The Sweetest Thing

This past Saturday night, AJR and I stopped over at my aunt's house for some dinner and to see my darling little flower girls. They seriously are my favorite little girls on the entire planet.

While on the couch, we sat as they entertained us with their Valentines toys from Grandma (yes, V-day toys. I still get them from Grandma and I am 23) and while Lenna was being the star of the show for the moment, Lora came off to the side and sheepishly looked at me. "I need to tell you a secret" she says. "What do you have for me?" I asked her as I pulled her beside me on the couch. "I can't WAIT for your wedding!" she whispered into my ear and said with such sincerity, I could have died. "Well I can't wait for you to be IN my wedding! You will be the most perfect flower girl in the world!"

Do I have the cutest cousins or what? I tried to get her to whisper the same thing to AJR, but that wasn't happening. Older boys make her shy.

One of those Days...

I feel that this should be a short post because really all I want to do is talk about how much I miss AJR and how I can't wait until we are married and that waiting another 3 and a half months just sounds too darn long! I don't want to subject anyone to that kind of mushy talk, so instead I will just ramble about some recent happenings. First of all this morning I got caught up for way too many hours of my life sitting in court (I'm innocent I swear!) for a traffic ticket involving me running a red light. Sigghhh. I had to pay a large fine. It was a bummer. I also didn't go to work because I didn't want to make the hour haul half way through the day so I was left in a bad mood with a list of errands that needed to be completed. So I took my car in for some maintenance work and walked around the adorable little shopping area of Libbie Grove. I had to get more lace for my dress (man, this dress is so NEEDY!) and I stopped in an adorable little paper store to look at their invitation stuff. The shop is in a ritzy part of town, so of course everything was out of my price range, but I was there for like an hour looking through ideas and admiring designs and letterpress. I really love stationary. Like a lot. I have reeaallyy been putting off doing the invites because I am so undecisive and everything I want is just for someone else's budget, not mine. I keep coming back to the thought that I should buy cardstock in bulk online and hand stamp them myself. I am really liking this idea, but I am concerned about the time it will take to do them all. After going to the paper store though, I really think I need to just commit already! This is seriously at the top of my list... I am getting to it I promise!
After my little stroll through Libbie Grove (and a very expensive car bill) I went to pay Oksana a visit because I was getting pretty anxious about the fact that my dress is too tight. Basically she keeps telling me how I will shed all this weight before the wedding from stress, but I have decided a really skinny Whitney is a really ugly Whitney. No one wants to see a stick figure bride and I am not happy with the way I look when I am under weight. I informed her that I will actually be working on keeping weight on, not losing it. Thankfully she understood and has agreed that before the wedding she will let the dress out if needed. Those Russians. They just want everyone to be stick skinny and model like. Oh well.
So anyhow, that was my day in a nutshell. I feel about a zillion times better about the dress... especially after the latest addition to it and the fact that it will definitely fit right. Whhheewww.
We sent out our wedding website this week to our family and friends, I'm really glad that it's done. We will still need to update it and whatnot, but everyone seems to really like it which makes me happy. We originally made one with The Knot, but I came across Project Wedding and theirs is WAY nicer. The layouts are really classy and I am pleased with the result :)

Oh! And we ordered our cake topper... I'll post on that tomorrow. It pretty much rocks!

Okay, so much for a short post. Also, thinking on it, 3 and a half months is not that long. 100 days from today! Remember in elementary school when it was 100 days before summer they would make paper chains and get all excited? I think we may have even made hats too. I want my "100 Days" hat.

Make Way, Fatties Coming Through!

So today I left at lunchtime from work and my Mom came to meet me. We hung out and caught up on some happenings and then went to Joanne Fabrics to get some burlap. (eek. that stuff will make you ITCH) So, yes! I am doing the burlap runners, woot! I just need to talk AJR's mom into helping me with her sewing machine...

Anyhow, after our fabric store trip we decided we had to eat at Olive Garden. You know this restaurant has a deal where you can pay 10 bucks and have all you can eat breadsticks, soup, and salad? Well naturally that is the best deal ever and we had to do it! Breadsticks are every womans weakness I swear. And well, we may have indulged. Just a little. Several breadstick baskets, salad refills and four bowls of soup later, we were feeling pretty fat. My Mom looks at her watch and oh! It was time to get to Oksana (Russian seamstress) and check out the new addition to my dress/get my bustle made, and Mom had to check on her Mother of the Bride dress that she had Oksana hem. We waddled to the car where we busted out laughing knowing that Oksana would definitely have a problem with our full bellies in our dresses! We got to her store and sure enough, we could barely zip our dresses. I mean, neither of us! It was hilariously awful. It was so funny that I snorted several times. (as if I didn't feel piggy enough) Before we left she looked at me and said "tsk. tsk. tsk. I do no more to dress til you lose weight. No more Olive Garden! No eat next time you come in."

So I am hanging my head in shame as I write this and pulling on my tennis shoes. It's time to hit the gym!

A Cute Story :)

Last week I was at my Aunt Kimmy's house before my Aunt Jenny and Sarah came over to have some wedding talk. My cousin Connor who is in the 6th grade and just a total sweetheart came home from his trombone lessons and was excited to see me. He started asking questions about the wedding (yes an 11 year old boy... this kid is like a mini adult. At Christmas he inquired about where Andrew and I would be going on our honeymoon) and he announced "Well, I can do the music for your wedding!". I assumed he meant help choose songs for the DJ (at a party my aunt and uncle hosted about a year and a half ago, he became the DJ's sidekick and the party turned into a Beastie Boys tribute) so I said "Oh yeah! Maybe you could get them to play some Beastie Boys for the wedding guests!" (for the record, I don't really like the idea of my future in-laws out of town friends dancing to "Brass Monkey" at the wedding, but a funny thought at the least). Connor gave me a confused look and then chuckled and said "oh, no I mean.. I could play the trombone!" (well, it appears he is over his Beastie Boys phase...) Cutest thing ever. My heart kind of melted.

Recent Happenings :)

Here is a recap on some things we are up to. Last weekend I went to my hometown and had a meeting with the florist. It was kind of fun going in with my mom and bringing in pictures that I had printed to choose from. I didn't realize just how many people are going to be needing corsages and whatnot. Man, flowers are apparently a very big part of the day! I decided on my bouquet and I am VERY excited! And this arrangement of hydrangeas and roses are what I picked out!

We also went to talk to the man who is making our wedding cake and that was fun as well. I explained to him about the textured white frosting and he is also going to make 3 layers. The top and bottom will be vanilla and the middle will be chocolate and all three layers will have a raspberry filling, yum! Now I am on the hunt for a vintage cake stand (a silver ornate one like this) and some sort of topper. Any ideas?

Tuesday night a few of my aunts, my mom, and maid of honor got together to talk about the wedding. That mainly led to a lot of red wine drinking and gossiping, but we did get some ideas for invitations and for reception set-up. I spent a little too much time on Wednesday looking at invitation ideas online (which I have decided kraft invites are a MUST) and am trying to commit to clicking the "add to cart" and "purchase" buttons. Hoopefully I get brave before the weekend is over :)

Wednesday night I paid a little visit to the flower girls. Their dresses came in from J. Crew so they tried them on and it was sooo adorable! They looked perfect, oh they are the cutest flower girls in the WORLD! I gave them a book called Ten Neat Things About Being a Flower Girl so hopefully that spiked some excitement! Lora (the 5 year old) actually asked if she could be the ring bearer, but I told her that dropping flowers might be more fun than carrying a pillow.

Lat night my Mom came into town and she purchased her Mother of The Bride Dress! I will have to post on this later and show pics, but she looks gorgeous! She then met me over at the store with my seamstress and I got to try on my dress since the last few additions to the dress, ohhh I am getting excited! Although I did get yelled at by the Russian lady "You gain weight! You put two pounds on skinny body, you not fit dress!" because apparently I ate too much over the holidays... oops. No worries though, I told her it's just happy weight! I'm sure once the wedding stress kicks in, I will have no problems in my dress! (In reality, the dress fits totally fine haha). The most exciting part about last night though was THE VEIL! AJR's sister Lauren let me borrow her veil to try on and I fell in love! Her veil is a cathedral or chapel length veil, which at first I wasn't sure about. Well, in the world of veils I wasn't sure about any of them. But as soon as we clipped it into place I was all smiles. Perfect for my dress, it is gorgeous! Here are a few examples of chapel length: in the wind!, elegant, and just plain pretty. I just felt like such a BRIDE in it!  So I now officially have my something borrowed! Woo-hoo!

Let it Snow

So it's been a few days since I posted, mainly because I am trying to finish up all my Christmas shopping and wrapping presents before Santa gets here! Virginia saw it's biggest snow storm in a long time and it was so beautiful! Really got me in the Christmas mood walking around with Sarah in the Fan District feeling like we were in a snow globe with all the Christmas lights on Monument Ave. covered in white fresh snow. Glorious!

This was off of my front porch Friday night. The snow was reflecting light everywhere... it was SO BRIGHT! You could have driven without your headlights on at midnight! (well, if you could actually get your car out that is!)

Ah. And now for a series on my little flower girls (L&L) looking out the window at all the snow on Sunday afternoon.

So sweet.

Beautiful girls.

"Mom, the snow looks so cool!"

And then Little L got a little pouty. She's so darn cute!

Checking Things Off That List!

This was a wonderfully productive weekend. Yesterday my future mother-in-law dragged me over to Bed Bath and Beyond again. Apparently I am a very shy registerer (made up word?) and my items were much too small in quantity. *Sigh. So basically, when you think you have your registry close to being finished, think again. Oh yes my friends, when we went to BBB the nice lady in the bridal department printed out a list of everything I had already registered for. It was 5 pages. To me... that sounds like a lot of gifts. I think the lady and my future mother-in-law shared a nice little chuckle at me and then proceeded to show me all the things that I didn't even know I wanted. 2 hours later, after a grumpy bride and a gleeful yet determined mother-in-law were finished, the bridal dept. lady printed off the new list. THIRTEEN PAGES. I am terrified people will think I'm greedy, but they assured me that guests will be thankful for all the options. I'm just thankful that was my last BBB trip (well, hopefully).

Then today, my future mother-in-law and future sister-in-law, Lauren decided I had to make yet another trip out dedicated to registry. This time AJR came along, which always makes everything more bearable. We hit Crate and Barrel up for a few more items and this time it was actually a little more fun because C&B is just so niiiiice. (Plus, again the Christmas decorations put me in a good mood). It really was sooo helpful to have Lauren and mom in law to help... their advice and enthusiasm for shopping is unbelievable.

They also decided to take me over to DSW to look for wedding shoes. I actually found the perfect pair! I'm so excited :)

The other things we have made progress on... (drumroll) WEDDING BANDS! We went to the jeweler that made my engagement ring, Dominion Jewelers and picked the ones we want. I loooove mine! It is gorgeous! AJR's is really nice as well so I can't wait to see what they look like when they are finished making them (sometime in January).

And last but not least, our Save the Dates! We ordered them a few weeks ago and they are in, addressed, and ready to be stamped and mailed!

So... now that my progress has been typed out online, I feel very good about it all and can rest in peace tonight (I had another wedding nightmare last night. shiivveerr).

Thanksgiving Weekend in Pictures {a non-wedding post}

My friend Chelsea came for a visit all the way from Washington state :) I miss her already. We had a lovely time hanging out by drinking wine and shopping for make up. She's amazing with beauty products and convinced me to buy Benefit Erase Paste. I've decided I love it. A dang good purchase.

 

Me, My Sister, My Mom on Thanksgiving Day

This is me and one of my flower girls, my cousin Lora on Thanksgiving Day. She had her fifth birthday last week and she is absoultely adorable.

This would be my other flower girl, Lenna Mae. She's Lora's little sister and so precious.

AJR and I made a trip to Lake Gaston with his family for the weekend. He and his dad are fishing.

While in Lake Gaston we went to a vintage shop and found an awesome old type writer. We aren't sure what we will do with it, but we love it. Possibly just a conversation starter piece to have in a hallway table?

I love the keys :)

AJR bought me a vintage evening clutch. I'm really excited about this!

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was one of those books I always thought I should read when I was in highschool and never did. Thank you AJR for buying it for me this summer :) I started it Friday night and finished Saturday... I couldn't put it down! My two favorite quotes from the book: "So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." and "I used to listen to it all the time when I was little and thinking about grown-up things. I would go to my bedroom window and stare at my reflection in the glass and the trees behind it and just listen to the song for hours. I decided then that when I met someone I thought was as beautiful as the song, I should give it to that person. And I didn’t mean beautiful on the outside. I meant beautiful in all ways."

{Back to Weddingness Next Post}

Craigslist is da bomb

So... I posted an ad on Craigslist this weekend looking for large amounts of Mason jars.

Tonight I met a man in a Panera parking lot and drove away with 93 Mason jars for 25 bucks! Upside... saved a ton of money on jars and I have a headstart on wedding decor! Woot! Downside... there are literally 93 Mason jars in boxes in the backseat of my tiny Mazda. What the heck do I DO with them?!?! I'm not so sure my roommates will be thrilled if I stack them in our living room, plus lugging them all to my upstairs apartment (in the rain mind you!) sounds like a job for a different day. So... I guess until I can get to it tomorrow night, I will be riding around town looking like a bag lady who collects canning jars. Awesome.


Also... just realized, that was my official first wedding purchase! Yay, someone take a picture and put it in a scrapbook.

Wedding Nightmares

In the past week I have had 3 nights of scary dreams involving my wedding. I remember having similar dreams before graduating college… you know the ones where you sign up for a class but forget to go to it, only to realize on graduation day that you skipped an entire class that last semester and now you can’t graduate! That dream haunted me for a while… even after college was over. In fact, just writing about it gives me the shivers…

But the wedding dreams are terrible. I had a dream that I forgot to buy a dress, and on my wedding day I was so upset that I forgot about the dress, I cancelled the wedding. Ew. I thought this wedding stuff was supposed to be fluffy and happy… not stressful and scary!

At least I’m not having any crazy dreams where AJR turns into a hairy monster with fangs once he is a husband or something like that. Oh no… hopefully my brain isn’t getting any ideas…

10.03.09 Officially Official

So even though this is 10 days late (ahhh how have I neglected thee blog in such ways? my sincerest apologies!) I am happy to announce that AJR and I are officially ENGAGED! I think it took me this long to write it because I have had to use my hands to help mold my face back to a normal expression due to the excessive smiling.

 This past week and a half has been crazy with all the phone calls, Facebook messages, texts, etc. I have felt so popular lately! I am still trying to get back to people who have been trying to get in touch with me (one person at a time! or else I shall explode) but it has been overwhelmingly amazing to have so many people be happy for us. If you are one of them reading this, thank you! <3

 You’re probably thinking “okay okay, enough jibber jabber… where’s the picture of the ring?!?!”. Unfortunately I have misplaced my camera battery charger (eek) but as SOON as I uncover it (most likely in one of my travel bags from driving all over the state of Virginia every weekend) you will get to feast your eyes on my beautiful engagement ring. I can tell you this… he done good.

 As for the proposal… it couldn’t have been more us. Awkward, funny, and adorable are my choices of words to describe the event. No airplanes flew above with banners proclaiming AJR’s love for me, there weren’t fireworks, people risking their lives, or even flowers. Whew. I am not exactly the typical romantic, so I am pretty thankful that it was simple and (semi) private.

 AJR actually only had the ring maybe all of 20 minutes before he couldn’t stand it anymore (he tells people “It was burning a hole in my pocket!”) and while waiting outside in a random neighborhood in Arlington (killing time before picking up a friend to go to a party) he suddenly started speaking in a language I couldn’t understand (the nervousness prevented him from forming a complete sentence ;) and dropped to one knee on the sidewalk. I must admit, at first I wasn’t sure what he was doing. In fact, I worried that something was wrong. Then it hit me and I was so overjoyed that I may have said yes before he even popped the official question. This part of the story will remain a mystery as our excitement prohibited our memory and normal functioning cognitive skills from working… but the important thing is that he was on one knee, he asked, I said yes, and I can’t WAIT to marry him!!! (no matter what order it all occurred) That night was a lot of fun… we arrived at the party and were able to share our news immediately with all of our closest friends. Couldn’t have been more perfect. (siigghhh)

 Since then AJR and I have begun some actual wedding plans… and are vigorously trying to nail down a date (crossing my fingers for May 15th 2010). We visited a reception site and have almost finished our guest list. My aunt is planning an engagement party for November and I am even looking at dresses tonight! I have to admit I am a little nervous to try on a real life wedding dress for the first time. It’s a bit emotional… but I am so thrilled!

Oh Michaels, You Will Be The Death Of Me (or at least my bank account)

So I went to Michaels today during my lunch break and somehow walked out spending over $50 worth of stuff (but most of it was on sale I promise!). Apparently extremely easy to do when you pop into the scrapbook section for 30 minutes. Martha Stewart products are incredibly eye catching and I want to buy them all. (and did buy a lot)

This post won't be long since this is way past my bedtime and I don't want to give away secrets about the things I purchased today... but I just wanted to announce my reunited love for being crafty. (Once upon a time before the days of exams in college and the pursuit of then-coolness, I enjoyed browsing craft stores for fun kits to make things. I once made my own moccasins and actually wore them. Why? The Lord will only know.)
Here's to hoping I do something more useful with my newfound love of creativity and craft.

One of the things I am most excited about are stamps. Wowzas, stamps are cool.

And I imagine them coming in handy when I am trying to make weddingness crafty and unique. (Hello invitations... announcements... table numbers... ohmylordiamgoingtostampEVERYTHING)

500 Days of Summer

This weekend AJR took me to see 500 Days of Summer... such a beautiful movie! (side note: it really isn't a great love story if you're looking for something romantic)

My new girl crush is Zooey Deschanel and I am hoping that Marc Webb directs some more movies that are similar to this one.

So when we got home, we decided to Youtube the movie because there was a really funny dance scene involving the former 3rd Rock from the Sun star doing a number to the Hall & Oates classic (You're Makin' My Dreams Come True!) and AJR had it in his mind that he would someday recreate that dance in true Joseph Gordon-Levitt fashion.

Then we stumbled upon a little gem that I can't stop hitting the "play again" button on. It's a video with the stars from the movie, but has nothing to do with movie at all. The song is by She&Him (which, yep that's Zooey singing) and it's just a creative dance video. AJR and I immediately believed that we too could pull off one such dance. Possibly a really fun/awesome/unforgettable FIRST dance.

Of course, there are other ideas we will have to sort through, and neither of us is a particularly talented dancer (ahem. we are both totally awkward and look like girraffes walking on hot coals while out on the dance floor, but we shall see).

(poster picture)

Rainy Day Wedding

Today I decided I wouldn't mind if it rains on my wedding day. (To make the love grow!) AJR once said that he had a vision of me in a white dress and kissing me in the rain (isn't he such a romantic? yeeaahhh... he probably doesn't even remember that. or at least he will try to pretend he forgot now that I posted it to the public! hahaha).

I have my heart set on an outdoor reception... and even if the Farmer's Almanac has unremitting warnings of thunderous precipitation for that entire weekend, I will still stand my ground and demand an outdoor wedding (One Stubborn Bride perhaps?)

I think that a rainy wedding day can actually turn out to be really nice, especially in warm weather. If anything, it will be something people remember! Now, for the sake of the guests (and my hair) I am hoping for sunny skies but if it does happen to rain, I think I could handle it. We could have an amazing photo shoot (oh no. I now see why I am fantasizing about a rainy wedding...) Can't you just imagine the dashing groom carrying his beautiful bride through the rain? Or the two of them jumping in puddles together all clad in wedding gear? Or a pair of nice galoshes with a wedding dress? (I promise I wouldn't break out my Duck boots on such a day)

Ah, what a perfect rainy wedding day

(classic bride)

Beautiful.

(Savannah Weddings)

The Point

Normal people would think this is awkward. But I have no shame.

The past few weeks I have become utterly OBSESSED with blogs... namely wedding blogs. And wow! There are a TON of amazing ideas out there. Which led me to the conclusion that I should in fact, start my own to compile all my favorite things I find to weed out the stuff I don't want.

The kicker is... (*drumroll) I'm not actually a bride yet... (ahem. cricket cricket.)

HOWEVER... here's the deal:

I am in love with my best friend. He is my world, and his name is AJR. The coolest part about it all... is he feels the same about me, and we plan on getting engaged asap! He had dinner with my parents a few nights ago and popped THEM the question, so now I will wait around hopelessly until he he pops ME the question :)

To pass time, and because I am undoubtedly one of the most impatient human beings on earth, AND I am somewhat a perfectionist, I decided to take the liberty of "fake-planning" my wedding until I'm really allowed to. So... browsing fun DIY wedding ideas and photography sites never hurt anyone, right? Right? Er....