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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Seven Facts About Me

Another week half way over! Are you ready to say TGIF at the top of your lungs like I am? Luckily my weekend starts a day early as I head to Greensboro on Thursday to visit family, get my hair done and r-e-l-a-x. No plans will be made other then sleeping in, watching football with my Dad and going out to dinner on Friday and Saturday night. And that's all the planning that will take place!

Recently my friend Stasia nominated me to share seven facts about myself and while I was really excited to take part in this, I had a hard time coming up with seven things that y'all don't already know about me. But I thought what the heck and instead of over-thinking facts that I would share, I let my fingers get to typing and before I knew it, my list was complete!

ONE
My sweet tooth has always been large and in charge. Some people enjoy spicy foods, while others can't get enough of salty treats. For me, I crave anything chocolatey and sweet. Currently I am loving Candy Corn and Reese Cups...in moderation that is! But I would be lying if I said I didn't struggle sometimes and that's just a fact.

TWO
Every morning I start my day of the same way. I hit the snooze button on average two times before crawling out of bed and heading to the living room with Miller to make breakfast. After preparing something to eat, I get comfy on the couch and watch Good Morning America. During the commercial breaks, I make sure Live with Kelly and Michael is recording so I can watch it when I get home from work, take Miller outside for a quick walk, pack my lunch and before heading out the door for the day, do a quick devotional. I am not a morning person so having this routine has been helpful in getting me out of bed!

THREE
I am obsessed with ETSY and almost half of our wedding decorations and paper items (like our thank you stationary, koozies, cake topper, cake stand, and chair signs to name a few) have come from there. I can't wait to share them all with you too but here is one sneak peek.

FOUR

Have a hard time letting go of the little things? Find yourself struggling to keep your head above water? I would have to answer yes to both of those questions and this prayer is one that I recite regularly and have tapped to my computer at work so I can read it when I need a quick pick-me-up.

FIVE
I strongly dislike my handwriting and have even used printout sheets to practice my writing and try to improve the way it looks. Please tell me I'm not the only one who doesn't like their handwriting!

SIX
Will and I already have baby names picked out and I randomly catch myself wondering what our children will look like. Will they have my curly hair and blue eyes or Will's blonde hair and dimple? Whatever they look like I know we will LOVE them! But I mean...look at how adorable Will was as a kid...

SEVEN
In High School I played right mid-field for our soccer team. I only lasted one year because I hated to run and would rather go to the guys soccer games to watch with my friends.

So do you feel like you know me a little bit better? Were you surprised by any of the seven facts? Either way, I hope you enjoyed this post. Before heading off to work, I wanted to remind you to link-up to What You Wish Wednesday! I also want to welcome our new co-host Amanda! I love her blog and especially loved this post she recently did celebrating her ONE year blogiversary! Also i'm featuring two lovely gals who linked-up with us last week; My dear friend Mary-Katherine who wrote this post about her labor day weekend in Arkansas and Jenny who wrote this post on five ways she is adjusting from summer to back to school! Both of these ladies have wonderful blogs so go check them out!

An InLinkz Link-up

Blog-tember Challenge Catch Up

So it's September...and obviously you knew that. But goodness gracious, where has the time gone? Summer is slowly transitioning into Fall and Starbucks has finally put the PSL back on the menu. Y'all, Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and there are lot's of fun and exciting things I always look forward to like watching the leaves change color, sipping on hot coffee throughout the day, sporting my favorite pair of corduroys, not having to worry about the humidity (insert frizzy hair) and getting to pull out every single blanket in the house.

 

 With September, we also have The Blog-tember Challenge (created by one of my favorite bloggers Bailey from Brave Love). If you haven't heard of it, take a minute to read this post for an overview and to find out what the daily topics are for the month. And if you're like me and sometimes share your posts on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, be sure to include the hashtag #blogtemberchallenge so everyone can follow along.

Okay, all of this talk about The Blog-tember Challenge has me anxious to catch up and get started so I'm going to get started...rightttttt now! First days are always the perfect time for introductions so Bailey had lined up an "About the Author" topic for day one. To get a quick insight into who I am, you can visit my About Me page here. After taking a look back at it now (I admit it's been a few months) I think I'm going to take some time in the next week or so to add some more too it.

The second day of the Challenge consisted of writing about what makes you happy. It could be anything as little as your favorite color to something as big as the day you got your first promotion at work. Here are a few things that make me happy: holding hands, the smell of coffee, the sound of rain, lounging in my snuggie, talking about God with Will, visiting and spending time with family, finishing a book, marking things off my to-do list, the color gold, photography, my best friends, southern traditions, blogging, cuddles from Miller, relaxing at the lake and so much more.

photo credit

photo credit here and here

So there you have it, two days in one and many more to come throughout the month! And I don't want to call it a day here on SSM without reminding everyone to link-up to What You Wish Wednesday! Leslie, Stasia, Nikki, Amanda and I have worked hard to get this link-up up and running and are continually working to improve it. One of the things I love most about our link-up is getting to discover new bloggers and finding out what's going on in their own life. This week I would like to feature Aimee from Aimlessly Elegant, Amanda over at Cultivate Create and Kayla of Mississippi Mrs.

Aimee recently celebrated two wonderful years of marriage to her husband and wrote this post recapping her wedding story. And y'all, her dress was beautiful! Amanda sparked excitement and made me think of all things DIY from this post on giving a thrift store chair a complete makeover.
And Kayla opened up about her flaws and other things you might not know in this post. Why can't more of us bloggers be like Kayla and feel comfortable speaking the things that make us vulnerable? I think we should all try to do a better job at being true to who we were created to be.

An InLinkz Link-up