Christmas Wish List ~

It's that time of year when I start daydreaming about all the fun things that I would like from Santa.

Usually, I have things in mind like scarves, boots, cozy sweaters, etc., but with our impending move to Hawaii in just a few months, there really isn't any point in asking for all of those things.

Instead, I've added some items to my list that are fun year-round and things that I will really be able to use in our new local.

It's all pretty self-explantatory. I would also love some new yoga gear form Lululemon and anything off our registries at Macy's, Pottery Barn, or Kohl's :)

What's on your Christmas list this year???

Wedding Wednesday: Bridesmaids Dresses!

After looking at a LOT of different inspiration photos, I knew that I wanted to use blush pink and ivory as the two main colors for our wedding theme. Little did I know that it would make finding the perfect bridesmaids dresses a very stressful process!

Turns out every designer has their own version of "blush" and finding one that was perfect was a harder decision than I thought it would be. 

I also wanted to take the price into consideration because several of my bridesmaids are traveling from out-of-state so that was another challenge that I had to contend with.

I had many favorites, but when I saw this dress, I knew it was the one.

Mori Lee, style #682 in Ivory Lace and Blush Chiffon

Now, apparently no pictures exist of this dress in the exact colors that I'm using so the above photo is the exact style, but think Ivory lace. The photo of the dress below is the exact colors.

Can't wait to see this beautiful dress on all my girls!

A Small Dose of Reality...

Last Friday, Shaun and I attended a commissioning ceremony for a good friend of ours. He was picked up for the Navy LDO program and will be leaving in just about a week for officer training. Once his training is complete, he and his wife will be moving to Guam where he will carry out his next sea tour.

This was the first commissioning ceremony that I had ever been to and it was surprisingly very emotional! This is a HUGE step in Jeremy's career and a huge step for both him and his wife as a married couple.

While Shaun will not be receiving a commission just yet, this will be us in a matter of months when we leave for Hawaii. I am so happy for our friends, but I will miss them so much!

Toward the end of the ceremony, it really started to hit me that we will have to say, "see you soon" to all of the wonderful friends that we've made here in Charleston. While I am excited for a new adventure, it is going to be very hard to leave after three years.

On the other hand, we are moving to Hawaii, unbelievable! I guess I will just have to hope and pray that lots of friends and family come to visit us there.

So much to do, so little time; The venue!

Still trying to get my blog caught up on the wedding planning process, a lot happened in such a short amount of time!

My main goal was to get all of the big vendors and decisions done/ made before the holidays so that we could enjoy this time with our families and not have to stress out about wedding planning.

First comes the ring, then the dress (or if you're me, vice versa haha), then we had to find the venue, photographer, DJ, bridesmaids dresses, caterer, register, and choose the wedding party. All which I can happily say are DONE!

A few weeks ago, actually just a few days after we got engaged, Shaun and I went to check out a venue that we had found online and had fallen in love with.

Living in Charleston, there are a million and one beautiful places to get married and this city has long been called one of the top wedding destinations. With that being said, I knew that I wanted to find something beautiful, but slightly off the beaten path to not only try and save a few bucks, but to try and have something slightly different than every other couple that's gotten married here.

The venue that we chose is Old Wide Awake Plantation in Hollywood, SC.

 Some additional photos that I took during our tour.

 Front of the house.

Side view.

 Looking up at the front of the house.

Beautiful sprawling porch..

 Looking out from the front porch.

Another porch view.

More porch..

The drive, leading up to the house.

Overall, the property is just perfect. There is a small pond with a fountain next to the house as well as a fire pit. There is also a park at the end of the road that lies right on the river, which will be perfect for photos!

These pictures can't even start to portray how beautiful it is and I know that with our personal touch, it will be a fairytale!

Wedding Planning Update: The Dress!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I know we did! We spent the long weekend in Eastern Kentucky at Shaun's mamaw and papaw's house. We also got to visit with lots of family and talk wedding plans :)

On Monday, after we got back into town, I went to meet with our wedding planner for the first time. She is the event coordinator at our venue and I couldn't be more excited to work with someone so knowledgeable. I have a vision, but there is no doubt that I will need a little help carrying it out.

 

 Now, you may recall that I went home to CT back in October to visit my cousin and her newborn little boy. While I was home, there was another very important event that took place. I said "YES" to the dress!

You might be thinking right now, "hey, you weren't even engaged in October" and here's where I say, "that is true, but..." You see, Shaun and I have been talking about getting married for at least a year now.

We had already talked a ton about getting married in April, especially since he is due to get transferred around that time. Back in October, I still had no idea what his plans were for our engagement, but I knew that if we were to get married in April, I had to get on shopping for a wedding dress.

With a little more discussion, Shaun gave me the okay to go dress shopping with my mama while I was home since the next time I would be in CT would be Christmas. At that point, it would most likely be too late to order a dress for an April wedding.

I had been scouring the internet for weeks by that point and yes, I was that girl that had the wedding Pinterest board before I had the ring. Hey, at least I knew exactly the type of dress that I would be looking for and I quickly found that I was in LOVE with the Watters line.

Once home in CT, I looked up to see who in the area carried the Watters line of dresses and found April Rose, however, it wasn't until after I had already had two unsuccessful visits to two other bridal shops. Once we got to April Rose, I knew that I was going to find my dress there.

I tried on at least ten different Watters dresses and while I loved them all, there was only one that I knew was the one. I honestly didn't think that I would cry when I found my dress, but it actually turned out to be a really emotional moment.

I had been picturing myself in a white dress for some time and when I saw myself in THE dress, I just absolutely knew.

Here are some of the beautiful dresses that I tried on, but you'll have to wait until after the wedding to see the one that I chose!!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

So I have a thing...

Where my OCD kicks in and I have to clear out all of my unread blog posts in Bloglovin' before I can continue on and write my own post.

It can also be very daunting when I sign in and see 799 unread posts. Eek!

Needless to say, when I saw that this morning, I got to work.

I didn't read anywhere close to all of them, but if you ever notice comments on posts dating back a week or two, you'll know why.

I was so glad to get everything cleared out so that I could finally write my own post, so here we go...

The last couple weeks have been on the crazy side, that's what happens when you have about five months to plan a wedding. I'm really happy with how everything is coming along though and I've gotten quite a few things crossed off my list.

To catch y'all up on what's been going on around here....

My birthday was a couple weeks ago, on the 17th, and it was a great weekend. I hung out with Lindsey on Saturday at the Navy wives vendor fair on base then Shaun treated me to a manicure and pedicure :) On my way to the salon, I picked up a couple bridal magazines to browse while I got pampered.

That night, we met Lindsey, TJ, and Liam out for sushi at Sushi 101. It was delish, then we headed out to their house to hang out for a bit.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, Shaun and I went to brunch at Red Drum then headed downtown to walk around. We didn't really buy anything, but it was warm out and nice to spend time outside. 

From downtown, we headed out to John's Island for dinner at Wild Olive with friends. It wasn't the craziest birthday by any means, but it was a great weekend.

No re-cap is complete without a couple pictures of these two...

Last week, we went for a tasting at Cru Catering and it was a-maz-ing.

Here is a little sneak peak!

They surprised us at the end with dessert, Bourbon-infused Cherry Bread pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. All I have to say....omg.

This past weekend on Friday, I went with Shaun and another one of his co-workers and their students to hibachi. We then got Rita's for dessert, YUM!

On Saturday, Shaun went to play paintball with his students in the morning and early afternoon. While he was out doing man things, I did what I do best...shopping! We had planned a photo shoot with Marie on Sunday and I had to make sure we were looking our best.

Saturday night, we grabbed some apps at Sesame then headed across the way to the IMAX theater to see Catching Fire. It was really good, I was happy about that :)

Lastly, on Sunday, I headed out to Tease Dry Bar to get my hair and makeup done and shortly after Shaun and I met up with Marie for pictures. What was supposed to be an 'engagement shoot' quickly turned into a mini holiday shoot due to the freezing cold weather and wind. Guess we'll have to try again another time!

Soooo, that's about it. Thank you if you actually read through this whole post and made it this far :p

I have lots more wedding stuff to post about and promise to get to that soon!

Hope you all have a great week!

                                                                         

Wedding Wednesday!

I am very excited today because Shaun and I are going to tour our number one choice for venue!

Old Wide Awake Plantation

Originally we had discussed a wedding date of Sunday, April 13, 2014, but changed it to April 6 due to our upcoming move. We thought this would give us more time to visit family after the wedding and before our move to Hawaii.

After calling around to local hotels over the past few days, I am quickly finding that April 6 was not a very good choice. The Cooper River Bridge Run is the same day and it is the biggest event in Charleston. I haven't been having very much luck finding a block of hotel rooms for our out-of-town guest, most places have nothing available.

Last night, we discussed changing the date back to April 13th or even the weekend before, March 30. We have told some people April 6, but we haven't sent out save-the-dates yet or signed any contracts.

What would y'all do? The cheapest hotel room I've been able to find so far ranges from $179-$199 (WITH a group discount!) Since we already have so many guests coming from out-of-state, I feel like this would deter them from coming even more :(

We plan to talk to the event coordinator at the venue tonight to get her opinion.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Wedding Wednesday: The Proposal Story

I'm soo excited to finally get to link-up for Wedding Wednesday!

Today, I would like to share our proposal story. It's a good one, I promise.

A little background: Marie's future sister-in-law, Michelle, came down from Richmond over the weekend to do some wedding shopping of her own. She is getting married in May so we did some wedding dress shopping and bridesmaids dress shopping on Saturday and Sunday.

Shaun went down to the beach with Marie's husband on Sunday to do some fishing and we agreed that us girls would meet them down there when we finished and we would go grab a bite to eat.

TOTALLY normal kind of weekend.

On Sunday, after shopping, us girls headed down to Sullivan's Island to meet the guys. I had driven separately and had to stop over to get gas on the way, which got me there a few minutes later than Marie and Michelle. This turned out to be a good thing ;)

As I walked up to the beach, I was completely oblivious. Nothing seemed different to me in the least.

As I walked up over the dune, I saw Marie and Michelle over to my left and it appeared as though there was a small group of people standing behind them. Marie was crouched down with her camera, which confused me a little bit, but I continue to walk closer, smiling and posing for the camera (hah.)

As I neared the group, Marie yelled to me to go over and see Shaun. I looked around, but with the bright sun and glare off the water, it wasn't clear that it was him standing over to my right. Just as I started to turn toward him, I realized that Lindsey was one of the people in the group behind Marie.

I kind of blindly walked in his direction, again slightly confused as to why he was standing way off to the side away from everyone else and also standing in what appeared to be a circle he drew in the sand. As I got closer, I realized that he was actually holding a bouquet of red roses and the "circle" that I thought he was standing in was actually a heart made out of pink roses. I turned and looked back with a look of complete shock on my face and realized that the other people within the group were about ten of our closest friends.

Then it hit me.... Oh my god, he's going to propose.

I immediately started crying as I walked the rest of the distance to him. As I stepped into the heart on the sand, he got down on one knee. First he told me to stop crying because I was going to make him cry, then he told me he loved me and a few more sweet words, presented my ring and asked me to marry him.

Between sobs, I said, "yes!" and we hugged and hugged.

After a few minutes, I turned around and realized that all of our friends were right there to congratulate us. It really was the most perfect proposal I could have ever dreamed of. It meant so much to have our friends there, too.

After a little while, a handful of us decided to grab an early dinner so we headed to Home Team BBQ to celebrate :p Totally us.

SO, that's it! Here are some pics :)

Best.day.ever.

BIG NEWS!!

Sooo, I know that I've been a in and out of blogging a lot lately, but it has mainly been because I knew that we were on the verge of some big news and I could hardly contain myself.

We got official word about Hawaii now though so I can freely talk about that and something else happened over the weekend that I can also now talk freely about....

WE'RE ENGAGED!!

Shaun proposed this past Sunday and I say "yes!", of course :)

It was the most perfect proposal. He caught me completely off guard and I couldn't possibly think of a better way for him to have done it.

We have set the date for April 6, 2014. Yes, we have only about five months to plan, but I am ready! You see, I knew that it was only a matter of time and I may have taken it upon myself to do some of the legwork already (with Shaun's approval, that is.)

As of tomorrow, I plan to join in on Marie's Wedding Wednesday link-up or eventually create my own. Stop on by tomorrow for my first post, The Proposal Story!

 And, for those who are dying to see it (because I know I would be!)

I am one HAPPY girl! <3<3<3

Weekend Re-cap, Like HCC on Facebook, and HAWAII!!

Morning y'all!

This weekend was a little low-key, but super fun nonetheless.

Friday night, Shaun and I grabbed sushi for din (this is quickly becoming our Friday night routine!)

Saturday, we did some major cleaning around the house then went to pick pumpkins with friends. After returning home, we ordered ourselves some pizza and had a little pumpkin-carving party. It was soo fun!

I love how they all came out!!

My Cinderella's Castle pumpkin <3

Sunday, we went to church then I headed out to Acme Lowcountry Kitchen at IOP to have brunch with Lindsey and Liam. It was delicious, as always.

I finally created a Facebook page for Honor Courage Commitment and I would love for you all to "LIKE" it below! :)

Lastly, Shaun found out at work yesterday that we will not be able to get extended here in Charleston and we will definitely be having to report to Pearl Harbor by May 16, 2014.

Hawaii, here we come!!

Another Wedding and a Super Cute Little Baby Boy!

Happy Hump Day friends! It's always nice for my week to begin on a Wednesday, Friday will be here before I know it!

Over the weekend, I made another quick trip up to CT to meet my cousin's brand new baby boy and to attend my friend Kim's wedding.

It was a beautiful weekend complete with amazing Fall weather. I must admit, while I LOVE living in the South, I do miss the changing of the leaves and the brisk October temperatures.

I could just squeeze these cheeks all day!

Kim & Brandon's wedding...

My first PSL of the Fall and a Baltimore sunset.

Here's hoping the weekend comes quick!

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Some Fall Faves ~

With the weather cooling off (a little bit at least) and my recent trips up north, I've been getting more and more into the Autumn spirit.

The cooler weather also has me thinking about cute flats and boots so here are some of my faves this year!

1 // 2// 3 // 4// 5// 6// 7 // 8 // 9

I'm dying to buy a new pair of boots this year, but since we pretty much know we will be transferring to Hawaii in the Spring, there really isn't any point to that :( 

Someone buy a pair of these boots so I can live vicariously through you?

Last Couple Days in CT...

Once we returned from the Cape, S and I took some time to visit family and friends and on Saturday we attended my cousin's wedding. 

The wedding was held at Elizabeth Park in Hartford and the reception was at the Pond House Cafe. It was beautiful even if it was a little overcast and windy.

My cousin, Jess, and her dad (my uncle)

Me and my momma in one of the gardens at Elizabeth Park.

<3

 Shaun, me, and my fam :)

My mom and dad have lots more photos, I really need to get those from them!

The day after the wedding, Shaun and I hopped in the car and started our trek back to Charleston.

Speaking of trips to CT.... I have another one planned for THIS weekend!

My cousin, Amanda, just had her first baby and I am thrilled for her and her hubby, Joe! 

I can't wait to me Mr. Dominic Michael, born October 5, 2013.

6 lb 13 oz, 19"

He is the sweetest little thing and I can't wait to love on him all weekend<3<3<3

CT Trip: Martha's Vineyard

After a couple of days on the Cape, S and I hopped a ferry over to Martha's Vineyard.

The weather continued to be absolutely perfect and we had a great time!

On the ferry!

Once we got in to MV, we checked into our hotel then went for a snack. We walked around the Edgartown area for a bit and then found a place to rent bikes so we could check out the area further.

S standing in front of the Vineyard Square Hotel & Suites.

Our room.. Cozy, but really nice!!

Front porch of the hotel, so pretty!

Edgartown

We took our bikes down toward the beach and rode along empty streets (one of the great benefits of visiting during the off-season!)

South Beach

Once the sun started going down, we headed back to the hotel so we could figure out plans for dinner.

The next day, we were originally planning to head back to my parents' house on the earlier side, but since the weather was so nice, we decided to stay and enjoy the day since we had the bike rentals until about 5pm.

Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse

 East Chop Lighthouse

View from Telegraph Hill

We rode our bikes all the way to Vineyard Haven, which was a total of about 10 miles!

Of course after all of that crazy bike-riding, we were starved so we checked out Yelp and grabbed lunch at The Net Result. It was pretty darn good.

My scallops mmmm...

Since we were sooo tired, we decided to take the bus back to Edgartown. We then packed up our stuff, hopped the ferry, and drove back to CT.

Last leg of our trip coming tomorrow!

Happy Hump Day!