To See or Not to See...

To see or not to see...that is the question for so many brides! Nowadays with brides having so many decisions, figuring out whether or not they want to see thier groom before the ceremony is usually the last thing on theirs minds. But I definitely think the decision should be weighed very heavily between you and your husband-to-be. There are many pros and cons to both decisions:

The great thing about not seeing your groom beforehand is the anticipation you will have to see him! The moment you see each other as you are being escorted down the aisle will be your first glance at each other on your big day. Tears, anxiousness, and looks of joy and excitement will surely be present and what a photo that will be! You'll also know that you have been a part of a time honored tradition which many many brides before you have been a part of...how awesome is that?!

1st photo is a friend, Sharon Wilber via Facebook, 2nd photo is byshea.com (my photographer!)

But then what about just seeing him?? I mean seriously who cares about tradition! I kid, I kid...but think about it. If you see your man before the ceremony you can get one of those awesome shots of your first look at each other. Its a great, sincere moment that is shared between just the two of you. You also have time to get all those family and wedding party shots in before your ceremony so you can book it your reception! And what's a wedding without being able to spend as much time as you can celebrating your marriage with family and friends!?

Both photos are from byshea.com

I think it's obvious as to which is my favorite! ;) I personally know that seeing M before the ceremony will calm me and assure me that all is right in the world. I'll look at him and know that it won't matter if everything isn't just perfect. And I'm sure some really precious photo will come of it. I will however have a pretty good mix of both here. I plan on taking a hiatus from him about 3 days before the wedding so that moment on our wedding day will be every bit of sweet it can be and there is so much anticipation that we can't stand it.

The tough thing will be convincing M this is a good idea. We spend just about every waking moment together (we live together, work together, and everything in between) and he just about refuses to do much of anything without me. When we are separated we text like teenagers and annoy everybody around us. And I'm not really sure where we will stay if we separate so I have to hash all that out as well.

What do you guys think, to see or not to see?

Going to the Chapel!

Since I didn't grow up here in Nashville, I'm not too familar with the venues around here. I don't belong to a church or frequent any chapel so I figured finding a ceremony location would prove to be difficult. That's where M comes in! He has been to multiple weddings around here and his favorite location by far was the Wightman Chapel at Scarritt Bennett on Vanderbilt's Campus! This has been his one and only request so I figured I would at least go look at it. Well I'm sure glad I did! Wightman Chapel is elegant and simple, breathtaking and serene, and oh so classic. I was in love :) All it took was booking the place. Being that it is so beautiful, it books up quite quickly...by the time I had called (a WHOLE week after I got engaged in August) there were only 3 dates open in 2009! One was in January, one was in Feburary (both too soon) and the last was Nov 7th. It was a lot longer than I wanted to be engaged for and I wasn't really excited about the weather but it was important to M, so it was important to me. I asked them to put a "7 day courtesy hold" on November 7th and called everybody I knew to ask what they thought about November.

I had come to peace with having a cold wedding and decided on the 7th day to book the place, just like the procrastinator I am. Definitely good timing on my part...right before I was about to fork over the moola, I asked ONE LAST TIME if they had any more dates in 2009. She put me on hold and came back with a "Why yes, we have August 22nd available now". It was all I could do to contain myself! I called no one, I thought about nothing, I gave her the credit card number with NO hesistation. And with that we had two big decisions made in one, our ceremony location and our date! If only the rest could be that easy! Now I will share with you all where we will be saying our I do's!

I cannot wait! The reception locale: COMING SOON!

Bride vs. Groom

So yesterday was Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is not a real holiday. It is no one's birthday nor day of significance for any country. It was a holiday created to get people to buy things, pretty things like flowers and candy and teddy bears holding hearts...and I LOVE EVERY BIT OF IT! :) The colors pink and red are everywhere and it pretty much forces everybody to bake something, I myself made cupcakes! A real shocker, yes. I didn't burn them or under cook them, I'm so proud. Anyways M and I planned to go to eat dinner at Carrabas and then see Confessions of a Shopaholic. We figured we'd start to go eat at around 5pm (we figured there would be a long wait) then catch the movie at 7:50pm. We did call ahead seating and arrived at 5. As we were walking in we heard it was a 2 hour wait! We gave our name at the front desk and thank the lord we did call ahead...the waitress told us we had a 20 minute wait. Woo hoo! We settled ourselves at the bar and before we could finish one drink we were being seated. We enjoyed a wonderful carb-enriched dinner and were out by 6:30pm.

That left us with a ton of time and not so much to do. So we headed over Indian Lake which is this outdoor mall where the theater is located. There's a Victoria's Secret and some other real fun stores. So we did all the shopping we could do so we decided to stop in on Barnes & Nobles. As we were casually walking down the aisles we ran into this book:

And the fun began! We spent about 45 minutes asking each other the questions. Questions like "What is one food your bride cannot live without?" and "If your groom could be any superhero, who would he be?". It was hilarious! We talked and laughed and when it was time for our movie we just had to buy it! Sure Confessions was cute and it was funny, but I couldn't wait to get home for us to finish our game!

Wedding Planners

I could never be a wedding planner. It sounds fun, it sounds glamorous, it sounds easy...but being right here in the middle of it, I can tell you it's not! I can barely handle all that has to do with my wedding much less handle multiple brides all wanting different things at different times. God bless these wedding planners, I need me one of those :)

I am in the process of planning what I thought was a pretty simple wedding, nothing too fancy. I want the closest thing to a party atmosphere I can get, nothing too wedding-y. Yet I feel myself falling into the trap of stress. Stress from the fact that no matter how "simple" I want my wedding to be, it's still my WEDDING. The one and only wedding I'm ever going to have! And I also have this need to be perfect. Perfect dress, perfect place. That also means perfect address labels. It sounds minuscule right... So why do I find myself stressing over the smallest things that have to do with my wedding? Especially when I feel like there is so much more to do that is so much bigger.

Let's see what I've got left to do:

1. Find Ceremony Musicians

2. Pick out Bridesmaid Dresses

3. Order Wedding Invitations

4. Pick out our Officiant

5. Order Favors

6. Book Transportation

7. Pick out Menu

8. Price out Liquor

9. Pick out the boy's tuxes

10. Decide vision of reception

I'm sure there is more but I feel like I've got the important stuff pretty much nailed down. We have the photographer, florist, ceremony venue, reception venue, caterer, DJ, and all our rings (we only had M's to get!). So I guess all that's left to stress, I mean, think about IS the small stuff. So I guess I just get to keep on keeping on... and hope this doesn't end up being me.

Woo Hoo...my first tagging!

So my good ole buddy ole pal Caitlin at Think Happy Thoughts tagged me for this cool little activity and I'm all about activities! We don't seem to know the name of this little game but it seems fun enough so...here I go!

Here are the rules to the game:
Step 1: respond and rework -- answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: tag - eight other un-tagged people.

1) What are you wearing right now? stupid work clothes...a grey short sleeved top (yes in Feb, it's 65 degrees over here!) and jeans
2) What is the last think you read/are currently reading? Does theknot.com count?
3) Do you nap a lot? Notsomuch...I do sleep in ridiculously late whenever I can though!
4) What is your biggest pet peeve? I HATE it when ppl ride slow in the left lane...it's soooo rude to your fellow drivers!
5) What is your current obsession/addiction? All things wedding. I work all day on a computer and as soon as I get home I'm right back on the thing looking for cute ideas!
6) What did you want to be when you grew up when you were a kid? oh lord... a vet, an actress, a singer, a dancer... I still would love to be the last few but I gave up on the vet thing when I realized that I would have to give the poor little things shots and surgery and stuff :(
7) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I really don't enjoy cooking but I love to eat...I wish I had the know how and tolerance to enjoy cooking...
8) What was the last item you bought? Stamps for our Save the Dates
9) What is your most challenging goal? Getting my lazy a$$ to work out!
10) If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished, anywhere in the world, where would it be? a warm spot in California
11) Favorite vacation spot? California could qualify for this one too...I love San Fran, LA, Napa Valley, and ppl have told me that I visit San Diego, I just may never come back...

12) Say something about the person who tagged you. Caitlin is the cutest, funniest chick (or HEEEEN) I know! I'm super glad her fiance is my fiance's best friend and we got to meet :) She's also my bridal proxy so she gets to "marry" my man before I do!!

13) Name one thing you cannot resist no matter how bad it is for you? Anything cheese...cheese cubes, cheese dip, cheese strings, cheese nips, shredded cheese...oh the list goes on and on.
14) You are on the Oregon Trail, how are things going? My ox just drowned crossing the river :(
15) If you woke up tomorrow and were a boy, what is the first thing you would do and why? Um...great question... get out of bed?
16) Name one thing you cannot live without. love
17) Has a celebrity's haircut ever influenced your own hairstyle? Not really...but I sure would love to have LC's hair...
18) What is your most embarrassing moment? I honestly can't think of one right now...probably that I thought I needed a passport to go to Hawaii... that's pretty embarrassing...
19) What brought you to blogland? I wanted to be able to put all my ideas on "paper" without writing stuff down... I tried a website and that didn't work... I tried putting everything on Microsoft OneNote but that was too hard to share! So here I am!
20) What is your pet’s name, and why did you name them that? We have a yorkie named Bentley and we named him that b/c M wanted either Kobe or Bentley... and Bentley was cuter :)
21) Do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not? Love, no...lust, yes! I honestly believe you have to get to know the full package before you can love someone. There is so much more than looks when you are thinking of spending the rest of your life with someone...but hey looks don't hurt! ;)

So I'm super new at this game so I don't have too many too tag... So I'll just tag the only follower of my blog that hasn't done it:

Stephie at New Beginnings

Get it girl...it's pretty fun!

Here Come the Bridesmaids!

Alright so this is where indecision hits. Throughout this whole planning process I have been very uncharacteriscally sure of just about everything I wanted. I knew my dress the second I put it on, I knew I HAD to have a downtown Nashville venue, I picked out my color scheme and never waivered. But this whole bridesmaid dress thing has really got me. Like every bride I want my girls to wear something cute, something that is not just gonna sit in their closet. Turns out that is much harder than you would think! So I am going to share with you some of my ideas and maybe you can help me weigh the options...

Alred Angelo Style 6559 $172

I really like this little guy. It's a little long but you can always hem it up. It's also a little expensive, I'd like to get the price down for the girls if I can.

Alfred Angelo Style 7002 $115

I like this one a lot! It's not too expensive, it looks fashionable and I could see myself wearing it again. I am a little worried because some of my girls are little well endowed, we'll just have to see it on them. Hopefully it's just as cute in person!

WToo Style 512 $194

I'm just kinda fond of this dress. It's real expensive and probably isn't anything I'd wear again. I do like the style for a bridesmaid dress though. Not too trendy but just trendy enough. Hmm...

WToo Style 548 $184

Yet another cute WToo Bridesmaids Dress. This one is a little different than the others. It has a sash that I can break up the pink color with, it has a cute little pleat in the front of it, and looks flattering from here. It's definitely a possibility, but I still wish it was a little less expensive!

WToo Style 582 $186

Now this is a bridesmaid dress. It's super plain and probably would look good on anybody (looks like the top has support and the waist can be hidden, always great things in a BM dress!) Once again for this kind of simplicity the cost shouldn't be almost two hundred bucks! This will be a good one to fall back on if necessary.

Mori Lee Style 457 $108

Alright so here is the stuff in the price range I want to see! But it's way too long and I'm not sure it's in the color that I want (to magenta/reddish). It could be hemmed to be a little shorter so I guess it has some potential. Once again, we'll have to see how these things look on the girls.

Source for all pictures: www.bestbridalprices.com

So there are my ideas so far! I think the comment thingy on my page is busted so email me what you think! Or show me how to fix the comment thingy...I'm still pretty new at this!

Who loves Victoria's Secret??

Well now you can win some! Another blogger is having her first giveaway ever and I would love to spread the news!


One lucky reader will get their choice of either the Bachelorette (black) or the Bride (white) cheeky panties!

All you have to do is go to her blog With This Ring... at http://withthisringwedding.blogspot.com/ and follow her directions!

Happy Posting!

Pink and Orange and Green, OH MY!

For those that know me I'm sure it comes to no surprise that we have chosen pink, orange, and a splash of green for our colors. This choice didn't come hard, it was actually very easy. You see I'm obsessed with pink. Just about everything I own can be found in some variation of pink so I knew that it wouldn't be my special day without it. Color #1: DOWN.

Also M is a HUGE FAN of the University of Tennessee. He graduated from UT and has an immense amount of school spirit!! If UT is playing in any sport, you better believe we are watching it. Football, basketball (men's and women's), baseball...I'm pretty sure if they had a hockey team, we'd be watching it. And boy do they love their orange! While my love for pink comes in just about every shade (except for that really pale pink that tends to look dingy and old-ladyish) M's love for orange comes in ONE SHADE: UT orange. It's hard to describe but isn't hard to miss. It's bright, it's loud, it's fun, and if you are a Mississippi State Bulldog like myself, it's quite annoying! Luckily I am more in love with M than I am pink and the two colors just happen to embody everything we want in a reception: a fun trendy atmosphere that SCREAMS happiness! COLOR #2: DOWN

Color #3 wasn't a long drawn out decision. I made a collage of cute things I found in magazines and online and put them in a book. We met with a couple of florists and they all brought to my attention that in just about everyone of the photos, there was a bright green accent. They also didn't want me to be too matchy matchy, which I have a tendency to do! So....COLOR #3: DOWN!

Yay the fun stuff! I get to decorate and make things all cute. I'm thinking lots of roses and orchids and something really cool called blupereum. I'm super excited that decor is one less thing I have to worry about.

Now on to bridesmaids dresses!

We went to Jared!

So you think with all we have left to do, Saturdays would be jam packed with activities. Meeting florists, caterers, shopping for bridesmaids dresses and such. Well if you know either M or I you know we are massive procrastinators! The first half of the day was dedicated soley to our new obsession: watching House seasons. We are currently on Season 3, disc 2 and loving every minute of it! Netflix is like crack... we find ourselves checking the mail a couple times a day waiting for the next round of discs to come in. Worth every penny of the $10 bucks a month we pay for it. And now I'm rambling..haha...back to the point.

Well we decided to get our lazy selves out of the house and go ahead and get M's wedding band. Which was a daunting task because I think that every person that was in the place was looking at wedding bands! So we waited patiently until it was our turn. Luckily this was supposed to be a quick trip, we had already picked out what he wanted a few months before. Little did I know, our trip would not be so fast. So we give them the card they gave us last time with the sku number on it...and they couldn't find it! So we looked around and around and tried on and tried on. Finally he picked out a ring that we thought was what he picked out before and we bought it...easy huh? Not so much. This is what we bought:

And this is what he picked out MONTHS ago:

So now we are trying to decide...which to keep?? We have 30 days to figure it out...any advice??