work even more!

Mr. Newport is a good sport. :)
The Newport Girl's created a faux-to booth, which is quite popular with the Newport family. We had one at Sister Newport's shower, too!I love the vintage effects Dave created on some of these. It looks like a vintage-y tea party!I could show a ton more photos, since we did a bit of a photo shoot and there were a ton of fun candid shots, but I'll get back to details in the next post! But I had to end it with this adorable shot of Newport Flower Girl. She loves talking on the phone and it looks like this phone call was important.
Our photographer has been in the business for quite some time and said shooting a bridal shower was a first for him. I think he did a pretty awesome job!

Have you ever been to a shower with a photographer? Would you hire one for your own or for a friend who loves photos?

All photos by our amazing wedding photographer, David Bibeault, unless noted otherwise

100 Day Challenge

One of the best thing about bridesmaids is the support. With now less than 100 days to go to the wedding, I need a lot of it, especially in the fitness area. I am not a huge lover of the gym or working out. I actually hate the gym. I went once in college and didn't go back. I tried again after our engagement, but only lasted a few months. I prefer group exercising like hiking with friends, or in highschool getting together with friends for some Tae-Bo with Billy Blanks.

Source

So for someone who hates the gym, and is super busy it's hard to find the motivation to get in shape. Maybe not for other brides, but for me it is. So Bridesmaid E started a fitness challenge awhile back. We each logged our hours and we could see how much everyone was working out. It worked for awhile, but we all stopped submitting our time.

So as the wedding is swiftly approaching Bridesmaid E decided to rev it up. She came up with the 100 Day Challenge. It's a bit more motivating because their is more at stake.

Here are the rules, note there are 5 participants:

There are almost 100 days before Miss Newport's wedding!! So, to rev up our fitness challenge (and finally offer some prizes for the winners), the last 100 days will be a challenge to log 100 hours. If you do 100+ hours of exercise between now and the wedding, you will be a ‘winner’ and, if not, you will be a ‘loser’!

If there are 5 winners, then we can all go out for celebratory drinks, and the one with the most hours gets treated by everyone else.
If there are 4 winners and 1 loser, the loser treats the winners to a round of drinks (maximum $50)
If there are 3 winners and 2 losers, the losers treat the winners to dinner (maximum cost of $50 for each of the losers, so $100 total)
If there are 2 winners and 3 losers, the losers treat for dinner and a round of drinks
If there is only one winner, the winner gets treated to dinner and drinks! Also, the losers all pitch in $5 for the winner to buy a health food cookbook.

Every Monday, I will collect the minutes for the previous week (so, the previous Monday through Sunday). Every day you are late giving me the minutes, you get deducted one hour!! You can send minutes by email, text, facebook, BBM, phone call, whatever is easiest. If you remember to send them in, and want to send a reminder to everyone else, that will be helpful… I will try to send a reminder to everyone on Mondays.

We will have to average 7 hours, or 420 minutes every week to get to 100 hours, so good luck everyone! If anyone wants to plan a hike or some other multi-hour exercising trip, let me know!!
And there it is.... my motivation for the last 100 days!

What's motivating you to get fit for the big day?

Bridesmaid Surprise Savings

So recently, I updated letting you know, that the girls had found their dresses. What I forgot to mention was the fact that right before we placed the order, we got a great surprise....

Sister Newport and Bridesmaid L (in one of my favorite dresses)

Our bridesmaid consultant at Flair called to get the last bridesmaid's measurements and surprised me by saying the fabric I chose was being discontinued. Normally this could be a bad thing, but she said we will have enough time to get the dresses ordered, and they will now be at an even bigger discount!

I'm more excited that my bridesmaids are saving money than if my own dress were getting a discount! I feel guilty having my friends spend so much money on me, so it was awesome to get a surprise savings.

Did you have any great surprises with cost savings during your planning?

Dresses for the Girls, 2

After narrowing down a few ideas for the bridesmaids dresses, I decided I was in love with the simplicity of the Alfred Sung D446 on the Dessy website. Which is the dress on the right.

I called up every store in MA and RI that carries Alfred Sung. At the time, the Spring collection just came out and I could only find one store that carried the D446. So I booked an appointment at Flair Bridesmaids.

Well apparently I know nothing about fabrics. I had decided early on that I want the girls in a casual and comfortable fabric, nothing with a shine (I have it stuck in my head that shine equals fancy). So when I got to Flair I was surprised to find out that the D446 only comes in a shiny fabric called Dupioni. If I had clicked on the swatch on the website, I would have easily realized that this was a fancy fabric.

When I looked through the store, it seemed like everything was in fancy fabrics. But I explained to my consultant, Leah, the vibe and feel I was looking for. A bit casual, navy cocktail length, something that looks very "Newportish". Leah came up with a few options, some shiny, some not. I had Sister Newport act as a model and try on quite a few dresses. I ended up liking a few, but the one I loved was a dress by Coren Moore. It is absolutely perfect!

The Newport Girls will be wearing the Coren Moore "Courtney" dress in cotton sateen. To have my MOH, Sister Newport, stand out a bit she'll be the only one with a sash. I can't find an exact match, but here it is in silk. After narrowing down the choices, the Newport Girls and I booked a second appointment for fittings. Luckily they all loved it, or at least that's what they told me...... but seriously I think they really do! Which is so awesome. I was really stressed about finding something that they would all feel comfortable and look good in. I was so happy after each bridesmaid tried it on, it was super flattering on everyone! A couple even said they will wear it again and will have to schedule with each other so they don't all show up at the same event wearing it.

Did you stress about finding the perfect bridesmaid's dresses? Did your girls end up happy with your choice?

Dresses for the Girls

My first bridesmaid dress shopping experience was with Sister Newport when looking for her bridesmaid's dresses. We went to Priscilla of Boston and I was in love with their dresses. Sister Newport chose to do a few different styles and the dress I fell in love with was one of them. I told her I loved it so much that I asked if she would mind if I used it for my future bridesmaids. She said go for it.

Michael Sparks Keegan photography

Funny enough the only girl who ended up wearing it, also happens to be in my bridal party, Bridesmaid M. I was in love with the dress because of one amazing detail....the bow in the back. Bridesmaid M is modeling it in the photo above.

I fell in love and was pretty sure it was the dress, but the more we planned, the more our vision became defined. Coastal, laid-back, elegance seemed to be the theme and a shiny satin material just seemed a bit fancy.

I decided to look around. I decided it had to be navy, cocktail length and a more relaxed fabric.

I deicded to check out Ann Taylor, as most of my work clothes end up being from there. Which is how I know they contstantly have 40% off one item promotions going on. I was looking for a deal. I found a gorgeous dress in navy, but it seemed like every time I went to the site, they only had a few sizes. I also realized it was an online only option, which meant we'd have to pay for shipping to try them out, unless I could find a 40% off and free shipping sale at the same time. It also didn't have the more relaxed fabric I was looking for, but it stayed on the back burner.

Sources (Clockwise from top left): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The Ann Taylor dress was such a favorite, it ended up in our attire inspiration board.

As I was debating on the Ann Taylor, Alfred Sung came out with a new spring line. I checked out the Dessy website and fell in love with a couple of his new designs.

These were the top three contenders.


Did you have a definite look when picking out your bridesmaid's dresses, or were you pretty open when going shopping?

Duty Calls...and it's delicious

When acting as MOH in sister Newport's wedding, there were so many duties delegated to me as the Maid of Honor and I have to say, I was completely up for every task. Especially the cake tasting. I made sure to taste every piece brought to us at sister Newport's tasting.....at least three times. It was a big responsibility and I thought I should take it seriously. No cake went un-tasted.

We went to Konditor Meister in Braintree, MA. They have a great selection of cakes and fillings. Sister Newport ended up choosing four different flavors. One for each tier. She likes variety!

We had many favorites. My favorite was the banana filling, but sister Newport thought it wasn't right for a fall wedding. We tasted many all season flavors like chocolate-chocolate, marble, oreo, chocolate forest, etc. I tended to lean more towards the "summery" flavors.

My favorites were the carrot cake (which I usually don't like!), vanilla with banana filling and vanilla with lemon filling. The lemon is very refreshing, perfect for a summer wedding. The banana is just all out delicious and I don't care if it is considered a "summer" flavor", I may need to include this in my fall wedding, if it is available and just as good wherever we get our cake.

Sister and Future brother in-law Newport went with Carrot cake as the top tier. It is the groom's favorite (we learned that due to the density of the cake, it only works as the top or bottom layer, not good for middle layers), Tiramisu as the next highest, Pumpkin with maple filling as the second to last layer and chocolate-chocolate as the bottom layer. They chose the crowd pleaser for the bottom layer. If that doesn't scream fall wedding, I don't know what does!

What I learned:
1. Keep season in mind.
2. Pay attention to the density of your layers (your baker should know this, if not, your in trouble!).
3. Lot of details=Lots of money.
4. Make sure you use a crowd pleaser for your biggest layer, choose the flavors that aren't as popular for smaller layers.
5. If you purchase your own cake accessories, it can help save on decorating costs.

They had mutliple showcase cakes throughout the space. Here are some favorites:

The window display

Very intricate!

My favorite! A super nautical cake! I love the anchors. I just happen to be super traditional
and want a white cake and Mr. Newport wants his people topper, so I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work!

What are some of your favorite cake flavors at weddings? Do you have any great tips for choosing a cake and/or the flavors?