Pillowfights, Partying, and Piers: A Wedding for the Ages

I like aliteration.

Last week I was the Maid of Honor (MOH) in a fabulous beach wedding. My friend, and sorority sister Allie was marrying the love of her life... Dave.

They planned an amazing wedding on the beach, which all of her friends pitched in to help prepare for. It ended with a spectacular wedding day.

Beautiful beachfront ceremony.

The day started off with a pampering at the Aveda Salon. After manis and pedis the bridesmaids headed back to the beach house to get hair and makeup done.

Then we opened our bridesmaid gifts!

Wrap around towels with our names embroidered on them! So of course we had a staged pillowfight!

All the lovely ladies of Gamma Phi Beta... and Dave, photo-bombing us.

The reception was at her husband's family home (20 minutes away from the beach house). We danced all night.

The beautiful reception.

After the reception all us 20 somethings headed back to the beach house for an after party.

We proceeded to have tons of fun. About 4 am the bride fell asleep in her wedding dress... on the pier. I kid you not. It kills me that I don't have pictures of this.

I finally hit the hay around 5am central time... so 6am Tina time (EST).

The next day there was coffee... and donuts, and driving from Florida back to NOLA.

It was a freat wedding with wonderful people. I'm so happy for the bride and groom... plus, they are letting my crash in their guest room the first few weeks I'm in NOLA. Woo hoo for awesome friends!

Love, Tina Marie

PS- For those wondering, yes, I caught the bouquet. Again. :)

Cancun, Part 1

Are ya'll still following me? I know I haven't blogged in sometime (2 weeks!) but I have my reasons. I was out of the country for part of that time. I was at a wedding in Cancun, Mexico!
Ya'll are about to be super jealous...

These are the huge sliding glass doors in my room. I stayed at a resort right on the beach.

This is my own private balcony. I ate breakfast (room service) out here in the mornings. The resort was all inclusive so all my food, drinks, and even room service was included!

What, what! Yep, that's the hot tub... IN MY ROOM! Every room had one. Ahhh...

These are the private cabana's in front of the pool. I actually spent more time at the pool that had the volleyball net tho.

During the day (Day 1) we went into town. We walked over to the beach to take pictures. The water was clear and beautiful. It was almost an aqua color.

It was the perfect temperature too... we didn't bring our bathing suits so we just walked in the sand and stuck our feet in the water...

Gratuitous picture of me and Mike... shorts in November, ahhh...

So I thought I would give you a taste of the vacation before I delved into the exciting parts. Stay tuned because cliff diving, and Chichen Itza are still to come!

Wedding Pomanders

Do you know what a pomander is?
I didn't really either until I became the crafts guru for my cousin's wedding.
I'm really looking forward to her affair. It will be an outdoor ceremony at the Dallas Arboretum.
I'm making pomander's to hang from the rows.
There are a few examples I took some inspiration from:

I started off with styrofoam balls. I picked these up at Michaels for about $1 each.

I decided to make paper pomanders, as they were a little cheaper to make than fabric ones. I also picked up my paper supply from Michaels.
To cut out the flower shapes I used hole punches. I'm sure all you crafters have seen the hole punches in your local craft store. I thought it would be a nice contrast if I used 2 different types of cutouts. For the center I used pink, and coral color for the outer petals. The center of each flower is a pushpin with a pearl head. I picked these up at Walmart for about $2 a box.

Also, it should be noted that my local dollar store (yes I shop at the dollar store) has these same kinds of cutouts for only $1! Whereas I pay $5-8 at the craft store.
It's something you may want to check out.

I made my pomanders double ended (2 on one piece of ribbon).

Sorry for the crappy pictures, I still havent uncovered my camera cord from the move... over a month ago.

I think they came out really well. They were a little tiresome, but very easy to make!

Love, Tina Marie