Sneak Peek

Nicole posted a sneak peek of one of the pictures from our engagement session.
Words cannot describe how much I love it. I cannot wait to see what is to come!

Click here to see the sneak peek from Nicole's blog!

And I know that I say that a pretty picture should accompany every post, but the pretty picture is waiting for you over at Nicole'sblog!! Go now, then come back and comment!

Also, THE Jasmine Star stopped by my blog on this post and made THE sweetest comment about what a great photographer Nicole is....it made both of our days!

It's About To Happen

My friends, it's about to happen. In 45 days, Chris and I will be married!

I think that it hit us this weekend when we were taking our engagement photos...six-ish weeks and we will actually be married. It seems like just yesterday we were at the beginning of the planning process and attempting to determine the church we would marry in! Sooner than I can imagine, the day will come and we will be:

Just married! (photo via the yellow brick blog)

Please be understanding if posting is sparse in the coming days...there is just too much to do. xo

Our Invitation Suite

When I begin planning our wedding, I was the most excited about the invitation suite. I knew that the invitation suite was to set the tone for the whole wedding (along with the Save the Dates) and therefore, they had to be perfect.

Long story short, these invitations kept me up at night and had me hating them one moment and loving them the next. Somehow, in the end, I was happy with the results. They are all done and all but two should now, hopefully, be in the hands of their invited guests.

The fiance was nice enough to take pictures of snippets of our invitations, so that I could share them with all of you...

(Please credit tying the knot with the invitation pictures. top: color, bottom: black & white)
Our invitations included a plum koala pouch that was flat on one side and had a pocket on the backside. The invitations were adhered to the flat side with Scotch double sided tape. The four insert cards (smallest to largest) were the RSVP, Reception, Accommodations, and Directions (map on the backside) cards.

We laid them one on top of each other and inserted them into the pocket. The RSVP card return envelope was too big to fit directly behind the RSVP card, so we stuck it behind the accommodations card. The invitation was banded together with a raspberry/wine colored stain 1.5 inch ribbon with our monogram square affixed to it. More pictures to come later.

The koala pocket and paper for the invitation were ordered for me by a vendor that I worked with. In case you are wondering, here are the envelopes that I used for the outer envelope and the RSVP envelope:

Outer Envelope
RSVP Envelope

In the beginning I had these big goals of learning calligraphy so that I could address the outside of our invitations myself. Well friends, that didn't happen. What I ended up doing was purchasing a plum sharpie and creating my own calligraphy. And it looked goooood if I do say so myself. Pictures to come. The RSVP envelopes were run thru my printer to display my parents home address on the front of the card in the font that we used for the rest of our invitation suite.

Copy {Click} and Paste {Volume 6}

Mommy and I bought my veil a couple weeks ago and it's taking everything within me to resist pulling it out from my closet, affixing it to my pretty little head, and twirling around in it.

We've decided that I'll only be wearing it for a teeny tiny bit of the day...for a select few pictures before the wedding and during the actual ceremony itself. After that it will go back in the closet. Sad, I know.

However, one of the aforementioned "select" pictures that the veil will make an appearance in will for sure be one like this one:

east hill photography via the brides cafe

The Weekend

Friday:

• Hair trial went horribly wrong. I have pictures, but no one will ever see them. Debating about doing another trial (for $40...ugh) or just praying that it will turn out decent the day-of.
• Bouquet sample looked worse than I could have ever imagined. I shed a tear while sitting at the florist. The raspberry was pretty much hot pink and the light peach was bright yellow. Ironically, they got the plum color right. Overall, it looked nothing like the picture (below) that I had given them to use as the inspiration. Bouquet mock-up #2 will come Friday. Cross your fingers people.



• Marriage license obtained. Good for 60 days.
• Taste testing at the reception hall went better than we could have imagined. Way better. Let me just say that the mashed potatoes are divine.

Sunday:

• Met with church organist. Picked out traditional church pieces.
• Had our engagement session with Nicole and Dan. The five pictures she showed us on her camera are so amazingly fantastic that I cannot even begin to put into words how fabulous they are. And to top it off, friends of ours cooked us a wonderful dinner around 9pm after we had used their cottage to "shoot" at.

Sorry so short. Stay tuned.

Final Fitting

Mommy is here tonight.

We went to my final {gasp} dress fitting. The dress fits like a glove and looks better than I could have ever dreamed it would look. Ever. Finally putting on the dress and having it fit makes this all seem real. I felt like a bride-to- be tonight and soon I will be a bride sitting for her bridal portraits!!

(rae leytham )

Poor MOH has at least 6 bustles ribbons to tie together on the big day. No pressure.

I told Mommy I wanted her to guest blog tonight...wouldn't you have loved that!? However, her usual bed time is 8pm so when we home at 10:30pm, she was done for.

Tomorrow we go for my trial hair do thing, see a sample of the BM bouquets and the table runner, obtain the marriage license and sample the chicken at the reception venue. Cross your fingers that all goes well! (Sidenote: My new BlackBerry Pearl might just allow me to blog on the road!) It's honestly so hard to believe that in less than 2 months we will be married and already back from our honeymoon!

P.S. I will attempt to post a snippet of my dress photos soon!!

Ohmygawd What Do I Wear?!

Our engagement pictures are on Sunday. As in Thursday, Friday, Saturday....SUNDAY!
On top of throwing everything from my closet into the garbage because I have NOTHING to wear I have been attempting to practice my smiles and "looks" for the camera. Just kidding. I already have 2-3 outfits picked out and I really don't have time to practice my smiles in front of the mirror. However, I have had time to scour some of my favorite photographers blogs for some engagement inspiration. Here are some of my favorites and the reasons why I love them:
These first three photos below might just be some of my all-time favorites. I love the laughter, the coy-ness, cuddli-ness and the adoration displayed. Definitely copy & paste them.

Take out the sand and replace it with a gorgeous white pier and a beautiful lake below and we could totally rock this out:The next 2 photos come from the most amazing engagement photo shoot I have ever seen. Chris is a pretty boy and I'm pretty sure that once he relaxes in front of the camera he'll be a natural.
And just because it's a cute picture:
(all photos above via jasmine star )

I love this one for the way that she is looking at him. It reminds me of how my Grandma would look at my Grandpa. And check out the sun flare! (photo by jessica claire )

Walking off hand in hand into the sunset will be a perfect ending to our e-session. Fingers crossed!

(photo via jasmine star )