Matron of Honor #2... Misty

I wrote about my first matron of honor (Jennee) and wanted to write about my other girls as well during this whole wedding planning process. So here I am thinking about what I accomplished today and figure why not write about the other matron of honor. She is just as close to me as my first matron of honor and she is also pretty much a part of the Lermon family (she attends more Lermon family gatherings than I do).

So where to start... Well Misty is all of five foot one inch and can pack twice that in a cross check or personality. We became friends in high school, mainly cause she thought she was way to cool to be my friend before high school, and have basically been good friends ever since. Just thinking back to our old high - school days makes me want to visit her mom's daycare and feed a bunch of 4 year olds a load of silly stories. Misty and I shocked our parents when we were fresh out of our first year of college by traveling to Europe for 3 weeks. This probably doesn't sound all that shocking to some, but you have to remember we grew up in towns without stop lights, more than one main street, and the only form of public transportation is the school bus. So off we were to Europe with our first stop being Ireland where we would stay with my family whom I had only met a few of and we were getting picked up by someone neither of us knew. Thank god my cousin looked like my Dad and we left the airport with the right guy. After Ireland we were off on our own for several weeks on mainland Europe. We had to figure out how to read train schedules and how to use subways. We seemed to manage with only a few issues and made it to our third planned stop Denmark where we stayed with a good friend and his family. We some how made it through Europe without getting lost, beating each other up, and having a great time.

Misty, also has one other thing to thank me for and this is a big one. She met her now husband because I dragged her along to hangout with me and a couple of friends. Yep you are welcome.

Misty is one of those friends that is always there to listen, lend an ear, and always reminds me to the fun in everything that surrounds me. She is a teacher and runs an educational program and after school program. She has two awesome little kids that keep her and her husband, Dave, busy. Her daughter, Harper, is actually going to be our flower girl (aka Princess for a day).

So what made me think of Misty today. Well cause I put in the mail 2 books for her and a magazine for her son, Cohyn. So I sent her a text and her reply was "you are the greatest". Hearing your friends, who have always been there, say that makes me feel even better. It is nice to know that 1300 miles away I have this amazing friend and thank to technology we can talk every day and sometimes we do.

So here is to good friends, who have been planning my wedding a year before I was even engaged, and are going to stand next to me on my big day.

Things to do in Boston part 1...

So I know many people are going to be traveling to the wedding and will also be taking a vacation at the same time so I figured I would start a things to do or see list. One of those things to do would be a brewery tour. Boston/ Southern New Nengland has many small micro breweries. I have been to a total of 2 in Boston, but know of several others people could also try out. This weekend, I was planning on hanging out with my friend Irena when her husband asked if we wanted to go with him and his brother to the Sam Adams brewery before we went and did some girl things. We took them up on the offer and had a lot of fun on the brewery tour. Here is a link to the Sam Adams Brewery, http://www.samueladams.com/share-passion/tours.aspx. I would suggest if you are from out-of-town that you might want to take public transportation or have a GPS handy on getting to the brewery. The hours for the tours are listed and it is open Monday-Saturday. It was pretty busy this Saturday and there was about a 2.5 hour wait to get on tours, but it was a Saturday with nice weather on a long weekend so I think if you went during the week the wait might be shorter. There is also a free trolley service at the brewery that will take you to a local pub where you can eat and have a Sam Adams on draft. They told us if you go to the bar and order a Sam Adams on draft ($4.50) to show them your tour pass cause you will get to keep your beer glass. That is actually a good price for a draft beer in this area and you will also get a souvenir.

Other breweries you can also visit are:

Harpoon Brewery - Boston, MA http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/ (they do week day tastings not tours)

Wachusett Brewery - Westminster, MA http://www.wachusettbrew.com/index2.html

Mayflower Brewery - Plymouth, MA http://mayflowerbrewing.com/

Cape Cod Beer - Hyannis, MA http://www.capecodbeer.com/

These are just a few but you can do a search and find more. Most of these beers except Sam Adams you won't be able to get out of the New England area so if you are a beer lover I would suggest checking out some of these places. They are also usually free or cost a couple of dollars and don't usually take more than an hour of your time.

I Heart Shutterfly

I think everyday or maybe every other day I get an email with a promo code from shutterfly. Today I got a promo code for free set of return address labels. So I hopped right on the shutterfly site and made myself some return address labels. For those of you who have received your save-the-date cards already you might have noticed the return address label was for Matt. He made and purchased the first set from Vista Print. Mainly cause Vista Print is cheap and he ordered a bunch of them. I did notice the other day that our supply of return address labels was low and that we were probably going to have to reorder and then in comes the shutterfly code. Now I know these labels won't match the ones Matt made for 2 reasons. 1. I added my name to the label so the say M.Lermon and M. McCloud and 2. they don't have an eagle on them, but I DO NOT CARE. I am personally just excited that I saved money. I would share the project with you guys, but Shutterfly says only cards and photobooks.

Jennee's card

So below is a card I made for Jennee, one of my Matron of honors, and I wanted to tell everyone about it and her. No worries I sent one to Misty my other Matron of honor but I will talk about her a little later. So card below I designed using shutterfly and some pics from a wedding we were at this past summer and then the saying I found on a wedding blog website. I wish I would have found it earlier and that this was how I asked her to be a part of my big day. Instead I asked her over the phone and I am not sure if I even asked her. I think it went more like this.

ME: "Friend (Jennee), you know you are one of my matron's of honor right?"

JENNEE: "YES, Friend and I would love too"

I don't think that is asking but more or less stating. I think that is what happens when you have been friends with someone for 25 years. So I am going to tell you a little about her and our friendship.

Jennee has been a friend since the first day of Kindergarten. We met on the school bus and have been friends ever since. We were probably two of the most unusual friends except we were both tomboys through our younger years. Jennee has been a friend who I can always count on through the years. She is always there to listen, lean on, or just to share a laugh with. We have been separated for the past ten or so years by about 1300 miles, but I think that has made our friendship even stronger. We often exchange random phone calls during the week just to say hi or wish the other person a Happy Tuesday. I had the honor to stand up for Jennee on her wedding and am super happy that she will be standing next to me on my big day. I wouldn't want it any other way. So this post is ode to Jennee or Matron of Honor number 1.

The inside of the card says:

Will you be my Matron of Honor? Will you share my special day with me?

Will you help me plan my wedding? Will you try on dresses at shop that don't fit

and pretend they look nice? Will you dance the night away with me? Will

you smile endlessly for pictures? Will you help me from tripping on the dance floor?

Lastly will you hold my dress when I pee?

Classic Navy 5x7 folded card

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This way to the Food and Music!

The wedding reception venue has been booked. I am super excited. We have booked the Holiday Inn Mansfield, MA for our reception. Here is the link to the hotel. http://www.holidayinn.com/hotels/us/en/mansfield/bosmf/hoteldetail

All our guests will be able to get a special rate of $99 per night for as long as they stay. Having a place to eat and dance the night is away is awesome, but to also be able to crash only steps away from where all the partying is taking place is going to be even better. You don't need to rush out and book your rooms now the hotel has 200 rooms so you have some time. The hotel has a salt water pool and is close to a commuter rail station for all those out of town guests who want to take a day trip to Boston and not have to worry about driving in the city and getting lost in one of the many one way streets and having to find parking. Also nearby is Patriots Place which is where Gillette Stadium (the home to the New England Patriots) is located. Surrounding the stadium are various stores and restaurants including Bass Pro Shop.