An Award and Some Wedding Stuff...

Two of my favorite bloggers recently left me an award and I have taken my sweet time responding :-) Sorry ladies! Both The Pink Tutu (who happens to be my wonderful grandlittle from my sorority) and Positively Preppy in Pink (who also attends the college that I went to and is currently studying abroad in London...how fabulous!!) left me this award:Thanks so much ladies! As for my 5 obsessions right now...

1. Christmas!! I can't wait to decorate the house this weekend and get our tree!

2. Weddings...yes, this is an obsession all the time, but it's definitely on my mind now more than ever. Currently, I'm getting excited for wedding dress shopping with my mom after Christmas!

3. My new Sedu Ultrapower Hairdryer. Umm...everyone NEEDS to own one of these. I plan on doing a whole blog post about it's fabulousness. My hair has never looked so good!

4. The chilly weather and being able to wear cute sweaters and fun winter accessories...I love me some scarves and gloves!

5. J.Crew. Basically I want every single thing in the catalog...amazing!

I tag anyone who wants to do this too!

Now onto my #2 obsession...we have gotten alot done in a short period of time regarding the wedding! The date is set, we booked a photographer yesterday (who I am absolutely obsessed with!) and everything is falling into place. We also decided on colors! My wonderful friend A, who happens to work in graphic design, made me a bunch of monograms (with our last initial) for the wedding, using our colors. Here's my favorite one:

I just wanted something plain and simple, and I love this! Obviously I'm a big fan of polka dots, but I didn't want something super girly. We'll probably use this monogram on our programs, menu cards, etc. So our colors are navy blue, lemon yellow and lime green. I think it will look really fresh and fun for a late summer wedding. Guys in khakis, blue blazers and either green or yellow ties and girls in navy dresses with white, yellow and green flowers. Since our wedding is 90% outside (ceremony on a lawn, dinner under a tent and then dancing inside), I think the colors will go nicely and be strong enough to stand up to all the greenery and nature.

I also decided that since I posted the wedding date, I can't post exactly where the wedding will be, for fear of internet stalkers. I may post a few pictures that I took of the venue, but I have to keep it a little bit private. But after the wedding, I will post all about it!

We're meeting with my friend A's company on Monday to design the save the dates, which I'm trying to get out before New Years since the wedding is on a holiday weekend. I want to play up our date (09.05.09), since it's sort of cool looking, on the save the dates. Hopefully they can come up with something unique and fun!

Yay Weddings!

Christmas Meme!!

I stole this from Barefoot in the Park (who stole it from Red and White Preppy!)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping Paper. I love wrapping presents! Random, but I love Ikea for christmas paper...they have really good prints and it's cheap!!

2. Tree--Real or Artificial? I grew up with an artificial tree because my dad is allergic. Now Sailor Boy and I get a real tree, which I think is the greatest thing ever...I love picking out a real tree and dragging it home.

3. When do you put Christmas tree up? Usually a few weeks before Christmas, I think we're going to go this Sunday to get one.

4. When do you take the tree down? Typically on New Years day.

5. Like eggnog? Yuck...NO!

6. Do you have a nativity scene? No, but I'm actually currently searching for one right now. Any suggestions would be great!

7. Favorite gift received as a child? My bike when I was 10.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Probably Sailor Boy's parents. I'm still stumped this year!

9. Easiest person to buy for? my parents

10. Worst Christmas gift? A few years ago, my aunt and uncle got me this pink purse. I think they thought because it was pink, I would love it. But it had a super long strap and was totally NOT me. I felt really bad, but it totally got donated to Goodwill.

11. Mail or email a Christmas Card? I have to admit, I can be a slacker about christmas cards. We're going to try and mail them out this year though.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? Love Actually, Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life. Sailor Boy's parents throw a "Scrooge Party" every year a few weeks before christmas, where we all sit around and watch the original "A Christmas Carol", so that's become a favorite one of mine as well.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Typically by early December...I need to start doing it a little bit earlier so I don't get so stressed out!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes, I will admit it.

15. Favorite food to eat on Christmas? Every Christmas morning, my mom makes egg casserole and homemade cinnamon rolls. YUM!

16. Lights on tree? of course...I prefer white lights, non-blinking.

17. Favorite Christmas Song? Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

18. Travel during Christmas or Stay home? We stay home....all our family is close.

19. Can you name Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, & Rudolph

20. Angel or Star on Tree top? We have a star and then I usually put some ribbon coming down the tree off the star.

21. Open presents on Christmas Eve or morning? We usually spend Christmas Eve with my dad's family and open our gifts then with them, then on Christmas morning, I go to my parents and open gifts with them. It's always a little bit more difficult splitting the holiday with Sailor Boy's family too, but we make it work.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The crazy ridiculous lines and traffic at all the stores.

23. Favorite ornament? Last year, my mom wrapped up some of my old christmas ornaments from growing up and gave them to me to put on our tree. I found one that was a clay christmas tree that I had made and decorated in kindergarten. I love that one.

24. What do you want for Christmas this year? I haven't actually asked for too much this year. I need some new black gloves, a new black coat, a few random kitchen things.

Happy December!

Wow, can you believe it's already December? Craziness!!

We had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday. Ate way too much (we ended up eating 2 dinners...one at my parents and one at Sailor Boy's aunts) and it was really fun to show everyone in both families the ring and tell them all the engagement story! Then we headed down to VA to the River House for the weekend with some of Sailor Boy's family and we had a great and restful weekend! Highlights of the weekend:

-- Finding out that Sailor Boy's cousins wife is pregnant with their first baby during the "Thankful game" at dinner! Yay for babies!

-- Shopping all day on Saturday with Sailor Boy's mom and aunt at some cute boutiques near their river house. And I'm very proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy anything for myself...but I did get some christmas presents!

-- Showing Sailor Boy's mom my "inspiration notebook" with all the ideas I've started collecting for the wedding and having her get so excited!

-- Roasting marshmallows and making smores on Saturday night with Sailor Boy's parents new firepit that they got for the river house. Ok, I admit...I ate 4 smores! ACK...wedding diet is non-existant!

-- Starting and finishing knitting a scarf for my dad for Christmas, since I had so much extra wonderful quiet time at the house. Check another Christmas present off the list!

Now I'm in super Christmas mode! We're waiting another week or so to go get our tree, but I'm DYING to start decorating the rest of the house!! Goodbye fall and Hello Christmas!

09.05.09

We have a date! YAY! It's really real and official now! September 5, 2009, the Saturday evening of Labor Day weekend. Since we're down a hometown wedding, we thought it would be good to do it that weekend, since all our friends will be here and our family isn't traveling more than 30 minutes. We just have a few out of town friends, and I hope they will use it as an excuse to come to Annapolis for a long holiday weekend!

Our internet at home is down, so I can't load any pictures of our venue yet (I took a million when we visited this weekend). I figured once our internet is back up at home, I'll do a big long post about the place and all the other details we've worked out so far (yes, I've booked a whole bunch of vendors already...it's the OCD and planner in me).

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow! I love Thanksgiving because it's just about the food! I'll definitely be eating my share of turkey and stuffing!!

We're heading down to VA to Sailor Boy's River House on Friday for the weekend, so I'll be back next week with tons of wedding goodies!!

This is hard!

Finding a venue is proving to be really difficult. Yes, I know we have only been engaged for 1 WEEK, but I'm anal retentive and I won't be able to relax till I find the right place. The thing is, I can cross a place off my list without even visiting it. I've emailed about 382646287 places and after I receive their packages and information, I can give it a quick "yay" or "nay".

I'm also super picky about customer service and timely responses, because I know I bust my butt to give my brides great customer service, so I expect the same in return. If I email you, and 4 days later, you finally email me back and you are not very helpful...I will not be getting married at your venue. Sorry.

We have crossed the OBX wedding off of our list, because I just feel really bad asking ALL of our friends and family to spend so much traveling and staying for the weekend in this economy. As much as I think it would be amazing and so fun, it's not the right time for us to do that. We are now leaning towards a wedding where we live, as all of our friends are here and our family is all close (within 45 minutes). It just makes the most sense to keep it local and have our family travel a short distance to get here. Plus, we do love our town!!

We're visiting 3 places this weekend and I'm really hoping we just walk into one and I instantly know it's the right place. The one we are seeing Saturday afternoon has the most potential, as it's super local, we can bring in our own caterer and alcohol and we can do whatever we want as far as decorating, etc. That's important to me, since I have so many great contacts and vendors that I can use. So keep your fingers crossed that we fall in love and book it!

Just a tiny bit of inspiration that I found this morning for my bouquet:

(from The Knot)

Love the texture and the orchids and hydrangeas! I love white bouquets...so clean and simple!

Obsessed

Ok, I swear this will not be turning into a wedding blog, but I had to post about this wedding dress I found today. Yes, it's too early for me to go dress shopping, I just think this is the most beautiful, classy and classic dress.

You can click on it to make it bigger so you can see all the gorg detail on the dress!!! The material is to die for...ahhh! The price tag for a Ramona Keveza dress MAY just be like my entire wedding budget, but at least I have this picture of what I LOVE to use as inspiration when my mom and I go shopping!

Wow

Thanks for all the wonderful sweet messages! I feel so loved in blog land...hehe.

So I know I'm not supposed to be planning yet, but I can't help it! I'm a planner...it's what I do. We've started looking into venues and I'm seriously getting worried...I think because I do this every day, I'm just being way too picky. We're starting to visit some places this weekend, so I think that will help because looking at a venue's website just doesn't cut it.

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions/stories about destination weddings? We're seriously considering a long weekend wedding down in the Outer Banks, NC because that's where I've gone to the beach every summer since I was born and Sailor Boy goes down to Hatteras alot for fishing trips with his friends. I just want everything to be simple, easy and laid back! I don't want anything fancy or over the top and I feel like the Outer Banks would be perfect for a simple wedding. Get married on the beach and then go back to a huge house and have the reception around the pool and deck of the house = perfection!

Don't worry...I'll probably have 28464628 other ideas before this is all over!

PS - The Pink Tutu....you are absolutely adorable and amazing and I love you! I'm going down to FLA in February to see Colleen and we MUST get together! I miss you so much!!