One Year

I can't believe that our wedding was one year ago. I remember everything so well. People say you won't remember, that it will all be a blur, but I remember. I remember how incredibly nervous and weird I was all weekend. It was overwhelming! Miles and I are kind of background people and a whole day centered around us was definitely a lot to take in. Sometimes I wish I would've had a different dress, or done my hair another way, or made Miles cut his hair before the big day, or that the a/c worked at our reception... But in reality, none of those things matter. I married my very best friend and have had the very best year of my life.  I can't imagine my life without Miles--don't make me, I'll cry.

And Then...

Wedding pictures! Being able to look through all of these has been the most amazing reminder of such an incredible day. I was in such a daze on our wedding day I feel like I missed so much. For as long as I can remember, everyone who has talked to me about their wedding day has said "it goes by so fast you won't remember anything!"

My experience wasn't so much that it went by that fast, just that I was in such a state of bliss/disbelief that the big day was finally here and happening I was kind of disconnected from everything. Miles is trying to get me to stop kicking myself over not being all that mentally present during all the wedding day goings on, I'm getting there...and these pictures are definitely helping.

I could not have made it through the month leading up to the wedding without my mom and sister. They totally schemed with me and pulled together everyone to carry out all our plans. They were so incredible.  Really, in my head, I know that my sister is growing up--but there were so many moments when I was completely blown away by what an amazing woman she has become. She was my voice of reason and took over whenever I was about to have a meltdown. Bo-you are the best. 

I had spent so long personally planning and dreaming of this day that when it actually arrived I didn't know how to stop planning and enjoy myself! I remember my mom putting on my shoes for me and having to force myself not to ask to stop being treated like a pampered child. Whew. I wish I could have completely enjoyed the many moments of being loved on a served by the people closest to me. But I am glad I can look back now and appreciate all that they did for Miles & I that day. 

I am so happy Miles came around to the idea of having a first look, seeing him before the ceremony was beyond perfect. We met at the park where we shot our engagement photos and the time we had here was really the only time I felt completely aware of what was happening around me. Miles and I are pretty introverted and easily get overwhelmed with there are a ton of people around--maybe that was part of my problem that day (lightbullbbb!) So with just our wonderful photographers and two of our best friends to drive us, we had such a special short time while taking these pictures. (I love this one with Miles and Matt so so much)

And then there was the longest walk from the car to my boo.

And then all was well.

And then there were grasshoppers.

I hope our babies are just like Miles. So easily excited--I adore.

Then there were the boys,

 and the girls.

  

We loved the ceremony, everyone who spoke said such wonderful things that I hope and pray we never forget. 

 

And then there was the moment where we turned to face everyone and only had to wait a few seconds for George Harrison to start playing.

We had a few moments to ourselves after the ceremony, I texted my friend in London and then we found this place and were joined by our photographers.

And then we went to our hot, hot, hot reception. No, it wasn't sexy. The a/c was out. So it was literally hotter inside the building than it was outside. It only took us about 2 minutes before we were dripping with sweat--how romantic!

My dad kept asking how long our song was. He had to take off his coat halfway through to reveal his short sleeved dress shirt. Oh you Hawaiian man, you. 

About an hour into the reception that was supposed to last 3 hours, Miles and I looked at each other and decided it was time for one last, sweaty song. So what better way to end this party than singing Justin Bieber at the top of our lungs. Even our moms got into it. My sister is hilarious in all of these pictures.

 Two of my wonderful cousins filled these birdseed cones exactly the way I asked them to. Too bad I overestimated the appropriate amount of birdseed that should go into the cones. We were totally pelted and still found birdseed in our hair the next day (and in my car for a good month after). There is a progression of pictures as we come out, and in all of them my dad is just standing facing the car with his head lowering in defense from the seeds. It is truly amazing.

The end (of the post).

I think I'm going to go through our phone pictures next and have another picture post from our point of view. 

Wedding Photobooth

Oh my goodness. Dear wedding guests, you were amazing. 

Go here for the rest of the pictures. I am obsessed.

Knot=Tied

More posts (and pictures) to come very soon. 

Five Days!

Obviously not counting today or the day of. I haven't counted those days for quite some time now--to make the countdown seem shorter, dur. In five days I will be a wife! In five days Miles will be my husband! And in seven days we will be relaxing on the beach...possibly getting rained on. We're the geniuses that booked a Dominican Republic honeymoon during its rainy season. 

Miles and I got to go on a date last week to try Bobbie's Dairy Dip for the first time. As you know, we are all about burgers and this place is definitely now on our "eat here as much as possible" list. 

I have been obsessing over the weather on the 2nd, waiting forever to be able to see what it will be on the 10-day forecast. The first few days it was on there, it was 80% chance of rain and thunderstormy. Every day since the percentage has gone down and the "severe" has gone to "scattered" to "isolated" and now it is supposed to be mostly sunny with a 0% chance of rain! You know I squealed with joy when I saw that. Not that any part of the wedding or reception is outside...but we're hoping to take our pictures in the same park we did our engagement shoot before the ceremony. I can't wait to see my handsome groom. I always knew that I would cry at some point in the ceremony, but now Miles is coming to realize he may get a little teary too. Which is just going to make matters worse for me. What if I am weeping the entire ceremony? Surely thats not possible....Right?

Tomorrow we print the programs, Tuesday I get my dress, Wednesday we are going wild flower picking, Thursday my dad and brother are flying in and my momma's entire family is coming to town and we will all be staying in the same house. I know I am going to love it. Seriously, I cannot think of a better way to spend the two days before I get married. Its going to be insane, crowded, loud, and incredibly fun. Friday is decorations, bridal luncheon, mani-pedis, rehearsal, dinner and then popsicle pool partaaay!! This week will only get better and better with each day, leading up to the ultimate best day ever. 

I

Can't

WAIT.

Lets get this DIY show on the road

My sister and I have bunkered down an begun some test runs of different projects for the wedding. We mostly just felt like we should be productive while watching two of our favorite childhood movies, Quest for Camelot & Anastasia. So amidst singing along with all the songs we successfully put together a boutonniere, washed all the dishes for the makeshift cake-stands and Hannah is just finishing up making paper cones for the birdseed toss. I completely failed in the cone-making process, I can't even really explain how terribly I performed. Hannah kept trying to show me how to do it, but I'm pretty sure I was way over thinking the process. 

We also got our marriage license today!

Miles was completely mesmerized by the clerk's calligraphy. Really. He kept talking about it for the rest of the day. We also got a new TV yesterday. Combining all our gift cards that we've gotten so far--we only paid $3 out of pocket for this baby. And we've been watching movies non-stop ever since Miles' set it up.

We didn't quite think through how we would get the TV home after purchasing it. The box was literally just as wide as my car. And we had 3 people to get home. So Miles squished into the little triangle crevice between the TV and my backseat. Above is a before and after picture. Before, so positive about making this trip home work. After, feet literally falling out of the car when I opened the door, and totally unamused with all my giggly picture taking. 

17 days!

RSVPs

I stumbled across these today on the wedding blog Ruffled and I am kind of wishing I had done something like this:

(See more designs like these here)

Just for the RSVPs. I am really just kicking myself over not having a place for people to put their names on the RSVPs. Its still coming back to bite me in the butt. But as of tomorrow, I am placing the order for chairs for the reception and will have to say sorry, Charlie to all those poor non RSVP-ers who don't have a place to put their tush. (Okay, fine! I'm ordering a few extra....)

Good Thursday

I was in a pretty good mood this morning, waking up and knowing that I would be getting married exactly one month from today (and it also being payday--hallelujah!) Then my phone rang and I got some really exciting news that sent me over the edge as far as my good moods go. After I calmed down a bit I set out to  get some errands done before work this afternoon. I accidentally ran into an amazing sale and also bought shorts that were, count it, TWO sizes smaller than my regular size. Not that I've lost weight..like at all, I don't know what the deal was but I will definitely take it. Mood elevated to pure elation by this point. 

I went to the grocery store and my favorite part about going there is their ridiculous music that they play. Seriously hijacked from my middle school days. So I shopped to Backstreet Boys and LFO. And when Josh Groban came on I must admit I got a little bit choked up. I know! I am so, so lame. But I really have reached the conclusion that that aint gonna change and I won't deny my true self :)

I bought test flowers from le grocer to see how they will look for the wedding and about how many I will need for mason jars and bouquets. Also, I have decided that Tennessee has an abundance of free flowers (Miles says their weeds, and I say they're beautiful) in its highway medians and that I'm going to relieve them of a few fleeds (flower/weeds) for the wedding. 

Anyways, my grocery flower test run proved to be very helpful.

When I got home I did a little flower arranging and continued with my BSB listening party. I need to get some Josh Grobs too...

Update: just did the math and I had grossly highballed (real phrase?) how many flowers I would need to order. Thats the kind of stuff I like to discover. So now our flowers will cost a third of what I have budgeted! Today is definitely my day.

W-w-w-weddaannggg

Okay, lets get real serious for a second. I mean...how many flowers do I need to order? And why don't people RSVP? What is the smallest appropriately sized squared piece of cake I can serve a guest (when the only food that will be there is cake, cake, pies, trifle and cake)? Because I've been drawing diagrams that seem pretty reasonable...(yes, drawing. diagrams. of cakes)

I have spent the past 4 hours sitting and brainstorming all things wedding--and all things wedding budget. I went for my alterations today and they were a tad bit over what I budgeted, but when I ballparked that price, it was based on literally nothing at all (or maybe what I felt like it was worth). So I guess its not too bad to be $40 off since I'm pretty cheap and good at lowballing things.

Things are coming together. We had bought Miles' shoes for the wedding on sale at a department store for $39.99 and neither of us loved them, but we weren't trying to fool ourselves--he's not going to set foot in those shoes again after the wedding day. Then this morning I found a pair where I work that would end up being cheaper with my discount and possibly more wearable after the big day. Things were looking up, and then my brilliant fiance asked if the (somewhat) dressy lace-up boots I had bought him months ago on sale for $5 would work as wedding shoes. And you know what? They will do juuussttt fine! So bam. With the return of those department store shoes, we have evened back out with the $40 extra I spent on alterations. Boom! BOOM! That's how its done.

I will pick up my sister next Friday and haul her back up for maid of honor duty. We get to make the boutonnieres and the pom-poms along with gluing together all my makeshift cake stands.

And I'm sure there is more for us to do...but I'm all weddinged out for now. I just really can't wait. Really. Its so soon! One month and one day away! How can this be!

p.s. I'm about ready for the Nashville cicada invasion to be over. I think there must be one chillin right outside/on my a/c unit because I can hear his chirping (?) loud and clear. And its giving me the heebie-jeebies. 

In LOVE

We are getting a disc of all our engagement photos soon, but our photographer went ahead and put them all up on a website for our viewing pleasure (actually pronounced pleaseaur, preferably with a snooty voice). I am in lovee with them. I can't wait to get our discs so I don't have to wait on my crappy internet to (never) work when I want to look at them for hours. I mean...I can't print all  of them.....but I might. And carry them around in my wallet? Note to self: get bigger wallet. Another note to self: never-mind, thats what the photo section of my iPhone is for...

(Learning to skip a rock)

(After almost pelting photographer with aforementioned rock)

One thing I realized after looking through our engagement pictures was how far I have to stretch my neck to get to Miles' face in order to kiss him. And I was wearing heels in all these pictures! Kissing him is such a chore, I don't know how I'll ever survive years of that :)                          (happily)

Dear Miles,

Dang son, you so tallllll!

Sho 'nuff,

Bethany

Sweets

I was in such a pitiful/grumpy/sleepy mood today I feel bad that Miles had to hang out with me. But at the end of running all of our errands he took me to Sweet Cece's to try and cheer me up. It half-worked (seriously, I was such a major bummer today). But boy, oh boy do I have a sweet man.

I don't know what I would do without Miles' patience and constant forgiveness for my crabbiness. 

I really hope I'm not getting sick or something. After about 3PM every afternoon this past week I have been hit by a huge wall of tired that just makes the rest of my day completely miserable. 

Poor Miles had do deal with my super short temper and my lost sense of humor last night as we began labeling all our invitation envelopes. I think I've mentioned before that we're going the DIY/simple/easy/cheap route for our wedding. So we've printed all the address labels ourselves--I definitely made that more difficult than necessary. But now I am working on printing our invitations and rsvp postcards myself and it is proving to be a little more taxing and time consuming than I had planned on. My evening has been spent coaxing the printer into printing everything in black ink and not red...(??)

I really hope I can finish all this tomorrow--but it will take a (Christmas) miracle for all technologies and ink cartridges to join together for the good of inviting people to our wedding. And probably a ton of bugging my roommate (soon to be courtyard neighbor--moving date: Fridaaayyy). I think tomorrow I will skip (aka-drag myself through the rain) down a few blocks to the post office to get a billion stamps for all these envelopes. I hope they have rolls and rolls of stamps with pictures of kittens in baskets of yarn or baby ducks dressed up construction gear. That would add the perfect touch to our invitations.

Not A Lot To Work With

This afternoon Miles and I went to a park for our engagement shoot session. Our wonderful photographer and her assistant were totally patient with us (mostly me) as we got over being awkward in front of the camera. And by "awkward" I mean "serious"--as in no funny faces allowed. You see, about 99% of the pictures Miles and I have together are a little something like this:

We hardly have any serious pictures of the both of us. Which is fine with me for the most part...except I think we should at least have a few grown-up, serious pictures on our wedding day, so this was just practice. I'm totally confident in Miles' ability to look super handsome for the camera--but as soon as I see that lens pointing in my direction I revert to dork mode and the results a generally what you see above. My mom even gave up having a normal picture of her three children this Christmas, apparently its in our blood.

So here's to our photographer being able to salvage some pictures from our afternoon together. She said we did wonderfully--but Miles thinks she has to say that to be nice. Whatevs, we had fun and I'm excited to see everything. Sneak peek in a couple of days, then we'll get the rest in a couple of weeks. The suspense may kill me, or I may forget about them tomorrow...