Our Wedding: Promising

Just when you thought I couldn't possibly come up with more "P" titles for our wedding recaps, I have! (See primping, peeking, posing and photographing.) My recaps have been sporadic because the disc drive is broken on Nurse A's comp and my netbook doesn't have one, so I had to resize all of the remaining pictures and e-mail them to myself from my work computer. But I digress.

Now, on to the most important part of the whole day: getting married! I don't have that much to tell you about the ceremony, because it went by in such a flash and was so wonderful! We kept it short and sweet. I do remember being afraid I would trip in my high heels, being really happy to be standing up there with Andrew finally and awkwardly making eye contact with one of the groomsmen during the ceremony. (But I don't remember who it was!)


At this point in the day, the venue was all set up.

 The guest book on the front porch of the house was ready and waiting.

And so were we. At 7 p.m. on the dot (maybe even a few minutes earlier--the officiant was quite adamant about doing this thing) the wedding started!  The party walked out to an acoustic version of "Here Comes the Sun." (Might I add that Hilary Duff got married on the same day and her wedding party walked out to the same song? Famous by association? I think yes.)

A few shots of the wedding party:

Check out the expression on Nurse A's face. The tent in the background is where the buffet was set up.

Then the ladies started walking out.

MOH Ashley.

My mom made the dresses for my junior bridesmaid/cousin Melaina and adorable flower girl/cousin Selena. You can't really tell in the picture, but they had a striped white and light yellow pattern and were belted in the middle with polka dot ribbon to match the bridesmaids' Anthropologie dresses. (Not long after the ceremony Selena changed into shorts and a tank top and dumped the flower petals everywhere. So cute!)

The seats were full of lovely people.

My brother gave me away. I think we talked during this, but I don't remember what we said.

Our only ceremony decor was a set of white eyelet Martha Stewart lanterns. I'm quite obsessed with them and hopefully will get to use them again. 

Yay! 

I don't know why there is no one sitting near Andrew's mom. Also, her dress looks khaki but was a pretty green.

Married! We walked out to "How Sweet It Is," a song that we randomly came up with at the rehearsal. The song we left the ceremony to was not high on my list of priorities during wedding planning, but this was just fine with me.

I loved the boys' boutonnieres.

Somehow we ended up without a picture of bridesmaid Brooke and groomsman Paul walking down the aisle, but I swear they were there!

After we walked out, lots of us started crying and for some reason I congratulated groomsman Jamie. The whole wedding party hugged a lot and it was pretty much one of my favorite memories. Then I retreated into the bride's quarters with a glass of chardonnay while the bridesmaids and groomsmen transformed the ceremony space into the reception area.

The fans that everyone had hidden in the trees and greenery that morning worked quite well, and the wedding favor fans were a big hit. All in all, it wasn't too hot. The ceremony lasted less than 15 minutes and then people could go inside the house or stay outside if they wished. So what's next? Partying, of course!

*All photos by Jenny Anderson Photography

P.S.- Free Stuff is Cool Too

In keeping with the fashionable-but-fabulous theme of my last post, Christine over at bun&borough is having an awesome Lands End Canvas giveaway--the winner gets to choose a whole new outfit, and three runner ups get super-cute totes. Go enter!

Happy Halloween weekend! Get excited because Sawyer has TWO costumes!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The most wonderful time of the year (at least in Memphis) actually comes around twice, once in spring and once in fall. It's called Erika's Ladies Consignment Sale, and it is the best thing to ever happen to poor girls trying to pass for non-poor girls. It runs for about three and a half days, and my is that rented space filled with secondhand steals!

Nikki at the Fashionable Wife  discovered this gold mine last spring, when she heard about it on the radio. I tagged along. We swung by after work and an obsession was born.

Consignment sale number one, Spring 2010: Pair of 7 jeans, BCBG dress (for work of course--completely reasonable purchase) and random Gap button up for about $100 give or take a dollar or two.

The jeans were $40 and don't look this worn in real life.

Today was the second day of the fall sale, and we went at 9 a.m. You won't believe what we found!

Tory Burch flats, $55

Two pairs of Tory Burch flats for $55 each! Nikki got the navy pair and I bought the white. Not my very first color choice had I paid full price for these, but I could do worse than white Tory flats. I'm actually quite thrilled! Nikki assures me I can pass them off as "winter white," and she is the Fashionable Wife, after all, so I shall be wearing these all through the frosty season. (They're not as white as this picture makes them seem.)

French Connection dress, $20

This fab find is kind of a dark purple (I think?) and I thought it was too big. Nikki immediately belted it for me and I loved it! (Did I mention the dressing room at this place is a a big open room with mirrors, and everyone stands around awkwardly in their underwear together, and in our case offers belting advice? Less shocking the second time around.) I got a sale Target belt for $5 to wear with it, and plan to pair it with my new boots (courtesy of a gift card).

BCBG dress, $20

Also at the recommendation of the Fashionable Wife, I will pair this one with a white long sleeve tee underneath and boots! It ties in the back and I think it could be quite cute for a work environment. I'm very excited about the fashionable ensembles in my future, as I am just now learning to accessorize. I can literally count the pieces of jewelery I own on my fingers, and most of those are things like a wedding band, pearl studs, etc. which are great, but not the best for dressing up blah clothes. I also received word (via gmail chat) that bff Lexi went to the sale too and bought some wonderful things for way less than they are worth! (Think Free People and J.Crew, y'all.)

Do you have any great secondhand stores in your area, or sales like this? If so, can I stay with you when I roadtrip to shop at them? Just kidding. These may well be my last purchases in a long time (well, hopefully not) but more on that later. I can't wait to start belting! Woot!

October Wedding Anniversaries and Engagements, oh my!

I have a wedding post coming up, but my disk drive is out of commission, so it will probably come Thursday. On a related note, my lovely sister and her husband, the Gator Slayer, celebrated their one year wedding anniversary yesterday! They had a freakishly cute wedding on the Gator Slayer's family farm last year. Observe the cuteness here. (And read more about the cuteness here.)

Photo by Balance Photography

And then, as the thesising Nurse A and I were driving to the library to do some research (well, I was just there for moral support), my brother called with some fabulous news: he and his girlfriend Jen got engaged on Saturday! I'm so excited. It was just the boost I needed before watching Nurse A go through microfilms for three hours and then having to run back to the car in the rain.

So congrats to my wonderful siblings and soon-to-be new sister!

They like the outdoors a lot.

Tomato Head

East Tennessee tomatoes.

Had you asked me last week, I would have told you I despise tomatoes. Sure I liked tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, tomato soup, etc., but that was different because they were cooked and didn't have that juicy-yet-rubbery, gag-inducing tomato texture. So yes, I would have told you I hated them. But I would have been lying.

I had an epiphany last weekend, kids. It happened sometime between the Saturday afternoon bruschetta ( recipe from Willow's blog)

Don't forget the over-easy egg, slightly broiled.

and the Sunday night pico de gallo

Look at that cilantro!

that I realized I kind of don't hate like tomatoes. This was quite shocking to me, as I really, truly believed I could not eat them uncooked. I even wrote an ode to my hatred of tomatoes (you can totally do that, by the way) in a poetry class senior year of college. Not liking tomatoes was always the weird thing about me, and I liked to tell people as the popped whole cherry tomatoes into their mouths or sliced marinated heirlooms. I can't quite pinpoint when this began changing, but I can't deny it anymore. I'm still not to the point of eating large (read: thick) slices of tomatoes and I still won't put them in my salad, but they're a nice accent flavor and I definitely can't say they disgust me anymore. And they're just so pretty!

That egg/bruschetta combo above was insanely delicious. Willow posted about it on her blog a couple weeks ago, and I've been craving it ever since. Of course her tomatoes and basil were homegrown, but I strive to do that next year! And I do believe she put some sort of meat on hers, which would be a great addition, but we didn't have any. Over-easy eggs are also another thing I have never liked, until right now.

Are there any foods you hated growing up that you love now?

Happy Friday, everyone! This weekend I'll be doing some life maintenance, like buying shampoo and conditioner (I'm pretty sure I've been conditioning with body wash my friend left in an unmarked bottle), cleaning the house and drinking beer.

Our Wedding, Part Four: Photographing

One of my discs of wedding pictures didn't work, so the recaps have been on hold until I got the re-send. It finally came Saturday, so expect an overload of picture-heavy posts!

To refresh your memory, we've recapped:

Primping - My mom and sister helped me get ready.

Peeking - Our first look.

Posing - Wedding party "portraits."

After our group photo sessions at Rowan Oak, the wedding party left to head back to the Isom Place to relax drink scotch and champagne before the ceremony. Groomsman Jamie stayed behind in his sweet air-conditioned 'Stang, and kindly waited while Jenny, Andrew and I wandered around the property to take pictures of just the two of us. These are some of my favorite, hands down, and pretty much embody my whole vision of the wedding: romantic, sweet, vintage-inspired, low-key.

At this point, the sweating had gone from a just a nuisance to a straight up situation, so we left to dry off before the ceremony. Remember, the heat index was 117 (oops, actually 114) on our wedding day.

Observe an un-edited sweaty pic of Andrew's knees:

After this, we all piled into the 'Stang and headed back to the Isom Place, where we dried off and took family portraits. Check out Andrew's adorable, normal sized family.

Immediate A fam.

Extended A fam.

Andrew does have cousins and aunts and uncles and things, but unlike my family, they do not travel in a pack. I shall demonstrate. We were taking these photos outside before guests arrive, so for time's sake we  broke them up into two categories: "immediate family" and "everyone else." Judging from my immediate family pictures, my fam looks normal too.

My immediate fam. 

However, check out the "everyone else" photo. We've tripled!

I love my family. We're all close and everyone travels in a pack. We even had James, a non-family member (but longtime family friend) sneak in there. Which then prompted everyone (my family is very loud) to scream at Mrs. S, also a longtime family friend, to get into the picture too! And she did! Here we all are. What a lovely bunch. I love these people.

We did a few shots with my dad and PawPaw.

And then it was time to head back inside and wait for the ceremony to begin. Getting all of the pictures done beforehand was a huge relief, because now all we had to do was get married and enjoy ourselves! Stay tuned for the ceremony recap!

*All photos by Jenny Anderson