Joint Presents

This Christmas was truly wonderful! It has been one of my favorites!

First of all, it snowed! Although it put a damper on some plans...we made plans of our own and ended up having a GREAT time!

Second, I love spending quality time with family and friends! It's always fun to show off your ring and relive your engagement for people who haven't heard the story yet!

Third, PRESENTS! I literally got everything I wanted including a few joint presents for me and David.

This was a new thing for us....

It was interesting....I feel like joint presents=official couple.

Some of the joint presents we recieved:

-Beautiful drinking glasses with "B"s on them! We love them!

-A four piece luggage set! Bring on the honeymoon!

-Silver Dollar City Passes for next year! Continuing the family tradition...ahhh...

-The toastiest blanket ever!

-And a few more...

I was so excited about opening our presents together! I can't wait for our wedding showers now! Is that selfish?.....nope.

Here are some Christmas Highlights!....

These are the mounds of presents that awaited me when I arrived at David's house for our Christmas celebration!

These were our appetizers before dinner! Black olives (my favorite) and shrimp cocktail. Please notice how David made the shrimp into little hearts. Presh.

Our dinner set up. So romantic. He's great.

My present for him!

I am spoiled.

It's ok though...because next year we will be a poor married couple so we had to go all out!

Classic Christmas fireplace picture. Family fav.

Also...we officially asked our flowergirl to be in our wedding!

Her name is Alyssa, she is three years old, and she is my adorable baby cousin.

I made her a card in the shape of a dress and attached a pin that says "I'm the flowergirl" on it. I gave it to her as a Christmas present and needless to say my aunt was thrilled and almost started bawling! It was precious.

Alyssa on the other hand was not too thrillled....

That is until we told her that she would get a princess dress and flowers.

On the bright side, she loved the pin and she wouldn't take it off.

Fact: I will have the cutest little flower girl in history.

Holidays

It's finally Thanksgiving Break!

Time to relax, eat delicious food, and try to get some wedding planning done!

Updates: We have a photographer! We have not filled out the official paperwork, but we have the date reserved with her and she is fantastic!

Back to the holidays...

It's weird to think that this will be my last Thanksgiving and Christmas as a "Martin." Next year we will have to do the whole juggling two families during the holidays...

It's a good thing that our families live so close together so we should be able to spend time with both without having to do the whole alternating thing.

We'll see....

Also, since we're getting married in a theatre I've been toying with the idea of doing "ticket" invitations...

I'm not sure if I think this is cheezy or great or both...let me know what you think....

This next picture is everything I have ever imagined in a wedding...

I have no idea whose wedding this is, but we are soul mates. I hope my wedding looks as simple and beautiful as this.

Booked!

David booked our Honeymoon this weekend!

But, before I tell you where we are going...I will tell you how we chose this location...

I feel like most people go somewhere tropical, beautiful, and relaxing on their honeymoon. Although this does sound tempting, we are not "beach" people. We started out in search of a location by looking at all the typical honeymoon spots...Hawaii, Jamaica, cruises, and of course Sandals. These were perfect, but not us. 

Reasons Why:

1.) I am the whitest person on the planet (thanks mom, lol!) and I would fry in the first 10 minutes and then be miserable the rest of the week. Not okay. 

2.) We would be so bored. We are not the type of people who could be content just lying around, we love to go out and do things!

3.) We are such tourists! We both grew up going to Branson every year (which is so weird because everyone hates Branson) and we love doing all the cheesy, touristy attractions. 

So...one night, David calls me up and says, " Would you absolutely hate having a honeymoon at Disneyworld?"

HONEYMOON AT DISNEY?!? I WOULD LOVE IT!

We are meant to be. seriously.

So we decided to go to Disneyworld, which is still tropical and romantic....but also cheesy and touristy. Perfect. 

Also, we are having a TWO week honeymoon. It's okay, you can be jealous. 

David's mom just happens to have this timeshare condo thing in Florida that is free for a week so we will be staying there the first week and just relaxing and enjoying being married...then the second week will be an all-inclusive Disney Honeymoon package at the Caribbean resort. 

This means:

1.) A beautiful resort to stay in on the beach.

2.) 7 day park hopper passes to ALL the parks including the water ones. 

3.) 3 meals a day at any restaurant on Disney property at any price. 

4.) Magic.

It's also pretty cool because we got engaged at Disneyland and we are having our honeymoon at Disneyworld!

So, needless to say...David called and took care of it all this weekend (what a good fiance) and he still has some surprises in store that he won't tell me about!

Now I just have to wait 8 months....

We have a location!!!

So it has finally happened...we got the OK on our location and we couldn't be more relieved. 

Drumroll please.......

We will be tying the knot at OC in Judd Theatre and the reception will be held in the conservatory/art gallery. Perfect. 

I have wanted to get married in a Theatre ever since I started dreaming of my wedding. It fits us so well since we both are really involved in music and theatre and it's at OC so it's close to our hearts and our friends!

Now that we have gotten that figured out finally (Thanks again Bob Lashley, you are a girl's hero), it's on to the fun part....decorations and details!

I don't really have a "theme" for our wedding...I just know what I like. 

Here are some inspirational pictures I have found while waiting forever to get the green light on our venue.

I absolutely LOVE this! This is a must have! I love the idea of having a photo booth...but they are soooo expensive...so I found this and thought it was an even better alternative! I want to have a photo wall with pictures of us and our family and then cutouts for guests to take cute pictures in...fun, huh?

Cute, simple, earthy, peacock feather centerpieces. love them. 

More elaborate, but still simple, chic, and natural centerpieces. I will never be able to decide. 

I like too many things....

We will have a candy buffet!! I love this idea and I think it's such a cute favor. I also want to label the jars with whose favorite candy it is...whether it be ours or our parents or siblings!

I honestly don't really like any of this that much...but it's the colors we are using so I put it on here. 

Waiting...

So long time no post....

The reason for this....I wasn't going to post again until we had found a wedding venue, but this has still not been accomplished. 

At this moment I feel like I could have quite possibly looked at every wedding venue that exists in Oklahoma...either they are 1.) ugly, 2.) not available on our date, 3.) cost way more than I wanna spend, or 4.) a church. 

BUT...we do have a venue we are currently looking at, but we won't find out if it will be possible to rent for another week. (Long story.)

ALSO, I do not want to reveal the location for fear of it falling through once again....

So nonetheless, please be praying that this venue works out because we love it, it's cheap, and if it doesn't work out I am THIS close to getting married by Elvis in Vegas. 

On a happier note....We have chosen our colors and some random small details!

Drumroll please....our colors are going to be BLACK and GREEN! I am also going to be using peacock feathers as accents so our accent colors will be teal, purple, yellows, and whatever other colors are in peacock feathers.

Also, I love this bouquet. The end. 

One thing accomplished!

So trying to plan a wedding while your fiance is on the other side of the country and you are on a tour bus most of the day is not very successful....but.....I found THE dress!

I only looked at two places, (Group USA and David's Bridal) but I found one that is beautiful...so I went ahead and bought it! 

Originally I said I wanted a simple mermaid style gown that was form fitting with little beading and such....well I definitely bought a dress that is exactly opposite. lol. 

I don't want to post any pics because you will just have to come to my wedding to see it on me but I will tell you a little about it!

It's a white strapless dress with a sweetheart neckline (fav. part!) and it's very form fitting until the waist and then it poofs out some (not too much) with some beading and flowers and such.

That was probably the most vague explanation ever...but it's perfect and I love it. 

I told myself that I didn't want a full skirt until I tried it on...it was everything I have always thought a wedding dress should be. I called David immediately afterward freaking out a little because I had just bought the dress on a whim and it wasn't what I originally wanted...but I was surprisingly reassured when he told me that he was so glad I ended up buying a poofy dress because that is what he has always envisioned me wearing and your wedding day is the one day you get to feel like a princess so you should look like one as well. 

Also, it had to be a sign that I needed to buy the dress when I tried it on and it fit me perfectly! No hemming, alterations, or special orders for me! (yay for saving a little money!)

So there you have it...one thing down....so many more to go!

Here are a couple pictures of the dresses that were definite NO's just for fun. Enjoy. 

Very pretty, but a little too mermaidish...

Courtney was obviously bored waiting for me to change...

Not a fan of any color on wedding dresses...just me....

Loved the top, but the bottom looked like something my Grandma would wear...

This one was just dumpy...

The Proposal....

So I figured I should start off this blog with the story that started all of this wedding business....the proposal!

As most of you know, David and I have been dating for about five years now so it was no surprise when we announced our engagement...but nevertheless he was still able to pull off the most romantically surprising proposal ever! 

We had only looked at rings once before he proposed and he kept building up the lie that he was gonna save money all summer to buy a ring, so I was not expecting anything anytime soon. I couldn't have been more wrong...

After being on chorale tour in California for about a week, David and I branched off from the group for the weekend since I had to go back to practice with summer singers and he was staying in California doing a youth internship all summer. We spent the weekend with his God-sister Lashane (thanks and love you!) and bought two-day park hopper tickets for disneyland!

At about 4 o'clock on Day 1 we went to the animation studio because David called ahead (who knew you could call disneyland?) and got us front row seats to the show "Talk With Crush." I would soon find out that this was just a ploy to get me into the building where the proposal would take place....After the show David said "Let's go look around and see what's in this building!" After finally convincing me that I didn't have to go to the bathroom right that second we started to look around. 

David took me the "Beauty and the Beast" library because we were in that musical together in high school. He had some workers down there ahead of time and he asked one of them to take our picture in front of the fireplace. After they took our picture, I started to walk away and he said "Wait a second," and pulled out a piece of paper...

He began to read me the story of our relationship written in the form of a fairytale like "Beauty and the Beast." By this time, the workers had sectioned off that area so that no one could walk through and an audience began to form around us! He ended the story with a little speech about how much I meant to him and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me....and then....

He got down on knee, pulled out the ring, and asked me to marry him. I started bawling instantaneously...it was crazy! I was not expecting to react like that at all!

I was so shocked and excited that I didn't even let him put the ring on! I just said "Yes" and then jumped up and hugged him! He had to remind me about the ring because I was just so in shock!

He explained to me the whole preparation and I was shocked to find out that he had had the ring for over month and told no one except for our families and his best friend Joel. David always gives himself away when he tries to surprise me so this proposal was perfect!

After the proposal, the workers gave us buttons that said "Happily Ever After" and "Just Engaged" and they also gave us some ride vouchers so we could skip to the front of the lines! It was so great! Then later that night we ate dinner at this restaurant inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. David had made reservations there so we got right in and they even gave us disney champagne flutes to keep! 

Here is a picture of my ring! I absolutely LOVE it! He did so great!

So that's the whole story! David will be in California until August 5th so we really haven't started too much of the wedding planning process...but we'll keep you posted!

Our Wedding Blog!

Hello family, friends, and everyone else!

David and I have decided to create a wedding blog filling you in on all the fun details of our wedding and the process it takes to get there! We have never done this before so give us a break if it takes a while to get things rolling! Thanks for visiting, we appreciate all your love and support!