An Engagement Party

What a successful weekend, y'all! All month, Will and I have been looking forward to our engagement party which was put together by my mom, my future mother-in-law and maid of honor. Thankfully, my mom was able to come up to Charlotte on Friday and we did some last minute shopping and errand running, and because my mom is so good at keeping us on schedule, we were able to join Will and a few of his family members for a casual dinner at Taco Mac before calling it a night!

Saturday we woke up, picked up breakfast, and while we got ready, my mom, Mary Lou and Emily were at the clubhouse where our party was held setting everything up. Everything and I mean everything turned out so perfect! We had around 40 of our closest family and friends there, the decorations were beyond amazing and all of the little details that were incorporated into the party brought such big smiles to our faces. I mean...take a look at the napkins Emily got made for us and the tree stumps the drink dispensers sat on. I was #obsessed!

All of the food was homemade and perfectly southern. From the green beans, mac-n-cheese, and cornbread, all the way down to the pimento cheese, pasta salad, bbq and banana pudding, everything was lip smackin' good!

One of the most memorable parts of our engagement party, besides having our loved ones there was when we played the newlywed shoe game. Every party needs at least one game played and I loved that some other couples joined in on the fun. Everyone's answers to the questions had be laughing hysterically and I'm so glad that I have a few photos to look back at.

 

Oh and let me take a minute to tell you about the dress I wore to the party, which was from The Palm Tree Boutique. Considering the theme for our day (an I Do BBQ), I wanted to wear something that was comfortable but still felt dressy to me. I know, I know...usually brides-to-be incorporate white or some sort of cream color into their outfit, but this 'All I Could Ever Need' dress in Pumpkin was just perfect considering Thanksgiving is days away! And I honestly don't have anything in this color and was really excited about wearing this dress as soon as it arrived at my doorstep.

Now until the end of November you can receive 15% off when you use the code SSM15% at checkout, and shipping on orders $50 or more are always free! With the seasons changing and temperatures dropping you are bound to find something you love. I have my eyes on this sweater, this adorable dress and this hat!

And a special thank you to Caitlin for taking all of these photos for me! I will treasure them forever.

Wedding Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, y'all! I don't know about you but I'm having to adjust quickly to this fall weather. Just last weekend it was sunny and in the high 70's, but today it's in the 50's and pretty chilly if you asked me! Since it's been awhile, I thought I would catch you up on all the fun things I've been doing. Can you take a wild guess at what i'm talking about? Yep...WEDDING PLANNING!

Last Friday Will and I drove to Raleigh where we spent the next three days running around like crazy people and marking things off our wedding checklist left and right! Our first stop on Saturday morning was Tre Bella Flowers in Durham. We met with one of the owner's Becky who was extremely helpful and really understood what type of flowers I wanted to incorporate on our wedding day. She showed us lot's of examples and shared the ideas she had in mind and answered all of our questions. We left feeling knowledgeable and ready to tackle the next thing on our list...tour The Cotton Room (our reception venue) for a second time and pick out table linens!

Will and I sat at a table and laid all of the samples out and began the process of elimination. After what seemed like forever, we were finally able to pick four linens that we loved. Let's just say I am SO excited to use the gold sequins table linens! I won't tell you how each of the linens we choose are going to be used, but here is one hint...

via

After touring The Cotton Room, we drove back to Raleigh and went by Peace College to check out Dinwiddie Chapel. Peace College is where I went to school and I always loved the chapel and knew that it was a place I would one day hope to get married in! Well, wish granted. Will had never seen the chapel so I was excited to show it to him! 

Before leaving Peace, I wanted to try and find my graduation brick. Luckily I had a good idea of where it was and I was able to snap a picture of it before we headed to Armadillo Grill for lunch!

After a quick but delicious lunch we headed to the Whiskey and White Bridal Suite were I met my event planner Emily Nunn! Y'all...the Bridal Suite is ahhhhmazing. From the white furniture, to the chandeliers and awesome location, I can't wait for my bridal party and I to get ready and hang out here on the big day!

And Emily Nunn is a gem! She is not only sweet but so helpful when it comes to helping me with wedding planning! I call or email her whenever I have a question and she is full of advice and always available! If you live in the Raleigh/Durham or surrounding area I highly recommend you checking her out! And below you can see a few sneak peeks of The Bridal Suite.

Next stop was The Cupcake Shoppe! We tasted a bunch of yummy cupcakes, but at the end of the day, decided to go with four different kinds. Instead of having one large cake at our wedding, we wanted to have a one or two tier cake for us to cut along with mini cupcakes for everyone to enjoy! I personally like cupcakes better and they are just easier to deal with.

We called it a day after our cupcake tasting and decided to relax for a few hours before heading to dinner with Will's two younger brothers and his Mom to celebrate Noah's birthday! Nothing beats a day full of successful appointments and time spent with family! But even though we had a great day we were tired and ready to go to sleep... 

The rest of our weekend consisted of more time spent with Will's family,going out to eat for pretty much every meal, and we even went to a hockey game! It was a pre-season game but Will, his dad and I enjoyed watching the Carolina Hurricanes play and because it wasn't a packed house it was easier to talk and hear each other.

The weekend flew by and before we made the trip back to Charlotte Monday evening, we had one more thing on our agenda to do...engagement photos! We met Callie, our photographer, at the Historic Yates Mill County Park and had a blast exploring the park, laughing and enjoying the whole experience! I was nervous that the session would be awkward and that I wouldn't feel comfortable with how I looked but Callie calmed our nerves and was so easy to work with! For those of you who have a hard time being in front of the camera let me give you one piece of advice...trust your photographer! They know what they are doing! Go with the flow and have an open mind about everything. It will make the process much more enjoyable I promise.

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The Answer is YES: The Celebration

Happy Wednesday, y'all! Up to this point, you've heard about and have hopefully read my previous two posts on Will and I's recent engagement. If you are new to my blog or have not had the chance to read the previous two posts, you can do so here and here. But I know you must be itching to hear all of the final details from that sweet July 26th weekend so I won't make you wait any longer! Be sure to read the entire post though because I will be breaking the silence and letting you in on some news that Will and I have to share...and I mean BIG news...

...After driving around for about ten minutes, my stomach started to growl which was a good thing because we had finally arrived to where we were going for dinner. I never did find out where we were until after we had parked on the 6th floor of a parking deck, and got on an elevator and headed to the 27th floor when we were greeted by a sign that read Bentley's Restaurant on 27. I had never heard of the place but it looked AMAZING! 

After getting settled at our table, we received complimentary champagne and toasted to the start of the next chapter in our life together. Luckily, there were very few people in the restaurant, and it felt as if we were the "stars of the show" and received amazing service (which I think would be superb even if they were busy) and had the opportunity to walk around the whole restaurant and enjoy the many beautiful views of Charlotte as the sun began to settle down.

No celebratory meal of any kind should be without some sort of appetizer so we ordered the Grown-Up Macaroni and Cheese, and then got to talking about all the planning and behind-the-scene details that Will had been keeping on the down-low for weeks. But let me just say real quick that the appetizer was to-die-for and consisted of Maine Lobster, Black Truffles and three cheese sauce! Ahhhhmazing.

Okay, so as you can imagine I wanted to know every last detail and made sure Will left nothing out when he was recapping the whole planning process. It went something like this:

• Will did in fact ask for my dad's permission and one of the comments my dad made to Will was something along the lines of "It would be a blessing from Heaven to have you officially part of the family". Yes, I am a daddy's girl and Will knew that I would say no if he didn't get my dad's permission first!
• A picture is worth a thousand words right? Well I made sure that Will knew that I wanted someone to take photos on the day of the proposal so he made sure to find someone to do just that. The wonderfully sweet Caitlin was going to take all the photos that day but had to go out of town that weekend. Emily was going to be a part of the day one way or another so Will recruited her to be the photographer and person to get me out of the house, look decent and left as clueless as possible. Good job, you two. Oh and how could I forget to mention that Emily even came up with a hashtag for us to use. #MelandWillSealTheDeal ;-)
• The now fiance also knew that I wouldn't want to be proposed to in front of a lot of people, but wanted to make it as special as possible so he went above and beyond what I would have even guessed and had my family in on the whole thing! Family is number one in my life besides God so this was literally the best part of the whole thing in my opinion.
• Oh, if you didn't already know, I am extremely detail oriented and like to be organized and Will happens to be the same way to a certain degree and created an in-depth itineraries for my parents and Emily to utilize so that there was zero confusion on anything the day of. I may have laughed out loud who he told me that and asked him to show me the itineraries he created and I just had to share some of it with you...
  
  Melissa and I are going to go to breakfast and then the mall in the morning and will plan to get back by 1:45 pm.  I will say I  have to run into the office and then you can show up at 2:00 pm and take her to get her nails done and whatever else you think she would like to do, just make sure you keep her out of the house until at least 3:30 pm.  I’ll come back around 2:30 pm (after y’all leave and will set up some flowers and stuff, but will be gone by 3:30 pm).
  
  
  Schedule:
  2:00 pm – Emily arrives at apartment and takes Melissa to get nails done (and whatever else you think she would like to do).  Tell her that I texted you and felt bad I had to go into work and asked you to come hangout with her – doubt she will buy it but it’s worth a shot haha.
  
  
  [Keep her out of the apartment until at least 3:30]
  
  
  After 3:30 pm – Emily and Melissa return to the apartment and get ready for Dinner (I have told her we are meeting a colleague and his wife for dinner uptown tell her you are going to go meet a friend at the epicenter for drinks and you can just drive her up there since I will already be uptown at the office).
  
  
  5:40 pm – Emily and Melissa leave apartment and head to Marshall Park (address below). 
• Will was defiantly thinking ahead and had visited the park prior to the day of to figure out the best area for him to hide, for Emily to take photos, for him to get down on one knee and to see what areas would look best in photos.
• Remember how we were suppose to have a "dinner date" with Will's co-worker and his wife? Yeah, that was all part of the plan. Will had made all of that up! He never talked to his co-worker about going to dinner, he never went into work before "dinner" and everything was all made up.

Whew! Sorry for all the details...I didn't want to leave anything out though! After story time, we ate a delicious meal and then had to say our goodbyes to my family before they headed back home to Greensboro. Will and I finally had the chance to respond to the out pour of text messages we had and made phone calls to our family that we hadn't already talked to and told them the news. We even stopped by Menchie's for some frozen yogurt because what meal is complete without dessert? And plus, it's so good and hard to pass up. 

And that's pretty much how the story goes, y'all! Don't you think Will did an AMAZING job with everything?! I couldn't be more excited to be his fiance and future wife! We are having a ball planning for our wedding and i'm happy to say that we both agree that we want a marriage more beautiful than our wedding. I think we both realized that while we were completing PRE-ENGAGEMENT courses. Yeah, those do exist and if you're serious about your relationship, any and all the help you can get is worth it! But why would Will and I feel that we needed to take pre-engagement classes before pre-marital classes? Well...I'll tell you why. Part of the reason is because of our big announcement...

WE ARE MOVING TO HOUSTON, TEXAS!

Goodness, it feels so good to finally be able to say that out loud! Will and I have known for some time now, but wanted to make sure that we were not letting our excitement get the best of us! We will be moving down before we get married next June and are going to visit over Labor Day weekend to look at apartments and townhouses! We plan to look in the Galleria and Rice Village areas but will need to be pretty close to Post Oak Parkway where Will's office is located.

This leads me to letting you all know why Houston. Will currently works at a middle-market investment bank here in Charlotte as an Analyst, and typically an analyst is in that role for two years before they start applying for an associate level position. Well, Will completed his second year last year and his firm thought he had been doing so well that they offered him to stay on for a third year which is usually unheard of. Of course he accepted and has been excelling at what he does. All of the long hours and hard work paid off, but like any analyst, one must start applying and looking for associate positions since that is the next step if you plan to stay in this type of business. 

So a few months ago, Will traveled and interviewed with firms in multiple states, New York, Boston, and Washington DC to name only a few. We decided to take New York off the list pretty earlier on just because it wouldn't be an ideal place for us to live. Washington DC was next off the list since there weren't that many options that Will was interested in. But a great opportunity came around for Will and I to move down to Houston where his firm has another location that is in need of an associate. Yet again, Will has gone above and beyond in his current role and has proved how strong his work ethic truly is. And the rest is history!

I can't begin to explain to you all how happy I am with all that God has done in my life and I am beyond excited to see what kind of adventures God has in store for us in Houston. Even though I have never lived in a state other then North Carolina, yet alone more than two hours hours away from my parents, this move isn't our "final destination". An associate role generally goes for about two years and from there we will decide what we want to do.

In the coming weeks and months, I would love to hear from y'all on any recommendations you might have for places to go and things to do!
   

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