#39 Shoes

Jonathan bought some black dress shoes Sunday for a sweet deal. Today, I bought these. I hope they work out because I think they are cute... via jildorshoes.com

#38 Dress has arrived!

My dress came one month early! I'm going with Kaitlin (MOH) to look at it and try it on tomorrow night. Yay I can't wait! I wish I could post pictures...I'd have to password block them though and I am not that blog savvy, haha. I guess you guys will just have to wait until May. ;)

#37 Ties and such

It's been a bit of a hassel finding the right ties to go with the dresses. Plain yellow is well, too plain, but anything with a pattern to it seems to incorporate blue which doesn't really go. I found this photo...

and I liked this tie that Jonathan found, and for a good price too! Think it goes ok? We may just have to buy a couple and try it. If not, we could just send them back.

The other challenge has been color of suit. This seems to be my favorite. Lately we have been talking about Jonathan in a suit and the guys in pants that match, white shirts, and vest that match the suit. The vest is the wrong color but something like this would be nice. Plus it's too expensive but of course I love it...it's J. Crew after all :)

#36 After the shoot

We went cardboard sledding with our photographers. There is a mighty nice hill in the park in Chattanooga that is perfect for this. We needed bigger boxes though. Check this syncro! This is me and Erica. Aren't we graceful?

Here's Jonathan behind me. Yahoo! Very very fun.

#35 Engagement Photos Preview

All I have to say is Ray & Erica are amazing. We had such a great time. We met for coffee/tea right before the shoot and then went and ate dinner at Aretha Frankenstein's. Yum...

Here is a preview. Also, check out the entry at their blog here. More to come in 2 weeks!

#34 Mid-Term

Apologies on not blogging. I decided to take a break from plans and such as it was a very busy week and a half. I went to Denver, CO last weekend, came back and was swamped by mid-terms during the week, and then Jonathan and I flew to Florida for a couple days on break to visit his parents and the Florida sun. We fly back tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon we are having our engagement photos done.

I found some pretty sweet boots at the outlets. That is definitely something I miss about Calif

ornia. As much as I love Tennessee, the shopping is mediocre at best. We are still trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow but I'm sure it will all fall into place.

Friday we went to Sea World with his parents. It was really quite moving to see killer whales swimming and obey commands (or suggestions as they say) by humans.

Wedding plans shall resume soon. In the meantime, here are some photos from the trip.

This was before Kracken...I was REALLY excited.

If you look, we are the 4th row from the bottom with Jonathan's dad. Yay!

Ha. We got these free tickets to this game. The object was to pass this metal thing through the spinning wire. Yeah...I didn't do so well. This photo makes me laugh.

The future in-laws! :)

#33 Caterer booked

Yahooooo!

I just got off the phone with Tamara, the original lady that I talked with months ago. She runs The Bee's Knee's Catering company. It took a while to get back in touch, but I've only heard positive things about her - and I hear the food is fantastic! Plus, she is willing to work with our budget which really makes me happy.

Now just to finalize that menu...and find shoes for the girls....and figure out what kind of invitations I'd like...ask someone to coordinate the wedding...pick out the reception music....and ceremony music...

#32 Ceremony music

Did I mention we also have a ceremony musician? Aaron Roche has agreed and we couldn't be more thrilled! Soooo thankful and excited. The boy and Aaron roomed together for a bit in college, and he is also a favorite musician of mine. He toured all over Europe this summer and even made a stop in my favorite country. Check him out.

Here he is pictured with his wife Whitni. The sister of our MC man. Such a talented bunch. :D

#31 Honeymoon planning

I decided that I didn't want to know where we are going...and instead have it be a surprise. (After all, surprises are always more fun aren't they?) I have a hunch where we might be going, but really I have no idea. I'm not sure he knows exactly where yet either :P But honestly...I'm just excited to spend a week away with my soon-to-be husband! Eeek!

Thanks for everyone who voted in the polls. Here are the results!

1. Caribbean   (6 votes)

1. Iceland (6 votes)

2. Australia (5 votes)

3. Thailand (4 votes)

4. Hungary (2 votes)

5. Hawaii (1 vote)

The "other" section received 4 votes. Places included Greece and this neat place at the Grand Canyon that is sometimes overlooked.

#30 Flowers

I've been searching and praying that something will come through with the flowers. After talking with some florists and my cousin who is a florist, I quickly realized this is an area where  I can save lots of money as long as I have the manpower to help out.

Anyway, I was riding bikes with some friends yesterday and my dear friend Shannon said that she and her husband were trying to think of something really nice to give us for our wedding since Jonathan can find just about anything for a better price (love that :D). So she and Steve came up with the idea to grow us a garden of flowers for our wedding! She works at an organic farm downtown and has access to lots of brilliant growing minds plus herself. She said she had been doing a lot of research and got really excited about it. Her only worry is that since we are getting married in mid May...the flower season may or may not have kicked off yet. In this case...she asked around.

The company who she works for has a wholesale license and offered to let her use it to buy flowers. So in that case...we can buy them wholesale if we need to! YAY!  I looked up the wholesale florist in Chattanooga and they are open from 7-3:30 p.m. Monday thru Friday. Looks like I'll be making a trip down there sometime soon to see how everything works.

Either way - I'm really excited. We could potentially have a field full of beautiful flowers for our wedding...or a wholesale license to purchase flowers at the best rate.

I know there is hesitancy in doing your own flowers, but I can't see why we should pay so much when we have great resources amongst our friends and family. Like I said before, a few have already offered to take control on this part of the venture. Now I have good news for them too!

The boy's grandmother also offered to do some research for me at Sam's Club and see how that works with order flowers. She was in there the other day and said a lady was buying tons of flowers for a wedding. I've also read online that Sam's is a good place to go.

I'm not sure about bouquets yet. I go back and forth about having a professional do those. We'll see.

This link was helpful. It talks about what to look for when buying wholesale flowers.

As was this entry from a blog I follow.