Page 6

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: SAYING “YES” TO THE DRESS

Saying “YES” to the Dress! One of the most special moments that will forever be imprinted in my memory! On this Wedding Wednesday, I want to take it back a little, to about two months ago when I said “yes” to the dress. After the holiday’s had passed, I decided that it would be a good time to “start looking” for a dress. Yes, I said ‘start looking’.. mostly because in my mind, I thought things would go a lot different. And what I mean by that is.. time! The time it took me to find MY dress, was definitely less than I had originally planned for.

Originally I had thought, “Ok, Jen! Its time to start the search, because knowing me, I won’t be able to decide”.. Those were my thoughts exactly guys. My thoughts played a little trick on me that day.. I had made two appointments for the day for a start. Little did I know ONE would have been good enough. My appointments for that day included two places; First being Patricia’s South Bridal, a cute little boutique in Ft. Lauderdale that I had known through my brother and from high school. It was the place to go to for prom dresses, lol. Second, David’s Bridal, I had nothing to lose. Going into the appointments, I was nervous, yet very excited. Nervous because I knew I had a budget that I was very adamant about not surpassing, especially that my fiancé and I are paying for our wedding. And of course, I was excited, excited because well I had never tried on a wedding dress and I knew at the moment that we walked into the store, that we were there for MY dress!

That day I decided to take with me the most special and closest of friends with me. Not all could make it to both appointments, but spending the day with all them even if it wasn’t all together made my day sooo special! It meant the world to have them all there. I was seriously overwhelmed with joy, seeing all my girls there. The first appointment was amazing, most of my girls made it to this appointment with the exception of a couple and it was the start of a very special two hours.

The appointment started in the cutest little ‘tea room’ where my bridal consultant asked me the famous questions… “whats your style?” “what do you see yourself wearing?” “poofy not poofy?” “Veil?No veil?” the list goes on… up into everyone’s favorite question..”what your budget?”sigh… well as anyone that’s getting married can tell you budget is a big deal! Well after I had told my Bridal consultant the ultimate answer of the budget, and how adamant I was about sticking to it, my lovely girls brought the champagne out to start the festivity and the search! Little did I know, my mom and dad had a little surprise I had no clue about. Right before the toast, My mom stopped and told me that her and my dad had a surprise me… well that’s when she leaned over and whispered to me that her and my dad were paying for my dress!… How grateful I was for that gesture is beyond what words can describe! Of course the tears flowed, but flowed with joy! We are so incredibly blessed for all the support we have received from all our loved ones through this journey.

The Dress search quickly started and my amazing bridal consultant April started to put me in dresses! The best part of trying on dresses for the first time is seeing everyone’s faces when you come out and the second is seeing how what you may have hated or loved, doesn’t always go the way you thought. My advice to any bride looking for a dress… Be OPEN MINDED and be willing to try dresses on. Half of the time, the way they look on you is completely different from what you thought when you see the dress on the hanger. Well long behold, there were ‘nice’ dresses, ‘pretty’ dresses, ‘okay’ dresses and there was a ‘LOVELY’ dress.

Everyone always ask, “did the dress make you cry?””Did you get the feeling?” Well, I can now describe the ‘feeling’ most talk about. From all the dresses I tried, I always looked to mostly one person for confirmation, and that person was my momma. She liked a lot and thought many were pretty.. But how did I know that my dress was “the dress?” I knew, as soon as my mom got up from her chair, her eyes glowed, touched the dress from head to toe.. telling me how beautiful I looked and that she couldn’t believe it. I knew it was my dress when she stared into my eyes and cried with the biggest smile on her face. When her and my little sister reached over to me and gave the biggest hugs full of joy and love. And when I looked behind them to see my future mother in-laws face, lit up with a smile and tell me that Xavier is going to love it..and that I looked beautiful. That’s how I knew that my dress was “the dress.” Most girls, not all.. I realize this.. but most girls, look to their moms for that last confirmation.. and well, that’s me. I knew that if my momma loved it and made her get up from her seat, and my mother in-law also loved it and knew her son would too.. that, that was my confirmation to say “yes” to the dress. Did I cry? Yes. I didn’t cry because of the dress, no. I cried because of the moment the dress brought upon us. It’s a beautiful dress and I wouldn’t want to wear any other dress. But I cried because I could see myself walking down the aisle to my future husband in that dress and i could see my mom on the side with tears of joy and confirmation. All those thoughts plus my overjoyed mom hugging and fixing the dress and how lovely the dress is.. Knowing that’s the dress I would walk down the aisle with, is what made me cry.

Yes, we went to Davids Bridal after that appointment, mostly because I wanted to include those who couldn’t make it to the morning appointment and to confirm that Yes, I had picked the dress. Do I wish I would have kept looking for more dresses at different places? My answer is NO. I knew from the moment we had found my dress, that it was the dress. The dress I LOVED and would wear the day we get married. And while many tell me, you should have looked a little more, because ‘you never know’… I had already set my mind. If I absolutely LOVED my dress, saw myself walking down the aisle in it, my closest friends and family loved it and had such a sweet lovely and personal moment with my family.. why would I? Another tip for advice, don’t be too influenced by others, go with your heart. It makes the moment that much more special!

That’s how I said “YES” to my dress..

My girls with the exception of some, thank you ladies!

How cute are my Maid of Honor and Mini-Maid of Honor?

And to make my moment that much more special, my brother Joe also played a big part of my happy day… to my surprise he had also made a contribution to my saying “yes” to the dress.. Thank you Joe and to my parents for your endless efforts in making my memory the best one! You all are my happiness and Im so grateful for you all.

Happy WEDDING WEDNESDAY!.. How sweet is your memory of finding your wedding dress?

P.S. No my dress is not shown, for “groom” purposes.. 😉

-Jen<3

WEDDING WEDNESDAY

It’s wedding Wednesday guys! I have been postponing this post for quite a while! Mostly due to the lack of time I have had for “me.” But that’s ok, I know that sometimes, life get’s busy and we must attend to it! Today I wanted to start sharing with you all a little journey of mine and my fiancé’s. It’s been a mix of emotions. As many of you know, we got engaged this past October while on our trip to New York. You can read more about those adventures, HERE and HERE. Well, since our engagement, we have been bombarded with the endless questions of “when is the wedding?” “where is it going to be?” “Do you have your dress?” and “Where are you going on your honeymoon?”… SIGH! It was so overwhelming at first, because truth be told, we mostly just wanted to take in the fact that we were engaged and all the excitement we felt. But we understand that the same way we are excited, that many of our friends and family also are excited too!

So long behold, the wedding plans started that same month, mostly because we were scared. Scared because we quickly learned from many that venues and vendors book WAY to QUICKLY! AH! lol. So to be brief, I wanted a way to catch you all up on what we have done thus far… I figured I would start blogging about our wedding planning and the adventure it has been for us. So most Wednesday’s I will try to fill you all in on where we stand on our plans and our feelings thus far. Mostly because “Wedding Wednesday” sounds good and we actually will be getting married on a Wednesday! genius right? lol

To catch you all up from October, I will tell you this.. we have felt the stress of planning and of the financial toll it takes out of most planning a wedding. Don’t get me wrong, we still are VERY excited that sooner than later, we will be a married couple! But to be very honest, the amount of time, research, meetings, planning and money, it can also get very overwhelming. Let’s face it, we are not the rich and famous! lol. But thank God, that we have all that we need, along with the support and love of our family. Everyone has been so supportive, including our friends and for that we couldn’t be more grateful.

I’m most excited to be the future wife of my love.. and to be sharing our lives together. Because through all the plans, I feel we all have to remember that it’s not about the size of the wedding party or the cake or the colors, but about the marriage and love, that means more! Everything else is extra and makes it more pretty! That keeps the anxiety to a minimum for me, and brings everything back to perspective!

The journey thus far has been steady for the most part, even though having 2 other friends engaged at the same time will make you feel as you are behind on your planning! lol That’s what happens when most of our conversations turn into “wedding” convos. And we end up asking each other ‘what he have done’ and ‘what we still have to do’. Thanks Desi and Anita! lol Through it all, we have our laughs in those conversations.

Well guys this is what we have been able to accomplish since October:

√ a date
√ a venue
√ an amazing photographer (Beca Companioni)
√ a wedding dress!! ♥
√ 1 of 7 bridesmaids’ dress
√ And a successful engagement party

Not too shabby huh? We are at 9 months of the countdown, and I know that from here on, time will move quickly. So more research is being done and more things will eventually get crossed off the list. For now we will be thankful for what he have done thus far. We are trying our hardest to keep the cost down, since we are paying for the wedding.. so research has been crucial. In further post, I will fill you in on more of what we have crossed off our list and go more into details about the “finding the dress story” and the “venue story”… and any suggestions for you future brides and grooms out there!

Here’s a little fun thing we got in the mail a couple of days ago, that made it all that much real for us… Our free wedding sample kit from minted. Made me realize that soon enough our wedding date and names will be on a invitation and save the dates! yikes! I’m so excited. The Free sample kit is lovely. A great way for you to see their quality and the variety that you have to choose from! I included pictures of whats included in the kit. Isn’t the kit super cute?=)

Planning a wedding too? We would love to hear all about it and any advice you may have for us! Stay tuned for more of ‘Wedding Wednesday!’

-Jen<3

GROOVEBOOK LOVE!

GrooveBook Love! Today’s post is a little different.. a little different because I will be sharing one of my favorite products thus far!

It all started about five months ago, when a fellow co-worker introduced the product to me. As many of you may know by now, I enjoy a good photograph. I also must admit that I’m a little bit of a picture hoarder. My iPhone has always been my ‘memory keeper’ the place where my photo’s are kept, until I get that little message that pops up and states…”your memory is full.” Isn’t that just the worst moment?? Especially when you think your about to take that one good shot that you can’t wait to share with everyone! AND may actually be instagram worthy! sigh.. lol Im sure that’s happened to all of us at some point. Most of us may just download our memories unto another piece of technology, like our computers, our usb’s or hard drives.. but most of us won’t even take a look at those pictures for a while… I find that so sad sometimes. It may just be the love I have for cherishing and keeping memories.

One day, my fiancé and I thought about the joy we find in going to our parents home and finding old printed photographs in our mothers keep boxes, or albums. Its such a sweet feeling of joy and awe, seeing our younger faces, the smiles, the clothes, the love you see in old photographs.. The more we thought of it, the more we realized that the day its time to have some little munchkins of our own, we probably won’t have those same memories for them.. All our photographs are in a computer or get lost in files! yikes! Thats no fun..! I decided that we were going to be future parents, that would have photo albums and keep boxes full of old pictures of how mom and dad used to look like in their younger days! lol Thanks to GrooveBook, they will be helping us in this little goal of ours!

GrooveBook is an app available to Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad, and android phones, in which directly from your device you can upload the pictures you’d like printed, unto a cute little designed photo book.. Im seriously in love with them. Every month the cover is a different design, yet every month you can fill it with 100 of your favorite photos! The cost is very inexpensive, includes shipping and handling and makes a great affordable memory! Each picture will have the date, time and place in which you took your photo and each picture can be removed with their perforated edges. Even makes great for arts & crafts! It super cute, I love getting them in the mail each month. These are my latest GrooveBooks.. aren’t they cute?!

Every groove book will have these coupons in the back pages to share a code for a friend for their first free GrooveBook! NEAT!

Check out GrooveBook at their website Here for all their details and pricing! You won’t be disappointed! You will have some pretty neat photo books to share with your family and for yourself..

Jen ❤

*this post is not for profit

ENGAGEMENT & WEDDING PARTY FESTIVITIES!

Engagement & Wedding party festivities took place this past saturday night and it could not have gone any better! As many of my frequent readers know, Xavier and I got engaged in October while we were in New York. If you didn’t know here’s how he Proposed! Its worth reading in my opinion lol. ;P Well, since this past October, we have been in “planning mode.” I can tell you that the so-called ‘planning mode’ comes and goes, because it gets overwhelming at times. So we plan a little, take a breather and pick up again! It’s been working thus far for us lol. It’s an exciting time for us even with the moments of stress! Because if you’ve never planned a wedding before… let me tell you, it can be time-consuming.

Part of our wedding plans also included a special little party that we had thought up. Xavier and I, have only but a couple of mutual friends and most of our friends don’t really know each other. So our plans were to host a small “Engagement Party” for the sole purpose of making it an opportunity for our friends to meet. We had to call it an “engagement party’ for the purpose of keeping it a surprise to our Bridesmaids and Groomsmen. What most of our friends didn’t know was that our plan was to throw a little party for our wedding party, to ask our closest friends to be our groomsmen and bridesmaids. We wanted it to be special and intimate because we wanted our gals and guys to get to meet (most for the first time) so that come wedding day, they would know each other. We knew that throughout the year more opportunities would have come where they would have been able to meet, but.. we wanted the first time to be special. So along came our little “Engagement & Wedding Party Festivities!”

Xavier and I’s, closest friends are very special to us and it means a lot to us, for them to be a part of our special day! A lot of preparation went in to making our engagement party a success. Our purpose was to make them feel special and to let them know how much we appreciate them as friends. Along with how much they mean to us as individuals and as a couple. I went to my handy-dandy “Pinterest” and started gathering my ideas for the party. To try to keep it simple for you all, just know that about 90% of our engagement party was all DIY! We really wanted to make it beautiful and timeless at an affordable price, so most of our decor and food we prepared ourselves and with the help of my family! Because lets face it, for the average joe, a budget is of the essence! We couldn’t be more grateful for all of those who helped us on saturday!

This is how we asked our gals and guys to be our ‘Bridesmaids’ and ‘Groomsmen’ and how we celebrated our Engagement!! We hope you enjoy!

This lady and I got to stare at our rings lol!

Be my Bridesmaid gifts!

Be my Groomsmen gifts!

opening their gifts!

This little lady was sooo excited for us! She wouldn't leave my side! — This little lady was sooo excited for us! She wouldn’t leave my side!

Maid of Honor

Matron of Honor

My MINI-maid of Honor!! the love of my life!

The Groomsmen!! =) — The Handsome Groomsmen!! =)

My Beautiful Bridesmaids!! <3 — My Beautiful Bridesmaids!! ❤

We're getting married! — We’re getting married!

Thank you again to all my family who were so gracious to help us this past saturday and to those who couldn’t make it but were in our hearts! We love you all!

Thank You to all our amazing friends that came to share an amazing night with us and for saying YES! to sharing Xavier’s and I’s journey into marriage by being our Bridesmaids and Groomsmen!

Even though we get overwhelmed by all the planning, we are so very excited for the months to come and for our future plans leading up to the BIG DAY and forever! We know that God will guide us through this journey and we will get through it all!

Jen and Xavier

❤

A LITTLE BIRTHDAY SURPRISE!

A Little Birthday Surprise took place 3 days ago in our home! My sweet hubby had a special Birthday to celebrate.. His big quarter of a century birthday. I think anyone who has read my blogs, knows how I feel about the big 25! To me its a special day! Unlike me, birthday’s are not that ‘big of a deal’ to my fiancé! He doesn’t like to make a big deal about them and rather just lay low. Trust me it’s not because he’s getting old.. lol.. I mean… OLDER! lol. He’s just a lay low kinda guy, especially for birthdays.

None the less, I wanted to make it a little special. He made it quite hard for me actually, he had no idea what he wanted or what he even wanted to do. So it was up to me, to make his day a little special. I wanted to do something he would never even think I would do… So I got my crafts out and got to work. A morning surprise was what he woke up to! I also gathered some ideas and began to think of some things we had talked about doing in the future. So with no help from him, and a little stress later, I came up with a simple idea. On his birthday we would paint!! I’m sure everyone has heard of BYOB painting classes, where you bring your own booze and snacks and paint away! Well we kept it classy with some wine, grapes and muffins (lol) and got to work! And no better way to end the night off than by sharing it with family and having dinner with the ones you love on your birthday. Thats exactly what we did! Thank you to everyone who was there to share it with him!

Even though it was a simple day, I know my hubby appreciated it. Like I said, he’d rather lay low. He’s a simple kinda guy and I love that about him. We always talk about keeping the small things in our relationship alive and full of love and I really think this was one of those days. It was small, quaint, relaxing and full of fun and love. And what better day to experience something new than on a birthday?? Plus, we surprised ourselves with our art skills! Which by the way,our art pieces are a little glimpse into our wedding!

All I know is this… I can’t wait to share more Birthday’s with my future husband! Wish you so many more my love. May God bless you with many more full of health, love and happiness. Love you!

Love…

Jen ❤

And Yes! I made the ‘happy birthday’ banner and notes. Did i mention I love washi tape and that i woke up at 7 am to surprise him with this while he was sleeping?!? oh for the love of…LOVE & Birthdays..lol. The Final Product and a glimpse into our wedding next year! And yes, we did paint our wedding venue! Thats a Picasso for you! 😉Such a lovely day! Thank you to Painting with a Twist: Ft. Lauderdale for having us for a day! A special thank you also for allowing us to paint our venue and letting our creativity run wild and helping us every step of the way!

-Jen<3

MAKING CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

Making Christmas Traditions is always exciting! This year, Xavier and I were even more excited… This is our first Christmas together in our own place. That means, ‘our’ own tree, ‘our’ own decorations, ‘our’ own lights.. and most importantly.. OUR own Christmas Traditions. We had decided (well, I kinda decided, lol) that we would go with a REAL Christmas tree and no tree made from plastic. No offense if that’s what your traditions consist of, lol. But there is something about a real christmas tree that makes the season even more jolly ! Not mention the smell of a real tree is one of a kind and a smell I could probably have in my house all year around if I could. I also told Xavier and our whole entire family that when the time comes for us to have children, they would not know of plastic Christmas trees!lol! Do you see my obsession now?

Any who, 2 nights ago, the fall decorations came down to make room for the next! Xavier and I’s schedule this month have been so off that it was hard finding the right day or night to make time to get a tree. But like anything else, we found a way! One night after Xavier came home, we rushed to our local Christmas Tree Tent and picked up our tree! It was love at first sight! The tent was closing in ten minutes, but as soon as Xavier saw the tree he knew it was the one! It was perfectly shaped and perfectly filled. Even though I thought we were going for a smaller tree, Xavier couldn’t part ways and so the 7 footer is now standing tall in our home! And, I love it!

The excitement was real guys! Our First tree in our home! So we got the lights out and the ornaments that my mom so graciously donated to us and began our wonderful night! We turned up the Christmas music and baked chocolate chip cookies for our night! Those two things will definitely be included in our Christmas traditions each year! Cant pass up on those two! Well along with the decor my mom so graciously donated I got around to some wonderful DIY! I made some burlap bows and my favorite, my diy burlap “Merry Christmas” banner to top it off.

We love our Tree! It’s so cozy and beautiful! We can’t help but turn on the lights even in the daytime. But what we most love is that we get to do our Christmas and our own Christmas traditions from now on. I feel so incredibly blessed to have not only the love of my life to share a Christmas with but a loving family as well! This season is a reminder of the endless blessings that pour over us each and every year and the real reason for the season.. Jesus!

Happy December 1st.. 25 days to go!

Here’s how we started it off

-Jen<3