3 years - looking back, in black and white

 

yes, oh yes!

Info on our rehearsal dinner and farm wedding can be found here , here , or here.  You can read about our sustainable wedding on Walking Barefoot. 

....Or check out our professional photos taken by the amazing Denny Henry - click here and here ....

or if you are into snapshots - we've got those too,

let them eat cake

Maggie Austin Cake is almost too beautiful to bite into.
Check this artist out.

End of Summer

Goodness! Its already labor day and I have my second thesis chapter deadline on Wednesday! I have to admit, the end of summer is my favorite time of year. I love the warm days and the cool nights, and the afternoon light which is just phenomenal at this time of year. We've been busy spending time at the lake, saying adios to Jon's brother and his girlfriend as they make the big trek across the country to California, celebrating our first wedding anniversary, and trying to figure out how we'll spend out next year of marriage :). I don't have a lot of time, but I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

gallery tours at the VMFA

end of Summer days at the Lake

Italian dinners with girlfriends

Newly designed Martha pearl cluster earrings

homemade mojitos to celebrate....

One year!

Our wedding....

Was featured on one of my most favorite green wedding blogs, Walking Barefoot!

Check it out!

photo via Denny Henry

family weddings!

Holy moly, its been hot outside! My fingers are so swollen I can't get my wedding ring on!

We've been busy bees, celebrating the marriage of Jon's beautiful little sister. A beautiful, lovely wedding and I was so lucky that Jon's sister included me in her bridal party! I can't wait to see the professional pictures!

How gorgeous is my SIL, walking down the aisle with her Dad? She walked in to "Liz on top of the world" from Pride and Prejudice, which brought everyone to happy tears.

this girl.....

is my sister in law (I got two of them when I married the hubs and both are seriously awesome gals).

Just when I thought that I had to put my enthusiasm for weddings on hold until one of my bff's got engaged, my sweet little sister in law went and got herself proposed to!!!!! Congrats Zil!!!!!! :) Let the wedding planning begin!

how friggin cute and in love are these two?

Zil as a bridesmaid taken by Denny Henry.

Zil and fiance taken by Charles Anderson

because there is no better way to procrastinate editing the three papers i have due

let me share some professional wedding picts, all by the amazing Denny Henry

okay thats enough for now.....

Also....one pound design coming in January to Etsy. Trust me, this girl is amazing. She did my Xmas cards :)

3 months

Such a fun party.

I love him even more

How we tried to be green and save money: the food

I mentioned before that my mom made 35 pies for the wedding, from scratch. They were delicious. Sadly we did not cut the pie. We wanted too but there was a lot of pressure from family members and friends that we cut cake. It was silly and we should have stood our ground, but at this point there were a lot of things that we just let go of to make it through the day without offending anyone, so we cut a very small cake from a local business in my hometownAlbemarle Baking Company and for a cake it was pretty delicious :-)

Anyways, the pies were combinations of apple, apple peach, apple crumble, apple blueberry and apple cranberry. They were made with organic apples and fruit and organic ingredients. Sadly I did not get to eat any pie, but its okay, I've been eating my mom's pies for years and I'd rather my friends.

We decided early on that we wanted the food to be pork barbeque and lots of summer salads. Our family friend Rae who owns a delicious restaurant in Sperryville Virginia was our caterer Also instead of making vats of only 5 salads for 200+ people, she made 10 or 12 salads that served 50, this ensured that there was a wide variety of yummy food! She did an amazing job make the most delicious salads out of the most delicious ingredients- many which actually came from my parents garden. This not only cut costs, but also ensured that we knew our veggies were fresh and where they were coming from!

Sadly, I only got a few bites of food that night but the next morning we found that the caterers had made us the most delicious plate of food! Yum!

(This picture was the only one I could find from my guests photos of food, taken by my friend Curren. I believe she has on her plate a little bbq, some sweet potato salad, bean and corn salad, green beans and feta, bread from albemarle baking company with the most delicious spreads...and much more!

how we tried to be green and save money: wedding flowers

For those of you who don't know the force that is my mother, you are missing out. Not only did the woman insist on baking 35 pies for our wedding but she was insistant, and I mean insistant on doing the flowers. She and her best friend from college (auntie thea) planned in advance and grew in their gardens flowers that would be colorful and vibrant in late august early september. And not just the flowers for bouquets, nope. She, auntie thea and our family friend suzie were dream team extraordinaire. They started at 8am and got all the flowers done by 3pm! Right in time for the wedding!

I just loved all the colors, especially the black eyed susan's!

pictures by the amazing Denny Henry

These flowers were raised without pesticides in my mom and auntie thea's gardens. The only major expense were the wire and the ribbon which we bought at micheals (we did run out of ribbon and the wire was a bit sticky. But no worries, my crafty bridesmaids simply wrapped tissues around the ones that were missing ribbons)

picture by my Aunt Lisa

For the centerpieces my mom and I purchased these white planters from ikea for a whopping $1.99 each (28 x1.99+ tax)= about $60 total for centerpieces). Also we are reusing them. My mom sells flowers (and pie) at the Charlottesville farmers market in the summer and is using these planters for her arrangements that she displays and sells- of course we are keeping a few for ourselves :-))

pictures

just a few of my favorite snapshots from the weekend. will post more later...

Wedding: How I feel and the Rehearsal

We did it! It was amazing and wonderful and a blur. Seriously! It felt like a dream 225 people, some who I've known all my life, some who I've just met, but it was the best feeling in the world- I felt love and community and closer to my family, my new family and Jon. I am so proud of the us for putting it together, impressed with my mom and dad for helping us and thankful for all the friends and family who helped out.

The Friday before we were running around like crazy trying to get things done.  The tent had gone up on Friday but it was up to us to put the tables and the chairs out for the ceremony and dinner. Because we are on a mountain there is very little level ground so me and NJS and SSp spent our entire morning making the tables and the chairs as level and comfortable as possible.  After there were bathrooms to clean and things to organize.  Time flew as we were rushing around.....Seriously, no one in our family ate until Allie showed up with bagels from Charlottesville  Soon after Erin (who made our fabulous favors) and her husband Charley (who was our fabulous DJ) showed up and started setting up and getting ready.  Allie and Erin passed me a beer and strongly encouraged me to get into the shower (I was starting to smell) as to be on time for our rehearsal!

The rehearsal was lovely, it was great seeing my lovelies who had not see in so long and hearing JM's sisters practice the song "Let it be You" for everyone.  The dinner was at Rappahanock Cellars. JM's family put it together and they did an amazing job.  We ate delicious Italian food and drank amazing wine.  It was just what we needed to start the weekend off right!

JM's sisters practice their song

vineyard love

the amazing location for the rehearsal dinner picked out and planned by JM's parents

A few of my lovely lady friends

married

feels pretty great. relaxing on my mini-moon with my new husband. post more later

One month to go

I always wanted a huge laid back wedding at the farm. People milling about in the summer sunshine enjoying beers, admiring the mountains talking with each other. Both of us have huge families and have had many life experiences which has lead to the to the collection of many important and meaningful relationships in our lifetime. We invited 225 thinking that 175 would show up being that it is a holiday weekend.

My friends, as of to date (one day to the due date of RSVP's) we currently have 199 people confirmed as guests. Yes, that is right 199

Yikes. I am a little freaking out. It gets hard to breath for a moment when I look at that number. But then I take a deep breath and remember that 199 is not much larger than 175 and that all the major things are taken care of.

1) we have a caterer
2) we have tenting
3) we have the lighting
4) we have the flowers
5) I have the dress
6) we have the officiant
7) we have the rehearsal dinner down stat
8) we have things to eat food off of
9) we have the linens and all that good stuff ordered
10) Our DJ is awesome (and a great friend)
11) The wife of our awesome DJ is down with making our delicious guests treats

See no freaking out. In the end all the big stuff is taken care of, and if I don't have time to get to those little extra details I muse about and admire on this blog it is A-okay. At the end of the day, we are getting married among people who love us and nothing else matters.

(Thought if it rains I might seriously be drinking some champagne)

I sorta love this idea for place cards

probably because clothespins remind me of how my mom would sun dry our laundry.

image from Oh So Beautiful Paper

Want to win in a free dress sketch!?

yes please!

Mountain Bride (who i think might be my blogging kindred spirit) is hosting this fabulous contest where the winner gets Etsy artist, Megan Hamilton, to do a custom sketch of your wedding gown!!

You should read Mountain Bride and enter to win!

picture from Megan Hamilton.

Girls just want to have fun!

I have the greatest friends. Seriously. This past weekend they (some coming from and planning (MTW thank you!) from as far as Atlanta, Boston and Connecticut) threw me a bachelorette party!
Friday was wine tasting and dinner at Allie's where we had a special guest (baby Lou), yummy cookies and delicious lasagna cooked by Allie's husband. We also had a lingerie shower and the girls gifted me lots of lovely (and sometimes crazy) undergarments!






Saturday was tubing down the James river complete with Bodos and Saturday night was dinner at Su's house where she and her sweet Mother treated us to yummy proseco from trader joes (seriously, most delicious proseco ever) and chicken salad and caprese, fruit salad, lemon bars and much more!
Finally we put on some pretty princess "sweet tats" (tattoos) and hit the town for some dancing and fun!

My DIY Bridesmaids gifts

While I lived in DC I was able to take free jewelry classes through the place where I worked. I by no means have great talent, but I learned enough to feel confident making my bridesmaids jewelry for the wedding. I'm using freshwater pearls and some Swarovski crystal beads that I found at a wholesale bead store.




* Sorry for the picture quality, hopefully you get the idea :)