Getting Ready

Okay...now that Southern Wedding's has shown my wedding :-) and I don't have to worry about photo rights or any of that stuff anymore, I'm ready to share photos!

After the rehearsal dinner at 18 Seaboard and afterparty at The Wine Feed, I ended up going to bed  a little after midnight.  Allison (sister), Ebony (bridesmaid), Andrea (singer) and I were staying in adjacent suites at the Hampton Inn on Glenwood-which was really nice by the way!  The hotel opened in November and had a really modern feel.

I woke up around 7:30 to Allison jumping on the bed "you're getting married today!"  Probably the best way anyone could ever wake up. :-)  I took a shower and we went downstairs to grab some breakfast.  Tiwa arrived around 8:30 do make-up; since she was doing 9 faces (me+bridesmaids+mom) she had to start pretty early.  Hooman showed up at the same time.  We designated my suite the hair suite and Ebony's the make-up suite.  The morning started off pretty quiet, the other bridesmaids weren't arriving until 10 and it was a good time just to soak it all in.

More details and pics in part 2!!!  Sorry for the lag in posts, I'm starting my internship year so things are pretty busy! :-)

Registry

My wedding was huge and my family and friends are amazing, so our registries received much love.  Here are some things that I see daily that make me so happy!

 Our kitchenaid mixer in aqua.  My mother's friend bought me this and she hasn't even seen me in 15 years.  AMAZING

Wedgwood China.  We were pretty luck and got 8 gorgeous place settings that now live in my grandmother's china cabinet in our dining room.  

A couple friends noticed we didn't register for crystal and took it on themselves to go in together and buy us red wine, white wine, champage and old fashioned glasses...also AMAZING.  

A juicer...love it!  We juice every morning now.  Today we did strawberry+orange+pineapple+carrot+celery+kale.  As you see I like it healthy but still tasty!  We live near an Aldi so we can get produce for cheap prices so we don't go broke.

Aaron's favorite gift.  A smoker!  It is amazing and gets meat so tender.

Aaron made homemade bacon last week and this was a huge help :-)

Ramekins.  So inexpensive and fun.  I broke them in by making individual peach cobblers.

And when I want to jazz it up we have mini dutch ovens by Tramontina...much cheaper than the baby Staubs you often see.  

And the mama, the Le Creuset 5.5 dutch oven...actually this wasn't given to us but Aaron and I purchased it at Bed Bath & Beyond with gift cards last night during their registry completion event! I cannot wait to start cooking with this!!!

People are so nice when you get married....excuse me now, I need to go work on some more thank you cards!!!

Finding the dress

So, finding THE dress!! Picking up where we left off...

One afternoon I decided to check out Victorian Rose.  It was a bridal store on Glenwood which has now moved to Cameron Village.  The store has a lot of mixed reviews-great selection, but the dresses aren't well cared for and poor customer service.  I didn't make an appointment but I did call roughly 30 minutes before I showed up, so they said to look around and someone would assist me shortly.

The store's selection was quite good.  They carry Watters, Wtoo, Tara Keely, Rosa Clara, Pronovias, Lazaro, Jim Hjelm, Allure, etc.  They had a lot of lace dresses which was a yay for me.  There price range is really broad too.  So for once I said I wanted a lace mermaid and got a handful of dresses.

I tried on Rosa Clara Laia...beautiful but not quite form fitting enough

And then there was this dress.  The Enzoani Dakota and it really stole my heart!

Here is another picture of the dress-easy to see why I fell in love with it, right?

I left Victorian Rose happily dreaming of the Dakota dress.  Was it the one? Since I went to this store alone, I'd have to bring my mom back and come see.  Speaking of which, I definitely enjoyed shopping with a small crowd.  The one time I did bring some friends, I found I didn't really appreciate the other opinions lol...all I wanted to know was what I thought about the dress. And as for those girls who worry about will the groom like the dress-pshh!!  Get what makes you happy and if he loves you he will think you are beautiful in anything!

Anyways!!  I also went to Poffie Girls in Gastonia, outside of Charlotte.  I was visiting Aaron's family and this is a well-known store in the area.  They carry Enzoani, Casablanca, Wtoo, Mori Lee...a lot of mid-range designers.  I would definitely recommend them to people in the area.

I tried on the Casablanca 2072...but I dislike embellished dresses.  I just wanted lace.

I tried on more dresses that I can't remember mainly because once again this store had the Enzoani Dakota and again, I was in love.  But I didn't want to commit until I went to Bridalmart, where my cousin got her dress from.

Bridalmart is a huge store in Burlington with a huge selection of dresses.  Some of the designers they carry are Allure, Casablanca, Watters, Wtoo and Mori Lee.  Inside there are just racks and racks of dresses arranged by style.  Bridalmart isn't the glamorous experience y'all-you pull the dress yourself and the dressing room is just one huge room-but it is the cost efficient experience!  They still order all your dresses new and the dresses they have were about $300 cheaper for the same dresses at Victorian Rose.  

So at Bridalmart with my aunt and mother we pulled and pulled and pulled dresses.  Thinking of the Enzoani Dakota, I rejected dresses and more dresses.  They did have a nice lace selection however.  And then my aunt pulled this dress.

horrible pic but all I got...Allure C202

Annnd I wasn't sure.  It had straps-"I'm so happy you won't be pulling your dress up all night!" my mom exclaimed.  And it was a little more trumpet than mermaid shaped.  But it was also a showstopper-random people at the store were coming up to me to compliment and ooo and aaah over the dress.  "It's your dress!" they said.  But I still wasn't sure and my mom hadn't seen the Enzoani dress yet.

Long story short, we went back to Victorian Rose to see the Enzoani together, Victorian Rose also offered to ordered the Allure dress (they carried the brand but not the dress), but in the end I decided to go to Bridalmart.  I'm not sure how I made up my mind between the two, but the lace on Allure dress was much more prominent than the Enzoani-and heavy!  I couldn't have worn that dress in the heat of the summer, but for April it was fine.  The straps also gave it some originality.  My dress ended up costing $1300 plus another $150 in alterations done by Unique Tailor in Raleigh.  Of course it wasn't made from the finest lace and some bridal snobs may turn their nose up at it, but I love it and it was gorgeous and everything I wanted and it didn't break the bank.  It photographed beautifully as well!!  

My dress shopping advice

-it's your dress and not anyone else's, so put your opinion #1!

-as I said before, choose your budget and stay close

-try on every silhouette just to make sure (which I did do briefly at the beginning)

-take pictures! my mom took several of me in my dress.  Out of the salon with a clearer head, pictures>mirrors

-lastly, look look look and don't settle!!

A photo from my bridals....later Hooman cropped it and removed the shadow and it became my bridal portrait <3

Finding the Dress

Hey guys!  I was going to post wedding pics today, but I decided to wait and share some other experiences as well.  So I'll start with dress shopping!

So my wedding dress budget was modest, about $2,000.  I'm not sure how we came to that budget, my entire wedding budget was done on on a whim...but more on that later!  The important thing is, whatever your dress budget is I suggest you try to stick to it.  Simply because you buy the dress so early in the process, you have like 9-12 more months left to blow your budget, which if you're me, you will! :-)  I can't imagine being like the girls on Say Yes to the Dress and going 4k over and trying to cut that money from other places.  But at the same time, don't settle on a dress either!  Instead, just keep looking.

I literally hit up every wedding store in Raleigh.  I wish I had pictures of the dresses I tried on to show you, but I deleted them out of fear Aaron would find them.

Since forever, I had wanted a  lace, mermaid wedding dress.  Here were some of my inspiration  photos I collected via google

This Tara Keely dress had some modern touches

But this dress was the traditional look I was going for

And I loved this dress, sans bow, it just needed lace on the trim.

I had my vision and was ready to go.  I had won $1,000 to Traditions by Anna at a bridal show so they were the first place I went, so excited.  They are a gorgeous store in North Hills that carried very nice designers, such as Romona Kevesa and Ann Barge.  I went on a quiet afternoon with my mom and had my first wedding dress shopping experience.  I felt to verify my vision I needed to try on a dress of every style-ballgown, A-line, straight silhouettes and of course, mermaid.  So I did and out of all the dresses, this stood out

Lee Ann Belter Annabelle dress

Unfortunately the lace wasn't all over.  Due to my credit, my budget was increased to 3k at Anna's but they still told me they didn't carry lace dresses in my budget.  Feeling defeated, I left Anna's and my one thousand dollar credit to check out what else Raleigh had to offer.

I went to other shops, notably Victorian Rose, Lana Addison and David's Bridal.  I dragged my feet into David's Bridal, the last place I wanted to shop.  However, the Vera Wang dresses were surprisingly cute.  

Beautiful, but a bit too trendy for me.  Plus they had no real lace dresses or mermaids.  I was beginning to realize that mermaid is an expensive silhouette to make and lace is an expensive material. :-(  

At Lana Addison, it was more of the same.  They put me in some beautiful Pronovias dresses that were budget friendly and lace, but they didn't have the fitted shape I wanted. 

This was the Pronovias dress Lana Addison put me in.  I don't remember the price, but I guess they are not as expensive as the ads elude to.  However the dress, while gorgeous in the picture, appeared to have a much straighter silhouette in person due to the sheer overlay.  So it was a no go.

My mother and I shopped in spurts-we would spend one day and visit 3 stores.  Other places I went to were Bridal Boutique of NC (now closed I believe), Gorgeous Gowns in Cary and Carolina Bridal World in Smithfield.  Not really much to mention there, but you see I kept an open mind and basically went to every salon.  I had a really in-between budget - I couldn't afford a designer gown and didn't need to shop at an off-the-rack the store either.  That's where Victorian Rose came in.  Their selection, along with another store in Gastonia called Poffie Girls, were probably among the most diverse out of all the stores I visited.  Both stores had dresses at my price point that I could consider without settling for or reaching beyond my budget.  I'll recap and review Victorian Rose, Poffie Girls and Bridalmart in my next post! :-) Happy Friday y'all!

Finally time to start the recaps

So it's finally time to get back to this blog and recap the wedding!!!

It was amazing.  Seriously, the wedding of my dreams.  I say this realizing I was very lucky and very fortunate, for it is true that a wedding is just a day and it is rather crazy to spend a year plus obsessing over it.  Yet, for me it worked out :-).

I'll start with the weekdays before first and then share the pro pics from the day of starting tomorrow.

Monday-Thursday
These days were filled with last minute things, including staying up until 3 am on Wednesday night finishing the seating chart.  270 people ain't easy to seat, y'all.  Thank goodness for Aaron, however.  He took the time to really think about who we sat with who and even did things like break up parents and their teenage-to-adult children, which really worked out well.  He also thought about where we put the tables around the dance floor and that was smart as well.  Most of my tables were 60 inch rounds that sat 8 people but I did have three 12 foot box tables that sat 12 people.  The rounds had navy linens and the box tables had blush linens.  I didn't do a head table, instead I mixed up the wedding party with everyone else.  We sat close family and the reverend at the two tables that neighbored our sweetheart table.

By Thursday I was pretty much done with everything and just running last minute errands.  My bridesmaid and bff college roomie Ebony arrived Thursday night and I was just so happy to see her!  Having a girlfriend beside you as you finish errands is so much nicer.

Friday
Andrea (college friend, singer) arrived early that morning and all I had to do was pack for the wedding + honeymoon.  The morning went pretty smoothly until I temporarily lost my cell phone and a freak torrential rain storm passed through Raleigh.  However, that was the last of my bad luck and then it was time for the bridal luncheon!

Outside of Piebirds with Lauren (bridesmaid) and Emily (singer)

We've all known each other since kindergarten!

My mom and I didn't take very many pictures because we were having too much fun so I had to rely on google for the ones below :-)

Piebirds is such a cute restaurant in downtown Raleigh.  They had a side room with a long table and a sitting area which created a nice private setting for the luncheon!  It was a nice time for everyone to meet everyone and some of my aunts came as well.  The food was delicious-everyone was able to pick a hand pie (pic above) and side for themselves.  I had the curry chicken pot pie with fresh peas and mint-heavnely.  For dessert, we shared two large dessert pies-salted caramel cream and mixed berry.  I would recommend it to anyone, especially since it was pretty inexpensive.  

I also handed out gifts!

For the bridesmaids I did custom clutches by Jenna Lou Designs.  I really wanted to give a gift that wasn't just something I wanted them to wear in the wedding and they may not want or use it again later.  The clutches were a fun gift and I got to pick the the fabric and monogram color for everyone.  For my songstresses, I gave them assorted items I picked out over time- earrings, stationary and a candle for Andrea and a really cute book titled "All Smiles" for Emily.  I also had gifts for the kids, Barbies for Grace and Matchbox cars for our ring bearer (who wasn't there, but his mom and sister were).  

After the luncheon we checked into the Hampton Inn on Glenwood South.  Ebony and I had suites next door to each other which were perfect for getting ready the next day.  We just relaxed until the rehearsal dinner which was at 5 that evening.  

The boys practicing...before my aunt yelled at them to face the same direction

Emily walking in with my dad.

 I wasn't allowed to rehearse because I was told it was bad luck.

The rehearsal went pretty smoothly-easy for me to say since I just sat the whole time!  It made it hard to pay attention so almost everything the reverend said to me on Saturday was a surprise.   My aunt was the coordinator and thank goodness, because I have only been in one wedding besides my own and didn't really know the proper order of things.  My mom, aunt and reverend made all the decisions which was fine with me.  Aaron & I have been to three weddings since ours and now I see that I really had quite the traditional ceremony. Our reverend is from an old country church and he performs about 2 weddings a year :-).   My dad didn't give me away until halfway into the ceremony and my blusher stayed on until the kiss.  Again, fine with me but likely representative of an older, traditional ceremony lol.

After the rehearsal, around 7pm we went to 18 Seaboard for the rehearsal dinner.  We didn't pay for alcohol which I was initially worried about but no worries-our friends had no trouble hitting up the bar on their own!  Just wanted to include that detail in case any girls are reading this planning their wedding and sweating the small stuff.  :-)

The food was fabulous.  We had a large, private room and 18 Seaboard gives you a menu of about 3 appetizers and 6 entrees.  For anyone who hasn't been, they're basically like upscale southern food.  I had the she crab soup and pork shoulder with grits and it was wonderful.  They also do desserts, but we opted to have the grooms cake at the rehearsal dinner instead.  Blue Moon Bakery prepared a beautiful N.C. State cake for us to cut.  I didn't want to cut the cake at the wedding because I wanted people to eat and enjoy it and to not ave any leftover.  

Girls at the rehearsal

Delicious strawberry grooms cake with plates 18 Seaboard decorated for us with chocolate :-)

After dinner, Aaron and I had a small afterparty at The Wine Feed, a wine shop and event space on Glenwood South.  Our friends are the owners and they were fabulous in helping us with choose wines for the afterparty and wedding.  Besides the wedding party, we had also invited some close friends who lived in the area or were already in town for the wedding.  For both the rehearsal dinner and the afterparty, the invites were word of mouth only-yay to no stamps or stationary!  Just don't forget to invite anyone!  

Our afterparty had a good turnout (about 30 people present at any given time) and I had fun, but left early to get some beauty sleep for my big day.  I got back to the hotel around 11 and hit the bed a little after 12.  It was time to get married!!!

Married

Hello, I am Mrs. Lauren Isbell and I am married to Aaron Isbell. :-)  I was very lucky and the wedding was everything we dreamed of and more.  We had a wonderful and relaxing honeymoon in Asheville and then returned home, to a life with a house with one room packed full of wedding gifts (thank you! thank you!), me getting dressed out of suitcases because I just moved in, catching up with friends and gushing about the wedding, oh-and also attending 2 weddings the weekends immediately after ours, with one left to go to this upcoming weekend.  Life is crazy, but fabulous.  Can't wait to recap and share it all with y'all!!!  

3 days! :-)

I'm getting married 3 days and I CANNOT wait!  My mom and I went to the venue to check things out today-gorgeous.  And the weather looks awesome for Saturday-keep your fingers crossed.  Marc helped us make a timeline today which was so helpful.  It's not just like they give you a space and make you do all the work.   (Link to the venue for anyone who didn't know where the wedding will be http://www.thegardenonmillbrook.com ).  Adelaide also talked to Dawn (florist) and Mark (lighting) as well to make sure set-up goes smoothly.

We had some hiccups-Aaron's ring is a little too small so a new one is coming Friday, a check was due for the venue today and I seriously had some sticker shock when I saw the tally for entertaining and feeding 270 guests...you have to pay with a check so debt is not an option!  Placecards have not been numbered either.  My mom's been by my side pretty much all day (good and bad) and we are working hard to knock it all out.  I just need to go to bed at a decent hour tonight and tomorrow so I'm not too tired the day of the wedding.  I also need to finish packing for the wedding weekend and honeymoon.  

In the hectic-ness of this morning - "they need the check today?!" - mind you the venue is over half of our budget - I accidentally left the bridal portrait at home.  I drove back to the house to get it, ran inside and then OW!! I thought I stepped on a nail-no, stung by wasp!  Which was still alive.  I was shocked, scared and in pain so I reverted back to my child self, shouting for my mom. We arrived to the venue for the meeting an hour late, but they understood!

Thank you guys so much for following my journey!  I'll be back in about to 10 days to share pics and stories!  We are honeymooning in Asheville and Aaron's kept all the details a secret!!!  Feel free to leave advice below!

from our engagement day :-)