Happy Ever After

I just finished reading Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts (it's the fourth book in the bride quartet series) and I am so ready to get married!! The series is about four friends who use their individual talents to run an amazing wedding business called Vows. Each book is from the perspective of one of the friends and how they fall in love, etc. Total romance novel! Anyway- it just gave me all these warm fuzzies and I'm so excited about not just the wedding but BEING married to Sam- my happy ever after just can't come soon enough!

At the same time- I still have so much to do! Today I'm working on the Save the Dates and my wedding website and then going through my engagement pictures to figure out which ones we want to print! Here's a little sneak peek at one of my favs--

Mom and I went to the last bridal show I'm going to go to yesterday with the intentions of finding someone to make our cake. I'm not sure if I just ate too many cake samples but by the end of it I didn't want to even think about cake any more, BUT I did set 3 appointments to look at dresses in the next month! I finally have a theme in mind so I know what I'm looking for now. Hopefully I'll find it soon! wish me luck!

Less than 9 months away!

We've made it to 2011 and that means that I'm getting married this year!!! It also means that the wedding is less than 9 months away and I still have SO much to do! We did get a few more things done while Sam was home- including getting him fitted for his tux. He picked one with a mandarin collar- not my favorite but like he said- "I get to pick my dress, he should get to pick his tux" So I'm going to grin and bear it and let it go.

I went to spend some quality time with my MOH last weekend (partially for some much needed girl time and partially as a distraction from my recently returned-to-Japan fiancé). We went to a bridal show in SA- mostly to sample cake. We found out that there are some really NOT good cakes out there- flavor wise, which is way more important to me than anything else. Some were just kinda boring, a few were really dry and one- I kid you not- tasted like cornbread! However, there was one shining gem amongst the coals. Cakes and More brought samples of their citrus cake (mix of lemon, lime and orange) that was AMAZING! It was so light and airy and the frosting was a great compliment to the cake flavors. We liked it so much we even snuck back by and got a second sample (shh! don't tell!) : ) All in all, it was definitely fun!

Everything has gone pretty smoothly thus far but I did run into a little snafu last weekend. I had an appointment to pick out table linens and I could not make a decision. I had an idea in my head and they just didn't have the right shade of red. So then I was looking at all of these different colors and thinking about changing my whole color scheme but then I didn't want to do that on the fly- it was a fairly traumatic experience. Nevertheless, Jeremy, the guy that was helping us was very patient and let me leave with some samples so I could think things over. Still haven't really figured it out, but we're going to a show this weekend because we also need a cake and a few other miscellaneous things, so maybe I'll find something there... fingers crossed!!

Engagement pictures

We finally (almost a year after the proposal) got to take our engagement pictures! We did some more formal ones and then some in jeans and tees. We went for a downtown feel and even took some "up" inspired pics (with lots of balloons because it's my favorite movie- and I hope we can be as in love as Carl and Ellie when we get old :) we had so much fun taking them because sam kept saying silly things and making me crack up.

I'm so excited to see them all finished and I'll post a few when they're done. Stay tuned!!

Bridal Party

So I officially have my maid of honor, Meredith and my 2 bridesmaids- Keeley and Samantha. I've also asked the cutest little boys in the world to be my ring bearers- Rhys and Kyan. Im not really having a flower girl because my sisters will be a little too old so they might be junior bridesmaids or something like that. Sam still hasn't asked his guys officially yet but things are coming together. We're both so excited to share our special day with all of our family and friends and really appreciate everyone's love and support!

Tasting!

We had our cake tasting on the wednesday before Christmas. It was sam, me, our moms and my maid of honor, Meredith. It was so much fun!! Not to mention how delicious everything was!! I'' not going to give away our whole menu but pretty much everything we had picked was awesome. The only thing that didn't blow away our tastebuds was the edamame falafels. We tried something new but it didn't really work for us so were going to change that out for something else. Sam was happy with pretty much everything and agreed to go with the caterer a few days after. The food even impressed my future mother in law (so excited!!) so we sent them a check today! I'm so happy to be working with Kristen at Royal Fig catering- they're going to do an awesome job. Next step is meeting with her to pick out linens (at 1/2 price!)hopefully sometime around the second.