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How Sweet it is to be Loved by You...

It's Wedding Wednesday and I don't have much for you! There has been a lot of planning going on this week and I'm slowly starting to see my ideas and visions come to life! We have notified all of our wedding party, and there will be an eventual post about those special people in the near future! We have also trimmed the guest list and have it mostly solidified. My goal is to have completed the "business" side of planning by late August so that we have the fall to fully enjoy our engagement and all the activities and happenings that will occur.

I did want to share this on the blog today. As of yesterday we have been engaged for a month! It went by so fast!! We had a floral consult yesterday downtown, so I went to Will's place afterwards to hang out with him since he normally is making the 25min commute to and from my house late at night. By the time I got home he had posted the sweetest post on Facebook and I wanted to share it and remember it. I'm so incredibly thankful for this man and his unconditional love for me. I can't wait to be his wife in 332 days! :)

Drum Roll Please... Our Wedding Details Announced!

It's Wedding Wednesday & I've had to hold in this exciting news since last Friday afternoon! EEK!

Here are the details...

When? 

March 19, 2016 @ 2pm

 

Where?

Lexington Baptist Church

 &

The Palmetto Club will be hosting our reception!

We are so excited about our special day and can't wait to celebrate with our close friends and family! More details to come about our ceremony & the vendors I eventually select! Have a great Wednesday, we're half way to the weekend! :)

Sweet Dreams?

One night last week I had my first wedding dream nightmare! I'm pretty sure I dreamed about the wedding at all because Will and I spent the evening cruising the internet checking out videographers and watching numerous wedding videos! I was also a little stressed last week with a lot going on at work and caring for my grandmother while my parents were away on vacation, so my brain was a little foggy!

Anyways, in my dream we were at the rehearsal dinner having a wonderful evening. People were toasting us and saying such wonderful things. Some how I knew that I had been successful in booking all my favorite vendors with no budgetary strain (definitely how I know it was a dream!) We were eating and celebrating and then all of a sudden I stood up and said, "Oh NO! I forgot to buy a dress! What am I going to wear tomorrow?!" Now at this point I'm not sure if I took it upon myself or if a friend/family member suggested what I should do, but I got on Facebook and put up a status saying I needed a dress for the next day! When I didn't get immediate response, I started direct messaging friends, who I knew where married, asking to BORROW their wedding gown!! I have no idea what happened next because I woke up!

I hear these wedding dreams/nightmares are going to be quite common for the next year... ha! I hope they are all as funny as this one turned out to be! When I told Will he reassured me that there is NO WAY this would ever happen because there are too many women in my life that wouldn't let it happen. Once I woke up enough to comprehend it I couldn't help but laugh. Cheers to more dreams on the way to marrying the man of them!

5 on Friday: Wedding Theme Inspirations

Linking up for 5 on Friday with April over at A. Liz Adventures! I thought I'd share a few images that have inspired our wedding theme of: Vintage Elegance

One: I have this pet peeve I guess you could say, that I hate to look at wedding pictures and know what decade people got married in based on their dress, flowers, hair, etc. I know there will always be some element of time that will be captured in our pictures, but I want them to have a classic timeless look to them. Think Grace Kelly and Jackie O.

Two: An older gentleman in our church owns 2 old cars. One happens to be a 1928. I have to say it has been a lot of the inspiration for our day. He is going to take us from the church to the reception venue and then home, hopefully if we can get it all worked out! I love this car, but I love this gentleman. I see him nearly every Sunday and we have worked several weddings together. He was so excited to hear I was engaged!

Three: Birds. Obviously, T-Birds is playing a huge role in our day and we want to carry that theme out. We're going to incorporate birds in many different ways during the reception. I absolutely love the blog boarder with the 2 sweet little birds. Ironically, Will's father's name is Robin, and so is my mothers. Lots of little birdies will be found all around our reception. Oh.. and this happens to be my dream cake!

Four: Mercury glass! I absolutely have become obsessed with how it looks. I have a display of it on my mantle. It's classic and traditional yet modern. I know there will be some small votive candles in mercury glass containers, but there may be some flowers in mercury glass vases too!

Five: Blush Pink & Bows. I mean, it wouldn't be my wedding without pink and BOWS!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! We are hopefully going to visit our venue of choice Saturday to see it set up for a wedding! Other than that we have no grand plans for the weekend, except probably trimming down that ever growing guest list....

Mountain Spring Break & Engagment Celebration

We got engaged on Saturday, March 21st, announced the engagement at church and everywhere else on Sunday, March 22 and then took off first thing Monday morning for an already planned "spring break trip" to the Mountains of Tennessee. We celebrated our two-year anniversary in the mountains as well. This trip we planned with his parents, of course not knowing exactly when we would get engaged, it just happened to all work out.

It was great to have a week to spend together in a cozy cabin celebrating our recent engagement!

Bearly Heaven

We enjoyed a magnificent view, went horseback riding, went to DollyWood, Will & his dad went Zip-lining, while me and his mom went outlet shopping. We all went to Dixie Stampede and ate a TON of food! It was a great week and a relaxing celebratory vacation!

Do these mountains make my ring look big?

This was after many roller-coaster rides...

Horse back riding is NOT my thing!

Will had the biggest horse in the group!

Us and Will's Parents

Obligatory souvenir photo

Our Engagement Story

Since it's Wedding Wednesday, I thought I would share our engagement story!

Our engagement story isn't dramatic or thematic, but it's special to me! I have to say I wasn't super surprised because we'd talked about it for so long leading up to it. March 22, 2015 was our 3 year dating anniversary. To celebrate I wanted to go to dinner and a movie (we rarely do that) the night before, which was March 21st, and a Saturday. Cinderella had just come out and I was so excited to see it! We decided to try out a new restaurant in downtown Columbia, called Bourbon. It has a New Orleans flare to its cuisine and their meals are farm to table. I had steak topped with their creole pimento cheese with smashed potatoes and roasted black eye peas and cauliflower. It was yummy! Will had fish on a bed of grits and brussel sprouts. Surprisingly he ate the whole thing!

The restaurant is a small bar as well, obviously with a name like Bourbon, so we had to wait nearly 2 hours for a table to ourselves. While we waited we walked a block to the SC State House. We sat on a bench and watched families walking around the grounds, and talked about Will's work day and what I had done all day.

We walked back to the restaurant and waited some more. Finally, our table was ready, we ate and enjoyed the atmosphere. After we ate, a USC doctoral student was conducting a survey and so we took the survey and talked with him for a few minutes. His survey was focusing on how the menus were worded and the type of foods on the menu. I felt sorry for him, so we talked with him for a bit.

After we were done, Will asked if I felt like walking a bit. I said sure because I had just downed the best Banana Pudding with a bourbon caramelized topping I've ever had and felt my hips could use the walk! :) We walked about 8 blocks down Gervais street. We got down to the Vista and he said, "I don't think my plan is going to work." Apparently, he thought there was a horse and carriage ride that ran on Friday and Saturday nights, but it was already 10pm so they may have been done for the evening. Anyways, I said ok.. well do you want to walk back to the State House. So we did.

We sat on a bench on the left side, under a light and a Palmetto tree and he said some sweet gestures, got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. Of course I said YES! Like I said, it wasn't flashy or public, but it was simple and sweet. We called a few friends and family while we were still sitting there, but it was super late, so we did most of our calling around Sunday. Finally, Sunday afternoon I put it on Facebook and we finally went and saw Cinderella.

I love our engagement story and that it happened on the State House grounds because that is one landmark that won't be going anywhere! I will be able to show my children where it happened, we can visit anytime we like and for this Carolina girl it couldn't have been more perfect!

Dinner at Bourbon before our Engagement

My favorite picture of us... first date to the Palmetto Club

Who are the love birds?

Before we get too far into this journey, I thought I'd introduce us on a more personal level for those of you who are following and don't know us personally. Also, since this is a journal of our engagement and beginning of our family life, I want to be able to look back one day and read about us and where we were at this time in our lives.

The Bride

I grew up in Lexington, SC and graduated from Lexington High School in 2004. I attended undergraduate studies at Winthrop University, majoring in Family & Consumer Science with a minor is Business & Media. During college I was involved in several on-campus organizations. Alpha Omega, a Christian Women's Service sorority, where I not only had fun participating in sisterhood events, philanthropy and socials, but where I gained some of the greatest sisters and friends. I was also involved on our Campus Programming Board my sophomore year, which lead to the job I have today. More on that in a bit!

After college I pursued a certification in event planning from Midlands Tech. Shortly, after that I began my first post-college job as a nanny for a sweet two year old. I was with that family for 16 months and then got my first "big girl job." I worked for a corporate insurance company in their agent training department. It took me nearly 3 years to discover that corporate wasn't my jam. After my department re-org'd I was let go. 3 weeks later, I started a job at the National Association for Campus Activities, where I am the Education and Development Coordinator. We work with colleges and universities all across the country and the college entertainment industry. My experience on Winthrop's programming board gave me personal experience and insight into what many people I work with on a daily basis do on their campus's. I have been with NACA since 2013 and I enjoy what I do and all that I get to experience including a little bit of traveling!

In my personal time, I enjoy blogging/pinteresting/facebooking, watching tv, listening to music, attending country music concerts, walking, playing with my miniature schnauzer MileyBelle, and spending time on the lake during the summer.

The Groom

William grew up in Florence, SC and graduated from South Florence High School in 2001. He attended tech school right after college and eventually transferred to The University of South Carolina and graduated in 2008 with a degree in history. He had plans to attend law school, but put that on the back burner to travel Europe with a friend. After spending time over seas, he returned and decided to go into Real Estate. Not long after that he met Morgan. After a few months of trying to make a living at real estate in a slow housing market, he was encouraged to apply for a position with Wells Fargo. He applied, got the job and has moved up within Wells Fargo as a Personal Banker. This past fall he earned his insurance and wealth brokerage licenses and is well on his way to becoming a branch manager in the future!

In his spare time he enjoys watching Netflix, hanging out with friends and doing odd jobs around Morgan's house. Ok, he doesn't enjoy those jobs that much, but he helped install laminate floors in February and enjoyed learning a new skill.

We are excited to start the next phases of our lives together. We are truly the best of friends and can't imagine doing life without the other. We make it a point to have our faith in Jesus the center of our relationship and know that He has brought us to this point and will take us through the rest.

One of our First Pictures at a friend's wedding

Easter Sunday 2015