Busy Bees

Happy New Year, bees! I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year, and is as excited as we are for 2013 to finally be here!

With the wedding right around the corner, Mr. Ly and I have been busy bees getting stuff done for the wedding.  This past Friday was by far the most productive wedding day I've had in quite some time. We got up early (at least for me it was early - I was on winter vacation!) and headed into Philadelphia to get our marriage license. We got there about half an hour after the office opened, and had no wait time.  We were in and out with our marriage license in about 20 minutes!

Please excuse my half asleep look. After a week of sleeping in - it was way too early for me to be this functional! 

 It was a gorgeous day at city hall, and I remarked to Mr. Ly that I would love to have weather just like this on our wedding day. We'll be revisiting this iconic location in center city Philadelphia to take some wedding photos, but it was too beautiful not to snap one before we left!

City Hall on a beautiful winter's morning

I dropped Mr. Ly off at work and headed on to my next wedding task of the day, my hair trial.  This was something I clearly had been putting off for quite some time.  I had no idea what I wanted my hair to look like, or who I wanted to do my hair. My hair stylist was recommended to me by a friend whose brother's wife had just used her for their wedding.  I hadn't seen any of her other work besides my friend's brother's wedding, but it was enough for me.  My friend told me that she and the other stylist worked really quickly and were able to recreate all the pinterest-y hair styles that were brought to them.

The day before my trial I pinned a bunch of pictures for inspiration.  I had decided that I no longer wanted to wear my hair up, so all my previous inspiration pictures were of no use to me.  I pinned a bunch of long and curly styles, mostly like these:

Image via Once Wed / Photograph by Eric Kelley 

Nichole, my hairstylist, met me at my brother's house to do my trial.  She lives pretty far from the city, and since I was already going to be in the city for our marriage license, it made more sense to meet there.  She was wonderful, worked very quickly and we chatted the whole time. She worked with me to match the style I wanted and I loved how my hair turned out!

From the front

The twisty part in the back

I tried to get a full shot of the back, but it was really difficult by myself!
(Note: next time ask the hairdresser to take the picture for me!) 

The only thing I'd like to change the day of is to have her start with tighter curls.  I know she wanted me to see the what it would look like when they fell more, but by 2 pm all of my curls had fallen. Otherwise, I couldn't be happier with my hair trial! I'm so excited to work with Nichole again on my wedding day!

Finally, not long after my hair trial, I had my 2nd dress fitting. I remembered a while back Mrs. Turkey suggesting wearing your hair at your fitting how you would have it at your wedding. Well, what better way to see it all together than to have your trial and fitting on the same day!  I loved how it all looked together, and I didn't want to take my dress off.  It's getting the final touches finished, and I have my last fitting tomorrow!

 I'm not going to reveal my dress until after the wedding, but here's a sneak peek at the french bustle:

Did anyone else have a productive wedding-related day where you knocked out a whole bunch of stuff? What are some things you left to last minute (I swear I'm forgetting a whole bunch of things I need to do!)?