t-50 days

there are 50 days until our wedding day!
49 sleeps and then i will wake up, hopefully eat a kick ass breakfast for my last meal as a single lady,  put my pretty dress on, and i will become Mrs. Jaclyn Quigley.

ho.ly.cow.

so, in preparation for July 13, we've been slowly, but surely making sure things are in place.

this is the place where all the magic is going to happen. 

this big field on the right of the lodge will have rows of white chairs, mason jars full of flowers hanging from shepard's hooks, a little arch thing to get married in front of that ben will build and i'll decorate, and a big door frame with cute old doors we've found so that my grand entrance can be a surprise.

the lodge will have more flowers and a few handmade decorations, but its main purpose is to house the food so that it doesn't swelter in the hot july sun. on the porch will be the bar [ooh baby], and probably the card box/gift table.

then on the left, there will be a big ass tent, filled with a dance floor and rectangle tables arranged family style, so that everyone feels at home. said tables will be simple, with more mason jar flowers, brown craft paper covering them and crayons to draw on it with, and table runners that mom and i will make.

the pretty lawn will hold all the yard games we can think of, like Kan Jam, ladderball, and corn hole, so that the party can start while we're off getting our pictures taken.

from here

i'm hesitant to post any pictures of the "look" i want for the big day, because ben catches up on my blog every once in a while. but i want to look like me. and he knows me almost better than i do. so honestly, there will probably be no surprises.

my first wedding dress fitting is tonight! the dress was bought just four days after we got engaged, because there was a big sale going on, and i LOVED it when i bought it. but i had a little meltdown a few weeks ago that it wasn't what i really wanted. but luckily, jessa [my little sister/MOH/best friend] came through and saved the day and i think we figured out a way to make it into exactly my dream dress. i hope.

and last night i went and bought supplies to make a flower crown! so later on today, with the help of these tutorials, i'll hopefully be able to make one that's more relaxed-hippie-picking-flowers-and-putting-them-in-her-hair, than crazy-hippie-just-off-LSD-picking-flower-bushes-and-pinning-them-to-her-head. pray for me.

also, there will be no shoes on my part. just so we're clear.

from here

the one part of the day that i'm a little worried about is the music. we want music to be playing non-stop from the beginning of the ceremony until the end of the night, and we're doing it all ourselves. luckily, i have two awesome cousins that agreed to man the music table, so that part of it is taken care of.

i'm excited about making the ceremony and cocktail hour playlists, but the dance party playlist is giving me agida. some people love country music, some people hate it. our college friends are all hipsters, so we're all about Freelance Whales and Of Monsters and Men , but my brother will roll his eyes and my dad may even turn it off. i want people to dance! but ben is banning any of the typical wedding dance songs, such as the Macarena and the Electric Slide. so i feel like we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. if any of you have any suggestions on what to do about this, or even specific songs that you think every dance party needs, i'm all ears.

i think it's going to be a good, good day. even if all of the decorations fall apart and i end up just wearing a sundress and no make-up, i know that at the end of the day, i'll be married to a kid that i'm crazy about.

that's the part i'm the most excited about.