Our Summer Whirlwind

My two weeks in Greece were absolutely blissful!  It was a great time to relax, recharge, and think about all that has happened (and will happen!) this year.  I guess you could call it "soul searching," as I was also able to reflect on some of the this summer's "milestones."  This summer has been a whirlwind - starting with our engagement party, family trips, selling my car, and now, another huge step - starting a new job!!  When Adam and I first got engaged, I decided to put my job search on the shelf.  I thought I would be CRAZY for planning a wedding AND getting adjusted to a new job all in one year!  However, an opportunity arose that I just couldn't pass up!  The timing was just right, and taking this job seemed like the exact right thing to do. I will have a solid 8 months in my new position before the wedding.  Honestly, it feels like getting a new job was the last piece to my frantic-summer-puzzle!  And now that I've completed my job search, I can get back to the wedding :)

I'll admit - we've all but taken the summer off!  Theknot.com tells me I've completed 99% of the things I needed to do 12-9months before the wedding (yippie!).  But we're creeping up on 8 months... which brings with it A LOT!  My original goal was to have our STD's out by Labor Day (ehh...maybe that'll happen?).  But seeing that we haven't finalized the guest list (well not entirely!), asked all the wedding party (...crickets...), finalized our colors (we're SO close!), taken engagement pics, we've got a few obstacles in our way :)  We know what needs to be done, and I'm really excited about all the planning we have left to do and I'm trying to savor every moment of our engagement!

Travel sans the hubs-to-be

This weekend, my sister and I will be embarking on a most awesome adventure - WE'RE GOING TO GREECE (!!).  It's a trip we've been planning since we were in elementary school (no joke) with our best friend (and one of my b'maids).  She's Greek and has been to Greece pretty much every-other summer since we've known her.  Since we were 8 years old, we said "we'll go to Greece after high school graduation!" and that didn't work... then we tried after college graduation!... And that didn't work!  So finally, after our dear Greek friend graduated from Law School (she's taking the bar exam right now...GOOD LUCK!!), we're taking the trip we've been planning for almost 2 decades :)

What's funny for me now is that I'm engaged, and it feels a little weird to be going somewhere without Adam! Sure, we've traveled a bunch of time without the other (family trips, work trip, boy/girl trips, etc.), but now is there some sort of expectation what we should ALWAYS travel together (I think most of the Real Housewives of OC would say YES, but should they really by our role models? hahaha)?  I'm in the boat that taking trips separate from each other is actually a GOOD thing!  As much as I will want him in Greece with me and I'll miss him a lot (we were thinking of Greece as a h'moon destination!), I think having some time apart will be just fine & dandy :)  Actually, he's got a boys trip already lined up for a few days while I'm gone!

Also: I'm due to post pics from this month's Wild & Wonderful West Virginia wedding, this weekend's Cville Wedding (wahoowa!!), and of course, GREECE :)

Til then...I'll be sitting on the Greek beaches drinkin ouzo ;)

Oh weddings :)

We just came back from a truly unbelievable weekend in Snowshoe, WV. One of my best friends (and b'maids!) got married to one of Adam's fraternity brothers (another one of our great friends).  The festivities started on Thursday and lasted until Sunday - and all I can say is WOW.  They were surrounded by such happy, loving, supportive people who were SO excited about their nuptials!  I can't wait to post my pics and share some stories from this epic weekend!

During the weekend I also attended my FIRST rehearsal dinner!  The groom's family really set the bar high!  They had a delish cheese board with berries and sausage, a blue grass band (so appropriate for West Virginia), a really cool motif of the couple (it was one of their fav pics made up of much smaller pics...I'll try to find an example!), and the dinner was accompanied by heartfelt toasts from the two fathers and the MOH & Best Man.  Following the rehearsal dinner we met up with everyone else at one of the mountain top bars for more fun & festivities!

Ah - so many great ideas!!!  It was SUCH a great weekend!  Can't wait to post more.

PS - we're under the 300-day mark until May 7 (!!!!)

Back from Vacation!

Oh man!  A week(+) of vacation is never enough, is it?  It's always the 5th or 6th day of vacation when you really start to r e l a x :)  But we had a great time!

First - the girls weekend at the Greenbrier was a success, and I think the bride-to-be was thrilled with how the weekend went!  We stayed in a beautiful cottage, had great weather, and tons of time to catch up and have fun. 

Our family's week at the beach was full of bocce, corn-hole, happy-hours on the beach, World Cup viewings, and lots of yummy food!  The fact that the next time we'll all be at the beach together, I'll be a MRS was brought up a time or two as well :)  My twin cousins will also have graduated from high school AND know where they are going to college this time next year!  A lot to look forward to!

As far as OUR wedding plans go, we have nothing new to report!  The next BIG thing on our to-do list are the Save-The-Dates.  There are so many awesome designs to chose from, it's going to be hard!  OH- and we're almost done our wedding "wedsite"!!  The last piece of the puzzle is making sure all the groomsmen know that they are in the wedding (ahem, cough, Adam, cough).

I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July and that you're surviving this heat wave! More posts SOON!

Happiness is...

...the fact that in less than 24 hours I'll be reunited with dear friends to celebrate for a bachlorette weekend!  Indeed, one of my b'maids is getting hitched this July, and we're headed to The Greenbrier for some relaxation, games of black jack at the casino, and much more for the bride-to-be!  Her gracious MOH has a cottage at The Greenbrier and is hosting us for the weekend.  I used to go to The Greenbrier when we were younger (my mom's lawfirm would host retreats there) and I remember it being sooo gorgeous!! Can't wait!

AND, happiness is the fact that I'll be driving straight from the bachlorette party to THE BEACH!!  It is one of my most favorite times of the year!  Our family and my mom's sisters' families all crammed into one house.  Days full of reading good books, drinking cold drinks, bocce, crabbing, and just plain old fun.  It's funny, right after Adam and I got engaged, this week at the beach was one of the things I was looking forward to most!  Not that I imagine we'll be doing a lot of wedding planning at the beach, but just that it'll be us with our extended family, having fun!  Hopefully just like we'll be doing on May 7 ;)

Before I forget! I need to post soon about our recent weekend trip to Charlottesville!  My mom and I met with almost all of our vendors, and OH MY GOSH.  They all blew me away.  I've said it once, I'll say it 1 million more times - they are all so nice and put out the best vibes!  It is making this whole "planning a wedding" thing much less stressful :)

The McLean Engagement Party! (part 2)

Now for a post about the timeline of events leading up to the engagement party (which, even though it was almost two weeks ago, I still can't stop thinking about! Gosh it was fun).

10:45:  Mere and I arrive in McLean with Starbucks and our game-faces on, it's time to be put to work!
11:45:  My two aunts from Richmond arrive with food, coolers, and more helping hands, YAY!
1:15:    We take a lunch break and meet Adam and his momma (who is in town for the party) in town for a quick bite and we end up bringing them back to the house with us to help.  Seriously, we needed all the help we could get!
2-5pm: we are running and scurrying around outside & inside prepping, scrubbing, chopping, etc! Oh, and did I mention it was about 100 degrees outside and full humidity? Yep, welcome to a DC summer!  Luckily we had the A/C cranked up inside and lots of cold drinks to look forward to.  At this point we had enlisted the help of all my cousins, brothers, 1 neighbor (she was going to be our waitress for the night), and our roommate!  It was literally "all hands on deck."
6pm: party starts!  By the time we had our first margarita our nerves had calmed :)  I have no idea how we would have done it without everyone's help!

 Just some of the gorgeous & thoughtful decor my mom did :)

The party went by in a blur (albeit a happy, happy blur!), but I think Adam and I were able to speak with each and every one of the guests.  The outpouring of love, support, and well wishes from our friends and family was truly unbelievable!  And what I loved best was that our 20-something friends, my family, and our parents' friends got along SO WELL.  Everyone dealt with the sweltering heat without one complaint.  And the big hit of the night was when Auntie UVA brought out PATRON shots!!  My mom, and Adam's mom took some, too!  Too fun :)

Sweet sorority sisters who came to celebrate!

Wasn't kidding about that Patron!

Cheers!!

I think we're going to have our Atlanta engagement party this fall, and I'm already looking forward to round two.  If our McLean engagement party was any indication of what the wedding is going to be like, than I can't wait until May 7, 2011 :)

SPF 55

Happy (almost) Memorial Day!! The official kick-off to a much deserved summer of warm weather & hopefully lots of sunshine :)

Starting this weekend, I will be spending most weekends between now & September poolside (and most likely) bridal-magazine in hand.  And this got me thinking about bathing suits (I always like starting off the summer with 1 or 2 cute new suits!)...and then I started thinking about being tan...and then...BATHING SUIT TAN LINES.  I get tan (thanks, Dad!), but I'm not so good about being evenly tan, which means I get bathing suit tan lines bad.  Like, I still have my tan lines from LAST SUMMER (ok ok, and from Puerto Rico).  So I think I need to strategically plan my bikini buying for the next 12 months, because I'm pretty positive I'll be wearing a strapless white dress next May, and bathing suit tan lines are not invited to the wedding!

Another challenge I have, is that even though I get super dark, I still burn.  And my burns then turn into realllllly dark tans.  Again, not lookin' good for my tan lines. ARGH!

So here's my summer strategy: 

(source)

• SPF 30 for arms, legs, torso (ALL summer), and SPF 55 for my face + hat

• Bandeau bikini's non-stop (or at least, a majority of the time! How cute is this one on sale at Jcrew?)

And other than that, just try not to get toooo many tan lines!  I hope you have a great holiday weekend!!

[the top pic was taken at Pawley's Island last summer, one of my happy places!]