Rock Orchestra?

Jay and I have our own special "lucky" additions to us. I am always able to find the best parking spots, seriously. I'm pretty sure I inherited that from my grandpa - no matter where we went he always got front row! For Jay, he always gets away with free stuff. Sometimes we'll get home from shopping and realize he wasn't charged for something. Sometimes he gets BOMB coupons and gets great deals. Whatever - it's awesome.

Other than those things though, we don't have good luck. I mean we're not UNLUCKY but we've never won a scratch off, or raffles, or the lottery (darn).

Lately though Jay's been getting some perks! For example a couple of months ago he won us a free dance class! HOW AWESOME!? We were high off that one for like a week.

This past Friday though he called me around 8 am asking if I wanted to go to an 80's orchestra rock concert the next night. HE WON THE TICKETS! Sooooo cool. Duh I wanted to go! It was fun too! The cover was great and we enjoyed the beautiful night. It was a great way to get out and do something different.

It was an outdoor concert, we clearly forgot our towels to sit on. Also we wish we would have known we could have brought food. People were picnic'n and having a grand ole time. Oh well, next time!

Asking My Girls

Jay and I have briefly talked about who would be in our wedding party even before he proposed. By talking about this we were able to discuss who was most nearest and dearest to us. For me I was always torn between having just one person, having only my mother, or a small group of people. Should I include only family or have friends as well? Then the time finally came for us to make a decision.
We both ended up picking our parties really easily!
For me it was Alyssa, Alex, Kaityln, Heather, and Brittany. (friend, friend, cousin, future sister in law, future sister in law)
For Jay is was Efrain, Chris, Matt, Wade, and Josh. (friend, brother, friend, friend, my cousin)
Jay's little cousin would act as our ring bearer/groomsman

My cousins are the closest things I have to siblings and we definitely wanted to include them as well as his brother, sister, and brothers girlfriend. We also knew we wanted our best friends up there as we have grown up with them and share a huge part of our lives with them.

Jay had it simple, he called up his men and asked them over the phone. We wanted to wait until we were in person but we were just too excited to wait for two months.
He said he felt like he was asking them out. It was cute & funny. They all of course said yes!

I wanted to wait, but then I just couldn't anymore either. So I decided a way to craft up a cute way to ask them.
I was torn from pinterest ideas and images all over the web!

There was this cute idea. But not all my girls are of age and I didn't know what to put in the box.

This was adorable! But I've seen it a lot and wanted something else.

This was extremely popular! But too cute for me.

Then the beloved food idea! I didn't know it would last through the mail though.

So I decided to do my own type of card. I wanted it funny, because that's what I do. I wanted it straight forward with just a little cute.

So I went to Michaels

I bought:

Cardstock

Glue

Sharpies

I then went home and found the UGLIEST bridesmaid dress I could find :)

I found a picture of them, cut their head out and cropped it onto the dress.

On the inside of the card I put an appropriate message finally asking them to be my bridesmaid/maid of honor.

Here's how they turned out.

(sorry they're sideways)

HOW CUTE!!!

All but one called and said yes! Unfortunately the other couldn't due to scheduling and distance problems. She will still be an integral part to our day though!

Now that we've got our wedding party we can continue forward into the next tasks of planning!!

When & Where

Now that we've finally figured out that we want a May wedding in Dallas we could get rolling on our next important item: A VENUE!

Scouring the websites of bridal bliss and google there were so many options. We knew we didn't want something that felt too much like a conference (i.e. hotel) or something too country (barns, etc.). We knew we wanted an outdoor ceremony with an indoor reception. The heat in May is not exactly comfortable. We looked at:

Fairy Tale Manor

Hilton Bella Harbor

Ashton Gardens

Avanti Fountains

We quickly crossed out the first two and were stuck between the last two. But once we saw them both we knew we didn't need to look any further. After my mom & grandma took a tour though and FaceTime with us, we knew immediately what we wanted...

ASHTON GARDENS!

It's beautiful! It gives us an outdoor feel with the perks of air conditioning. We've set our date, time, and place and we officially have a venue! It's such a huge relief and now we get to enjoy all the perks of wedding planning!!

The Beginning of Wedding Planning

As soon as Jay and I got engaged I was so excited to start wedding planning. That week I bought 3 bridal magazines! I flipped through them multiple times and had a nice set up of color coded markers to note what I liked. The boys laughed at me because it appeared that I marked EVERYTHING! Eventually I just ripped out what I liked after looking through another time or two because I was sick of having tons of magazines sitting around, otherwise I would have taken a picture.

We initially thought we'd get married in Raleigh. We're spending the summer here, we're hoping to move here after we graduate, and we could possibly save money because only the important people would come out there! We were hoping for July of 2013, and then maybe even December. But that plan fell through. Since we're not for sure whether we will be coming back here or not it didn't seem practical to have to leave from wherever we were living for a weekend in Raleigh if we didn't end up here. We also quickly became overwhelmed with everything we would have to get done by the end of the summer.

So then we decided we would have the wedding in Dallas. It's convenient to Houston, both our families could help us plan while we were away and we could always have a place to stay at my mom and grandma's. A July wedding gave us plenty of time to plan, but of course we had to change our minds AGAIN! We decided with me starting graduate school in May and Jay hopefully graduating in May and hopefully starting a job shortly after we realized neither of us could take off time for a honeymoon or to head out there in advance for last minute stuff. The most important factor being WE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT FOR A HONEYMOON, that's the best part of the wedding!?!?!

An accurate representation of how we felt at the time.

So we called our mothers and said SURPRISE! We want to get married in May instead. Of course they were okay with this. My mother threatened that if we moved it up to December of this year she would kill us, but otherwise we were safe :) (all of these decisions happened in a matter of weeks by the way)

So since this decision we've been able to go full out wedding planning, which of course means to first and foremost pick a venue! Between Jay & I and my mother and grandma (who are over the moon excited) we've finally found a place we love and cannot wait to sign our contract! We've got 11 months to the wedding and we can finally get going on something since we have a place and a date almost set!

Only 300 something days to go!

Lately

Since moving to Raleigh I don't think we've been happier! The weather is beautiful, the grass is green, trees are everywhere, and clearly we never want to leave. We've been busy exploring the parks, playing outside, planning a wedding, and going to the beach!

Uley enjoying his car rides

Lake Johnson

Last weekend we went to the beach with our new friends! We took our dogs and they loved it! They weren't too keen on the waves but we couldn't keep Uley out of the sand and from trying to run off everywhere!

Atlantic Beach

We had a blast and can't wait for the next opportunity to go back. I'm sure Uley would love it, as long as we don't make him go too far in the water :)

Our wedding planning is coming along smoothly and we're getting more excited every day! We've finally decided on a May wedding in Dallas. It would be must easier for everybody, especially us since we have no idea where we will end up this time next year. Having my mom, grandma, and his mom to help plan is helping us out tremendously. We're currently working on a venue and it'll be so great to finally have a place and a date set in stone!

I've recently sent out bridesmaid cards too, and I can't wait until everybody gets theirs! Jay called and asked everybody for him and everybody accepted - it's starting to feel so real! YAY!

Can't wait for this next month and everything that comes along with it!