My Second Love...

Two of my favorite reasons to attend a wedding is seeing the happy couple so in love and everyone around them so happy and of course CAKE! Haha. So, it is no surprise that we want our wedding cake to taste fabulous!!! I'm a huge fan of white cake with buttercream frosting! Yum! And, I know Bryan's favorite is chocolate cake with chocolate icing. To compromise, I think we are going to serve white cake with white buttercream frosting to all the guests, and also have a Groom's chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and maybe his dream car (old GTO) on there!!! I came across some cake designs that were simple, elegant, and looked delicious. And, I forwarded them to my dad (he is responsible for my sweet tooth by the way) who loved them all as well! My favorite is the last one with the real flowers and fruit! I think that is the look we are going to go for except have the flowers be pink and maybe the ribbon be green!

Love.

Lovin' Their Style...

I came across an awesome blog, which I am in love with: Snippet and Ink , it is full of wedding inspirations. Within this blog, there are many sites you can be led to. I really like the Bride's Cafe blog as well. Her site contains some of the cutest engagement pictures that I had to share! Enjoy!

Love.

Beautiful Breckenridge!

Bryan and I returned home yesterday from Breckenridge, CO! All I can say is WOW! It is absolutely beautiful there and even better than I imagined. I always told Bryan in college, if we got the chance to move outside of MO, that is where I wish we could move. And, I would not change my wish. We spent most of Wednesday driving to CO and relaxing once we got there with everyone. Thursday, we went to snowboarding school and spent the majority of the day being taught the basics of snowboarding while it was snowing! Thursday was a very sore day for our muscles. Friday, we spent the morning practicing the basics down the bunny slope. After lunch, we went with some of our friends to the green runs and continued to practice going down the mountain! We thought we were sore Thursday; we were wrong! It was awesome experience filled with many faceplants in the snow, falling, and laughing! We had a great time and ended up snowboarding longer than we thought! Due to some minor injuries Bryan and I had from Friday, we spent Saturday walking around Breckenridge downtown. It was filled with cute, little shops everywhere! We even went to a real French pastry shop where Bryan tried his first crepe (YUM!). We spent the remainder of the day relaxing. Sunday, we had to say goodbye to Breckenridge until next year! We can't wait!!! What a beautiful place!

Some of my favorite pictures from the trip:

As far as wedding plans, we have not done much in that area. My parents did spend some of Saturday afternoon looking at different sites, so hopefully, when we go home next, we will have narrowed down the sites and finalized on one location! Yay!

Love.

Successful Weekend!

This weekend was quite a success. My parents, Bryan, and I spent most of Saturday meeting with photographers and seeing different ceremony and reception sites. We saw the Sheraton in Clayton, Holiday Inn in South County, The Larimore Plantation, and a few banquet centers. We absolutely loved the Larimore Plantation, but it would not work out quite right for how the ceremonies and amount of guests we have. We loved the Sheraton, but I have a feeling the prices are a little out of budget for us. The Holiday Inn was ok. Not my first choice. They did offer a great wedding package though. Stacey, a good friend of mine, is getting married this October. She gave me some great places to check out such as Crowne Plaza in Clayton, Renaissance by the Airport, and the Sheldon Concert Hall (really neat place!). I liked these three when we looked them up online, but we'll see how it looks in person. Bryan and I are hoping to go home one more time in February to finalize the location.

We did get a photographer though...KELLY MANNO! We loved her pictures, and the first moment we met her, we loved her personality as well! She's fun and it shows in her pictures...they are incredible! I can't wait!!! We did some other wedding brainstorming like ideas for all the minor items like the invitations, centerpieces, etc. We want to make sure and personalize our wedding to show our personality and interests through! I will write more on this soon!

Some of our closest friends, Zach and Stacey (we are both in their wedding-Bryan being the best man, and I am one of the bridesmaid) took us out for an incredible celebration Saturday night. We went to dinner at Kobe Steakhouse in Westport and then out to this nifty coffee bar near their house. What a wonderful, fun night! They were so sweet for doing that!!!

It's times like this when I realize how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives!

Two more days until we head out to the west to play in the snow!!!

Love.

Strep Is No Fun!

With the lucky streak I have of being sick lately, I found out Tuesday that I have strep throat again! That is twice in one month. The one good thing is that I caught it so early that my throat and tongue didn't swell up to the point that I could barely talk like last time! What a fun message for my boss to hear that morning on his voicemail! Haha. Anyways, I am doing much better, and hopefully will be healthy and ready to snowboard down the mountains in CO.

I am so excited about this Saturday. We are heading to StL to do wedding stuff, and hopefully will have some of the big things finalized!!!

Also, thanks to my wedding twin-Kathleen (we were engaged on the same day!!!) and her bridal magazines, I figured out my wedding colors. I have known for quite some time that I wanted to do pink and green, but now I am adding orange as an accent. A very summer color palette. Indian wedding colors have been know to be very vibrant!!! So, I have my color scheme taken care of! Yay! I will write back after this weekend!!! Wish us luck!

Love.

Busy Mondays!

Today was off to a busy start. I found out the weekend Bryan and I wish to go home to look at sites and meet with photographers, I have my first biology lab. Lovely. So, we are going home this weekend instead. I have to admit, I don't have a great work ethic, so I spent most of my morning making appointments with different sites and photographers. So far, we are meeting with Kelly Manno (whom we LOVE LOVE LOVE and Beaven Photography. And, for sites, we are looking at The Christy (shout out to Holly) and Stegton Regency-both in St. Charles along with Larimore Plantation (Bryan's first choice and I have to say, I love it!). My parents have a few places they want to show us as well. So, basically, we will be VERY busy on Saturday. Going home this weekend, unexpectedly, makes for busy weekdays!

Plus, I need to build up some endurance for Bryan and I's FIRST SKI TRIP to Brekenridge, CO next week!!! We will be going with fifteen or so other people...mostly Phi Kapps and their significant others...a great time!!! Can you tell how excited I am?! We both are hoping to come back home to being better snowboarders without any broken bones! Wish us luck!

Our goal after this weekend is to narrow down, if not pick a place for our reception, and if we are lucky, our ceremony and a photographer (hoping it's Kelly Manno...we love her pictures!). Hopefully, if I get a chance, I will write more later this week!

Love.

Happy New Year!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve! Our New Year's Eve was fabulous! Bryan and his roommates had everyone come to their house to ring in the new year! So much fun!

Some favorite pictures from the evening:

As far as wedding planning goes, I bought a wedding organizer. It will be so helpful to have this book with us to take when we meet with different vendors, photographers, etc. Plus, it allows us to keep everything organized in one place. Last night, we sat down and started to look through the organizer together. We filled out a questionnaire of what was important to us. After going through some of the book, we came up with seven things that are very important to us:

1. Ceremony Site

2. Reception Site

3. Time of Day/Year Wedding Takes Place

4. Food/Drinks

5. Cake

6. Honeymoon

7. Photographer

Bryan and I would like to first find a ceremony and reception site, which I will probably write soon as to where we are looking at. We know location wise, we are trying to find both places in St. Charles, MO (mid-point for both our families). We already know the photographer we want...Kelly Manno...she is awesome!!! We are meeting with her, another photographer, and a few sites when we go home near the end of January! Can't wait! Bryan and I hope to sit down this weekend and look through more of the wedding organizer to see other important elements of our wedding! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Love.