Wedding Day Vendor Review and Pictures

Cake - Batter Up Cake Company
Alicia did a wonderful job with our cake. It was exactly how we envisioned it. J really wanted the grass on our invitation to be on the bottom tier. We gave her a copy of the invitation and it looked exactly the same! It tasted great as well although I only had one bite which I had during our cake cutting. I just wish the icing wasn't so thick. It seemed a bit much to me.

Hair and Make Up - Lora Keady

I found Lora through our awesome photographer, Tammy, a week before the wedding! I know, it was insane. I had to cancel on my original make up artist since she was too hard to get a hold of and was too unreliable. I was hesitant in the beginning since there was no trial whatsoever but she sent me pictures of her work and I was very impressed.

Lora came to the farm and did my hair and make up and she did a wonderful job. She changed my hair a couple of times until I knew it was perfect for me. I loved what she did and I got compliments throughout the day. My make up didn't feel like it was caked on my face and it looked very natural and fresh. I will definitely use her services again.

Flowers - Budget Designer Florals

Leann did an amazing job on my bouquet and all the flower arrangements she did for the wedding. Her prices were amazing too! I had a bouquet of roses and freesias, the two corsages were freesia and hydrangea, J's dad and grandpa had a single rose for their boutonniere, and J has a freesia for his. She came to the farm and arranged all our ceremony flowers of hydrangeas and roses on planters that I provided which we also used for centerpieces at the reception.

Musician - Wagner Trio
We only had a duo (violin and cello) for the ceremony since the flutist was not available. I never met Ethan but I talked to him on the phone and we exchanged plenty of emails. They added a really nice touch to our ceremony and their music was great! We started the ceremony late and they played the whole time. They were definitely worth the money since we booked with them a couple of weeks before the wedding.

Reception - Sheraton Richmond West

We had plenty of food at the reception and I think that we might have overfed our guests. There were 4 different kinds of hors doeuvre's that were passed during the cocktail hour, dinner consisted of salad with sea bass, tomato basil soup, raspberry sorbet for the intermezzo, and NY strip loin for the entree which was of course followed by our cake. Guests also received truffles to take home and there was this presentation of sweets on a platter for each table during coffee service.
We had a beer and wine host bar throughout the whole reception but we brought in the wine ourselves to cut cost. I'm glad we did this since we went through a case and a half of wine with only 45 guests for 4 hours and not all of them drank.

Photographers - Jason and Tammy Keefer

They are definitely our favorite vendor! We loved their work from the moment J found them on the Internet all the way through our engagement session and wedding. Our gallery of pictures went up on their site not even three days after the wedding! Jason and Tammy were with us from the moment J arrived at the farm early that morning up until we had our last drink at the reception. They also brought in a 3rd photographer from Richmond, Rae, who was mainly there at the reception to take pictures before our guests started to arrive.
They are definitely a great duo and we are soooo happy with the pictures they've taken. I give the hubbie tons of kudos for finding them! We can't wait to start designing the album with Jason. I'm already thinking of the next time that we might need their services again.

Our Couple of Weeks Before the Wedding

We are now husband and wife...

I completely abandoned this blog two weeks before the wedding. It was really hectic and crazy and I had an important group at work the Monday before the wedding. Sleep was definitely out of the picture during those two weeks. It was insane. But somehow I found more stuff to do. They weren't a big deal but still stuff nonetheless.

Now that everything is over and a little calmer, I can sit here and share everything that we did before the wedding, share pictures, and review our vendors.

J and I drove up to the farm the week before the wedding to do a final walk through and to drop off ceremony stuff. We didn't quite agree on where the ceremony was going to be set up 'cause I couldn't quite remember how big the area was. The visit that weekend definitely helped since I was able to see it for the last time and I agreed on where he wanted to set the area. We also realized during the drive that there were two turns off Patterson instead of just one. I knew we should have done the drive before the invitations went to print. The two turns lead us to make some directional signs for each turn which we didn't do 'til the Thursday before the wedding.

The week before was crazier than I imagined! J's great-aunt passed away on Monday and my grandmother in the Philippines had a stroke that Tuesday. I was just waiting for the weather to change and tell me that it was going going to rain like hell on our wedding day. I was off from work starting that Thursday and didn't return 'til yesterday. I wish I had taken more days off to just relax.

This was pretty much how the week of the wedding went down...
Monday and Tuesday - work and more work
Wednesday - work for me while J stayed at home, we had dinner with Shawn to talk about our wedding timeline and to pick our first dance song
Thursday - got our marriage license, picked up some wine from Trader Joe's, wine tasting at Shawn's while we created 3 wedding signs
Friday - picked up linens from Classic Party, bought 2 cases of wine from Trader Joe's, picked up our wedding bands, got a car wash, had my eyebrows waxed, lunch with the parents at Tara Thai, and got my nails with my mom.

Sometime during that week I also had our menu cards printed, created reserved signs for the ceremony (for our parents, grandfather, aunt and uncle), and reserved sign for the reception.

Next up...pictures and vendors :)

Our Bottle Water :)

We are going to give these out to our guests while they leave the ceremony site for their drive back to Richmond for the reception. I used Microsoft Publisher to design them and had them printed at OfficeMax.


..and the price breakdown...

$.90/sheet - 2x8.5 labels ~ purchased from labelsbythesheet 5 labels per sheet

$4.88/32 pack 16.9 oz Aquafina Water ~ purchased from Sam's Club

$.39/sheet for printng ~ OfficeMax

I spent about $.41 per bottled water! How cheap is that?!!! This is so much better than spending almost $40 per case that's already made for you.

19 days ~ dun dun dun

The florist's deposit is sent and I'm dropping the contract in the mail tomorrow! One huge check. I think I work better under pressure.

The guest list is now 48. I guess we forgot some people. Oops. I did find out what our discount is for the reception though. It's very generous is all I have to say.

We went to S&K today to look for J's suit/tux. We found a nice brown one but we need to make sure that it matches my sash. He's going back there tomorrow with the swatch of my sash to check.

I hope to get the musician and officiant off our list this week. D and I have started on our wedding timeline and it's coming together. This weekend will be devoted on labeling a bazillion water bottles.

A Not-So-Wedding-Ish Post...

Tech and UNC played yesterday. J has been nervous about this game since last Saturday. I don't know college football like that nor do I know NFL better. I just like NFL more and know more players due to the pool I play at work.

To show J some support I finally bought a Tech shirt. Yes...almost 4 years later I'm finally fully supporting his obsession with the Hokies.

Tech won. It was a wonderful night in our household.

My Something Blue

Ever since I started stalking wedding blogs, I've always loved the idea of crystallizing the sole of your shoes with the groom-to-be's initials. I did this project this morning and it was very t

tedious. The rhinestones were so tiny and I had to make sure that my lines were lined up nicely.

Materials needed:

1. Rhinestones - I purchased mine from rhinestoneshop.com for $5.99 with free shipping

2. Instant Krazy Glue or any glue of your choice - $2.99

3. Reverse Tweezers - $1.95

To make things a little easier, I lined up the letters on a flat surface and taped it right-side up. I then flipped it over so I can put the glue on the rhinestones and then attached them to the shoes. I might add the wedding date on the other shoe if I feel like it later.

3 Weeks From Tomorrow

I can't believe we are three weeks away from the wedding. Who knew planning a wedding in less than 3 months is possible! There are still more things to check off our list but I think that we should be okay.

Dress ~ The first fitting this past Wednesday went well. I brought my shoes and sash with me. It fit perfectly but Oxsana convinced me to do more alterations to attach my sash. I think it will be better since the sash was making me look wider when I would tie it around for some reason. The dress will not be ready 'til the 3rd...8 freaking days before the wedding! I'm a little nervous but she's good so I trust her.

Officiant ~ We are meeting with him on Wednesday and I think this is a check on our list. He is a pastor at J's dad's church. Another check in the flowers. I think.

Flowers ~ I found Leann on Charlottesville's Craigslist just to ask about her wholesale pricing for the hydrangeas. She asked about our wedding details and next thing you know we're exchanging ideas and quotes. She offered me an awesome pricing and I don't have to deal with the set-up on the day of at the farm. She'll be doing my bouquet, 3 boutonnieres, and 2 corsages. The bouquet will be roses and freesias and the boutonnieres and corsages will be a mixture of the same flowers. She could have mailed the hydranges and arrangements but instead she's driving to the farm for an extra $50 to deliver the flowers and arrange the hydrangeas! That's a freaking steal! I of course googled freesias and roses and found this lovely thing. I love it!

Monogram ~ I painted our monogram tonight. Non-toxic paint of course. I hope it turns out nice or I'll be back to square one not unless we scratch the whole topper thing which should be fine since our cake will have the height without it.

Menu ~ is done and we love it! Our executive chef and food and beverage director went all out. I'm excited to feed our guests. It's 4 courses and that's obviously not counting appetizers during the cocktail hour nor the cake for dessert.

Guest Count ~ we are somehow at 47. Hmmm is all I can say.

Linens ~ I picked out pretty ones but I don't know if I want to spend the money on them.

The groom-to-be is still without a suite, we still don't have a musician for the ceremony, and I somehow haven't heard from my make up artist. These better be done this coming week or I will really start to freak out!

Slowly but surely

I am getting more stuff purchased/done. Since Saturday I've purchased crystals for my shoes, labels for the water bottles, and our cake topper. The crystals came in today and I'll work on my shoes this weekend since J will be working. I also finished two designs for the labels and they are done.





The cake topper is only $13 and hopefully it gets here by Friday so I can paint it. J didn't like my crystal idea on the topper so we're trying to go with this look. I need to figure out how this paint looks so shiny.


I also stalked our registry just to see what's going on with them and it looks like someone bought us something. How exciting! We now have 8 glasses :) It's strange 'cause hardly anyone knows that we are registered.

28 More Days To Go...

but who is really counting?? I can't believe that we are less than 30 days aways and there's still a bajillion things to do! We have somehow added more to the wedding than we originally planned and yet I try to find DIY crap to do. I hate having to find stuff. I don't like calling people and I try to do everything on email as much as I can.

J and I really need to come up with a game plan on our wedding day. We don't have a timeline whatsoever but we do know that we're trying to show up at the ceremony a little late. Not together or at the same time of course. But how sad is that?? We don't want our guests to not have anything to do between after the ceremony and the reception time. I'm just really glad that my office mate, we can call her D, did weddings before and she knows how things are done. I have made her my un-official wedding planner. Haha. I did find bottled water labels though. I convinced J that we need custom printed labels for the bottled water that we are providing our guests during the ceremony just in case it's hot. I need to order them but I need to buy a bottle first so I can measure the label.

I've done a great deal this past couple of weeks though...

Dress ~ is currently being altered. I went to this alterations place that I found through theknot. I have my first fitting this coming Wednesday and I'm supposed to bring my sash and shoes this time. I didn't bring my shoes with me since my dress is not full length but she wants to see the whole thing. She also wants to see what the sash will look like since the part where the sash is supposed go is pretty thick and she's suggesting that I might need to get a sash specially made. We'll see how that goes.

Cake ~ I dropped off the payment on Thursday. This is done now. We just need to figure out if we want to rent Alicia's stand or if we are going to buy our own.

Flowers ~ my mom's co-worker has offered to do my flowers and to let me use her hook-up at the wholesale place to get the hydrangeas but my mom hasn't seen her at work nor has she called me back.

DJ, Ceremony Musician, and Officiant ~ we're waiting for J's dad to let us know what's going on with these.

We still have a long list of things to do:
- J's outfit (suit, shoes, tie, the whole thing!)
- accommodations the night of the wedding
- his accommodations the night before
- how we're getting to the farm
- menu
- song list if we ever find a freaking dj and musician!
...and the list can go on and on...

Our engagement pictures gallery are up though. We looove the pictures soo much and we can't wait for the wedding!

Fun Engagement Session!!!

I love-love-love our photographer. Jason and Tammy are so easy to work with and we had so much fun during our engagement session yesterday despite the heat. We spent almost 2 hours of non-stop pictures and we ended our session with dinner at Bottom's Up.

Of course we were late, again!...just like when we had our initial meeting. Me getting lost on my way home from the makeup trial didn't help one bit. I swear I just reversed my directions from how I go there but I apparently did not do it right.

So the makeup session went well. It was pretty and all but makeup is just not me. Renata is nice enough to okay another trial which I think we really need. I don't usually wear make-up so a little bit of it goes a long way. I just want to look natural and fresh. I was literally just wiping layers of foundation off my face on my way home. The little bit of makeup that was left melted off during the session since it was so hot and J had this bright idea to go to another location which was pretty far.

I can't wait for our online gallery to be up! I've been stalking their website all morning to see if it's up yet. The session was great. We went to 2 different parks in Church Hill that had great views of the city. Cobblestones, brick walls, grass areas, church doors...name it and we probably took pictures there. Even the Hokie shirt made an appearance.

Cake..done!

We finally have a contract for our cake! Alicia from Batter Up is such a sweetheart :) She made it work within our budget which really isn't our budget. Actually, come to think of it, there's no budget-ish since J's dad's girlfriend offered to pay for it as our wedding present :) We of course didn't want to be unreasonable so we found the best tasting cake at a great price.

It's now going to be round with all tiers being real. The original plan was to have to the top tier a dummy but since J and I decided that the free anniversary cake within a year is not the important to us, our baker has included this in our cake count for the wedding and she's not charging us. The flavors stay the same and the only change is the shape. We might not rent her cake stand as well. I'm now looking for cute ones online that we can possibly buy instead since the prices aren't that bad. We already have our eye on one but it might be too small.

I mean how cute is this stand? Without the ribbon tied that way though. I can possibly see it with our own green or brown ribbon but not tied in a bow. I like this stand better than those shiny silver platform things. For $20, this is a great deal aaannddd it's not white! I have to check with Alicia first if this will possibly work for our cake.

I'm relieved that this part is done. We have some more things to get done like flowers, officiant, and ceremony musician. The menu should be easy and painless.

Well it's time for bed so I can be well rested for our fun engagement pictures tomorrow! I have my make-up trial tomorrow too.

My dress is here!

Thanks, Mr. UPS Man :)

The planters are here

The planters I ordered from Crate&Barrel are finally here. I will probably do my test run on Saturday when I can actually get to Ukrop's early enough to get some fresh hydrangeas. For some reason, these things look blue-ish in the pictures or maybe it's just me.



Our cake tasting yesterday went well. I don't think I've ever eaten that much cake. There were 5 different cakes and tons and tons of different icings and fillings. I'm not really a big fan of icing and J is the total opposite. He would eat sugar by itself if he could. We haven't gone into contract yet with this baker since we have another tasting scheduled for Saturday. We do have all the details for this one though if we do decide to go with her...it will be a 3-tiered square cake with the top one being a dummy layer. With the amount of guests we are expecting, there's really no need for a lot of cake but at the same time we don't want our cake to look like a big birthday cake. We are incorporating our wedding colors and the grass graphics on our invite. I was very surprised that J had a lot of ideas on the cake. I thought he just wanted to come for the tasting part. The lady was so sweet. She even had us take all the leftovers from the tasting.

On our way home from the tasting, my crackberry received a new message and it was the shipping confirmation for my freaking dress! I was so ecstatic when I read the email. I had just contacted them that morning to ask about my dress and hours later it was being shipped! It didn't even take 5 weeks for this. It should be here tomorrow.


This week is going by so quick with it being so short and me actually doing work at work. The weekend should be full of more wedding related items and of course, Monday is our engagement session. I finally figured our the name of the park where J took me this past Monday. I have to email Jason for the details of where we're meeting them and the name of the places where we want our session done.

Wedding stuff this past weekend...

We spent yesterday doing more wedding stuff. Our registries are finally done. We weren't going to register at all 'cause we didn't think it was necessary until the invitations were mailed and people started asking where we registered. We did Crate&Barrel and Bed Bath & Beyond. Both registries are very short since we only picked items that we know we really need. Thanks to my mom, we have a lot of house stuff already.

In between the two stores, we drove around downtown to scope out some areas so we know where to take our photographers for the engagement session next week. I'm soooo excited for this! I love engagement/wedding pictures and I can't wait for our session with Jason and Tammy (I stalk their website daily to make sure I don't miss out on new proofs)! The two main places we're aiming for are the Main Street Station and this park I can't remember the name of in Church Hill. The MSS is just awesome and the park's view is the city. I mean who wouldn't want pictures taken here??

I went ahead and changed my make-up trial to Monday so it's done for the engagement session. Tonight is our first cake tasting and I have us scheduled for another one for this coming Saturday.

We are slowly getting everything done. The only part we're missing is the officiant, flowers, and maybe a ceremony musician.

Shoes, etc...

I completely forgot to post pictures of my shoes and sash when they came in a couple of weeks ago. Everything I need to wear on the wedding day are all here except for the dress. I've stored everything in a Nordstrom shopping bag in the closet. My shoes, the VS bra, sash, and even my foot petals are all in the bag. I hope my dress magically shows up next week. It's not supposed to get here 'til the middle of September but the dress people told me that they usually come earlier than expected. We shall see.

Ceremony and Reception Decor

Being that our wedding is very casual and small, we decided that we are going the DIY route for our flower decor. Well, I decided to go DIY. J doesn't really have an opinion of who gets to do what or what we should and shouldn't pay for. I don't think I'm capable of doing my own bouquet, corsages for our moms, and boutonnieres for J's dad and grandpa so I have to get these professionally done. It doesn't look that difficult to cut some flowers and put them in a container to hang. I am definitely doing a test run as soon as the planters come in though.

White and green hydrangeas will be used for our ceremony and reception. I've ordered 10 square planters from Crate&Barrel, 8 small ones and 2 big ones. The small ones will line the aisle and the big ones will be upfront. I'm going to use fishing wires to hang the planters on shepherd's hooks (that I have yet to purchase!). The same arrangements will be transported to our reception only this time they won't be hanging.

{ Imagine these flowers without the patriotic-looking vase }

{ In this type of arrangement }

{ in one of these }

I've already done my research on the flowers. They will be purchased online from two different places (unfortunately!). White hydrangeas will be coming from farmstogo at only $2.82 per stem. You can only buy them in quantities of 20 or 40 so I'm getting 40. The price also includes overnight shipping straight from Colombia. Mini green hydrangeas will be purchased from theflowerexchange. They're $2.85 per stem with a minimum purchase of 15 stems and the price also includes overnight shipping.

Crazy couple of weeks...

I can't wait 'til we are finally married so we can stop planning. I plan events/meetings for a living and yet doing my own is too difficult. The next couple of weeks are jam packed with appointments and things...

8/30 - florist appointment
9/2 - cake tasting
9/5 - hair and make-up trial
9/6 - mani/pedi (for engagement session)
9/8 - engagement session / get marriage license
9/16 - my dress should be here!
9/17 - get my dress altered
9/19 - rsvp's are due

More checks for this weekend!

I caved in and finally ordered my shoes. Nordstrom didn't have my size when J and I went last week but I had to stop by there yesterday to match the swatch of my sash. I called J and told him that one of the swatches matched though it wasn't perfect. He made me buy them and they should be here next week. He tried to tell me that I should go back to Creations and have them make the sash to match perfectly. Yeah, he's a little anal.

My strapless bra came in from VS also. They're very comfy and convertible so I can wear them more than I had anticipated. I hate strapless but these are actually great.

I ordered some FootPetals products also. I don't think I can last in heels all day so these better help and work. I got haute heelz and tip toes in pink. I would have coordinated them with our wedding colors but they didn't have green nor brown.

Addresses are all done and on a spreadsheet ready for printing! I'm missing two more but that's J's deal so I'm really waiting for him to get them. We somehow went from needing 28 invites to now 34! The guest count went up to 43 too! I swear, the tiny wedding is not so tiny anymore. It's still tiny but not as tiny as we originally planned.

This week I hope to have our menu done and hopefully find shepherd's hooks and galvanized pails for our ceremony decor.

Our Invitations are In...

and we love them!

Karah was so awesome and easy to work with. I changed a bunch of stuff and she was totally cool with my little requests. I told J last night that I didn't have anything wedding related to do for this weekend and all I really wanted was to finish the invites since I wanted to add a belly-band to the set. I'm not exactly the crafty kind so I wanted a little extra time to get everything done.

Well, what do you know?! The invitations came in the mail today before noon and it was soo exciting! It made the wedding more real now :) I had to rush after they came to finish the monogram since I had to change the shade of green and brown that I originally did. I went to OfficeMax yesterday to get a test print and the colors were too dark.

I made J pick the one he liked the most since I didn't know which one I liked best. I had the monograms printed during my extended lunch break and picked up some clear adress labels while I was there. I had to run to Joann's also to get ribbons but they didn't have enough of the color I needed. So across the street I went to Hancock Fabrics but they didn't have the ribbon by the spool and I was not about to pay by the yard. I had no choice but to wait 'til after work to get the darn ribbons! Who knew I was going to find them at Wal-Mart?? They were so much cheaper too! It was less than $2 for a 6 yrd spool.

It didn't take me long at all to put them together. I guess the fact that we ony have 35 sets helped a lot. Tomorrow, I will work on the labels and maybe pick up the green stamps to match our invites.

Finding the Right Shoes

With this wedding fast approaching, I looked for pink shoes for a whole straight week. I have never once said that I hated shoes 'til then. Our wedding colors went from pink and brown to baby blue and brown to now moss green and brown. This is all due to my shoe dilemma. Who knew pink and blue shoes were so darn hard to find! I was determined to wear either pink or blue but that did not work out. I was too worried that the sash I wanted to wear will be too hard to match perfectly with the right shade of shoes.

We have now settled with moss green and brown and I'll be wearing brown shoes due to the brown sash. Well that and the fact that it's a little easier to find brown shoes.

Why the green and brown combo? Well, the ceremony is outside and we wanted to use these two colors 'cause of that. Our invites are the same color combo as well. I have to make sure that my sash (swatches are on their way) is very close to the color of my shoes.

I have one pair coming in today. I purchased them from shoes.com on Friday during their big sale last week. I paid less than $50 shipped and they were originally more that $200! I did find another pair at my local Nordstrom this weekend but they didn't have my size. They're a little more at $89.95 but they looked so sexy on my feet and very comfy for the heel height. J loved them too! We shall see what happens with the ones coming in today.

{ Cynthia Rowley Soprano }

{ Glint Kailey }

I hope the swatches for my sash come in the mail today so I can finalize my shoe option.
More pictures later on today with the actual shoes.

My Wedding Dress

The very first wedding purchase since the crazy wedding planning started is my dress. We picked and purchased our wedding bands months ago but my dress way the first legit purchase since the real wedding planning started.

I looked all over the internet for something very simple and dainty. J Crew, Nordstrom, Saks, everywhere...but came up with nothing. I didn't want a full-length dress and I wanted it plain. No lace, no beading, just plain. I did want a sash but that was it. I searched for a whole week and decided I was going the custom route but didn't find anything online since most of them had a 12-week wait.

Creations Bridal was my only choice. The lady I worked with was very nice and patient with me. I brought in pictures during our first meeting and she was very quick to sketch what I had in mind. They even had the right shade of dupioni silk that I was looking for. But in the end, their price was a bit too high for me. I was about to give up on my quest for the dress until I decided to stop by Bella Rosa to check out the dresses they carry for bridesmaids. At this point we had already moved our date to October and I can actually get a dress in early enough if I paid extra for the rush service.

I have been to Bella Rosa before with a friend right after the engagement just to check out what they had in the store. It was about an hour before their closing time and the lady had me pull all BM dresses that I was interested in. I picked about 4 and headed for the fitting room. none of them worked. I hated each and every single dress I tried on. By the time I was done, it was 5 'til 6. She asked me what I didn't like about the dresses and I told her that all of them puffed out in the bottom. I told her that I would probably have to come back another time since they are closing but she told me to try on one last dress. She pulled an ivory lace dress, v-neck, tea-length, and very pretty. I actually looked at it but didn't think twice about trying it on because of the lace material. I went in to the fitting room and tried the dress on. You know how they say that when you know it's the one, you just know? Well, I did! I fell in love with the dress soo much! It reminded me of this Monique Lhuillier dress that I drooled over for so long that I knew from the get-go I will never be able to afford.

I went home that evening and told J about how I foun the dress. He doesn't know anything about it except for the fact that it's ivory and it's not long. I bought my dress from Victoria's Bridal Couture located in Florida. They have an on-line shop and I paid for less than half the retail price had I purchased it from Bella Rosa. Their rush charge was only $30 and it should be here by the 2nd week of September. I plan on wearing my dress with a brown thick satin sash.

This is getting long. I will post my shoe dillema next.

My First Post :)

J and I will be engaged a year on August 28 and somehow we are just now planning our wedding for this coming October. I know, it's coming up really soon. We decided 3 weeks ago that we wanted to get married soon! Needless to say, it's been a crazy and stressful 3 weeks. We went from 9/20 to now 10/11. There's no turning back now! The invites have been ordered and they are probably on their way to the printers.

We are having a very small and casual ceremony in front of 35 family and friends at his uncle's farm about 30 minutes outside of Richmond which will be followed with cocktails and dinner all the way back in Richmond. It seems a lot of driving but we absolutely love the farm and we are getting a great deal at our reception site.

I'm pretty surprised that we have accomplished a great deal within these past 3 weeks. Ceremony and reception are finalized, my dress has been purchased, invitations have been ordered, and most important of them all, our photographer is booked!

We looove our photographer! J found Jason one afternoon after google-ing him. I was getting tired and frustrated trying to find one myself but J got really lucky! This has to be the most important part about our wedding and the one thing that we are soooo excited about! I can't wait to do our engagement session with him.