What's been happenin'

I have been majorly slacking on the wedding blog and have made lots of decisions and selections for the wedding in Nassau and the reception in SA.  We are getting super excited for the big day and  have been doing all kinds of fun stuff to prepare for it and picking out all the little details. Since we are having a reception in SA town after the wedding, we have had all kinds of normal wedding stuff to do that we would have skipped if we only had the wedding in Nassau, but I have been mostly picking out stuff on the computer. Me and my mom thought there would be more stuff we had to physically go do.

Last week I went shopping with my future in-laws for dress shopping for the wedding. Nonie, Richie and Jessica all found really great dresses for the wedding! My camera wasn't charged that day, so I don't have any pics, but we had a great time! I also recently found Jamie, Jason's niece, the dress she will wear to be our flower girl! She is going to be so cute!

My mom and I have been having a Paleo challenge competition for the last 4 weeks (2 more to go!) where all we are eating is meat, fruit, veggies and nuts, like a caveman. Yesterday we took off of our strict  diet and went to Austin for a dessert tasting with Clemintine's Cakery . We pretty much made up for lost time and ate our weight in tiny, amazing desserts. It was all in the name of wedding research! How can we expect to pick a vendor without tasting...We then went to Oasis on Travis Lake for lunch!

My dress should be in in the next month or so, so I am looking forward to taking another trek up to Austin for a fitting. I am hoping both our moms and grandmas can come see the dress when it gets in! This weekend we are having over both families for Easter (27 people!) so that everyone can kind of hang out before the wedding. We don't want the first time all of these people hang out is when they are on vacation together. Awkward! 

Welp, thats all for now!

Kristin

A Bridal Trousseau

A few weeks back, Meme (my g-ma) wrote me an email saying she had been thinking and praying about how she was going to contribute to our wedding. After much deliberation she came to an incredible, helpful and old school conclusion: she was going to furnish my bridal trousseau. After much googling, I found that  a trousseau used to be a giant chest that young women collected and stored bridal accessories, jewelry, lingerie, makeup, honeymoon clothes, linens and other things for their marital home. Since victorian times it has been filled primarily with new clothes for the wedding, honeymoon and newly wed days so the new husband doesn't go broke trying to buy his bride new clothes.

So after talking to Meme, I found she wants to furnish clothes and accessories for my honeymoon at our wedding spot in Nassau. This is going to be extremely helpful since, with the expense of the wedding in Nassau and reception in SA, there wouldn't be a lot of cashola left for the clothes, bath suits, etc that I need to impress the new husband. Its super fun to have money that I HAVE to use to by clothes, makeup and fun shoes with instead of saving it pay for cake. So, I am looking forward to having a fun summer of shopping with Meme for new things for my honeymoon! Thanks for the great gift Meme!

-Kristin

In other news

Things are going great in wedding planning world! We got our Save the Dates for our Nassau wedding and picked an awesome venue for our San Antonio post-wedding party.  Also had an awesome time registering at Crate and Barrel in Austin this weekend (with a quick stop for another Hey Cupake!). We also registered at William Sonoma; which was cool, but not as fun because we didn't get a cupcake...

So, like any self respecting bride-to-be, I have started googling wedding things for between 2-13 hours a day. I find little gems like this one: 

That is for the bride that needs brass knuckles in case she needs to rough anyone up at the reception. 

Next on our list is finding vendors for our SA Town reception, so let us know if you know anyone!

Kristin

Now I don't have to get married naked!

Yesterday my mom, my MoH and I headed to Austin for one last day of wedding dress shopping. I had made my first dress appointment at Unbridaled in Austin for yesterday at 2. Since they were having a sample sale I made 6 other appointments at places in SA and Austin, so if I found one at the sale, I could buy it without hesitation.
After trying on about....50 other dresses on Thursday, Friday with my mom in San Antonio and Saturday with my mom and Ariane in Austin, I had it narrowed down to two. I hadn't had "the feeling" with either of the two, but they were close to perfect and I thought I may not be the kind of girl that gets the super emotional, "I found the dress" feeling.
Fortunately, I was wrong. We headed to Unbridaled yesterday at 2 to try on sample sale dresses and their other dresses that you just order. I tried on a few sample sale dresses, but they were nooo bueno and I had tried on about 15 dresses that the attendant had picked out, none of which I was crazy about. We were about to leave when I saw a few more I wanted to try on. One of them was THE dress. I put it on and just knew...just like the old cliche goes. I even had a little tear when I showed my mom and Ariane!  We decided to go have dinner and think about the dress and make sure that is the one I wanted to order. We got about 2 miles down the road and turned around. I knew it was the perfect one I wanted!\

Afterward we had a celebratory dinner and cupcake in Austin from Hello Cupcake. They were better than Cupcake Couture in SA and now take the coveted title of Kristin's Favorite Cupcake. Unfortunately, I will have to reign that little habit in so I can look super hot in my beautiful dress!










In addition to all of the dress excitement, Jason and I ordered our Save the Dates (all 15 of them) for our Nassau wedding and are working on a guest list for our San Antonio reception. They are luggage tag magnets from Mavora and will look something like this:

We also got in all of our awesome engagement pictures from LemonYellowBlack. Here are a few of the favorites: 

Thanks for reading this giant post!
Kristin

Nassau Here We Come!

Hello! 

Today is a big day for us on our wedding planning journey. We are signing a contract with the Sheraton Nassau in the Bahamas for our wedding on 11/4/11!  We finally found a place we love that has a reasonable amount of travel and tons of fun stuff to do. We decided to have the wedding in Nassau for immediate family and a few close friends and reception back in SA town when we get home for family and friends! Here are some awesome pictures of our ceremony site and reception site:

We also took our engagement photos in the Blue Star area, around Gunther House and in King Williams District . We haven't gotten them all back yet, but should have them in the next few days.  

Ariane, my mom, Richie and I attended a few bridal shows in SA and in Austin. We saw some pretty things, but I didn't see any dresses I liked until we went to the i.thee.wed show in Austin. I made an appointment to go check out their dresses in mid-Feb. I also made appointments at a few other places in San Antonio to check out dresses the same week. So, hopefully I can find something simple and beautiful for our beach wedding! 

Time for an update... not a lot of new info

Happy 2011 wedding blog readers!

Curacao 

2011 has not been super productive on the wedding planning front for us. We have found a few locations we really like, but have not decided what we are going to do for sure. We were pretty set on Curacao (tiny dutch island off the coast of Venezuela ), but there seems to be some kind of deal-breaker for each of the resorts there. Plus there are Trip Advisor rumors of extreme mosquito situations which I am against. Since we know no people who have been there, it is impossible to know for sure. Other finalist include Aruba and St. Thomas. So for the time being, we are just keeping a cost spread sheet and spending all free time emailing unsuspecting event planners a million questions. I am nothing if not thorough. 

I did ask Ariane, my long time friend/fake sister to be my maid of honor. It was a very special moment at Panera Bread over french onion soup and sandwiches. I presented her with a greeting card that gave her the option to check yes, no or maybe. She checked yes before realizing that she is now contractually obligated to be my friend for the next year, no matter what. 

In other news my mom, future mother-in-law and I attended a Bridal Extravaganza earlier this month. We had a great time, but it was pretty much useless since I am not getting married here and left me feeling like maybe I hate wedding dresses...We are going to another one later this month and some kind of wedding fashion show in Austin called i.thee.wed, a night of inspiration and fashion. So hopefully I will find both inspiration and fashion. 

More to come once we make some actual decisions. 

Kristin

Until next year....

Hello to all of my (5) readers! Things have been crazy this week and we made the unfortunate mistake of looking at too much wedding stuff too early. Our heads almost exploded.

So, with the exception of finding an engagement pic photographer, we are shelving everything until after the holidays. We are just going to enjoy being engaged, enjoy the holidays and have an awesome New Year's weekend in Las Vegas! That being said if you have a recommendation for a great photographer, let me know.

Here are some Andrews' family pics we took last night: 

Thanks,
Kristin