I got measured and put a deposit down on the dress. It’s exciting!

After I was all done with my dress situation (which is not an ugly bridesmaid dress at all!) we went to the bridal section of the store. Katie has already bought her dress but my mom wanted her to try it on again. She tried it on and one of the women who work there was helping her figure out veils. After trying on quite a few interesting ones, she tried one on that was absolutely beautiful.

I didn’t cry when she told me she was engaged. Or when she tried on her dress for the first time. But when she tried that veil on with her dress, we both got tears in our eyes. She looked perfect.

At that moment it felt real; my big sister was really getting married.

Needless to say, she bought the veil.

Just be sure that the bride buys enough save the date cards, extra envelopes in case of mess-ups and enough stamps.

Overall the save the dates went off without a hitch and it was some good bonding time for the girls in the family. I think for the invitations, however, we’re going to recruit Mike’s mom…she’s got amazing handwriting!

Anyone who knows Katie knows that she has two great loves: Mike and red wine. So, for her bachelorette party she has mentioned going on a wine tour. This sounds like a fabulous idea, especially since a few of the girls have done this for other weddings.

One of the issues I’ve come across is the fact that my cousin Kelly who is in the wedding party, isn’t 21 yet. I’ve never been to a wine tour so I’m not even sure if they allow underage people to go on the tour. So that’s one thing that I need to look further into.

Katie also wants to be surprised about the bachelorette party so planning it without her knowing, and not knowing her schedule is going to be kind of difficult.

I think with the help of the other bridesmaids it will all come together fine. They seem to have a lot if input and tips on how to plan a good, fun party.

Katie asked me this question yesterday. I haven’t, so I told her no.

“Oh, well maybe you should. A bunch of the other girls got their measurements and ordered theirs.”

Now I’m probably making a huge deal out of nothing, but it kind of made me feel like a bad maid of honor. Aren’t I the one who is supposed to be doing everything first? I feel as if I’m a step behind all the other girls now!

I’m trying to cut myself some slack considering I’m still in school and I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but it still made me feel a little bad. It’s fine though because this weekend while I’m helping Katie with the save the dates, I’ll get measured and order the dress.

I apologize that this blog had no advice or real point. Well, actually, here’s some advice: Make sure you do have plenty of time to order your dress because typically it takes bridesmaid dresses six months to come in.

But where exactly does the maid of honor come from? Has she always had relatively the same duties? I decided to do some research.

Maid-Of-Honor.net, gives a brief history of where the maid of honor stems from. In Roman times the bride would typically travel to the groom’s village for the wedding. The original purpose of the maid of honor and the bridesmaids was to dress exactly like the bride. Jealous men then wouldn’t be able to tell which one the bride was. The similar dress was also supposed to help confuse any bad spirits.

Similar to today, the maid of honor was expected to help the bride get dressed and prepare for the wedding. The maid of honor also helped the bride make a wreath containing herbs and flowers to protect against those  bad spirits.

It’s thought that the title ‘maid of honor’ may have come from the UK where the Maid of honor was the name of a female attendant to the queen.

If it will make Katie happy, I’ll gladly be the attendant to her queen…just for the day though.

In about two months we’ll send out the actual invitations to the guests, and after that we just wait to see who can come ad who can’t make it. Once that’s all settled…the seating chart will begin to be formed. What I’m learning about planning a wedding is that everything is one step at a time. You can’t make the seating chart without the invitations being done and you can’t have the invitations without the Save the dates. So although it seems like a dainting task at times, it’s all about setting a pace.

I’ve heard from numerous people to just keep it short and sincere. Don’t try to be funny. I feel like I have so many things that I’d like to say about Katie and Mike, but when I try to put it on paper, I come up with something sounding so generic and insincere.

Ehow.com suggests brainstorming memorable moments that you have had with the bride. Next, think of times that you have shared with the groom, or stories that the bride has told you about concerning the two of them. Throughout the speech, they suggest going back and fourth with stories from the present and past. The final step suggests giving a quote or a tip of advice for the newly married couple.

I think I’ll wait a little longer before I start planning out my speech. I have until August, so I think once the day becomes closer, it’ll make it more real and my own, original words will just come naturally.

So once my sister Katie asked me (well, actually told me) to be her maid of honor, I immediately began googling “maid of honor duties.” Pages and pages of links showed up and it was a little overwhelming. The website Bridesmaid 101 divides the afformentioned duties into two categories: Pre-wedding and Wedding day.

Under the Pre-wedding list, the first duty requires the maid of honor to accompany the bride-to-be on her quest for a reception location. I may know not much about weddings, but i do know that picking a reception site is one of the first things that needs to be done once engaged.

I went with Katie and her fiance Mike to visit several possible locations. Katie wants to get married near our hometown in the Hudson Valley so although the Valley is a beautiful place, this put a limit on how many choices she has for a reception site. It’s not exactly a metropolis overflowing with ideal wedding sites.

The first place we visited is called the Bear Mountain Inn. It’s a convenient ten minutes from the church they are getting married at and Katie has had some kind of sentimental attachment to it since she was young. We used to go ice skating there when we were little and I also had my communion there in second grade. After taking a tour, unfortunately, the Bear Mountain Inn didn’t live up to Katie’s image in her head. Disappointed, we had to move on, and I was right there encouraging her…’ya know, being a good maid of honor.

The next stop was the Thayer Hotel at West Point. That’s right the United States Military Academy, located 15 minutes from the church. I had my senior prom at West Point so I knew that it was a very beautiful place. When we got to West Point, the first red flag for Mike was the security checkpoints. We had to get out of our car and open our trunk and show our IDs. With one car this isn’t so bad. But imagine an entire wedding getting out of their cars and showing their IDs. And then what happens if a bridesmaid or grandma  forgets her ID? Once we got inside it was extremely beautiful, but it just wasn’t the right fit for Katie and Mike. As Mike said, “I just never pictured myself getting married on a military base.” And that’s understandable.

A couple days later I found a place called The Dutchess Manor. It was on the other side of the river, so it was a little more of a hike, but it looked promising. After visiting it, we were blown away. The views of the river are spectacular and it’s family owned and run, so everyone is so nice. Katie and Mike booked it right away!

 I can check that first maid of honor duty off of the list.