Update

Well, it has been quite some time since I've written on the blog. I was reminded yesterday, by my lovely sister, that I needed to update the blog because she was tired of reading the career test over and over. So here it is. The Rutland household, yes I am still getting used to the last name, has gotten a little bigger since we last talked. No I am not pregnant, nor did I have a baby, but we now have a puppy.

Meet Brek:

This was the first night we had him. When he weighed about 15 lbs.

This was taken just the other night. Now weighing in about 22lbs.

Lamar and I are getting everything ready for Christmas. We went out and bought our first Christmas Tree as a married couple. I had a lot of fun going shopping the day after Christmas to find all of my decorations for the season. Although, I/we still have a ways to go to make our house as festive as my house when growing up, it will work for now.

A group of our friends got together and had a Christmas Party/Dirty Santa gift exchange last weekend and it was a lot of fun. The picture below is of Lamar and Adyson at the party. She is the most precious little girl ever and I think Lamar liked her a little bit as well.

Well I know this has been a completely random post, but I have a lot to catch up on since I have not been in the blogging world for a couple of months.

Hope everyone is doing great, and I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!!!

With Love,

Alexis

Career Test

I recently read blogger friends blog and she posted about this test that was found on someone else's blog. It deals with what type of person you are and what careers would best suit you. I haven't taken one of these tests since high school. It was actually kind of fun to relive the moment in high school (which by the way, I always hated taking these tests) when all I could think about was how quickly I could through the test. Back in the day, I have to admit, that I always chose the answers that I knew would yield the results that I wanted to see. :) I know probably not the best thing to do, but hey, I was in high school.

So this time it was a little bit tricky. The questions were not typical and I chose from the heart. So here are my results.

Your personality type:
Quiet, kind and conscientious. Can be depended on to follow through. Usually puts the needs of others above their own needs. Stable and practical, they value security and traditions. Well-developed sense of space and function. Rich inner world of observations about people. Extremely perceptive of other's feelings. Interested in serving others.

Careers that could fit you includes:
Interior decorators, designers, nurses, administrators, managers, secretaries, child care/early childhood development, social work, counselors, paralegals, clergy, office managers, shopkeepers, bookkeepers, homemakers, gardeners, clerical supervisors, curators, family practice physicians, health service workers, librarians, medical technologists, typists.

I have to say that it is pretty spot on. My personality type, well let's just say fits me almost perfectly. And my career choices, let's just say that wouldn't it be great to be a homemaker :) Honestly though, I think it did a great job of determining who I am as a person and what careers would make me happy. (Most of them I have thought about doing before.)

So if you're bored take this short 41 question test. Let me know how you did, either post it in my comments or on your blog. I would love to read about each of you.

-Alexis

Flickr Find

After reading one of my favorite blogs, I found this. I decided to do it just because I have never created a mosaic picture and I have always seen them on sites such as weddingbee.com (since I used to live on that site). This was so much fun to make.

Here's how to play: Type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr's search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows). If you participate, leave a comment here with it as well as on coveiter.com. This should be so much fun. I want to see everyone else's personal touches to their mosaic.

1. What is your first name? Alexis

2. What is your favorite food? Candy

3. What high school did you attend? MunfordHigh School

4. What is your favorite color? at the moment green

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Patrick Dempsey

6. Favorite drink? Coca-Cola

7. Dream vacation? The Mediterranean

8. Favorite dessert? Cheesecake

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? successful

10. What do you love most in life? family

11. One word to describe you? friendly

12. Your Flickr name? Rutland

*All photos are from flickr.com

I had so much fun doing this. I hope you all enjoy it as well. Let me know what you think, and again post your outcomes. There was no need to sign-up or register for anything.

Working Hard

This past weekend Lamar and I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. I have always wanted to do this, and the opportunity arose, and we took it. We decided to volunteer for the 2nd shift which was from 12:30 to 5:00pm. This worked out great for us. We got to sleep in. I know that is completely selfish, but trust me, it was needed.

We arrived at 12:30 and waited for the shuttle to take us to our house. As I said earlier, I have never done this, so I didn't know what to expect. I was overwhelmingly surprised and how coordinated everyone was and how many houses were going up at one time. I would say there were approximately 10 Habitat Houses going up in this one neighborhood all at one time. To me, this was spectacular. Just think of how many families are getting a new home.

We got signed in, then proceeded to the house we had volunteered for, The Cunningham Family. We were asked to help out on the roof. So what did we do, yes you got it folks, we got to shingle a house. Lamar and I are pros, I think we could do our own house :) Somehow, we got lucky and got to use the nailgun while everyone else was doing it the hard way with hammer and nails. I would line the shingles up then Lamar would nail it down 4 times. We did this all afternoon and I was quite amazed at how much we got done.

After we finished, I asked the homeowner (they are there working the entire time with us) if I could take a look at the inside of the house. I took a look on the inside and was quite impressed. These families are so appreciative of everything they get. The comments she made to me about the house were so humbling and appreciative, it made me want to keep coming back to help this family build their new home.

Overall, it was a great experience and we would both love to do it again. I will have to say, our bodies were definitely not used to standing on a slanted roof all day. We were a little sore the next day :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Sorry I didn't have pictures to share of our experience.

Pictures

Ok, first I have to apologize. I still haven't finished the honeymoon pictures, but I think you will all be glad to know that our wedding pictures from the photography are finished!!! Woohoo! We are so excited about the pictures and they are wonderful.

You can check them out by going to www.jennyreichmanphotography.com then click on Clients then the passwords are "alexis1" and "alexis2". She couldn't get them all in one file. Check them out and let me know what you think. I hope you all enjoy them as much as we do.

-Alexis

Honeymoon Part II

Well I am back again (finally) and will start posting on the rest of the honeymoon. After arriving at Sandals, Lamar and I got checked into our room. We were staying in a concierge level suite, which was really nice, since it included 24 hour room service as well as a fully stocked bar in the room. Here is a picture of the bed (unmade of course, and it's the only picture we have).

After looking around the room for a little bit, we proceeded to walk outside and tour the resort. What we found: Storm clouds, nice umbrella chairs on the beach, the pools, and the swim-up bar.

Lamar is a very active person and cannot stand to sit on the beach and lounge all day. Needless to say we had something booked everyday but the day we arrived and the day before we left. So our first adventure was ziplining through the rainforest. If you have never done this, it is so much fun. There were 7 different lines ranging from 70 to 840 feet. It took about 30 minutes to an hour to complete all the lines. Here are some pictures as well as a video. (One piece of advice: Do not wear sunglasses while ziplining. There are times when your arms get jumbled and you can knock yourself in the face a little. Just ask Lamar. We had to straighten his glasses out a time or two.)

Before we took off.

Alexis going on her first line.

Lamar coming to the end of his first line.

Our tour guide for this trip was very entertaining, if I remember correctly his name was George. He let us stop at an overlook which was absolutely beautiful, showed us the 4th most poisonous snake on earth, opened a cocoa plant and had each of us eat a bean (which i will tell you, looks extremely disgusting and has a bittersweet taste, and showed us a pineapple plant.

Here is the video of what it looks like ziplining. On this particular line, I didn't make it all the way to the end. Your weight has a lot to do with the speed you will get while on the line, while I got quite a bit of speed for most of them, I always started to slow down by the end of the line, whereas Lamar came speeding into most of the platforms.

Well for me this is a photo-packed post and I am going to have to stop for today. Keep coming back for Part II of our Honeymoon.

Slip 'N Slide

Ok I know this has nothing to do with our honeymoon recap, but this past weekend we went to Hattiesburg to see Lamar's family. Well his uncle was celebrating his 50th birthday so we had a little party then did some drunk slip 'n sliding. Needless to say it was quite amusing. Here is the video. I hope you all can see it. I'll post on the honeymoon later.
I have many more videos, and I can honestly tell you that this was a ton of fun to watch, even though I wasn't drunk (surprise, surprise). But nonetheless, definitely something I would recommend trying. Too bad we don't all have a pond, 2 extremely large tarps, a 4-wheeler, and ski rope.

Start of the Honeymoon

Since I promised I would post pictures in a few days, a while back, I figured I would go ahead and get started on the honeymoon. Although I am at work right now. I will start the honeymoon from the day it started, August 2nd, and then continue until I am finished and post pictures along the way.

I would say the honeymoon started immediately following the reception. Since everyone traveled such a long distance, Lamar and I decided to hang out with our guests at the after party. We went to the bar at the Lodge and continued to mingle and chat with our friends and family until around 1:00am. (The after party continued til around 4:00am for some.)

The next morning we woke up and finished packing our bags and said goodbye to all of our friends and family and headed to the airport. After arriving at the airport, American Airlines proceeded to call me and tell me that 3 of our groomsmens flights had been cancelled and were rescheduled for the next morning. After talking with them for about 45 minutes we finally cleared up the situation and they were able to make it back home that night. (Sidenote: I will never fly American Airlines again!!) From Denver we proceeded to Dallas-Fort Worth where we had a short lay-over then headed to JFK for the night. WE spent the night in New York City. This was the first time to New York City for both of us, but yet didn't have enough time to even explore the city. So we will definitely be back. We were back at the airport around 9:00 and were heading to St. Lucia for 6 nights. After a 4 1/2 hour flight we finally made it and couldn't get over how green, mountainous, and beautiful St. Lucia was.

In my next post, I will write about our stay at the Sandals Grande St. Lucian.

Bad Blogger

Well we have been back from our honeymoon for almost two weeks and I still have not posted any pictures. I am such a bad blogger. I promise that within the next couple of days I will sit down at home and force myself to post some pictures of our wonderful time in St. Lucia.

Until then, please keep Adyson Palmer in your prayers. She is the beautiful little girl of our great friends Scott and Jan Palmer and has been in the hospital since Monday due to periods of apnea. They are still awaiting news from test results to determine the cause of the apnea.

More Pictures

Well here are some more pictures courtesy of Lamar's mom. I am so please with how everything turned out. It honestly couldn't of been any more perfect. Everything went so well and we all truly enjoyed ourselves.

Hope you enjoy!


Lamar with his groomsmen
Stacy (Lamar's Dad) and me
Lamar and I
Me looking over at someone
The cake

Mr. & Mrs. Rutland

Well it is official and has been since August 2nd, 2008. I know I am a bit behind, but what can I say, I 've been a little preoccupied, with the wedding and then the honeymoon.

I want to say thank you to everyone who came to Colorado to share in our special day. It meant the world to both Lamar and myself. We are so grateful that everyone made it safe and were ecstatic to have everyone we love so much surround us on such a special day.

Well, I am sure you have been waiting for pictures so here you go.














The girls and Lamar and I at the rehearsal dinner.















The view when I woke up the day of the wedding.














Kayt, Mom, me, and Amney before the wedding.





















Waiting in the hotel room before the ceremony.















Lamar and his mom before the ceremony.

We don't have many pictures of the two of us together yet. So when I get those I will get those posted. Hope you enjoy the little teaser at least. Can't wait to see everyone!

We love you all!

12 more days

Well, I honestly cannot believe we only have 12 more days until the wedding. Planning a wedding has been such a fun and enjoyable ride. I am such a planner and detail oriented that this is right up my alley. I think I should switch professions, Alexis "Rutland", Wedding Planner, has a nice ring doesn't it ?!?!

Alright, well back to my post. With only 12 days left, we still have a few items left to accomplish and complete, but for the most part the big stuff is done. My mom has a few more projects than I do, but I can't thank her enough for doing everything. Since they live the closest to the wedding site, they were given the tasks of projects that would take up a lot of room and were not easy to transport via airplan, which in turn, leads to most of the projects :) Many projects have been done here in Memphis and then shipped to mom. The project list is dwindling down and we are able to focus more on the upcoming wedding itself.

Some of Lamar's mothers friends threw me a shower this past weekend in Hattiesburg. I haven't been able to download my pictures as of yet, but as soon as I do I will get those posted and tell you all about it. We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to meet some of the Rutland Family friends that I haven't met in the 4 1/2 years we've been dating.

Music, Pictures, and More DIY Projects

So this week and last have been filled with lot's of DIY projects, music, and pictures.

I do believe my biggest project for the wedding had to be the programs. These took forever! Although I love the outcome I don't know if I would make these again, they were a pain in the you know what. This is what the programs look like.

We hand cut each piece, and after cutting 450 pieces, I don't think I'll be doing many more of these! The programs should come in very useful. The reason I went with this design versus a typical program: 'I had to be different.' Well although that is partly true, the main reason I loved these are for the fact that the church is not air conditioned, and although Estes Park Colorado is in the mountains and it just doesn't get HOT up there like it does in Memphis, I figured people might still like a little breeze during the ceremony. So hopefully these will work out like I hoped and come in useful. We will also be providing bottles of water at the ceremony for the same reason as above, no airconditioning, can make lot's of people uncomfortable, especially when you're wearing suits, tuxedos, bridal gowns, etc.

Next, we have been working on picking out music for the reception. Nothing better than waiting til the last minute to do things. I am still waiting on my dad's final say for our song, but I think Lamar got a song for him and his mom picked out last night. Needless to say, www.youtube.com has been our friend on this project. We would find a list of songs then go to youtube to listen to it.

The last thing we have been working on is pictures. We are trying to make a list of all the pictures we want taken so life is made so much easier for both our photographer as well as us.

Well I don't know if any of the rest of you have figured out that we have less than 2 1/2 weeks left til the wedding, but trust me we certainly have. Things have been a little hectic, more for my mom than me. Since the wedding is so far away. Mom is taking the brunt of the work load. I am doing what I can, but trust me this wedding would not be what it is without the help of my mom, sister, and dad. I thank you all.

Til next time, I hope you all have a good weekend.

So I know I have been MIA for quite some time. I do sincerely apologize, but we have been pretty busy lately. With the wedding less than a month away, I'm sure you can imagine how busy we've been. Not only is the wedding less than a month away, but it's also close to 1,000 miles away. (Which makes things even that more difficult) I am extremely thankful that my parents live close enough to be able to drive otherwise I don't know how we would manage to get all of our items to the wedding.

The items I'm talking about are: decorations, place cards, welcome bags, and all the other items needed. I just wanted to show you a few pictures of some decorations we have for the church as well as the reception.














This is the arrangement for under the altar at the church. I know people probably think I'm crazy, but I'm not using any flowers, so a dried, kinda leafy arrangement is what we chose on. This was made by my ever talented mother. It still needs a few alterations, but for the most part it is done.















What you see here is a conglomerate of items. Just some ideas we've had for elements of the reception. I'm sure most of you can figure out what they're for, but if you can't, they are the placecards for the dinner. They are not complete and we still have a few glitches to work out, and will probably eliminate using the rock, but hey we had to throw out the idea.

The projects I'm working on right now include, but are not limited to:
the programs

1. programs
2. signs for the guestbook
3. the guestbook
4. place cards
5. tags for welcome bags
6. menus

Like I said that is just a list, but I'm sure there are other items that are still needing to be done, but didn't make it on the list. Just wish us luck that we get everything completed before the wedding.

The Countdown is on

There are only 46 days until our wedding. I cannot believe it!!! Time is going by so fast, and I know that before we know it August 2, 2008 will be here. There are still so many things left to do, but yet they are so small that it just seems like there isn 't much, and I already catch myself putting things off. I am such a procrastinator, and always have been. I think it runs in the family. My lovely maid of honor and sister, Kaytlyn, sent out shower and bachelorette party invitations, but the poor recipients have less than a week to RSVP. But hey, at least we got out the letter and its better than nothing and I know we will have a ton of fun.



This past weekend Lamar and I attended the wedding of Brad and Katy McDaniel. It was such a simple yet elegant wedding. Here are a few pictures from the wedding (more of the after party, called the reception)...


Lamar and I, waiting for the bride and groom to arrive


One of my best friends Jenn and I

Kim and myself, double fisting it :) Alcohol in one hand, water in the other... Doesn't get much better!

Kati (the groom's sister) and Katy (the groom's bride) dancing

The bride giving the lovely Mrs. Palmer - The Princess Palmer's mom a lap dance.

Both of my sister's are coming into town on Wednesday. I am so excited to have them both here. We are going to have my bachelorette party on Saturday and a shower on Sunday. I can't thank Kaytlyn, Rachel, Crystal, and Michelle for being such great friends and doing all of this for me. I have the best friends in the world!!! I will definitely keep everyone posted on the upcoming events and hopefully get pictures of my tea party shower posted soon.

My labor of love

The invitations are finished, mailed out, and most everyone has received them. So I figured why not go ahead and show everyone the final product. I am so very proud of these. I did everything you see myself. Everything was made by hand, including the envelope (which I actually don't have a picture).

So without further ado....

This is the folder that I created for the invitations to go into.

Once opened this is what you saw. The invitation at the top with the RSVP, Accomodation, Event Details, and Directions card on the bottom. I don't have a close up version of the cards, but if you would like to see any of it better, just let me know.

As stated in the title, these truly were a labor of love and I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I do.

My apologies...

for not being a good blogger lately. I can't believe it has almost been a month since I've posted anything. I have just been so busy with moving back to Memphis, changing jobs, unpacking, planning a wedding, and the list just goes on, that I have forgotten to post.

Well, let me get you up to date on all the happenings.

1. The invitations are finished and have been mailed out. These were truly a labor of love. I will post a picture of them in a couple of days. I want to make sure that the guests receive them before I put a picture of them here.
2. Kaytlyn (my maid of honor and sister) recently threw me a Tea Party Bridal Shower in Nebraska. We had so much fun. I will also go into more details about this later and post pictures (once she brings me her camera with the pictures on it).
3. Planning is still going full speed, we are working on finalizing details with the church, DJ, photographer, and attire.

Well I believe that is the gest of most things going on. I cannot believe we only have 52 days until the wedding. This month and a half are going to go by SOOOOO quickly.

Again, sorry it has been so long since I've posted. I promise next time I will put some pictures on here so I won't bore you with all the wording.

Wedding'mare'

So last night I dreamt my first wedding nightmare. Although it wasn't horrific, I still woke up a little nervous. The dream started out with a nice wedding, then of course afterwards we went to the reception. It was dinnertime, and no one was receiving any food, because the bride (yes, that's me) forgot to assign placecards letting the staff know which entree they were to receive. So I had to do a quick improvise and cut different colors of paper to represent each entree. (Where the colored paper came from, I still don't know.) ...Then I woke up.

Like I said it wasn't horrible or anything, but it was my first wedding nightmare. I know it is very unlikely for these events to happen, but it still makes you think, what things you could forget to do. I mean I do'nt think I'll ever forget anything, because I'm "Miss Planner" and everything planned to the "T's" (or so I think/hope).

Happy Mother's Day

Ok so this title has nothing to do with what I'm going to write about, but I had to wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day!!!

So Lamar and I have been working on our invitations all this week. It has been a lot of fun ;) (No reallly it wasn't bad) Things are drawing nearer and these things have to go out by the 1st of June. I needed some inspiration for one of the invitation projects so I went to a local scrapbooking store called Anthologies. This place is so neat! I love it, I just wish I was going to be here longer so I could get to know the wonderful owner as well as this great store. Ok, well where I was going with that is this....We (Jennifer and I) decided that I needed the letter "R" to complete the look of what I was going for. Instead of me buying this cool little machine (which I would love to have) that was going to cost around $100 she told me she would cut out the "R's" for me. So last night I finally got them, and they look GREAT!!! I am so excited to get to use these. I'm actually just excited for the entire invitation to come together and for everyone to see all the hard work, time, patience, and love that went into these.

So for all you mother's out there have a Happy Mother's Day and look forward to the year to come when your children get married and you get to have all of this fun!!

Invitations

I can barely believe that I now have 3 months left til the wedding. Where has the time gone. The big project going on right now...the invitations. I think I have finally gotten the final design done and now all I need are the finishing touches. I am not liking all of these posts without pictures, but I also don't want to spoil the fun. I do promise though that after the wedding or after some of these items have made it in the mail I will post pictures so everyone can get a taste of my DIY wedding.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am loving all of the DIY projects that come about because of the wedding. Although, I wish I had a few bridesmaids nearby to help with all of the projects, I guess I will make it on my own.

It's Official...

We are now certified to become husband and wife. To get married in the Catholic Church you must first complete a three step marriage counseling/preparation course. The three steps are:

1. Be dating for a least six months (Trust me, we had this one covered)
2. The FOCUS portion, where basically you take a questionnaire and you answer questions about things you have/will discussed and then compare those answers while talking to a married couple, and
3. Participate in a group marriage preparation course.

Today was our last day of the three step process. We now have our certificate from the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi and are officially ready to get married.

I honestly feel that this process has been extremely helpful and a great learning experience for both of us. There are always going to be those topics that one you don't think to talk about or two, don't want to bring it up. Well this preparation brings out all of those issues and topics and let's you discuss things.

At the beginning of this whole thing, I was honestly dreading the whole experience. I didn't want to talk to someone I didn't know about our life. I didn't want to spend a weekend day sitting in a classroom listening to someone talk about what we should do in order for our marriage to work. Now that the process is over, my feelings are completely different. I would honestly recommend for any of my friends getting married to take some sort of marriage preparation course. It has prepared us for marriage in more ways than I ever imagined.

This doesn't have anything to do with the marriage preparation course, but my sister recommended a book for Lamar and I to read. She received this book as a wedding present from someone and her and Shane read through it and found it to be extremely informational. It is called "Sheet Music" by Dr. Kevin Leman. Lamar and I have started reading this book together and found it very helpful to feel open enough to talk about intimate issues that otherwise not be brought up.

Well I guess that's enough marriage prep talk for now. More on wedding plans later. I can't believe we only have 3 months left. It's getting to be crunch time. Also, we could have really big news this coming week, so I'll keep you updated.

I'm So Excited....

So I was sitting on the couch this evening and heard my phone ding to let me know that I had a missed call. (Since I always have my phone on vibrate, I of course did not hear it). Well Lamar got up to see who it was, and it was none other than Jennifer (one of my lovely bridesmaids!!!) Lamar decided that he was going to call her back and to my surprise, her and her husband, Chad, are thinking about coming to visit this weekend!!!!! I have not seen them since the middle of December, and by all means, it has been WWWWAAAAAAAYYYYYY to long. Needless to say, I am a little giddy right now and am trying to figure out a way to get out of work on Saturday night so we can hang out a few hours more.

Sorry it has been so long since I've written a post, I've been a little preoccupied lately. I can't really say busy, since I'm only working part-time now, I should have plenty of time on my hands. In the extra time I seem to have I have been looking for new jobs. Some might even be excited to know we are thinking about the possibility of coming back to Memphis. It just depends on job opportunities. So everyone keep their eyes and ears open for any possibilities that could arise.

Hopefully, this will be a weekend full of FUN times and I'll have some pictures to share with everyone next week!!!

It was a Success

Well the weekend I had been looking forward to for 2 1/2 weeks finally arrived and it was a COMPLETE success. Not only did we find my dress, but we got the bridesmaid dresses, mom's dress, the material for the flower girls dresses, centerpiece decorations, and a few other details accomplished. I now feel like the whole wedding is coming together. It was such a wonderful feeling just to get my dress ordered. My poor bridesmaids dresses have to be rushed ordered because i waited so long. I'm sorry :( So I took out the options of dresses from the previous post, I would hate for someone (Lamar in particular) to see any of them. I took a couple pictures of the weekend that I will post tonight or tomorrow when I get to my computer so you can see just how busy mom and I were.

Dress shopping....for the final time

So the time has come to finally pick out and order my dress. As I told you previously, I ordered a sample of a dress so I could try it on. I called the store in New Orleans and the dress is there waiting for me to graciously put it on and fall in love!! (Or at least that's what we're hoping is going to happen) This weekend is going to be full of shopping and DIY'ing a bunch of projects that I need to get started on.

So I decided that I would go ahead and put a couple pictures of the dresses that I'm debating on. That way you will get an idea of what I'm looking at.

What day is it?!?

I think these past few weeks the days have just been flowing together. I can't believe how fast time seems to be flying. It seems like just yesterday Lamar proposed. Now I'm four months away from the "Big" day. Mom and I have talked on the phone about every night this week. We are starting to finalize some thoughts that we have had. I decided from the get-go that I wanted to design every aspect of our invitations. The design for the invitation itself is finalized, these days I am just working on all the little extras that go inside. They are coming together nicely though. I couldn't have asked for them to look any better. The next big step will be to print and put them together which could take a while. I'm having a future thought that mom and I will be sitting in front of the t.v. watching a movie and putting invitations together when she gets here. (I can't wait til next Friday!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Again I wish I had some pictures to put on the post, but I haven't been taking any pictures. One of these days I will get around to taking some pictures.

Guess Who's Coming Into Town.....

MOM!!!!!!! You all don't know how excited I am to have my mom coming to visit. I am finally going to have more than a few hours to look at dresses. I was having a really bad day last Wednesday, and I was about in tears because I haven't found a dress and all I wanted was to go shopping with my mom. Well, after a couple of hours looking for a plane ticket, talking back and forth with mom, and finally deciding, we have a plane ticket!!!! She is coming into town the weekend of April 4th and we are going to shop our little hearts out.

I called the dress shop I have been going to in New Orleans and they have been so kind as to order a sample of the dress I have been wanting to try on for some time. I made the arrangements so this dress will be in the store the weekend my mom is in town. In total I have about 3 dresses that I have pretty much narrowed it down too and they are all at this one store. So needless to say, I will be buying my dress that weekend whether I want to or not.

Shall We Dance

The other night Lamar and I started looking at music for our reception. Our DJ had a website and had the most popular songs listed for the different segments of the reception. It was so much fun going through and listening to the songs. Me being the goofball that I am of course had to start dancing and singing to all the songs, while Lamar in the meantime is just looking at me and shaking his head. "What" I would say, "I'm having fun." I can already picture our reception.... Me on the dance floor and Lamar sitting in a chair with Jack and Coke in hand. Needless to say, he is not much of a dancer.

While picking out the music I just got sooooo excited. I love dancing and I am definitely ready for our big night to get here so I can dance the night away.

When Is My Wedding

Wedding Ticker from WhenIsMyWedding.com

Plans, Plans, Plans

The plans for the wedding are coming together even further. I have finally decided on centerpieces. I finalized the music for the ceremony today. Our wedding classes we have to take through the church are almost finished, we just have a weekend seminar left. The big things I have left are planning a rehearsal dinner...(If anyone has any bright ideas on how to do this that would be great.) Buying a dress of course. Finding bridesmaids dresses. Ordering the tuxes for the guys. Oh and buy plane tickets!! So not too bad of a list if you ask me. Things are starting to come together. 

I can't believe we only have 4 1/2 months til the big day. Things are starting to really feel real now. I can remember just like yesterday when he proposed and all I could do was talk wedding. Now I'm still talking wedding, but with more details in mind and more of a plan to go by. 

I would like that in ivory...

Well I told you last week I was going dress shopping this past Friday. I did go and guess what?!? I didn't find a dress. I am now trying to have stores around the area that carry the brand I am looking at order the one dress that I am REALLY interested so I can at least see it in person. It is becoming more of a hassle than anything, because the manufacturer won't call the stores back. All I want is to be able to try on the dress before I order it. I just can't imagine buying a dress that I have never tried on. But I am running out of time and I might just have to do it anyways and HOPE for the best. So one of these days I will actually just go into the store and suck it up and say order this dress please. 

Dress Shopping Again

So I've decided to go tackle the obstacle of finding a wedding dress. I am honestly running out of time. It is now CRUNCH time and I have to find one. I called Lamar's sister Amber yesterday and she has agreed to go shopping with me on Friday. (She doesn't know what she's getting into) So everyone please wish me luck on finding this dress. Like I have stated before I believe I'm just to scared to commit to anything. That's one big purchase and the thing is I'm pretty much stuck with it once I do it. I'll keep you posted on how things turn out.

Centerpieces

Ok so this past weekend after work I went to about 4 stores and bought a ton of stuff to work on my centerpieces for the wedding. Well unfortunately everything that I bought the first time just isn't going to work out. Mom and I got to talking and decided that what we needed was a square wooden tray with candles, pebbles, and twigs. I know this might sound crazy, but it goes with the whole them of the wedding (or what we have so far). So tonight, since I have so much free time on my hands these days, I decided would go look around some more. I found a square plate (not the right color) and some pebbles, and candles. And put it together in about 5 minutes and it turned out to look something like this.

Ok so imagine something like this, without the tealights, and with the branches more strategically placed and have it look a little more put together. I would love to hear any ideas if you have them.

Engagement Pictures

Lamar and I went to Nebraska this past weekend for my sister's wedding. (Two weddings in one year for my parents, yes we feel sorry for them). While visiting, we figured since our photography was from the same town as my parents, we had our engagement pictures taken. Our photography, Jenny Reichman Photography, was great. She was so much fun to work with. She is just getting her business started and did our family pictures in May. She hadn't done any wedding pictures until March 1 at Amney and Shane's (my sister and brother in-law) wedding. Our wedding will be her second. We were very excited when she told us she was willing to take our pictures. If anyone wants to see some examples of her work you can go to her website www.jennyreichmanphotography.com

*If you send me a comment with your e-mail I will send you the link and password to view our engagement pictures.

Getting Started

Ok so this whole blogging thing is extremely new to me. I was recently asked by someone if Lamar and I had a website for our wedding plans and our future wedding. Since I didn't have one I thought that maybe I should. It would be a fun to way to post some pictures, and let everyone know of our upcoming wedding and some of our plans.

Well most of you know that we got engaged September 27th, 2007. I know it has been awhile but I can honestly say it has been one of the best times of my life. Since then, I have been working on wedding plans almost nonstop. We found the location of our wedding, Estes Park Colorado, as well as the church, reception site, and honeymoon location. (We have been busy with all these plans). Most of these plans everyone knows, but for those of you who don't, I will keep going.

I have been trying to find "The Perfect Dress". This is a harder task than I EVER imagined. My best friend Rachel informed me of a television show on TLC called "Say Yes to the Dress" on that show one of the owners goes up to a girl trying on a dress and tells her "It is harder to commit to a dress than it is to the guy." I firmly believe in this statement now. I have been to probably 30 dress shops and still have not found "The" dress. I mean I always hear of these stories that once you put it on you just know. How come I haven't felt that yet. Hopefully it will come. It has to come because I only have 5 months til my wedding. I'm honestly running out of time to find the dress.

I am currently working on my centerpieces for the wedding. I don't want my wedding to be a typical wedding. I want people to walk in and not realize they're walking into a wedding reception. I am trying to find some cordless water fountains or something similar for my centerpieces. Anyone have any ideas??? Please share. I am becoming desperate.