Video Love and a Marathon for Charity

While my video isn't done and ready for viewing our AMAZING videographer, Mike Howard (with the help of his wife Amanda) from Memories Through Time posted a Spring 2010 Video Promo blog post and some shots from our wedding are included! The shots he has in there are so fun and I can't wait to see our video once he is done.

Along with this good news, I am so excited for this day to finish because tomorrow we leave for Seattle. After TONS of hard work, both training to run and raising money for The Leukemia Lymphoma Society through Team in Training, we are headed out to Seattle so Mac can run in the Seattle Rock-n-Roll marathon.

 

He is so excited to be going and is determined to make me fall in love with Seattle so we can move there some day. I am sticking to the fact that I love my sun and heat too much to ever leave, especially for somewhere that rains all the time, and not the good, warm monsoon rain that we have here. But, when trying to find pictures of the race stuff I saw that the Facebook fan page for the race has this amazing image of Lake Washington up. Now I know better than to go off one picture, but isn't it gorgeous? I may need a reality check when I get back so he doesn't drag me off to another state with hopes of pretty views like this (which I am sure only appear every so often).

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for a dinner on the top of the Seattle Space Needle.

Well thanks for checking in! Hope everyone has a great weekend. I should have some fun pictures to share from the weekend when I get back.

xoxo,

Samantha

A Little Taste of What's to Come

Last night, to my surprise, I got an email from our fabulous photographers telling us they had posted a blog with some of our photos from the wedding! I was beyond excited, obviously, so I dropped everything I was doing, which honestly wasn't much, and headed to the computer to check them out. Can I just say, I am IN LOVE with them. They are so amazing! I can't thank our photographers enough for doing such a great job and, really, they made it all so much fun. It was truly a great day, the BEST even, and we had so many great vendors that I can't thank enough. I am so happy that A&B Photos was there to capture the day (thanks Twitter) and Memories Through Time (our videographer) too - I just don't have stuff from him yet to show you and brag about, but I am told it will be soon too :) so excited!!! Anyway, check out the blog post HERE.

This is the first preview photos that they posted on Facebook almost immediately after the wedding. LOVE IT!

xoxo,

Samantha

Being married feels good!

We did it!! On May 22, 2010 Mac and I officially became Mr. and Mrs. It was absolutely perfect day, better than I could have ever hoped. Aside from a bit of family drama in the morning which caused a HUGE delay in me getting ready and ultimately making me a bit late getting out of the hotel and to the church there were no huge issues. The morning started out pretty groggy for me because I decided to go out with Nicole and Elena after the rehearsal dinner. But one I woke up and the girls started getting ready I was good. I spent the majority of the morning getting my pamper on with Kim and Colbi doing my hair and makeup then getting into the dress. Our photographer and videographers arrived during our getting ready time and once I was finally situated in the dress and read y to go we headed for the church.


Before the ceremony we just had a bunch of waiting around to do in the church classroom we were in, then just before I was supposed to give it to him, I realize I left Mac's wedding gift in my room. Our coordinator ran back to get it but unfortunately she didn't make it back in time to have us trade before the ceremony. So we just did it after. Of course it was SUPER hot that day and almost unbearable to be outside – especially in my amazing, but massive dress. So we took as many pictures as we could inside and did a few around the golf course right and resort right after. 


Once we got to cocktail we were taken upstairs to get a peek at the ballroom and it was absolutely breath-taking. Everything was exactly how I wanted it and the resort gave us the ENTIRE ballroom so it was really quite a sight walking in. From there the night just flew by. The toast we both funny and touching, we really couldn't ask for better friends and family. The combination of heat and the dress made me not feel well enough to eat or drink anything but water but once I got composure we made the rounds to the tables. It's weird I feel like I talked to everyone at least for a minute but didn't really see or hang out with anyone at the same time. 


Our choreographed first dance, which I thought I had completely forgotten just before we walked in the ballroom for the reception, was perfect we did the entire thing as we had rehearsed it and everyone, from what I could tell enjoyed it. 

The rest of the night was just really a blur of events that had me, at some point, taking off the slip under my dress and dancing barefoot on the dance floor all night with our friends. We haven't gotten the professional photos back yet but here are a few to give you a taste of the day/night. 

All-in-all I'd say we accomplished what we set out to do: Our friends and family had a great time. Between the cigar roller, candy table, photo/video booth, amazing food and incredible entertainment, I don't see the night going any better than it did and even the resort staff was complimenting us on how great the event was, one of the best they had seen. What more could a bride want for her big day?


Enjoy the pictures; I hope to be able to post the pro pics and video soon!!!


 
xoxo

Samantha

Bridal Shower

Yes, this did happen quite a bit back, and YES I have been promising pictures for, ummmm... ever, but better late than never, right? Enjoy!

The Room Before Everyone Arrived

Didn't my mom do a GREAT job?

We used tea sets from Mac's Grandma Marge

Me and my Grandparents

 Me and my soon-to-be family

I couldn't wish to marry into a better family

Me and my future sister-in-law

<3 her!

Me and one of my fabulous bridesmaids, Christy

Me and another fabulous bridesmaid - Barbara

 

My shoe cake - adorable, right?!?

Me and my family

Bow bouquet for the Rehearsal

compliments of my darling sister/maid of honor

What a great gift for a big sap like me

Christy gave us a basket full of things she hoped for in our marriage. Each item symbolized something different! :)

Well I hope they were worth the wait. I had such a blast and am so thankful to have such amazing women in my life. Between friends, family and soon-to-be family I couldn't be surrounded by a better group of women.

Well, I am a little more than halfway through printing now. So this may, or may not, be the last post for the evening-depending on how smoothly everything goes. Stay tuned to find out :) I REALLY should try to go to bed and get some beauty sleep though. Nobody like a bride with saggy baggy eyes, right?!?

xoxo,

Samantha

License to wed

As I sit here waiting for the 400 pages for my wedding programs to print out, I am still beaming for this afternoons adventure. For those of you who do not actively facebook stalk me, we finally went down to the court house to get our marriage license. I MADE Mac take a picture at the courthouse because I am a big sentimental goofball and enjoy things like that.

I am beyond excited about this. It is really starting to feel like I am almost married and I am about to be HIS WIFE. It's funny because people keep asking me if I am nervous and 100% and truthfully, not in the slightest. I have known I wanted to marry this boy for years now, we were just waiting to be a little bit older, a little bit wiser and a LOT more financially sound than two broke college students. Once we were in that place he asked and I of course said yes without a doubt in my mind. We have been together for over 5 years now and he really is a part of me. We are completely independent of course, nothing can change that, but we make each other the people we want to be (as corny and cliche as that sounds).

Okay, okay enough of the sappy stuff. I do have to admit that last week I did have some serious nervousness, not about getting married but the wedding itself. My checklist seemed to be never ending and I was fearful that I would never gt it all done. But with the help of our parents, and some assistance from the handsome husband-to-be, I looked at the list last night and almost everything is done and over with. There are a few things left to do (hence me typing a blog at 12:45 in the morning while my program pages print) but with the marriage license was the one thing that I didn't have done that absolutely NEEDED to be done sooner rather than later.

REALLY, now that we have the license, if not one more thing gets done for this wedding, it's ok. The absolute necessities are taken care of and the rest is just for "fun". I am so beyond excited for Saturday and the really good thing is that the temperature dropped from when I first looked and it is only going to be 92 degrees! It was 90 yesterday, so let's keep our fingers crossed that we can push it down to the mid 80's? heehee, wishful thinking, I KNOW, but hey, why not? Right?!?!

Well, as always, thanks for reading and keeping up with my poor blog who gets neglected every so often when I feel too overwhelmed to write or just don't have that second to spare.

xoxo,

Samantha

We are on the 10 Day Forecast!!

It's my next big countdown milestone! Our wedding date is finally on the 10-day forecast. I am so excited. The wedding day is getting beyond close now and I can't wait. Can't lie, I definitely gasped a bit when I saw how hot it's going to be, but we knew that was a likelihood when we set the date for the 22^nd. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this will change and cool down just a bit – send positive thoughts to the weather gods people – my dress is too big and layered to be that hot J

Sat		99°	0% Percip. Chance
May 22	Sunny	71°	9 MPH winds from South/Southeast

9 days until wedding day, 4 days left at work (I'm taking the 3 days before the wedding off) and the to-do list is getting smaller and smaller! Can't be a happier girl than I am right now – well that's not true, I'm sure I may be a bit happier come wedding day, but I am pretty dang happy right now!!!


xoxo,


Samantha

12 days?!?

Wow! We have been beyond busy this past week. I feel like the jump from 30 days to less than 2 weeks happened overnight. How are we only 12 days out from the wedding? Don't get me wrong I am head over heels excited and ready to do this, but geez there is still a lot to do. Just to give you a taste of what has happened in just the past few weeks here is what we have been up to:


At the end of April I flew out to Vegas to celebrate one of my last weekends as a single girl with a few of my close friends. It was literally one blur of events after another and let's just say we all happened to come back alive J A few pictures are included below.

Me and Elena, she planned the entire weekend for us!

All the girls on the first night

Second night in the Hugh Heffner Suite

The cute old man we found at McDonalds at 4am

The next weekend Kyle and his boys went to Vegas for the Bachelor party and a bunch of us girl's had a local girl's night/bachelorette party. I don't have pictures of this yet though, sorry.


Finally after all the partying was finished we had to get to work with the planning so we booked the rest of our dance lessons, we are going 3 times a week, had a group dance lesson with our parents, met with our DJ to finalize everything with him, talked with our videographer to finalize items with him, met with our day of coordinator to discuss the timeline and drop off finished items that need to be at the ceremony and reception, met with our pastor for a final meeting, met with the church coordinator to finalize the ceremony timeline, I had my final dress fitting and we finished our seating assignments.


You would think that with all of that we would be done, but no! We still have a handful of stuff to do, top priorities being, finish dance lessons, get our marriage license, write our vows, finalize the ceremony program, get candy for the candy bar, create and print our seating assignment chart and finalize our ceremony music choices. There are few things here and there that still need to be done, but those are really the only big ticket items remaining. As each day passes I truly get so excited and I know that as long as those last few items get done, there is nothing else that absolutely NEEDS to be done, so if there isn't time, there isn't time and I am not going to stress. I have loved every minute of planning and if I could do it all again I'd definitely would, especially now that I have a few tips and tricks up my sleeve.


Thanks for reading!


 
xoxo,

Samantha