WE'RE MARRIED!!!!

Can you believe it?!?! Over a year of planning and it all came down to one day - hands down the best day of my life.

I will have a full recap and more pictures soon, but for now, here are the teaser pics the Solars put up on their blog from our day-
http://joshsolarphoto.blogspot.com/2009/07/married-brooke-matt.html

Thank you to anyone and everyone who helped me to plan, who participated, and who attended our wedding. It really was the wedding of our dreams.

Love,
The GERMANS

I am now the queen of DIY

The title of this post says it all. Now that I'm really down to the wire (and I mean really. Like I can reach out and touch it I'm so close...) I have had to kick it in high gear to finish up my DIY projects.

First up, I finished my card box! Woo hoo! Took me long enough...




and this is where the cards go...

(like you couldn't have figured that out)

You may be asking yourself "why in the HECK did it take her so long to make such a plain looking box?!" Well let me tell you why. Because I am a procrastinator. Plain and simple. All I did was buy a $4 cardboard box from Hobby Lobby, spray paint it brown, and add some stickers. In total, it probably cost me $15 (including the spray paint). Not bad, eh? I just for some reason put this project off over and over. I'd do a coat of spray paint, do the next coat 2 weeks later. I had Matt cut the hole in the top for me, and then started the whole spray paint process over again. And just yesterday I finally got my butt to the craft store to find some stickers. I think it turned out pretty nice...especially for under $20!!


Next up are the (blasted) programs. This is another money saving DIY adventure I took on. And again, I have procrastinated. Now that we're 4 DAYS AWAY (holy cow) I can't really procrastinate much more. Matt and I stayed up until 11:30 or so last night working on these bad boys (isn't he a trooper!?) and we'll probably be up late finishing them tonight. But we did get a whopping 25 of them completely finished last night, so I'll let the cat out of the bag and post pics early. I doubt I'll have much time for blogging after tonight, so thought I'd get one final post in to relish in all of my accomplishments. :D


look at all those beautifully tied bows...









so...what do you think?? Please tell me how amazingly gorgeous and perfect you think they are. :) These puppies have been a lot of work. Yes, I saved about $100 by doing them myself, but I've been working on them for a good 3 weeks or so now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though (finally).

So there you have it...my last 2 big projects...(almost) in the bag. Next up - start packing for the honeymoon!!

I'm going to guess this will be my last blog post as an un-married chica...woah. The next time I post, I should have hundreds of wedding pictures to share! It's been fun chronicalling my adventures in planning this shin-dig, and I can't wait to come back and read this in 10 years and laugh at how crazy I was (am). If you're coming to the wedding...hooray! See you there! If you aren't...thanks for reading all my babbeling :)

I'll leave you with a lovely quote...that just so happens to appear on the back of our programs...


Adios! For now...

So this is really happening...

When Matt came home yesterday with this:



I knew it was for real (as if I didn't before). But now it's like offical....woah...

Bachelorette Party!

So Friday was the Bachelorette Party... we had a FABULOUS time!! It was lots of fun. And I am pretty proud of myself for getting pictures up so soon...what with 2 other parties and 2 rooms worth of painting that also went down this weekend!!

Here I am with my pre-party girls. :) Jess, Ash and I got downtown at about 3:00pm and begun the festivities (i.e. the drinking...)


The members of the wedding party that came (from left to right: Mom, Jess, me, Ash, Shelley, Caitlin). Check out our ADORABLE shirts! If you can't read them, they say "Mother of the Bride", "Bride", "Maid of Honor", "Bridesmaid". CUTE!! Jess & Ash are just so clever, aren't they?!


And here I am opening my slightly *embarassing* gifts...in front of the ENTIRE BAR. Yes, people were watching...and clapping...


Note my cousin Caitlin's face in the background...PRICELESS.


She wasn't the only one who was embarrassed...


Me with Brandy (left) and Carmen (right), who were troopers and came out drinking with us after dinner!


Let the fun begin...


And then my camera battery died. Again. Seems to be a recurring theme for me these days... But that's probably a good thing. At least I don't have evidence of the craziness that went down as the evening went on... (Although I'm pretty sure Ash does...)

So as I mentioned, we had a fabulous time!! Jess, Ash and I started off at John's big DECK (that's an E not an I ;) for some apps and drinks. We were only 2 shots and 1 beer down by the time we got to Gordon Biersch for dinner (not bad, eh?) which is where everyone else met us. We turned dinner into quite a long event, I think we were at the restaurant for something like 3 hours?? And I officially stopped counting beers and shots at that point...
After everyone left dinner, it was Ash, Jess, Brandy, Carmen and me left to take on the night. We hung out at P&L the rest of the night, enjoyed a free concert (Eve6) and a LOT of beer. :D It was a blast!!

Thank you to my fantastic family and friends for throwing me a wonderful (and mostly appropriate) Bachelorette Party!!!

P.S. I uploaded more pictures to our FLICKR site in case you are interested :)

Countdown update:

Bachelorette party - CHECK!

Only 2 more days of work until my 2 WEEK VACATION starts (including today) YEAH!

2 days until the wedding festivities begin

5 days until our WEDDING!

7 days until we're headed to the beach for some fun in the sun...

In other news: I hope to have one more update post this week...that's assuming I finish my DIY projects in time to show them off. :) But after that...it's all she wrote!! The next time I post, I will be showing off our WEDDING PICTURES!! AHHHHHHH where did the time go???