16 June, 2008
We’re Baaaaack!
We’re back from our honeymoon in Belize and our wonderful wedding. You guys will get the honeymoon updates first while our pictures are getting ready so keep an eye out. Record heat on our wedding day of 101 degrees (yes, an outdoor wedding). Normally it’s 80 this time of year in Norfolk. I think this photo accurately captures how stifling it was that day. Picture by my sister Heidi.
Thanks for all the well-wishes, for everyone who braved the heat and came out and to all my friends who helped with everything, it was awesome because of you! Glad to be back, I’m an old married woman now!
22 May, 2008Explosion in a pom pom factory
Thanks to my wedding decor recruits Tasha, Deva, Grace & Maegan for helping with all this last night. Centerpieces done! (not pictured) and 75% of pom poms done! Next week we tackle programs!
Fifteen days left!
01 May, 2008Shower time!
Majorly good times were had on Sunday at my bridal shower! Best one I’ve ever been to, hands down.
We pigged out on delicious vegan food lovingly prepared by my sister Heidi and my dad, then we all headed outside to decorate cupcakes. (Big thanks to Amanda for all the awesome cupcake decorating supplies). We had a little contest for best cupcake decor. It got a little heated. I ate mine before the judging, so I figure I won anyway.
Coconut icing and presents. Does it get better than that?
We played a one-sided newlywed game where Jimmy (ahead of time) revealed disgusting habits and fun stories about us. Turns out my memory of our first kiss is flawed - it was not in some dark parking lot of a now defunct venue in Newport News (yikes), it was in my room, he spelled out “can I kiss you” on my magnetic poetry board. That’s right, say it all together, “Awwwww…..” Such an awesome day with my friends, and no one had to get wrapped in toilet paper. Everyone should have such an awesome shower!
14 April, 2008Project invite: done!
Yesterday one of my brideslaves and Jimmy helped me get all the invites assembled, stamped and lovingly licked and sealed (my apologies to anyone who got things written inside their envelope, I couldn’t stop Jimmy, the little vandalist). They’re in the mail today! (Pretty detail shots coming soon)
I went for my first dress fitting on Saturday, and I am beyond excited. I’m having my dress custom-made (more people should seriously do this, it’s amazingly cheap) and Eda has captured my vision perfectly. We need to make a few bust and shoulder alterations, second fitting is this Saturday!
Also, have you seen our wedding website? Amber & Jimmy.com
07 April, 2008Hairdo!
Finally, finally got my hair colored (seriously growing out layers is great but 3-inch roots, not so great). I’m loving it as usual, plus Matt & Megan (at Wink Salon) worked on my hairdo for the wedding. Amanda helped me whip up this veil and fascinator on Friday night, it was super easy (thanks Amanda)! The veil will actually come to the tip of my nose, it creeped up a little bit when we were pinning it. I am in love with this hairdo!
26 February, 2008Wedding: Flowers
Finally it’s time for a wedding-related post! These will be more frequent as we get details nailed down. First I just have to send out a huge thank you to my mom. I have heard a lot of girls say their mothers were extremely controlling during the whole process and drove a lot of the decisions about their wedding. They ended up doing things they weren’t comfortable with, even down to wearing a dress they hated!
My mom is not like this at all, even though she could have every right to be. I am so fortunate to have her complete financial backing for this wedding, and so far she has been 100% behind all my decisions! Now that we’re getting most of the big hairy contract things nailed down, I can’t wait to get her creative advice on the fun details. I had no idea how quickly all the expenses could pile up and I am eternally grateful to her for throwing Jimmy and I a totally amazing wedding, I cannot wait! And I can’t believe it’s basically only three months away!
So let’s talk about flowers. My floral vendor for the wedding is Norfolk Wholesale Floral, who I highly recommend! They handled my sister Heidi’s wedding in 2005 and were recommended by a few friends as well. I met with floral designer Sandy a few weeks ago to go over my ideas for flowers and my samples just came in today. I wanted to share my experience and give a little unsolicited advice on wedding flowers.
Shop around. The quotes I got were vastly, vastly different depending on where I went. Not only did Norfolk Wholesale come out to be the least expensive, they also came up with the quote on the spot, I didn’t have to wait a week or wonder if what I was dreaming about flowerwise was going to match up with what I was willing to allot to flowers budgetwise. I was able to say, I don’t want to spend more than $30 on each bridesmaid, and Sandy told me what my options were in that price range.
Keep an open mind. Originally I wanted a big floofy bouquet of peonies for myself with smaller ones for my bridesmaids and centerpieces with orchid blossoms. Once I found out the cost of these flowers however, I decided that I loved other flowers just as much and could try out some new flowers I’d never even heard of. Think about it, you will only be able to enjoy your bouquet for 30-45 minutes during the ceremony, and maybe get a few glimpses of it at the reception. If you’re leaving for your honeymoon right away, you won’t even get to have it around your house! Do you really want to spend a couple hundred bucks on something with such a short life when you could have something just as gorgeous and maybe a little more unexpected for a fraction of the cost? I decided I didn’t.
Beg, borrow and steal. Okay don’t steal but definitely borrow (ideas) and maybe beg a little (from friends). I originally wanted cherry blossom branches for my centerpieces but since they aren’t in season, I had to get a little creative. I borrowed an idea from Martha. I originally planned to use her tissue paper cherry blossom idea but after I got real with myself I knew there was no way I wanted to make that many paper blossoms (or force any bridesmaid to do so either). After seeing this great post, which really captured the look I was going for, I decided to attach real blooms to the branches. My original thought was orchids, but the price was ridiculous. When I met with Sandy she asked if I’d consider silks. Me: “You mean FAKE flowers?” I was picturing dusty, fusty old roses with fake, hot glue drops trying to look like water droplets. She told me to just keep an open mind, and brought out two different bunches of blooms, cherry blossoms and azaleas. On the stems they looked fake as ever. Then as soon as we took them off and held them up to the willow branches, they looked amazing! You couldn’t even tell they were fake, and they totally captured what I was going for. Plus the centerpieces are going to be extremely cheap.
I sent out emails to my friends and the Norfolk Craft Mafia asking them to save glass bottles and little jars for me to use in the centerpieces. It’s going to be a really cheap, recycling type thing and will look really sharp.
So, shall we talk about the flowers? I think yes.
Bridesmaids (who are wearing dresses ranging from Tiffany blue/aqua to dark teal - they get to pick their own dresses) will be carrying small bouquets of gerbera daisies in shades of pink and fuschia with a few mini white gerberas thrown in. All the bouquets will have exposed stems with just a tiny ribbon cuff where we will hold them. I like seeing stems. By the way, gerbera daisies are extremely affordable and always available.
Mothers will be carrying small bouquets of white gerbera daisies, except my mom’s gets to be a little different with some color because I love her most.
Grandmothers will have corsages of white gerberas.
Groomsmen, dads and grandpas will have super simple bouttonieres of chartreuse hypericum berries with greenery.
Jimmy will have red hypericum berries and a few little pink hyacinth blooms to match mine.
And here is a sample of my bouquet. It will be larger but these are how the flowers look together. Ranunculus, open tulips, anemones, gloriosa lilies (those gorgeous deep fuschia blooms with yellow edges which are so my new favorite flower), hyacinth, hypericum berries and I think we’re throwing in a couple mini gerberas as well. I’m so happy with how it came out, I think it’s gorgeous and will look stunning up against my dress.
What do you think? Are gloriosa lilies the new peony?
17 December, 2007Save the date cards
Remember these? I’ve sent out almost all of them and I’m getting some awesome feedback, people love em! Thought you guys might want to see them up close. Here’s what the photobooth strip looks like:
Photos by the amazing Nicole and design by the fantastic Cassie, who is doing a ton of designery stuff for the wedding so I don’t drive myself insane. I like playing art director, ha. You guys like em?
12 October, 2007Photo shoot!
Well it’s been over a month, time for the first weddingish post, right? A few weeks ago my mom and I went and reserved our location, we’re having it at the Fred Heutte Horticultural Center, a lovely city park in the heart of Ghent with gardens that are volunteer-maintained by master gardeners of Norfolk. We will be having the ceremony outside, and there’s a building for the reception and plenty of gorgeous trees and flowers to admire. The price was unbeatable as well.
We picked the date of 06.07.08 (we got engaged on 09.08.07 so we couldn’t resist)!
Last night the super-amazing Nicole took photos for our “save the date” cards. These should give you an idea of the silliness factor. Can’t wait to show you guys the finished product!
(Thanks to Cassie for art directing my entire wedding basically. She was there last night and took these photos.)
12 September, 2007Thank you!!!
Oh my goodness, you guys. I am totally overwhelmed by the outpouring of sentiments, congratulations and incredibly warm and sweet comments about our engagement. Thank you so much!
If you’ve been my friend for a while now you know that Jimmy and I have had some rough times in the more than four years we’ve been together, and plenty of ups and downs as a couple, but love really does conquer all in the end. We are happier than we’ve ever been, and I love what Sarah said about us, that we “are a great example of not giving up on true love and following your heart in an age where love seems to be disposable!” That meant so much to me and I believe in us with all my heart.
I’m having much girly, giddy excitement coming up with ideas for the wedding. I can’t wait to show you guys some of the tricks I have up my sleeve. Jimmy and I are going to the Norfolk Botanical Garden on Saturday to take a closer look at the grounds and see if they will work for what we’re thinking.
Again, guys, thank you so much. I feel so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends. I wish I could fly you all in for the occasion!
10 September, 2007I’m Engaged!
Oh my goodness, what a weekend!!! Jimmy and I headed out to western Virginia for a little camping, we planned to stay at the Peaks of Otter a few nights and visit his family, maybe go take a dip in Panther Falls.
We got there late Friday night and set up camp. The campsite at the peaks is great. Each campsite has a smooth, graveled area bordered by rails for your tent, a picnic table, a cooking fire setup and posts for hanging lights. It’s $16 per night. There are also bathrooms not too far from the campsites.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed over to the trails, where we planned to climb to the top of Sharp Top. The Sharp Top trail is marked as “strenuous” on the map, and they were NOT kidding. It’s 1.5 miles to the summit, which is 3,865 feet above sea level. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get all the way up.
The trip up was awesome! About halfway up, we rounded a huge boulder and Jimmy whispered, “STOP!” I froze, since more than one person had told us about how many bear are on the peaks. He pointed and I saw a deer about thirty feet in front of us. I started sneaking closer, hoping for a good picture. The deer just stared at me.
I got a little closer and then he just hopped right up the side of the hill, looked around and started walking right toward me. They are way bigger in person than I thought!
The deer came within about six feet of me before other people started coming from both directions on the trail. He wasn’t scared at all, I think they’re used to people feeding them (although he looked really hungry). He basically posed for pictures for every single person that came up the trail, and wasn’t going anywhere. We eventually moved on, still in awe that we got that close! I believe he’d have eaten right out of my hand if I’d attempted to feed him.
About 11:30 or so, we finally reached the top. I feel like I’m in pretty good shape and let me tell you that trail kicked my butt! I was exhausted and completely drenched in sweat, not to mention a little grimy from camping, no shower and still in the same clothes from the day before which I’d also slept in. Definitely not at my best, ha!
The view from the top was gorgeous. All around the summit were little medallions pointing out landmarks in the distance and how far they were from where you stood. It was amazing how small the lake and lodge looked from up there (that’s near where we started). Flat top, the highest of the three peaks, is on the other side of the lake.
It was a little hazy so we couldn’t see the town of Bedford (8 miles away), but we could see the various other landmarks pointed out, like Wheats Valley, and the third peak, Hearkening Hill.
We hung out for a while, it was pretty crowded up there with families who had rode the bus up (you can take a bus to just below the summit and hike the last 1500 feet to the top if you don’t want to climb the whole trail) and a huge troop of Boy Scouts who were being daring and getting stuck in rocks and all sorts of hilarious, boyish things.
It was getting pretty hot and we both were starving, but every time I suggested heading back down the trail, Jimmy wanted to stay a little while longer. I shrugged and said okay, I was having fun anyway.
We jumped up on top of the rock wall and climbed on to the highest rock, which isn’t connected to the platform. It was a little scary and Jimmy’s a little height-nervous so I was surprised he wanted to come up there with me at all. We looked out over a gorgeous mountain vista as peregrine falcons flew by, casting shadows on the trees below. It was truly breathtaking.
Next thing I knew I had a gorgeous ring on my finger and had told the man I love YES, that I’d love to spend the rest of my life with him. This is the sweetest surprise I’ve ever been given.
The fact that it was a surprise is perhaps the most shocking of all. Jimmy is terrible at keeping a secret. He always tells me my Christmas presents and finds out surprises before they happen. When he told me he’d had the ring almost a month, I about fell off the rock. He’d talked to my parents more than two weeks ago. All our mutual friends knew! I was the last to know, ha!
We stopped in the little cabin and I used a piece of charcoal from the fireplace to make our little mark.
The ring is gorgeous. He has such good taste. It’s a tension setting in white gold. I adore the details.
It catches the light beautifully. I’m so thankful for such a perfect weekend and beyond excited about this next stage of our life together. I love you Jimmy!
