Bridesmaid Shoes

When it came to the Newport Girl's shoes, I knew I couldn't pick one style because heights and comforts vary between the girls. I'm personally not a fan of higher heels, but have a few girls that love them , and at least one other like me who likes low heels or no heels, so I don't think it would be possible to find one style of shoe that would make everyone happy.

Originally I wanted to find navy shoes, but I could't find the exact shade I like. I also didn't want to do dyeables, because I want the girls to have super cost friendly options.

I then decided to look for off white or cream shoes, which I didn't think would be hard in the spring and summer, but it was. I did find one or two options I liked in navy and cream, but I really want the girls to have a variety so they each are happy and comfortable with the sheos they wear.

Then one of the Newport Girls suggested gold. I really wanted to keep everything at the wedding to our navy and white color scheme, but in this case it just makes the most sense. Gold shoes are re-wearable and some girls may even already own a pair. Plus we are going into fall, which should make gold shoes pretty easy to find. So far, I've found lots of options online.

I sent out an e-mail with a link to different styles in the shade I like with a few requirements- heels, strappy, light gold. Each girl will get to pick out her own pair that hopefully she'll love and get to wear again. Here are a few of the examples I sent:

This shoe by Capparos on Piperlime is a great budget friendly option, currently on sale for $24.99. Piperlime also has free shipping and returns. I'm not crazy about the buckle, but I love the price and the rest of the shoe.

I love this Ralph Lauren option from Macy's. It has a classic look and is totally re-wearable.

I wore these Kelly & Katie heels from DSW to Sister Newport's wedding last year. I usually take heels off at weddings after a few songs, but these were so comfy, I kept them on the entire night. I bought them for $39.95, which I thought was great because I plan to wear them again.

Another Katie and Kelly option from DSW for the same price, but it has a higher heel. I thought some girls may prefer this, as most of the Newport Girls like higher heels than me.

Are your girls wearing the same shoe, or are you giving them options?

The Write Stuff

I adore calligraphy. I've always known I wanted it for our wedding invitations.

Luckily, I have an aunt who is a calligrapher and has done many of my cousin's invitations and escort cards over the years. Shortly after getting engaged, Aunt P told my mom she'd love to do the calligraphy for our wedding invites. I was thrilled!

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We decided to drop off the envelopes to her a couple weeks before the date we set for the invitations to go out. I stamped the return address on all the envelops and packaged them up, excited to drop them off. When I gave her the invites, she looked at me and explained she has never done colored envelopes before. She felt extremely bad and felt she couldn't do them, since she knows how important the invitations are. I completely understood. But where was I to get another calligrapher at this point?

Well, I also had another offer from a family friend who had done the calligraphy on the Boston shower invites, escort cards and table names. I absolutely love her works as well. We had already asked her to do some of the invitations, since we procrastinated the invites so long and didn't want to stress out Aunt P. So we went from asking her to do about 50 to doing over 100 in less than two weeks. She sweetly said "yes, it would be an honor".

Bottom two by David Bibeault

I love calligraphy, but at this point I had no clue what goes into it. She sent me a list and told me to go online to dafont.com and a few other sites to choose a font that I like. Then gave tips for choosing the right pens. She prefers gelly pens when addressing on colored envelopes. I took her tips and went to Michaels to find the perfect pen.

I found a few choices and brought them home to test out. I figured, if I'm testing, I might as well start addressing the invites. So I got to work. I tried a few pens and the gelly pens were a clear winner. During the testing phase, I also realized how incredibly long this process is. I felt bad asking our family friend to do over 100 of these in less than two weeks, as I know how busy she is. I know she would do it, but I just didn't want to take advantage of her, so I continued on addressing invites. They weren't half bad! When I showed them to a few family memebers they asked me why I was having our friend do them at all. But with the time crunch, I was too stressed as well to get that many done in a short amount of time. So friend S saved the day and worked her magic.

I don't really have any diy tips for do it yourself calligraphy, other than to look up fonts and try and copy them (I'm so helpful, I'm sure you couldn't have thought that one up yourself).

The main tip I took away when "working" with a calligrapher? Make sure you show samples of the invitation envelope to the calligrapher before you hire them, to make sure it is a color and material s/he is comfortable working with. For more tips on working with a calligrapher, check out Laura Hooper's post on "Working with a Calligrapher".

Did you hire a calligrapher to address your invites, or did you go the diy route?

Getting Excited!

Can you guess why I'm excited? It has something to do with my bridesmaids, friends, a weekend in Boston and this dress:

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My Bachelorette party is this weekend! I have no clue what we are doing, other than spending a weekend in Boston with my best friends. They gave a few hints, but I'm pretty clueless about the whole thing. They asked what I wanted to do a bunch of times, and the only thing I've said is "I just want to dance".

So what hints do I have? When I asked what to pack, I was told casual for Friday night, a sundress for Saturday and a fun clubby style dress for Saturday night. The hints didn't help too much, except I'm pretty sure I'll get to dance!

Did you know what to expect for your bachelorette party, or are you going to be surprised?

Invitation Evolution

So our invitations weren't done nearly as early as I originally planned. I originally wanted to do the invites myself, but due to time constraints, I didn't think it was possible. So, a few months ago I had started looking into pricing to have the invites done by either an online company or a graphic designer. I kind of hit sticker shock with all the companies I looked at online and my first choice graphic designer couldn't do it due to her own busy schedule, so I put it off for awhile.

At the three month mark, I realized I still had no clue what we were doing for invitations. Most wedding checklists recommend ordering these 4-6 months before the wedding. After searching for simple, nautical inspired invites and having no luck finding exactly what I envisioned, I decided to just suck it up and do them myself. I originally didn't think I'd have time to do it between other wedding planning and being a new home owner, but we've been pretty good at scheduling other things for the wedding, and we've been taking our home plans very slow. I knew if I did the invites myself they wouldn't be elaborate, but at least they'd resemble my vision.

I ended up being extremely surprised at how quick I was able to make and print these- granted I did a super simple design and used a program I'm extremely familiar with- Microsoft Word. It took a couple hours to design them, two nights after work to print, and about three get togethers to assemble. Then realizing I hadn't printed enough another day printing out a few more and assembling.

I have a few reasons this process went so smoothly:

1. A practice run- when I originally wanted to do our invites, I used our Save the Dates as a practice run, I used many of the same materials for these, as I planned to use for the invites.

2. My new printer- when I had printed the save the dates, it took forever to print. So many came out wrong and the printer ended up breaking towards the end. This was a great trial and error for the invites. After this process, I researched printers and found a printer that works with smaller cardstock and the printing process went so smooth! I hadn't realized prior to this that not all printers can handle smaller paper sizes.

3. Help from others- Sister Newport and Newport Mom helped me print and assemble these. All it took was a bribe of chinese food, left over shower cake, and a promise to watch Twilight and New Moon while assmebling- actually the promise of Twilight and New Moon didn't really help the cause with Newport Mom, but she came anyways. On night one of assembly, it was especially helpful to have them there. I printed the invites, while Sister Newport stamped and Newport Mom embossed. Stamping and embossing over 100 invites alone would not be fun.

4. Double sided tape- I was planning to use glue sticks to put the backing on the invite, Sister Newport told me I was crazy and that I need to get double sided tape. It was much quicker and cleaner.

5. Choosing a program I'm familiar with- I originally planned to use Adobe InDesign or Adobe Pagemaker. I use both at work, but not frequently. If I had the tiem, I would have gone with Adobe InDesign, but I didn't have enough time to research how to use the program more in depth. That brought me to Microsoft Word. I'm familiar with it, and although I couldn't do any intricate designs, it got the job done in a tiem crunch.

Overall, the invites are pretty simple, but Mr. Newport and I love them. They are hopefully being sent out to our guests within the next few weeks, so you'll just have to wait and see.

Did you create your own invites? Was the process what you expected?

Shoe Love

Shoes haven't really been a priority on my wedding to-do list. I wear flip flops at the first sign of spring and wear them until the first sign of winter. When it came to shoes for the wedding, I kind of just assumed I'd wear flats or flip flops. Newport Mom and Sister Newport are the complete opposite of me with shoes, they love them, especially heels. They told me I have to wear heels. I said "we'll see".

When the dress came in, I tried it on and......it's too long. I know I could get it hemmed, but my favorite part of the dress is the beautiful detail on the bottom (I would show this, but I'm keeping my dress a surprise until the wedding day). I can't bear cutting it off. So, Sister Newport and Newport Mom are getting their wish....I'll begrudgingly wear heels on our wedding day.

I've looked and looked for shoes, but nothing sparked my interest, until I browsed the Neiman Marcus website and found these amazing heels from Giuseppe Zanotti.

They are so gorgeous and would look so fun with a short after party dress! I absolutely love them. I thought for a second that I found my shoes.....until I saw the price tag and it's just not happening. Now I compare every shoe I find to these. This is a typical trait of mine. I find something I love, but completely out of my price range and fixate. It's the reason why I couldn't look at dresses at Priscilla of Boston and the reason I should have known to stay away from Neiman Marcus.

Now it's back to the search.

Any other brides who fixate on items out of your budget? What was the biggest disappointment?

Girl's Weekend: Kennebunkport

Newport Mom wanted to do something special before Mr. Newport and I say "I do". So one weekend in May she took me and Sister Newport on a girl's weekend to Kennebunkport, ME. We took Friday off and headed up Maine's coastline.

The weekend was filled with shopping, laughing, movies, great food and lots of quality time.
Newport Mom even surprised me by sneaking up some of my favorite wedding movies. It worked out well because day 2 of the trip was rainy. We snuck in a few of my favorites over the three day trip. No matter how many times I watch Father of the Bride, I still love it! I don't think I can ever get sick of that one.

We went to lots of cute shops and some interesting ones, like Woods to Goods, a store where inmates at the Shawshank Prison make items out of wood, which are sold in the store. Our inkeeper said it's a popular place to purchase wedding gifts, the wooden salad bowls being the most popular. They are great conversation pieces for sure.

Also on the wedding front, we were told to check out the wedding cake house, I didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be in the shape of a cake or look like one, but I think it has it's reputation due to the amazing detail of the outside of the house, similar to the intricate detail of a wedding cake. I have never seen a house like it. The shopping and exploring got us hungry, so we went to a few restraunts over the course of the weekend, and we even made a special trip to Kittery for Newport Mom. She was told she had to go to Flo's who allwgedly has the best hot dogs ever.
She said it lived up to expectations.Although the hot dogs at Flo's were pretty amazing, none of the weekends food could compare to the dinner we had at The White Barn Inn. It's definitely a special occasion place, if anyone's doing a mini-moon in Kenebunkport, it's such a romantic place and it was the best meal I've ever had.

Overall, the weekend was great, despite the weather. It was fun to have some non-wedding planning bonding time with Newport Mom and Sister Newport. It was relaxing and fun.

Did you have any special bonding time with your mom before the wedding?

Non-Registry Gifts

I know many brides aren't fans of "non-registry" gifts. After spending hours adding and editing multiple registries and picking out exactly what you want, it can be hard to add something that may not fit your style into the mix. I've always gotten gifts from the registry, with the exception of additional gifts. Like something fun in addition to the registry item. Like a cousin registered for popcorn bowls, so I also included some movie items like a "Father of the Bride" dvd, popcorn, and movie passes for a date night.

Our house isn't huge, so I was hoping that most people would follow the registry since we spent so much time choosing everything. We don't have a lot of space, so we had to be real picky about what we added.

Well I was totally surprised when some of my favorite gifts weren't from the registry!

I looked at multiple stores to find a nice trifle bowl, and although I wasn't super in love with the one we registered for, I added it because it was the nicest one we found and Mr. Newport loves trifle, or as he calls it "goop". One guest at the N.J. shower gave us a trifle bowl filled with fun shore themed oven mitts and towels, and a little blue book with a new summer trifle recipe.

Mr. Newport's friend and her mom gave us two huge buckets filled with baking supplies. They gave us everything from the pans, spatulas, cooling racks, mixing bowls, cake carriers, mixes and everything in between. I love to bake and can't wait to use all these fun items! Newport Ant and her daughters gave us a grill and all the accessories we'll need to go with it, including fun summer plates and glasses, placemats, bbq sauces, and grill accessories. We are having them over soon for a cookout as a big thank you! BIL Newport even sent a surprise gift to the Boston Shower, I'm sure Sister Newport picked it out though! He gave us tea cup cupcake holders, which were so adorable and totally fit our theme. Plus everyone who knows me knows how much I love cupcakes and tea, so it was perfect! He also gave us a nautical plate set. I'm in love with them. They remind me of our wedding theme. It's a set of four, which is the perfect amount for dinners with Sister and BIL Newport!

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I always felt the need to purchase off the registry, but I realized if you know the couple and what they like, you might make their day by getting them something that is "so them" that's not on the registry. All these fun gifts have me thinking outside the box for future shower gifts!

Do you normally shop off the registry? Did you receive any fun non-registry items at your shower?