I'm Back...

Hi Bloggy friends!
I'm back and now officially Mrs. W!  I have been married, honeymooned and am back to my first day of work.  Boo.  I feel that honeymoons should last longer, but maybe that's just me (and John)?


I loved our wedding!  It turned out just how we wanted it to.  Below are a couple of pictures from the wedding, but if you want to see more right now, check out Ashley's blog at Life After the Aisle.  She was one of my beautiful bridesmaids and her husband was so sweet and took some awesome pictures!  She has the best pictures of our wedding party (and our amazing friends!) For now, I'll share some from the ceremony and the beginning of the reception from another friend who does photography on the side.  More to come later, it's going to take a while to share them all!  

The bridal table's centerpiece

John and the boys.  The pastor was John and my youth pastor from middle school and high school.  We were so happy he came down to marry us!

My lovely ladies!

My daddy and I

My sister :)

And yes, for the reception, the boys all had on Gator bow-ties and I had a matching bouquet :)

We cruised to Belize and a couple places in Mexico for our honeymoon.  It was wonderful, relaxing and just what we needed.  Plus, now I have a tan!  Yay!  Here are a few pictures from day 1 and 2 of our honeymoon!

 Ziplining through the rain forest in Belize...amazing!

 Just after getting on the boat

 Right after setting sail from our balcony

 Our first ring shot

First day's sunset from out room

 We really like breakfast and insisted on taking pictures of pretty much every meal.  John is obsessed with milk as you can with with his 3 cartons for the morning.

First formal night

Cave tubing after we escaped the cave, right before we dried off zip-lining :)

For whatever reason, blogger isn't being nice to these pictures now and half of them are sideways boo.  Maybe they think I've reached my limit for today?

I'll be trying to catch up on what has been going on with you lovely ladies!  Happy Monday :)

Finally Here..

266 days of planning comes down to one day...

This is my last post as an unmarried woman!

Thank you ladies for all of your support, advice, and questions answered!  I can't wait to share pictures of our big day!

I promise to be back to a better bloggy friend when I get back.  This month has been hectic for oh so many reasons.  But, most of that won't matter after Saturday, because I think it will have been worth it!

Until next time friends!

<3

Ever feel like running away??

So, the wedding is getting so close and I'm kinda done.  I know that it's a wonderful time in my life, but it's become a little overwhelming, everything that is happening right now.  All good things, minus some guest list drama, but I just feel done.  I've been looking up everything for our marriage license and they perform ceremonies until 3:30. every. day.  Tempted?  Why yes, I am.  I guess we just wouldn't tell anyone, ever.  They'd all probably be mad if they knew. But that would leave us spending 3 extra weeks in wedded bliss laughing at the absurdity of whether or not this or that will happen, because we'd already be married, so who cares at this point?? I already don't, so why are some of the small 'what if's' such a big deal?

Let me explain...I'm so excited to get married to this guy:

He's my best friend!!

I want the day to be beautiful and special.  I have picked out everything with care so it will go with what our vision has been for our wedding, but there's about 3 weeks left and so many things that you just cannot control.  Like...the weather, or whether or not guests that arrive early to our outdoor, on the beach wedding, will or will not try to enter the tent where the reception is prior to the ceremony, or if local beach goers will try and go into the tent and eat our fruit display, or if someone will trip because the park might be too dark after sunset, or if it will be windy, or if people will get lost, or if there won't be enough parking...ahhh!!!!

We've done our best to rectify all these things, but sometimes, there are things out of our control.  I have accepted this, so why can't others that are involved?  It gets very frustrating rehashing these conversations.  This day should not be focused around fruit displays and wind.  My veil might fly off because it might be blowing 60 miles an hour, but we'll laugh, say 'I do' and be on our way to celebrate with friends and family at the reception, regardless of any other the things mentioned above.  Hey, we'd have a fun story to laugh about when we're 80 in rockers.  That is what the day represents...the official start of our lives together, the commitment we make before God and our loved ones...not trivial things outside of our control.  Some days, it just gets frustrating.  This past week has been just that.  I know it's just trying to be helpful, but I am just over worrying about things!

These next couple weeks are going to be a frenzy.  I'm going to continue moving stuff out of my place, I have friends renting my place that are starting to move in.  Then there's dress fittings, hair to be cut and highlighted, centerpieces to create, one of my good friends from high school getting married in 9 days!! a bachelorette party, and the week of the wedding.  Like whoa!

If things don't chill out, this may be us at the end of the month...

Wedding Wednesday!

Centerpieces!

This weekend, our centerpiece idea came to me!

Mason Jar Lanterns in three sizes so they are tiered....

...with sand, shells and floating candles...

I ordered the mason jars online in 1/2 gallon and quart size so far.  I might add a gallon size or a pint size to the trio depending on how they look together.  The project should be fairly inexpensive and our style.  So far, we are looking to be about $5 in for 3 mason jars per table...then the cost for the wire, floating candles, sand and shells...we should be under $10 per table which is very exciting!  Especially since we are estimating we will have about 32 tables to decorate...ahh!  Time to get good at tying wire!

What did you do for your centerpieces??

Day 11: What I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

Thanks MJ & Kit for hosting this!  It was fun!!

Things I am looking forward to in 2011:

Marrying John!

Snowboarding

My Bachelorette Party

Honeymooning :)

A couple of friend's weddings

Spending quality time with those I love

Girls Weekend!

Weekend Trips

Boating & Wakeboarding

Trips to the Beach

Trips to Tennessee

Wedding Guest List...woo...

Ok, so I'm sure those of you who have gone through the wedding planning process understand how stressful the guest list can be...especially when parents are involved/paying for the wedding.  They want their guests there.  Which is understandable to an extent.  Right now, we are in a tough spot, so I'd like to hear about what some of you did when inviting guests.

This seems somewhat appropriate right now:

Here's our dilemma:

Right now, our invite list is at 346...which is way cut down from the original request for guests invited and quite ridiculous if you ask me, but, if all guests are invited on this list...pretty much everyone else is happy.  From our best guess, we can assume that close to 100 of those aren't going to come.  Only 12 are confirmed as not coming so far though.  So it really is just a guess, and we could have 334 still attending.  We do not really have to space for that, but I can assume not every single person will come.  I also do not want that many people there.  In fact, I'd like to be under or at least near 200.

If I do the condensed guest list, some people won't be invited, from each person's requested invites.  And by some, I mean, I've been able to cut the invite list down to 266, which still includes the 12 people that aren't coming that makes our maximum attendance 254.  A little nicer, and I'm sure there will still be those who don't come.

The wedding is slightly out of town.  Maybe 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on where the guests that live locally are coming from. 

How many actually showed up from your invited list? 

If I did invite the large list, do you think that it would end up in a manageable number?  

I know it's just a guess, but from your past experience, I'd love to hear what happened for your wedding!

Any help would be awesome.  I have to start addressing very, very soon, and I just need to figure out what to do...everyone seems to want me to make the decision, but then some gripe when it's not what they wanted.  Ugh!  Eloping has been looking mighty nice lately!  Hello St. Lucia!! Ha.

Wedding Wednesday

Hair.  Oh hair.  I'm in a bit of an indecisive place right now about my hair on the big day.  We are getting married on the beach...which means lots of wind.  Ideally, I'd want my hair to look something like one of these styles:

But...there's the wind!  So I'm sort of thinking of wearing it back...at least a little so the whole time I'm trying to focus while committing to spend the rest of my life with John, I'm not laughing because my hair is flying everywhere.  So, I look at styles like these:

My dress is strapless, so I want some type of flowy hair, but do you think the wind would be too much?  Should I wear it up, or should I chance it and go with the down, beachy curls??

What would (or did) you do?

Random Tuesday

Since I decided to write about Christmas instead of my random blurbs on Monday with Miscellany Monday, I'm doing it today.  

Today, I feel random...

I'm still not out of my anti-work mode.  Yesterday, I got my car worked on where they gave me a rental to drive to work because they screwed up...big time...but this made me arrive late.  Then, I cleaned my office and my turtle tank.  I cleaned a lot...and found money.  I love it!

I ran a little over 8 miles last night and it felt fantastic.  John and I did our little loop and I can't tell you how good I felt.  It's been a little while since I've had a decent run with all the work dinners and parties we've had going on the last month.

I ran 8 miles last night, partly because I was literally dreaming about running and partly because I think I'm going to run a 1/2 marathon Sunday.  I'm still deciding, but my decision will probably be yes.  I can't help it...

I've been having strange dreams lately.  The night before last, I had a dream I was watching the neighbor on one side, dump a body at the neighbor on the other side's house.  It was weird.  His kids (which he really only has one) were staring at me through a window while I was watching this go on.  They looked like kids from 'The Shining', and no, I haven't watched that recently.

Last night, we watched 'Salt' with Angelina Jolie...fine actress, crazy hoe in my lowly opinion...(how could you do that to Jenn?!).  Anyway, back to 'Salt'...good movie if you like action thrillers mixing with a little drama.  I liked it.  I think there will be a sequel...and I'll watch it.  The movie also has three potential endings...I liked the second ending best.  Has anyone else seen this?  Which ending did you like?

This morning, there was ice on my car.  Enough, that I had to use a Christmas gift card to scrape it off my windshield and windows.  I had on my fingerless gloves, so the ice got all over my fingers and froze them!  I like being able to wear winter clothes, but between last year's frigid temperatures and this year already, I'm ready for shorts, tank-tops, flip flops, and sun!  Maybe a nice January trip to the beach like in years past??  Come on weather, cooperate! Ha!  (I know, I have no room to complain, I mean, we didn't get snowed in a have blackouts and blizzards, but the above mentioned reasons are why I live in Florida!!)

Two of my bridesmaid's dresses have come in!  They're so cute on them in the color and style we ordered!  I love it!!  Oh, and in case you don't check my wedding ticker at the top of the screen like I do, there's less than 3 months left now!! Woo hoo!  I better get my butt in gear and start doing the rest of the items on my list.

Lily was so cute at Christmas.  I have pictures to share.  Ready?

She was so tired after all her Christmas adventures here...

For New Years, we're going to the annual Marc & Christy party!  Yay!  I can't wait!  I feel like our group hasn't really gotten together since the Christmas party...I miss them and I'm ready! :)  Bring it 2011!!!

I'm still trucking through my Insanity workouts.  I've made it through month one and am in recovery week now.  So far, I've missed 2 days because of too much Christmas stuff and I'm allowing myself 3 cheats, so I have to be really good for the rest of the time.  Less than 5 weeks to go!  Score!

I found a lot I love.  It has a crappy house on it that needs work but it doable and I want to buy it.  So bad.  It's perfect, on a lake and really inexpensive for how big the lot is.  Problem is, both John and I have our own houses.  I think I'll sell mine...even if it is for a loss right now.  It'd save me money on  HOA fees.  Stupid fees.  Honestly, we shall see...I'll be researching today.

Thanks to those of you who commented on my love people post.  It is hard, but it's nice to see that I have others in my boat that feel the same way.  We can show them love, even though they choose not to reciprocate.  Not saying I'll be perfect at it, but at least I know it's just always going to be a work in progress...like everything else about me :)

So this was a little long, but it's my random Tuesday post :)  I hope you lovely ladies have a wonderful Tuesday!!