Wedding: The Rehearsal Dinner

We had our rehearsal dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Milwaukee the night before the wedding. Fun fact: The first time B ever came to Milwaukee to visit me, we went here for dinner the first night he was in town. I had never tried salmon before and it was here that he made me try it and I've loved it ever since!

Our rehearsal dinner was a casual time with our bridal party where we handed out presents to them. It was nice for us all to spend time together as a group before the big day!

With my soon to be husband! 

My matron of honor, my sister Kristy 

My peacock cocktail gown, setting the tone for the wedding colors

With my favorite girls

With my two besties from college 

Marathon Monday..The Training Begins

Allow me to interrupt my wedding recap for a new weekly special I'm going to be including on my blog. We all know that running, fitness and exercise are something I'm passionate about. Well, about a month ago, I stepped out of my exercise comfort zone and did something I never thought I would do..I signed up to run a marathon.

Ever since I started running, a marathon was a thought I always had in the back of my head that I might one day do. However, I would think of how exhausted I am after running a half marathon and thought there was no way I could ever run another 13.1 miles after that.

But once I got to thinking about it, I decided I really wanted to challenge myself. This is something I only want to do once and now was a better time than ever.

At the beginning of June, I signed up for the random draw lottery for the Nike Women's Marathon and Half Marathon in San Francisco. After signing up for the lottery, I had to wait a month to find out if I made it in. I was excited to hear if I made it in, but another part of me knew if I didn't make it in, that was ok too.                            

Photo from Nike Women Run Series Facebook page

After a long time waiting, I received the email saying I got in. 

Am I nervous? Duh! I know that I'm the only one holding myself accountable for training for this race. It's going to take a lot more commitment on my part. I know there will be days I don't want to run because I'll be tired or the weather won't cooperate. But I'm going to try my hardest to stick to the schedule I've made myself

Am I excited? Heck yeah! I've never pushed myself this hard physically before. I'm proud of myself for trying something new and I know I'll learn more about myself as I prepare for the race.

Why did I pick this race? I always said if I ever did a marathon, it had to be a memorable one. My husband and I have never been to San Francisco so it'll be a nice weekend away. I also like how this race is catered specifically to women and the Tiffany necklace you get at the end isn't a bad reward either!

So, enter Marathon Mondays. I think this will be a good way for me to keep track and hold myself accountable as well as I train these next few months. I'll be sharing my workout plan and other ways I'm helping myself to prepare for the race.

And of course, here's to new tennis shoes and a cute running outfit! 

Birthday/Girls' Weekend in Chicago

Before I can recap any of the wedding festivities, I need to back it up to about 3 weeks before the wedding. About 2 weeks before we were going to head to Milwaukee to finalize wedding plans, B gave me a fantastic birthday surprise. I came home from working out one Saturday, and he told me he had a surprise for me. H told me he had planned a weekend in Chicago with my two best friends from college after we would be in Milwaukee. I honestly didn't react how he thought I would because at first I was confused because I was supposed to be running a half marathon back home by us. After asking tons of questions..what? where do I get a hotel room for us? Wait, Kelly has to fly in? Do they know?...I found out that B planned everything. He booked us a hotel and even bought my best friend in DC a plane ticket to Chicago. I couldn't believe he planned all of this just so I could spend some quality time with two of my best friends in the whole world.

B and I headed off to Milwaukee on a Thusday night to spend the next day, Friday, finishing up loose ends and meetings..finalize cake, pick out ceremony music, plan ceremony, pick out table linens, finalize reception details etc. While in Milwaukee we also celebrated my 27th birthday a few days early with my family and went out to dinner with them. On Saturday morning, we got up bright and early and headed down to Chicago. B dropped me off at my hotel and he headed off to spend the weekend in Chicago as well with some of his groomsmen. 

My two besties, Haley and Kelly, and I had such a blast that weekend. The three of us haven't all been together since we graduated from Marquette back in 2004. We all live in separate areas of the country so it was fantastic to relax before the big day and celebrate my birthday with them.

At Sprinkles, my favorite cupcake place, with Kelly and Haley! 

Before doing some shopping on Michigan Ave, my favorite place!

The three of us headed out that afternoon for lunch at Nordstrom Cafe (which is, by the way, the best lunch I have ever had. I so wish we had a Nordstrom here-I would be there everyday to eat!). After lunch and catching up on life, we did some shopping, got cupcakes at Sprinkles, and got manis and pedis. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. The three of us headed to Grand Lux Cafe for a fabulous dinner. Afterwards, we went to a nearby bar for some martinis, before ending up at another bar around 10:30 for some karaoke.

After getting dolled up for dinner

I've never done karaoke before, and to be honest, was a bit nervous about getting up in front of a crowded bar to sing, since I can not carry a tune at all. After about an hour, our names were called and we got up to sing a tune. The DJ announced it was my birthday and bachelorette, and the 3 of us got to singing a crowd favorite, Sweet Caroline. I don't mean to brag, but we had everyone in the bar singing with hands up in the air. We were quite the hit that night!

First song..Sweet Caroline

High fives for the Birthday Girl/Bachelorette..singing Jack & Diane

Ending the night with a little Bridesmaids action..Hold On

Groomy showed up around 1:30 am to see what we were up to! 

We stayed there will the wee hours of the morning (Hello 2 am!), sung a few more tunes that got the crowd going before calling it a night. We all got to bed at about 4 am before waking up at 8 am. That morning, we lounged in the room, before heading off to get some gourmet donuts. Thank goodness my besties love food as much as I do

Sunday morning breakfast at Glazed!

After that we played tourists and headed to Millenium Park and Navy Pier before meeting up for lunch with B and one of his groomsmen. After lunch we all headed out for one last glass of wine before we headed to the airport to head home.

Navy Pier with my besties 

I'm so lucky to have B in my life and that he planned a special weekend for me. With all the last minute wedding planning stress and things to do, this weekend away was much needed. It felt so good to be back with my best friends. It felt like we were in college again! I'm counting the days till the three of us get together for our next girls weekend!

Officially a Mrs!

Well, as of two weeks ago today, I became a Mrs! I can't believe how fast this entire year of wedding planning has gone. We had beautiful weather for our wedding day and the day was even more fun and more perfect than I could have ever imagined.

Everyone is right when they say the day flies by. One moment I was getting my hair done, and the next I was sitting next to B eating dinner saying how I couldn't believe the day was almost over.

I want to share every single last detail of our special day so I'm breaking it down into separate blog posts. Right now, I just have the Facebook/Instagram photos to share that our friends took. We're still anxiously awaiting photos from our photographers. I know those will take some time, so once we get those I'll do a recap of those as well :)

                 

A little walk down memory lane. Photos from the past 7 years with B. 

The new Mr. and Mrs. Brandon & Ashley Rich! 

Wedding Wednesday: With This Ring I Thee Wed

We're down to 33 days till the big day....eeek! To be honest, some days I have minor panic attacks thinking of all the little things we need to get done: send in final payments, make escort cards, buy this, schedule that. But then sometimes I take a chill pill and think to myself it'll all get done somehow in the next 4 weeks.

One thing I decided to do late last night was start writing my wedding vows. B and I have chosen to not only do traditional vows, but also write our own personal vows. Our traditional vows we wrote together and are a more modern take on the usual "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..." We really like what we've come up with for that part.

But, we still wanted to do personal vows. To make things a bit easier, we came up with an outline together that we'll both follow. Last night while I was sitting in bed, I decided I better start writing mine. I wrote some thoughts down a few weeks ago and I continued to do the same last night. Ironically as I was writing it I was watching Friends (like I do every night at 10pm) and it was the episode where Chandler and Monica are writing their wedding vows.

Monica: Do you realize that four weeks from today we’re getting married? Four weeks baby!! Four weeks!!!

Chandler: Do you realize you get louder each week?

Monica: There’s still so much to do. Have you written your vows yet?

Chandler: I figured I’d buy those. Pat, I’d like to buy a vow. (Laughs)

Monica: Sweetie, you know I have no sense of humor when it comes to the wedding.

Chandler: Right. So uh, have you written yours yet?

Monica: No! But I know exactly what I’m going to say.

Chandler: Do you happen to know what I’m going to say?

Monica: (handing him a pad of paper and a pen) Let’s just do it right now. Okay? It won’t be hard. Just say what’s in your heart. (She goes back, sits down, and starts feverishly writing.)

Chandler: (watching in her) (in his head) Look at her go! She must love me more than I love her! What’s wrong with me? Ooh, don’t open that door.

I sat in bed for an hour typing lots of thoughts and feelings. I like to think I'm a pretty good writing since I work in advertising and marketing. Since it's my job to be creative, I didn't think this would be that hard for me to do. Boy, was I wrong.

Trying to put my thoughts and feelings about B, our 7 year relationship/9 years of knowing each other into a shortened paragraph is the hardest thing I have ever done. Do I share personal stories? Do I try to make people laugh? Will I cry like a baby when I read these at the ceremony? 

I now know it will take some time to write these vows until I think they're perfect. Since I'm a perfectionist, I won't stop until I think it's the best thing I've ever written.

Brides..did you write your vows? Any thoughts to help a girl out here?