I'm Going to be a Bridesmaid!

Hi hi!  Happy Wednesday.  This week is actually going pretty quickly for me.  I feel like I've been going non-stop though so I'm pretty excited to have a lazy night at home with Marley tonight.  I'm still deciding whether or not I'm even going to make it to the gym tonight after work.  Looks like I need to get on pinterest for a little inspiration!

Last night when we got home from looking at 2 awful, AWFUL, apartments I checked the mail and, much to my surprise, I got something that actually wasn't a bill or some sort of junk mail.  I got a nice little card from my dear friend, Maggie, asking me to be her bridesmaid in her wedding in August.  Maggie was my college roommate and became one of my best friends after that first year we shared together.  She was also, definitely, the best roomie I ever had!

 
This picture was taken on the night that Maggie and her fiance, Brian, got engaged in December.  Brian proposed to her in Chicago at the Millenium Park ice skating rink.  Her childhood friend and husband are on the left, Maggie and Brian are in the middle, and obviously I am on the right.  This was at the restaurant where we celebrated after they got engaged.  I feel like I have to add, Vinnie had to work so he showed up later and is not pictured here.

So, obviously, I accepted her proposal to be a bridesmaid.  Today I started looking back through pictures (on facebook of course) of the two of us and it made me miss, not only her, but those wild, carefree days that we spent together.  We met at a restaurant that we both worked at closer to my hometown.  We both started working there when we were 20 years old and instantly became friends.  We soon found out that we were both attending Illinois State University and I needed a place to live.  It ended up working out perfectly because the 2 girls that currently lived with Maggie at the time, were moving out the next year.  I saw the place, signed a lease, and moved in a few months later.  

Here is a look through our friendship via pictures:

At a mutual friend's wedding in October 2009

Maggie was with me to celebrate my 22nd birthday, which ended up being the craziest (yes, crazier than my 21st) birthday I've ever had.  I definitely will not ever forget that birthday.

Walking to a bar on my 22nd b-day

When we were in college, Maggie and I used to go to a bar called 'Medici' every single Wednesday night.  Wednesday was a huge night to go out at our college because the bars in uptown Normal had great specials for poor college kids.  It was called Whiskey Wednesday if that gives you an idea of the shenanigans we got ourselves into back in the day.  We ended up becoming friends with a couple of the bartenders there who ended up never charging us for anything we ordered.  Of course we always gave them a nice, healthy tip at the end of the night (money people, get your mind out of the gutter, we're not those types of girls!).  We lived for Wednesday nights, since we both worked at restaurants on the weekends this was a big 'going out' night for us!

We both had the snarl lip thing going on pretty well.

We took pretty pictures after drinking for hours.

You couldn't catch me without a drink in my hand on Wednesdays.

With our favorite bartender.  We obviously both decided to cut our hair off at somepoint during college.

'Mike and Joe' was a band that played every few weeks at a bar called 'Daddio's' in downtown Bloomington.  We fell in love with their music and their band members and used to go to their shows every time they were in town.  Oh the good ol' groupie days.

Watching our favorite band, Mike and Joe!

We both love making fun of other people.

At a mutual friend's wedding in Summer 2010

We both have a huge sweet tooth and would do anything for cheesecake!
 

Maggie's 23rd birthday

Katie (pictured below) is another close friend of ours whom we met working at that first restaurant together.  The 3 of us have stayed friends through the years and she is going to be a bridesmaid for Maggie too!
 

We all reunited last year!

Maggie came to Chicago to celebrate St. Patty's day last year!

We weren't that good of friends at the time that I moved in, but neither of us could have ever imagined how close we would become that year.  I think we both met each other at a critical time in our lives.  We both needed each others friendship more than we even knew.  I am so thankful and glad that I met Maggie and became such great friends with her.  She still lives close to where we both grew up, which is a few hours away from Chicago, and we don't get to see each other as often as we would like but we try to stay in touch as much as possible.  I'm so happy that Maggie met the love of her life and I can't wait to be by her side on the most important day of her life, her wedding day.

What a wonderful trip down memory lane!

Today I'm linking up with Shanna for 'Random Wednesday'.

XO. Tarah