Sneak Peek

When you begin planning a wedding, you picture what it will be like in your head a million times. You never think the day will come when “your day” will finally arrive. After all those predictions, visions, and dreams, it comes… and then it’s over. And then a bigger day comes – a day way larger than the wedding day that you dreamed of for your entire engagement period – the day you are home and MARRIED! After all the bliss of planning, the brunches, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding day, and the honeymoon, the day comes when you are back home, back to reality, and MARRIED! :)

This is the day I am experiencing now. This is the day that after all those daydreams I never once imagined in my head. And this is the day I am happier than ever. I am married to my best friend and there is much more to think about together that doesn’t deal with formal attire, flowers, cakes, and ceremony music. We are now a family. We have begun our lives together, and more than wedding planning – we have a life to plan! And I look so forward to planning it with my sweet groom!

I plan to get in depth with our entire New Orleans weekend – there is much to be shared. Until then, here are a few pictures that capture our day just perfectly. More to come...

Away We Go!

Well, the time has come… the official “final countdown” is slowly fading away. With only three days left to go, Tres and I finished our last minute to-do list, lined our hall with boxes, suitcases, and everything we will need for the wedding weekend, and prepared to head here (read more about why we chose NOLA here):

Over a year of planning, and the time that I never thought would arrive is just around the corner! I can’t believe it, and I know Tres can’t either. We were up until 2am last night preparing for the trip, and we kept saying to each other over and over, “We’re getting married!” After planning an event so big for so long, you never think it will come, and when it finally does, it seems almost like a dream. We haven’t even made it to New Orleans yet, and the fuzzy clouds in my head have already started to form. I just know that this weekend will fly by, but I plan to stop every hour and take it all in… I don’t want to miss out on this moment. I want to freeze time this weekend – make it go by as slow as possible. Please Lord, don’t let this weekend be a blur… let me savor every moment, let time stand still as much as possible, and let me take every second of it in!

We have a full week planned with Thursday and Friday being our “run-around” days. We have to get our marriage license, meet with our venue, shop, take care of last minute details, and a million other things. Family and friends will also be arriving, so in between, we will be spending time with them. On Saturday morning, my family is throwing my girls and I a Bridesmaids Brunch, and that night is Rehearsal Dinner night! Then on Sunday, the best day of the year begins… WEDDING DAY. Here’s the gorgeous venue where we will be getting married on Sunday at 7:00pm (read more on our wedding venue here):

The funniest detail is that I keep forgetting that when it’s all over, we are going on vacation… With everything being wedding and New Orleans talk, this very important matter has slipped my mind a number of times. But on Tuesday, we will hop on a plane and head to the Pink Sand Beaches of Bermuda (read more on why we chose Bermuda here):


We will be gone a week and a half starting today, so I am now saying goodbye until then! I thank you all for following me through this planning process, and I hope the wedding pictures speak for the entire day, so I can share the best day of my life with all of you! Thank you for being a follower... I love writing, and the wedding will not be the end of this blog!

See you all soon!!!!! Until then… HAPPY WEDDING DAY TO ME AND TRES!!!!!!!

Images by: Virtual Tourist, Southern Oaks Plantation, and Eons

Music is in the Air!

With only two days left to blog on the wedding, I just realized I never shared one of my favorite parts of the wedding with everyone: The MUSIC SELECTION! I knew before even thinking about planning a wedding that if I ever got married, walking down the aisle to "Here Comes the Bride" would never be my style. For the record, my mom despises that I am not walking down to that song, and I am pretty sure she hates the fact that I am not having “traditional” music for the ceremony, but I am a very non-traditional gal for the most part, and I had to convince her that my music selection would be beautiful! I think I got her to come around... a little bit! After I put much thought into it, Tres and I both sat down one day and discussed it, and we came up with a list that I think is unique, fun, and out of the ordinary!

Here’s a list of our Ceremony Music:

Seating of Mothers……. “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton (Instrumental Piano Version)

Bridesmaids’ Processional………….. “We’ve Got Tonight” by Bob Segar (Instrumental Piano Version)

Entrance (in horse and carriage) ….. “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice (Original Version)

Bride’s Processional……………. “Look After You” by The Fray (Instrumental Piano Version)

Recessional…………… “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure (Original Version)

I have to say, I LOVE OUR CEREMONY MUSIC! The instrumental Piano versions of these songs are beautiful, original, and there is still meaning behind each and every one of them. The Damien Rice song is perfect for a bride’s entrance. If you have never heard it - listen immediately… it’s lovely! And finally, being the 80’s gal I am, I HAD to throw The Cure in there! This song is upbeat and fun to end the ceremony, yet it’s still mild and not overly funky.

As far as our First Dance Songs… we had no idea what to do because we don’t have “a song.” We knew we wanted to do something original and sweet, yet unique and not so cookie cutter. As far as our Parent’s First Dance Songs… we let them do the picking! I played a big part in choosing my dad and my song (because I am obsessed with The Wizard of Oz), but I have always known this was one of his favorite songs. The song Tres’ mom chose is very sweet and appropriate for their first dance… I think there may be a few tears on this one.

Here’s our Reception “First Dance” Playlist:

Couple’s First Dance – “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones

Father/Daughter Dance – “Somewhere over the Rainbow” by Tony Bennett

Mother/Son Dance – “Come to Me” by Celine Dion

All in all, I think we did a great job with our music. We both like and appreciate music a lot so we wanted both the ceremony and reception list to be extra special. And speaking of the ceremony, we made a list of “Must Play” songs. We also made a general genre list of what kind of music we want to hear. It reads: Funk and Soul, Classics, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Our don’t play list: NO RAP, and no country unless it’s on the play list. In just 4 short days, we will be dancing the night away and having a ball to great music!!! I can hardly wait!

Rehearsal Dinner and Bridesmaid Brunch Invites

With the wedding so close, I am running out of things to say. And to be quite honest, I don’t have time to blog. I am a chicken with my head cut off right now and will be for the remainder of the weekend. So, instead of babbling about not much of anything, I will leave you with a few pictures of our final invitations.


The first one is the rehearsal dinner invite. Designed by the same gal who did the wedding invites, I wanted something French, New Orleans, classic, with a touch of vintage. I think she accomplished exactly what I was going for with these. And for the second invite pictures you will see… these are the Bridesmaid Brunch invitations. I wanted something simple, girly, and a design that still went along with my theme. I didn’t even realize the flower was in magnolia form until after I ordered it, so it actually turned out to be the perfect invite, going right along with my Southern-Magnolia themed wedding! So, here they are… the final invitations! Have a good weekend, everyone! I will enjoy my last weekend in Memphis for awhile… we leave for NOLA in 4 days!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

I want to share a pet-peeve of mine:
Bringing a gift to a shower or wedding or sending a gift to a bride and groom, and not getting a Thank You card back in the proper amount of time. Even worse than that, Tres and I have sent gifts before and NEVER received a Thank You card at all! I am just completely perplexed by this. Mostly because a) I wonder if my $50-100 gift ever even made it to the person’s house and b) its rude, rude, rude!

Let me get this straight, I am no Princess Diana when it comes to class and am certainly no Emily Post when it comes to etiquette (although I secretly long to be), but I do know sending Thank You notes should be at the top of my list as a bride! As busy as we all get – especially when planning a wedding – it’s very easy to forget to write Thank You notes. I do understand that, and I don’t want to offend any past brides out there who have neglected sending out their Thank Yous in the appropriate amount of time after receiving gifts. This post is to merely express my thoughts on this subject and to warn future brides of the importance of these friendly little cards!

If anything, this tacky non-gesture from a number of people has made me very prompt with my Thank You card sending. And when I say, very prompt, I do mean I am a border-line Thank You card Nazi! Literally, after every single shower, I sat down the very next day and wrote out every single Thank You card – regardless of how many I had to address. Not to mention, every time a wedding gift has shown up at our door, I stop everything immediately after opening the gift and write a Thank You.

I am sharing this with everyone for a good reason: because I have done this, writing Thank Yous has been the easiest part of the entire wedding planning experience! I’ve heard horror stories of people waiting until after the wedding, having names piled high to send cards to, and it taking weeks to complete! I am so happy that I can confidently come home from my honeymoon without a permanently cramped hand, and our friends and family know immediately how appreciative we are of their gifts!

With that opinion now being expressed, I would like to move on and yell at the top of my lungs that we have 13 DAYS UNTIL WE GET MARRIED!!!! And exactly EIGHT days until we leave for New Orleans!!! We will be getting to the city early to get our marriage license, pay our remaining balances, and tie up all loose ends – I can’t wait!

I am taking every day in gratefully, and I have been so surprisingly calm the past week that it’s unreal. If you didn’t already know, I am usually worried and stressed and crazy beyond belief that everything has to always be “so-so” and “flawlessly perfect!” Well… not anymore. I miracle has come over my head, and I honestly DON’T CARE ANYMORE. I JUST DON’T CARE!!!!!! Maybe it’s because I have been planning this wedding for so long, and I am so ready for it to happen that I just could care less about anything more!

The best part is I have actually been sleeping and not waking up every two hours thinking about my to-do list. It could be that we really don’t have much to do anymore. We have very few tiny planning details left – mainly because we put a big X through a few of the big ones. Yep, you heard me right…. There are two things on our list that three months ago I would have lost my mind over if we didn’t get done, and guess what? This weekend, I happily joined my fiancé in placing big, huge, gigantic X through them because I JUST DON’T CARE, and I can’t express in written words how good it feels not to care about this wedding anymore :) I honestly feel like someone has slipped me a week-long activated Valium, and if I feel half this “free” on wedding day, I will be one happy bride! Moral of this post: Send out Thank You cards immediately no matter what the circumstances, and try not to be such a perfectionist about everything else because you will be a much happier bride if you don’t stress!