Weekend Recap

Brian and I have had the HBO documentary "Citizenfour" saved on our DVR for over a month now and finally decided to watch it last night, thinking we wouldn't be too into it and it would just be background noise during dinner.  Well, fast forward to two hours later and we were both completely sucked in-- if you're not familiar with the film, a documentary filmmaker and a reporter traveled to Hong Kong in 2013 to meet with and interview Edward Snowden, and everything surrounding these couple of weeks when he first starts sharing his information, and when the "leaks" starts being released to the media, is documented.  It was really interesting, so much so that we didn't get to bed until midnight... and I am dragging today to show for it.

Aside from needing an I.V. drip of coffee this morning, I would say that we had a pretty successful weekend.  I love starting the weekend off with a clean house but I hate spending my Saturday morning doing the actual cleaning, so since Friday night is always our low key night anyways, I've made it my own little routine to come home after work and get the house in order.  There are few things better to me than waking up early on Saturday morning to a clean, fresh smelling house (Weird?  Maybe.  Worth it!).  So I did my cleaning, we ate a random supper and watched Dateline (I promise we aren't always this lame) and headed to bed relatively early.  

Saturday I was up before the sun to get to my favorite 6:45am BodyPump class, and followed that up with another half hour on the Arc Trainer-- it's been a while since I got a really good workout in, and it felt amazing!  From there I made my rounds at Trader Joe's and Target, and added this to my list of things to buy for the older of our two sweet nieces-- the tassels on that coverup are too much!  

After breakfast and coffee, I somehow convinced Brian that we needed to swing by Ikea while we were out furniture shopping, and to him, that is basically a death wish.  I have to admit, the thought of Ikea is always so exciting, but once you're inside, with a million other people and the smell of Swedish meatballs lingering in the air, something lights a fire under me to get in and out PRONTO.  At one point, as we rounded a corner, we overheard a woman talking to another shopper and saying "Oh, we've been here for 3 1/2 hours already!" with a smile on her face.  And they were only halfway through the store!  Needless to say, we came home with a bookcase and a desk lamp for the office that we made a beeline for-- hoping to get that put together tonight!  Husband of the Year Award goes to this guy, who asked me as soon as we stepped through the sliding doors, "What are we here for and when can we leave?"  Hey, I need someone's muscles to lift that horrendously heavy box onto the steery wagon... thing.   

We left Ikea and made the rounds to the local furniture stores, on the hunt for a new dresser and chest of drawers and unfortunately had zero luck.  Everything that we found was either too light in color, too bulky, too cheap looking, or we loved the style but not the color, or the color and not the style.  It was exhausting, and we were both over it after a few hours.  I randomly checked one of my favorite local furniture websites on the drive home and it was like the sun shone down on my iPhone as I spotted a style exactly like a set that we had just loved, but that only came in Cottage White, Night Sky Black, or Country Oak (gag).  I excitedly clicked on the picture to see color options and low and behold, it came in a white, an oak-y color, and the perfect espresso-ish color that we had been looking for.  Their name for it?  MERLOT.  It's like it was meant to be!  I immediately called the store and they said that they had both pieces that we were looking for on display, but not in the Merlot color, but they had a nightstand in Merlot, so we could get an idea of the color plus the size of the set we needed.  I told them we would be in first thing Sunday morning to check things out, and felt like my furniture good deed for the day was done.

We were starving at this point, so after hurrying home to let Molly out and feed her supper, we headed out to dinner ourselves... to Longhorn Steakhouse.  Brian had been craving ribs, and I could order supper and still keep it 21DF-friendly, so that's where we went.  We realized it was the ultimate of chain restaurants and I couldn't help but laugh-- when my hometown got a Chili's right when I started high school, it was THE place to be, whereas Brian's little beach town where he grew up doesn't even have a drive-thru, just lots of original restaurants, which are fantastic and charming, so he didn't really "do" chain restaurants growing up.  Meanwhile, I still love a good Chili's stop every once in awhile!  All I could think of was the Will & Grace episode where W&G's best friends avoid plans with them in the city so they can dine at their favorite restaurant in the suburbs-- The Olive Garden, and W&G are just blown away at the tackiness of a coupon-crazy Italian spot in the SUBURBS of all places.  Gah, I loved that show.  Anywho, we wrapped up the evening with "Whiplash"-- basically, it was fantastic.  And I love Miles-- such a cutie! 

Sunday morning, we all slept in, which I never do, but it was much needed.  We had a lazy start with "Sunday Morning" on CBS (my guilty pleasure) and a late breakfast and lots of coffee, then Brian ran to the grocery store for me while I took Molly on a long walk.  Wouldn't it figure that even though I'm the one that braved the cold for her and scooped up her poop, as soon as we were back home, she set-up her spot at the door waiting for Brian?

We dilly-dallied around the house for a bit then got ready to head over to the furniture store.  It was the best shopping trip ever-- we basically walked in the doors, found the set, and ordered it.  In and out in 20 minutes!  These are our pretties-- I'm obsessed with the color!  

The rest of my afternoon consisted of getting a much needed mani/pedi, while Brian touched up a few icky spots on the navy walls in the office.  Molly stayed in the sun for as long as she could eek out a few more minutes of the warmth-- I don't blame her.

All in all, I'd call it a successful weekend!  Back to the routine today, but at least the temperatures are supposed to hit 60 on Thursday-- finally!!  

five on friday: furniture, house pretties, wanderlust and white jeans!

Happy Friday, friends!  Let's get right to this, shall we? 

one. married people furniture
We are finally, finally going to buy our bedroom furniture this weekend!  It feels like such a grown up (and expensive) thing to do, but I think having this done will really start to make our bedroom feel like my happy little retreat, pronto.  We debated between darker furniture and white/cream and I think we're now leaning more towards The Dark Side.  I may very well change my mind once we're at the furniture store tomorrow, but as of now, these are a few ideas that I'm pulling inspiration from:

two. the upholstered headboard

Speaking of "married people furniture," we finally pulled the trigger on our new upholstered headboard and I am beside myself trying to wait for it to be delivered!  We ultimately chose this pretty from none other than Target, mainly because I was nervous about ordering from somewhere else and having issues returning it should it not be ideal for the space.  As far as I can tell, it's going to be perfect.

three. spring has (not) sprung 

Just when the snow has started to melt and I have high hopes for sunny spring days, we have snow in the forecast tonight.  I'm choosing to ignore this and instead focus on the big ideas that we have lined up for our yard (once we can finally get to the grass!):

adirondacks for the backyard...

adding a portico to the front of our house for a little character...

building up as many flowerbeds as i can fit in the yard...

... and a red front door is a must!

four. wanderlust

I'm planning a big ol' post next week about all of the places we're hoping to travel in the next few years, but as for now, I'm daydreaming of any/all of these locales.  Toes in the sand while sipping on a beverage?  Yes, please!

bora bora

the maldives

sardinia

st. john

five. the white season

Lastly, is it time for the return of white pants yet?  Because these darling outfits are calling my name.

Have a wonderful weekend, lovelies!

Take a chill pill.

Lately, I've realized that I've been feeling a little on edge... often.  There's no particular reason that I can think of, just the regular day-to-day agenda: eat/sleep/work, taking care of Molly, doing little things to make our house a home, spending time in the evenings/weekend with Brian.  But for me, the little things that need to get done and are on my neverending "to do" list tend to compound into one big "OMG what/when/how am I going to get this done?!?" very, very quickly.  

I am admittedly 150% Type A.  High maintenance, easily wound up, very competitive and self-critical, and things have to be done RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND.  Delightful, right?  In my defense, I get things done, and I do them well, and thankfully Brian is the complete opposite so he balances my crazy out when I get a little too highstrung (bless him).  I also know that I want to take way too much on sometimes, and that's my own fault, but I get so much happiness and pleasure out of completing a.  

Take today, for example: I ran to HomeGoods on my lunch break for a little breather, with the intention of finding two bedroom lamps, small lamps for our built-ins, a few pictures frames, sheets for the guest bedroom, and a few things for Easter.

I left the store with a bag of Lindt Easter truffles (for my own Easter basket, post-21DF), an Easter candy bowl, two Easter mugs and a tiny ceramic bunny.

Basically nothing that I needed.  I know that I would have felt better if I left having spent money on the things that I actually needed for the house, but as I circled the aisles, all I could notice were the women around me who had baskets full of awesome, coordinating... stuff, things that I would never see on a shelf and put together to match in a room.  That stresses me out-- I can earmark a thousand catalog pages and Pin a million things, but when it comes time to recreate something on my own, I shut down and cannot make a decision to save my life.  So I buy things like ceramic bunnies and candy that I can't eat for three weeks.

Long story short, I desperately need to take a chill pill.  I was thinking last night that I had way more time for fun stuff before we moved into our house, which makes no sense, but I was more relaxed!  I would take an afternoon to go browse Michael's and Pier1, get a mani/pedi, stroll through Target, etc. without hesitation.  I love to craft and would spend hours putting together a holiday wreath or banner or some other project that I found on Pinterest.  All in all, I don't take time for myself as much any more, and I think that leads to the stress-- I come home, take Molly out and play with her for a bit, get dinner started, pick up Brian from the commuter rail, and by the time we've cooked and eaten dinner, we're both worn smooth out so we catch up on the DVR and chat on the couch until it's time for bed.  It's a nice routine, but I need to shake it up a bit.  

I've decided to start making a little list each month of things that need to get done, and things that I would like to get done.  Oddly enough, lists keep me sane, and remind me to do the fun little stuff in addition to the boring grown-up things.

On my fun little list for the rest of March...

-Print, frame and mail my Grandpa wedding pictures (he was unable to attend and I'm doubting he's seen any pictures from the big day).

-Get a mani/pedi this weekend with a fun spring color (any of these will do...):

-Make an Easter wreath for our front door, and put a fun vignette together for our entry table-- these pretties have caught my eye!:

Hopefully these little projects and treats will help me to slow down and smell the roses (if this snow ever melts and we can see them)!

Dwell: In the Navy

When Brian and I first saw our house, way before we'd made an offer, we noticed that the majority of the rooms were painted super neutral colors, which was a plus for us.  We didn't want to have to paint right away if it wasn't necessary, and after seeing so many homes with wallpapered walls and primary-colored kitchens, we were ready to just move-in and relax.  We really lucked out with how little we've had to do since moving in, and now that we've been settled for a few months we're excited to take on home improvement projects here and there.  

Our first task was painting our master bedroom, which went so incredibly smoothly.  The walls had been a taupe-y grey color, which was okay, but it just made the room feel a little dark with the hardwoods.  I had my heart set on BM "Revere Pewter" and went out in the icy snow one day to buy a gallon of the paint.  We started painting around 11am the next day and by 7pm that evening, the entire bedroom was finished, and we seriously felt like pros.  

"Who the heck needs to hire painters?  That paint went on like butter, we covered the room seamlessly and have a ton of paint leftover-- high five!"

We would walk by the room and pat ourselves on the back because of how good it looked.  And I truly was impressed by the quality of the paint-- it was primer/paint in one, and took one coat to cover our large, rectangular room.  And I'll definitely show pictures of the before/after once we get the furniture and everything put together and arranged-- it's looking a little "broke college student" at the moment, with no headboard and a mismatched dresser and chest of drawers.  

So, after a few days of gloating, Brian made the bold statement one evening that we should just knock out our next painting project the following weekend.  We knew that we wanted to get our home office set-up, so decided that would be the room.  Now, remember the neutral colors that I mentioned?  Every room in the house was great (for now) except for the two rooms that were the previous owners kids bedrooms.  One was lilac purple, and one sky blue.  The office was the lilac: 

Picture from the house listing

I was originally thinking that I would paint the office a warm gray color, add lots of white and pink... basically pretty... basic.  Well, after wandering around on Pinterest for a few days, it struck me-- we needed a navy room.  As you can see in the picture above, we're lucky enough to have beautiful hardwoods that are in great condition all through the house, and white crown molding throughout the bedrooms and the living room.  The more pictures that I found of navy walls contrasted with white crown molding and hardwoods, the more easily I was convinced that this was meant to be.  Surprisingly, Brian was entirely on board and we settled on deciding between two paints-- BM "Hale Navy" and SW "Naval."  

Now, as I said, we LOVED the BM paint that we used in the master.  It sounds silly, but it just went on so smoothly and covered so well, so I was determined that there was no reason to change brands.  Brian insisted that SW had an equally good reputation, so I agreed to bend a little and try it because I really had no other argument except "But Benjamin Moore went on like butter!", and the colors were admittedly pretty similar.  We headed to our local SW, chose the paint (again, with primer included), had it mixed and went home to get set-up.  I don't have the patience to paint and "cut in" around the trim and windows, so Brian started that (annoying, God-awful) project as I rolled my roller in the gorgeous, blue paint and made my first swipe on the wall.

"Um, Brian?  This paint is kind of... gloopy?"

"What does that even mean?"
"Well, look at it.  It's really thick and it's not covering the purple all that well.  And look-- the more I roll over it to cover, the more paint comes up."

"I bet you're just pressing to hard."
*This would be the part where he takes the roller and gets the exact same result that I just did.* 

"I don't get it.  What's wrong with it?"

And the debate started. We are both perfectionists but see perfection differently.  After painting a quarter of the wall, I realized that if I went back and painted over the first area, after it had time to dry a bit, then the area would be fully covered and it looked fantastic.  If I tried to paint over an area that was still too wet, the paint would all just come up and you could see straight through to the purple again.  Brian wanted to just keep rolling over the same area, and use a ton of paint, which wasn't going on smoothly because there was so much.  I told him to just keep working on the trim and that I would figure it out, which was a good solution for around 2 minutes, and then he came back to try and figure it out again.  We finally realized that it would make sense to just do a base layer on the entire room, let it semi-dry, and do a second coat.  This would also mean we would need more paint.

At this point we had been painting for three hours and only had 1 1/4 walls finished.  We were quickly running out of paint, and morale was low.

I informed Brian that he needed to leave right then, immediately, to get food and another gallon of paint.  In all honesty, I needed his obsessive self to give me a breather for half an hour.  And he did.  He came back with paint and pizza and beers, and I had managed to paint half of what we had left (shocking how much you can get done when you aren't having to constantly say "I said just leave it alone!  I just tried that sp-- what did I tell you?  Now the paint that I had there just fine came up!").  We refueled, and foraged on.

Around 8pm that night, we finally finished.  It's not perfect, and we still have a few touch-ups that need to be done where the paint just got spotty as it got later/darker during the day.   But for the most part, I think it looks pretty darn good considering it nearly drove us to the nuthouse.  I kept telling myself "If we can survive painting this room, our marriage can survive anything."  We were definitely painting newbies, and what we realized is that our bedroom was so easy because we painted light over dark, so it covered really easily.  This room was painting SUPER dark over a bright purple, so it was naturally going to take more than one coat.  Had we gone into the process knowing that, I think it would have gone over much more smoothly altogether.  The guy at SW who sold us the navy paint even told Brian, when he went back in for gallon #2, that had he known what we were painting over, he would have advised us to buy two gallons to be safe-- annoying, but mainly our fault.

We still need to replace the ceiling fan (notice the pastel butterflies) and obviously clean the mess off of the floor (Molly ran in mid-paint fiasco with that JCrew shoebox in her mouth and it momentarily broke the tension-- bless her), but as of now we've added a desk: 

And we have a new desktop computer set-up.  I initially wanted the desk kind of in the middle of the room, like in the picture above, but that doesn't really work with all of the wires of a desktop, so we've since moved it against the window and it looks much better.  We still need a rug, a bookcase, filing cabinet, and a tall table on the other side of the room for my craft area, and to hang everything on the walls.  After surviving the painting, that's all easy peasy stuff that we can do along the way.  And once the room is fully finished, I'll certainly be sharing a picture!

Was it stressful painting the room?  Yes.  Would I tell any other married couple do also attempt painting on their own?  HECK yes.  Seriously, it was so fun.  We drove each other nuts, but it's neat to peek in the room and know that we took that project on together and that it actually looks pretty darn good.  I LOVE the navy.  Love love love it.  It pops so nicely against the floors and the molding, and the white furniture that we're (slowly) adding to the room.  If you're considering painting, DO IT.  Have fun and be ready for a little tension, but the end result is so worth it.

Now, for an important question-- what color rug would you put in this room?  We're sticking with white furniture, so I'm open to the rug being a pop of color, but am also open to a neutral like gray/white.  I've seen a handful of great navy/white rugs but am thinking that would possibly be preppy overkill. 

And, because I can't let one of my favorite days of the year go by unnoticed...

Happy St. Paddy's from my best Irish lass(ie)!!

Weekend Recap

After being home in Texas last Saturday-Tuesday, I knew that I just wanted to spend this past weekend at home with my hubby and our pup, and that is exactly what we did!

Because the stars miraculously aligned somehow, Brian and I both got home at the exact same time on Friday afternoon and it was early enough for the sun to still be out in full force.  We popped a couple of drinks into koozies, hooked Molly onto her leash, and took her on a good, long walk while we enjoyed our mobile happy hour (genius, and yes this will become our new weekend kick-off).  We ordered pizza from a cute little place down the street, watched Dateline, and were in bed pretty darn early.

Saturday I woke up bright and early to knock out cleaning the house, and it felt so good to get it done.  It's hard now that we have Molly because she's always right under my feet (I cannot imagine yet how you mamas do it every day with little ones running around!), so I took advantage of her and Brian sleeping upstairs and did a good deep cleaning-- is there seriously anything better than starting your weekend with a clean house and good candles burning?  I think not.  Molly has been with us for close to two months now, and even though she gets walked twice daily on the asphalt street, girlfriend was in desperate need of a mani (and a good bath).  We had a 9am appointment at the groomer, and I was a nervous wreck.  While my girl is wonderful with strangers, she is NOT so wonderful with strange dogs.  I booked our appointment for as early as possible to hopefully avoid dogs but no such luck-- as soon we we walked in, she went nuts sniffing everywhere, and got panicky when we handed her leash to the groomer, and then another dog came in as she was walking back, and I watched the groomer clip her collar to a leash inside the bathtub and she was giving me the saddest look... and we left and I may have cried.  All I could think was that the last time she was left somewhere, it was for good, at the shelter!  We went to get Brian's haircut and had breakfast while we were waiting, and it felt like the longest hour ever!

When we got back to the shop, they were trying to clip her nails and she was NOT having it, so we agreed she'd had enough for the day, and took our girl home.  It was a traumatic experience for all parties involved, particularly this one: 

She DID come home with the cutest little St. Paddy's bandana-- I'll have to take a picture of her tonight while she's still wearing it.  Regardless, she pooped out on the couch, wrapped in her blankets, for the rest of the afternoon. 

We had a handful of errands to run Saturday afternoon, so we headed out in the rain to tackle some of those, namely finding our bedding for our new king bed!  When we bought the bedding for our old queen bed, it took us close to a month to agree on anything.  This time, we walked into HomeGoods, looked at our options, and chose our new set within 10 minutes-- it was glorious.  We added a few more things to our basket, then headed to dinner at Hingham Beerworks.  Even though we were there no later than 6:30, there was already an hour wait, so we got a beer and settled at the bar for a bit (I don't know why, but I love relaxing at the bar with a drink before dinner out-- I sometimes plan to get to the restaurant extra early, just so we can do that.  Anyone else?).  After ordering our appetizer and entrees, we each chose a beer flight to enjoy with dinner.  Three out of my four were okay, and one was AMAZING-- it was called "Rosemary Wit" and I honestly can't wait to go back to enjoy the same beer but in a normal glass instead of the sampler!

Molly is always super happy to see us when we've been away for a few hours, and of course we couldn't leave HomeGoods without stopping by the dog aisle to find this monstrosity:

 

Anything that squeaks is considered dangerous in her eyes and MUST BE DESTROYED.  Every "indestructible" chew toy that we've given her has been destroyed, aside from her Kong and her Goughnut-- as of today, this thing is still in rotation, and since it's been at home for 48 hours, it's a keeper.  I'm nervous that I'll get home today to find tufts of white stuffing all over the house.

Sunday morning I woke up early and headed out to get our grocery shopping done.  My biggest update (if you can call it that) is that I started the 21 Day Fix yesterday-- we shall see how this goes, though I'm loving it so far and feeling very motivated.  So I needed to fill the fridge with everything I'll be eating in the next week, and Brian was out of fruit snacks, ice cream, and Diet Coke (the struggle is real, when dieting while living with an oblivious but very supportive husband).  We made breakfast then spent the morning relaxing and drinking coffee-- much needed relaxation.  

Brian loaded up the car with a ton of cardboard to take to the dump and I got ready to take Molly on a long walk.  As I reached into her designated cabinet to get a refill of poop bags for her leash, a bag of her treats fell out and directly into my owl Scentsy... which was of course turned on and fully melted.  I had a flash of rage, mainly because as soon as it splattered and hit the wall, counter, my new Shakeology bottle and the fruit bowl, it of course hardened.  After scrubbing it off of my bottle, I took the picture below, sent it to Brian with several angry emoticons, and took Molly for our walk.  He did save the day once he was home and scraped it all off with a razor but GOOD GRIEF the mess. 

After emptying a few lingering boxes from our guest room (it's coming along, lots of progress!), I showered and spent the rest of the afternoon in my comfiest pajamas, finishing up wedding thank you notes (I know, it's been four months) with this girl by my side (yep, that bone is not going anywhere).   

We wrapped up our evening as I prepped my food for the week and worked on laundry, and we ate supper (Carnitas Salads for the win!) while watching the last episode of The Jinx on HBO.  Have you been watching?  Threw us for a LOOP with all of that crazy!  Holy moly... It was early to bed for us, since Brian starts his new job today, and we were back on the road starting the week with the crazy traffic this morning-- at least I had my Shake along for the ride!

Wedding Recap: Ceremony

The wedding ceremony was a part of our day that I was so excited to plan from the beginning of our engagement.  We were married at our church, the church that Brian grew up in and the church that his sister and cousin have been married in, and I love that we now have that connection as well (not to mention that our church is just gorgeous, if I do say so myself).  We were not originally in favor of a full Mass but after meeting with our priest, he strongly encouraged that since Brian and I are both confirmed Catholics, that we have the full Mass/ceremony.  Not ones to argue with our priest, we agreed and are so happy that we did.  

We met with the church organist and our soloist, and chose very traditional music for the ceremony:

Seating of the Mothers - "Ave Maria" - Schubert 

Wedding Party Processional - "Canon inD" - Pachelbel 

Bridal Processional - "Trumpet Voluntary" - J. Clarke

Communion - "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" - Bach

Meditation Hymn - "Irish Wedding Song" - Ian Betteridge

Aside from our late arrival to the church, thanks to the lack of direction from our limo driver, the ceremony went off absolutely perfectly.  I remember feeling completely calm and excited as we pulled up to the church, and it further put me at ease to see our groomsmen (including my brother) standing on the church steps to greet us.  Everyone filed out of the limo and we started to line up inside-- at that point, things felt very real!  You'll see in the pictures below that our ring bearer was not feeling his aisle march that day, so there was a little drama, but nothing that we all couldn't laugh about-- it's one of my favorite memories from the ceremony (probably because he and his two little sisters can do no wrong in my eyes).  Once my girls had entered the church and the doors closed, it was just me and my Daddy standing at the back of the church.  I tried to soak in that moment as much as I could and for the first time, I felt tears in my eyes.  I looked at my Daddy and he may have been crying on the inside, but he gave me the best smile as I heard our music start, and the doors opened.  

I will honestly say that there are few moments that I think I'll ever remember more than what I felt when we started our walk down the aisle.  The overwhelming emotions that I felt wash over me as my Daddy walked me towards my future husband, as I took in the smiling faces of so many of the people in our lives who are so important to us, as I saw my mom and Brian's parents, and all of our wedding party people at the end of the aisle... and I felt overcome with emotion.  It was the best, most calming and exciting feeling, all at the same time.  My dad handed me over to Brian, and seeing his smiling face was exactly what I needed to put my nerves at ease.  He took my hand, we faced our priest, and it was go time.

We exchanged traditional vows and shared Communion as a part of the Mass, which meant a lot to me.  In all honesty, I couldn't tell you a word of what was said during the ceremony, aside from what we said to each other.  It was overwhelming to be at the front of the church, all eyes on us, and at one point I felt the teensiest bit woozy, and my fabulous MOH Amanda whispered to me "Don't lock your knees!"  Thankfully we knelt to pray soon after that, so I had a quick recovery and realized we were in the home stretch!  When our priest pronounced us husband and wife, and we shared our first kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Brian King, I felt the biggest smile come across my face, and it didn't leave for the rest of the day.  

Due to scheduling from the ceremony to the reception, we chose to do a brief receiving line as our guests left the church, and it was the best decision we could have made.  We had a chance to greet everyone, and also made it a point to make the rounds at the reception, but we didn't have to deal with feeling guilty in case we missed someone since we had already seen everyone earlier in the day.  After our receiving line wrapped up, we hopped into our limo and were greeted with cheers and champagne from our wedding party-- off to the reception we went!

Our groomsmen waiting for me and the girls to arrive.

Trying to talk the ring bearer off of the ledge.

My brother walking my Mama down the aisle.

Still working on my Colin-- the tears have started!

My Daddy and wonderful MOH, Amanda

This picture cracks me up every time-- Colin is in tears, Brian's dad has Meredith, the flower girl, and is ready to get down the aisle with them, and my dad is just hanging out holding my train.

Nope, this big boy walk, despite all of our practice, is not happening today.

Two of my favorite Littles-- they did an awesome job, whether walking or carried :)

My last little moment with just my Daddy 

I love this-- Brian's two grandmothers are on the left as we walk down the aisle.

  

My handsome groom's first look as the doors opened-- love him so.

Gah, our church!  Love, love all of these photos.

We're almost married!

Mr. and Mrs. Brian King!