oh HEY, Remember Me?

I'm so sorry that it has been a while.
Let's do a quick catch up sesh, and then I'll go into more details throughout the month.
You in?Awesome.
My work is awesome, and threw me an adorable bridal shower. The theme? "Kate's Last Rodeo". Haha, they know me SO well.

It was complete with Cake, Mason Jars, Koozies, Sweet Tea Vodka, a Newlywed game and last, but not least...they gifted me with PINK COWBOY BOOTS.so awesome.
Friday was our Rehearsal and our Rehearsal dinner. I've talked a bit about our inspiration and our pinata (yes, pinata). I was a bit worried, but it turned out PERFECT. Here's some sneak peek pictures

Of course, the next day was our wedding. My dear friend, bridesmaid, and little papparazo girl,  Steph did a fantastic recap with her pictures.. check it out here. 
Until we get the photographs back,  here's an "pre-wedding" instagram picture. :)

And on Sunday, we headed off to Jamaica.
I can't wait to share everything in detail with you guys! Thank you so much for being one of my support teams throughout this past year.

A Pinata at a Rehearsal Dinner?

Please excuse my lil' Vent sesh. 
On Saturday night, Jason's mom called me to talk about the Rehearsal Dinner, the wedding and just life in general. Half way through our convo, she mentions that she picked up a Cowboy Boot Pinata for the rehearsal dinner.

The rest of the conversation is somewhat of a blur to me. I didn't know whether to Laugh...or Cry. 

To be honest, I did a little of both. I just didn't know what to think.

I've blogged about my rehearsal dinner a bit here.  We had planned a little "upscale- ish" I do BBQ rehearsal dinner and as it turns out his mama ran with the southern theme. 

After a few laughs, and more tears than I'm willing to admit...I finally came to the conclusion that it's JUST the rehearsal dinner. Of course I want every wedding related party to be a spitting image of style me pretty, or Pinterest. That just isn't a reality.
What is reality? Being in a room, surrounded by my closest friends and family full of laughter and love. ....and then after a few to many drinks, swinging at that Pinata :)

This time Last Year

Last year...I was with my family and Jason in New Smyrna Beach.   We were by the pool all day. My normally quiet Uncle shared a sweet story about the time he proposed to my Aunt. We ran back to our hotel room to shower for my "cousin's birthday dinner"

While we're getting ready, Jason says "Wow. Babe. Come out here and look at this!" I walk out to our balcony and he's down on one knee with rose petals and candles everywhere.

He said the most beautiful things to me, which I was too busy crying to hear him. 

Last year...I said YES!

(my hand would not stop shaking)

As soon as I pulled myself together, I  called/texted all of my friends and family members. As soon as I sent the text to my Best Friend who was in Jacksonville, I heard the door of the hotel open and she walked in

Tears started flowing again. I put my makeup back on and headed out to my Cousin's birthday dinner. Only when we got there, it was my friends and family. Jason had surprised me with a celebration dinner.

1. Us infront of the banner they made 2. He talked my oldest friend,Wendy, into flying in from San Francisco 3. Some of the most important people in my life. 4. Walking into the surprise dinner 5. With my MOH 6. Sparklers

After dinner, we met a few more friends out to Celebrate.

-------------

This year, we headed back to my home away from home. We decided to swing in to the Garlic to re-celebrate how far we've come. 

and, in true fashion we headed down to our favorite bar for a little celebratory shot.

Needless to say, this past year has been amazing. I'm so grateful for how everything has come along and I'm BEYOND ready to marry my Best Friend!

Bachelorette Bash - Part Tu(tu)

Hey ladies! Thank you so much for your sweet comments yesterday, I'll be emailing you back shortly. To sum it all up - yes, I'm so grateful to have such amazing friends in my life. God has really blessed me with wonderful, caring, thoughtful and FUN people.
If you missed Part 1, be sure to catch up here
Saturday started off rough -  Steph and I woke up at 6:50am for some unknown reason and decided to go sit out by the pool for a few hours to let the girls sleep in. We went back to the room around 8:30 and just as I decided to close my eyes to prevent my impending hangover the fire alarm went off. The whole hotel had to evacuate the building
This is us, as hungover as ever.

A few girls went to breakfast, while I tried to nurse my hangover so it wouldn't ruin the whole day. Two hours later, Steph made me a mimosa and I woke up and headed to the pool.
We soaked in some more sun, and took our first bridal party picture! I love these girls SO much.

After a few hours at the pool, we ran upstairs to get ready for the night. Everyone was in normal "getting-ready" clothes until I left the room for about 3 minutes and I returned to them in Tutus, and adorable shirts.

They also made me a "To do before I do" checklist for the night.

And, here's the proof.

 It was so much fun! We had a delicious breakfast buffet the next morning and then heading home for a little bit of recovery.

I couldn't of ask for a more amazing weekend, everything was perfect and my friends really made me feel so so special.
Now, I just need more of my friends to start getting engaged so I can't start planning these things! They really set the bar high with mine!

Sixty

In sixty days, I'll be walking down the aisle to see this handsome man and my absolute best friend, mysupport system, my heart, and (lately) my therapist. 

I just love him so much. We've been together for just about 4 years, but before that we were high school friends (way back then). There are many things he does that puts a smile on my face, but here are some that are captured on film....

The fact that he's not too manly to drink out a pink flamingo.

Or where my purse when I don't want to. That sucker gets HEAVAY

And, if you didn't already know this....He's quite the singer

and an amazing dancer

......and cheerleader

HOW he does that, I have nooooooo clue!

Anyways,

I'm so excited that we're nearing the end of "Wedding Planning". I'm just ready to enjoy the time that we have together and stop stressing about this wedding. An amazing friend told me a quote today, and I'm vowing to live by it from this day forward - it isn't her exact words, but it's pretty close. 

So.... here's to a stress-free 60 days.  Yup, I'll definitely be cheers-ing to that later tonight with my nightly chard.

Weekend in Photos

Well....somewhat. You see, I did happen to remember to take photos this weekend - I just happened to leave the camera in my momma's car. We're left with Iphone 3 pictures, not tooo bad!

Let's start with Thursday, since it was pretty groundbreaking. My Mom, Jason's Mom and Sis, and my MOH came over to help me assemble invitations. It took us all of 3 hours, but they are beautiful and exactly what I was hoping for. yipee! We'll be mailing them out next week - and then I'll post a picture for you to see! :)

On Friday, we headed over to the beach after work. Jason came home a bit late from work, so I tackled another project while I waited.

This is an inspiration from Pinterest - I picked up all the supplies at good ol' HOBLOB:

You'll need:

Wooden Frame

Foam Board

Chalkboard Spray

Chalk (I used Pens)

I spray painted the foam board about 3 times (once a night), then on friday I measured the inside of the frame to cut foam board to shape. Now, I'm either a horrible measurer or a horrible cutter - either way, I had to do this process 3 times to get the right size. I think just hot glued the form board to the frame. That's it! 

I then wrote my little saying onto the Chalkboard and added the scroll on the bottom, it's used on our invitations! I plan to use this post-wedding in our kitchen for a little home decor. 

Saturday and Sunday was spent at our favorite beach, the Oceandeck in Daytona, and poolside at my mom's house.

Hope you had a great weekend, too! :)

Bridal Talk Tuesday - Part 2 of Wedding Crafts

Hey Hey Hey! I figured I'd join in on this Bridal Talk linkup to share the rest of my craftin' weekend. Thank you so much for your kind words about my cardbox and invitations, you ladies made my heart sing. Seriousssssly, thank you!

My next set of crafts was an "easy" one, I worked with a fabulous etsy designer, ReplybyDesign,  to put together some fun paper products. I must of drove her crazy with my descriptions of the coral we're using. WHO knew that there could be soo many shades of coral. For the record, as it turns out "our" coral is a touch pinker than most corals...or something like that. I basically ended up sending a picture of Steph in the bridesmaid dress and it worked. Score!

The package I bought included:

Guest Book Sign

Reserved Signs for the Family Tables

Ispy sign

Drink Flags

Her are some of her sample packages that I just adore, did I mention she's AMAZING?

Here are my signs - in action.

Our Guestbook Sign

I just bought a super cheap Target Acrylic Frame. This will be accompanied on our Sign in table, with a burlap guest book that I'm just waittttting patiently to be delivered.

Reserved Sign

This are in the Ikea Tolsby frame - so they are double sided. They will be placed on our Family and Bridal Party tables since we are doing open seating.

Ispy

 I just love this idea. Everyone brings their cameras and phones to weddings - this just encourages them to use them. I'm planning on getting a few more Tolsby frames to add these to all of our tables.

Last but not least, my favorite thing is:

Drink Flags

For these little beauties - I just ran to HobLob and picked up the slim wood sticks (I think that's the technical name). It was $3 for a pack of 125, unfortunately I wanted to do 200 and they only had one pack. So I'll be making a second trip later this week to pick up another set. 

I hot glued the stick to the inside center crease and then used the roller double sided glue/tape thingmabob and glue the paper flags together. Super time consuming but Super Easy. Promise!

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

A Wedding Craftin' Weekend

The 3-day Holiday weekend provided me with a bunch of time to get down to some Wedding Crafts. I loveeee doing Arts and Crafts, and for some reason I have done them in a really long time, therefore I was nervous about taking on these projects. After picking up some essential crafting supplies I was ready to knock some things off my list.

I'll share a bit of them today

Friday started off with addressing our invitation envelopes, now I know this doesn't quite qualify for a craft...but it took me FOUR hours and I'm think it's blog-worthy.

I wanted the look of a calligrapher, but without actually having to "hire" one. Now...I LOVE calligraphy but just couldn't justify paying for it - especially when it's one of the first things people throw away. OUCH! I found this pin and thought It might be the perfect route to take:

via

Right up until I actually tried doing this. I tested it out on a few cheap-o business envelopes that I had lying around...and it just wasn't "it". I'm blaming it on the pen I was using, and I wasn't about to change out of my PJs to go to the craft store for the 3rd time that week. On to plan B - I searched the internet for pretty (and free) fonts and stumbled across this one from fonts101.com

I messed around with more business-sized envelopes until I found the size that was appropriate. Then traced the envelope on to about 5 pieces of paper to work on the placement and centering of the address (Yes, I'm a teeny bit OCD)

After printing 100 of them, here are a few of the finish products - I LOVE them (Disclamer: I apologize for the horrible and grainy iPhone 3 pic - I forgot to take a picture until this morning)

A few of us are assembling the invitations this Thursday and hopefully I'll be getting them out at the end of April. I still need stamps - shucks!

Later on Friday night, Jason and I made a Pinterest-inspired Dinner and then his momma came over to help me with a Pinterest-inspired Cardbox. Gosh, how did we LIVE without Pinterest?

Here's a quick peak at our dinner.

We had Cuban Flank Steak, Roasted Zucchini and Crystal Light Style Margaritasss. YUM

Right after Dinner, Jason's Mom came over to help me with the Cardbox. She is the QUEEN of beautiful wrapping, y'all. So when I came across this Cardbox....I knew she would be able to nail it.

no direct link.

I bought the supplies at HOBLOB (40% off for the burlap) - the boxes aren't pictured because I had to go back for a second trip, but they are just Paper Mache boxes

As I'm sure you already know, I'm horrible about remembering to take pictures and I'm not famous enough (yet) to have the paparazzi following me around. It  doesn't dawn on me to document things until it's too late. 

Here's the finished Cardbox

I LOVE it. It just makes my heart sing. Basically...boxes were cute, then wrapped, glued together. Then we added Pearls, Ribbon, a pretty Flower and a little sign. It took a while, but it was well.worth.it.

Okay...That's enough craft-talk today. I'll show you some more tomorrow. I've been so giddy today, seriously so happy!  I've won my first ever blog giveaway prize from this AMAZING blog and I'm SO excited to tell you ladies that it's a blog makeover. The designer doing the makeover has some beautiful work, I'm beyond thrilled. eeeeeeeek! Check out Cherry on Top Blog Designs, you won't be sorry! Thank you girls for making my month!

  It's got me thinking about a possible name change, because let's face it - in less than 3 months I won't be wedding planning any more. I'll just be living my little ol' life. I need help brainstorming on blog names. If you have any suggestions send them my way!

The Ultimate Wedding Week...The Rehearsal Dinner

I came across this fabulous Wedding link up, I figured today I would join in the fun!

Today, err yesterday, was all about the rehearsal dinner. I still have a BIT of time before mine, but what's the harm in blogging about what we're going to do. none? okay, then off we go!

The inspiration for my Rehearsal dinner is an 

Basically Jason lovvvvveeessss BBQ, the boy can not get enough. We figured a fun and relaxed way to incorporate it would be at our rehearsal dinner. I fell in love with this invitation, and things just kind of went from there.

Jason's Mama is planning the whole thing. We'll be holding it at my mom's neighboor event center. It's this gorgeous room that holds 120 people. Which is fantastic, because our rehearsal dinner attendance could be a small army. We have 70 people on the list so far, because we wanted to incorporate our extended family. Actually, I'm Italian - so it's mostly my extended family, but ours nonetheless...right? I don't know too much about all the details. But, I do know a few things...

The BBQ will be supplied by my favorite BBQ place in the world Winter Park, 4 Rivers. This place is simply amazing and I'm not lying when I say that the line outside for their lunch starts at 10:45am. 

There will be mason jars centerpieces with gorgeous centerpieces, as well as our very own mason jar glasses that my mom and MOH both purchased separately for me. They know us well.

His mom wants to decorate the tables with white tablecloths and burlap

And Lastly, my outfit of the rehearsal night will be this little number.

It's getting so so so close.

It's OK Thursday

I need a little positivity in my life these past few days, so I've linked up with Neely and Amber this week for

Here we goooo

It's OK...

- That I feel like my life has been non-stop chaos. I guess that comes with wedding planning, full-time work and whatnot. I could really use an Adult Spring Break, yaknowwhati'msayingggg.

- that my beautiful phone was stolen by an taxi cab driver. Okay, I left it in the car, for 5 minutes when I ran inside my house to grab payments...but he STOLE it when he started lying to me and then turned it on at a taxi stand outside the airport 2 days later. Why is it okay? Because my co-workers are the bomb.com and gave me a iphone 3g that we previously used for testing our Mobile App. It's basically a never before used 4 year old phone. It's definitely an adjustment from my 4s, but it's a phone. And at the end of the day it's a materialistic thing....it could of been MUCH worse.

(p.s. you suck taxi cab driver)

- that this week has been cray, because tomorrow is a short day for me at work. We're heading out early to drive down to Jupiter, FL for one of Jason's good friend's wedding. It's a 100% Irish wedding on St. Patrick's Day. Basically it's going to be FUN!

Say HI to Josh and Katie!

- that I have a HUGE urge to do some retail therapy. There are so many cute things hitting the stores for spring. I cancelled my debit card after my phone was stolen (he swiped my card and I didn't want him stealing that too). Once I get it back, I have some online shopping to take care!

-That I'm starting to have a dislike for Tumbler blogs, or maybe I'm just stupid. Here me out though, I see TONS of adorable stuff on pinterest. Clothes, bathing suits, purses, etc. I pin them and get so excited about going to look at HOW much it costs and HOW fast I can get my hands on it....only to find out it's linked back to a Tumbler blog and I can even purchase it. Seriously, I get crushed as though my whole world has been taken away. 

It happened with this ADORABLE bathing suit, that Steph posted:

It just linked back to this (adordable) Tumbler blog. Now, again...this just may be user error on my part. Does anyone know how to link back to the original site from a tumbler blog? I need to find this suit!

Are y'all getting excited for the weekend? I can't wait to be relaxing on the beach, attend an amazing wedding, and feel like I'm on vacation!