Save the Date Reveal

Our save the dates went out last week and they should have safely arrived in everyone's mailbox so I can reveal them here on the blog! (We have one more batch to send out but I'm fairly certain no one in that batch reads nor knows I have a blog, haha!) I have been patiently  waiting to get those bad boys in the mail. I used the website uprinting.com to create these and I could not be happier with how they turned out. They arrived very quickly and looked better than I could have expected and were a great price point, too! I actually used PicMonkey to design the front and back and then uploaded the files to uprinting and they let you measure it to your page and fix it exactly how you like. We opted for postcards and I'm really glad that we did, they turned out so good! I had some pinterest inspiration for the design of our card. I came across this card quite some time ago and it thought it was so modern and fresh, like nothing I'd seen before and I knew I wanted to that design. I showed it to Josh and he liked it just as much as I did, so we had a winner! 

And drum roll please...our card!

We may or may not have gotten obnoxiously huge  adorable stamps made with our faces on them. If I told you I wasn't in love with them, I'd be lying big time. Even Josh liked them #winning. 

Sending these out really puts into perspective for me that we are just a week away from being 4 months away from our wedding, holy heavens.

And I have to give a big shout out to the mister, he has terrific handwriting so he wrote out all of the save the dates and did quite a good job. After my prodding and "why aren't you writing" and him "I'm taking a break"...after writing one line, bless him. Nevertheless, they all got done and he survived! Thanks babe, you did well!

We're 129 days away from this wedding people...In the words of one of my bridesmaid and best friend, Rebecca, "-ish is getting real." Yes, yes it is. 

5 month picture, but now it's almost 4!

Weekend Rewind

What a great weekend that just passed! Friday night we went to our taste testing at our venue. They prepared their most popular dishes for us to taste and oh my goodness gracious, I could have sat there and eaten for days. The food was fantastic! Everyone always says that the bride and groom never get to eat at their wedding, well I assure you, I will be sitting somewhere and eating that delicious food, I promise you. 

Friday during the day we went to Belk and worked on our registry. We picked out our bedding, wahoo! Its beautiful but let me tell you, Josh and I have completely different styles and we may or may not have almost had a throw down in the midst of comforters and throw pillows. But no fear, we made up minutes later and compromised on a beautiful bedroom set that we both loved. We also got some pots and pans, beautiful serving dishes and towels. 

Saturday my sorority sister Tesla and her boyfriend were in town looking for apartments because she is starting law school at Carolina in the fall! I can't wait for her to be here full time and it was so nice to see her this weekend and enjoy lunch with her and Ridge. Saturday night Josh and I had the privilege of attending Josh (another one, ha!) and Taylor's wedding! It was beautiful and we had a great time! Congratulations Josh and Taylor, we wish we all the happiness in the world! We hope you have the best time in Florida and enjoy a lifetime of love and happiness! Josh, my Josh, had to save the day because Taylor left their wedding license in her car, at the hotel, so he had to rush and go get it with like 15 minutes to go before the ceremony but he made it! The group of guests there were made up of a lot of people that Josh went to high school and college with so it was nice to meet his friends from a few years ago, they were all very sweet!

On Mothers Day we headed to church and then went to my dads parents and had lunch and then came home and moms side came over and we had cake to celebrate the moms and grandmothers! On our way home we stopped by the market and mom, dad and I picked out new flowers for the yard. We came home and mom and I did work on the front of the house while dad was in the back. We planted flowers in front of the house and around the mailbox. Mom and I planting flowers is nothing short of hilarious but I must say, they look darn good. But mom did get a splinter and we had to do bathroom surgery. Planting flowers made me excited for Josh and I to have a house of our own and a yard to make beautiful! 

I did a "beauty box" theme for mom's gift. I have her a curly iron, this adorable shirt, and a box full of new eye shadows, brushes, nail polish, blush, and chocolate...I think it was a hit. So thankful to have a great relationship with my mom and it is an honor to be her daughter!

Our save the dates went out Friday! So, so excited! I'll be revealing them on the blog this week, I can't wait to show you!

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: REGISTERING + UPDATES

I sure do love a good Wedding Wednesday post! Lots of updates on our wedding today, we've been crossing a lot of things off of our list! I can't wait to be Mrs. Colvin :)

-We've purchased Josh's wedding band, should be here July 1st. Let me tell you how handsome my groom looked with that ring on his finger, oooo weeee!

-We met with our DJ and his wife is going to be our wedding director. They were the nicest people, I can't rave about them enough and how excited they made me for the wedding because they were so excited about it. Good people I tell you. 

-We picked out all of our flowers and arrangements!

-Picked out the bridesmaid dresses! They are beautiful and I can't wait to see how stunning the girls are going to be. 

-Our personalized stamps came in!

-We got baskets for our favor boxes and assembled most of the boxes. 

Now onto registering. We began our registry at Target this weekend and I must say, it was really fun. Josh was hilarious going up and down the aisle with the scan gun. We got lucky and there was literally NO one on the kitchen aisles while we browsed for our stuff. We really took our time to make sure we looked at everything and to pick out what we liked best. We did forget a few things and will be going back at the end of this week to add a few more things. We ventured to Bed, Bath & Beyond after to pick up a gift for a friends wedding that is this weekend and that is also another place we had planned on registering. But after going in there was had second thoughts. Now, I've been in BBB many times but going in and looking at all the stuff and trying to rack my brain to think where we would even start to register in there was mind boggling. They literally just have too much stuff, we were so overwhelmed. So we're putting them on the back burner for now and I think we're going to go to Belk and register for some more towel sets, bedding and luggage. 

Now tell me, where did you register? Where did you have the most luck? Josh and I were being suuuuuuuper polite on our first trip to Target and were trying not to register for too many things and trying not to register for anything really expensive. But then we realized that we needed more things than we had put on our registry and if we did put a big ticket item, more than one person could go in together and purchase it for us if they so desire. 

So round one of registering really was fun. I loved picking things out that will go in our new home, together. Plates that we'll sit together at our dinner table and eat off of while we discuss our days. Small appliances that I know we'll use to try new recipes that may or may not be delicious. It all seemed to come together and our new life together that is right around the corner seemed so real. It filled my heart to the brim. 

So, ready, set, go tell us what is a MUST for our registry and what places are a must for registering. 

Clearly we enjoyed ourselves.

DAD THE PRANKSTER

Dad oh Dad...do I have a story for y'all today. This past week  I had a freak out because I thought I had misplaced my engagement ring. Here's how the story goes...

I was in the shower one night and I use our hall bath. I laid my ring on the counter because I don't like to shower with it on. I got out and went about my business. Normally, I always pick up my ring and put it back on but tonight I didn't for some reason. An hour or two passed and I went to go to bed and realized that I didn't have it on so I went to the bathroom to get it and...no. ring. 

I looked in all the places I could think that it'd be and I couldn't find it so I go get mom out of bed and her and I start on a hunt for it. We tore the house APART. I mean taking out couch cushions, on my HANDS AND KNEES crawling down the hall with a flash light, and I truly thought the ring fell down the sink. I literally had my head under the faucet and I just knew it had fallen down there. Mom thought there was no way it could get down there because my ring is pretty big and the slot is pretty small. We took the living room apart again, I looked in every nook in my room and I just knew we had to take the sink apart. We were thisclose to waking dad up but he was sleeping so well snoring and had to get up for work the next day. 

Just before I was going under the sink to figure it out to take it apart mom looked on the opposite side of the counter from where my ring was. And it was just sitting pretty behind mom's night cream. And it so happened that mom didn't put her night cream on this particular night because her skin was super dry and she used a different cream. ANY other night she would have put her cream on and seen the ring. I was so relieved when she found it, oh you just don't know! I thought maybe when I picked up my clothes it got tossed across the counter but it all just seemed so odd that it got that far from it's initial spot. 

So fast forward to the next night, mom and dad are riding together in the car sitting at a stop light and dad goes "oh did Lindsay find her ring last night?" Mom said her eyes almost popped out of her head and that she almost socked him one, ha! He had saw my ring on the counter and HID IT behind mom's night cream while I was in the shower. He figured that since mom puts on her night cream every night she'd surely see it and when I started looking for it she'd know where it was. He also meant to tell me where it was before he went to bed but he wanted me to "sweat it" a little and fell asleep before he told me. 

That man almost sent me into cardiac arrest! And he got a kick out of it. The next night after I got home he said "if you ever make that much noise while I'm trying to sleep..." and my mind suddenly went racing I was like "WHAT YOU HEARD ME?! YOU DIDN'T GET UP!?!?" And he started laughing uncontrollably and told me the whole story. I was in shock and he was so tickled by the whole thing that I just couldn't bring myself to be that mad at him. 

So I have learned my lesson and will now listen to Josh allllll the times he's told me "don't leave your ring on the counter" and now place it in a nice special place in my room each night while I shower. Oh dad. 

FINALLY, A FULL LONDON RECAP

The beautiful and talented Shanna at Because Shanna Said So just got back from her fabulous trip to London because she is Wallis' US Ambassador. She's been recapping her London trip this week and it's made me looooong to be back there. Then it dawned on me dang it, I didn't do my full recap of my trip. Life sure does get in the way sometimes huh? Well noooo fear, I am here today to fully recap London!

As you remember I went for Spring Break which was about mid-March. We left Atlanta on Thursday evening around 10:30 pm and arrived in London the next day around 12:30 pm. When we were landing we were almost ON THE GROUND before you could even see anything because the clouds hung so low. And it was cloudy quite a few days but we have TWO full days of sun on our trip and if you know anything about London, then you know we got really lucky. Sunny days are few and far between across the pond. We stayed in a hotel called the Celtic. Our rooms were teeeeeeny tiny and it was community bath and there was no AC or heat, just a little heater that we had to cut on at night or else we would have frozen to death, ha! Also, there was a knob for cold and a knob for hot at the sink which you couldn't have on at the same time. So you either had ice cold or scaulding hot water. However the location of the hotel was perfect and everything was little right outside of our door and it was a great price to stay there and we got a FULL and I'm talking, eggs, bacon, sausage, juice, hot chocolate, coffee, toast, cereal AND porridge breakfast every morning. I think the breakfast is what I missed most when we left. 

I opted to not use my cell phone at all and took my tablet. I skyped home or facebook messaged with my family just about everyday. They lobby has wifi and we all had to fight to sit in the right spots to get the best service, it was quite the sight in the evenings when we were all trying to phone home. 

I'm not going to recap each day in order, I'm just going to go through all that we did. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace and I was in love. Oh my goodness, I love the royals so being in a place they frequent, oh I was beside myself. And if the queen is in, her flag flies atop the palace and wouldn't you know her flag was up one day when we went! I also couldn't get over the fact that I was looking at the balcony that Will and Kate graced on the day of their wedding. The guards jobs kind of looks like it sucks but it was neat to see what a production that put on everyday to change the guards. Horses, trumpets, music, tons of guards, it was really neat to see. We rode a double decker bus and we got to ride up top and as fun as it was, Lord have mercy I thought that bus was going to hit everything in sight! London folks drive cray cray, really they do. And the drive on the opposite side of the car and street so you have to look the OPPOSITE way before you cross the street or else you're toast...you don't want to know how many times I was almost toast. We rode the London Eye one day and it was magical. The thing is HUGE and so modern! When you're inside of it you can walk all around it and literally see every place in London. Also there was the greatest thing known to man right beside the Eye...two words, chocolate waffles. Holy cow. If you ever go to London, go down near the eye and there is a little waffle shop right next to it, you must stop. It is the greatest thing I have ever eaten...ever. 

How about the tube?! We rode it everywhere. We got Oyster cards which get you on and off the tubes and London is broken up into zones. Our cards took us through zones 1, 2 and 3 and that covered just about all of the city. The tubes are a land of their own. You better grab hold to your purse and put the petal to the medal while you're inside those things. People are pushing, running, and there are people ALWAYS filling the tube, so so so busy. And have mercy if you really needed to be on a certain line and it was full, you'd push your way through anyway. I can't tell you how many times we stood on there literally packed and standing right up next to the person beside you, it was madness. But kind of fun I must admit. Every time you got on and off the tube it said "mind the gap" and we got a kick out of that. Instead of saying watch your step, watch your head, etc. they said "mind" in London, it's hilarious. 

We went to the Victoria and Albert museum and the Natural History museum one day and both places were so neat. The V&A has tons of history that was so neat, it was definitely worth going to and spending a few hours walking around in there. The museums are also always packed. We went to an evensong service at West Minster Abbey and man oh man what a stunning place, the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Also another awe struck moment because KATE WALKED DOWN THAT AISLE. And William Shakespeare is buried in there which is pretty cool too...but not as cool as the royal wedding, ha! You couldn't take pictures in there which made me sad because it was so huge and decorated with so much detail that it was hard to take it all in. The service was beautiful and was mostly singing. We also went to St. Peters one day and explored around, another stunning sight. I wish we had beautiful cathedrals like that in the states!

Oh and on a side note, people in London think that everyone that is from America with the slightest hint of a southern accent is from Texas it was hilarious how many times we got asked if we were from Texas. We saw Big Ben and parliament and it was almost a surreal sight to see Big Ben because it is so iconic and beautiful at night time when it is all lit up. We went to Her Majesty's theater and saw Phantom of the Opera last night and we had magnificent seats. One balcony up, front row, it was awesome and the production was phenomenal, the cast was great! We also went to the M&M store and it was massive. I've been to the one in NYC but being in the one in London was so much better ha! They had the M&M people set up like the Beatles walking across Abbey Road on the bottom floor, very creative. We took a tour of the British Library and got to see the original Magna Carta and the largest atlas in the world! 

We visited Shakespeares Globe and crossed the Millennial Bridge and the London Bridge...which is not as fantastic as I was expecting but the Tower Bridge, holy moly, beautiful! On a side note, we probably walked close to 20 miles a DAY so good walking shoes are a MUST when traveling in London. We visited Kensington Palace which is where Princess Diana lived for a long time and again, another place I was in awe of! AND Will and Kate have an apartment in there :) London also has tons of parks so we ventured through those and saw the Peter Pan statue and Princess Diana's memorial. 

We toured the Tower of London one day and I got to SEE THE CROWN JEWELS with my own two eyes. I was in heaven, you have no idea. You get on this moving platform type thing to view them so they can push you along a little quicker...well just so happens no one was behind me on the platform so I kept walking backwards so I could look at them over and over again. They were so beautiful and sparkled like no other, I could hardly believe I was looking at them! The tower was so neat because it used to be the palace for the royals, like Buckingham is now and a lot of killing took place there, a lot of famous killings. It was like a land of it's own once you got inside. 

Let's talk about the shopping in London. It was a fashionistas dream. Stores, everywhere! There was this store called Primark, 4 stories, HUGE, clothes ranged from about 2 pounds to 15 pounds...CHEAP! And the style in there was like no other. Beautiful pieces of clothing and tons of clothing to look at. I swear we visited it like 12 times on our trip and the great thing? There was one practically on every block! London has more shopping than you can imagine, F21, H&M, TopShop and Primarks were on every street corner. There is also a department store there called Harrods which I referred to as a Macys on steroids. It was 7 floors, massive, and the designers inside were Christian Louboutin, Vera Wang, Manolo Blahnik, etc. you get the jist, expeeeeensive. 

We took a day trip to Stonehenge, Jane Austens house, and Winchester. Stonehenge was really neat to see but COLD, holy crap. I'm talking like negative degrees and the most wind you have ever felt in your life. People from out hotel had told us how cold and windy it was but it's something you can't understand until you get there. Absolutely freezing, as soon as I stepped off the bus it took my breath away, literally, because that's how cold it was. But I was determined and toughed it out and walked the whole way around the structure. I forgot to to mention that a professor from our school rented us a super nice bus for our 2 hour trip outside the city for this day, so nice of him! After Stonehenge we went to Jane Austens home where we thought we were touring her house but there was some miscommunication and we toured her brother's house, the Chawton house, instead. We did get to see her house though and her brothers house was really neat as well. As fate would have it, after I snapped 2 pictures of Stonehenge my camera died. But I have lots of vivid memories and everyone else on the trip took pictures and shared! We finished the day at Winchester which is a little town outside of London and they have a university there where some of our students from Lander were studying abroad so we had lunch with them at the school and took a tour then took a tour of Winchester Cathedral...the longest cathedral in Europe and another beautiful one, I LOVED our tour guide there. It was this old man that was hilarous! I forgot to mention earlier that when we went to the service at West Minster we saw a real life nun! At the University of Winchester they have bars and clubs INSIDE the school. The bottom floor of there student center was full of chic furinture, dark lighting, and any beer and drink you could imagine. I thought it was hysterical that they most popular bars and clubs were inside the school. I guess it keeps their students safe because they don't have to travel? Definitely a stark contrast from Lander because we are a dry campus. 

Some funny things: they call potato chips crisps and they call french fries chips. They say "mind" instead of "watch", they call their trash rubbish, they call their bathrooms toilets (and there are hardly ANY public bathrooms!), they have porridge instead of grits, they drive on the opposite side of the street and all of their cars are tiny, they call the subway the tube, they don't tip at restaurants  and I'm sure I'm forgetting half the interesting things they say or do over there!

It seems hard to recap a 10 day long trip but I think I covered most everything. It was a great experience and I hope to go back again one day because I know Josh would love it over there! London, you're a great city and my fingers are crossed that I get to come back and see you again soon!

GIRLS TRIP TO PARADISE

It's been quiet around here the past few days huh? Well I just got back last night from a girls trip to Panama City Beach, Florida! We had such a good time and it was the perfect way to kick off the summer season! I went with my friends Mackenzie, Paige and Caroline and we got a great Groupon for a hotel/condo on the beach. The beaches on the gulf are much better than SC beaches. The sand was so white and fluffy and the water was clear and a beautiful blue/green color, oh my take me back! We decided that we're going to make this an annual shindig because it is so important to take good care of your relationship with your friends. We want to be able to commit and extended weekend to spend with each other every year.

By the way, I now have a little bit of hatred in my heart for Georgia. I swear to you we spent the whole entire trip driving through all these back roads of Georgia with nothing in sight...not a thing. Now of course, I don't actually hate Georgia but after the 81/2 hour ride there and the 8 1/2 hour ride back, I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to drive across Georgia for awhile, ha!

We shopped, rode a banana boat through the ocean (which was hysterical), ate some great food, laughed until we couldn't anymore and just had the best, relaxing vacation.

  

Now it's back to reality...booooo. But on the bright side, our save the dates are being ordered today and we're meeting with our florist this week, yay! I cannot wait to reveal our save the dates to you guys in a couple weeks, I slaved over these bad boys! We have tickets to see Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown Band this weekend and I am stoked, I can't wait for Saturday! 

I'm still on the job hunt with no leads quite yet so if you'd keep me in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it! 

WHAT NOT TO DO AT A WEDDING DRESS FITTING

A random title for a post, right? Well let me tell you, I definitely have a list of what to do and not to do for a wedding dress fitting after my fitting yesterday. 

First let me start off by saying how surreal it was to have my dress fitted yesterday! I don't think I've mentioned on here but I got a steal of a deal for my wedding dress, but the downside is there was only one...and it was a size 8...I happen to be about half that size, maybe a little less. So needless to say, a lot had to be done to this dress, basically taking half of it off and rebuilding it a bit. 

They lady I'm working with for the alteration is amazzzzing, she really couldn't be any sweeter or easier to work with. And knowledgeable about wedding dresses, which makes me feel very confident leaving that very important dress with her. 

Anyway, point of the post. My dress had a lot to be done with it so it took her about an hour and a half to get the dress pinned for alterations. Before we started she asked me if I had eaten lunch because I was going to be standing for awhile and I said no but that I'd had breakfast and I wasn't feeling too hungry quite yet and that I'd be OK...oh boy was I w-r-o-n-g. 

About 50 minutes in I started to get really hot and I started to get really hungry. I was thinking to myself, I really should have had a snack and some water before I got up here. I was having to hold my dress up for her so she could pin underneath it (because there are like 67 million layers) and it was starting to get heavy. The next thing I know, black spots start closing in on my eyes and I remember saying "I think I need to sit down" and sure enough, I sat alright, but not very gracefully. The black spots took over my eyes and I passed out right on the floor, fell off the platform I was standing on and was covered in that gigantic wedding dress as I was laying on the floor, what a mess. I came to and my mom was looking me straight in the face with this look on her face like "oh my lord". The seamstress was holding my dress and her husband caught me from hitting my head on the floor. 

As not funny as it was that I fainted, whenver I came to I was surrounded by my wedding dress and for some reason I just thought it was so funny that I was sprawled out on the floor with all these pins in my wedding dress and it spread all over the floor and crinkled up around my head, haha what a sight I'm sure that was. 

After standing for so long and holding the dress up and being pinned, it was not a very good combination and down like statue I went. My poor mom was so afraid, the look on her face was priceless, bless her heart. So future brides, when going to your dress fitting, if you know you're going to be there for awhile do the following: 

Eat (at least) a snack before going and bring a bottle of water with you

Bring gum or mints to keep your blood sugar from falling 

After standing for about 30-45 minutes ask your seamstress if you can sit for a few minutes (I promise she won't mind)  

Don't lock your knees and don't look forward or down the whole time

My seamstress was such a doll and said this happened more times than I'd imagine. I think I apologized a million times for having to hold up our appointment but she didn't mind one bit and she checked on me time and time again once we got started back. 

So, I hope me fainting in this dress isn't a bad omen, haha! Mom said to make sure our ceremony was quick so I didn't have to stand still for too long and to make sure her seat was really close to me so she could be on alert, haha! What an adventure. I can't wait to get my dress back and see what it looks like when it finally fits!