Wednesday, January 30, 2013

A little saner...

Hey y'all.  I've tried to de-stress and so far it's going well.  I started my last medical school rotation, working in the pediatric emergency room at UNC.  I love it and it helps take my mind off of the wedding-my last rotation was really relaxed and I could basically continue wedding planning while at work.  Aaron and I have also been good at working out together, on Monday I met him at work and he taught me how to play raquetball!  I was a bit of a wimp-the courts are enclosed and the ball can fly from any direction.  However, I hope with some practice I'll be able to give Aaron some competition on the court!

I've also been doing my favorite thing...shopping!!!  I visited Moon & Lola in downtown Raleigh and got some great monogram inspo.  Then I went on Etsy and saved!!

Moon and Lola's acrylic monogram earrings $98


My acrylic monogram earrings - $15.99!! Buy them here.
yup I'm trying to make scrubs look good...

I'm totally happy with the earrings and proud of myself for saving!  I think the quality's great and acrylic earrings are pretty trendy, so I couldn't see shelling out $100 for them.  I may shell out $100 for a gold monogram necklace though.  Not anytime soon since I'm wedding broke, but I'd love to wear my initials with sundresses this summer!

In other news...people have started buying stuff off our registeries!!!  Ahhh!! My first bridal shower is THIS SATURDAY :)  so I guess it makes sense.  I know what's been purchased off the Amazon registry, but I restrained myself from looking at the Bed Bath & Beyond registry.  Can't wait to open it up soon!  

My bachelorette dress from Asos hasn't come yet...cross your fingers it works so I don't have to go to the mall in a frenzy!!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Stressed out.

Y'all.  I am stressed out.  Going crazy.  Need a break.  My wedding crunch has been going well-today we secured a hotel block!  I dropped off my envelopes to be addressed!  However, I think I'm losing it.  All day I think about wedding, wedding, wedding.  Then if it's not the wedding it's bridal shower.  If not the shower, the bachelorette.  All very exciting-but I need to think about something else.

Unfortunately, I cannot stop thinking about wedding stuff because I need to get some stuff done and I have a timeline.  But I can narrow down what I'm going to do.

Now
Finishing compiling addresses to give to BJ (1/2 have been submitted)
Secure wedding day transportation
Finish ordering items for invitation suite
due date:  Monday

Next week
Find organist
Talk to Hooman about bridal portraits
Order Veil

With stuff broken down, I hope that this will be a bit more manageable.  To stop stressing, I have a goal-to finish reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by the end of February.  It's a great book but I've been dragging out finishing it for about 2 months now.  Hopefully, I can use my book to take my mind off of wedding.  This also means I'll probably start blogging a little less too!

It's too early to be this obsessed!!!  I'm hoping things will ease up after I finish getting these big things done, but what if it's just a downward spiral?  ahhh!

I need a break

Monday, January 21, 2013

Are you almost done planning the wedding???

People have been coming up to me saying, "3 months! Are you done planning yet?"  The answer?  Heck no!!!  But today, I got a hair stylist-Tracey Spruill!  I actually found her through my make-up artist, Tiwa Lawrence and a wedding they worked together on last year.  I thought the bride and bridesmaids' hair looked totally cute so I contacted her.  She's actually located in Charlotte but originally from the Triangle, so she was totally agreeable to coming home for a weekend to do my hair as long as I came to her for the trial.  I told her Aaron's mother is throwing a couples shower (!!!) for us in one month and she was actually free that weekend to meet-up, so it was all easy!

Here's a pictures of her work


and others can be seen here and here.

Here are the pictures I sent Tracey for my own hair day of.



I'm pretty excited for the trial.  I might need a little hair added to fill out my side bun, but I made it clear to Tracey I'm not looking for anything tacky or noticeable and we're totally on the same page.  Her portfolio is awesome and the times she added hair on girls I couldn't even tell.  

As for the bridesmaids, I'm letting them do their own hair.  Up, down, whatever they feel most comfortable with.  A few of the girls are rather skilled with a flat iron in case anyone needs help.  For my cousin's wedding, we all did our own hair and it worked out totally fine!

The wedding to-do list may be long, but I've just made another CHECK!


Friday, January 18, 2013

Some letters...

Dear Friday,
I'm glad you're here.

Dear Brief Snow,
You are the reason I snoozed my alarm clock for an hour.  Then I freaked out and looked out the window and tried to assess if I was okay for not coming into work.  Thankfully, WRAL traffic reports assured me staying home was the right thing.

Dear girls I am hanging out with tonight,
Happy we're having a girl's night tonight! :-)

have a good weekend folks!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Beach Bums

at Emerald Isle

P.S.  Those are the Pink sweats I was wearing when I got engaged!  They must be lucky :-)

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Death to Wedding Invitations

Invitations have finally been ordered.  And my sanity is hanging on by a string.  I spent $230 more than anticipated, but life goes on.  220 invitations, 220 RSVP cards and 750 envelopes (inner?! outer?! RSVP?!) don't come cheap.  Yes, I'm sending out approximately 200 invitations to my wedding, which translates into inviting about 300 guests...crazy.  Of course they won't all come (I pray), but I'm anticipating feeding 230 people on April 13th.  This is insane!

...but there's still stuff to do.  I talked to my family friend who was kind enough to offer to address my invitations.  Turns out she does not do calligraphy, she simply writes in cursive with fountain ink.  My heart dropped a little bit when I realized this meant I could not do navy envelopes with white ink (fountain ink is not opaque), but she told me we could pick out pretty blue pens to address the envelopes.  And she said she would do it for free-what?!!!  I told her, 200 envelopes?  She said yes.  Simply God sent, this woman is.  I've already ordered the envelopes and plan to meet with her this weekend.  I may not literally hand her money, but I'm about to shower her in gifts and gift cards.  She is amazing!

...and there's still stuff to order.
-Blue twine to wrap invitations
-Some type of card to announce our wedding website

a twine and attached card example

-Return addresss stamp for the back of outer envelopes and to address the RSVP envelopes.  These take a while, so I need to order this by this weekend!  

My goal is to mail these invites by February 16th.  We'll see!!!  Invitations may be wrapping up, but there's still a lot of other stuff to be done!  Hopefully this week I'll figure out hotel information, transportation, and find a hair stylist (some girl quoted me $375 just for me! what?!)!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

De-stressing

Wow y'all.  The wedding is about 3 MONTHS away! Crazy!  With it getting so close, it's time to crack down and get serious, which means making decisions I've been putting off.

Where we're getting ready.  I really wanted to get ready at mi casa with my girls, but in the end getting ready downtown makes more sense.

Choosing what hotels to book rooms at.  So I can actually have a room to get ready at :-). I'm really excited about spending the night after the rehearsal dinner with my girls, waking up in the same place the next morning, getting ready together and giggles.

Choosing a make-up artist. Getting ready together means having people come to you.  Tiwa Lawrence is going to be doing our make-up and I couldn't be more thrilled.  See her work here and here (note: I've already informed her I'm looking for minimal eye make-up, because while she's great at that I'm boring).  Initially, my mom claimed her friend could do our make-up, but she was terribly unreliable-I couldn't even schedule her for a trial. My mom and my aunt have had a terribly annoying pattern of suggesting unreliable, inexperienced people for me to work with in order to save money and while their intentions were in the right place, I finally had to start declining some of these offers.  Like how this girl didn't even have a car.  Tiwa has a car, has a portfolio, so now she has the job.

There's still much to be done...I'm getting the invitations printed next week, I need to find a limousine, I need to go over decor.  I need to do a million things really.  But sometimes the best thing one can do is take a break and come back to it, right?  So Aaron and I are taking a winter beach trip with friends this weekend!  Leaving tomorrow morning for Emerald Isle! :-)


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Bachelorette

My dear sister/maid of honor is throwing me a bridal shower!  Since peeps will be coming in from out-of-town, my cousin suggested we do the bachlorette the same night.  And the date will be in one month!

Bachlorette.  You know what that means. I'm headed to the mall, headed to Bebe.  This may be the last time I get to wear one of their dresses with no shame. :)  I'm also going to check out BCBG and French Connection.  Plan to look fierce, ladies!

I always say that a girl should feel free to buy a new dress with a more-generous-than-usual budget on two occasions-birthdays and Valentines' Day.  Let's look back at some of the infamous dresses of my past...!!!

22nd birthday dress-French Connection

it was short but I loved it :)
It's kind of hilarious how conservative my friends are, also!

21st birthday-designer forgotten, boutique now closed (*tear)

Que Cab? - Arden B (the old Arden B)
Some people may cringe at this Bamm-Bamm dress, I'm all smiles.

Que Cab again - Bebe
I was 18?  

Blame medical school for the most recent awesome dress posting being from 3 years ago.  Thank Hampton for my fashion foundation (I kid).  

This post was the perfect gym motivation! 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Food is l.o.v.e.

So I, along with millions of other Americans, made the New Year's resolution to eat less, work out more and lose weight.  Will I keep it?  I hope so.  It won't be the first time I've successfully dieted...although I've had a few unsuccessful diets as well.  I'm not trying to lose anything major, just get back to my weight pre-medical school.  When a dress you wore in college doesn't fit anymore, it's time to hit the gym!

I've been using My Fitness Pal to track my calories.  I told it I would like to lose a pound a week (for sustainability, no crash diets here).  It advised me to eat 1380 calories a day to do so and, if I work out, I can eat even more.  It not only tracks calories, but other things such as saturated fat, sodium, vitamins, etc.  Calorie-wise, I've been doing fine, but sugar and sodium wise, I've already had a few daily limit violations.  I'm a Southern girl, what can I say?

I've decided food is like love.  You need it to survive.  However, food can be bad you as well...

Obesity in America
light blue=less than 10%.  burgandy=greater than 30%

I see diabetics in clinic who, despite having a dead, rotten foot two seconds away from amputation, continue to eat, eat, eat.  So, I see food as kind of like being in relationship with domestic violence. You hurt me, but I stay with you, for unclear reasons...it's actually a really terrible analogy, but you get the idea.

Yet, food is so critical to so many traditions.  Christmas.  Thanksgiving.  Your grandmother's home cooking, seasoned with, well, seasoning salt, but also-love.  Yup.  When you try to cook for your boyfriend and undercook the meat?  Mixed in the e. coli, there's some love there too.

So, as I prepare to be a wife, I want my food to speak as well.  Everytime Aaron cooks me breakfast I feel so special, I can even be lazy and sit on the couch and he'll bring me everything I need...that's just not laziness, but love too. :)

There are two meals outside of major holidays that have a special importance to me.  The first is daily dinners at the family table.  It's a time to slow down and recap your day together.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I was very lucky to grow up in a household where my mom cooked dinner every night and we all ate as a family  It was just normal to me.  And it will be the new normal for Aaron and I.  The other important meal?  Sunday brunch.  Mornings where Aaron and I are go to church and then follow it up with brunch out are just so special to me.  A time where we can recap what we learned in church and enjoy the slowness of the weekend.  My favorite part is probably the "after church" part and Aaron's favorite part is likely the "at Cracker Barrel" part, but its still pretty awesome.  I'd like both of these traditions to continue when we have kids, when they go off to school, when they have their own kids and send them back to us in the summertime.

So, back to New Year's resolutions...ironically, I resolved to eat less and cook more at the same time.  Oh, well.  What do I plan to cook this year?






:)