Bride Day - Friday

I cannot believe that it's been almost a year since we got married and I have not shown you my amazing bridal portraits!  I guess I can't say that I can't believe it... we haven't done our "After I Do" session and we don't have ANY wedding pictures printed or up in our house.  I know... ridiculous.

SO, check out these amazing pictures and let me know which ones you like best... I feel kind of weird putting up pictures of just me, so let me know how you think I should use these pictures, too  :)

AND, while you are checking out my pictures, you can also check out my photographer, Catie's Captures, on her website, Facebook page and blog!

my favorite...

Hope you all have a great weekend!  I'll be back next week, getting ready for my cousin's bridal shower!

Indiana To Do List

I am so excited to go to Indiana tomorrow.  I have been looking forward to Christmas since Thanksgiving, for MULTIPLE reasons...

1. It's Christmas... nuf said
2. Snow
3. Some time away from work
4. HOPEFULLY a finish to the wedding "planning" and maybe even some DIY projects done

So we leave on Friday evening, and we were lucky enough to get two of our three flights as direct.  We will start by going Texas to Indiana on Friday and then on the 29th, we'll go to South Dakota to J's sister's house, where i get to meet my almost-niece.  Then it's back to Texas on the 1st, but it will be 2 weeks of no work and all family!

SO, let's talk about number 4 on my list of reasons for excitement.  I have booked us pretty solid on Dec 21 with "wedding" meetings.  My mom and I are starting with a trip to the tailor to get my dress altered, and by altered, I need to have a hook and eye put on the bottom of the back opening so that it doesn't gap.  That's all I am willing to do to my dress, and no one will talk me in to more.  OH, and she's hopefully going to bustle it, too (rats... I just figured out that means I have to have my shoes with me... so much for only having to pack 1 pair).

After that, J and I have a meeting with a lady who may be the person who is going to officiate the ceremony.  Yes, we still don't technically have someone to marry us.  If we don't like this lady, we are going with my mom's friend's daughter, and that's that... no more searching.

Last meeting on that day will be at our venue.  We have a few things to do there... 1. meet with a party rental company to talk about reception lighting.  2. pick a purple table cloth.  3. Take some more pictures of the venue so I can a. post them, and b. have fun playing with them while I try and figure out exactly where everything should go.

ALSO, we have to go to the place where I've already put down a deposit for the guys' suits so J can see what they look like and approve them and I'm hoping they have SOMETHING that is not a computer screen to show us so I can see what the color of the green for the groomsmen really looks like.

ALSO ALSO, my flower girl will be making an appearance at the holiday festivities and I'm sooooo excited to get to spend some time with her, looking at flower girl dresses.  I can't wait to hear what her favorite styles are!!!

No, it's not nearly as much as we've fit into wedding planning days in the past, but it will still be a very full day.  The other wedding related tasks have to do with our DIY projects.  We have a birdcage/card box to spray paint, we have a flower girl basket to spray paint and accessorize, we have some teapots to spray paint (the shapes work, but the colors just don't), we have some flowers to put together so that we can just toss them in the teapots, we have favors to put together (this one is not essential), and we have 40 pomanders to make (this one is essential).  I'll feel SOOOO much better about my DIY projects and my long distance planning if I can get a good amount of this stuff done in the 10 days we are in Indiana.  I think right now, we technically have 3 days with NOTHING scheduled, so hopefully we can put some of those to good use!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GO!!!!

By Special Request

I got a special request today to show my FANTASTICAL shoes... I was told that it was awesome that they are purple and that they will get a lot of camera time (if that gives you a hint on who requested a preview)

So without further ado... HERE THEY ARE!!!

A Weekend of Shopping

A lot of people spent their Memorial Day Weekends at the lake, at the pool or on a mini-vacation.  We, on the other hand, spent ours shopping.  I know that a lot of you are wondering how I could possibly get J to shop with me ALL weekend, but I must say that he was a really good sport about the whole weekend.

We had two goals for the weekend.  The top goal was to find as many teapots as we could for $5 or less.  The secondary goal was to find outfits for the engagement pics that are coming up in July.

We scoured Goodwill stores, thrift stores, antique stores and any other location that we thought would provide cheap teapots.  In case you haven't been a regular reader, these teapots are going to be used as the centerpieces on all of the tables.  We found 11 in all, which is a pretty good number for one weekend.  My mom has 10 so far at her house which means we are over half way to our goal, which we currently think is about 40 teapots when you include all the tables that will need the decoration.

Despite the fact that we went all over the metroplex finding teapots, it was not as difficult as the search for the engagement picture outfits.  I had an idea of what we would wear when we started, but that idea was worthless because it bears no resemblance to the final outfits.

There is a lot of pressure in picking out these outfits!  You only have one shot to make the engagement pics look good.  We have three locations and three outfits and we are not the "matching couple" type, but I don't want us to clash either.  So I think we have it figured out, and the outfits include some polka dots, some stripes, some fantastic shoes and most important... the clothes that are going in the lake!

One more side note... the wedding shoes are here and they are FABULOUS!!!

Shoes

First of all, thanks to everyone who voted for their favorite brooch.  I'm sure they will be really pretty on the mothers' dresses!

So, I love shoes.  I probably don't buy shoes as much as I would like to, but I still love them.

Wedding shoes have to be comfortable, you have to be able to dance with them, but I wanted something really cute and fun!  I also don't want to have my dress altered so I had to find some that were a little taller than the heels I usually wear.

So I finally found them at a store called Off Broadway Shoes. They are by Sam & Libby and this is what the shoe looks like, but they are purple, not silver.  I'm really excited to wear them!!!