Save the Dates

January-April, my and Tres’ lives are non-stop. We literally travel almost every weekend, so planning a wedding has been difficult lately. To be honest, I haven’t even thought about our wedding in awhile. I feel so behind on everything, but it will just have to wait until May. EVERYTHING ALWAYS has to wait until May with us! The last month has been a busy one, but the next month will be an even busier one… just the typical work travel and occasional fun travel. In the last few weeks, we have been to Orlando, we just got back from Palm Springs this week, we will be heading to Knoxville this weekend for the Easter holiday, the week after we will be going to Destin, and the week after that, it’s back to Orlando! Some of it is for fun, but most of it is for work. That’s just a little peak into our lives currently… you don’t even want to hear the previous schedules of January-March! I am not complaining though… it’s nice to not spend all of our weekends in the same city. But I’m telling you, when May rolls around, we couldn’t be happier with our Memphis weekends!

Ok, so on to what this post is really about… SAVE THE DATES! Somehow with our busy schedules, we managed to get our Save the Dates out a couple of weeks ago – and yes, I am just now finding the time to blog about it!

So, the goal for the Save the Dates was the classic scheme of our wedding: unique, untraditional, and “oh-so-southern!” So I decided to go with southern-vintage handkerchiefs, and they turned out better than I ever expected! We have to give all the credit to Tres’ best man, JG, who screen-printed them for us… thanks JG!!! The most difficult part was deciding how I was going to mail them... not to mention what size envelope to get! I finally decided folding them and tying a pretty ribbon around them worked best! Above are the images of each of the three hankies once I folded them. Below, are more pictures of the beauties - before folding!

Lucky Number 7!

On this day seven months from now, I will be meeting my groom at the altar. Seven months is SOOOO SOON! I cannot believe this! I didn’t even realize how soon until I counted the months we have been engaged… exactly six and a half months!!! I still find myself telling people that we “JUST got engaged.” Time flies by so quickly, and I know October 17 is going to be here before either of us even realize it! SEVEN MONTHS TO GO… Lucky us!

Here's to The Blog Fairy!

LOOK EVERYONE! I have a new header and awesome navigation links!!! All thanks to The Blog Fairy! I found out about her services through one of my blog buddies and am so glad I went ahead with it. She is very talented and did a great job on my blog (have I ever mentioned my ENVY for talented graphic artists...?)

Since I had already started this blog and many friends and family were already keeping up with our wedding plans this way, I didn't want to do a regular wedding site, so Tres and I agreed we would use the blog as our wedding website. I had no idea how to make my blog all spiffy and fun, so as I mentioned earlier, I turned to the Blog Fairy! Now, all of our guests can come here for all of our wedding information! YAY!

I plan to fill in the About Us, Our Wedding, and Travelers links soon, so keep checking back this weekend! I should have it taken care of soon! In the meantime, I will leave you with current wedding fun:

• Save the Dates go out Monday!!! Have I mentioned how fabulous they are? Beautiful, vintage handkerchiefs! As soon as they are out, I will post pics.
• I bought my bridesmaids gifts yesterday. I am out of town, so I figured I may as well go to one of my favorite stores to get them (that we of course don't have in Memphis... I've clearly planned all along to purchase these gifts on one of my out of town trips for that very reason). I think some of them know what the gifts are, so boo on it not being a surprise, but oh well! When they see it, they won't care! CLUE: The gifts are fabulous and made by one of my favorite designers!
• Honeymoon plans are being avoided for some reason (could it be that we are both out of town… AGAIN this weekend?) Anyway, I have decided we need to get on the ball with this, so I am thinking of setting a deadline for the next couple of weeks. The good news: we have decided on the destination: TURKS AND CAICOS HERE WE COME… in October :)
• Hotel block has been reserved! Tres got us hooked up with a great deal at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. Our guests are going to LOVE this hotel! Tres has stayed here a few times for business trips, and while I have only seen pictures, I think it’s the perfect hotel in the perfect location!
• I took Ginger Bridesmaid dress shopping again and…. (long pause here)…. I am almost 100% certain the dress has been found. I am going to take my Mommy and Tres to the store to see the two choices before I make my final decision!
  
  This is the latest wedding news… More to come soon!

Q&A from the Bride

*Note - I had no idea what pictures to put on this post, so I just found some randoms!

When I first started my blog, I ultimately wanted it to be for friends and family alone and if an occasional outsider found it and liked it, then what the heck… I’d love for them to read it! Well, that was before I discovered the huge, amazing blog world! All I can say about is… WOW. While it’s totally overwhelming, it’s also fabulous at the same time! I had no idea there were so many people out there who were blogging about weddings, marriages, and just life in general! The best part about it is, you run across a stranger’s blog who you have never known of your whole life, then you start reading their blog, and you think to yourself… why have I never met this person? We could be best friends!

We all have our best friends from childhood, high school, college, and work, but what about those ladies out there who you never got a chance to meet because you didn’t live by them, go to the same college as them, pledge the same sorority with them, or work with them? It’s a shame that there’s a big, huge world out there, and no matter who you are, you will never get to see it all! Well, thanks to blogging, it IS possible to meet those strangers!

That was just some insight on my new profound love of blogging. With that said, I will go into what my post is really about! On a fellow bride blogger’s site, I noticed she had a Q&A session for her readers. I thought it was adorable, so I totally went ahead and copy and pasted all her questions to answer for myself. Read my answers, and if you have any more questions, ask them! I would love to do another Q&A on my blog! Thanks to Classy, Southern Bride for the questions!

About Our Wedding:

Did you take engagement pics?
Not yet, but when we do, I know they are going to be AMAZING! We are from Memphis and getting married in New Orleans, but I didn’t let that stop me from trying to find the best photographers out there with just the style that matched ours - who were not from either place. Photography was a #1 priority for me, so I was willing to go near or far to find the one made just for me and Tres. So where are they from? Florence, Alabama! And who are they? Armosa Studios! Check them out… they do exquisite work!

Have you picked your dress yet?
I sure have! I am so picky about everything, and I have driven myself completely insane making sure everything is “perfect” for this wedding. Surprisingly though, I found a dress in about two hours! Read the story here!

What part of wedding planning has been the most fun?
The attempt to correlate everything perfectly with our theme has been so much fun for me. It has been challenging in some cases, but I have gotten very creative!

What has been the most stressful part of wedding planning?
I am surprised I haven’t been MORE stressed out. So far, the bridesmaid dresses have made me question my sanity. Three trips down and numerous magazines and websites later, I am still not 100% sure I have found “the one.” Also, our travel has put so many little things on our to-do list on hold because there’s just no time to get it done!

Are you keeping or changing your maiden name?
Of course I am taking his name!!! I am very attached to “Tatum” though. Not to toot my own horn, but I think my last name is adorable, so it will become my middle name. :) (P.S. My girlfriends think it's hilarious that I refer to my last name as "adorable." Haha!)

Other Questions:

How long are you going to wait to have kids?
Hummm… I do not like this question. As a matter of fact, I have a feeling people asking me this after we get married will become my biggest pet peeve. It’s not something I think about at all right now, so ask me again in 5+ years.

What is the one thing about marriage that you’re most excited about?
Being with my best friend as an officially committed couple under God’s word for the rest of my life is why I am most excited. The thought of working hard together through good, bad, happy, or sad to overcome the odds and stay together until we parted by death is clearly a challenge for all couples, but I look forward to smoothing out every bump in the road Tres and I cross. Like I have said before, if I can make marriage happen with anyone, Tres is THE ONE!

Who does most of the cooking?
I cook, he grills… We split it pretty evenly. And if I cook, he’ll do the dishes, and if he cooks, I’ll do the dishes.

Where is your favorite place to shop?
BCBG Maxazria... hands down. Luckily, I go out of town a lot, so I always bolt to the nearest BCBG (since we don’t have one in Memphis). I also like the occasional Forever 21 run. Tres likes Hugo Boss and a few others, so clearly, he’ll wander his way there when we are out of town!

What is your occupation and your soon-to-be hubby’s?
We work at the same place, and let me clarify this… we do not work in the same department. I clarify because we get this all the time: “Oh how cute… ya’ll get to see each other all day every day and do work together?” We actually have totally different jobs. We both work for Varsity Brands, Inc., the cheerleading company, (what you see on ESPN is what we do… our company puts on those events). I am in media as the Content Editor of Varsity.com and also host of Varsity TV and Varsity News Now for our On-Demand news channel. And Tres is the VP of Sales and Operations - highly involved with the sales and marketing of Varsity.

How did you meet and how did he propose?
We met through work – officially conversing for the first time at a work friend’s birthday party. You can read the proposal story here!

PLEASE ASK MORE QUESTIONS! I am a Q&A freak! Haha! Have a great weekend everyone!