Going Away Dress... and my ring

I bought my going away dress on Tuesday! I'm very excited. I found it shopping with Ann and Jennifer from work at White House Black Market. It will be perfect dress to wear as we leave after the reception. It's a little white party dress from White House Black Market. So excited! :)

Also I realized I never put up a picture of my engagement ring! I love it, it's perfect. Corey did an excellent job. It's from the Shane Company. Here are a few pictures.

Update: Starting to Plan

Corey and I have begun a little bit of planning. Not much yet because I still need to establish a budget, but we've started talking about colors. I don't think we've come to an agreement yet, but we have a few ideas.

Corey likes Orange... so here are a few examples.

 

 

Corey likes how the orange looks with the black suit. I kinda like it too. Corey wants his guys to wear black with an orange tie, maybe with white stripes. Not really sure how I feel about the orange, but he really likes it so we're going to try to make it work I think.

This is my favorite orange and yellow bouquet of flowers. I love how the white makes the bouquet softer than just the orange and yellow. 

This is kinda pretty. I'm just not sure how I like orange as the main color. It might be a bit too much for me.

If I were to have the bridesmaids wear orange, these next two are similar to the shade of orange I like.

This is a pretty orange invite.

Here are a few other examples and inspiration boards with orange and yellow.

I think that I like the orange and yellow idea better if we added a little bit of pink to it. Here are a few examples I found.

 

It would be easy to add more orange to this bouquet. 

This is pretty too.

I like this.

I really like this. I'll have to show Corey. We could have the guys wear that shade of orange tie and then have other options for the girls. Not really sure yet, we still need to talk more about it.

I really like this bouquet too.

Already June!

I just have to say that Corey and I have been engaged for 5 months as of the first of this month! So excited! I thought that a year and a half engagement was so long, but I'm so thankful for the time. I'm loving being engaged and being able to finish the school year without frantically planning a wedding. Time has already flown by the last 5 months! I'm really excited to start planning things with Corey this summer!!! 

I just wanted to share a few photos from over the past 4 years :)

Just friends... 4 years ago.

 

At the beach... 3 years ago.

At the rodeo... 2 years ago.

 Back at the beach... 1 year ago.

5 months ago when he proposed :)

Last time Corey was in Seattle :)

I'm so blessed to have this amazing man in my life. He is so patient, kind, smart, thoughtful, strong, loving, determined, encouraging, passionate, and so much more. He's constantly seeking to improve himself and grow closer to the Lord, he inspires me to want to do the same. He's loyal, an incredible friend, a great listener, funny, a good leader and example, and honest. I'm so excited I get to go through life with Corey. So far we've had a wonderful journey and I know it's only beginning! I pray God will guide us and give us patience and wisdom as we step forward together.

Random

I never seem to have themes when I blog on here. Mostly just a bunch of picture ideas, which is fine I guess. Just want to have a place to put the ideas I really like.


This is an easy center piece idea that I came across online. They just wrapped books with wrapping paper that they liked. Very clever, I'm not sure I'd want to do it, just because I love flowers so much, but it is creative. I also found a site that suggested using wrapping paper for a table runner or to make place mats. I think in the right wedding setting it could be a good idea. A cheap way to add a little something extra.

I especially love the bottom picture in this set of photos. The flowers and lights are beautiful.

I found this on the etsy website. If you haven't checked out etsy you could! They have a ton of awesome products from many different designers. Things for homes, weddings, crafts, clothes, art, stationary, jewelry, toys.... I'm actually not sure exactly what you'd use this for, but I thought it would be neat to put on a piece of paper and spray paint over so you've left with this image on the paper. I probably should've read what the seller intended it for. Mostly I just thought it was cute.

Finally another thing I found on Etsy, these awesome wall decals. I'd love to have one of these in my house someday. I just think they are awesome- easy and they look nice. I've included 3 of my favorites, but they also have cool wall decals for children's rooms and just about anything you could think of. I think the one that says, "A true love story never ends..." might be my favorite.

I love this one with the verse in 1 Corinthians 13. What a great visible reminder of what Godly love looks like, how we should strive to love one another and how God unconditionally loves us.

More Pictures!

SO Cute! Also reminds me I haven't played scrabble in a while :) Found this while stumbling upon. 

 

I love this too! So romantic and cute! Found this one on the same website. 

I also found these pictures while stumbling upon. I found a beautiful website you can visit if you click the link I posted. I've never seen people have photos like these from after the wedding, but I think they're really, really cute! I love the idea, the photos are candid and they look so relaxed and excited!

Leaving the ceremony <3

 

Walking to the room

Haha!

So precious!

If you love these photos you should totally check out the website Niche White Bridal Loft.

One last photo from a different website.

 

Swinging on the swings!

I'm so in love with Corey! I get to see him tomorrow!!! Sooo excited.

Misc. Things I Like

So I haven't been on here in a while, school has kept me pretty busy but I have had a little bit of time to look at various wedding things. This blog post has no one interest in particular, just a couple of things I've found.

I stumbled upon this website where you can preview various wedding invitations that you can download and print yourself. It's really neat because it allows you to preview the invitations with your names and information in it. I didn't find any invitations that I LOVED (some were okay), but it was really cool to see mine and Corey's names on an invitation. Here are just a few. They aren't the most exciting, but it was a cool website. The first two I customized with our names, the second one has our parents' names on it, the last one I just left. The dates and venues I also just left, we don't have a date or a venue yet. :)

 

This is a picture I thought was awesome. It kinda reminds me of Cor and me. 

And these are just cool food and dessert pictures. 

Mom- The bottom right corner reminds me of the delicious Jello thingy you make!

Guest Book Ideas

After looking at various wedding websites over the last few months, I've noticed that there are many awesome variations of the traditional guest book. Maybe these have been around forever, but as I haven't paid much attention to wedding things until now, they're new to me.

 

I love this first idea. The guests all write a bit of advice or well-wishes for the couple on a piece of paper and then hang it from the little tree. It makes a beautiful decoration too. I love the idea of getting advice from the guests, especially the married couples because I feel like there will be a lot to learn once we're married and I'm sure people who've been married for a while have great tips to a happy and successful marriage. However, I'm not sure what we'd do with the tree after the wedding. Of course we'd read all the notes, but it doesn't seem very practical to keep a tree around an apartment or house forever. I'd like to find something a bit more practical to hold the wise words.

 

This idea makes me happy. I love blankets and quilts. These people made a quilt incorporating their engagement photos and had people sign it using fabric markers. What a great idea. A quilt is practical and snuggly, and with this additional use it can hold great words of wisdom and reminders of fun memories and loved ones. I would be a bit curious to test out if it's difficult to write on fabric, but also I might be worried something would get spilled on it. Overall though it sounds like a good idea. I also read of people asking guests to sign pre-cut pieces of fabric and sewing them together later. Then you could add pictures of the actual wedding if you wanted to, or leave it simple with just the notes.

These two ideas are really cute. I've seen a few examples of the wedding tree (which is awesome and classy looking), but this is the only balloon version I've seen (also very creative). Each guest presses his/her finger into an ink pad and then presses it into the already drawn tree to make the leaves, signing his/her name or initials. I like this idea, but I think it would need to be accompanied by something else since there is no opportunity for a personal message or advice.

So this is kinda a fun idea. It's a homemade photo booth. You could use a Polaroid camera to take pictures and then have a book and photo sensitive adhesive to put the pictures in. Then the guests could write a little message next to their photo(s). I'm not sure how durable the book would be, but I'm sure you could think of a way to improve my idea. Maybe have the guests write their message on a colored piece of paper and put the photos and note into an envelope. That way someone could put both pieces securely into a book later and make it look pretty. Another concern is maybe this style wouldn't appeal to everyone. I definitely want as many guests as possible to sign whatever type of guest book we decide on.

This little book has little colored envelopes for guests to put in their notes, that way they all stay in one place. I think I would also like the guests to write their names on the bottom of the envelope so we could know whose note was in each envelope. In this option the notes are less visible though.

This option is pretty common. I love photos and it would allow everyone's comments to be visible. Also it would be a great addition to any room. Although I would be concerned that there wouldn't be enough room for everyone to sign. I also think it would be cool to do a twist on this idea... although I'm not really sure how.

 

This first book is just a twist on traditional guest books. It is customized with pictures of the bride and groom. I've also seen pre-made scrapbook pages with open space between pictures for guests to write on, as seen in the second photo. I kinda like that idea of having the homemade touch.

I think that's it for now, just kinda gathering ideas I've seen and collecting my thoughts on them. I might add a few later if I come across any others that I like. :) To me it's important to give the guests an opportunity to share their words of wisdom with us, as well as have a guest "book" that is practical and that we can enjoy for the rest of our lives.