Our First Anniversary

We spent our anniversary in Chattanooga, TN.  We wanted to go somewhere, didn't want to go far, and didn't want to spend an arm and a leg. It was an incredible weekend full of wandering, hot chocolate, and sweet quality time. 

Saturday, we left Nashville and got to Chattanooga about 1pm. We went to get lunch with my sister, and then headed to downtown. We parked and set out, on foot, for ten miles. We spent a lot of time in the art district.

All in all, we walked 10 miles on Saturday, and we were feeling it on Sunday.  We woke up at 7:30 (6:30 our time ... on a Sunday ... ) and headed down to the lobby for breakfast! I love hotel breakfasts... and just hotels in general. After breakfast, we headed up Lookout Mountain to see everything we could see. We saw multi-million dollar homes, spectacular views, and then headed back down to board the Incline Railway.

When we came home on Sunday, after watching the Super Bowl, we got our thawed out wedding cake out of the fridge. It. Was. Delicious. No lie. Dad wrapped it in so much saran wrap and put it in a container that it was perfect. I'm still snacking on it today. 

I will never forget how perfect our first anniversary was.  I can't wait to see what awesome adventures our second year brings!! 

Our Wedding: The Seven Things

While planning my wedding, people kept telling me that there are seven things that go wrong on your wedding day.  Whoever thought it was wise to tell a bride that was obviously ready to die. It was true, whether I wanted to deal with the reality or not.  Some of the things that went wrong, I didn't find out about until just recently, but sure enough, there were seven things that went wrong on my wedding day.   1. Ours started the day before our wedding.  For the rehearsal dinner, I had a beautiful Calvin Klein dress; it was white with a navy blue stripe on it.  My sister was putting on her face makeup and it shot out of the pump and onto my dress. I ended up wearing the same dress I wore for our bridal tea.    2. After the ceremony, most of my family left for the reception with everyone else.  We planned to take family pictures in the in-between time we had between the ceremony and reception.  Our minister forgot to announce that families should exit to the back of the auditorium, so we didn't get pictures with everyone in them.    3. The lighter wouldn't light for my unity candle.  I remember Dad coming back to the back of our auditorium and saying "the lighter wouldn't light".  I jokingly said "What'd you do? Did you take your cigarette lighter out of your pocket to light it?" He looked at me and said, "Well, yeah!"  Watching our wedding video, that was one of the most hilarious parts of our wedding.   

4. We forgot the boutonniere for the minister, and I kept Dad's with me. I didn't let anyone know that, so my poor father in law was shafted at first. haha. I felt so bad.   5. During the reception, the boys took my car to Jackson's parents house because we used the truck as a getaway car. Our marriage license was in the car, so our reception lasted much longer than it should have because we had to wait for them to go back and get it. 

6. One of my bridesmaids' dresses didn't fit at all. Apparently, there was a crisis a couple of nights before my wedding, she took it the day of my wedding to get it let out, and she took an ungodly amount of laxatives the day of my wedding.

7. Jackson ran out of time and budget to get his groomsmen gifts. Looking back, totally not okay.  Did they notice? Not one bit.  I love how simple boys are.    

Our Wedding: Redo's

After attending a wedding post-Hinners wedding, I have a bunch of things I'd do all over again for our wedding. 

1. Having a first look with Jackson and one with my daddy - I wouldn't give these moments up for anything. Looking back, they were two of my top five moments of the day. I was able to decompress and get rid of my jitters with Jackson and I was able to have a sweet moment, just me and my daddy before I was swept away as a bride.  
2. My dress - My dress was one of my favorite parts of my wedding. It took me two trips to David's Bridal and a breakdown with an awful consultant to find the dress. The second I put it on, I knew it was mine.
3. My venue - I loved having our wedding at our church. It was the church Jackson grew up in, the church both of us were baptized in, the church family that had poured into our relationship from the beginning, and the church that we will someday raise our own family. It just made sense.
   

    
4. My reception - Everything about our reception was a dream come true (minus the fact that we couldn't dance).  From the Christmas light, gossamer canopy to the dessert bar to the cake, everything was perfect.
5. The budget - I wasn't given a budget to begin with, I was just very conscious about how much we spent. Our wedding, total, was $7,000 (give or take a few dollars). We had everything we'd ever dreamed of, and that was simply enough. We didn't have to go to ridiculously measures to have the wedding of our dreams.
6. My maids and men - having each of these people in our wedding made our wedding what it was. Each of them brought something special to our day, and we wouldn't have had it any other way.
   
7. My bridal party attire - We used Men's Warehouse for our tuxes. They were a grey, Calvin Klein suit and pant, white shirt, navy vest and bowtie and pocket square. Jackson wore a grey vest with a white bowtie. They all had Happy Socks! :) Our girls wore Mori Lee style 181 in Navy. :) It was flattering on all of them!!
8. My flowers - I may have mentioned before that my flowers were artificial. I put together all of the bouquets and boutonnieres: groomsmen, fathers (I forgot our officiant.. oops), bridesmaids, mothers, grandmothers, and our Kroger florist where my mom works put together my bouquet... all ten pounds of it. :) We went to Joann's and spent $160 on flowers for 21 people (including my huge) bouquet. I bought every pink peony, white hydrangea, white rose, and baby's breath in Nashville. We also used artificial flowers in our centerpieces for our reception.
9.  Having Heath marry us - Our officiate is the associate minister at our church. He was the youth minister when I started attending church at Jackson Park, and for Jackson three years before that.  He has seen our ups and downs, breakups, fights, and our best moments.  I wouldn't have had anyone else marry us for the world.
10.  Hiring a videographer and photographer we knew well - It seems like it is a "duh" thing to hire both the videographer and a photographer, but it was even better having people we knew and trusted in these areas.  Our videographer is a member at our church and does videography for a living. Our photographer was a life-long family friend that I have known all my life. He has taken pictures of my sister and I growing up, so it made sense to hire him. Hiring people we knew also enabled us to use the money saved elsewhere. We only paid $200 for our videos (rehearsal, ceremony, and reception) and our photography was free.
11. My Groom (cheese alert) - I wouild not have traded marrying Jackson for any of the first ten things listed.  :) At the end of the day, we were married and thats what mattered. 



Our Wedding: The Dress

I had always grown up knowing I wanted to look like a princess on my wedding day. As I got older, though, and times changed, the "princess" look had a million different meanings to a million different people. For some, it was a sexy fitted dress, for others it was a ball gown. I got engaged on December 23, 2012 and first went shopping for dresses January 4, 2013. I went and tried on all kinds of dresses.... Mermaid, A-Line, Ball Gown, Tea Length. I didn't fall in love with any of them.   I made a list of requirements for the next time we would go dress shopping... Ball-Gown Blingy Belt Fluffy white (I was not a fan of ivory at all) Sweetheart neckline Zipper less than $500 (I had planned to pay for it all myself)   The next time I went to David's Bridal was with my mother.  We looked through, picked dresses we knew we wanted to try. I had been looking online and found this dress that I was convinced was it. My consultant pulled dresses too like this trumpet style dress, this sheath style dress, and another awful material dress that made me look pregnant.    I broke down in tears because I was scared I wasn't going to find the dress.  She asked me for my list of requirements, and I gave it to her. She looked at my mom and told her she had the perfect dress and asked my mom to follow her. I told my mom not to bring it back if it was over budget because I was not going to fall in love with a dress I couldn't afford (I watched enough SYTTD to know how that feels!)   She brought back this dress. I put it on and sobbed. It was the perfect dress.... my beautiful princess gown that I had always dreamed of. And it was my size - meant to be!!  

I looked at the price tag - $950?!???!?! I sat in the floor and cried. I couldn't believe this was my dress and it was too expensive. The girl came over and told us it was on sale for $800 that week. Wow... only $150 off?! Still too expensive. So My mother and I made the deal that I would pay half and she would pay half. so I left with my dress.   Fast forward to six weeks before the wedding. It had been hanging in the closet waiting to be pranced around in. Between the purchase of the dress and this pre-wedding mark, I had my gallbladder removed. I was unaware of the side effect of gaining weight in strange places (i.e. chest and ribs). I put my dress on and it was nowhere near zipping. I lost my mind. just lost it. How could this have happened??!   Luckily, my best friend had started working at a bridal store and knew a miracle-working seamstress. She let out every part of my dress, moved the beaded waist band, constructed a bow for the back, and viola! It fit! She worked a miracle two weeks before my wedding!! Plus it added a special one-of-a-kind flare to the dress!   You can see the back detail in these first-look pictures:

 

Our Wedding: The Honeymoon

We had planned to spend our wedding night in our own apartment, for the first time as husband and wife. We didn't live together before marriage, so it was going to be special for us. Little did I know, my best friend and her fiance had bigger plans for us. They booked us a room at the Opryland Hotel. The place we had our first date. The place Jackson first asked me to be his girlfriend. The place we took our prom pictures as Nashville flooded in 2010. The place he asked me for forever.   Our room was beautiful. It overlooked the Cascades, and you could hear the waterfall from our room. They had gone in before us and sprinkled rose petals on our bed in an "H".   After we got settled and.. well.. you know... we realized we were starving. We hadn't gotten a bite to eat at our wedding. We had a to-go box of wedding cake, and so we decided to order room-service chicken tenders. There we were, I in lingerie and he in his wedding boxers, stuffing our faces with chicken and wedding cake. #notsorry We slept like rocks that night.   The next morning, we gathered our belongings, checked out of our hotel, and headed to his parents house to give them the key to our apartment. They were going to deliver our gifts, watch over it, etc. while we were gone.  On the way to our apartment to finish packing and gather our belongings, I realized I left my adorable veil panties and my actual veil in the bathroom of our hotel room!! So, the wonderful husband he was, he took me back to the hotel and ran back up to get them. We were finally on our way to our home to grab our bags and start the trek to Savannah, GA.    11:30am, we set out on an 8 hour (plus potty breaks) drive. The drive was beautiful.

  Our first night was booked in the Fairfield Marriott in middle of nowhere, Savannah. We got there and went to check in.  Well, they couldn't find our reservation. When they did, it was all my fault for not booking it correctly.  When we got to our room, the door was jammed, the curtain wouldn't close, the lamp didn't work, and there was a walmart dehumidifier in our room. WHAT!!? I was livid. We ate at Five Guys, sat outside (in February!!) and watched the fog roll in from the river.   The next day, we went to check in to our B&B, The East Bay Inn. Oh. My. Goodness. Our room was beautiful. The ceilings were forever high, it was bright, and old.

 We threw our stuff in our room and ran to play in the city. Right across from us was River Street, so we went for lunch at Dockside. Jackson had Shrimp and Grits and I had the best Ruben Sandwich of my life.  

   Then we did some shopping. We strolled up and down River Street, wandering in and out of shops and boutiques, art museums and vendor stands. We wandered into this place called Christmas on the River. We bought our very first Christmas tree ornament together:  

(sorry about the awful quality webcam picture)   The rest, day by day, is a blur, so enjoy the photodump that documents our sweet honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia.