Sorry it has taken me about a week to post this, but I was waiting on some photos from someone, and then I got really tired/overhwhelmed/cranky at the end of the week. I must say that so far wedding planning has been a cake walk. I have enjoyed mostly all of it, and giving ourselves the time to really think about what we wanted was crucial. Now we are getting down to the wire, though, and life in general is just a smidge crazy.

Anywho, back to the Pittsburgh shower. I wanted to actually show some of the PEOPLE, since I am sure they all wanted to make an appearance on this here lovely blog. Sure.

First of all, that would be my awesome, talented mother who put the shower together and the best dad in entire the world (aka Ned Flanders, aka Gene!). 

On my dad's side, his sister (my Aunt Lorraine or Al as I call her), her daughter/my cousin Lauren and my Grandma all came. Lauren is in the wedding party, and we were pretty much BFF's growing up.


On my mom's side, we have Linda (my mom's cousin on the left), my great Aunt Garnetta  (in the chair), my Aunt Daneen (in the turquoise shirt, who is married to my mom's brother), and my grandma. Don't we all kind of sort of look alike? We all also apparently really like the color aqua.


My mom's best friend, Rennie, came too! She is just the sweetest, and I am so excited for her to come down to Maryland for the wedding.


And then we have some of the best friends a girl could ask for: Elizabeth (matron of honor), Kathleen (bridesmaid), me (duh), Lauren (cousin and bridesmaid), and Hannah (college friend).


And of course, we can't forget my wonderful future-mother-in-law pictured here with my mama. I am such a blessed girl.


As I mentioned before, everything has just been so wonderful and I sure have been showered with lots of gifts and love. The only real party left is the wedding!!

Since I am a very bad blogger/fiance/normal young lady, I totally forgot to bring my camera to Pittsburgh for the shower (which was a total dream by the way)! Luckily, both my mom, Kathleen and E took pictures for me. However, the only ones I have so far are my mom's (wink wink nudge nudge).

Let me just tell you, my mom is very talented. She has been working on putting this shower together for a while now, and it DEFINITELY showed. No detail was overlooked, and she just knows my style so well. She also gives me style that I do not have.

From the little glass birds she had created to match the colors of our wedding...


....to the adorable ribbon-adorned bird cage to hold the cards.


She has a real talent for party planning and decorating. Seriously, it's amazing. Like I mentioned before, the shower was at the Johnston House for tea. Because so often tea requires sugar, she had little yellow flowered sugar cubes created.


My mom had my neighbor who is a baker at The Ultimate Pastry Shop in Sewickley make adorable little yellow and white cupcakes, and she got little boxes to put them in. And, of course they were stamped with the awesome bird stamp she had created for us.


You can actually see the stamp on the adorable yellow bags my mom gave to everyone to carry their goodies.


As if that wasn't enough, my mom also got everyone a cute little yellow globe (pictured on the table below) with a little light inside of it as a "thank you for coming" gift. I thought they were beautiful, and they complimented the tables so nicely. Of course, the little lanterns that she tied ribbon around weren't too shabby either. 


As you can see, everything was just so beautiful, and I cannot thank my mom enough for putting all of this together for me. I never EVER thought that during the wedding process I would have such wonderful memories of the journey there. But, I am so blessed. This has all been so incredibly amazing, I kind of never want it to end.


There are a lot more picture and stories I would like to share, but those are going to have to wait until someone sends me their photos. :)

Hopefully, I am not getting showered in the literal sense. But, I AM getting showered by my Pittsburgh/Cleveland friends and family. I have been unbelievably lucky in the party department. First, I had a shower here in Baltimore, which was amazing. Then, I had my wonderful bachelorette party weekend in Florida. And now, I am having a shower in Pittsburgh at a place I loved since I can remember.

I was always my moms shopping buddy when I was little (and then I progressed to being a professional shopper of my own of course). She took me to all sorts of cute shops, boutiques and arsty festivals. But one place that always stuck out in my mind was the Johnston House. It is a fine furnishings store that also has a tea room. It's beautifully nestled in an old house, and I just loved the charm of it. I remember trying to peak into the tea rooms and wanting to be able to "tea" with my friends. And now, I am finally going to experience it.

Tonight, I am hopping in my car with Wendy and Kathleen and heading to Pittsburgh to see my friends and family. Tomorrow morning we will be heading over to the Johnston House for the shower and tea, and I am so excited. It will be so nice to hang out with the family, see my some of my friends and finally get to TEA!

Have a great weekend!

Many people asked me about the poem that came along with one of the multi-part shower gifts I received, so I thought I would share it on here as well. The gift revolved around the poem, and I had to open gifts where it said to in the poem. Check it out below, and click on the links to see the gift:

Hopefully, you tried to guess what some of the items were before clicking on them, but it was definitely one of my favorite gifts. Not only was it clever and cute, I can use each and every single I item included.

I am hoping to use this on someone else someday (who hopefully doesn't read this blog).

It's been a pretty busy few weeks in regards to the good ol' wedding. Last weekend I had my Baltimore shower, and let me tell you, it was intense. Intense in a good way, of course. While I was totally overwhelmed, I think that is to be expected when so many of your friends and family come to see you and then sit around and watch you open presents. But, much to my chagrin, it was totally amazing.

My parents came down for the weekend, and it was wonderful having them here as always. My little Canadian munchkin friend came to surprise me, and it was awesome to catch up. I saw some of my friends I hadn't seen in a while and it was SO SO SO nice to see their faces and laugh. I miss so many people that I no longer see on a daily basis, but am so happy they are a part of my life in some way.  A bunch of generous women helped plan the event. Kathleen and Erin did a ridiculously good job of helping me not hyperventilate. Really, it was extremely enlightening. Jared and I both agreed that we will be on cloud 9 when it comes to our wedding, because everyone that is important to us will be in one room having a party. That's pretty amazing.

Throughout this entire process, it's been so wonderful having so many caring people around us. Jared and I have so many great people in our lives, and we can't thank them enough for their support. We really are blessed.

In the upcoming weeks, we have some additional details to sort out and hopefully that will go smoothly. We have to determine the menu, decide on what the men are wearing and get thinking about our rings. Not too much, but we tend to procrastinate...in case you haven't noticed.