Camping

Went camping with friends last weekend in Jefferson, NC.  So much fun.  But next time I may forgo the tent and upgrade to a cabin. :-)

3 years!

3 years ago from today was the first time I ever met, first time I ever laid eyes on Aaron! I was a month out of college and had been complaining to my friend Emily about being bored and creeped out by the often older men on Glenwood who kept hitting on me, could she please set me up?! Emily told me she worked with a cool guy and would see what she could do to set up a a double date between him, me, her and her boyfriend.  She set the date for Friday, June 26th and the rest is history!!!

3 years ago-my mom taking my pic for I left for the night.
I didn't know it, but I was going to meet my future husband that night!!!

To celebrate our anniversary tonight, Aaron & I ate at my favorite restaurant, Acme, which is in Carrboro.  We shared fried green tomatoes, roasted pork on mac&cheese and the pecan fried chicken with mushroom gravy.  I was in heaven.  As a gift, Aaron told me he had contacted Hooman and purchased an engagement session for us!!!  I am so excited!  Engagement photos were something I wanted, but it wasn't in the budget.  How sweet of him!

My gift to Aaron was a framed photo of two of blue martinis with June 26, 2009 written on the mounting.  The double date Emily set up was at Blue Martini downtown, unfortunately it closed years ago.  He loves it and I can't wait to hang it on the wall of our future home!

At a beach wedding 

2gether 4eva lol

Dream Dresses

So, I love my wedding gown.  I think it's gorgeous, unique and everything I was looking for-and more!  If someone had asked my to sketch my dream gown before shopping, I would have sketched a gown that was similar to the gown I picked in silhouette, but it wouldn't have been a carbon copy.  My dress has a few elements that I wasn't expecting, but totally love.
Even though I have my gown picked, I still love looking at gowns in magazines and on pinterest and seeing what catches other girl's eyes.  Occasionally, there are a few gowns that catch my eye-but not for my wedding, but for my alter ego's wedding. :-)  Let's take a look...

Magherita Missioni got married this weekend, she's the inspiration for this post.

Her dress was designed by Giambattista Valli* and she is glowing!!! 

Romantic and gorgeous. 

I love this dress by Turkish designer Dilek Hanif.  

If I were a little more "look at me!" this would be my dress.

Rosie Hungtington-Whiteley in Dolce & Gabbana.

Perfect for a simple courthouse wedding.  

And of course Lazaro, for the princess brides!

*edit: Magherita later clarified that the dress was a collaboration between herself, Giambattista and the women of her family :-)

Bridesmaids!!!

Some girls choose their bridal party like this:  "OMG-I-just-got-engaged-you-HAVE-to-be-my-bridesmaid!!!"  Within a week, their bridal party is finalized. :-) Mine wasn't as easy - I didn't want a super large bridal party, but I didn't want anyone to feel left out.  In the end, there was no easy way about it and I ended up choosing a bridal party of my sister (maid of honor), my cousin, 2 grade school friends, 1 college friend and 1 medical school friend.  I hope everyone realizes that I would have the whole world in my bridal party if I could (seriously)!!!

At the moment, Aaron is the only person who knows me that knows about my blog (to my knowledge).  I wanted to wait until I choose my bridal party to share it with people!  Today I dropped my cards to my friends in the mailbox, this weekend and next week I'll be eagerly awaiting phone calls!  Then we can get excited together and I can share my blog with my girlfriends and get all their feedback and ideas. :-)

I ordered my bridesmaid cards from flapperdoodle on Etsy.  I LOVE them! So cute and unique.  I got to personalize the girls by choosing hair color, skin color and hairstyle.  Inside, I wrote each of the girls a note. :-) I'm super excited for them to receive their cards in the mail, it's not too often you get a handwritten note these days!  To make the United States Post Office really love me, I addressed the cards with a gold metallic pen (hope the machines can read it okay!) and sealed the envelopes with a monogram.  This is my first wedding project I get to share with others!  Yay!

The multiple stamps came out cute but it wasn't intentional.  

I really didn't have any 45 cent stamps!

Thank God for Hometowns

Thank God for hometowns

And all the love that makes you go round

Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in

When you were dying to get out

Thank God for church pews

And all the faces that won't forget you

Cause when you're lost in this crazy world

You got somewhere to go and get found

Thank God for hometowns

I love that song by Carrie Underwood! It's so sweet and so true.  On Monday I called my grandpa's pastor, Pastor Johnson, and asked him if he would consider marrying Aaron and I.  He said of course!  I am so excited.  Pastor Johnson is the pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Virginia, my mother's family church.  My grandpa was a deacon there, my grandma a deaconess.  I was Christened there as a baby :-).  If that wasn't enough, Liberty Baptist is extra dear to me because when my grandparents were sick and couldn't come to church, the church continued to visit them at home.  They would even bring wine and bread for communion!  This continued even when my grandparents had to move to assisted living and the church had to make the long drive to Petersburg.  My grandparents have both passed now and my heart swells just thinking about how good Liberty Baptist has been to me and my family.  To top it off, when Pastor Johnson was engaged, his fiancée asked my grandpa to walk her down the aisle since her father had passed.  How special! And now he's going to marry Aaron and I!  Pending approval when he meets Aaron this July, of course.  I know everything will work out.  Thank God for hometowns!

Liberty Baptist

25th birthday!

Hello everybody!  I hope y'all had a good weekend! :-)

On the 8th, I turned 25.  I think 25 is the first birthday I wasn't totally excited about.  For once, I was feeling *cringe* ...old!  I think the biggest struggle about turning 25 is that I am still in school and still living at home. I'm not the independent, metropolitan chica I thought I would be by now!  However, I need to stop looking at the present, look towards the future and count my blessings:

-I am 2 months out from the best year of medical school (fingers crossed!)
-this is the year I'm getting married!!!
-this is the year I become a doctor!!!

I know, I know, I seem crazy about being down.  I think I'm just beginning to feel a bit worn out from being in school-I had a test on my birthday-and I'm tired of living with the parental units, okaying everything I do with them.  I just need to keep my stamina.  Aaron did an excellent job of encouraging me by throwing me not one, but two cookouts last weekend!  One on the 8th for my family and another on the 9th for my friends. It was fabulous!

beautiful flowers Aaron gave me :)

Blowing out candles on Friday night :-o

Saturday cookout with friends, peep the sangria!

Playing bocce ball-my first time!

To Do List For June

Completed So Far:
Reserve church
Book venue
Choose photographer
Order bridal gown (completed today! from Bridal Mart)


To Do This Month:
Order, receive, write and send Will You Be My Bridesmaid?/MOH/flower girl cards
Arrange marriage counseling with pastor
Book DJ
Draw up proposal with Dawn (florist)

Any more suggestions? Today being the 13th, we are officially 10 months out.  I plan on finalizing the guest list and sending the Save The Dates in August.  Next month, I have to study for boards, I will most likely make no progress in wedding planning.  So what's not wrapped up at the end of this month will be pushed back until August...a year seems like a long time to plan a wedding, yet it still seems like a lot of work.  I just hope not to cram everything until the end.

Dresses!!!

Wedding dress shopping has been so much fun, I wish I could share more with y'all.  But Aaron doesn't want to know anything about my dress-and that's the way it should be! So instead about talking about my bridal gown, let's talk about bridesmaids' dresses!!!

I went shopping at Bridal Mart in Burlington, NC.  I encourage all girls to go and not turn their nose up to it.  They carry a ton of designers and you can order your dress for 10-20% off the usual price.  The salesgirls are really helpful too!

Alfred Sung D542

I want my bridesmaids' dresses to be fun.  This dress by Alfred Sung has exactly the right idea-sweetheart neckline, fitted waist and flared, fun skirt.  Unfortunately the material of this dress-peau de soie- was paper thin.  Next!

After feeling some fabrics around Bridal Mart, I decided I liked silk dupioni the best, followed by taffeta, then satin.  As for colors, I've always dreamed of navy bridesmaids' dresses. :-)

Eden 7330

Now wait a minute-looks can be decieving. In this color, the dress is not too pretty and the material looks a bit iridescent.  But this is actually silk dupioni and in person it doesn't look too bad.  I'm sure in navy it looks much better!  Unfortunately, this dress was one of the few dresses that didn't come in navy (what?).  That's okay though, because while it was cute on, the bust kinda reminded me of clam shells clasping onto me.

Impressions 20031

The dress in the middle is super cute and what I was looking for, even though I didn't think I would like flower details.  It only comes satin, however, so therefore it will be a back-up dress.  I'd like to find my dream bridesmaid dress in a navy silk dupioni, like this:

 We'll see!  I've only looked at Bridal Mart so far.  Gorgeous Gowns in Cary does buy 5 bridesmaid dresses, get the 6th free-that's perfect because I plan to have 6 bridesmaids!


Let me know if you girls have any dress suggestions!!!

Make It Last Forever

Sorry for the delay in posting...wedding planning got off to a bumpy start, but it's looking like smooth sailing now.  I'm pretty optimistic, don't you think? Anyways, let me share what I've been up to!

We booked a church!  After going away to college, when I came home I felt bit out-of-touch with the church I grew up in.  Aaron & I began to attend a church aimed at young adults in Durham called World Overcomers.  During that time, that my pastor also left my home church.  So when deciding where to get married, I didn't quite feel connected to my home church anymore, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit to the new church I had been attending.  Aaron and I were lucky enough to find Fairmount Methodist Church, who allowed us to use the facility as well as bring our own officiant.  So now that we've found the place, we just need to find the guy...we're deciding between the pastor of our new church or one of my grandparents' pastors.  I think we're pretty close to deciding who to ask. :-)

My must haves: center aisle (something my home church lacked) and stained glass windows.  

Something about stained glass just feels more holy!

We also picked a photographer!  No, not Brian Mullins.  We picked Hooman from Vesic Photography!  I'm so excited!  Everyone told us not to skimp on photography.  So, we took our time picking out the best photographer our budget would allow...and then stretched our budget some :-/...and then picked Hooman!  I'm positive I won't regret it.  He's going to do my bridal shoots and a full day of photography for us.  Engagement shots were the one thing I let go of-I decided if we want to use pictures for Save The Dates, we can always ask a friend or, rather, my mom.  And choosing not to do engagement allowed us to afford a large photo album Hooman will create for us after the wedding.  Get excited!