Wedding Wednesday: First Looks

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by for Wedding Wednesday. To quote one of my new favorites {Erika Girardi}on Real Housewives..."I'm a riddle wrapped in an enigma." While that does describe "Erika Jayne" pretty well it also reflects my personal wedding style. I wanted to be traditional for the most part but in all reality I'm not traditional at all so I decided to embrace some new wedding trends such as a "first look."

In the months leading up to the wedding I had searched Pinterest a lot for photo ideas and after seeing a "first look" shot with the bridal party I knew I had to do that. Once my sister, Larissa and my friend, Erin helped me into my dress they joined the others outside for my first look with my bridal party, my mom, my mother-in-law, and our ring bearer, my little cousin William. It was such a fun moment to see the looks on everyone's faces. Smiles, applause, and tears were abundant. I think all brides should do a bridal party first look even if you aren't doing one with your groom, it's a great way to officially start your day.

Had to have a Heavyweights "Mr. Simms" moment.

All the boys arrived first and Brian was hidden from my sight so I got to have an informal "first look" with all my ushers {and the groomsmen} and it was so sweet. Our ushers were some of my closest guy friends and their reactions were amazing. They teared up and then quickly commented on how flawless my skin and hair look along with a few "YEW BETTA WORKKKK" shouts and snaps. After a wonderful confidence boost I made my way to see my groom.

I was very lucky that Brian was on board with a "first look" from the moment I mentioned it. He knows I tend to get anxious in elevated emotional situations so being able to see him before our wedding ceremony was the best way for me to CTFD. A month before our wedding we were in Cleveland getting our marriage license so one morning we decided to scope out photo spots for our wedding. Brian's alma mater, Lake Erie College, is such a beautiful campus so our search ended there because they had wonderful outdoor and indoor options for us to take pictures. We originally planned to have our "first look" in front of the school's fountain but when we got there the fountain was turned off. Our photographer quickly found a new spot for us to have it instead and I have to say I liked how things turned out.

I wondered if I'd regret having a "first look" and worried it would take away the magic of seeing Brian at the end of the aisle but after I have only good feelings about doing things this way. I was able to get all my pre-wedding nerves out and while I was walking down the aisle I could focus on looking at our guests instead of panicking. I remember seeing the looks on my family and friends' faces when they first saw me and I was completely overwhelmed with love.

The moment our friends blew up snapchat lol

Did you do a first look? Are you a bride who is planning too? Share away and also make sure to check out this Pinterest Linkup too. As always thanks for reading and I hope to see you back next week!

All photos courtesy of Arastasia Photography

Read More

Wedding Wednesday: Getting Ready for Our Big Day!

I'm back! Hello and welcome to a long overdue Wedding Wednesday link up. First and foremost thank you to everyone for supporting me through the entire wedding planning and post wedding process. It's safe to say that I dropped off the blogging face of the planet for nearly three months but taking time away made me realize how much I love sharing my life with all of you. If you read my last post you know that I had some serious post wedding blues but I've worked through them with help of some amazing people and I ready to relive our wedding day with y'all.

If you haven't been following along with my wedding planning I encourage you to check out my other wedding posts on the wedding tab at the top of the page. I'll give everyone a quick refresher in the details of our day. We were married on October, 17th 2015...on "Sweetest Day" a holiday originating in Cleveland, Ohio where our nuptials took place. Our ceremony took place at Saint Martin of Tours Catholic Church where Brian's parents were married and our reception was held at the Legend Lake Golf Club.

All of our beautiful wedding photos have trickled in and now it's time for me to share a few of our favorites with you. If you didn't take a look at our sneak peek  from our photographer's blog you can see it HERE. Almost all the ones she posted were high on our favorites list so I'll do my best not to share those again since everyone has already seen them. We'll start off with our favorite "getting ready" pictures. All the photos you see are courtesy of the amazing Arastasia Photography based in Beaufort, South Carolina. I wrote a post about her that you can read HERE.   

It's so unfair how quickly guys can get ready and look so handsome. Brian, his dad, the groomsmen, and the ushers got ready at one of the groomsmen's, Jesse, parents' house. It probably took them all of ten minutes to get dressed and ready before cracking open the first breakfast beers but that's fine by me. We were lucky enough to have a second photographer come and help out Stasia so that she could focus on being with us girls. Our second photographer's name is Amber Patrick and she is the definition of a rockstar...literally she photographs rockstars and is way too cool for her own good. She took the guy's getting ready photos and some candid shots throughout the morning and at our ceremony. She's based in Cleveland, Ohio and you can check her out at her page. 

No wedding ring...yet

This shot made it onto Amber's business cards 

 The best of friends and brothers

The Schiffbauer men all together

While the guys got to sleep in us girls begin our morning bright and early. Myself and my four bridesmaids and our ring bearer, William, arrived at Brian's Aunt Sandy's house to start getting ready at 7:30AM. Two stylists worked on the bridesmaids' hair and makeup while my best bud, Meg Workman, worked on my mom and I. My house party girls arrived to start getting ready at 8:30AM and helped each other get ready as well as got some makeup help from my cousin Bronwyn who was getting our flowergirls, Kate and Kiersten, ready. Champagne {and Iron City Light Mango} was flowing and breakfast was being eaten. I think everyone can agree that the cherry on top of the morning was when the Chick-fil-a nugget tray was brought by the lovely Debo and Juliann. It was so much fun to have all the girls together getting ready, I wish I could do it every weekend. 

Meg and I have been preparing for this "dress up" for 24 years

This is my MIL, Laura's favorite picture of me ever...pin curls and all

Bronwyn working her magic on Kacie

Had to get a picture of us all in our tops

Erin straightening out layers of tulle

I forgot the pillowcase I bought to put over my head while putting my dress on so I had to improvise with a David's Bridal bag lol.

It's on!

Love my beautiful dress hanger from Stacy and Erika

Walking downstairs to get ready for mt first look with all the ladies and William

Thank you for stopping by Former Kennedy and I hope you come back next Wednesday to see our "first look" photos. In the coming weeks I'll be sharing more photos of our wedding day as well as featuring some of my favorite vendors, my "how-to's", and my top Etsy shops who have so graciously given products for a giveaway for my readers! As always thanks for reading!

Read More

Wedding Wednesday: The #KissKennedyGoodbye World Tour

     

       

Having a bridal party {and a momma} that is scattered in 7 different states, none of which being the one you live in, is both a blessing and a curse. Downsides include having to make wedding crafts by yourself and going to dress fittings alone. The silver lining if you’re lucky like me, is that you get to celebrate this wonderful time of your life several times in fun places and ways. One of my many useless talents is coming up with hashtags, I'm who friends consult when they need a wedding or trip hashtag. With that being said I wanted a fun bridal hashtag so I thought of #KissKennedyGoodbye, feel free to follow me and look at more pics on instagram. Here is the recap of all of my bridal and bachelorette celebrations! First up...

Bachelorette Weekend: Orlando, FL

As you may have read in some of my other posts, I lived in Orlando for almost five years and worked for Disney. The environment there is like no other and the people you meet and work with truly become family. One of my bridemaid’s, Katie, wanted to throw me a bachelorette weekend in Orlando so I could celebrate with my friends there. My fiancé Brian surprised us with a hotel room downtown (for two night) so we didn’t have to worry about driving. The first night [Friday] I got there we went on a bar crawl with my besties in our beloved downtown Orlando and it was an absolute blast. The next day was spent lounging at the hotel’s rooftop pool and stopping by where Brian and I got engaged exactly one year before. On Sunday we had brunch downtown and went to one of my favorite spots, World of Beer, before heading to my old workplace…Epcot! I stopped by guest relations to see some of my former coworkers, put on my bride ears and began my last drinking around the world tour as a Kennedy. My last day [Monday] was slept in and went to brunch with friends before I made my way back to Atlanta.  

How cute are these hangover kits I made for my fellow Real Housewives obsessed friends?!

Bridal Shower: Hurricane, WV 

Being that we’re getting married in Cleveland, I knew that I wanted to have my bridal shower in my hometown of Hurricane, WV so  friends and family that won’t be able to make it to the wedding could still share an event with us. My mom has planned dozens of wedding and baby showers over the years but they were all practice for this one. She was eager to begin planning every little detail but was worried as to how the flow of the party would go since there wouldn’t be too many gifts to open…see we decided to forego a traditional wedding registry and have a HoneyFund honeymoon registry instead. Surprisingly it worked out very well! I still had tangible gifts to open and boy were they sentimental: my [93 year old] great aunt Ruth made me a set of custom made sheets to go with a quilt she made me a few years ago, a “Mrs. Schiffbauer” wedding dress hanger from my friends, and a hand painted canvas from my baby sister to name a few. The shower was held at the dance studio, Dancing Unlimited, where I started taking lessons at age two...so many of my favorite childhood memories were made there.

The food was delicious, the games were a blast, and the travel themed details and décor were beautiful…my mom truly outdid herself and it was the most perfect bridal shower I could’ve asked for. My last gift to open came in a beautiful magnolia box (my friends know how much I adore Steel Magnolias) but I was told I had to read the card first. Below is what was written on the inside of the card…

I love that it was written out "big sis night" rhyming style :) 

I was in complete shock! I opened up the box to find an adorable shirt and pair of seersucker shorts, cute pj’s, and the most perfect bride “glam hippie” headband from my friend Erika and Lilly print monogrammed koozie that featured my Kiss Kennedy Goodbye slogan! I was then told there was a limo waiting outside to take us to our hotel in Charleston and then to our box suite for the ball game. 

Surprise Bachelorette Party: Charleston, WV 

The decorations in the suite were so adorable! Banners and glitter glasses made by my sister, bar set up, stocked, and served by my friends Stacy and Kacie who also got up there early to make sure everything was set up. Everyone wore the adorable tanks and got a koozie like mine but with their monogram on it...the back featured my bridal slogan "Kiss [Miss] Kennedy Goodbye" and they all got me some really fun gifts that I'm so glad I didn't have to open at the shower! 

We had a little pre-party at the hotel that include hilarious games, stories, dancing, and of course champagne poppin. We then made our way to the ballpark only to be rained out but we ended up going to dinner with everyone including Brian before going on an awesome bar crawl downtown. I had so much fun and was so surprised, I have the most thoughtful sister, stepmom, and friends! Thank you Larissa, Erika, Erin, Stacy, Kacie, and Courtney for making my night so much fun.

July 4th with Kathleen: Houston, TX

I had celebrated with every bridesmaid except for Kathleen so she and Brian surprised me with a trip to see her in Houston. I originally thought Brian and I were spending July 4^th in Cleveland but a week before “our trip” I was facetiming with Kathleen and she broke the news to me and I was beyond excited! The weekend was spent doing some of my favorite things: shopping, trying “new to me” resturarants, a brewery visit, going to the movies, chats about the wedding, and most importantly catching up. My trip to Houston was the perfect wind down to all my bridal festivities and an added bonus I got to see another one of my dear Disney friends, Molly!  I’d love to plan another visit to Houston after the wedding but we realized New Orleans is pretty much a central meeting spot for us so maybe a trip there is in our future.

There you have it, my whirlwind of bridal celebrations! My family, friends, and fiancé sure do know how to make me feel loved. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who celebrated with me over the past few months, it means more to me than you’ll ever know! Only 73 more days until I officially  #KissKennedyGoodbye y'all!

                                                                                                            XOXO, 

                                                        Jordan 

Read More

Wedding Wednesday: How I Chose My Bridal Party

"Will you marry me?" was the easiest question I've ever answered but the question that quickly followed was one of the hardest...

"Who are you asking to be your BRIDESMAIDS?"

^ Made by my baby sister ^

I am very fortunate to have a great number of ladies who I consider my closest friends, so when I started thinking about who would be standing (for a very long time during my Catholic wedding mass) by my side on my wedding day I became very torn. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings but I knew that was pretty much inevitable with a circle of friends as big as mine. After many ugly cries and sleepless nights, my sweet fiance Brian suggested I make a list of qualities I wanted in a bridesmaid. Even though it seemed silly at first I followed the "coach's" advice and I want to share it with any brides to be that might be going through what I did. These are qualities important to me so make sure you think of what it most important to you when you start "recruiting" your bridal party...

1. Is she encouraging and understanding? Sometimes you need a cheerleader rooting for you when a family member or vendor upsets you, luckily my MOH is a cheerleader at Mizzou lol! A simple "how is planning going?" call or text out of the blue goes a long way for me. Also, is she willing and able to spend the money that is necessary to be a bridesmaid? Three of my bridal house party girls are in other weddings this year and I didn't want to create a financial hardship on them.   

My Maid of Honor and baby sister, Larissa

2. Is she not only my friend but my fiance's friend too? Just like the ever wise Spice Girls say "ya gotta get with my friends..." I often thought, "Could Brian call her for backup during a meltdown or bridezilla moment?" "Will he be able to ask her for help with his wedding tasks if he needs it?" 

My first Disney friend and bridesmaid, Katie. 

3. Is she ready and willing to play host? Wedding festivities, while joyous, can be hectic and overwhelming. Would she help keep the stress low and spirits high as well as take the reigns when needed without being prompted? Is she going to be able to help with venue set-up if need be?

My sorority sister and bridesmaid, Erika, (she set Brian & I up)

4. Is she going to give you an honest opinion when asked? This one is tricky because some brides want everyone to agree with what they say but that is not me! I needed my girls to keep it real, especially when I started going overboard with wedding favors and decor. Can she reign me back in when I'm overthinking every little detail?

My Epcot Guest Relations BFF and bridesmaid, Kathleen.

Each of my bridesmaids possess these qualities and each played a large role in Brian and I's relationship. He and I agreed to have 4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen, which is a great number, but I wanted to find a way to include 4 other ladies who are very important to me so enter the bridal house party!

My house party girls are crucial to my wedding and they each have a role in the ceremony. Pretty much the only difference between the bridesmaids and house party is that the bridesmaids stand with me while the house party girls have a task to perform during the ceremony. Erin, my childhood bestie (top right), is reading the first reading during our wedding mass. Stacy, my sorority sister (top left), is reading the same passage that I read at her wedding which happens to be very near and dear to our sorority. Kacie (bottom left) and Alexis (bottom right), my sorority sisters, will be serving as the "gift bearers" better known as communion presenters.

Each and every one of the ladies are beyond important to me and I love them dearly. They have all helped me through the highs and lows of love and deserve to be a part of the most important day of my life. All eight of these ladies will help me get ready the morning of my wedding, take an obnoxious amount of pictures, strut down the aisle before me, watch me marry the love of my life, and celebrate the night away with plenty of bud light, champagne, and the greatest hits of 2009. October 17th will be here before we know...time to bring our stanky legs out of retirement y'all!

                                                                                                                XOXO,
                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                      Jordan   

Read More

Wedding Wednesday: A Crash Course in the Kennedy-Schiffbauer Wedding

Hello everyone and welcome to my very FIRST installment of my Wedding Wednesday series that I will be doing leading up to my wedding that is rapidly approaching in under 3 short months. Each Wednesday I'll talk about everything from dress shopping to flowers and bridal showers to photography shot lists. I will share what I've learned along the way and welcome any advice from former brides or wedding goers. To get things started here is the quick rundown of my wedding...

Where: Cleveland, OH...the home of my sweet fiance Brian.

When: October 17th 2015, our anniversary as well as "Sweetest Day" a holiday founded in Cleveland.

The Ceremony: Saint Martin of Tours Catholic Church, the same church Brian's parents were married at 32 years ago!

The Reception: My pinterest venue dream come true: Legend Lake Golf Club (where my future brother-in-law is the assistant golf pro)

The Wedding Party: 4 Bridesmaids, 4 Groomsmen, 4 Bridal House Party, 4 Ushers, 2 Flowergirls, 1 Ringbearer.

My Colors: Navy and Grey...if it were in the spring it would've been Blush and Bashful for sure! #SteelMagnolias

Best Advice So Far: have a videographer, get a day of coordinator, put someone in charge of your phone/social media for the day, please don't act like Scheana Marie did at her wedding on Vanderpump Rules (this tidbit was from my future mother-in-law) & don't sweat the details because people remember the happiness of the day not what the place cards looked like.

Along with every engaged couple ever, immediately after announcing our engagement we were flooded with the question, "Where are you going to have the wedding?!" I am from West Virginia, Brian is from Ohio, we fell in love in Florida, and we currently live in Georgia so I can see why it was the most common question! After a ton of discussions with each other and our parents we decided that Cleveland was the best option for us because it was home to Brian and a short 4 hour drive for my side of the family and with some of my very close loved ones being older, a long travel time would've meant the strong possibility of them not being able to make it. So as much as I was crushed of not having a feature on Southern Wedding's website (LOL) I followed my little southern heart and made the choice that allowed more of my family to be there on our special day.

Even though our wedding is up north, I'm incorporating a few of my favorite southern wedding traditions which makes for a fun time explaining them to our venue coordinators along with Brian's friends and family. Here are a few of the things I'm having on our big day...

-Burying the bourbon when we go up to get our marriage license one month before our wedding.

Southern folklore says doing this wards off rain on your wedding day if done 1 month before at the location you're getting married.

-Having a "bridal house party" filled with beloved sorority sisters and childhood friends.

A house party is an extension of the bridal party & a way to include loved ones without having a bunch of bridesmaids.

-Getting a Groom's cake made for Brian...the sweet baker didn't understand why I wanted a football themed cake at my wedding!

-A cake pull at our rehearsal dinner for my bridesmaids and house party girls. Since we want to take our "mini moon" in New Orleans I thought this tradition was adorably appropriate.

-MONOGRAMS and lots of them y'all!

There ya have it, a quick rundown of what's consuming my free time until October. Let me know your best wedding advice or your favorite part of your wedding day in the comments below!

                                                                                                              XOXO,

                                                                                                                       Jordan

Read More