Giving back...to your entourage

We all know brides get to be pampered throughout their engagement, but what about their friends? Yes, their guests are treated to a fabulous wedding (and often, welcome bags), but what about the other events? 


As a bridesmaid, while prepping for the bride-to-be's bachelorette weekend at the beach, I decided to put together some fun goodies for the entourage. 

Flip flops EVERYWHERE

The first project was to make personalized cups for each of the attendees. I used plastic martini glasses purchased from Party City and a simple Sharpie. Each glass had the girl's name + "C___'s Bachelorette 2010" around the base.

In production

In use for the champagne toast

If you look to the left of the photo, you can see one cup that doesn't match (the horror!!). Well, it seemed unfair not to give the bachelorette special treatment! We gave her this fancy glass from Lolita and, let me tell you, it got a LOT of action over the weekend!

Poof not included

Beside the cups, I decided to do gift bags since, well, who doesn't like gifts!?!? This started with paper gift bags from Party City, personalized again with their name and "C____'s Bachelorette" (this time I just used Crayola markers).

The bachelorette gets a special one!

In the gift bags, we looked to include some things that would fit for both the beach...and a bachelorette! Here's a look at some of our items (full list below).

No tan lines!

Cure hangovers

Put a ring on it

Catch up on your gossip

The full list: bachelorette mints, candy, chap stick, granola bars, magazines, pain reliever, ring mints, sunscreen and, of course, the water bottles! Added to the bachelorette bag: bachelorette sash, boa, flashing button and monogrammed tissues.

All in all, the details were both recognized and enjoyed - from the tableware to the glasses. The gift bags were a HUGE hit, especially the magazines and the pain relievers! It was well worth the effort and I definitely plan to do again, for my own bachelorette, with only minimal adjustment (like maybe Wal-Mart instead of CVS purchases, more specific to location, etc. - more on that to come). 

What have you seen or done at bachelorette parties that you think is worth repeating?

How Do You Do?

[waves hello]

Hi there! I can't believe that I'm writing this post...it feels so surreal and I am just so SO honored. In the course of a couple of hours, I went from emailing Mrs. Penguin about whether my auto response (you know, for rejection) had gone to my email doppleganger* to receiving an invitation to join the Hive. WOW.

How to save the date? - Part IV

If you missed anything, here are links to Part I, Part II and Part III.

As you saw, we had 5 top choices from our engagement session for the photo on our save the date...so which one did we choose?

They're HEREEEEEE
Seriously, when I picked up this bag I was giddy with excitement

Engagement Session

Our engagement session came just shortly after our venue change, so we felt like we had a fresh start! The plan was to do photos around the historic Old City section of Philadelphia since we would be on the other side for the wedding (Mr. Turkey is also a big history buff). We had a GORGEOUS day for our engagement pictures with our fantastic photographer and our slight nerves were calmed almost instantly.

There were definitely some awkward photos at the start!

All photos in this post are by Philip Gabriel Photography.

Embracing the New (Venue)!

So, we had a replacement for the Kimmel Center on the table.

With what we knew - both about the new option and the (lack of) other options for 05/XX/12 - it was nearly set that we would have our wedding at The Rittenhouse. However, we couldn't seal the deal sight unseen, so my mom came down from NY the next day to make the visit with me*. Be prepared for a very picture-heavy post!

Picture Love

This is a bit out of order, but since I'm about to tell you about our engagement session, it probably makes sense to tell you about our photographer (you know, the one taking the pictures).

Although I haven't talked at all about photography, it was something that was very important to us. I LOVE pictures and am known for always having a camera with me (seriously - every day). In fact, in college, many of my girlfriends didn't have cameras since they knew I would be prepared.

Designated photographer at a bridal shower

My love of photography led me to peruse many blogs and websites after our engagement. Too many to even remember. I didn't even keep track, to be honest. Yes, I'm a terrible blogger.

Really really ridiculously good...

handwriting.

As I mentioned, we received our Save the Date envelopes early so that I could get working on the calligraphy for the envelopes. My main artistic skill has always been my penmanship - since I was a kid (sorry - no long lost samples of my journals to insert here). And to answer one of the most asked questions - no, I did not attend a Catholic school.

I thought it would be fun to do the calligraphy for our paper products, but, somewhat more importantly, I thought our friends and family would expect it. Seriously - for those who know me well, if I had paid for calligraphy it would have been...I'd argue...disappointing. Even Mr. Turkey took it for granted.