As some of you know, I came back to PW after nearly a year-long haitus to help my younger sister, Tiffany, plan her fall 2011 wedding. Tiffany goes to school full time, works nearly full time and is raising her two young children, so her free time is very limited. I hope I can help her make her special day into everything she's ever dreamed it could be. Her FI, Jesse, is an ex-Marine - my father is mortified by my sister's "Be Safe - Sleep With A Marine" bumper sticker - who was honorably discharged after being severely injured in an attack by an Iraqi suicide bomber. I'm only advertising this because people often wonder about his scars; its easier this way.  

Currently we're gathering ideas and inspiration, but as the time grows shorter I will be posting more on the progress we've made. Those posts will be at the top, replacing posts pertaining to my own wedding. I hope you all enjoy the journey we'll be making over the next year and a half!

Note: I'm replacing my wedding area (Fort Myers) with hers to help us in our search for vendors.

Some of these pictures are stock photos, but others were pulled from PW. Unfortunately when I pulled them I neglected to source them. If any of these pictures are from your wedding, please let me know and I will credit them to you! Thanks!

My sister is having four 'maids, myself included, and all of whom have drastically different body types. We range from me, The Stick, to Short, who's *ahem* short with big boobs, to Danielle, tallish with big boobs, to Sarah, the Big Sister. Needless to say, finding one dress that worked for all of us would have been a nightmare. Sarah's religion and lifestyle also calls for modesty, so no strapless gown for her. After mulling over her choices, my sister chose to pick a line (Eden Bridals Bridesmaids), material (matte satin) and color (mocha) while leaving the style up to us. These are my favorites, with the two front runners being the emerald and red dresses.

We're going to have plaid flannel wraps made for each girl as the ceremony will be held out of doors. Sarah will also have a bolero to add some coverage.

Eli, who will be 2.5 years, and Calvin, who will be 3.5 years, will be wearing these adorable outfits from Crazy 8.

 *UPDATE*

Unfortunately the first venue didn't work out and with my sister's budget and location she's very limited in her choices. She signed with an American Legion building about 15 minutes away from the ceremony site. 

I'm not sure what the outside looks like, but this is the room:

I'm thinking we'll want to drape fabric along the ceiling like this:

This page will be continuously updated as I dream up ideas and my sister shoots them down. ;)

These the inspirational images I've like for the escort cards. (Obviously a few of them would have to be different colors to fit her theme.)

*I would love to put the little boys in cream shirts, brown pants and vests made in the same material as the bridesmaids' plaid wraps. How cute would that be??? UPDATE: My sister loves the idea and my MIL has offered to make the wraps for us! Yay!!

Jon is a software engineer and I am a stay-at-home mom; our son, Eli, is the light of our lives. We both enjoy hiking and the outdoors. We love to travel and are planning to learn Spanish as a family. Jon is an avid cyclist, but I would rather be in the kitchen baking a batch of cookies or decorating a cake (although I have two bikes of my own). My hobby does not help him with his.

Jon and I met about three and a half years ago when I joined my then-roommate, Logan, at a local pub called THE RED LYON. Logan told me that a friend of his would be joining us; I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't looking for anything because I had just gotten out of a bad relationship, but when Jon sat down I thought to myself, "He's cute." Two weeks later, I asked Logan for Jon's number and we started dating soon after that. 

We only dated for a few months before deciding to be friends, but, after spending the summer apart, decided to give it another try. Two and a half years and one baby later, Jon held me in his arms on the rooftop of our downtown loft, told me how he loved me, how glad he was to have me and asked me to marry him. I was so shocked that I said all sorts of things, but never did say the most important thing - "YES!" So he had to ask me again.

The Big Day: The morning of the ceremony, Jon (DH), Eli (Baby Man) and I were hanging out in bed making plans to go to the beach. Baby Man rolled over and started screaming; he wouldn't move his arm at all and cried whenever we touched it. Long story short, instead of spending the morning on the beach, we spent it in the ER where we found out that he had dislocated his elbow. Relatively speaking, we were happy; we originally thought it was broken.

Getting Ready: I was so nervous while getting ready. I took a bath and managed to cut my leg, not with the razor, but with the can of shaving cream. And somehow I cut my hip with the razor.

I forgot to bring my getting ready outfit, so the shirt I wore was actually my dad's. 

When I sat down to get my hair done, I told my hairdresser, "I love volume. You can't give me too much." My mom looked at her and said, "You probably can."

I forgot to email myself the vows I had written, so I had to start from scratch while my hair was being done! It ended up being a blessing, because discovered that what I thought I wanted to say wasn't what I wanted to say at all.

Guests Arriving: there was another wedding on the grounds that day who paid to have valet parking for their guests. Well, our wedding and their wedding overlapped and a lot of our guests used their valets. Whoops! 

I didn't see this, but Jon did: My dad got out of their car shirtless to hand the keys to the valet. He didn't want to wrinkle his shirt, so he didn't put it on until he got out of the car! 

Our guitarist luckily arrived very early. The resort employee he talked to just told him we were on the beach - not which beach - so Jason just started walking. He said he hung out at one wedding for about 15 minutes before he thought, "This doesn't seem right," and started walking again. Thank God he knew enough to know that wasn't our wedding! 

The Ceremony: 

I couldn't hear our guitarist over the sound of the wind and waves, so I just looked at my dad and said, "Let's start walking and hope he's playing the right music." Apparently he was. 

DH's little sister gave a reading that she had picked out for us. About half a sentence into it, she started breathing funny and I thought, "Oh, funny. She's laughing because she nervous." She was not, in fact, laughing. She was crying. As soon as I realized it, I started crying too. I just wanted to hug her so bad.

During my vows I started to cry and to cover it up I tried to laugh. The outcome was pretty funny and DH's sister started laughing too. So, right in the middle of my vows, I turned around and said, "Stop laughing! You're making me worse!" Then everyone laughed. 

The ribbons on the arch kept hitting our officiant in the head.

Baby Man slept through the entire thing.

The Reception:

DH's dad's speech went something along the lines of: "We like Megan. She's a nice girl." Then he got all emotional, which was really cute.

At one point we had a dance-off. 

After 11:00, the bar went down to just beer and wine. My new SIL didn't realize this and wanted everyone to take a shot. The bartenders poured 20 shot glasses of white wine, which SIL called "Sanibel Slammer", the guys did their traditional shot song/chant and everyone took the "shot". We all got a good laugh out of that one. 

Row 1: theknot.com, theknot.com, marthastewartweddings.com, unknown

Row 2: marthastewartweddings.com, Trista Lerit Photography, brides.com

Row 3. marthastewartweddings.com, Laura Negri Photography, casaybelresortweddings.com

Jonathan picked my band out completely on his own. To say I was surprised would be an understatement - I was floored. He bought it at Meierotto's, a jewelry store local to Kansas City. I picked out his band, although he was present when I did so. It was cast specifically for him at Goldmaker's, a jewelry store in Lawrence, KS. 

Both the ceremony and reception took place at the Casa Ybel Resort on beautiful Sanibel Island. My family vacationed on the island when I was younger, so as soon as we decided to look into a destination wedding, I knew that's where we would do it. The ceremony was located on the resort's beach, while the reception was held in the Waterfront Room at The Thistle Lodge, the resort's restaurant. 

Our cake was amazing: white buttercake with lemon curd filling and iced with buttercream, which was then covered with white chocolate straws and topped with fresh raspberries. I know I'm biased, but it was easily the best cake I've ever had. 

I decided to go for burlap overlays, even though the reception is in the evening. (Living life on the edge!) To dress it up a bit, we upgraded the white, mid-length table clothes to floor-length bleached linen. It was what I originally wanted, but thought I couldn't have due to the fact that we had an evening reception. Then, about a month before the wedding I thought, "You know, I should be able to have what I want, regardless of the time!"

Unfortunately the professional image is not yet edited, so its a bit washed out.

We offered our guests raspberry lemonade before the ceremony. There was a little stand just off the beach, with a beverage dispenser, glasses, ice and fresh raspberries! It was the perfect refresher for a hot summer day!

Both my bracelet and earrings are by a Hawaiian artist named Catherine Weitzman. If you're having a beach wedding or if you just love the beach/ocean, check her out - her designs are to die for!

After making somewhere around 30 monograms and emblems, this was the one I finally decided on. 

The banana leaf emblem was used on our invitations and rsvps. We used variations on our table lanterns, ceremony programs, escort cards and thank you cards.

After searching high and low for cost-effective programs, I decided to DIY them.  I made an open-ended envelope out of green linen card stock, slipped a vellum belly band with a modified version of our emblem around it and tied a blue 1/8" ribbon to the top. For the actual program, I printed our ceremony layout on white textured card stock in two columns and fixing one column to either side of a blue textured card stock, securing them with square pewter brads. 

I was inspired by fellow PWers GatorBride and JackieG for these! I used two flowers, one of which was slightly bigger than the other. They were so easy: I finished them in about 10 minutes, total. I used brads for the center and hot glued them to medium hair clips that match my hair color. 

Escort cards: Printed on vellum, layered over blue card stock and secured with squared, silver brads.

Table lanterns: You can't really tell in this picture, but I used vellum instead of a solid piece of card stock and we placed a candle in the middle of the lantern. It looked really pretty once the sun had set.  

I made these after being inspired by D1rtymart1n1. We'll be using them at the KS reception thrown by DH's parents. Some of the tags refer to the type of pie they'll be paired with, while others are generic sayings. 

MIL and I decided that simple arrangements, mostly of wildflowers, in canning jars would be perfect for the KS reception. We cut these from her garden and pasture and used a few store bought carnations to round them out.