Jam Packed Summer

Summer is just about here and I am excited for everything we have planned. We have a jam packed schedule for the coming months. Here are the things we have planned from now through the beginning of July. Not many weekends free!

- BBQ to commemorate Steve's first home brewed beer
- Corporate Challenge events, 5K and Softball for sure. I haven't played softball since 7th grade. I doubt my skills are any better now than they were then though!
- SL, Mike & Tina visit to KC, in combination with the Crawl for Cancer
- Jessica Graduates from High School
- Beach House - Texas
- Black Keys concert
- Nicki & Matt's wedding
- Jessica's graduation party
- Kim and Brian visit KC - Boulevard tour and Cards vs Royals Game
- NJ/NYC with Steve and Jessica

Some things we might also be doing:
- Camping with Leslie & Paul
- Dogs Night Out - a 3 Dog Bakery sponsored event where you go out to eat with your dogs!
- Float trip?
- Hopefully going to Schlitterbahn some time.

Errands

We got in to St Louis late last night. Today we woke up and got right to some wedding errands. Including going to the St Louis County City Hall to get out marriage license!

Just one step closer to getting married! :)

Sneak Peek!

4 1/2 more days to the wedding! :) I thought I would give you all a little taste of what is to come. Nothing is too revealing I think. Here is just a little of what I, along with the help of others, have been working hard on over the last few months. I can't wait to see how it all comes together!

Ceremony Music

Pretty much everything for the wedding has been planned out by now, except for minor details. One thing that Steve and I had not put much thought into though was music for the ceremony. The people at the Piper Palm House mentioned that a lot of people use ipods or something of the like for music. At the time this was alright with us, so we figured we would go with that and work on it when the time came. Well it was time to figure out the music for the ceremony over the last week. I put Steve in charge of it. Then one night he tells me that he needs to talk to me about it. He is no longer happy with the idea of having someone press play on a cd or ipod and he worries that it could ruin the wedding. I tell him everything will be fine no matter what, its just music. Little did I know he had really thought all of this through and researched people to play at the wedding. So sweet of him! So now we are having a string duo play from Noteworthy Music.
There will be a violin and a classical guitar playing. We picked out the songs from their list last night and we are super excited about them playing. And now with the music picked out I can finalize the programs and get them printed.

Catching Up!

Its been quite a while since I have posted anything. Everything has been so busy lately. I'm just now fitting in some time to blog. A few weekends ago I traveled to St. Louis for many many wedding happenings. Mom and Ellen were able to come into town also. It was great to get to see them for a weekend and have some helpers along for wedding stuff. I got in earlier than I expected Friday night and was able to meet up with Kara(who just happened to be in town the same weekend!), Nickie and Jenni. It was good to get to hang out with them. I was also able to spend some time with Leslie and Paul who were kind enough to let me stay with them.I got up early on Saturday and began a long, but fun day of wedding stuff. I had a meeting with the florist first, then met mom, Ellen and mama at the dress shop. I put on my dress and it fit perfectly! Then it was off to the caterer. We finalized so many details. It felt great to get so much figured out. After the caterer it was almost time for my first shower of the weekend. Hawaiian theme at the Kozlen's house!

Kozlen group pic

James' group pic

Awesome pillow Ellen had made for me.

The shower was super fun. I felt like I could post a ton of pics from it. Kim had made up a few games for me to play, that I know got lots of laughs out of everyone. The food was yummmm. Karen knows what I like...lots of dip. hehe. Thank you to everyone that helped with the shower and thank you to everyone that could make it!
After the shower Ellen and I ran wedding related errands for the next 4-5 hours. Then it was back to Mama's house where I put everyone to work crafting the rest of the night. They had a blast I just know it. hehe

Sunday we had another shower, in Belleville. It was brunch and was awesome! Its a wonder that I have lost any weight with how much I love food. haha.

Mom's wonderful friends, Rosanne, Tracy and Toni, who threw the shower. Thank you ladies!

Awesome cupcakes and a bride Barbie cake :)

Thank you to everyone that was able to make it to this shower also. I had a wonderful time and it was great to get to visit with all of you!

50 Days!

Today is 50 days till the wedding! Steve and I would go out and celebrate tonight, but I will be spending my Friday night in the car. It is worth it though. This weekend is filled with wedding stuff in St Louis. 2 showers, a dress fitting, florist and cater meetings. Plus my mom and my sister are in town, so that makes it extra special. :) I plan on putting them to work on a few things. hehe.

Look Out!

Be on the look out...invitations have started to go out! Don't start to worry if you haven't gotten one yet. I am addressing them in groups of 20 and mailing them. They are being done in no particular order. Today I am mailing my 3rd set. I know some people from the first and second set have gotten theirs. Its very exciting. I can't wait to start getting response cards in the mail!

Making Progress

Another weekend in town meant getting more things done for the wedding. We had directions printed off for the invitations, now we have everything we need to start addressing and sending them off. I did some minimal crafting, making pom poms with the rest of the yarn I had. We also finished getting registered. I am in the market for some shower and rehearsal dresses and I found one this weekend. My shower at Steve's parents house is Hawaiian themed and I found a great dress at Target for it. See below. But mine has a totally different print(they didn't have the right one online to show you). Mine is pink, orangish and yellow and has hibiscus flowers on it. I think it will fit the occasion very well and I can take it on the honeymoon. :)

Food!

While trying to check the many, many things off of my wedding to do list, I emailed the caterer this week and confirmed our menu and a few other details. I am so excited for the food. It was delicious when we went for our tasting. I saw this salad at a wedding on the Bride's Cafe and it looks similar to the one we are having. Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is!

Invitations!

Friday, while mom and Ellen were here, we went and looked at invitations at Statements. They had a ton of books to look through. We marked probably 8 invitations we liked then went back through them and narrowed them down to our favorites of those. Here are some of the finalists:

We took Steve back to the store on Saturday to get his opinion on the ones we picked out. I'm not going to tell you which ones we decided on, but we picked one and placed our order! You will find out which one when you get them in the mail. :) I should be getting a proof of them in about a week. Once that is finalized they will be printed, shipped to the store, and eventually in your mailbox. :)

Candy!!

I love candy! Some people have candy bars at their reception. I thought this was cute...(from the Bride's Cafe)

They put the place cards in trays with candy. A twist on this could be to use dog bones and have baggies for people to take some for their pets, since we are going to be donating to an animal shelter.

Invitation Workshop

I signed up to go to a free scrapbooking bridal showcase class at Archiver’s last week. I was a little disappointed, because I went to it thinking I would be making something, along with getting lots of good ideas since it was called a class. All it turned out to be was a woman showing you the different types of paper they sell that you could use to make invitations and there were books you could flip through for ideas.

It was nice looking at a few different ideas for invitations. I have thought about the idea of making my own invites before. This “class” and a nice phone conversation with KTG (who had just finished making her own wedding invites) confirmed for me that it would be way to overwhelming to do this on my own. I don’t think the cost saved would out way the stress I would have making 250+ invites on my own. I do think though that I will make the response cards, directions and maybe save the dates on my own, these are much smaller tasks.

Mom, Dad and Ellen will be visiting us in Kansas in 3 weeks and I have a trip planned to a stationary store to look at invites and maybe pick some out. Here are a few favorite invites of mine that I saw when I attended the bridal fair with the Wilkinson’s. You probably wont be getting these in the mail though, as they are on the completely opposite cost end of making your own.

207 Days to go!

The Knot has changed their wedding websites, so I upgraded ours and added a ton more information than was previously on it. I plan on having the url for our site on the save the dates(although we still have not decided on if we are doing them or not) and on our invites. Check it out!

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/SarahJames&StephenKozlen

Registering

I made Steve and I an appointment this morning to go to a wedding registry event at Crate and Barrel. They open the store early on a few Sunday mornings for couples to come in and register. We are set up to go on March 1.

Other than Crate and Barrel I think we have decided we will register at Bed Bath and Beyond and Macy's. Which we probably will not do until March or after also. I am going to go through a registry check list this afternoon to see what all we may want to register for. :)

Rehearsal part II

I forgot to mention the rehearsal! Even though our rehearsal will be in the afternoon on Friday we are still planning on doing the traditional rehearsal dinner that night. Steve's mom booked, this past weekend, the upstairs room at Rigazzi's for our rehearsal dinner. Their menu sounds yummmm! I can't wait.

Planning Planning Planning Update :)

So much is getting done it’s exciting. Friday and Saturday were full of wedding stuff. Planning seems to be in full motion now. The flowers are picked out; I have pics I will post soon. I will be getting the vases from a friend this weekend. I think the Friday before the wedding we are going to go to Walter Knoll and make our own centerpieces. The lady there was confident we could do them since they are pretty simple and only contain 1 flower. This cuts down on the cost tremendously. They treat you like a florist, so you get all of the flowers at wholesale prices. They will still deliver everything to the reception site though and set them up. After the florist we went to the Piper Palm house to check it out again and figure out some logistics. Being there just reminded Steve and me how much we love it and can’t wait to get married there.
Saturday was spent trying on dresses and tasting food. I found a dress! I love it and if I could I would post a picture up for all of you to see, but Steve says he can’t know about it at all so I wont do that. :) Ellen and Sarah were along and they ordered their bridesmaid dresses. Kim and Jessica will be doing the same soon and then I can check ordering all of the dresses off my list. From there we went to a tasting of one of the caterers we may use. It was really good. It also was nice to be able to talk to someone in person and get an idea of what they can do and they could get a better idea of what we want.
Sunday we did another sort of tasting. One caterer, Butler’s Pantry, does not do a tasting, but they give you two tickets to go to a brunch they serve. It just happens to be at the Piper Palm house. :) The brunch was good, but I was disappointed because I didn’t feel like it was a good way to choose if I would want them to cater our wedding. I mean I’m not going to be having omelets and French toast at the wedding. Hehe
I am all about getting more things done. I have been looking up stuff left and right. I am waiting on a few referrals before contacting a baker, invites and dj. Steve is the main one on DJ duty though. Lots of posts coming up I hope.

Flowers

One of our stops on Friday is to Walter Knoll florist. They come well recommended from both Kara Chung and Kim Gilmore. Here are two bouquets that I like a lot. I found the white one first for me and later came across the bridesmaid one that was very similar. I don't know what kind of flowers I want in mine, but I really like how they are surrounded by the big green leaves. I had another bouquet I liked a lot, but I can't seem to find the picture of it anywhere right now.

I found the third one I like! See below. I really like the folded palms in it.

Planning Planning Planning

It’s getting so close to Christmas! I am very excited to get to see and spend some time with all of our families. I am also very excited because we are going to get some big things checked off the wedding to-do list. On the agenda while in St Louis is: going to the florist, visiting the Piper Palm house, Bridal dress shopping, visiting with 2 caterers and a dinner with Steve’s parents and my parents. It is going to be a few very busy days, but it will be nice to have some of these things completed. After this the next things seem to be finding an officient, a dj, a bus to drive us and a cake place.

Busy!

Things have been very busy lately. We were in St Louis last weekend for Becky and Steve's wedding (congratulations!!!) and ever since then the ball has really gotten rolling on planning. We met with a photographer last Saturday, I emailed a florist and ceremony officiant this week and mom called a caterer today for us. We have been lining up days we are back in STL next with appointments. It is going to be very busy, but I can't wait to get everything going! I have lots of pictures and things I want to blog about. Hopefully I can find time later on to fill you in on everything.