Weddingbee Blog

My best friend Erin is getting married this weekend. I cannot believe it! She and her high school sweetheart (sorry Erin!) got engaged a few months before Mr. Peacock and I. We both decided on long engagements, so we have spent the last year or more planning together. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it has been. I feel so lucky that we got to experience this crazy time together, particularly since she and her husband (yay!) are moving to Cincinnati right when they get back from their honeymoon.

Photo from Thorsen Photography

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I realized today that I started the honeymoon conversation a long time ago, but I never let you all know where we were going. It turns out that Marriott stopped allowing you to use points to make your trip all-inclusive this year (boo) so we gave up on that idea. We still aren’t able to go on a long trip in September. Now, our plans call for a quickie honeymoon right after the wedding and a full honeymoon in late December/early January.

After talking it over with our married friends, we realized that we wanted a little getaway right after the wedding. Everyone mentioned how exhausted they were for the first few days of their marriage. Mr. Peacock had heard great things about a small spa in Wisconsin, right outside of the Dells, and set to work convincing me that it was the place to go. The spa sounded wonderful, but a honeymoon in the Wisconsin Dells did not. I went to the Dells with my family when I was 8 for the Tommy Bartlett Air and Water Show. There was a squirrel on water skis. We road the Ducks. It was a wonderful family vacation, but romantic getaway? No.

Then I saw pictures of Sundara, and I changed my mind.
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We had an awesome time at Erin’s bachelorette party last weekend. I thought I would share some of the details in case anyone might be interested in a girls weekend in Lake Geneva.

We stayed at The Cove of Lake Geneva. The rooms are large with full kitchens and a family room, which meant that we only needed 2 rooms for the twelve of us. It was absolutely perfect for our group. We could make sandwiches, margaritas and “specialty” shape cupcakes as well as host a personal shower for 12 women without having to leave the hotel.

The view of the Lake from right outside the Cove. Ahh… we got so lucky with the weather!

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Mr. Peacock’s sister is throwing us a co-ed shower in June and I am so excited! The invites arrived last week and they could not be cuter I love the Mexican theme.

His sister and her husband like to order their Mexican food from a little restaurant down the street from them. It’s really, really good. Hopefully the margaritas will be, too - I’m making them! I’ll tack my recipe onto the end of this post.
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My bestest friend in the whole world (beside Mr. Peacock, of course) is getting married in June. She requested a girls’ weekend in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin - Miss Sundae’s wedding locale - for her bachelorette party and we couldn’t have been more happy to comply. Lake Geneva is an extremely cute little lakeside town just a few hours from Chicago. The big party was this past weekend and we had an amazing time. Once everyone shares their pictures with me, I will write a bigger post with all the details. Everything turned out perfectly and no one wanted to leave on Sunday morning!

My friend did not want anything crazy or any of the typical, kinda tacky but fun antics during the weekend. She did not want a veil covered in condoms or plastic models of the male anatomy. She did not want strippers or embarassing party games. She and I are on the same page there, so it was easy to agree. We wanted to make it special and different from just any other girls’ weekend, so we threw in a few surprises.

First off, the goody bags.

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I know I have posted about it before, but this is the cake that I want.

When I met with my baker, they had no concerns about getting this done. She felt confident that she could do the lacework by hand. I left the meeting feeling equally confident, although I couldn’t stop thinking about it during the ride home. My baker is an old-school Italian baker. Although they have done some amazing work in the past, I was a little worried about all the detail on that lace. I started researching lace cake molds online and found quite a few sources. I kept matching the little lace images to that Martha Stewart cake until I finally found a match at Decorate the Cake.
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I don’t normally do product reviews because I feel like mine always sound like cheesy advertising. I have, however, been bragging about Crest Multicare Whitestrips to anyone who would listen so I thought I would share the love with you all.

I have really sensitive teeth. I had my teeth professionally whitened in college and I was so unhappy. My mouth hurt for months and I had to make weekly trips to my dentist so that he could rate the whiteness of my teeth and send me home with a stronger (ouch) bleach. I’ve tried several at-home whitening strips for upkeep since then and they all left me in pain. A cold wind would blow and my teeth would tingle. Until recently, I had blamed the treatments rather than my teeth and just laid off. Now I am on a solid sensitive toothpaste regime and I am no longer scared of cold water. But, I had still been afraid of the bleach.
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My mom and I had an amazing meeting with our florist, Viv at Petal Play Designs, yesterday. I came equipped with my laptop so that I could show her all the photos that I have been collecting, as well as my room layout from Perfect Table Plan. We walked through our plans for the day and listed all the items that we will need to set every table. Viv is very conscious of my budget and so, to help offset some costs, I walked out of there with a long list of things to buy and to do. I am so excited that I can actually start moving on some of these things!

The three of us talked for a long time about bathroom baskets. My reception venue is owned by the Lincoln Park Zoo and the bathrooms have a bit of a public outdoor restroom feel to them. They have tried really hard to use nice finishes, but you can’t avoid the floor to ceiling tile. My mom has taken on the task of warming them up with candles and little floral arrangements as well as amenity baskets. Viv agreed to supply the decor and to help my mom collect any extra amenities at the end of the evening. That’s when she laid the bad news on us.

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I have always had a fascination with nice handwriting. I think it began in third grade when I saw my friend Melissa dot the “i” in her name with a little heart. Fortunately for me, there is also an “i” in my name. This led to good grades in handwriting- until I decided to write my name in entirely lowercase letters because I thought it looked better.

I often scrap a complete thank you note because I realize that the text had a slight slope. I will spend long periods of time playing with the pens at the Paper Source, trying to find the best tip. This obsession has created a nagging voice in the back of my head, begging me to learn calligraphy before the wedding. So, I bought a book and pens and here I go!

I bought the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Calligraphy.

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Mr. Peacock’s sister/my bridesmaid kindly offered to throw us a wedding shower. She wanted it to be unique and casual, since we will still be having two typical, ladies only showers. It was decided that both boys and girls would be invited, the gifts would have a theme which lent itself to less expensive or off the registry gifts and Mexican food and margaritas would be served.

After throwing around a few great ideas, his sister settled on “entertainment.” I love it because people could bring a bottle of wine, a board game or a movie. They could also bring our blender or wine glasses if they wanted to go the more traditional route. The goal was to come up with an idea that would appeal to both guys and girls and to keep the gifts on the less expensive side. I thought that some of the other ideas we came up with might be helpful, so I am going to share.

Stock the Bar: Guests bring things to stock your bar. Bottles of wine or beer, martini shakers or a personalized pub sign would be an appropriate gift. Opening and making use of the gifts at the shower is an option.
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Speaking of our rehearsal dinner, I am totally excited about our location. Mr. Peacock and I had wanted to do pizza and beer. We were having a hard time finding a place with a room large enough to accommodate our group- and where we loved the pizza. We are pizza snobs. We are from Chicago, it’s in our genes.

After organizing a fundraiser for work at Southport Lanes in Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood, we changed our minds on the pizza idea. It is a little bar and restaurant which also has a private room with four small bowling lanes. It is totally old school with human pin setters. The pin setters love tips and they will either help or hurt your game based on the quality of your tipping (or if they think you are cute). These guys are hilarious. My stomach hurt from laughing and I had mascara running down my face. It is also in a great part of town that tourists don’t normally get to see. Southport Avenue, between Belmont and Addison, is home to an awesome little strip of shops, restaurants and my favorite nail salon.
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As I mentioned in a previous post, Mr. Peacock and I sit on opposite sides of the political spectrum. We are both very interested in politics (we met working for a politician) and with the current never-ending election cycle, we have had a lot to talk about. Since our wedding falls just a few months before the election, we couldn’t help but include something political in the wedding festivities. Mr. Peacock has happily taken control of the rehearsal dinner and is looking forward to giving it an election theme. The only input I gave is that I would love for it to be vintage- i.e. Kennedy v. Nixon, not Bush v. Gore- and that we be on the same ticket. Elephants and donkeys, working together. Done and done.

Mr. Peacock is a little protective over his ideas, so I can’t give too many details, but I promise to share photos later! Here are a few hints as to what we are planning…

from here

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Like a few other bees, I am using the Perfect Table Plan software to assign seats and lay out the room for the reception. I really love playing with it. I already uploaded all of my guests (no, the invitations haven’t gone out yet. Why do you ask?) and have assigned their seats. The software enables you to make connections between people which will help you assign their seat- do you want them to sit right next to each other? At the same table? As far apart from each other as humanly possible? Are they a VIP? You can lock people in at particular tables. If you spend enough time on that, you can just hit “Auto Assign” and the program will seat everyone for you. It is way more fun than it sounds.

Although I can’t figure out how to create my strange, octagonally shaped room, I can still estimate its size. I cut out space for the dance floor, added the bars, the band and enough rectangular tables to seat roughly 200 people. Here is what it looks like. The left and right sides do not represent walls, so it isn’t as cramped as it appears.

What do you think? Should I go back to round tables?

I really want to do long dining tables at our reception. I love the idea of everyone sitting around like a big family rather than sectioned off in our pre-determined groups. People usually prefer round tables because then you can easily look at everyone at your table and they say that makes conversation easier. It might just be me, but I can never hear the people sitting directly across from me, and I usually end up talking to the people on either side of me. It might be a bit better with a rectangular table.

I also like that we could do a variety of smaller arrangements rather than one large one at each table.

from Oh, How Charming! via Bridal Bar Blog

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I just finished finals, and boy is my brain tired. I think I used it all up studying. I had plans to check some wedding items off of my list, but I just couldn’t make it happen. I was going to get back on track this week, but then Mr. Peacock decided to go to a conference in LA and drag me along with him. It’s hard work being his fiance.

Mr. Peacock travels frequently for work and sometimes I get to tag along. I usually end up with a lot of time on my own while he meets with clients or attends meetings. New York was quite good to me for wedding shopping, as was San Francisco. I tried to do a little while we were in Austin, but South by Southwest was way too much fun for shopping. I am so excited to have a little time to wander around Los Angeles. I have always loved it there.

The chief item on my list is shoes. I totally splurged on these and then regretted it- both for the cost and the color. They were gorgeous and very comfortable, but more brown rather than the bronze color that I was hoping to find.
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