Engagement Pics Take 1.

I am so grateful that Adam was able to get the photographer that he does a lot of work with to take some pictures for us! We got some great pictures, and we definitely have some choices for our engagement announcement.

On that note, it was not exactly the most enjoyable experience.
**Warning, I am about to whine.

We were at the park by 8 o'clock this morning, but it was already so humid out that I felt like I was swimming.  The park was very green and made for an awesome back drop, but after twenty minutes I had so many bug bites on my feet and legs that I wanted to cry.  About this time my hair was starting to frizz, and I'm pretty sure that my makeup was melting off of my face.   As we walked down the rocky "steps" to a bridge in my completely inappropriate hiking shoes,  Adam said, "I bet there are so many snakes out here right now!"  (Cue excited, 8 year-old-boy voice.) Great, so I had to focus on not falling AND not stepping on any snakes.  We wrapped up shortly after that as it is hard to pose and smile when one is much more concerned with slapping the legs to kill bugs and avoiding snakes...and this was about the time that I decided my dress made me look preggers.

Although the actual event was slightly less glamorous than I'd imagined, we still managed to get some decent pictures.  Here are a few of the "low res" images:

Soo...we got a few decent pictures.

And here are a few pictures that are more "us":

I think this picture would be more appropriate if I had my finger up my nose.

Eeeehhh...

Awkward...who us?? Nooo

How does my handsome hubby-to-be manage to look so good in every single picture?!

Engagement Pictures!

Just found out that we are doing our "first set" of engagement pictures Saturday morning! I am very excited, although slightly nervous. I have serious issues keeping my eyes open in pictures.  I either look like I am on drugs or like I have bug eyes. Argh.  I have a feeling that Adam and I will be practicing our poses and smiles in the bathroom mirror tonight...we enjoy watching ourselves make faces.

Now we have to decide what to wear! I think that we are going to stick with a "blue-ish" theme and make sure that we look like "us." This could be challenging... and I guess I should probably change my orangey-red finger and toenail polish?! HELP. I will most likely break out from stressing out, fantastic.

Anyways, I am super excited. We are going to a park near our house early in the morning, so hopefully the lighting will be good and it won't be too hot out yet.  Our goal is to be as "uncheesy" as possible. Again, this could be challenging.

On that note, here are a few engagement photos that I have stumbled upon...

"The Serious Pose"

(Soo angry!)

"The umm, Spiderman Kiss Pose"

No thank you.

"The McCheesin' can I have a side of Cheese

with my Cheese Pose"

"The One-with-Nature Pose"

...just a little bit too "Twilight-ish" for me

"The Sensual Pose...?!"

Seriously, there are so many things wrong with this that I'm not even going to start.

On that note, I hope to have some of our own engagement pictures on here soon!  Please send positive picture vibes our way for pretty smiles and open eyes.

***I sincerely apologize for any stress that I may have caused to your eyes during this post.

Our photographer.

Finding the perfect photographer was very high on our list of priorities. We wanted a photographer that we felt comfortable with (they really are with you more than anyone else on and before the big day!), and who we were confident would do an amazing job capturing the basic and unique images that we can treasure for a lifetime.

It's good to be comfortable with your photog

since they are going to be all up in your biznaz on your wedding day!

Here are a few tips that I found to ensure that you find a photographer that suits all of your needs:

-First of all ask yourself: Will this photographer capture the wedding day the way that the we want? Will they create unique and emotional memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives?

-Book early! Wedding photographers' schedules fill up quickly, and you want to be able to have your pick of photographers.

-Get references from friends and family. Your best resource is people you know.

-Choose a studio that does their OWN developing and printing. Your film is less likely to be lost or damaged, and you will likely have to wait less time to see your pictures.

-Check out the albums that they offer.

-Meet with the photographer(s) to ensure that you feel comfortable working with them and having them around you for the majority of your wedding events.

-Try to negotiate the cost of your wedding package. Combining extra services with packages might be the way to go.

-Have a clear, concise, written contract

Now that we have that out of the way, I am confident that Adam and I have found the PERFECT photographers!!!! My mom had heard about the photographers, so we looked at their website and decided to e-mail them.

I can usually tell a little bit about someone's personality by their emails. If they write like me--with lots of enthusiasm and the occasional smiley face (generally not very professional, hah)--I know that we will get along. It is an awesome way to figure out if this person is someone you might want to work with. When I emailed with the mom of a family that I babysat for three years, I knew that we would be a perfect match. Luckily, this has also been the case with our wedding coordinator at the Cardinal Club and with our photographer.

Enter Jamie and Richie Staggs!!! They are the owners of Jagg Photography, and we were lucky enough to meet with them at a Starbucks about a week ago. Not only are their pictures beautiful, unique, and creative; but they are so much fun and a great match for us. We are so excited to work with them (and just to have them around on our wedding day!). They had all kinds of great ideas, and they were also up for whatever we wanted to do. I love that the husband and wife team are recently married, and that Jamie can hang with the girls while we get ready and primp and Richie will be with the guys while they are "getting ready" slash doing whatever it is that they do :)

The wedding albums and prints that we saw are absolutely stunning! Jamie and Richie are going to do our engagement photos, a bridal session, our rehearsal dinner, and all of our wedding day festivities. We are also going to rent a photo booth for the reception from them.

They are an adorable couple, and it is obvious that they are very much in love with each other and with what they do. I think that both of their photography styles differ just enough that we are going to have an incredible variety of pictures that will compliment each other. I am so jealous that they get to work and travel together!

Latest updates...

We have gotten a lot done in the last week, but I still feel like we have so much to do!

Last weekend we had a great cookout with both of our families. It was so nice to have everyone together--we talked babies and weddings, watched some soccer, and ate waaaay too much food. We had ribs, we had chicken, we had Boston butt. We also had strawberries and dip, chips, chips and salsa, potato salad, pasta salad, regular green salad, baked beans, key lime pie, cookies, and peanut butter/chocolate/caramel pie (my personal favorite!). Big success. (And by big I'm not just talking about my belly after the meal.)

We have also had big success on the wedding front.  We were able to take Adam's parents and grandpa to see the Cardinal Club before the cookout, and it was all set up for a wedding ceremony and reception. Seeing the chairs set up for the ceremony and the tables with linens, dance floor, buffet area, gift table, and cake table set up for the reception, made me even more excited (like "can we get married next weekend?!" excited).  I have had all kinds of ideas running through my head now that I have seen the club all set up, and Adam's mom and I did some serious flower talking.  Adam has already upgraded the room for the groomsmen from the normal room to a much larger room with floor length windows and an incredible view of downtown.  Apparently there are plans in talk for a PlayStation 3 in the room.  I think I'll just let them do their thing.

So, we have booked the ceremony music, sent in the deposit for our photographer, set up consultations with two different florists, and we are meeting with a DJ tomorrow night.

We booked Arioso Strings to play before and during our wedding ceremony.  Adam worked with the strings ensemble for a political commercial last year, and they sound amazing.  Their website has music samples--it was hard for me not to get teary eyed when we listened to the different wedding marches last weekend.  (Squeeeee, so excited!)  We decided that the violin and classic guitar sounded more like "us" than the cello or trumpet.

I am both excited and nervous to meet with the florists.  I absolutely love flowers, and I would really like to have tons of flowers all over our ceremony and reception, but I know the flowers are going to be a HUGE expense.

Shelly, our wedding coordinator at the Cardinal Club, highly recommended Mel at Dogwood Tree Floral Designs .  I am so excited to see what he can do for us.  Here are a few pictures from his website:

I know that I want lots of yellow and white flowers, but we are also talking about doing as much as we can ourselves. So, we'll see what the florist can do for us!

We are also meeting with a designer from the English Garden . She asked me about our colors and what ideas I had so far, so I can't wait to see what they can do too! Here is a video of some of their arrangements:



We are really excited about meeting with the DJ tomorrow--we have already assembled quite an extensive "play" and "do not play" (YMCA, chicken dance, electric slide, etc.) list, so I will keep you all updated!

*Oh and please let me know any other recommendations for the "do not play no matter how many times the song is requested" list. It would be much appreciated.

bRiDeZiLlAs

Bridezilla (term)

"A bridezilla (a neologistic portmanteau of bride and Godzilla) is a difficult, unpleasant, perfectionist bride who leaves aggravated family, friends and bridal vendors in her wake. She is often called greedy, selfish and spoiled; not caring about the people that she hurts to get exactly what she wants on her perfect day."

Much like the proverbial bigfoot, I honestly believed that these so called "bridezillas" only existed on TV. I learned very quickly that I was completely and utterly wrong.

I never really understood all of this "my day" stuff. Yes, it's true, girls dream about and plan their weddings many years before they meet their prince charmings. And, yes, I have already been told, "whatever you want," several times by my sweet fiance. Luckily, my fiance wants to be involved, and, so far, he has been with me every step of the way. I don't give him "tasks or assignments," but, together, we are planning OUR wedding. Last night we sat on the couch for three hours finalizing the wording, colors, and sizes for our save the dates, invitations, RSVP cards, thank you notes, and envelopes. Thankfully, when I started looking at readings for our ceremony (I have an incredibly short--wait where's my Diet Coke?), Adam took over. Adam's practicality and decisiveness complement my spaciness and inability to finish things in a timely manner quite nicely.

But, I am still unconvinced that this is MY day.

I want it to be OUR day. It is OUR so-called "fairytale." (I'm sorry, but really, "fairytale"?!) I believe in happy endings and soul mates, but I can't get in to all of this fairy tale talk... I'll save that for the stories Adam and I will tell our little girls (or boys) at bedtime. But, instead of fire-breathing brides-to-be, our stories will be about fire-breathing dragons and beautiful princesses.


Isn't it all about us...about the joining of two families and about our vows to love and honor each other for the rest of our lives?

Without each other there would be no rings, no colors to pick, no venues to reserve, and definitely no plans for babies and for growing old together.

Now that I have encountered "real life" bridezillas and watched way too many hours of Bridezilla marathons on WE--I mean I have to get ideas somewhere ;), please explain to me what is with the talk about ruining "my" day or destroying "my" fairytale?! (Yes, Adam, if you don't show up on our wedding day, you will ruin MY day.)

I already have more than I ever dreamed I would have--my soul mate and best friend to build a family and grow old with, and our families and friends who support and love us unconditionally. What more could I want??

First thoughts and ideas.

For as long as I can remember, my family have been members at The Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh. Also for as long as I can remember, I have wanted to have my wedding reception there.

Luckily, Adam was familiar with the Cardinal and Capital City Clubs, so we did not waste any time before checking them out. We had actually emailed with them several months before we got engaged.


We went downtown to meet with the events coordinator, Shelly, and she was amazing! She gave us tons of great ideas, and she said she was very flexible and open to whatever we wanted to do.

So, being the huge dork and bookworm that I am, I went to the library the next day and checked out almost every single wedding book they had. (I also had at least eight wedding magazines at home already.) I could barely carry all of the books to my car. I have been scouring the books, magazines, and websites nightly, but here are a few things that I love so far.

Yellow Inspiration Board

I love yellow. It is such a happy color, and I definitely want to include yellow as one of our main colors. I absolutely love the idea of yellow shoes under the wedding dress and using lemons for decorations.

A NYC Wedding Reception

Our chairs at the ceremony and reception are going to look a lot like these, and I love how they look with the yellow/gold table cloths. I would love to have the same dim lighting with candles and flowers covering as many surfaces as possible. We are going to have round tables too--they are so much more intimate.

Monograms!

As many people can attest to, I absolutely love monograms. I am actually slightly obsessed with them, and I really need to learn how to do monogramming myself on a sewing machine. During the last few months I have had to remind myself that my monogram would be changing soon, so I have tried my best to stay away.

If I can convince my sweet fiance to agree to it, I think that our monogram on the top of our invitations would be beautiful. I have also seen it on the bride's slip and on the ribbon around her bouquet--love both of those ideas!

I also want to use this dark royal blue color as our other "main color." Right now, I think that the bridesmaids' dresses will probably be that color.

I really like the neckline and bow on the dress

Simple and elegant

This dress is really different, and I love it. I also want to have my hair similar to the models

Now what...

So I have this absolutely stunning ring on my finger (not to brag or anything), but now what...?!

1. Set a date.

I realize that some couples get engaged and dance around actually getting married for several years for different reasons, but we are both anxious to be married. Before we actually got engaged we talked about ideal times to get married because between work for Adam (he is ALWAYS busy, but he is especially busy during primary and election times), work for me (getting married during tax season--not happening), and school (hopefully finishing that up soon!), we are busy! But we had talked about October or November or June.

By the time we got engaged, we had decided that October or November were too busy for Adam, AND we didn't want to wait a year and a half to get married. Then, we had to consider other events going on during the next year: other weddings (including my moms!), births :D, and various graduations. Originally, we thought I was going to be in school for longer, so if we got married in 2012, we wanted to do it on my parents' anniversary: June 2nd, which happened to fall on a Saturday. Obviously we didn't want to wait TWO years, so we went with the first Saturday in June, which is when they got married too.


I've heard that your venue picks your date, but since the date has special meaning to us, (and actually worked with our busy family and wedding parties' schedules) we were willing to change venues based on date availability.

The Proposal

Before I recount our ridiculously romantic rendezvous, I have to warn you that I am gullible. Extremely gullible.

GULLIBLE:
–adjective
easily deceived or cheated.

Ye-ah, to say the least. When someone says that "gullible" is painted on the ceiling, I look up. In high school I asked someone what part of the buffalo "buffalo wings" came from--no lie. I come by it fairly though...last weekend when someone told my mom that she "dropped her pocket," she and I both looked at the ground, confused.

I was not expecting a proposal anytime soon. Adam and I had talked about marriage, and I have known for a long time that he is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, but I still was unsuspecting. This may or may not have to do with the fact that Adam told me exactly when every single one of his friends was going to propose to their girlfriends and where we fell in the schedule. (Obviously, we were not first.)

Adam and I were both able to take half-days the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I packed both of our things in one bag, and we were on the road before 1 o'clock. The three hour trip consisted of Gary Allan, Smithfield's Chicken and BBQ, and a stop at Walmart for fishing licenses.

Riding in the car is torture for me. I am not good at sitting still. At all. So when we finally got to the beach we unpacked and laid down on the cool leather couches. As I sank deeper into the incredible couch, Adam informed me that we needed to go meet his dad's friend to pick up some fishing stuff for the weekend.

I pouted. Bottom-lip out pouted, but I went. Adam explained that we were meeting his dad's close friend from work, and he was letting us use this fishing stuff specifically for the weekend. Adam and his dad talked several times on the way to meet this friend, who happened to be running late.

As usual, I cheered up as soon as I saw the water. We decided to sit facing the water front in a wooden swing until his friend showed up. (The exact same swing where my future father-in-law plans to sit and cause trouble every day when he goes to a retirement home...but that is a completely different story.)

Morehead City waterfront

It was my absolute favorite time to be by the water--late afternoon when boats are going in and the breeze has picked up but the sun is still direct and hot. We talked and "waited," and Adam said, "Let's get married." I explained to him that there is a lovely chapel at Atlantic Beach where we could go get married, but he said no he didn't want to do that.

I then told him that we should get married right where we were because it was so beautiful--and it was beautiful, there was a light breeze, sailboats were bobbing in front of us, no one was around--it was serene.

"Well, let's not get married right here," Adam said, "But we can get engaged right here." I was thinking, seriously, are you going to fake me out again? But I got butterflies in my stomach as he got down on one knee. Still, I was not totally convinced that he wasn't messing with me; although, I had butterflies in my stomach. Even when he pulled the most beautiful ring I have ever seen out of his back pocket, I said "Is this for real? You aren't joking, are you?"

I told him yes, of course, and that I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my life with him. It was the most perfect moment...just us and the water. Then we hugged and kissed, and we called all of our family and friends. (Only after I made him explain to me how he got the ring to the beach and out to where we were without me knowing!)

I packed our bags, so I knew the ring was not in there. Apparently, he stuck it under the driver's seat in my car before we left (the same thing my dad did when he proposed to my mom :D), and he managed to stick the rather large box in his back pocket as we walked out to the swing.

My beautiful ring!

I would absolutely love to get the story from HIS perspective because I'm sure it is quite different. But it was a perfect afternoon, and my mom and her fiance and his kids got to the beach later that evening, so we were all able to celebrate together.

I am so lucky to get to spend my life with the most amazing man and my best friend. I never dreamed that I would meet someone so perfect. It is definitely true--when you know, you know :)

So, I hope to record the trials and tribulations (hopefully more of the latter) from "yes" to "I do" for ourselves, family, friends, and whoever else might want to follow our journey. Suggestions, tips, ideas are all very welcome. Enjoy!

<3 Jessie