So, Brian and I have been married for one week now… wow!  I have a husband!  We’re down in Huatulco, Mexico for our honeymoon, but I wanted show you a picture from the wedding - I can’t wait to share all the details with you!

This picture was taken by my cousin - what a perfect shot!

With everything behind me (how crazy is that?!), one of the moments I remember most vividly from my wedding is dancing with my dad…

It took me a while to come up with the perfect song to play when I danced with my father at my wedding… First I asked him for any suggestions he had: “Stairway to Heaven. Obviously.” Clearly this was not going to be the best way to go about finding the perfect song…

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Oh my wonderful!  I just viewed the photos from our engagement shoot last month and boy do I love them.  Angela Stott, our very talented photographer, did an amazing job - she found funky, interesting places to shoot and was able to capture such great shots of us.  I have to admit that on our drive home from the shoot Brian and I worried that our pictures might not turn out, not due to any fault of Angela’s, but because Brian and I just felt so silly most of the time - would our awkwardness come through in the pictures?!

Well, we spent the two hours home from Asheville worrying about nothing.  Check these puppies out (all by Angela Stott):

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Wow.  When did that happen?  The past month has just flown by and all of a sudden it’s one week until the big day!  Things have been pretty crazy (hence my sad lack of posts - I’m so sorry!), but I’ve gotten a lot of the big “to dos” checked off my list:

1. Pick up wedding dress - check!
2. Nail down all rentals - check!
3. Finalize guest list - check!
4. Put together all gifts for bridal party - mostly check!
5. Bust butt in the gym so that even if I look the same in a week, I feel amazing - check!
6. Sit down with musicians and finalize selections for ceremony and reception - check!
7. Make final menu decisions - check!

Despite all this, there still seem to be a million and one things on my to do list…  no big items (yea!), but lots of little ones.  Fortunately my wonderful fiance and dedicated bridesmaids have the reserved the upcoming weekend so we can do all the remaining wedding projects (they even seem excited about it!  though I think that may be entirely for my benefit…).

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Well, at least that’s what I keep telling myself because it’s all I can think about these days!  Fortunately, it’s not the tables themselves or really what’s going on them that’s keeping me up at night, it’s the gosh darned table numbers!

I know exactly the shape/size/dimensions of all the tables and where they’re each going to be located in the reception space - my poor, sweet Caroline at High Hampton spent several hours with the rental company coming up with a design that I liked (I strangely have an aversion to round tables, which made this all much more complicated that it otherwise would have been - I’m sorry, Caroline).  Also, I have a wonderful florist doing all the centerpieces and overall table decor and my amazingly crafty mother is making all the table runners.  I keep thinking I should feel really good about the tables, and trust me I do, I just can’t for the life of me figure out what I want to do about table numbers!

There are so many cool options out there and I can’t seem to narrow it down… please help me!  What do you think of my top three ideas (pictured below)?

These are from The Craft Pedlars and go with some of the other pieces from our wedding (like the invitations and our seating cards), but they seem kind of pricey ($3 per number) for something that is cute, but ultimately not a big wow factor… but I keep going back to them, so maybe it is worth it…

I love the idea of chalkboards, too, and this could be used elsewhere in the reception (like menus with the food):

(image from little white book)

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I always thought I wanted to get married in a church. When I was little, my mom “dragged me out of bed by the big toe” every Sunday to go to church knowing that somewhere along the way it would become something I did all by myself. I thought she was crazy – who would want to get up that early on a Sunday unprovoked? Then at some point, 10am seemed really late and somehow found myself wanting to go to church on Sunday mornings (more evidence that I might be a grown up…).

So, when I got engaged, getting married in a church seemed like where I was headed. Then we visited High Hampton and right across the street was the cutest little Episcopal church – this had to be a sign, right?

After deciding on High Hampton as our venue, I excitedly called the church. Here comes the bad news: the person I spoke with told me that, despite the fact that I was a practicing Episcopalian in the same diocese, they were unwilling to turn their church into a “Las Vegas-style wedding chapel” by having non-members marry there. After being rebuffed in a very (what I deemed) un-Christian-like manner, I determined that this was the sign. I knew there was something better out there for my wedding.

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I thought I would share with you what the bridesmaids and groomsmen will be wearing on the big day.  It took us a while to figure it all out, but I think it’s going to look great on the big day!

First the bridesmaids:

I knew I wanted something in navy and something simple, but it took me a while to pick out *the* dress for the bridesmaids.  I toyed with the idea of giving them a color and letting them pick out their own dress because I wanted them to be comfortable in what they were wearing and to be able to maybe (possibly!) wear the dress again… but navy can be tricky in terms of matching shades, so I ultimately decided to just pick a dress that would look good on all of them (that’s the hard part!) and ask them all to wear that one.

I dragged one of my bridesmaids to our local Bella Bridesmaid and made her try on just about every dress I kind of liked and we ultimately decided on the Magnolia by Simple Silhouettes.  I loved the sweetheart neckline, which I think is flattering on just about anyone, and we both thought the length would be good (not too short, but not too long for a cocktail dress).  It’s going to be all navy (even the sash/belt), which I think will be lovely and allow them to be more wearable in the future(hopefully!).  Here are some pictures of Mer T., my patient bridesmaid, modeling the dress after picking it up and taking it to the alteration place to get it cinched in a bit:

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I am in total shock that my wedding is just about a month away - where did the time go? September was a total blur - starting with a last minute trip to Paris (I know, pretty amazing), followed closely by my bachelorette and Homecoming at Davidson. Then I had two fabulous showers in Brian’s hometown, and then a work trip to Chicago! And do you think I managed to get any wedding planning in during that time? No. I got back to my real life and had a melt down because of everything there is still left to do…

Well, fortunately I have amazing friends (one who drove down from Columbus, OH!) who helped me regain my sanity and excitement for all that is coming up.  We spent this past weekend getting the invitations ready to go out (they are amazing, even if they are a tidbit late going out…) and making plans for getting all the things left to do done.  I can’t believe it’s so close!

I have lots of upcoming projects and planning to tell you about, but before I dive into that I thought I would share some pictures from my adventures this past month. Enjoy!

First a few Paris ones…

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It’s a little nerdy, but true nonetheless.  I’m completely obsessed with what we’re doing for the guestbook at our wedding: a DIY-ish photobooth.  It was one of the first ideas I saw out there in the wedding blog world and instantly knew it had to be part of my wedding.  My mom is making runners for tables at the reception (she’s pretty amazing), so we’re going to use some of that fabric to create a back drop and set up a digital camera with a remote so our guests can snap pictures of themselves.  We’ll put the pictures in a book (and not just any book, mind you, a handmade one from the fabulous Maggie of Campbell Raw Press) with signatures/notes from each guest.  We were able to customize the book to be exactly what we wanted - I can’t wait to see the final product! Here are a few pictures of what our book will look like:

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And sadly it’s not the good kind of dream… Last night I had my first wedding-related freak out dream.  You know, the one where you somehow find yourself at your wedding and you hadn’t finished planning everything (so people are wandering around aimlessly wondering why in the world you don’t have escort cards), your hair and make-up are not done, it’s the first dance and you can’t find the groom anywhere so you dance with your mom?  Yea, that one.

I can remember having similar dreams at other “big event” times in my life (prom, graduation, first day at a “real” job), but they were always a lot closer to the actual big event.  So needless to say, I’m a little worried because I don’t really feel too stressed about the wedding yet… what happens when I’m two weeks away and actually starting to freak out in real life?!

My wedding is a little over two months away, so I need some tips on how to not start freaking out just yet (even if it is just subconciously).  Anyone have any words of wisdom out there?  I would be particularly happy to hear any that involve massages or things of that nature…

Even though I’m too superstitious to show you my actual dress (well, I guess I couldn’t even if I wanted to - I don’t have a picture of it!), I couldn’t not talk about that part of the wedding planning process - it’s one of the best parts!  The pictures I’m including here are from my first trip - there were three main contenders, all pictured below.  Which one do you think was my favorite?

The first one is from Melissa Sweet’s Reverie line.  The style is Eze.

A close up with a more “me” veil:

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