More Pics from E Session #2

Along with the vintage pics, we also took some great pictures in normal clothes. They were all taken at Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas.  Here's what we've seen so far....

You Are a Storybook Wedding

Love make you feel special and important. You want to be needed and adored by others, and you return those feelings with all your might. To be unloved would be a crushing blow for you. You would find it hard to love yourself if no one loved you. For you, romantic love is about finding someone as unique as you are... who thinks the world of you as well. When you find someone who sees things in you that no one else sees, then that's when you really know it's true love.

The Wedding Cake Test

Blogthings: Cheaper Than a Therapist

Bride's Bouquet

While I love real flowers, the way they look, the way they smell and feel, I decided to do artificial flower for all the bouquets.  Since we are doing the wedding ourselves, making the bouquets with artificial flowers saves us money and time.  You know what the BM's bouquets look like so here is a few pics of my bouquet that I made a few days ago.

 I used pink hydrangeas, dark pink and cream peonys, cream and pinkish purplish tulips, and small daisies to accent.  I love it.

I wrapped a blue and pink handkerchief around the stem.  This handkerchief was my Aunt's who passed away about 5 years ago.  It will serve as my something blue.

E Session #2

We had the most fabulous time with Marisa yesterday!  She is a very talented photographer and really out did herself.  We are very grateful that we had the opportunity to work with her!  We headed out to Mandalay Canals in Las Colinas.  It has a Spanish/European feel to it.  We took a lot of shots there in front of Spanish inspired doors, stone staircases and even pulled off a Spiderman kiss shot ;)

 I have been wanting to do a vintage shot to sort of bring out my personality in the pictures.  I convinced Justin and knew he would be great at it since he's such a good actor and we talked about it with Marisa.  She suggested going down to the old train station in Grapevine and using old suite cases as props.  We both loved the idea!  She took so many different shots at so many different scenes around the station.  The pictures turned out better than I could ever expect.  Even Justin loved them! (I have to admit, while he was willing to do them to please me, I could tell that he as a little apprehensive about it, ha).  Here are a few that she's sent us but there are way more to come!

           

E Session #1

Justin and I had our engagement session scheduled for this past Sunday.  I don't know what kind of weather you got in El Paso, Memphis, Corsicana, Tyler or Cisco but a huge cold front moved in on Saturday and it snowed!  Yep, that's right, it snowed.  Sunday was pretty cold (wind chill in the 20's) and there were gusts of wind up to 25 mph! We were tempted to just cancel for that day, but I paid $45 to have my nails and toes done so I was determined to at least get some hand/ring shots in to get my money's worth!  Justin and I weren't expecting Marisa (his cousin and awesome photographer) to take so many shots, but we are grateful that she did!  Here's a sneek peek of a few she took from that day.  We have another session scheduled with her on Friday so we can get some in the warm weather!  I'm super excited!  www.marisasphotography.com

 

These three were taken at Old Alton Park.  We also took some on an old, red iron bridge that are going to look fabulous!

We climbed up on the window ledge of a building on the square to take these shots.  I really love the colors of these.

  So far, this one is my favorite.  I've been eyeing this turquoise door for a while now and I'm so glad this shot turned out great!  

We got the hand shot in showing off my beautiful ring!  Don't my nails look so pretty!

We did this one for Marisa but I love it!  Very unique and different, which I love!

Color Swatch

Last weekend me and my mom went on a hunt to find fabric for the BM's sashes.  We found killer deals at Joann.  They have awesome coupons and sales that have really helped me out!  When I bought the burlap for the table runners, I got it half off by purchasing it online!  I also got all the fabric for the sashes half off as well because they were having some coupon mania event.  I feel like I'm in some sort of secret society since I'm just happening upon all these bargains!

Anyway, the sash itself will be light pink.  Then we are going to cut out fabric flowers to pin to the sash. Those will be in a darker pink so that we can tie in the dark pink shoes.  I love this so much that I'm thinking about wearing one for the reception!  Or maybe I'll make some flowers for my hair?  We'll see what I come up with.  Here is a color swatch card that I made Doris, a bridesmaid and best friend who lives out of town.

Sneak Peek of the Mason Jars

So many of you know that I'm doing a country garden theme.  For the reception, we'll have 8 foot rectangular tables covered in white cloth with burlap table runners.  The center piece for each table will be a metal garden bucket filled with pretty pink wild flowers (these will also double as ceremony decorations and will hang from the pews with brown organza ribbon to line the aisle).  For added decoration, different sized mason jars will be filled with different types of flowers to accompany the buckets.  Here is a sample off what each of the jars will look like.  Pictures of a sample of the garden buckets will be on its way soon!

Some of the jars are filled with river pebbles and others are filled with spanish moss.

Each jar has raffia tied in a bow around the neck.

I was really pleased with the way these turned out!  I wasn't expecting them to look this great and I can't wait to see what it's going to look like at the reception!  

Some of the flowers that I know the names of are (ha ha) are daisies, dark pink begonias, lilac, tiny pink mums and cream tulips.  I'm not sure what the others are but they are equally as gorgeous!

Save the Dates are Out!

My mama took the pictures for us since we haven't been able to do engagement pictures yet (but those are scheduled for this Sunday!) We drove around downtown Corsicana and hopped out of the car whenever we found a spot we liked. We took a lot of great shots, but the following worked best for the Save the Dates. Justin transformed the pictures that my mom took into these lovelies. We sent all 4 out because we liked them all and didn't want to have to decide on just one!

The one above is my favorite!

The one above is Justin's favorite!

Marching Songs

Usually I'm a traditional kind of girl, but I wanted to do something a little different for the marching songs. I mean "Here Comes the Bride" is getting a little old. You all know that I'm big into those sappy, old, movie musicals. I would swoon over Gene Kelly as a kid (and I still do!) and I've always dreamed of the romance where violins play while we’re walking hand in hand and he busts out in song to profess his undying love for me. Ha ha, well that hasn’t happened, ever, but I think I’ve come as close as I’m going to get to that musical kind of love with the song and dance man that I have. He’s sang to me a couple of times while I was sick, that counts, right?

With all that said, I started thinking of musicals that I love that have great love songs in them. And I wanted to try to find songs that applied to us, that would speak for us. The Bridesmaids will march in to “Till There Was You” from the Music Man and I’ll be marching into “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. Justin’s dad, L Z, is going to play them on his guitar and they are going to sound fabulous! I’m so excited!

The Wedding Song has Officially Been Chosen

Justin and I had been thinking of a song for our wedding for a while.  The song that we decided on was one that we had initially thought of, but wanted to keep our options open and look around to see if there was something that we liked better.  We didn’t ever find anything…I guess because this song is perfect for us.  This song really hits home for me and it’s by a band that we both love.  His sister, Jessica, will be singing it (she will do an amazing job) and his dad is going to play the acoustic guitar. I know they are going to both do a great job and it’s going to sound great.  Check out this video to find out what the song is!

Bridesmaids' Bouquets!

 I finally have one finished and it's so cute.  I couldn't get that great of pictures to show all the detail, but it is light and dark pink tulips with tiny daisies.  I wrapped the stems in brown ribbon and crissed crossed that with pink ribbon and topped off each "x" with a pearl.  The wrap job isn't so fabulous, but you won't be able to see the majority of it when the BM's are holding them.

Just Call Me Martha...

So, I ran out of projects last week to keep me busy while I watch tv. I decided that I would give a shot making the corsages for the wedding. I saw a similar, smaller version of this on MarthaStewart.com and fell in love with it! The example Martha gave was for a boutonniere, but I knew I could tweak it and make it work for shoulder corsages.  Here's how Martha inspired me....

What I made for the shoulder corsages is a hydrangea bloom with the stem wrapped in raffia and tied off with a thin brown ribbon. I think this goes perfect with my theme (which is country shabby chic if you didn't know). I think these corsages are perfect! (I like to call them lady boutonnieres ha ha!) They are simple but elegant, classy but not too formal.

Invitation Wording

I really love this and think this is what we are going to use as our invitation wording...

With joyful hearts,

we request your presence

at the ceremony uniting

Jordan Ashley Smith,

daughter of David and Dena Smith

and

Justin David Harmon,

son of L Z Jr. and Deandrea Harmon

Saturday, the seventeenth of July, two thousand ten

at five o’clock in the afternoon

Navarro Mills Baptist Church

Address Here

Purdon, Texas

Reception to follow

 

Justin's Wedding Band

We went looking for Justin's wedding band the other night.  We found one that we both liked at Kay's.  It's really nice.  No diamonds, but it has engraving detail that makes it look really sharp.  I like it a lot!  We haven't bought it yet, but unless he decides he likes something better, I think this is the one that he'll be wearing soon! =)

The Lovely Flower girl!

My cousin Emma is going to make the cutest flower girl ever!  Here she is in her flower girl dress!  Since the BM's are in brown dresses, Emma will wear a brown bow or headband in her hair so that it all ties in nicely.  I'm also working on finding a dark brown wicker basket to also tie the colors together.  I'm sure finding that type of basket won't be hard to do especially since Easter is just right around the corner!

We've Booked the Honeymoon!

We will be staying 5 nights at the lovely Barcelo La Jolla de Mismaloya hotel in Puerto Vallarta!  This place is fantastic!  It is tucked away by itself, has its own secluded beach, and best of all...it was one of the cheapest places we could find!  We even get a complimentary honeymoon upgrade that includes, a suite with an ocean view, breakfast in bed, fruit basket and wine upon arrvial, and 20% off spa and golf services.

Not only am I excited about the hotel, but I'm excited about what we are going to get to do!  The hotel is about 1 mile from a national park that I'm really anxious to explore on the ground as well as through the canopy on zip lines!

The town of Puerto Vallarta itself is beautiful!  We'll have lots of opportunity to take great pictures and have some fabulous experiences!

And the Second Most Important Detail...

how pretty the bridesmaids are going to be!

Some brides want their bridesmaids to look hidious so that she looks better.  Eh, I'm not in to that.  I want everyone to look pretty!  Here are the bridesmaids' dresses.

I plan to have them shortened to just below the knee to make them just a bit sassier. Plus, we're all shorties, so they will look better on everyone.  I'm going to pair it with a light pink sash with dark pink (think fushia/watermelon) rosettes on the side so that they can wear dark pink shoes!  It's going to fabulous! =)

The Most Important Detail...

Is of course, the bride's dress! Now, I'm gonna share with you only because you are closest to me. But I'd like it to be more of a surprise for others, so let's keep it a secret! Sssshhh!  We especially do not want the groom to find out! ;)

I really love the scalloping detail along the top of the dress.  I was completely opposed to lacy dresses until I realized that it was going to be hard to find a dress that had buttons down the back.  I fell in love with this one because it has a very different, very unique lace pattern.









The way the lace extends past the under layer of satin is gorgeous!  I love it!

July 17, 2010

You all know that Justin and I have been engaged for a little over a year and the wedding is well on it's way!  We are both really excited about this new chapter in our life!

I wanted to create this blog for all of you that live too far away to be closely involved in the wedding planning process but would still like to be a part of it.  I hate that we are all spread a part from one another but modern day technology can bring us closer than ever!

I'll be updating the blog as decisions are being made, decorations are being created, and as advice is needed.  I'm constantly changing my mind on details so I say nothing is permanent until the day of the wedding ;)  Feel free to comment with your thoughts/advice/suggestions!

I can't wait to see you all at the wedding and better yet, can't wait to spend some time with you at the reception!