Weddingbee

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!

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.

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.

They were filled with candy, girly spa stuff, plastic accessories and lip smackers (the bride and I LOVED these in grade school). We even found little packs of “special candy” at Lover’s Lane on the way up to Wisconsin. Hers had a few extra goodies, including a little crown, a flashing shot glass, a big button with “I’m the Bride” on it and a pretty tame deck of truth or dare cards. I made the little stickers with my favorite new find- full sheet labels- and a big circle punch. I heat embossed the little engagement ring stamp with gold embossing powder.

We also made matching tank tops. The bride is notorious for her love of pink, so my trip to Old Navy was pretty. I designed an image for an iron-on transfer and made them at home. It was surprisingly easy and I was really happy with how they turned out.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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