Southern Weddings Magazine

So I totally forgot to make mention that my sweetie and I were in a blog post for Southern Weddings Magazine. It was kind of a big deal :)

Click here to check it out!

Tallahassee and Registering

It was two days before our engagement picture session, so JD and I headed to Tallahassee to do some shopping. We were still trying to decide exactly what we were going to wear. A full morning of shopping proved unsuccessful and we decided to make outfits we already had work.

While we were there we figured we should go ahead and do some registering. We knew that we wanted to register at both Macy's and Bed Bath and Beyond, neither of which are located in Valdosta. We started out with Macy's since we were already at the mall. Let's just say that registering is a lot more overwhelming that one would think.

JD and I already live together, and before he moved in I already had "everything" to start a home. However, the things I have are old busted up six year old things from Walmart. Example: a six dollar toaster that managed to melt a bagel wrapper to the side and top. We had to wrap our heads around the fact that it is in fact OK to upgrade and register for "grown up" things. We also realized that everything we have is in fact mine, and he didn't have any say so in picking things... right down to the house we live in! This is going to be our life together so we want to have our own things.

Then came the registry "gun." JD was quite disappointed that it wasn't in fact shaped like a gun :) We set out to zap as many things as we could. Then we became overwhelmed. Who knew there were so many different options of so many different things! We quickly decided to just click anything that looked cool, and figured we could edit the registry online once we got home.

I was definitely having more fun than JD, but I wouldn't have expected it to be any other way. Little girls are raised playing house and picturing themselves having nice kitchen things. JD was more concerned with why we couldn't register for a surround sound system for the TV and new golf clubs. Believe it or not, and my mother is SO proud, I even registered for fine china. Since I was little I have opposed to registering for and owning fine china and crystal. I didn't see the point of it, nor did I understand when I would use it. But, as soon as that registry gun hit my hand, I felt that I needed china. I didn't just need it, but I had to have it!

We left Macy's feeling good, but starting to get tired, and headed over to Bed Bath and Beyond. We walked in and immediately felt overwhelmed. There was a wait to register because they were so busy! After a few moments of walking around we quickly decided to head back to Valdosta and give BB&B another shot on another day. This registry stuff is intense!

Save The Dates!

So from the beginning JD and I sat down and prioritized different things for the wedding. Photography was the most important, so it got the biggest chunk of the budget, followed by venue, food, flowers, etc. Let's just say that we decided that putting a bunch of money into something that people would eventually throw in the trash wasn't our top priority. In other words, save the dates and invites were an area where we were looking to save money.

JD and I decided to design the Save the Dates on our own using good old fashioned Microsoft Publisher. We must say, we were quite pleased with the results...

Then we used Vistaprint.com to print them out. That's right. We didn't use any fancy paper or printing company. We saved a whole bunch of money by doing them ourselves. However... something happened in the printing process. All of the postcards had a strange white border on either one or two sides. To top things off, it wasn't the same side on each card. My thought is that the postcards weren't aligned when they printed.

Being the OCD anal person that I am I decided that I had to cut them all off. Insert paper cutter and a glass of wine... An hour later the Save the Dates were all finished. A small price to pay for the amount of money we saved.

So... Save the Date! 11.10.12

Saying yes to another dress!

If I thought picking MY dress would be one of the hardest parts of wedding planning I was dead wrong! I quickly learned that picking a dress to make all four bridesmaids happy would be much, much more difficult.

Initially I let the girls give me their opinion on long or short dresses. After some consideration, I was leaning towards short dresses. Finding a dress long enough for my 6 foot bridesmaid seemed challenging. Then, after shopping with Rosie we decided long was the way to go. She and I searched for a dress that would complement mine, and it was quickly decided that long and chiffon were the way to go.

We went from J. Andrews, where we found several lovely options, to Alfred Angelo, where we narrowed down selections even more. However, I was not a fan of the one that the rest of the girls liked. So once I got home that night I took to the internet to find something I liked even better. I came up with these five options.

From there, I narrowed it down to these two and let the girls take a vote...

 

It was a 3 to 1 vote for the second dress. We had a decision. All we had to do was get the girls fitted and decide on a color...

 It seemed like all was going well... until the girls started trying them on. My girls are all pretty tiny, and yet somehow, this dress was NOT as flattering on them as it is in the pictures... Go figure. Turns out that those pretty ripples are not in fact there in real life. It's actually a flat front that shows even the tiniest bit of tummy. Eww.

So, my mom and Rosalie were champs and spent an afternoon at Bride Beautiful in Atlanta hunting for a suitable replacement. We tried making decisions through text message pictures, but quickly realized that we could use FaceTime on our phones to actually see the dress! An hour later, Rosalie had tried on at least 5 more dresses and we finally selected the PERFECT dress for all four girls! Thanks to Jennifer at Bride Beautiful for your help and patience with us :)

All four girls have tried on the dress, and it looks FABULOUS on all of them :) We couldn't be happier with the choice, and I know my girls will look awesome the day of!

You'll have to come to the wedding to see the final pick :)