114 Days Until Our Wedding: A Real Catch-up

First of all....HOLY SHIT I'M GETTING MARRIED IN THREE AND A HALF MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the language but considering what's about to happen in my life, I feel the situation warrants a little excitement :)


So in all of the craziness that is my life, I have been unable (and somewhat unwilling) to blog lately.  However, I have had a lot of wonderful things happen in my continuing life as an engaged woman nearly about to get married.

Well, I got my wedding dress.  Yes, finally all of the waiting is over and all that lace, chiffon and silk belong to me.  Yes, I cried a bit when I put it on.  Yes, it's still to long even though I ordered it in petite.  Yes I still need to lose weight in order to feel better about the way I will look in it.  But to be honest, there has never been a more lovely dress in the history of weddings.  But then again, shouldn't all brides feel that way?

A few weeks ago our lovely friend and photographer, Miss Lilly Hare, drove all the way from Louisiana and took our engagement pictures.  She is simply wonderful.  Even though it was hot, we were all a bit tired from staying up to late and the fact that Devon and I are sooooo awkward in any kind of photograph situation, she in all her amazing abilities molded us into some pretty amazing pictures. Like these:

I don't know if you can tell, but I simply adore this man.  He's my reason for getting up and each day I spend with him gets better and better.

Next weekend is my bridal shower and my bachelorette party.  My wonderful best friend is throwing both of them.  I'm hoping that certain things happen and don't happen but we will see how that goes.  I will definitely post again before and of course after it. 

Until then, I will be busy working on favors and picking out hairstyles :)

114 Days Until Our Wedding: I Should Apologize

Let me start by saying that when I began this blog, I fully intended to update once or twice a week at least.  I was so overjoyed by getting married and sharing this with all of my friends and family.  What bride is not happy about the prospect of her wedding day.

However, this journey has not been an easy one for me.

There is a lot I don't want to go into detail about but know that I have not abandoned this little venture.  In fact, I have a few updates planned.  So to all the people who have followed me, I apologize.

But please, keep me in mind...I am under more stress than any normal bride. :(

168 Days Until Our Wedding: Yowza! Where has the time gone??

Wow.  Five and a half months until our wedding. 168 days until I walk down the aisle.  How insane is that?

When I started this blog, I really wanted to use it to document all the amazing, wonderful experiences of being engaged and planning a wedding.  As much fun as that is, taking time to document it seems to take me out of it. I am so much happier living in the moment. For example...

Last weekend Devon and I spent time with my parents.  It was really wonderful.  I often have a strained relationship with my family, so to have a good time is a refreshing change to some of the times we have spent together.  It's especially important now because my grandmother was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and well, that sort of thing really tends to make you think.

While visiting them, we spent some time in Old Town Spring.  We browsed vintage shops and picked up a few brooches. (I have roughly thirty now)

In one particular shop, I came across some really lovely vintage china.  I don't normally think about that sort of thing but since the wedding, I have become really interested in it.  It was a little pricey, but since it was Mother's day weekend, the shop owner was giving a discount.  Long story short, my parents decided to get it for Devon and I as a wedding gift.  It's so lovely.

 I have been researching it and unfortunately since the company is out of business, it's hard to get information about it.  But what I have garnered is that it is from between 1925 to 1940.  I have around 50 pieces and I hope to collect the few missing ones as time goes on.  I know that one day when I pass it down to our children, I can tell them the story of spending the day with my parents and what a wonderful time we had finding the china and the wonderful memory of it all.


I am really excited to get married in a few months...but I am also excited to be growing into the kind of family that I always wanted ...

205 Days Until the Wedding: I am a TERRIBLE blogger

Yes, it's true.  I am the worst blogger in the world.  I have no idea when the last time I wrote.

But worse,  I don't remember when I wanted to. Frowny face :(

The problem is I haven't really had a reason to blog.  Lately the wedding planning has hit a bit of a slump.  I haven't had a reason to do anything or write.  That's not a bad thing.  In fact it's been nice not to worry about things.

So, reason for this post- Brooches!

I have decided to make a brooch bouquet for the wedding.  The idea stemmed from seeing amazing ones posted all over Etsy & Pinterest. They are really, really lovely and of course I wanted something really unique for the wedding. I had tried making a paper flower bouquet but that didn't turn out the way I wanted.

This is just an example of what I'm going to try to do

My great grandmother passed away in 2008. She was a really wonderful lady.  See, I grew up without my real father in my life.  However, my (stepfather) daddy's family has always completely accepted me as their own. She was one of my favorite people. She left me two pieces of jewelry- a pair diamond earrings and a little brooch.

I was looking at this one day and it hit me.  Why would I pay someone 2 to 4 hundred dollars (yes I am serious, look it up) for a brooch bouquet off of Etsy when I could definitely make one of these on my own.  AND not only that, but I could use this brooch and get some from my mom and make this totally special!!!

Seriously, I don't know why I didn't think of it before then but hey, sometimes I'm weird.


So, I started to look for brooch's.  I am pretty picky when it comes to jewelry so I knew that I was going to have to find some really special pieces.  The first stop came one weekend in the King Williams District with Devon.  That area is where we would love to live and we love all the food and shops down there.  I came across a few really awesome pieces that I was able to scoop up for fairly cheap.

I wasn't going to get the one on the top right (the swirly silver with the pearl) It was a little out of my price range but I was telling the lady at the shop what I was doing with the brooch's and she gave it to me- FOR FREE!!!  Oh those words are so wonderful to someone planning a wedding!


A few days later something really amazing happened.  I had posted on facebook what I was planning on doing and I posted that if anyone wanted to donate any brooch's, then I would gladly accept. (I will gladly still accept any donations!)  Well one of my friend's from college got married this past summer and I met his mother at his wedding.  She sent me a message and asked me if I would like some of the brooch's that she had.  I accepted of course and she sent me these:

I was so blown away by her generosity!  (If she happens to read this) Mrs. Pat you are so awesome.  I am constantly blown away by people's kindness but you really made my day (week and month lol) by sending me these!

I particularly love the music note one because of the fact that Devon and I met at band.

I am really excited about this little detail to my wedding.  I'll post more pictures as I collect more brooch's.


In other wedding news, my dress will be ready in mid-May!!!  I simply cannot wait until I get to try on my wedding dress.  Also, we are going to be taking our engagement pictures in June.  I know Lilly is going to do an amazing job.


Well, I promise I will try to post at least once a week from now on.  With only six and a half months left things should be picking up rather quickly.  I'm so excited!!!

Forever it seems...

I know I haven't posted in forever...I have good reasons though.  I promise good things are coming.  Until then, enjoy this...It's my new mantra

xoxoxoxoxo

258 Days Until Our Wedding: Engagement Picture Ideas

I'm feeling really chipper today so I thought I would finally write a new post. I'm not sure why I go so long in between each post. I have plenty to write about but I just don't feel like putting it to the page so to speak.

So.

Engagement pictures.

I want our engagement pictures to really pop. These pictures are going to be on display at our wedding reception and go out in our invitations. Now I'm not worried about our photographer because she is AMAZING!!! The wonderful Miss Lilly Hare of Lilly B. Photography will be taking our engagement pics, my bridals, and the pictures on our wedding day. She is really talented. She took a pictures for us for our 1 year anniversary and they were so fun and so cute (I'll post a few below.) So, I am not worried that she will be able to mold us into something awesome. (Also, if you are reading this and want to check out her pictures, please visit her at http://www.lillybphotography.com/ or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilly-B-Photography/141416229307076 )

So here's my concern. I like to be unique. I'm creative and I like to stand out. So what can I do to make our pictures really special to us and really unique? I have a few ideas but I want some opinions.

1. Paint fight/ Paintball photo shoot: Basically, we go play paintball or fill balloons with paint (washable of course) and go at it. Then Lilly shoots the pics. I found a similar thing on Pinterest and it looked really cute.
2. Mad men styled shoot: Since we love Mad Men (in fact that's what we sent out as our Save the Dates) and I love the fifties and sixties. I would wear a ModCloth type dress and Devon wears a bow tie and suspenders (and maybe a fedora lol) I know you can rent old cars so maybe even something like that!
3. Guadelupe River shoot: Since we live in San Antonio, we spend a lot of our summer going to the Guadelupe River going tubing. It's incredibly beautiful there. So basically I'd wear a sundress and Devon would wear rolled up pants and we would go to the shallow part of the river and just play around in the water. And maybe take some shots in Gruene (an old town off of the river) before that.

Well all in all I know the pictures will be awesome because our photographer is awesome and my fiance is awesome.

Until next time, I'll be brainstorming and buying some waterproof mascara :)

275 Days Until Our Wedding: A busy bee am I

Whoo...I have been busy since I last posted.  I have done a few very important things for the wedding since I last posted.

First, I had my tasting at the Vineyard.  I don't know if I have mentioned, but I booked a vineyard for our reception.  It is lovely.  And last weekend we chose the food for the reception.  Well actually, Devon chose the food.  I wanted him to feel like he made a major decision in this other than just signing on the dotted line.  I don't want to give anything away, but he chose a really amazing menu.


Secondly, and most importantly, I ordered and got our save the dates together.  Being the wonder woman that I am, I was not satisfied with just picking some design and having them sent to me. I wanted to save money as well as doing something unique.  I ended up using a combination of the wonderful services of the Wedding Chicks free printable's and Vistaprint.  In all, before postage I only spent 44$, which is a lot cheaper than any of the printing services that I had previously looked at.

We went with the Mad Men themed cards because we both love that show and that time period (in fact our engagement pictures might have that sort of theme as well.)  We decided to have them printed as magnets because people can just stick them on the fridge and be reminded of us.

I think they turned out rather fabulous if I do say so myself.  After I got them, I bought some yellow card stock and stuck them to them so they wouldn't be sliding around the envelope.

And a few hours later (and by a few I mean A LOT!!!) I had addressed all 78 envelopes.  And they are ready to be sent out.  It is sort of a thrill knowing that everyone will be getting a little part of us to get ready for the wedding.  

Why yes, that is a giant stack of envelopes I hand addressed.

It gets more and more real each day.  I'm just so excited to become Devon's wife.  In the end, that's what this is all about.  None of this other stuff matters as much as that.  But it's still fun.

Until next time, I'll be working on the details :)