How to Be An Awesome Guest at an Engagement Party*

1. Show up with smiles, mucho congratulations, and a camera.

2. Tail party guests with said camera, snapping candids, group shots, and capturing party decoration details. 

3. Print pictures, assemble into an album, and mail to the future bride and groom.

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My cousin Pam did this for Mr. B and I at our engagement party, and I was so, so happy when I received the album in the mail! I am a person who photographs everything I do, but obviously there was no time to hang out behind the lens at my own party. I was bummed about not getting enough pictures, so it was awesome to realize that someone else had taken care of this for us. Plus, she included a CD of the pictures too, so we could print some out on our own as well.

My best friend, BM Kelly, is having an engagement party at the end of October, and I will definitely pull a Pam and act as party paparazzi.

What thoughtful things did people surprise you with for your engagement?

PS: Posting could be erratic this week, Hurricane Irene is set to pummel my state in a matter of hours (eek) and I have no idea what the power/Internet/other situation will look like afterward. Hope anyone in its path stays safe this weekend!!!

Engagement Party Recap

Our engagement party was this past weekend, and it was so much fun! We had a backyard pool party, with 75 family members and our bridal party in attendance. Most people just hung out, ate, and chatted, the little cousins swam, and the always classy bride to be owned at flip cup.  A little photo recap:

 

Me with 3 of my bridesmaids

 

With our respective future bros-in-law

A nice view of the deck

 

I think this shot of my little cousins in the pool is so cute!

 

Another party candid..bored yet?

 What's a party without drinking games?

We had such a good time! Mr. B and I joked that the party, in a lot of ways, was good practice for the wedding. For starters, it required a bunch of advance planning for things like the menu, music, and my outfit(which happened to be a white dress!) But even so, some last minute work, like setting up tables and making our sangria, was unavoidable:

We had tons of family there, and unfortunately didn’t get to spend enough time with anyone! We were running around thanking people for coming, catching up quickly, and making the rounds.

We also barely saw each other!

And we had almost no time to scarf down our casual yet delicious spread of gigantic 8 foot subs, ziti, meatballs, wings, and copious appetizers.

We did a little cake-cutting. This was sort of thrown on us, so hopefully we are less awkward when we do this at our wedding!

And we had a cool cake with our engagement picture printed on it: 

People encouraged us to open gifts, so I had some bridal shower practice, with my maid of honor handing me gifts and a good family friend writing everything down. We got such nice stuff, but opening them in front of people is something I'm going to have to get more comfortable with.

Afterward, we snuggled, read our cards, and then I went home around 2 am. I was so wired from all the excitement (the party went on for almost 10 hours!), and from pumping my body full of Coors Light all day, that I barely slept at all.

The best part was how happy I felt after all of it. Ever have a great weekend, or a great vacation, and then feel bummed when it’s over? That’s what I expected after the party, but it wasn’t like that. We both felt so lucky to have tons of family members that traveled from all over, even as far as Chicago, just to be able to celebrate with us. I was so happy people stuck around for hours too. I guess I was nervous that with all the family and small amounts of people from my age group, that my friends would be bored. But they were the best of all! I just assumed at least my girlfriends would leave early, but they raged on, playing drinking games and hanging out all night. My MOH and her fiancé being the very last people to leave- they’re some of my faves, and having them stick around with so long was unexpected but a great way to celebrate! 

Did you guys have engagement parties?

Engagement Party Plans

You’ve seen our engagement party invites, and now it’s party time in just two short weeks!

We’ve got a big crowd: out of the 90 people invited, only 10 said no! (Two of the no’s are bridesmaids unfortunately.)

Most of the plans are underway- Mr. B’s mom has organized the menu, a casual Italian feast, his dad’s given the lawn a makeover, the pool is ready to go, and the tent and tables are ordered. My mom is working on the beer and sangria, as well as the cake (she wants to put our picture on it, gah).

I’m creating a playlist, which includes a random mix of awesome, or at least my version of it: Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Frankie Valli, Weezer and Ozma (look them up) for Mr. B and me, Pearl Jam, a bunch of Usher/Taio/Gaga etc, miscellaneous classic rock, plus a restrained dose of the Backstreet Boys and ACDC, because it’s not a party if I can’t chug a beer and shout along to Shook Me All Night Long (sorry Mom!). I’m hoping to have some beer pong set up too, since there's about 15 or 20 college age people attending.

So the only thing left to think about, for me at least, is my outfit. I figured an engagement was a reason to splurge a little bit.  I loved the following:

 Dress pic source

At over $300 each though, they were too much. So I found a more modest splurge (if you can call $170 modest) in this Lilly Pulitzer:

Blossom!

It was too short on me. I’m 5’6 and live in heels, so issue creeps up frequently.

I scoured the mall, but in the end, the only thing I really love is the outfit I wore for my engagement pictures- a plain white strapless dress with a cardigan and gigantic necklace.

For the party, I’d change up the cardigan from navy to a bright coral, swap the pearls for a chunky turquoise necklace, and wear gold espadrille wedges instead of the navy ones, but it’s still the same basic outfit. 

Pic sources: Necklace, Cardigan, Wedges

Considering some engagement pics might be displayed at the party, and obviously everything will go up on Facebook, I can’t decide if it’s a bad idea to repeat the look.

Thoughts?? Am I being totally shallow, or is it weird/tacky to repeat? I have kind of lost steam for shopping!

Sweet Relief

So today as I was flipping through the mail, I noticed a small brown envelope addressed to me from our photographer. I tore it open to reveal its contents:

Our engagement pictures!

We’d seen a sneak preview through email, but I was so excited to have real copies of all the pictures. The pictures, in case my blog post title didn’t make it obvious, really came out okay. My hair, while nowhere near perfect (and in no way similar to how I ever wear it) really looks fine in the pictures. Not amazing, not perfect, but fine. Our outfits photographed well. Our photographer came up with great poses, and really worked with the weather. The pictures aren’t what I had always envisioned (sun, surf, rides), but you know what? They came out good anyway! Maybe this is something I should keep in mind for the wedding- little things might go wrong, but the overall result will be right. 

Okay, so you probably want to see these don’t you…Click ahead!

Engagement Picture Fiasco

Every email that shows up in my inbox today is giving me a heart attack.

Don’t the coupon people at Ann Taylor know that WE ARE SUPPOSED TO GET OUR ENGAGEMENT PICTURES BACK any day now and I need them to stop faking me out?!  I feel like I’m waiting for my semester grades in Calc- half of me is terrified of the potential horror, and the other half anxiously hopes for the best.  

See, our shoot was kind of a disaster. I was really pumped about engagement pictures, looking forward to them even before I had a ring. I had visions of us frolicking on the boardwalk, cotton candy in hand, yellow rays of sun sparkling across my ring. Like these:

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I booked the April shoot in January, and took the day off of work, for maximum nail, hair, and makeup pampering. For my hair, I wanted something polished but sexy, a blowout with volume and maybe some curls at the end. Like this:

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I wanted simple, pretty makeup, not wild, but I did want my eyes to stand out:

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My blowout looked a little too curly when I left the salon, but I reasoned it would fall a bit and be perfect. Instead, it fell so much that the makeup artist asked how I was going to do my hair when I got home. Unfortunately, I had no time to fix it, because  my makeup looked porn star awful and redoing that was the bigger priority. She actually used burgundy eyeshadow, and rimmed my eyes and lips in such thick liner that I had to hide behind my sunglasses as I slunk out of Nordstrom’s. Luckily, I’ve never hated the way I do my own makeup, so I washed it off, and crafted a quick navy smoky eye at home (while panicking to Mr. B, screaming at him to get me a shot of gin, so I could calm down and not look frazzled in pics. Wisely, he refused).  

My hair was still hateful, but my makeup salvaged and our outfits awesome. Plus, Mr. B had thoughtfully arranged some props on his own, including a bright bouquet of yellow roses and his guitar. It would be ok.

Yeah, it wasn't. The weather might have been sunny in my hometown, a half hour from the shore, but it was was gray and wet once we crossed the bridge to the beach. The boardwalk was smothered by a late afternoon fog so heavy we couldn’t even see the water. A steady mist floated through the air, covering the photographer’s camera in a thin layer of moisture that he kept wiping off.  Plus it was freezing, and our teeth chattered through every posed kiss.

Engagement Party Invites: Finished Product

So the other day I posted the computer design of my engagement party invites. Here’s how I finished them.

Step 1: Print the invites

You may have a printer at home that prints nicely on cardstock without making you want to throw it out a window. I do not possess such luxuries, so I turned to my local Staples. Honestly, the work there is a little haphazard, but it’s also cheap and easier than fighting my home printer. I set up my file with 2 invites per 8.5 x 11 page, and had Staples cut them down to my 4 x 6 size. They charge by the page and cut.

Personal Pic

Step 2: Mount invites on cardstock

Engagement Pictures are Trying to Kill Me

Mr. B and I planned to take our engagement pictures on the boardwalk, but I recently discovered The Best Pictures Ever, which have me reconsidering.

These pictures so good they prompted me to send the following string of one line emails (copied from my Gmail) to Mr. B at work. Seems I type like I'm drunk when excited:

LOOK AT THIS http://www.100layercake.com/blog/archives/12687

scroll to very bottom

SIGH 

IM IN LOVE adn im in love with her outfit

brad we need boat pics. f the boardwalk everyone does the boardwalk!!

omg lets do BOHT

You might be wondering what these engagement pictures are:

Engagement Pictures- Where to Take?

Long before I was engaged or all that involved in the world of weddings, I knew I wanted to take our engagement pictures on our favorite boardwalk. It's where so many of our "firsts" have taken place- kiss, date, anniversary, etc. In the summer, we're there pretty much weekly, hitting up the bars with our friends or walking the boards, picking out our dream beach houses. There's no question its "our" place, so it seems a natural choice for the engagement pictures.

Here’s the kind of thing I had in mind:

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Our Proposal Story

My proposal did not really come as a total surprise.  Mr. B had told me it would happen by a certain date, and we had gotten down to the last weekend before that date. Really, it was just a matter of it happening Friday or Saturday. And I was okay with that- I'm too much of a control freak to not have some idea what's going on! 

Tuesday of the proposal week, Mr. B told me our favorite local restaurant was running a special 3 course prix fixe menu. Knowing I was a sucker for such things, he thought we should check it out.  In all honesty, it didn’t occur to me he might propose at dinner. I figured a restaurant proposal was way too obvious, and he probably just wanted to go out.  It's not a fancy place anyway. But just in case, I took extra care getting ready Friday night- one thing I had always told him was that however he proposes, the cover story better convince me to dress up! In fact, I had picked out 3 different outfits to wear each night of the weekend, so that no matter when he did it, I'd be looking good in all the pictures we'd take!


I was getting ready when he came over to pick me up (in fact, I was wearing the hot look of black tights with a cardigan- who needs pants?). He seemed a little antsy, but I figured watching me meticulously apply mascara wasn't anyone's idea of a good time. When I was finally ready, I walked into my bedroom, where he was sitting on the computer.


"I printed out the menu for you" he said.


"Oh good! I kept meaning to look it up." Side note: I have an obsession with menus. I read them for fun sometimes when I'm bored at work (yes, it's weird) and I always have to check the menu before we go out to dinner, so I know what I'm in for (Like I said, not good with surprises!)

Only instead of handing me a computer printout of the restaurant menu, he handed me this one:

Personal Photo

It's the story of our relationship in menu format- "Appetizers" tells some stories from the beginning, "First Course" from a little later, etc. And "Dessert" was the "ice-ing on the cake"- aka my ring!! It was so cute- it was even laminated!! As I was reading the menu, he got down on one knee and presented me with the ring. We were so excited that he actually forgot to ask me to marry him until a few minutes afterward! I was surprised at my reaction- I thought I would cry, or freak out, but I just felt very calm and happy.


I ran downstairs to show my parents (even though I knew they already knew all about it, since he'd asked their permission months ago), and my dad snapped this great shot of us. I love how excited we look.

Personal Photo

After jumping up and down with my parents, he took me to the restaurant (and remembered to get my favorite wine), and I spend the majority of dinner staring at the sparkly new addition to my left hand.

When we got back to my house, I walked in the door only to be greeted by our families and some of our best friends! My mom had laid out an awesome spread, with all my favorite things (cheese platters and trays of olives, mmm), and everyone toasted us with champagne, which I may have slightly overindulged in.

  

Us with future groomsman Josh, MOH Jenn, and her fiance Matt

It was the most wonderful proposal I could have ever imagined, combining all the elements of a good one: something thoughtful and personal that could only work for me (the menu), a dinner date at our restaurant (dinner dates are my favorite kind, I love food), and a continued surprise celebration at my house, with everyone I love! AND a great new piece of jewelry- the exact Tacori setting I had wanted for years!!

Nice cuticles

But the best part about it is seeing that it makes him just as happy as it makes me! 

Waiting...

The first time I heard the term "waiting" was when my engaged best friend referred to me as a "waiting girl" in an email. My fiance read it, and cracked up, laughing hysterically and saying, ”Only girls would have something like this.” And he’s right! Maybe we are crazy, but there does come a point when you know the ring is imminent, but it’s still not here. Waiting is one of the most exciting, but also agonizing, times, and it's nice to have a community of girls to share that with (Weddingbee, I'm looking at you). You’re dying to get engaged, you’ve allowed yourself to start looking at blogs, maybe sneaking a magazine or two, and you feel like it’s coming, yet it’s not here yet and you don’t know when it will be. My waiting period was maybe four months, only two of which really felt agonizingly long:

July

My best friend and her fiancé get engaged, which I think starts to subconsciously put the wheels in motion (Thanks Matt!)

August

For my 24^th birthday, he gave me a David Yurman diamond ring, and promised to propose within the year. He then took me ring shopping to try on the Tacori I’d been drooling over.  And it was as awesome in person as it looked in the magazines! But it still didn’t feel that real- I don’t think that he told his parents we had done that, and I knew that even if we were looking, an actual engagement was still very far off. Although I did take this month as an opportunity to present him with a businesslike bulleted 5 point plan on why he should propose by Christmas (it was funny, I swear!)

Always thought promise rings were corny till I got one...haha (Source)

September

Well, now his parents know. He tells me that they had some family friends over for dinner, who asked when he was moving to the city where he works. He told them he was going to wait until I moved out so he could move with me. His mother reminded him that she knew I didn’t want to live together before we were married. So he took that opportunity to say, “Well maybe we will be married soon.”

Soon after that, his mother starts saying little things about things we’ll need when we live together, and starts more sentences with, “When you two are married…”

October

Drunken confessions begin!! It takes little more than two Coronas for the words to slip out. First I hear he’s discussing diamonds with his coworkers. Then I hear he’s asked my best friend’s fiancé for jeweler information.

Only took two of these bad boys to get some choice info! Source

November

At this point, I am told it will be before Christmas. Unfortunately, I’m told this much too early (Christmas is still 8 weeks away, is my proposal 2 weeks away or 8 weeks?!) and I cannot stop bothering him. Since I know it’s coming, I’m not afraid of scaring him off, and I (annoyingly) press him for information. Constantly. Whoops. I kept thinking everything was a sign that it was about to happen- he left work early one random Wednesday? Well obviously  he was proposing (he wasn't). He had to "run errands" with his dad? Yeah right, he was obviously going to pick up my ring (again, wrong. Really just running errands). There may have been a temper tantrum or two. I’m not proud of it, but I’m aiming to be honest here. It sucks, and it’s hard to wait, especially when it feels so close.

December

The proposal! December 10, 2010! One of the most exciting days of my life, with a story to come soon!

One of the top 5 engagement perks...

Is being able to buy these gorgeous plates!

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I have always had a softspot for cute dinnerware and serveware, but since I never had my own place, I never bought it. It was always an "I'll wait till I get married" kind of thing.


I wandered in JC Penney on a lunch break and literally stopped and did a double take when I saw these on display in the entrance. And then it hit me: I am getting married! I CAN BUY THIS STUFF!


I wish I was kidding, but this actually is one of the top 5 perks so far with being engaged. It's a silly thing to be so excited about, but I am!

Engagement Gift Ideas

My best friend got engaged before anyone else I knew, and her proposal involved a surprise party at her house. While I knew I would get her a "proper" engagement gift eventually, I wanted something small but thoughtful to bring on the actual engagement night. I thought a lot about what would be fun, and below are some ideas I had, as well as some gifts I received on my own engagement night:

 Lolita Martini Glasses: Lolita makes adorable painted barware for all different occasions. Above, the “Wedding Toast” Glass, decorated with engagement rings.


Ring holders: I received beautiful ones from Lenox and Brighton.





Magazines! Isn’t finally being able to buy a bridal magazine one of the most exciting parts of first getting engaged? Don’t make your friend go out and get her own magazines the next day- she’s going to wish she had some to read in her pajamas when she wakes up. It’s a gift that's inexpensive for you but really appreciated by her.

Books: Similar to the magazines, but with a little more meat. My best friend gave me Mindy Weiss’ The Wedding Book, which I don't think I could plan my wedding without, and my mom gave me David Tutera’s Big White Book of Weddings. The Knot and many other companies also publish planners and list books. If you don’t want to get a planning book, the book Altared edited by Colleen Curran, has essays written by brides on all different wedding related topics.

Picture frames: always a safe bet.

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Ornaments: So many engagements happen around Christmastime, so a custom ornament with the couples' names is both seasonal and cute.

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Champagne: depending on your budget, you can also include toasting flutes, or pair this with the magazines as well, so she can relax, read, and celebrate all at the same time (that's what I went with). Or go with wine or beer, depending on what the couple likes- just make the brand a little nicer than usual.

Lunch: if you don’t live close by, plan to meet up for lunch or drinks, treat, and let her talk about the plans! She's going to be excited, so just listen to her talk- now is not the time for you to cut her off with your work woes or boyfriend drama.

Custom thank you cards: This gift may not be for everyone, especially if you think the couple in question may have their own style or ideas for how they want their stationary to look (maybe she’s adamant that it exactly matches the wedding invites). But, they will receive plenty of engagement gifts and may be glad to have thank you cards that they can give to everyone.

Or, combine a few of the books/mags into a little “Engagement Essentials” gift basket- maybe throw in some ring cleaner, or a pretty notebook she can use when she starts to meet with vendors.