Engagement Pictures!

For years I have been stalking following photographer, Jenny Evelyn, and her blog. Back in 2008 she shot a friend's engagement and wedding. I have dreamed of one day being a Jenny Bride!

Well the date was set. We were all ready with our outfits and locations. We couldn't wait to meet Jenny! Then, only hours before our sessions, we get a phone call from Jenny's assistant. She was in a car accident on her way to Valdosta as she was leaving Macon! Fortunately, it was only a fender bender and Jenny wasn't hurt. We promptly rescheduled for the next day.

Fast forward 24 hours. We were anxiously awaiting Jenny's arrival at the house to shoot pictures with the pups. Then Jenny called and said that the weather was awful and she was more concerned with getting pics on the VSU campus sicne she drove all the way down. After a quick wardrobe change and a quick trip down to campus we were ready to meet!

I was so excited to meet Jenny! She was just as fabulous in real life as she was online! We hit it off instantly, and she kept us laughing the whole time. The weather blew over so after spending about an hour and a half on campus we headed back home to snap pics with the dogs, and then downtown for our "glam" pics! 

We couldn't be happier with how our pictures turned out! Follow the link to see her blog post!

Jessica & JD: Engaged VSU Love Story!

 

 

Yet Another Dress: The Moms!

While we were in Tallahassee for our first registry trip we started getting texts and phone calls from Karen, JD's mom. She was out shopping and found two dresses that she really liked. She was really worried about buying her dress, because my mom hadn't bought hers yet. We all know that etiquette states that the MOB should buy her dress first. Well, I told Karen that I loved her dress, and that I knew for a fact it was nothing like what my mom was looking for. So she got the green light to go ahead and buy her dress! It's absolutely lovely and looks so great on her!

While I was home for Spring Break I took my mom shopping for her dress. I was hell bent that we weren't going to stop shopping until we found her dress. She wasn't quite so convinced. She saw a dress online and fell in love, but not a single store in GA carried the designer. We were worried that she wouldn't find another she liked as much.

We started the day off at Bravura over at The Avenue at East Cobb. We had HORRIBLE service! It was quite clear they were more interested in devoting the entire staff to help the pageant girl that was in the store trying on several thousand dollar dresses. We had zero help! Never the less, we managed to find a few that we really liked, snapped some pics, and headed on out the door. What a crummy experience!

Next stop was Bride Beautiful, which is where we found the bridesmaids dresses. We went ahead and ordered the girls' dresses, then moved on to trying on dresses for mom. We found one that I loved, but mom just wasn't quite convinced. I started to realize that other dress was still creeping into her mind.

We left without ordering a dress and then headed over to Wedding Angels down the road. We tried on a dress that was similar to the one I loved at the store before. I was convinced. That was it! I loved it! Mom even said she loved it! I even had her convinced to go with a color that I thought would look great, but she never would have tried it. She was walking back into the dressing room when she saw another dress. It could have been twins with the one she originally saw online!

She decided she had to give it a shot, and as soon as she put it on she had tears! We knew it. That was her dress!

I'm so excited to finally have all of the women's fashion behind us! Now it's just up to JD to pick the boy's suits!

Registry: Take Two!

Since our first adventure into the world of registry was a total bust, we decided we needed to give it another try. We had no idea what we really needed to be getting, so me called in the big guns... my mom! We went home to ATL for Spring Break and decided to spend a Saturday at Bed Bath & Beyond with my mom.

We were more than blessed by the service we received at the BB&B by Lenox Mall! But, almost too blessed! We went in and spent almost 3 hours with our own representative! She sat at the little service desk with us as we picked our china, flat wear, crystal, luggage, etc. Then, she walked us through the entire store and helped us select exactly the items that we needed! My poor mom just followed us around the whole time! The best part of the whole thing was that JD was actually enjoying the process this time. Why? He got to hold the gun the whole time! Ladies, that is my biggest suggestion for registering. Let your guy use the gun so that he feels involved!

After the 3rd hour we were only halfway through the store and feeling quite burnt out. We proceeded to thank our registry specialist, and left to reward ourselves for a successful registry trip by getting Chick-Fil-A milkshakes! We knew there were some more things we wanted to add to the registry, so we headed to a different BB&B (crazy I know!) to spend another hour finishing our registry.

By the end of the day our BB&B registry was complete. My life long dream of clicking through that kitchen section finally came true. I couldn't be happier with the whole process. Everything we need in one store!

Here's a fun little tip that I found out while registering... everything is $30 cheaper at BB&B than at Macy's, Belk, etc! Make sure to shop around!

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 :)