Jena and Joe's Reception

I am a little late with this recap as I have been feeling awful all week. I went to the Student Health Center yesterday, and have a virus. I haven't missed any work (it's a busy time for us gearing up for orientation, etc.), but I have been useless everyday when I get off.

 

My friend Jena and her husband Joe had a reception at their house Saturday. They eloped in Key West in April. Jena and I have been friends since high school, and she was a bridesmaid in our wedding. I still remember the first time I ever met Jena in high school. She has always been super smart and was the valedictorian of our graduating class - I should add that she is very modest and will never volunteer that information to anyone.

 

Heidi, beautiful bride Jena, and me.

 

 

Heidi is another bestie from high school. She and I used to find SO much trouble to get into. I have the best memories of teaching Vacation Bible School with these two.

 

Nick and me.

 

I'm off to find some Gatorade to drink and try to make it through the rest of the work day. I hope everyone is having a great week! 

Five on Friday

TGIF y'all!! I am happy to report my post-wedding and honeymoon depression is finally lifting. Although I am sad that I will be working on Monday (our college is not closed for Memorial Day), I am looking forward to a fun summer.

 

Here are some of my new likes:

 

1. I bring a Greek salad to work for lunch probably four days a week. I found this salad dressing at Publix, and I love it. Since nasty BiLo bought out Piggly Wiggly, Publix is my favorite grocery store. I know most people do not like grocery shopping, but I enjoy it.

 

 

2. I picked this eye roller up the other day because I thought it looked fun. It feels REALLY good to use.

 

 

3. I just read Emily Giffin's One and Only in three days. I ugly cried at the end. Seriously SO good.

 

 

4. I am pretty excited about Lilly's new summer line! This Gabby shift is from the Spring line, and I really like the colors. I was also thinking this might be fun to have for summer as well.

 

 

5. Last of all, I am really looking forward to Miss USA on June 8th!

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 



Weekend Recap

This Saturday we celebrated one of my nearest and dearest, my friend Jessie, with a baby shower. She is due in exactly one month. Jessie and I have been friends since high school, and she was MOH in our wedding.

 

I had a friend over Thursday night to help me with the diaper cake. We had pizza (Schiano's of course), Chardonnay, and cookies, and had a great time.

 

Here it is:

 

 

Yadi thought everything I had bought for the baby was for him. This wubanub was a casualty.

 

 

Me and Jessie.

 

 

Me and my Mom.

 

 The shower at was Jessie's aunt's house and it was really nice. Her Aunt Karen has a beautiful home. The food was great. I was in charge of decorations and paper goods, and I was pleased with how everything turned out. I got everything at If It's Paper! and Hob Lob.

 

Saturday night we went to Jessie's sister's house (Jena was also a bridesmaid in our wedding) and ordered pizza. We had champagne and talked all night. Overall it was a really great weekend.

 

I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend!

Honeymoon Recap Part II

Friends, we made it to Friday! What a long week. I am back to finish the recap of our honeymoon.

 

Wednesday we hung out at the pool most of the day, and went to a nice dinner. Basically, that was what we did every day. Dinner Wednesday night was Cocotal, and it was amazing.

 

My Mom made me this dress right before I started my first year at Carolina - I am still in disbelief that I got back into it. I need to get serious about eating right again, I've been slack since we've been back from our honeymoon.

 

 

 View from our balcony.

 

 

Thursday was the only day we left the resort. We did a horseback riding excursion. I grew up taking riding lessons and had two different horses. I got Melissa Sue in eighth grade. She is retired due to a condition called Navicular and still lives with my Mom. I loved the horse I rode in Mexico, and told Nick I wanted to take him home with us. I think he was afraid I'd actually try to do it. I miss riding a lot, and it was so nice of my husband to take me riding on our honeymoon.

 

 

I wanted to adopt this cat and take it back home with us.

 

 

Meeting other newlyweds at one of the pools. We hung out with several couples that we met all week.

 

 

The Martini Bar Thursday night. Dinner this night was Kampai - I'm still thinking about how much I loved all the food at our resort. Kampai was one of the best restaurants we went to all week.

 

 

Friday

 

 

Dinner on Friday was Ricon, which was authentic Mexican food. I had the lobster chimichanga and it was to die for.  Ricon was another favorite restaurant.

 

 

Before our candlelight dinner on the beach Saturday.

 

 

 

Sunday we flew home :-(. I was sad to go back to regular life after all the excitement of the wedding, and then being spoiled for a week on our honeymoon.

 

I am headed out of town this weekend to celebrate my dear friend Jessie who is expecting a baby BOY next month. I am super excited about some of the things I made for her shower, so I will post a recap of her shower on Monday.

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Honeymoon Recap Part I

I will be honest, right now I am LOVING not having any classes in May. It's like Christmas in May. Last night I was in bed by 8:30 watching tv. I normally don't so much as turn the tv on on weekdays. HOWEVER, I am sad the honeymoon is over. I don't miss wedding planning for a minute, it stressed me out way too much. But I am sad the honeymoon is over. It was such a great week and I looked forward to it for so long.

 

We got up super early the morning after our wedding, and hightailed it to the Columbia airport. Even though we were in GA, we wanted to fly in and out of Columbia so we could get Yadi back from Camp Bow Wow on Sunday night. We flew to Charlotte to change planes and ended up sitting on the runway for two hours and going nowhere. Our flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Some of the people on our flight were really upset, but my grandfather was a commercial (and US Marine) pilot for many years, so I understood and we weren't upset. We spent the night in Charlotte and had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (my favorite). We flew into the Cancun airport the next morning and got to our resort that afternoon.

 

We stayed at the El Dorado Casitas Royale  and it was A.MAZ.ING.

 

The first night of our honeymoon. We had dinner at D'Italia this night and then saw a mariachi band.

 

 

Going to breakfast our first full day (Tuesday).

 

 

 

  My new monogram at the beach (thanks Catherine!).

 

 

 Dinner Tuesday night at Santa Fe.

 

 

OK I am off to use my lunch break to run some errands for a baby shower this Saturday. The shower is for one of my closest friends, who was the MOH in our wedding. I am in charge of decorations. I may sneak in a lunch at Chick Fil A too!

 

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Weekend Recap

We had a great weekend at home - our first weekend at home as newlyweds!

 

Friday I got off work early, and we took both dogs on a boat ride. It was our first time taking the boat out since last summer. I am desperately hoping we will have a summer full of good, sunny weather after the awful rainy summer we had last year. I still feel cheated.

 

It was Trinket's first time on a boat, and she loved it. I was very surprised. I am going to find her a (pink, of course, and hopefully monogrammed too) life vest and take her again.

 

Saturday we ran some errands, including using some of our Bed, Bath, & Beyond gift cards, which was a lot of fun. I love my new door mat! Saturday night we went over to another couple's house for dinner. Our friend that married us and his wife were there also, as well as all of their kids. It was a fun night.

 

Sunday is when things got interesting. It seems like there is never a dull moment for us. The bilge pump in our boat went out while we were out in it. Problems quickly ensued. She is now at the mechanic's. I am hoping she can get all fixed up and back in commission. Our boat is a twenty year old Crownline, but we take good care of it, and I am hoping we can get several more summers out of it. I really want her to last until I finish grad school.

 

This is a pic collage I made for Mother's Day. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

 

 

Honeymoon Recap coming soon!





Reception

Here are some photos from our reception. When I think about it now, it seems like the reception went by very quickly. Really, I guess the entire day did. The food was great, I loved the centerpieces, and the DJ (CJ from the Islander if you know me IRL) was a lot of fun. Our Maid of Honor and Best Man had great speeches (although now my Southern Baptist grandparents know I danced on a bar in Milwaukee :-) ), over all it was a wonderful night!

 

Walking into the reception

 

 

My Mom and two of our long time friends. My Mom has been friends with Nathan since college, he and his wife Brandy got married about five years ago.

 

 

Diet over, I can EAT! We had BBQ from Sandfly BBQ in Savannah and it was AMAZING. They were so easy to work with.

 

 

Me with our friend Brock who married us.

 

 

I took this photo from a friend's Instagram since it has a few of the details in it. I love owls, and loved the owl centerpieces my Gran and Aunt made.

 

 

Our wedding cake. Minette Rushing is absolutely FANTASTIC! I wish I had a piece of this cake to eat right now. Just looking at it makes me hungry. Each tier was a different flavor.

 

 Nick's groom's cake is in this photo collage I took from a friend's Instagram. I had a lot of fun planning the groom's cake.

 

I love this sweet picture of our flower girl watching our first dance.

 

 

Cutting the cake.

 

 

My friend in the coral color is one of my oldest friends and traveled all the way from Oklahoma for our wedding.

 

 

  More dancing

 

 I'll be back with more tomorrow! Yay for TGIF being tomorrow!



Our Ceremony

The day of our wedding, I got up bright and early at 6 am. I actually got up a little bit before my alarm went off from all the excitement.

 

My little flower girl was such a trooper. We got her out of bed at 6 am, after keeping her up late the night before, and had her try on her dress that my Mom was making. She is such a sweetheart and was so cooperative.

 

My Mom, my bridesmaid Ashley, and I drove into Savannah for our salon appointment. We went to Salon Twenty Ten on Abercorn Street in Savannah, and I loved the stylists that we used. Before our appointment, however, we made a much needed Starbucks stop.

 

After a few hours at the salon, we went to the wedding venue to start getting dressed. By this point, I was no longer nervous at all. Just happy and having fun!!
 

I will be getting our professional photos later, but these are the pics I have so far. This is me and Jena while we were getting dressed. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends, and loved spending this day with them by my side. Jena and I have been friends since high school.

 

 

Walking up the aisle with my Grandfather. Right then, all the stress I had been feeling ever since we got engaged lifted, and I was happy and relaxed. I can honestly say that I feel like in the end, all of the stress of wedding planning was worth the end result.

 

My Grandparents took me and my Mom in when I was five months old, and we lived with them until my Mom and StepDad got married when I was in sixth grade. My Mom and I are both very close with them, and they still talk about getting me from the airport when I was five months old. I am also close with my (former) StepDad, and mean he and my Mom when I say "my parents."



 Our close friend Brock performed the ceremony and did a great job. 



 

Family pictures immediately following the ceremony. This is my family.

 

 

Nick's family. I love how the flowers turned out! My flowers are wrapped in a handkerchief that belonged to Nick's great-grandmother.

 

 

Sneak peek from our photographer, Courtney Dox. I LOVE it!!!!! I can't wait to see more of her pictures from the day. Courtney was absolutely wonderful to work with, and her sister Catherine was our wedding coordinator and was extremely helpful all day.

 

 

Thank you for bearing with me through that photo overload! Tomorrow's post will be about our  reception.   



Thursday and Our Rehearsal Friday

I'm back! I'm looking forward to getting caught up on all my blog reading. After six days in Mexico (it was supposed to be seven, but I will get to that later), coming back to work yesterday was very hard.

 

I'm going to go in order with my recaps, and I hope I won't bore anyone in the process. My last day at work the week of our wedding was Wednesday. I got off work early, and took a final that afternoon. The next day I did my last pre-wedding pure barre class, and took my last final. It wasn't as hard as I thought that it would be to get my finals out of the way. I just really knew that I HAD to do well. I've ended up with an A in Language Development and a B+ in Articulation Disorders. Surprisingly, this has been my best semester of grad school so far, as before this I made all Bs in my classes.

 

I also packed the car that day as well. I tried to be very thorough and organized in packing the car, and really took my time with it. I labeled everything as I packed so it would be easier to find things the day of the wedding.

 

Friday morning I got up early and dropped the dogs off at the vet and Camp Bow Wow. I got a SubWay flatbread breakfast sandwich, and hit the road for GA. I got to the hotel I was staying at with my bridesmaids, checked in, and got to relax for a little while. Nick picked me up around 1 pm. I hadn't seen him in a few days, so I was very excited to see him! We went to the Liberty County Courthouse to get our license. After waiting a very long time, we finally got to go back and get the paperwork from the judge.

 

Our rehearsal was at 4 pm that afternoon, but didn't really get started until around 5. I was very nervous at this point. I am pretty quiet anyways, and was feeling even more shy than usual. I mostly just stuck close by my bridesmaid Ashley for the entire night.

 

The rehearsal dinner was held at the house that Nick's Mom, brother, and sister rented to stay in. It was only a few minutes from our wedding venue, and had beautiful views. From what I understand, the food was great too. I was hardcore dieting, so I only had water and a few nibbles of food. I didn't get to try to Low Country Boil, but I did have a few bites of the pasta salad Nick's brother Tedd made and it was amazing.  



 

That night me, my Mom, two of my bridesmaids (Jena and Jessie), and my flower girl all shared a hotel room. My Mom was still working on my flower girl's dress at this point. She says she works best under pressure, and has made most of my pageant/talent/Halloween costumes at the last minute for my entire life.

 

I got maybe four hours of sleep this night, even after taking a prescription. I just couldn't get to sleep. I knew I had all of the details ironed out, but I guess I was too excited to sleep.   

 

I'll be back tomorrow with the day of the wedding recap. Have a great Tuesday afternoon!