A Very Merry UnBirthday...

Every time we arrange a get-together, it always amazes me how many very special people we have in our lives. We truly are fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends who love us unconditionally. And even more so, those who are patient and understanding of our pup's needs. You see, he's a rescue with an unknown background. One thing is for sure, though; He has major trust issues and much anxiety! Perhaps my next post will tell his story.

 For now, I'll recap the story of our engagement and the party we held last night to honor the event. Brian proposed while we we on our first cruise together. The day before his birthday, November 8, 2012, we were at the private island of Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. We enjoyed a morning in the sun and swam in those crystal clear turquoise Caribbean waters before going for a walk to take some pictures (to display in our new home) before a lunch break. We got to a part of the beach where there were only a few other fellow passengers hiking and sat our stuff down on a lone lounge chair. I found a coconut and a really cool web-like coral that I began taking pictures of, and when I turned around, Brian was on his knee with a ring box in his hand. He asked, I said yes, it was wonderful. But we were hungry! So we went to find the beach buffet, blinded by my sparkly new bling that I had to photograph along the way!

 What a great trip! Anyway, back to the engagement party. I've had this lifelong obsession with Alice in Wonderland. So, since our wedding is beach themed, we figured we'd do a "Mad Tea Party" themed engagement party. Any excuse to party with our friends! We wanted to wait for warmer weather, so we planned it for May. I created our invitations with a vintage Wonderland decor in mind (front and back of the invites below).

 And since we'd been fans of Charm City Cakes for so long, we made an appointment with them to create a fabulous Wonderland themed cake. And they NAILED it! Thanks, Mary Alice (our designer) and the crew at Charm City Cakes!!

 Although I'd been sick since the middle of the week and the rain threatened to ruin our fun, we had a great turn out and had a blast with family and friends. And yes, even Hurricane, though traumatized by the amount of children there, had a great time and made some new friends (who spoiled him with carrots!)

365...

First post to the family blog. Welcome :-)


365 more days until our cruise departs Miami on a journey that will take us to several Caribbean islands, and bring us back MARRIED! That's right, 368 days from now, we will be in St. Thomas (on Tax Day, nonetheless!) saying, "I Do" in front of several of our family and friends. Toes in the sand and rings on our hands!

Despite Carnival's series of unfortunate events lately, we couldn't be more excited. Or less stressed! Who would have thought planning a wedding would be so breezy. Brian's easy-going nature and my indecisiveness have made for quite the conundrum when narrowing down options for everything from "where should we go for dinner tonight" to "where should we go on our honeymoon". But for some reason, the details of the wedding have come very naturally. 2 days after returning from the cruise on which we got engaged, we determined a destination wedding would be great. Something I never before would have considered. I did talk through it aloud for a good 15 minutes, debating with my conscience, before I decided... why not?! We started researching right away and not even an hour later, selected our wedding cruise.

The cruise and wedding are booked, our photog selected and booked, and I've picked out the dress (and tried it on!)   My bridesmaids became official around Christmas and we're on a great track to finding them dresses. See the picks below for the Pinterest-inspired boxes I gave them to ask them to be my bridesmaids... I wrote them a poem, made them a blingy tank top, and tossed in a bottle of bubbly and flip-flops.

The poem had no typos... Unlike our Save the Dates. (For the records, Brian does NOT have a "blended" knee. We do enjoy a blended drink every now and then though!) I created them (wrote the poem myself, y'all!) on my Macbook Pro, a gift from Brian. I was just getting use to Apple products and, well, damn auto-correct! Spell check never caught it. But it was easy to laugh it off. Just one memory and piece of memorabilia to what has already been a fantastic ride for us and is only getting better! There's a link on our blog links for our wedding site if anyone is interested. 

~Christina