Somewhere over the Rainbow… I Got My Dream Man and Shoe!

The blog post comes with complete and utter excitement! The other day, Tres surprised me with the best surprise he has ever given me (next to asking me to be his wife of course). After a long day at work, a hard workout, and a quick dinner, I walk into the bedroom, and poking out from under the covers, I see this……

If you’re not screaming, then you’re reaction is NOT the same as mine! I was on the phone with Ginger, and I think our conversation went from a lot of chit chat to me saying, “Oh my gosh… hold on a minute… I think… Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! TRESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!” Ginger immediately says, “Is it the shoes?!?!? Oh my gosh, Call me back later.” She knew right away! Tres was in the living room, and I could hear him laughing. I tore open the card and read it – it was the sweetest card – and I ran into the living room and jumped right in his lap. Hugging, kissing, and squeezing him, I told him he was the sweetest, most thoughtful, amazing man I have ever known! I could not believe he had bought me my dream wedding shoes!

The background story on these shoes is: I have pretty much been eying them since we got engaged (clearly… just look at the picture on my blog post “My Something Blue must be my SHOE”). Honestly, I started shoe shopping long before I ever even thought about what kind of dress I wanted, and I know it’s become a popular trend, but I knew I wanted to jump on the “something blue shoes” bandwagon – it’s the perfect way to throw in your something blue and not have boring shoes, and these shoes had me at hello! I had already planned to buy them for myself for the wedding, but my wonderful husband-to-be took it upon himself to surprise me with them – I am a lucky girl to have him! Because of him I get my very own pair of “Beautiful Blue Slippers” – not to be confused with “Ruby Red Slippers,” but don’t these beauties make you think of Dorothy Gale herself?! When one of my bridesmaids, Amy Claire, saw them, she said, “Those are awesome… They look like Dorothy on crack!” When she said that, it was confirmed… I had to have those shoes!

For those of you who don’t know… When I was a little girl, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz was my role model. Several times a day, I would put on my blue dress, get my basket with my Pound Puppy, Toto, in it, and watch the movie – skipping around the house singing all the songs. This is no exaggeration, and if you don’t believe it, my mom will tell you the story of how a new VHS tape had to be bought because I wore the first one out. She will also tell you that she and my grandmother searched near and far for red, sparkly shoes but could never find them until I was too old for “Dorothy shoes.” So, I blame Dorothy for my love of shoes and possibly all women’s, but I also thank Dorothy for being the inspiration behind my choice of wedding shoes! If Dorothy herself could come back and design her own shoes, I can almost bet these shoes would be her creation!

Thanks to my wonderful, perfect, incredible fiancé – I get to feel like Dorothy Gale on my wedding day. I am not only ecstatic about these shoes because they are beautiful – they mean so much more to me because they are the wedding gift from the man I love. After the wedding, I plan to wear these every anniversary we have for the rest of our lives! The meaning behind them, the thought put into them, the blinding blue color, the sparkle, the RED SOLES… those shoes’ home is meant to be on my feet, and as we all know, “there’s no place like home!”

Ready, Set, ZAP!

We finally did it… let the gift getting begin- Haha! Last weekend, Tres and I finally got a chance to register, and what a fun experience it was – even for Tres who was NOT looking forward to it. I learned in registry shopping that the experience for the gals is a mind-boggling, indecisive, “is this the perfect set of towels?” decision making process. For the guys, it’s all about the ZAPPING! You know, the typical man vs. woman: simple and easy vs. complex and annoying. Yes, I have to say, the first step to realizing it is actually kind of annoying is recognizing it, but we just can’t help it can we?! After all, those towels will decorate our bathroom, those wine glasses will be seen by all our guests, and that china will one day be used by our grandchildren – it all has to be PERFECT! For Tres it was, “you like it… lets zap it… just let me zap it!” My response was always, “Tres we haven’t seen it out of the box yet, we have to take it out of the box and make sure it’s exactly what we want” or “Do these pots and pans make you WANT to cook because I want ones that make me DESIRE cooking!”

I knew I would be a stickler about every little item we registered for, so I wanted to us to choose stores we liked best. Target is my favorite go-to store and Macy’s is my preferred department store in Memphis by far; Tres agreed, so we decided on those two for our registry! I wanted to get all of our essentials at Target and all of our formals and classics at Macy’s. Needless to say, that day was one of the most tiring ones I’ve had in awhile. Do you remember being a kid and going to a fair, museum, or sight-seeing on vacation and at the end of the day, feeling like you couldn’t stand one more second on your feet or with your eyes open? After 6+ hours of registry shopping, that was how we felt. The amusement of the zapping dwindled for Tres and my desire for perfection became nonexistent; not to mention, we practically got kicked out because the store was closing, so while registering was a blast, it was also exhausting. If you haven’t done it before, I am giving you your first warning!

With all of that said about our registry experience, I want to leave you with my top 5 favorite items we registered for:


1) Our Flatware – I pick this as #1 because it’s Tres favorite item AND mine! We are both in love with our Dansk “Bistro Café” stainless flatware. It has the simple, modern flare that we both love.



2) Our China – Tres actually picked this China out months ago when we went for a “test registry” (Read more about this on my post, The Never-Ending China Debacle). I asked him to pick a few he liked, and we both ended up loving the Vera Wang “Blanc Sur Blanc” – it too is very modern but classic at the same time, and it’s also a perfect fit with our flatware.


3) HOTEL COLLECTION EVERYTHING – I am obsessed with the Hotel Collection line. We registered for their towels, sheets, and bedding. It’s all so beautiful and soft – the most comfortable thing you will ever dry off with or lay your body on!


4) Giada products – Ok, we have no idea how to pronounce this beauty’s name, but we decided in Target that we wanted all of her essentials. As Tres said, “I don’t like Martha Stewart and I don’t want her stuff,” and as I said, “Omg, Giada is so cute – we have to get all her stuff!” So it worked out in both our favors… although we did throw a few Marthas on there. How can you not?


5) Calphalon Cookset and Bakeware – I have always heard Calphalon is the best of the best, so we went this route with the nonstick cookware and bakeware.


The most exciting thing about registering at this point was actually getting the chance to knock something off of our never-ending wedding to do list. Only SIX MORE MONTHS to go!!!!!

Pink & Gold... Will Never Get Old!

I have to say, I am pretty proud of myself right now. According to several wedding magazines and wedding planner’s blogs, I have chosen a great color palate for our wedding, and I didn't even know it when I did! I'm sure I'm not the only bride to ever come up with this color combo, but since it seems to be popping up everywhere, I am thrilled!

Back in September when we got engaged, I immediately started thinking up a color scheme for the wedding. I had no idea where I wanted to go with it because I don’t really have a favorite color. I mean, if I had to pick, I would say blue, but I am really a neutral kind of gal. I love whites, blacks, beiges, and soft pastel colors that are timeless, and when shopping, I tend to stick to that color palate. With that being said, I pretty much had no idea what our wedding colors should be, so I started by considering the season… fall. Now, I am not too crazy about browns, crimsons, and burnt oranges (yes Lori, I know you love those, but you have prettier skin than me)… it just doesn’t cut it with my fair, freckled skin.

In the mist of searching for the perfect wedding colors, one day I randomly ran across a beautiful bouquet on the Martha Stewart website – it was blush pink, champagne, and gold. One look at that bouquet, and I knew exactly what I wanted our wedding colors to be! And I know I have mentioned it before, but I don’t even like pink. It’s just not my favorite color, and if you would have asked me a year ago if I'd ever have a pink wedding, I would have gagged. Back in my PHI MU days, I had a little taste for it, but wasn't pink crazy. But I now, think it's a fab wedding color. So in the end, I am representing my sorority AND have a fabulous fall wedding colors!

Why did I choose this palate? 1) Its soft, elegant, and timeless – just how I like things! 2) Something about it screams South-Vintage to me. Not sure what, but later on, wedding magazines and experts proved me right. 3) I will never look back at these colors and regret them being our wedding colors because they are so classic. 4) It's a great fall-color combo that doesn't exactly scream FALL. 5) I think it's very Marie Antoinette, french-like, and we are getting married in New Orleans - perfect! And 6) TRES AGREED TO THEM! I never thought he’d be ok with pink as our prime wedding color, but he was totally cool with it. I assured him it would be “dashes” of pink and not an overload.

So, why am I even more excited about these colors than ever before? BECAUSE I AM SEEING THEM IN FALL WEDDING MAGAZINES AND BLOGS EVERYWHERE! I just got one magazine in that dedicated it’s whole cover to pink and gold, I read an article the other day on why pink and gold is the perfect “vintage” look, I have seen countless wedding color palate examples with pink and gold, and I just read two wedding blogs today from planners who are pushing the pink and gold look on fall brides this year! When choosing these colors, I was hoping to be different because I had never seen them anywhere before, but now it seems to be a very popular choice this year, and I’m glad we’re still going with it!

*Photos from The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings, Southern Weddings magazine, and Blue Moon Event Planning.

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!