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!

Diary by Uley

Hi everyone!

Mom & Dad were really mean for me for a long time. First they moved out all of my stuff and took it away, then they made me sit in the car for FOREVER - literally!!
When we finally got out of the car I had 3 new playmates and it was awesome! I had a big house to run around and dogs to play with and big couches to snuggle on, it was the best.
THEN they put me in the car AGAIN FOR LONGER THAN FOREVER! It was torture, I almost called  SPCA

but then the most amazing thing happened, they brought me here and there is squirrels and ducks and birds and bugs and GRASS! I LOVE IT HERE! I'm never leaving here ever, I don't care what they say!

Mom and dad have been doing some sneaky business and talking a lot about stuff that sounds important like....


SQUIRREL!
BYE!

Gotta get them bugs!

Whatttt??? I wasn't doing anything!

Happiness

With the wonderful changes that have been happening, it's hard to limit what makes me happy these days, but here's my top 10...

1. The beautiful ring on my finger that signifies I will some day soon marry Jay!

2. The green that surrounds us in our new home

3. Seeing Uley chase all the new squirrels (even if he pulls my arm off doing so)

4. The smell of rain inside and hearing it all afternoon (a rarity in AZ)

5. Being called a "future in-law"

6. All of the ripe fruit that's hitting the stands

7. Pictures of Uley and his best buddy at my mom's house

8. Driving around Raleigh, trying to be a local

9. The beautiful sunrise

10. Seeing all the baby ducks, geese, and turtles swimming in the lake

xoxo

It's been a long couple of weeks. Since Jay proposed to me we've been preparing and actually moving across the country for the summer! It's been a long 3 weeks of packing, graduation, putting all of our stuff in storage, driving 3 days to Raleigh, North Carolina, and making this new place our temporary summer home!

We had a great time having both of our moms and my grandma come visit us for Jay's graduation and helping us move into storage. We love being able to see them all that we can and hope one day we'll all be close to each other! We didn't do much because we were ultimately busy, but it's nice being able to see and talk to family again and have them right there with us.

There's almost nothing we don't love about it NC! It's beautiful and cool and relaxing and I know it's going to be difficult to get us to all head back to Arizona for another year. Even Uley loves it! He gets to roll in the grass, chase squirrels, and it's nowhere NEAR as hot as AZ.

Our apartment is right on Lake Lynn and so far we think we're in a really good spot! Its easy access to everything we need and Jay's internship, lots of trails near us, a local dog park, we've even scoped out the houses and they're REALLY NICE! Like I said - WE LOVE IT HERE!

Jay on his first day of his internship!!

In other news we've started Insanity (again) and it's only day 2 and I'm exhausted. It'll pay off all in all though and I've noticed it's so much easier this time around now that I'm more in shape (although it's NEVER easy - don't let me fool you).

We've also (sorta) decided on a wedding date time! We're hoping for a 2013 winter wedding! It'll be about a 20 month engagement, which gives us plenty of time for everything considering we'll be graduating, moving across the country for good, and starting jobs and graduate school (Jay and I respectively). We've also got family graduations to attend, places to visit in AZ before we leave for good, a big birthday(!!), and all the routine events of wedding planning and etc. I'm so excited for the rest of the year and upcoming year.