Carolina Bride

Most of the day was full of little smiles, a few tears and nervous giggles. The sky constantly changed moods, threatening to rain. The ceremony had to moved inside, but the wedding was happening no matter what Mother Nature's intentions. Chicken salad sandwiches and fruit salad was washed down with Sparkletinis.

Hair was coiffed. Makeup was applied. The photographer, cake and flowers arrived right on time. Slowly friends and family started to show up - the nervous giggles and small smiles faded away to grins and all out laughter. The wedding coordinator (aka: Brian) kept us on time and on task.

The dress was on...the bride was ready. The groom was waiting. And then the tears came - her's not mine. The 'oh my god I'm getting married' tears. The 'this is the day I've been waiting for' tears. The 'I'm about to walk down the aisle with my father to my husband' tears. The 'crap I'm crying and I have $70 worth of make-up on' tears.

I blotted a tissue to her eyes and said it was time to breathe...and walk her ass down that aisle. And through the tears, she smiled, gave me one those Christie looks and said "But these are good tears".

By the time she made it to the end of the aisle she was all smiles - and so was he. And so was every guest in the room

And then they got married. And their happily ever after started.

And the bride? The bride was fabulous.

Her Turn

We're on our way to watch them say "I Do".

What a weekend it will be!

Summer in the Chi - for a minute

Is it kosher to blog about a bachelorette party? Probably not, but I'll still give you a bit of insight to the weekend, because, really, I am not know for my properness.

• I made record time getting to Chicago and successfully caught a Thursday night softball game. We then headed to Four Shadows (which used to be Lee's- we always swore we'd never step foot in the "new Lee's" - that lasted about two months) to hang with some of the gang and munch on a little bit of everything. The night ended with wine at Karen's and plotting for Friday.


• Friday. Friday was one of those almost perfect summer Friday's in Chicago. A Cubs game - yes they lost (and to the freaking Reds of all teams) but the weather was perfect, our seats were fabulous and the beer was cold. Cubs turned into Bin 36 (holy cheese and wine batwomen!). Bin 36 turned into the Signature Room (an Old Fashioned that sadly was icky) which turned into finding Phelan. Finding Phelan turned into going home after two drinks and leaving Michelle with Phelan unsupervised, which, of course, resulted in Michelle being broken all day Saturday. Phelan breaks everyone.
  

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• Saturday was all about girl time. Girly girly girliness. First thing in the morning Karen and I went on a champagne/tums/tiara run. We feasted on fresh New York bagels and iced coffee and got ready to be slightly pampered. Off we headed to Vie's for nails (and insanely personal massage chairs) with pink champagne served in shamrock flutes. Our lovely pampering was followed by a quick lunch at O'Donovan's, a mini nap and getting prettified for the main festivities.
  
  
  
• And the main festivities? Those were fabulous too. An amazing amount of eating was done at Quartino - there were at least four types of risotto, five varieties of cheese, a delicious duck procuitto pizza and a gallon or six of sangria. Christie was given sweet shower gifts (the best illustration prize going to Karen), watched a silly video of Michael, and wore a homemade hat of bows. We headed up to Bye Bye Liver for a raunchy, hysterical stand up comedy about drinking and dating and ridiculousness. We had planned on doing a fancy pub crawl, sipping fancy drinks - I don't know who we were kidding. We beelined our behinds to the G&L, one of our favorite old haunts and parked our butts on stools and laughed and drank and told stories. Jello-shots and late night pizza rounded it all out....and I think it was just what we needed, and hopefully what the bride needed.

• Sunday equalled brunch, which led to mimosas, which lead to mojitos. All of which lead to sitting on the couch with some of my best friends being ridiculously thankful for my weekend away. So, thank you, Michael, for asking her to marry you - it gave me an excuse to party in one my favorite cities with some of my all time favorite people.

• Monday found me in the car heading south by 7:30 a.m. - Karen headed to work, Christie frolicked for a few more hours in the Chi, and Matt was thankful to have his couch back. And by 1:15 p.m. I was getting one of the best hugs I've ever had from my most favorite three year old.