On 4/6/12, I was chosen to be a part of the PW Hostess team!!! I am so honored to be a part of a great group ladies.

Feel free to to contact me with any concerns you may have!!! I am here to make your PW experience, as enjoyable as mine has been!!!!!

Please source my WONDERFUL photographer Lindsey Michelle Photography.

We went to Ocho Rios, Jamaica and stayed at the Jewel Dunn's River. It was the most amazing time we have had on a trip! It's a smaller all inclusive resort and we were never overlooked by anyone! (we've stayed at Riu's before, which was right next door to our resort, and man we will never look back!) This was an adults only resort, had great food, great drinks, entertainment when you needed it, a honeymooners cocktail hour, great service, they had a beach party for the entire resort where dinner was served on the beach, they also had dinner on the pier where you get a 6 course meal for the entire resort on the pier!!! (smaller resorts has it's perks!) We DEFINITELY reccomend The Jewel to anybody considering Jamaica. We've been to Cabo san Lucas, and Jamaica is SOOOOO different than Mexico!!!!!!

View from our room! :)

Eating at Margaritaville in Ocho Rios!

Climbing Dunn's River Falls

room service for breakfast on our balcony...Man I miss that view!

Had to have a coconut with Appleton Rum!

Bob Marley's Jacuzzi on James Bond Beach

Dr No was filmed here...in the background was where the famous white bikini'd girl was walking down before they ambushed the area

Had to leave paradise :(

Bye Jamaica!!!

While on our honeymoon in Jamaica, our photographerwww.lindseymichellephotography.com posted teasers!! She said this was her HUGEST teaser she has ever posted!!!!! So before I do my recap, I'll go ahead and show you the pics (which is the best part of it all anyways)

(please source Lindsey Michelle Photography if you are using ANY of these pictures.)

Enjoy!!!!

The Proposal

It's really short and sweet and I love it. I was clipping coupons and he was cleaning around the house...our normal weekend morning. He came downstairs and I asked him about a certain coupon to use when he interrupted me and said "will you be my wife?" It was short, sweet and while we were doing our everyday normal thing, which we will now be doing until death do us part! ;) 

We have decided on a venue...and a date! March 23, 2012 I will be getting married at Bentwater Yacht Club!

The ceremony will take place under the Gazebo in front of the gorgeous Lake Conroe

And the reception is across the pool in the yacht club

So the colors for the shindig will be royal purple and silver:

Ispirations came from the pictures below. If I have one of your pictures, please let me know so I can give you credt! :)

So I decided to make my BM's an Emergency Kit, and idea I stole from the fabulous kalenalena

They absolutely loved them and I wanted to start out the planning process with a little fun, to try and prove to them that I WILL NOT (try) and be a Bridzilla :)

Well we made our first purchase of a wedding item today...our guest "book"

Both FI and I are avid baseball fans, especially for the Cardinals (which will be shown when we take our engagement photos next month) To add to that flair, we orderd a custom Louisville Slugger baseball bat. We plan on having the guest sign their name and then have it on display in our house. The bat will be shown in the engagement photos as well! I am so excited for this idea!

You can see it in action at our wedding here:

I will start off my saying I am nervous as all get out for our engagements! Seriously! I feel like I will find something wrong with every photo we have and I will be utterly dissapointed. I absolutely love my photog and have huge faith in her, however it's me I am worried about! LOL We will be taking our pictures in The Woodlands at Market Square. Going with our baseball love, we decided to order Cardinals Shirts to incorporate into our STD magnents. Our wedding date is 3/23 so I want to sit where the date reads on our shirts. Here is the final outcome of the shirts!

We are bringing our baseball bat that was ordered to show it off in the pictures as well. Wish us luck!

We had our engagement photos done by Fleurish Imagery. Emily was great. She was a previous bride who I knew previously thru wedding planning. Since my photog is coming from Louisianna for the Wedding, we decided to use Emily for the engagements. The pictures were taken in The Woodlands at Market Street. FI and I both have a love for The Cardinals so we had to incorporate that in our wedding. Plus our numbers on our shirts is our wedding date! I'm 3 (March) and his is 23 the day! :) Enjoy!

I will be meeting with my florist Sept 29th! I'm not much of a flower girl. In fact, the only flowers I want are the bouquets. None in the centerpeices! Anyways I've been having a hard time trying to find purple flowers. Here are some inspirations I've found thanks to google. If any of these are yours, please let me know so I can reference you! :)

I met with my Florist and we decided on Petals by Design. She will be doing all of the wedding party flowers and also decorating the gazebo where the ceremony will take place. This is the inspiration of my bouquet that we will be going with exactly..but maybe more bling (I'm a sucker for bling!)

And this was the final outcome!!!! :)

and here were the bridesmaid's bouquets

 went into this day thinking it was going to be a disaster. Nobody was going to agree, they would hate the choices I picked, and the color purple would be vetoed. I have a great group of gals because they all decided and agreed on the same dress! They also goofed around a bit and tried on some of their choices...which were quickly told NO! LOL

But they all decided on this dress, in this color "viola"

We ordered our magnets from A Giftful Heart and I printed the cardstock, which attached to the magnet here.

Here I am cutting the cardstock to fit perfectly and hold the magnets (Sophie is clearly not interested in any of this)

FI concentrating on making sure the lables were straight (I yelled at him because they were crooked! hahah)

Taking a break to smile (hahah Jersey Shore is on the in the background..AND if you look on the TV, that is our baseball "guestbook"!)

Final Product:

Sophie approves:

My wonderful MOH has really went above and beyond to make me feel like the only bride in the world! My shower is February 11th and here are the invitations that were sent out! This was also the first time I got to see the theme of my shower because the entire thing is a surprise! Lime green and black and white damask!

I finally got the proof of these babies. My wonderful photgrapher Lindsey Michelle Photography (who is also married to one of FI's groomsmen) designed these. I am approving and sending them off to the printer today! This makes it real right?! :)

Wedding Invitation (I will be adding rhinestones to the tips of the flourishes)

RSVP postcards (we used postcards so we wouldn't have to purchase envelopes and the postage is cheaper!)

When I received the invites, I started to bedazzle them with rhinestones:

And here they go out the door! 

For anybody trying to save a buck, consider your RSVPs being postcards! We saved money on cheaper postage and didn't have to purchase envelopes! We added a line for song requests and people have been loving them! 

I'm not much of a flower person....so the only flowers will be in the bouquets and boutonnieres. I wanted something to pop for the centerpieces and fell in love with the water beads lit up with lights look. The venue provides square mirrors on each table so we will be places the centerpieces on the mirror. A coworker was recently married and she is letting me borrow 150 votive candles. I will use the vase below in the center, then have 4 candles underneath. Since it will be darker during the reception, they will really glow! 

I had my bridal shower in February 2012 and it was FABULOUS! We had such a great time, great turn out, and great food! My 3 BM's did a fabulous job. I have a few pictures and still waiting on more. We got all of our "big ticket" items (2 Mikasa Plate settings and our Calphalon Pots and Pans set) plus so much more, so we were super excited about that. :)

This was one of the toughest things for me to figure out. I looooove wearing heels with 5 inch stilletos, however FI does not, especially because that makes me as tall as he is. He asked me to tone it down a notch so there will be a height difference in pictures. Boy was that hard to find some cute shoes with a 3 inch heel. A fellow PW posted some purple beauties and I fell in love, only to find out they didn't have my size! I searched and searched and searched and wasn't able to find any. I placed my name on an email list to be notified if they received my size in and went on my way to kiss the shoes goodbye. 2 weeks later, I got a random email! WOO HOO! So I placed an order for my purple beauties. 

For the reception, I plan to kick my heels off and wear my boots! I want to be comfortable, and pay respect to being a Texan by wearing my boots with pride!

 I had NO clue what the day entailed. I was picked up at noon and headed to our first surprise, pedis at a day spa! So nice and relaxing! We then headed to Hotel Derek, a fancy schmancy hotel in the Galleria Area in Houston. From there I was told to have my hair completed by 5, I said "what about my makeup?" I was told to listen to orders..they will tell me exactly when I need to be ready. (they sure are bossy huh? LOL) But I had to be kicked out of my room and go to the other room to get ready...UGH! So when I was done with my hair, I return to my room and it's fully decorated with Bachelorette party FUN! I was given a cute veil and a custom made Bachelorette Sash. So I was playing around when a lady walks in..I was introduced to her and had the most confused look on my face. My MOH tells me that she is here to do my makeup! YES! I laughed and said "I thought you were a stripper and we were going a different route!" LOL She laughed and got started. She did my full make up and then did eye shadow for the rest of the party. So we got ready, and walked down stairs. They called me over and there was a LIMO waiting for us!!!!!!! OMG I WAS SO SURPRISED!!!!! So we get in the limo and head off to Ra Sushi and have a great dinner. From there we go to a bar, where they got us bottle service and VIP. I felt like a complete DIVA all night. It was fabulous! I'm sitll completely hungover two days later, LOL So glad I have the day off. Anyways, here are the pics. :)

and the night ended with me looking a hot mess like this:

I had the best weekend!!!!!

We wanted our thank you cards to stand out, so we had custom made cards done with Mixbook. We have gotten such great feedback from the cards, and everybody loved seeing shots from the big day. Especially those who couldn't be there, but took the time to send their blessings. I used Mixbook for our guest book, and expected nothing less than spectacular for the cards, and I was not disappointed.

Front:

Inside:

back: