Our Wedding: The Rehearsal Dinner

On Friday, March 22, my wedding party and family met at Shady Wagon Farm for our wedding rehearsal at 5:00pm.  It was a chilly evening...

 We went through our ceremony twice.  Check out the "bow-quet" that my MOH made for the event!

 Our pastor wouldn't peep about the surprise sermon that he had written for our special day.

 My MIL planned our rehearsal dinner at the Fearrington Granary.  The floral centerpieces were beautiful...we reused them at our wedding.  She had placecards with "bride and groom" cakepop favors at every chair.

 I loved the burlap tablecloth on the cocktail tables.

 We had a very generous cocktail hour and a half...they served smoked tenderloin and crabcakes and kept the wine flowing.  The bartender made a very special Shirley Temple for my flower girl so she could feel like one of the big girls.

 The guys enjoyed the beer selection.

 R with his mom and sister.

 We enjoyed our salmon and molten cake.

 Afterwards we had gifts for the groomsmen, ring bearer, and our moms.  R's nephew could entertain a crowd for hours.

After presents R and I gave short speeches and everyone went back to the hotel.  Mom and I crashed but the boys stayed up for a while.  We had to be up bright and early so none of the girls wanted a late night.  I can't wait to share my professional photos of the big day!

Post Wedding Work Shower

You may remember last fall I took on an extra clinic well apparently they like me a whole lot because they surprised me with the absolute sweetest "post wedding" shower.  I wasn't expecting it at all - at one point I walked to the breakroom and wondered why in the world someone was cooking their lunch in a crockpot.

It's hard to dress up our tiny kitchen but I think they did the best job and the spread was amazing...

The clinic manager made Italian Wedding Soup - it was fabulous and No One loves soup more than this girl!  And that salad bar!  I've never seen such a nice salad station, our nurse created a basic lettuce, tomato, and cucumber salad and had containers of strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, cheese, onions, and italian dressing.  She also made delicious pumpkin muffins with a powdered sugar glaze for dessert.  I had a second muffin mid afternoon.

 I felt like a real princess with my Disney Princess cups :-)

The staff gave R and I a wedding card filled with lottery tickets.  We had a blast playing the scratch-offs and we sat up late to see if we won the powerball.  Sadly we only walked away with $2 but it was fun to talk about all the things we would do if we did win the lottery.  Doesn't everyone have that discussion at least once in their life?

A & R Birthdays 2013

My birthday was April 1st - I took the day off work and celebrated by having lunch and shopping with my mom.  I used some of the money we received as wedding gifts to purchase a few items from our registry - it was so much fun!  That night R took me to a sushi place in Raleigh....

R purchase tickets to the TBMF as part of my birthday gift.  We have invited a few friends over afterward for burgers and drinks :-)

His birthday is April 5 so I reciprocated by purchasing tickets to a local beer festival. R is into homebrewing so we celebrated while getting educated and intoxicated.

We prepared a his birthday meal at home...seafood boil!  King crab, sausage, potatoes, and shrimp. We kept the Summer Shandy flowing.  It was delightful!  I wish we could have enjoyed this meal on our porch but it was a chilly night.

R surprised me with a monogrammed necklace in this style for my birthday.  Of course it features my new monogram aJr.

And my mom brought this guy over along with his friend the Springform Pan.....

I love it!  I also love the gift she gave R...a beautiful outdoor color on it's own wicker cart.  We cannot wait to entertain with it!

We are making 29 our best year yet!

Our Wedding: The Bridal Luncheon

My Bridal Luncheon was held on March 22 at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Cary, NC.  The staff did a phenomenal job!  We had the best table in the grill room with a beautiful garden view.  We had a preset menu with a variety of options.  The hot ham and havarti sandwich went over well with many guests but I got the grilled chicken, pear, and chevre salad and it was amazing!

 We had strawberry and lemon cupcakes.

 I loved the set up.

 I had compact mirrors beside each place setting doubling as a favor and a placecard.

 Some ladies in my family helped me set up for the event.

 Mom gave me a special surprise - that note on top is a handwritten poem.  It was so sweet and I started bawling about half way through it.

 Beautiful bridesmaids opening their gifts.

 My sister in law opening her owl bookends that R picked out for her gift.

Mom gave me a couple new "wedding theme" charms for my Pandora bracelet.  I wasn't expecting anything but it was a sweet gesture and the bride and groom charm is my favorite in my collection.

I wanted to include the invitation to my luncheon.  I loved the textured paper and the quality of the printing.  Throughout the wedding planning process WeddingPaperDivas was my go to source for papergoods.

We had an amazing time at the luncheon, afterwards we checked into our hotel - Homewood Suites  in Cary, NC.  Mom and I had a large two bedroom suite and we took a few hours to enjoy it before we had to leave for the rehearsal dinner.  More about that in my next post :-)

Our Wedding Highlights

I haven't had a chance to bring my blog up to speed.  I still have a ton of wedding events to post and apparently I'm very late because my wedding video and my first photography blog are already up for my blogosphere friends to see.

My videography Ted Trinkaus uploaded this yesterday...




My photographer Stephanie Kingston posted our part 1 this morning...

http://blog.kingstonphotography.com/?p=177

She also posted her favorites from my bridal portrait session back in October...

http://blog.kingstonphotography.com/?p=187

I still don't have all my pictures so this is my first look as well.  Please enjoy.

My Bridal Portraits...

These were taken by the talented Stephanie Kingston of Kingston Photography from Cary, NC.  I was nervous at first but after a few minutes I was super comfortable with the camera.  I selected a few to share on my blog but I have almost 150 pictures from this session.

And my "official" bridal portrait selected to display at the wedding (and in my home)...

Success!  R loved it!

Miss. to Mrs.

Hello All!

I'm a married lady now....officially "aJr".  Well I haven't submitted the paperwork to change my name yet but socially at least I'm Mrs. J.

Here is a sneak peek photo:

More photos and more specifics to come.  I'm swamped with work and spring cleaning since we have returned from our honeymoon.  I'm hoping things will slow down later this week so I can post  about my wedding experience.  I can't wait to share it with everyone!