My bachelorette party was one wild night! I am so lucky to have so many awesome ladies who wanted to celebrate one last night out as a “single” lady with me!

The evening began with my fabulous sister, Rebecca, coming over and decorating the house. She planned this whole night with Jill and Shelly…they did a great job! They even kept it mostly a secret from me which was impressive.

For the first part of the evening, 10 of us met at Flex Appeal in Minneapolis for Pole Dancing Lessons!! Rebecca had told me I needed to wear yoga pants and so I figured we were doing pole dancing or belly dancing or something like that & it was confirmed a couple days prior to the party. We had a BLAST! Jill brought a pair of red high heel shoes for me to wear and I was able to wear them even with my sore foot. When the instructor asked if anyone wanted to wear some “stripper shoes,” my mom’s best friend Jayne was the first one to speak up and say yes. Once everyone had their shoes on and we were stretched out we learned how to walk around the pole, do some fancy turns and spin down the pole! It was crazy fun!!

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More pole dancing pictures can be found here.

After taking some group photos we headed back to the house. We played games and had food at our house before taking the party on the road. The games at the house included….

Get the carrot into the vase

Q&A with Chris and finally Pin the Cucumber on the Hunk

After games, I opened the mountain of gifts that the ladies had wrapped up for me. I think most of the gifts were for BOTH Chris & I but I was the only one sitting there opening them. It was fun to see what everyone had picked out for me!

We got a group photos before a few people had to leave and the rest of us piled into a limo.

More Games & Gifts photos can be found here.

I was totally surprised by the Limo! There were 14 of us piled into a 14 person limo which was cozy and fun! The first stop was the Dive Bar in Maplewood where KDWB was broadcasting live and we got a shout out over the airwaves!! When we first walked in Rebecca noticed the pole in the VIP area immediately. My first thought was “Thank goodness it’s in the VIP area, we can’t get up there” and about 10 minutes later Alicia recognizes a high school classmate who’s a bouncer and next thing you know, we’re in the VIP area and I am spinning on the pole! I think I finally gave in because I figured I already looked ridiculous so people would expect it from me!

There were some “dare” cards that got handed out and I think 3 or 4 of them were actually done. The first was for Kristen to find the guy in the bar who looked most like Chris. Kristen has that photo unfortunately. The second was a guy who had to propose to me…it was hilarious! The others I remember were to make fishy faces with me and to serenade me.

After the Dive Bar we hopped back into the Limo and drove back to Minneapolis where the plan was to go into Sneaky Pete’s (who also have a pole in the bar!) until the line was out the door and not moving.

Instead we went to Drink where I found myself in a “dance-off” with another bachelorette. It was dumb, but I went along with it because I didn’t want to be debbie downer.

More Limo & Bar photos can be found here.

THANK YOU to all the awesome ladies who came out to help me celebrate the end of my bachelorette status. Especially thank you to Rebecca, Jill and Shelly for all the planning!!!

Chris is also a lucky guy…the Saturday after my party he celebrated with 17 of his friends! They started and ended the night at our house and in between went to the South by Southwest send off show and other bars downtown.

Yesterday was the happiest day of my life…I married my best friend, Chris. We had a great day, beautiful weather and TONS of fun with our family and friends! I don’t have professional photos back yet but my sister snapped this one which will hold me over.

Last weekend I went with some friends to play Retro Bingo at a charity event called Bingo a go go. Lucky (?) for us, Jenny’s mom came across some of her old clothes and we were able to pick out some Retro outfits to wear! Here’s the rack of clothes we tried on (along with some sweaters and other pants).

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I know this isn’t a decision that I will be able to make prior to the actual day after the day of my wedding…but it’s on my mind so I decided to write about it.

I’ve mentioned before that I follow the WeddingBee blog…and this is another thing I found there: Trash The Dress! It is basically another opportunity to put on your wedding dress, get your handsome husband dressed up and take more photos…except this time you’re not worried about getting dirty! I’ve seen examples of people walking around downtown of their favorite city, in a park, at a playground and even in the water! There was a super sexy shoot I saw of a couple in the ocean…it was H.O.T!

So, here’s the thing…Many people think that one day their daughter may want to wear their dress to carry on a tradition. I, however, didn’t even consider wearing my mom’s dress, and with how trends change these days I’m not naive enough to think that my daughter some day (assuming I even have one) would want to wear mine (even though I LOVE IT!).So, Trash the Dress seemed like a really fun thing to do…we’ll see if I can actually go through with it. We would have to figure out how much it would cost & pick some fun/cool locations to go.

Then, last week I was having dinner with Jayne and she started telling me the sweetest story about how a daughter DID use her mother’s dress, but just had it altered to update it a bit. Then…the granddaughter decided to do the same thing! So, so sweet. Well, it didn’t turn out so well - the seamstress LOST the dress! Yep - apparently she took it on a trip with her to work on and it got misplaced. That story is almost reason enough to do the TTD session…to avoid anything like that ever happening.

Has anyone else done a trash the dress session? I’m mostly wondering if someone regretted it if they couldn’t get the dress clean afterward. Well…we’ll see what I decide.

While in Prague, Chris & I came across a Toy Museum which was housed within the Castle area. It was chilly & raining outside (and it seemed interesting) so we decided to check it out. They had the largest collection of barbies I had ever seen in my life (including one that could give birth…that was gross). Anyway, here’s a shot of some cool old robots.

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A what?! A minimoon. Basically, a short getaway trip that isn’t our honeymoon…we’re taking that later. The minimoon is happening in April while our official honeymoon is likely on hold until the fall. For me, this works out perfectly because we get two trips! The reason we’re doing this is because I hurt my foot in February and we want to make sure it’s completely healed before heading off on an expensive adventure…and Chris can’t handle crowds so putting it off until Summer wasn’t going to happen.

The BEST part about this minimoon…I didn’t have to plan any of it! Chris is surprising me. I don’t know where we’re going, where we’re staying, what we’re doing, anything. What I do know - it’s in the US and I need a dress and a swimsuit (among other, normal clothes I’m assuming). YAY! I’m so excited…we’re not going right after the wedding because we’ll probably be exhausted, but shortly afterward.

I first heard of a Minimoon on WeddingBee, one of my favorite wedding related blogs. I love it so much that I’m on it a LOT and Chris has asked that I unsubscribe from it after the wedding. So, in 10 short days my wedding stalking will be over. It’s okay though, I’ll find something else to interest me…like home improvement!

On our last night in Prague (and in Europe for that trip actually), Chris & I had a nice dinner and then walked around town. We had carried the Digital SLR with us the whole trip and by now Chris was pretty darn comfortable with it. There were a handful of really good photos taken that evening, but this is one of my favorites. I really enjoyed Prague a lot…I wish they weren’t switching to the Euro so we could go back & enjoy the inexpensive trip we had again!

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On Sunday, February 15th many fantastic women threw a bridal shower for me, lead by Jayne. It was the first really big event surrounding the wedding & I wasn’t sure how I would react. In fact, I’m still not sure what I’m going to be like on the “big day” but I do know I’m looking forward to it!

So, I arrived at Jayne & Shannon’s house (the guys were not home) and slowly more and more wonderful women arrived. It was sort of surreal that they were all there for ME…so cool. After everyone introduced themselves we jumped right into games. First up was a game called “Types of cake” which I was horrible at. We got clues and had to guess the cake that was being described. For example, this cake is served at breakfast…pancakes. The second game was surrounding our travels. Aunt Julie had taken all the places Chris & I had been (together or apart) and found photos…some taken by us, some not…and made a game out of it. Out of 80+ points I think I got 57 right and some of my friend got more than 50! It’s amazing how many places people have traveled…and how much people can learn from my blog!

The third game (yes…three fun games!!) was Chris & Nikki Travel Bingo. Aunt Mary & my cousin Jenny had taken the same list Julie had and turned it into BINGO! However, in addition to the big places we had been & modes of transportation, they included important local locations…for example:
Minneapolis: Where we both were born & where we now live
Columbia Heights: Where we are getting married
Lake Nokomis: Where we were engaged
Eagan: Our first date…at Granite City!
All the games were personal and fun.

Next were gifts…

Seriously…everyone was SO generous…

Meanwhile, Diane was making my Rehearsal bouquet for me from all the bows from the gifts. I broke two of the ribbons…apparently that means I’m having 2 kids…but no one told me that rule until AFTER I broke 2 of them!!

Then came the food. Jayne & her fellow planners carried the travel theme to the max…each food item had a label with the name of the item and a flag from the country it represented:


As I was the center of attention (I thought I loved being the focus…but maybe not so much)…I really appreciated having my mom & sister with me:

A couple of the gifts were very personal. The first one was from Jenny. She made for me cards (mostly thank you but some just plain blank) that had travel stickers on the front and made return address labels which were put on the envelopes in advance. They were SO CUTE and SO THOUGHTFUL! Some examples:



The second one I wanted to share was one my Grandma gave me. It’s a bucket of “junk” that is supposed to make a new house feel like a Home and according to my sister and cousin, they actually used some of the junk in their homes! The saying:

And, to just prove how completely generous everyone was…this is an image of all the gifts compiled together before I wrote the Thank You notes:

THANK YOU to everyone who had anything to do with the shower and THANK YOU to everyone who attended. I felt a TON of love in that house & it was awesome.

I guess first of all I should just say that I don’t get bumper stickers. It’s probably due to my dad telling me as I grew up that there would not be, under any circumstance, a bumper sticker on any of our cars. I can’t imagine taking a sticker and permanently placing it on my car…especially a political one. I mean, how many people are driving around with McCain/Palin stickers right now? Do you proudly display a sticker that is outdated? Same with Kerry/Edwards in 2004. I guess it doesn’t hurt me, so why should I care.

That brings me to the Darwin Fish. I think that thing is C.R.E.E.P.Y. I don’t know why. It’s not that I’m religious and I don’t believe in what it stands for, I just don’t like it.

Ick. Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Now hopefully I can move on.

Bumper sticker picture by altoflower and used via Creative Commons.

So, Wednesday afternoon Chris got home from work before I did and he found a wedding present sitting on the front step. Pretty exciting, right? Yes…definitely…right up until you read the card on one of the packages that says:

LOL. I got home from work & the first thing Chris says is “Do you know a Warner Family?” (I think he meant “Is there something you need to tell me?!?)

I do know some Warner’s, but they’re not invited to the wedding and so together we looked at the invoice and figured out that we were actually supposed to have 2 items in the box but only one of them was correct. When I opened that gift, this is what I found…and just for the record…I have NO need for this item at this time!

So, I had to call Target.com yesterday & get it straightened out. Supposedly they’re shipping me the correct item for delivery next week. It was a pretty funny experience!