Wedding Wednesday: Dates & Details

Happy Wednesday! I love creating posts for Wednesday because I know when they post live that we've made it half way through the week and we are on our way to the weekend. Last week's post was created the previous week and I didn't blog at all last week. While I do reveal a lot of personal life on this "lifestyle blog," I try not to blog about the "bad" in life. But let's be real, life happens and not everything is sunshine, roses, unicorns and glitter. Last Thursday was one of those days. I won't go into much detail, but after my organization went through a reorganization, my (new) responsibilities turned out not to be a "good fit" for me and I was let go. I wasn't shocked, I didn't even cry. Like the last job I had that ended very similarly, after the initial shock had worn off, I realized I was actually relieved. I am using this unexpected time to improve myself! I've been in the gym nearly everyday, I'm taking my time to research and figure out what I want to career wise, I've been cooking healthy dinners every night and I'm enjoying the flexibility to be able to accomplish tasks towards the wedding. I have been approved to substitute teach in our district, so in the immediate future, that is where I will be. In all that happens in life, as a Christian, I see God. He is in total control, he has a plan, and I can't be worried about bills, health insurance, my next job, etc. because He's got it! If I fully rely on Him, I am confident that all will be OK. Again, I try not to be Debbie downer on the blog, but I felt like I needed to update this life change, so that when I look back I will have proof of seeing how God has worked in my life.

Moving on to more exciting news! I nailed down the dates with my photographer for our engagement pictures (November) and my bridal portraits (January)! We are meeting this week to check out a location for the engagement pictures & I am SO excited for my vision to become reality! I have to say this will not be a typical engagement shoot, and I'm so glad my photographer is on board with my crazy ideas!

Last week I was also able to accomplish ordering our invitations. I used Exclusively Weddings.com. They have great products and great customer service. They will send you up to 5 free samples of invites for you to touch and see before you order. They also will email you a proof of your invite before printing. I am very excited about the invite we chose. It's simple with a little bit of vintage flair to coincide with our theme. I searched high and low for invitations that were beautiful, yet reasonably priced. These were the best bang for the buck! When I receive them, I will update on their quality and my satisfaction. Coincidence that their logo has two birds on it? I think not... #meanttobe

We also went to a local printer to discuss programs. I am very excited about what they are going to look like. Basically, Morgan, on paper! I will work on the copy in the next couple of weeks and send to them to make a proof. Let's just say, it's not your typical wedding ceremony program!

Another detail I am working on accomplishing is what we are using for our send-off. Again, like everything else, I'm not revealing it just yet! Hopefully I will be able to find and buy the supplies and start DIYing them soon! Suddenly March seems so soon!

As you may/may not remember from a couple of posts ago, we were in Asheville a couple weekends ago for a wedding that Will was in. We decided to take the plunge into AirBnB and try it out! We had THE BEST experience! This is a great alternative to a hotel, especially if you aren't going to be spending much time in the room! We were in and out at odd times because of participating in wedding festivities, and it was so perfect! We enjoyed our stay and our hosts were great! I highly recommend it! Here is a picture from the photo booth at the wedding! The Fowler wedding was beautiful and so much fun! All of the decor was a reflection of Caroline and her talents. I truly hope our attendees have as much fun and feel as welcomed at our wedding as we did at theirs!

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week! Since I have the time, I'm going to spend time with my MOH! Excited for a mid-week get-away! Looking forward to the weekend and singing in our churches' 122 voice choir celebrating the founding of our church 122 years ago! Also, Will's grandmother may come to visit! We have a lot to be excited about and even more to be grateful for! We are just already discovering the "in good times and bad" part of the vows! :)

Vendor Reveal #2!

A few weeks months ago I posted about the first 3 vendors I confirmed, besides the venue, here. Well, I've finally made the deposit on the final vendor so I can reveal a few more!

I am most excited about 2 things: Videography & CAKE!

I randomly picked up a business card when we registered at Belk for Bonnie Brunt Cakes. I went on her website and immediately loved her work! We went and visited her farm about an hour away, in Calhoun County! Boy, was it ever worth the drive! Bonnie is the most precious lady you will ever meet, and couldn't be more Southern than sweet tea! She welcomed us into the bottom her home, which she has converted to a DHEC certified bakery! She greeted us with hugs and the aroma of sugar! My parents and grandmother tagged along with Will and me for the tasting. Needless to say, we had cake for lunch! She bakes cupcakes and gives you her various flavors of icing to match. My favorite part was when she referred to each cake flavor like it was a person, ie. "This is red velvet, he likes buttercream but his favorite partner is the cream cheese icing. This is vanilla pound cake and she loves all of the icings." I kid you not, the cutest thing ever! So once we had tried all the flavors and paired them with all their icings, we decided on.... oh wait. I'm not telling you! You'll have to wait and see after the wedding! :) Before we dove into the sweets, she spent 20 minutes sitting next to me on my iPad and browsed through my entire secret wedding board on Pinterest to get a feel for what I was looking for. While we tasted, she sketched. When she returned I teared up at what she presented me! I got more emotional about the cake design than I did my dress! #foodie or #fat@$$ I absolutely can not wait to see the design brought to life and finally eat our delicious cake!

As an event/wedding planner, I've come to recognize that the most important part of the whole day is to capture it. While I love my photographer and know she will capture many great images, there is something to be said about having the day recorded. Will and I have older grandparents and parents that unfortunately our future children may never know. I myself never really knew my grandfathers as I was too young to remember before they passed. A priority for us was to have the day recorded not only for our memory, but to share with our future children and their children etc. who their grandparents and great grandparents were. Our videographer is Bill Grant, owner of Cinema Couture. How ironic that his first name is William and his last name is Grant?!? Crazy! His work is fantastic and he does a great job of blending the ceremony with the reception. I truly wish my parents had a video of their ceremony, and I am so grateful that we will be able to have ours for years to come. He is also going to be recording our rehearsal dinner where I know some sweet words will be spoken and memories made. The weekend is going to be a whirlwind and although the price is steep, I don't doubt we will look back and be so thankful we spent it on preserving memories!

I apologize that this post has no photos. However, I did provide links to both vendors websites. Bonnie has a Facebook page that is filled with pictures and Bill uses Vimeo. Visit their sites, you won't be disappointed! Again, these vendors did not ask me to promote them, but I can tell you I've picked the best of the best! I'm excited to work with all of them as we get closer to the wedding and to have them be a part of our day!

5 on Friday!

Good Morning Lovelies! We are headed to Asheville this weekend for the wedding of one of Will's friends and groomsman! Then on the way back Sunday we'll be stopping in Greenville to celebrate my grandmother's 86th birthday with my aunt, uncle and cousins! I have a feeling come Monday morning, I'm going to wish I had a weekend to get over my weekend!

It's been a while since I updated with a post about what's been going on lately, so I'm linking up with April over at A.Liz Adventures to share 5 things to catch you up for 5 on Friday!

1. Air BnB! Have any of you tried it? The thought of it, at first, freaked me out! I mean my entire life mom told me not to speak to strangers, and here I am about to spend the night in a strangers house! For this wedding weekend, we needed a cheap place to stay for 2 nights. Hotels in Asheville are expensive because it's a tourist destination. So, we started pursuing VRBO and Air BnB! We settled on a quaint little basement apartment about 20min from the wedding venue for $70 a night! Can't beat that! I'll let you know my thoughts and about our experience next week! If it's good we are looking at booking an apartment for our NYC trip next summer!

 
2. Last Sunday we went to the Belk "Engagement Party" bridal show. We are already registered at Belk, but if we added to our registry we were entered to win various prizes. I wanted the whole table of prizes, but particularly the pair of Waterford Crystal champagne flutes. Well, I WON THEM!! I'm so excited to use these at our reception! They are beautiful & the pattern is called Happy Celebrations, which I know we will use them for in years to come!

3. A few weeks ago I hosted a couple of high school girls while they were in town participating in the Distinguished Young Women Scholarship Program or DYW. I volunteer with this organization and truly have a passion for making a positive impact on their lives. The two girls that stayed with me were a delight! So smart and talented! As a hostess gift them (and their mothers) gifted me the Wilton Pewter Bread Tray from our registry! This is so special to me as we are going to use it during our ceremony for the bread during the Lord's Supper. It now has a duel meaning since it has the palmetto tree and moon on it and these girls were at the State program. Sweetest gift ever, I definitely teared up at the thoughtfulness!

4. We have decided on the attire of our wedding party! We actually decided this a few months back, but I didn't share because there were a few details missing... like the tie for the guys! The dresses are Alfred Sung Dupioni Silk Fit & Flare in Pearl Pink, and the suits are Jos A. Bank in Shark Skin. Will and my dad are going to wear a vest, the other guys will just wear a coat and tie. The tie for the guys we found at Hamricks for a ridiculously cheap price. However, our local store only had 3 and we need 11 total. They are working hard to contact all 18 of their stores to try to find me the 8 more! Keep your fingers crossed because it was hard to find this one, and I don't want to search any more!

5. For my birthday, like a month ago, I received several items off our registry. A couple of place settings of our china and a few gift cards to Bed, Bath & Beyond. With those I decided to go ahead and purchase our comforter that we registered for. It was on clearance and I was sure that it would be gone by the time people started purchasing gifts for our November shower! I knew I wanted it because it matches both brown and grey and I'm not sure what I will pair it with in the future. Currently our bedroom is blue with brown accents, but in the future I'm dying for a grey bedroom with neutral accent tones. I didn't want this comforter to disappear! Now I'm having to hide it from myself so I won't be tempted to put it on the bed! :)

 I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Be on the lookout next week for Vendor Reveal #2! So much planning is starting to come together and I'm excited to share it with you! Don't forget to link up!

Wedding Wednesday: Bridesmaids Edition!

This post was originally suppose to be about the entire wedding party... but Will hasn't given me enough details about how he met/knows his guys so I'm moving on with this post about the incredible women that will be standing beside me in 220 days!! Eeek!

First, let me just say that the majority of my bridesmaids are actually matrons. I'm pretty much the last in the group to tie the knot! :) I'm so fortunate to be surrounded with friends who are great examples of what being a Godly wife looks like. I'm so glad I have all of them to go to for advice and laughs!

>Disclaimer: If you make it through this entire post you totally deserve a cookie! This post is really for my benefit to reflect on how much each of these ladies means to me.

My Matron of Honor is Katie
Katie and I met freshman year of college at Winthrop, in the hall bathroom of our dorm, Margaret Nance. I'm pretty sure we met while brushing our teeth! She lived a few doors down the hall and we always spoke when we saw each other. She was involved in Baptist Christian Ministry (BCM) and we saw each other there too. Ironically, she started dating a guy who was in my writing class (that I thought was so cute!) who was also in BCM in the fall of that year. They are now married! Our sophomore year, we both lived on the same hall, but we had a class together as well. We also continued to have more friends in common through other clubs and organizations, and on the hall. Our friendship was pretty natural at that point. Our junior year, she decided to take the first semester and spend it abroad in Argentina. Once she returned we were going to live together, but it didn't work out for us to. She bought a house off campus, but we remained close. We went on a beach trip together with our friends to her beach house in Cherry Grove that summer. It's really hard for me to remember not being friends with Katie! Since college she has lived in Rock Hill and we both make plenty of trips up and down i77. She has a precious little girl now and I couldn't be more thrilled to continue to share life experiences with her. Katie tends to bring my diva-ness back down to reality, which is why I think her and Will get along so well. I couldn't imagine this day without her by my side and all the help she is going to be in the planning process!

Lynsey-
Lynsey and I met in the 8th grade. She had just moved from Florida and she sat next to me in band class, we both played the flute. We also both tried out for cheerleading and didn't make it, so then we tried out for color guard and both made it! Lynsey & I also attended the same church and went on several youth trips together! Lynsey and I remained friends through college and saw each other some when we were home. Her parents moved from Lexington around the time we were graduating from college, but she stayed in Lexington. When I moved home from college, she was pretty much the only high school friend I had still living in my town! We exercised together and had many a conversation about boys walking around the track at church. I was lucky enough to stand by her side 3 years ago when she tied the knot and I can't imagine my day without her!

Jenilyn-
I'm an only child, but joining a sorority gave me the best sister I could ask for! Jenilyn and I were in a Christian Women's Service sorority called Alpha Omega. She joined her freshman year, and I joined my sophomore year. I went to an information meeting and when I introduced myself Jenilyn knew she wanted to claim me as her little. Apparently I was wearing pearls and an oxford shirt and she just knew we'd be good friends! We also share the commonality of being Clemson fans and we met up a couple of times at games. We lived in the same apartment complex our senior year and we spent lots of time together participating in sorority shenanigans! Jenilyn got married about a month after we graduated and I was fortunate enough to serve as her maid of honor. My day would be incomplete without my sister in Christ standing next to me.

Maddison, Peyton & Chandler-
These lovely ladies are my cousins. I am six years older than Maddison, eight years older than Peyton and twelve years older than Chandler. I can remember every single time that my uncle called to tell us they were expecting another girl. To an only child, getting a cousin was a big deal! I remember telling everyone when I was in first grade that "I was getting a girl cousin!" Little did I know that I'd eventually get three!! Friends come and go, but these girls have been in my life nearly forever, or at-least as long as I can remember! While we only get to see each other around birthdays, holidays, the beach, dance recitals, and graduations we have shared some of the same memories growing up.
Maddison recently graduated from College of Charleston, Peyton will be a Junior at CofC this fall and Chandler will start her senior year in a couple of weeks. I can't believe they are old enough to accomplish milestones that I feel like I just accomplished myself! I'm so excited they are going to be a part of this next event and memory in my life, and I hope to share in that moment for them eventually!

My Honorary Bridesmaids/Attendants-
Currie Beth- We affectionately call ourselves each others "oldest friend." Our moms were expecting at the same time and our birthdays are a week apart. Our parents were friends and in a neighborhood supper club together & many of my toddler pictures include curly-haired Currie Beth. When we were around five, her parents moved from Columbia to Simpsonville. We occasionally still had "play dates" when my parents and I would go to Greenville to visit our family. Currie had a BIG pink bedroom and we played dolls and annoyed her little brother. I went to her birthday party in the 5th or 6th grade and then we really didn't see each other again until our senior year. I went and visited her in the fall of our senior year and went to a high school football game with her. We reconnected again in college thanks to Facebook and she asked me to serve as an honorary bridesmaid in her wedding four years ago. While we aren't super close, our lives have been intertwined since the beginning and we have been able to keep in touch for nearly 30 years. It's not often that people have friendships that last their lifetime. I'm thankful she wanted to be a part of this to continue to add to our friendship timeline.

Victoria- We have actually only known each other about two years. We met through work and bonded over "cave-man feet" from wearing snow boots for a solid week in Boston in 2014. She introduced me to Occo, an amazing spa in Columbia. The minute we returned from snowy Boston we went for a pedicure! We realized that we had a number of things in common, including participating in Junior Miss in high school (now known as Distinguished Young Women). We were both getting involved with the organization again and judged a few programs together. Knowing about my wedding planning background she asked me to help direct her reception last October. I'm so glad I was able to do that for her, and now she is returning the favor a bit by letting me borrow some of her decorations and being a beautiful smiling face to greet my guests upon arrival. Her sweet spirit is contagious and I'm so glad to have met her and call her my friend.

Brittany- I've known Brittany for the least amount of time, but when she moved in across the street from me and we met a year or so ago, I knew we would be good friends. We are both so busy with work but she's the neighbor I call if I need something! It's hard to meet people and make new friends when you are a working young professional and so I am lucky that she moved in and an instant friendship happened. I know she will help to make my day special and I hope to return the favor in the near future!! :)


I'm excited about all the upcoming events and time that I will get to spend with my closest friends, from various parts of my life, all together at the same time!