Officially a Mrs!

It has now been a week since Cody and I said “I do”. It has been a whirlwind experience and went by faster than you can possibly imagine. Instead of doing my usual weekend recap (you can check out from past ones here), I wanted to recap that whirlwind experience and share some of our photographs we’ve received from that amazing day!

We flew into Iowa Wednesday and was picked up by Cody’s parents. Wednesday had a sad tone to it as we had to say our final goodbyes to Grandma Great, Cody’s great-grandma. It was sad but we were glad that she could now come to the wedding in spirit as she was too weak to come in person.

Thursday we got up and went to pick up our wedding bands and I got my ring cleaned for the big day. My mom met us there so her and I could go run some errands and Cody could spend some more time with his family. Mom and I picked up some last minute details for the wedding and got our nails done together.

Thursday night Cody came back to my parents by the time supper was ready. We spent the evening writing letters to our wedding party, parents, and each other; we decided a letter would be a great gift to give each other and a keepsake forever. That night we also got everything organized so we knew what went where.

Friday we got up and finished some last minute things, including picking up the tuxes, before heading to the venue to set up our stations and put chair covers on. We had so much help, which I was grateful for everyone who came to help out. My family, Cody, and I grabbed some lunch before splitting up to get ready for rehearsal.

We met up at the church where rehearsal when swimmingly. Then we headed over to Brown Bottle, an Italian restaurant downtown, for the rehearsal dinner. It was great food and even greater company!

The wedding party decided to go out a little longer then split off and we hung out with our respective parties until it was time to get a good night’s sleep.

Saturday was a great day from start to finish. Everything went smoothly and the weather couldn’t have been better! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

First thing I did was read my letter and shed a few tears.

Sunday we had brunch and gift opening with family and friends then we each got to spend our last full day in Iowa with our families. I was glad I was able to spend some time with our family and friends that came from out of town.

It was a wonderful time and I am so excited to be married to the man of my dreams! Here are some of the fantastic pictures our photographer, Ashley Corrine Photography, captured.

Spring Break Busyness

Holy hanna I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post. With being gone for spring break back in Iowa then coming back and having to take care of wedding, school, and life tasks, I could never find the time to sit and write until now. I’m hoping I can get on a regular schedule or schedule them ahead of time once the wedding is over.

After spending the first couple of days of spring break at home, I flew back to Iowa to do more wedding tasks and to celebrate with my ladies at my bachelorette party and bridal shower.

When I arrived, it was a great surprise to see Marci there to pick me up and take me to my parents’ house.

Mom and I got right into the car and headed up to my cousin’s to do my hair trial. She did such a great job!

That night when we got home I got to see my dad and we put together care bags.

Thursday I had the opportunity to watch my students from last year perform in a play.

Thursday evening Mom and I went to a meeting with our decorator and saw our great head table backdrop. I would share a picture but I want to save it as a surprise for our guests.

Friday morning we started with getting our nails done in the morning and a smoothie for breakfast.

Mom and I did some running around to try and find someone to fix some alterations on her dress and stopped at Hobby Lobby to pick up some flowers for my toss bouquet. My aunts ended up doing a great job putting it together!

That afternoon I was able to go have lunch with my old kiddos. I then came home and mom and I went to have a make-up trial. She did a great job making it look like I wanted.

We got home just in time to get ready for my bachelorette party. We started our adventure with dinner and drinks at Montage.

After dinner we headed back to my mom’s house to hang out and play some games. Marci did a great job putting everything together and Kelly was amazing to help her set up. She did a Disney-themed party, including three signature drinks for my three favorite Disney movies and a photo area.

We played a few games. We matched the love songs to the movie, connected the princess with the prince, did some Disney trivia, and the lingerie shower.

Before we headed out we did a little photo shoot.

We headed out to Main Street for a good time, went dancing. We had such a great time and I loved spending with all of these lovely ladies who mean the world to me!

Saturday we had my bridal shower. I was able to celebrate with more wonderful women! Thanks for my mom, aunts, and cousin to putting everything together. It was great food, fun, and family/friends.

We also received some nice gifts, even something for our little Cooper 🙂

After the shower, we did a little shopping for my flower girl’s dress and shoes. She’s going to look so cute!

The rest of the day was hanging out at home, having a yummy supper of lasagna, and looking through old pictures for our slideshow.

We woke up super early to head to the airport Sunday morning. I flew home and Cody and I had a nice Sunday brunch at Cracker Barrel and went on a walk (saw our first gator since moving here).

It was a wonderful break and we got a handle on quite a few things. We still have a few things to get done but I can’t believe in two weeks I get to marry the love of my life!

Finding the “Other” White Dress

One of the best parts of this whole wedding process is finding THE dress. I definitely found mine. But there is another white dress we have to remember to get, one for the rehearsal dinner. Sometimes we even need one for our bachelorette party like I do. I can be hard to find the perfect “other” dress.

I started with looking at some of my favorite stores online. I knew it would be a good time to look for white dresses with Easter right around the corner.

I looked at Francesca’s first as I heard they had a good selection.

Elody Crochet Dress (no longer available in ivory)

Keira Eyelet Dress

Remi Scalloped Dress (no longer available in white)

My mom also sent me the link of a dress from LOFT (my favorite store as you may know!)

Allover Eyelet Dress

Scuba Lace Sheath Dress

Now I’m not one to hastily buy clothes online as I never know if they will fit right, especially if I feel like I won’t have enough time to return it. So, to avoid that hassle, I went into a couple of the stores to find these dresses and try them on.

The first place I went to was a consignment store in Mount Pleasant called Uptown Cheapskate. I tried on a couple different ones and found one I really liked, AND it was only $9.00! This dress is going to be great for the bachelorette party with my blue wedges. (Sorry for my not so thrilled face haha)

Since I found it for such a great deal, I still wanted to check out the other stores to make sure it was what I wanted or if I found another good deal.

Next stop was LOFT and I was able to try on that dress my mom found. I loved the fit and the eyelet pattern, but I wasn’t sure if it was the “it” dress.

My last stop was Francesca’s. First I tried on the Remi Scalloped Dress and that did not fit right/a little low for my taste. My girls are definitely not the right size for this dress haha.

I tried on a different eyelet dress here too. I first tried on the medium but it was little big so I put on the small and liked the look. I definitely liked the eyelet dress from LOFT over the Keira one at Francesca’s.

The last dress I tried was the Elody Crochet Dress and I fell in love with it the minute I put it on! It fit great and I love the ivory color. This is the perfect dress for my bridal shower AND rehearsal dinner, plus I got a discount on it which is always nice.

I’m so excited to wear these dresses this coming weekend for my bachelorette party and bridal shower and that I got both dresses for what I would’ve spent on one.

25 more days until I do!!!

Steps to Becoming a Mrs. Part 2

You can find Part 1 here.

Over Christmas break Cody and I not only spent time with our family and friends, we also did quite a bit of wedding planning!

We started with looking at our wedding bands!

My mom and I then found my wedding shoes! I fell in love with them the moment I put them on my feet 🙂

One day we dedicated all to wedding stuff and of course it was the day a foot of snow fell on us. We started that day with applying for our marriage license! It was so cool to write my new full name 🙂

Cody and I then went to meet with the church’s music director to discuss ceremony music and the meeting was SUPER productive, I think we picked some great music! We then met with our wedding coordinator to go over some details for the ceremony.

I was able to get my first hair trial done! It was good to get a visual and to figure out what I liked and disliked for my next round. And I LOVE my hair piece 🙂

We ended the day with an amazing meeting with our decorator/florist. We came up with some many great ideas and options (these are just a few pieces we looked at), I can’t wait to see how it all comes together!

We also met with our pastor during that week for our premarital counseling and it went really well! I think he is going to do a great job!

We were able to pick out the tuxes and see Cody’s full get-up for the day!

We tasted some delicious cakes!

Finally, we met with our reception venue to choose our dinner and to discuss the layout of the reception!

We got so much done that week, but we still have a lot of details, both big and small, to take care of. Right now our focus is getting our invites sent out (thanks to Marci for making them!) and booking our honeymoon!

Only 94 days left!!! 🙂

 

Steps to Becoming a Mrs. Part 1

Happy Friday y’all! It was a great day as we ended up having school cancelled today due to all this crazy rain and flooding in the Charleston area. With it supposed to rain all weekend, I’m looking forward to so much relaxing and hopefully no cabin fever!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on a Friday (which is a day I would actually like to post on but I never get one scheduled in time…), so today I decided to write my first wedding post!

It all started on April 11th when Cody surprised me by bringing our families and closest friends together and proposing at one of our favorite fancy restaurants! They even had a friend there to capture everything on camera (Thanks Brittany Drew Images)!

With us moving 2 months later, we knew we had a lot of big wedding items to take care of beforehand if we wanted to get married in Iowa. I’ll do a separate post on all we did before we moved. But something we knew we wanted to wait to do until after we moved to Charleston was take our engagement photos. We really wanted our engagement photos to reflect the new life we were starting on our own and about 2 weeks ago we finally got them taken. Our photographer was quick to turn around and send us all our photos. Taylor Rae Photography truly did an amazing job and I’m so glad we chose her to capture our love and happiness! I thought I would share some of them with y’all (it’s always hard to choose which ones to share because we love all of them!) 🙂

And my personal favorite…

Oh my gosh do I undeniably love this man and I cannot WAIT to call myself his wife! 🙂

Be on the lookout for more updates with our planning 🙂 I talked a little about doing the first part of our wedding registry in this post.