Wedding Wednesday: Rehearsal

Our wedding was on a Saturday, and we decorated the Church the Thursday before, and on Friday we had rehersal, dinner, and decorated the hall.  

On the Friday of rehersal, I went and got mani-pedis with my girls.  I got a light lavendar color on my toes with a flower design (I wanted something fun for the honeymoon, since you wouldn't really see my toes at the wedding anyway) and I got acrylic french tip nails with a little sparkle.  And of course we wore our team bride shirts that we got at the bachelorette party.

Rehearsal was at 6:00 p.m. at the church and everything went pretty well.  We ran through the ceremony a couple of times and then it was off to dinner at Brann's.

My dad and I practicing our walk down the aisle.

Our ring bearers practicing holding their signs at rehearsal.

Brann's did an amazing job hosting our rehersal dinner.  The service was fast, the staff were friendly, and the food tasted great!

This is the only picture I have from dinner...Kelli and her giant drink :)

We gave our bridal party their gifts at rehersal dinner.  After dinner we headed over to the hall to decorate.  We used every single table and chair that was in the reception hall.  We set up 320 seats for guests (we had about 310 RSVPs), tables for the buffet lines, the photobooth, our head table, gift table, cake table, and a table for our guest book/quilt squares (more about the quilt squares another day).

The hall was pretty bare, but I knew that I didn't want to spend tons of money and time decorating it.  I mean, think back to any weddings you have been to.  Do you remember what their decorations looked like?  Or do you remember being with friends/family and dancing the night away?  I just remember dancing and having a good time at any weddings I had been to, so I didn't stress about going all out with the decorations.

Here is what the hall looked like before it was decorated:

We covered the tables with white table clothes that we rented from our caterer.  We just did candle centerpieces (much cheaper than flowers) and we used some Christmas icicle lights under the table clothes to decorate the cake, gift, and guest book tables.  We hung some photos of Kevin and I on a bare wall using clothespins (spray painted purple) and white rope/string from Hobby Lobby.  We brought over the lighted pillars that we used at the wedding to add a little more to the reception.  Here's what the hall looked like after we were done decorating:

I'm super happy with the way everything turned out.  I think it looked great, and it was nice to be home at a decent time that night since we had to be up early the next day for hair appointments!

-Ericka

Also linking up with Belle in Boots for Wedding Wednesday.

Some of Admiral's Favorite Things

I'm linking up for the first time today with Adriana from Dog Hair Is An Accessory.  Check her out...her blog is pretty awesome.  I figured this animal link up was a perfect opportunity to share some of Admiral's favorite things.

Admiral LOVES popcorn.  It's his favorite "treat."  We have an air popper and Kevin makes popcorn at least once a week.  Admiral loves when this happens.  He just waits for Kevin to drop some popcorn for him.  He stares until you feel guilty enough to drop a few pieces.

Kevin left the room for a minute, and Admiral just stared at the bowl full of popcorn the entire time.

Admiral also loves to play in his "pool."  This is probably the best $10 we ever spent.  He chases his ball and then runs and lays in the pool.  Then he gets up and splashes in the pool with his ball.

Kevin enjoys the pool with Admiral too :)

 Admiral also loves playing with other dogs.  My sister recently got a puppy, his name is Lambert.  Admiral likes playing tug of war, but it usually turns in to Lambert laying down and Admiral dragging him.

 And suckers.  Admiral likes suckers.  Who knew?  But Kevin decided to let him try it and he was hooked.  Here are Admiral and Diego trying a sucker for the first time.

So there you have it.  Some of Admiral's favorite things.  There are more, but I'll save those for another time.  What are some of your pet's favorite things?

-Ericka

Weekend Recap: Rainy & Cold

This did not seem like a typical end of July weekend.  It was cold and rainy here in West Michigan for much of the weekend.  On Friday I had a garage sale at my house.  My mom came and hung out with me for the day and we were able to get rid of lots of stuff.  Friday night Kevin and I went to the Whitecaps baseball game.  But it started to rain shortly after we got there and after two hours of a rain delay, they decided to cancel the game because of the field conditions.  We can use those tickets to go to a different game, so we'll try again a different day :)

Saturday was day two of the garage sale.  Got rid of more stuff and my mom and I made a little money over the two days, so I'd say it was a success.  Now I just need to take what's left and donate it, and I'll be happy to have it all gone!

I was supposed to get my hair cut on Saturday, but I got a phone call that morning saying that my hair stylist had had a death in the family Friday night, so she would not be in and had to reschedule (please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers).  So I'm going next week to get it cut...I can't wait to have it all gone!

Saturday night was a lazy night for Kevin and I.  We got pizza and rented a couple movies.  We watched The Hunger Games and Kick Ass.  I was excited to see the Hunger games, since I have read the first two books and am half-way through the third one.  I LOVE the books and the movie was pretty good too.  I realize why I like reading books before I see the movies...you just get so much more information in the books than in the movies.  Kick Ass was just ok in my opinion, but Kevin really liked it, so maybe it's more of a guy movie?

I went grocery shopping on Sunday morning and on the way home, the car said it was only 58 degrees outside...at like 11:00 a.m. on July 28, that is not normal!  My mom came over and we packed up all of the garage sale stuff so I could park in the garage again and so it would be easy to load up when I go donate everything.

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, cleaning, and hanging out.  It was rainy and cold, so it was a good day to get some stuff done in the house.  

Hope you had a great weekend and happy Monday!

-Ericka

Major Hair Cut

Tomorrow I am chopping my hair off.  I'm a little nervous about this...I mean we're talking 8-10 inches gone.  I've never had my hair shorter than my collarbone, so this will be a first for me!  I've been saying for over a year now that I wanted to cut my hair short after the wedding, just for something different.  I've also wanted to donate my hair for a long time, so tomorrow I'm doing both!

Here are my hair inspiration photos:

Here is how long my hair is now (and it's slightly curled in that pic), so you can see how this is going to be a major change for me!

This might be a sneak peak of one of our honeymoon photos...

Follow me on Instagram (erickamarie) or Twitter (erickamarie87) if you to want see the result tomorrow afternoon!  Otherwise I'll be sharing it here on Monday :)

Have a great weekend!

-Ericka

Wedding Wednesday: Bridal Party Gifts

Today I'm going to share our gifts to our bridal party.  I don't really have any pictures of the gifts Kevin gave his guys, but he got them the purple ties that they all wore in the wedding, black and purple socks that they all wore in the wedding, and of course, in typical Kevin fashion, he also got them all remote control helicopters.

I got my girls their earrings and bracelet that they all wore in the wedding, and I also made them a Bridesmaid Survival Kit.

I ordered the little wristlet's from thirty-one (my sister sells it) and had their initial embroidered on each one.  I had seen a few different versions of this survival kit on Pinterest, so I took bits and pieces of each to create these.

I thought they were a fun idea, and after being in a couple weddings myself, I know how these little items can come in handy.  I know the girls used some of the items the day of the wedding, so I'm glad they were put to good use!

I'm so grateful to the people in our bridal party, for all of their love and support throughout the entire wedding process and for being such great friends and family to Kevin and I!  These gifts were a small way for us to say thank you to them.

-Ericka

Weekend Recap: Food & Furniture

This weekend was kind of uneventful, which is fine with me because the rest of our summer is pretty jam packed!  On Friday I worked on getting stuff together for our yard sale we are having this weekend and we got Chinese for dinner...and ate way too much of it.

I worked a half-day on Saturday and then my cousins came over and we grilled out.  The hot, humid weather finally broke on Saturday so it was actually enjoyable to be outside for the first time in a week!

On Sunday we went to Bonefish Grill for lunch to celebrate my birthday (it was the 16th).  Of course we had to get the Bang Bang Shrimp (only the best shrimp EVER).

source

After lunch we went to Target and got a couple things from our wedding registry and then went to look at furniture.  I've been wanting a new sofa and love seat for a while now.  We went to about six different furniture stores and just didn't see anything we loved...so the search continues!

We got a basketball hoop from Target, so we put that together when we got home from furniture shopping.  Well, I should say we started to put it together.  After over two hours all we had done was put the pole on the stand.  They don't make those things easy to put together! haha

Hope you had a great weekend and happy Monday!

-Ericka

Wedding Wednesday: DIY Details

I know you are all anxious to see all of the pictures from the wedding, and trust me, I'll be sharing them soon, but there's some other things I want to share first.

Remember my card box that I made for the wedding and how I was looking for a little something more to add to it?  Well I found that little something at Hobby Lobby one day.  I found these little flowers in their wedding section (on sale for $0.49 each) and added one to each layer of the box and I love the way it turned out!

When I first started planning the wedding, I had lots of DIY ideas and one of the first were aisle runners I saw on Pinterest:

But once I realized that our aisle was 32 ft on each side, I decided there was no way I would have the time (or the patience) to make 64 ft of that bad boy.  And since I had already purchased all of the flower petals, I had to come up with something else.  I had seen lots of kissing balls hanging on church pews for wedding on pinterest, and I thought, I could do something like that with the flower petals I purchased. So I did one and really liked the way it turned out, so I invited family and friends over to help create the rest.  I was really happy with the way the looked hanging on the pews:

The lighted pillars in the church were a craigslist find by my Mother-In-Law a few years ago.  Aren't they awesome?!?

I also had a friend of my mom's make our "Here Comes the Bride" signs for our ring bearers to carry.  She did an amazing job and I LOVE the way they turned out.  The boys liked carrying them over their heads, rather than by the rope handles :)  And they kept getting the order mixed up, which was actually super cute.  

There are a couple other DIY projects we did, but I'll share those later.  I love the way everything turned out, we saved a lot of money doing DIY, and I love that we can look back and say that we made a lot of the wedding decorations.  Did you do any fun DIY projects for your wedding?

-Ericka

Birthday & Sister's Blog

Today I turn 26.  No big plans.  Working all day and then my parents are coming over to bring us dinner and watch the All-Star game.  Just a fun, relaxing night.

On another note, my sister just started her own blog!  It's called Kindergarten Krazy.  She's a kindergarten teacher and will be sharing fun stories about her students (kids say the funnies things!) and ideas she tries out in her classroom.  Go check it out here and show her some love!

My sister and I on my wedding day.

Later this week (maybe tomorrow) I'll be showing off some of our DIY wedding projects, so be sure to look for that :)

-Ericka