Sick and tired of being sick and tired

So, for the past 2 weeks I have been working 11 hours each day, from 6am to 5pm.  Last weekend, I was off, but this weekend I'll be going in Sunday.  It is no overstatement to say I am exhausted.  I have bad sleep hygiene-I usually go to bed around 12.  I think it's because I feel so pressed to do what I want to do when I get home, yet I work slowly because I'm so tired, so by the time I feel complete it's 10:30 and then I have to get ready for bed and then talk to Aaron on the phone...ugh.  Thankfully next week I'll be moving to the outpatient clinic with better hours.  Still, being in Wilmington is a bummer for the following reasons:

-it's not unusual to find a bug, live or dead, in the apartment that I'm in (school provided)
-I missed Aaron's birthday yesterday and had to settle for talking to him over the phone
-I'm trying to make new friends in Raleigh yet it's hard because I'm there so inconsistently

So yes...I'm ready to go home...then I'll be ready to leave home and get married!  I feel like medical school is putting a hold on my life, I know the end is near, but I'm too, too ready for it.

So, we're done with the pity party.  Onto wedding updates!!!

vintage and lace inspiration photo

We got a DJ.  That was a tough one.  Some DJs were charging over a thousand dollars and not only was that not in the budget, but I didn't think it was worth it.  No offense, spinning music is an art but it isn't brain surgery or anything...I refuse to pay you $300 an hour as few people quoted me.  Not to mention one DJ was a serious jerk and quoted me $1300, and then I found him DJing for another company for $950!!  I confronted him and he gave me some lame excuse, scammer.
So, we finally picked a DJ who was nice, friendly, maintained good communication and had great reviews.  His name is DJ XL and here's his site.  I have lots of confidence in him and I'm totally excited!

I asked my songstresses.  I really want to let our friends and family know how grateful we are to have them be able to see Aaron and I marry each other and celebrate with us.  I figure the best way to do that is to include them in the ceremony!  I asked two of my friends to sing, Emily and Andrea.  Emily and I met in kindergarten and she later introduced me to Aaron!  She's a wonderful friend and excellent dance partner haha!  Andrea is one of my college girlfriends and we've stayed close and in good contact despite now being on different sides of the country..not an easy feat.  I'm going to let the girls choose their own songs and honestly I have no idea what people typically sing at a wedding.  Here's what I found online
I Swear-John Michael Montgomery, redone by All-4-One
I'll Be-Edwin McCain (I absolutely LOVE this song)
Ribbon In the Sky-Stevie Wonder
Basic religious songs..??
Obviously, each girl knows her singing style and capability the best and needs to pick her own song!  Just trying to throw out some suggestions, hopefully they'll come up with some suggestions as well and together we can come to an agreement on a song.

bouquet inspiration

What's next?
Wedding dress and shoes-dress is in, not picked up yet (next weekend!) and shoes have been ordered from Endless, yipee!!!
Finalizing guest list-currently working on ugh
Sending Save the Dates-ordered a sample :-)
Finding a cake lady-haven't even started yet!
Registering-currently dreaming of it!!!  I went back and forth on registering for China, but I think I'll bite the bullet.  I love entertaining and I'm not sure how I'd be able to to afford a set without a registry.  Aaron and I already have a lot of house things because Aaron lives alone and my mom is a pack-rat, so I hope to keep our registry short and simple.

Beautiful Wedgewood China I'm thinking of registering for!

All That Glitters

Growing up, I loved playing in my mom's jewelry box.  My grandmother and her have beautiful collections of gold necklaces, bangles and rings.  Now that I'm getting older, I see fine jewelry as a right of passage...and a far away dream! :-)  With the exception of a few necklaces given to me by family, my engagement ring is my first piece of precious jewelry.  Aaron proposed with a beautiful solitaire and together we choose the Tacori 2628 setting.  I had always gone back and forth with telling Aaron I wanted a round cut diamond or an emerald cut, and the "cadi" cut diamonds on the 2628 give the best of both worlds.

my ring <3  

It hasn't been a year yet with this baby and I'm already excited about adding to my collection.  While in Bailey's looking at bands, the Ippolita bangles stole my heart!!!

The gold bangles are pretty expensive-2-3 thousand dollars!  I may have to settle for silver, which are priced between $500-$900.  Less heart stopping and easier to collect.

These Dantela Tacori earrings match my ring-amazing!!!  Maybe an anniversary gift? :-)

Pearls...the classic wedding day gift. :-)  While the bride traditionally gives a watch.

However, all those things are too pricey for a student.  I think these super cute Kate Spade bangles can tide me over until I get some real things in my life!

What pieces of jewelry are you crushing???

Engagement Party!

Hello everyone!  My medical school friends in Chapel Hill were nice enough to throw a casual engagement party for Aaron and I!!!  So sweet!!

Here are some pics from the event.

How cute is this, a matching couple!  

Claudia got these awesome outfits for her and Shane while she was in Africa.

The girls at the party!  I wasn't able to pull the guys away from the grill for a group shot of them.  On the far right is my sister Allison!  If you're wondering about the outfits, some people, including myself, have swimsuits on underneath. :-) 

Aaron and I cutting the oreo cookie cake Joseph made for us.

Practicing for the wedding! :-)

We had so much fun and I am so grateful and thankful!  Well, I'm off to a wedding in Asheville this holiday weekend with Aaron and we're so excited!!!  We love Asheville and we love watching our friends in love get married!!!

Parties and Pleats

Hello everyone!  The past week was pretty awesome.  Last Saturday, my Chapel Hill friends threw Aaron and I an engagement party!  It was awesome and we are so lucky.  More pics coming soon, until then, I'll leave you with one of our cake. :-)

Brunch with girlfriends earlier that Saturday morning  :-)

Our engagement photos came back!

See more here

Lastly, I went to another store and tried on the Alfred Sung dress in a smaller size.  The sample was still peau d'soie instead of dupioni, but it's a better fit (6 instead of 10).  I think it's super cute and it's going to be the one. :-)  I hope to pair the navy dresses with some cute gold peep-toes!  I'll check out some shoes by Nina.

Well, that all for today folks!  Tomorrow is my last day on the geriatric psychiatry floor and next week I'll start working in family medicine in Wilmington!  Exciting!  I also ordered some invitation samples (even though I have not decided on save the dates haha)-I'll post reviews soon!

The Bridesmaid Dress Search

I think I'm the lamest bride ever.  All my bridesmaids are out-of-state working, in college, or in medical school so the majority of the time I'm searching for bridesmaids dresses solo.  It's nothing like Say Yes to The Dress: Bridesmaids....I suppose I could develop a multiple personality disorder though!

Here's what I was looking for in a bridesmaid dress
-strapless with a sweetheart neckline-not a must, but I like the style
-a fun skirt, meaning some sort of poof rather than straight down.  I think weddings are about being girly :-)
-a price less than $200, hopefully closer to $150.  I don't think weddings should be about bankrupting your friends.

I always figured my bridesmaids would wear the same style, but it's really up to them. Everyone in different dresses always looks cute and modern.  However, if they were the same dress we could play with necklaces...

Bridesmaids in different statement necklaces....

Bridesmaids in timeless, pearl necklaces 

What do you guys think???  What do you prefer?

Now onto dresses...

Possibly the top contender.  Imagine this dress it if wasn't 3x too big on me, if i wasn't taking a picture with a cell phone and if the bottom was pressed.  That's what happens when you go shopping solo.  I think it'd be pretty cute, it comes in the silk dupioni  (I'm wearing a different, less structured fabric in the pic) and it's priced around $150.  A couple pics down I'm wearing another Alfred Sung dress with the same skirt in the dupioni, so it may help you get a better idea of what this dress would like if we went with it.  The model is wearing the dress in dupioni too.  There's a pic of the dress here on a dress form, for some reason the matching solid belt (sold with the dress) is not featured however.  I'm wearing it in the pic above and so is the model, it just breaks up ruching in a nice way.

Another cute dress, but satin-y.

Alfred Sung D500 in dupioni (same bottom as D536)

This dress has the same bottom as the sweetheart dress in the first picture.  The difference is, here the dress is pressed and shown in dupioni, so it's more structured than the peau de soie I had to try the first dress in.  It's also a size 6 with a clip in the back instead of a size 10.  This dress with sleeves is cute, but I don't know if I want to see this dress on 6 people standing side by side. Weird?  

Lula Kate

This dress is by Lula Kate, a super cute designer based in Charleston.  You can mix and match your bottoms, so I could get the top of the dress I'm wearing with the poofier bottom of the dress I'm holding.  Lula Kate's dresses cost around $230, so I don't feel comfortable asking my girls to pay that much.  However I'll throw the option out there in case my bridesmaids are ballin'. :-)

A Lula Kate wedding.

I'm trying to get all of bridesmaids to look at this post, so if you're on here please comment below what you think!  Sorry you have to use your imagination for some dresses, stores don't carry samples in all the fabrics and most are the sizes are huge.  If we can't get a final consensus, I'm open to just settling on a designer and letting girls pick their own the dresses.  Just beware, not every dress looks as cute on as it does on the model online!  That's why this dress didn't work.  I went through a lot of dresses to find these :-)  Oh, and all the dresses have pockets!!

Wedding Updates

Aaron and I have been on the DJ hunt all week!!!  We're meeting the last one in a few hours and hoping that we can make a confidant decision later tonight.  Too much watching of "Four Weddings" has got it stuck in my head that a DJ can make or break your wedding.  However, seriously, that show is the stupidest show ever and I dislike watching people be critical and nitpicky of each other's weddings.  Most comments they make are so ridiculous-"that dress was simple and it wasn't my style" or "I wish she did more with the centerpieces."  Hello, it's not your wedding! :-)

Moving on, here are some other things I've been working on...

I saw these ballet flats at Nordstrom the other day and they are the perfect bridal flats.  I love the rose gold color!  I'm using ShopStyle to hunt for the best price so I can order a pair for the wedding day!

I'm also looking for hair accessories!  I've decided small, multiple hair pins like the photo on top are best so I can add to or tone down as I see fit.  The pearl hair pins are from BHLDN, they're $400 which is totally ridiculous.  I hope to have a some gold accents incorporated in my pins, similar to the headband from Twigs & Honey in the picture below.  If only the pins and the headband could mate and have a baby. :-)

Our engagement photos are back!!!  Looking forward to sharing more with you soon and picking a Save the Date!  I think we'll go with magnets. :-)

Finally, I think I'm done with the bridesmaid dress hunt.  I'm going to make a post this week showing all the top contenders so the girls can see and voice their opinions...but I definitely already have a favorite. :-)  No worries, I'm pretty sure (hopeful) everyone will love it.

Okay, off to study until this DJ meeting!!!

What I've Been Up To

Hi guys!  I apologize for the delay in posting.  I've been pretty busy with vacation, then starting school again.  I'm working on the geriatric psychiatry floor and I love it!  I look forward to coming into work everyday and get to work with geriatric with a variety of problems such as anoxic brain injury, dementia, depression and bipolar disorder.  I also round on the perinatal floor and have been working with pregnant mothers struggling with psychiatric problems.  Since many of my patients are elderly or pregnant, I deal with many medical problems as well.  So, so fun.  Also, I got my Step 2 scores back today and was pleasantly surprised!  Whew, so happy I can continue on my quest to match and graduate smoothly!!!

Here are some pictures of what I've been up to outside of school :-)

Aaron's mother and niece came to visit :-) 

Here is the card Aaron's mother is reading to Grace :-) rumor is she's excited!

Blaire walking down the aisle at Latoya's wedding

Latoya & Geathan!  Latoya looked STUNNING. She walked down the aisle to "A Thousand Years", definitely an emotionally charged song

At Water Country USA with Aaron :)

Aaron learning how to wakeboard!  I didn't try :-/

At Beer, Bourbon & BBQ with Aviva last weekend!