Yay for Friday!

Happy Friday! This week went by so fast... thank goodness! I'm ready for a 4 day weekend. I worked last weekend before Christmas so I only had 2 days off, I'm excited for this round of holidays! AND my birthday is on Tuesday! Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to ME! :)

The day after Christmas we got snow! And ice. But yay we got snow! Almost made a white Christmas, maybe next year. I love the way snow looks when it's untouched. Since Christmas I have been sick, wahh. Thankfully not too bad, just a head cold and sinus problems. There have a few people at work that have tested positive for the flu, and there is an upper respiratory bug going around the residents. We've been "internally closed" and keeping everyone separated on their units, no group activities and all meals served in individual rooms. It's very quiet at work but it's what we have to do to try and contain the illness. Jay did bring me a hot tea to help soothe my throat and open up my sinuses  He's so sweet to me. Except for when he tells me I have bags under my eyes. Thanks babe.

Tonight after I get off work I am meeting my mom and 2 of my bridesmaids, Ann and Elise, to start looking for a wedding dress! Ann's mother in law works at David's bridal so I made an appointment with her for 5:30 this evening. I'm excited but kind of nervous too. I know what I don't want, and I think I know what I do what, but at the same time I still have no idea what I want. Yikes. There are several other bridal shops that I want to visit, we are just starting with David's for now. 

In other news, Jay got a new job! He will no longer be a sheriff's deputy as of January 7... he will be a Vinton Police Officer! He said he is sad that he won't be wearing brown but will now be wearing blue. I told him it doesn't matter, as long as he enjoys his job and he's still in law enforcement. This is a great career move for him, he will be on the road as an officer and gets a take home car. No more being stuck in the jail. I am so proud of him and so happy for him! Being a road officer opens so many doors for him the future. He wants to eventually be an investigator, and with this job he can start pursuing that dream. Apparently you have to be on the road for some many years before you can start that process... well here we go! The only thing that kinda stinks though is that he has to go through academy again. However, its only Monday through Thursday, 12 hour days. He will be "off" Friday through Sunday which will be a big help as we work through wedding plans, and hopefully we can take small weekend trips and not have to worry about his schedule. He will have to do a lot of studying on the weekends though, hope he doesn't turn into a crank-pot! Haha. I my man in soon-to-be-blue! 

Wedding Wednesday

Woohoo! An actual wedding post on a Wednesday! Haha... Phew, the last week and half have been crazy and busy with work, Christmas, one of my good friends has been in the hospital, and now I'm catching a cold. I don't have much else accomplished for our wedding since my last update, oops! I need to get my butt in gear... 8 months to go! Christmas Eve was the exact 8 month mark until our wedding, and just happened to be 2 months from the day Jay proposed! I have been emailing back and forth with our photographer to get our engagement pictures done, and I've also been looking at ideas for our "save the dates." I really like the idea of postcards. 

We got our first wedding present too! My grandmother gave us her silver serving utensils with a matching set of 8! I love it and I can't wait to use them for holidays or other special events at our house after we are married.

Hopefully by the end of next week I will have our videographer nailed down, as well as caterer. We are supposed to get the proposal from the florist we met with soon too. Can't wait to see how expensive that's going to be! My mom and I are already thinking of other options to knock down the cost of some stuff for the center pieces. I found THIS on pinterest and it's really close to what I want. If I use frames to cover what the flowers go in, then we don't have to worry about a pretty vase. What I want to do with the frames is put "little known facts" about us or things we have incorporated into our wedding. For example, I have to have roses in my bouquet... not just because they are pretty flowers, but because my grandfather always had a huge rose garden and won awards for them. I want things like that, that are special to me and Jay, to be made known to everyone else. I want to make our wedding personal and share that with everyone who comes. Along with the facts in the frame, also put pictures of Jay and I in a frame.

Christmas update coming soon! Hope everyone had a great holiday! I'm ready for New Year's/my birthday now! :)

Silent Prayers

Camo Christmas Shopping

I met Jay to do some Christmas shopping a few days after work last week. We went to Gander Mountain one day and then Sportsman's Warehouse the next. Both trips he left empty handed. Womp womp. I always have fun shopping with him at those man stores and I ask a lot of questions. And I like to take pictures! Here are a few of us, me "driving" the fun toy I "promised" to buy Jay one day, my handsome fiance in camo... and with all that camo I just had to take a picture of my ring!

Dickens of a Christmas & Prayers for CT

Friday night we went to the Christmas parade downtown. After work Jay and I went over to Crystal and Ryan's house. They live right by downtown so we were able to walk and didn't have to battle parking. Before we went out into the cold Crystal wanted to make some spiked hot chocolate. We made regular hot chocolate and just added a shot Whipped Vodka... it was so yummy! 

After a nice warm cup of cocoa we walked downtown to find a good spot to watch the parade. We made our way down the street and found a big open space near the beginning of the parade. We got there just in time too, it started about 5 minutes after we got there. I like being near the front of parades so we don't have to wait as long to see it! Ha. There weren't as many floats as I thought there would be, but there were a bunch of different companies and organizations and clubs walking. 

There were several signs made for the children, teachers and families in Connecticut. When I heard what had happened in that elementary school, I was shocked. What is wrong with people in this world? What could posses someone to hurt innocent children? I just don't understand. I cannot imagine the pain those families are going through. All I can do is pray. My heart breaks for them. I have so many friends who are teachers, and my prayers are with them too. I know they all would do what they could to protect their students just like the teachers and staff at Sandy Hook. Pray, pray, pray. My thoughts are with you all. <3

Wedding Wednesday on Thursday

I tell you what, I am just terrible at following a schedule, haha oops! Oh well, my blog and I can do whatever I want! :) Wedding planning is definitely coming along! We have our date (and it feels so awesome to say I'm getting married on August 24th!) We have our church and reception venue booked, as well as the DJ. A few other things have fallen into place since my last post.
My mom decided it would be a good idea to hire a wedding planner/coordinator. Partially for my sake, and partially for her so she doesn't have to deal with me. :) I was getting very stressed and overwhelmed trying to figure out how everything would get delivered, set up and organized, and what if something didn't get delivered or was late? So I did some research and found a lady that seemed perfect. I read over her entire website and read client reviews. As I was reading through I saw that this was the same wedding planner a couple from my high school used for their wedding last May. This particular couple have been together since we were in the 8th grade! The girls review was fantastic, I knew right away I had to call and set up an appointment. So 2 Saturday's ago my mom and I met with Vicki Itson of Why Can't It Be Simple? (I told Jay he didn't have to come because he wanted to go hunting instead.) Before we finished meeting with her my mom decided she was the one. We went over everything I had rolling around in my brain, all my ideas and all my concerns. And I cried. I  cry a lot. At that point it was from feeling frustrated and then all of a sudden such relief that Vicki would be there to help with everything! I find myself crying over simple little things too because I am so happy. Like I can't believe I am finally marrying the man of my dreams. Thinking about marrying Jay and our wedding right now and I write this makes me tear up a little! Anyways, we booked her and she is awesome! She has been in the process of helping me find florists, caterers, and videographers.
The following week I had already scheduled to meet with a photographer who's blog I have been following for a while. I found her through wedding pictures I saw of girl I met in college that she posted on Facebook. Because I'm weird I love to look at other people's pictures. So needless to say I found this photographers website and every few weeks or so kept going back and seeing new posts. My mom and I met with Lori Hedrick last Tuesday. She is so nice and very personable. I felt very comfortable talking to her and I felt like she was the perfect person to take my wedding pictures! I signed her contract and mailed in the deposit the next day! Soooo... now Jay and I can finally get our engagement pictures done! Yay!! :)
Since meeting and hiring Vicki, she set me up with a local florist shop called Creative Occasions. My mom and I met with Mark the following week. Again I told Jay he didn't have to come because he would be bored talking about flowers, he was happy to stay at home that day, haha. This what I want my bouquet to look like. I have to have roses and calla lilies, and I really want to use hydrangeas and dahlias  I want a mostly white bouquet too. Maybe a little bit of very light purple but I really like just white. I want my bouquet to be BIG. I want a thick stem section and for the flowers to cover my hands, a lot like this middle picture. For my bridesmaids, I want their bouquets to be smaller versions of mine.

 

 For the guys boutonniere's I want them to have a simple little calla lily. Not the big regular size flower, but the tinier version. So pretty I think. Jay said he doesn't care what they wear. Haha of course. And for the table center pieces I want something very similar to this, with purple dahlias and green hydrangeas. The green accent I want added for my color scheme of plum and grey will mostly been seen at my reception I think.I don't need any flowers or decorations inside the church. It's pretty enough without anything extra. Mark at Creative Occasions said to maybe have a flower arrangement at the entrance to the church welcoming people, and then Vicki my wedding planner can move the arrangement once the ceremony starts over to the reception venue.

We are waiting for Mark to put together a proposal with prices for everything we talked about... we talked for over an hour about all kinds of ideas and little things I hadn't thought of before. Once we get the proposal, we will figure out exactly what we want and what we can probably do without. Hopefully everything will look good and we can hire Creative Occasions within the next few weeks. He said it might not be until after Christmas because they are swamped with Christmas parties.

Next on the list of major things to check off is the caterer and videographer. Still working of those 2 things. I'm hoping to have them both figured out before Christmas... that's only 12 days away! Ahhh! If not I atleast want to shoot for the week after.... which also happens to be my birthday! Well January 1st is my birthday, yay! I'll be 27, ick. 

I need to get better about posting on a regular basis. Things have just been so busy around here, I've gone days without getting on my computer (except for work of course.)

Will you be my bridesmaid?

First of all, I have not been very good at keeping up with "Wedding Wednesday." Whoops, my bad. I've been so busy I haven't really spent much time on my computer. But anyways, here is how I asked my best girlfriends/sisters to be my MOH and bridesmaids. I found several ideas searching through Pinterst. I knew I wanted to do something cute and special for them instead of just saying "hey do you wanna?" I couldn't decide between a few things I saw so I just did them all. I loved the way them turned out. I met up with 2 of my friends, Ann and Elise to give them theirs, we have been friends since freshman year of college, we lived on the same hall. I then went over to my friend Crystal's house and gave her hers. We have been friends since the 4th grade! I gave both my sisters theirs when they were home on Thanksgiving. And I mailed my MOH, Katie, hers because she lives in Austin Texas. We have been best friends since the 8th grade. They all seemed to love the gifts too, a few of them even teared up. I have the best friends a girl could ask for and I'm so glad they all want to be a part of the best day of my life!

 All the supplies for the gift bags! 

Cut and curled the ribbons myself, and Jay helped.

Jay was helping me, drinking some coke, and he noticed the ice cubes formed an "M" for Megan, lol.

The cute poems I used: the first one I used for my sisters, the 2nd one was for my MOH, and the bottom was for Ann, Elise, and Crystal.

Ready to fill the bags! I tied little stars with each girl's name on it to make sure they didn't get mixed up since the poems were personalized.

 Excuse me, Jay, you are in the way.

 DONE! So cute!

I also got this gift for my little ring bearer, Elise's little boy, Camden. He will be 3 1/2 by the time next August comes. He took the toys and ran to go play, such a sweet boy. Can't wait to see him in a little suit!

Cades Cove

While in Gatlinburg last week we drove through the national park to a place called Cades Cove. This was something Jay and our friends didn't get the chance to do last spring, so obviously I was excited to go! It was so pretty there and the weather was just a little bit chilly. Cades Cove is known for the bear that roam around. Some of the women I went with had been to Cades Cove before and were telling the rest of us how cool it was to see so many bears up in the trees and laying in sun napping. I was pumped. We get there and start driving the scenic trail, it's an 11 mile loop. We keep driving and driving and don't see anything except for a bunch of deer. Deer are nice, and there were some huge bucks, but I can see deer at my house any day of the week. I wanted to see a bear! 

We were all slightly disappointment we had driven more than halfway through and not seen one. We decided to pull off the trail to stretch our legs and explore an old cabin. Along the trail there are old houses and churches that date way back. We get out at this one particular spot and started walking up to the cabin... a gentleman who was already up there was motioning for us to come quick but be quiet... there was a bear! We hurried up to the cabin and pulled out our cameras. It was so neat. When we got to the backside of the cabin there were several other men with their professional cameras out. Apparently they had been watching this specific bear and new his patterns. Yay! I was so excited we got to see one. The bear was so nonchalant just looking back at the people like "what's the big deal I a bear." It was funny. It was the only one we saw but it definitely made the 11 mile scenic loop worth it!

On the way back out we stopped a few more times to take pictures of the scenery, it was so pretty through there! We had mini photo-shoot too. My co-workers said I need some pictures showing off my ring, obviously I said okay. They look so posed haha... because they were, but it was fun. I was the youngest in the group that went by a good several almost 10 years. (* I don't have any pictures of all of us, hopefully I can get copies soon and I will make another post with those *) They don't seem to mind that I have "wedding brain" either. We had a great trip and are already making plans to go back to Gatlinburg next year. They want to make it group trip with husbands next time... key word here is "husband." They kept making a point of it which was nice, and made me even more excited to make plans for me and my future husband!