A lot can happen in 3 weeks!

Hello fellow blogging world friends! Last time I wrote was about three weeks ago, and I was celebrating my best friend's engagement to the man of her dreams. Well as God and fate would have it, the very next day ended up being one of the best days of my life. A day I had waited 5 years and 9 months for, the day a dream would come true. On May 2nd, 2013 Trevor asked me told me that he needed me to marry him. How did this long awaited moment feel you ask? About like this...

It seriously was the most amazing moment and I was completely, 100% surprised, which was quite the shock to me because I believed there was no way Trevor could pull a fast one on me. I am going to write a proposal story blog at a later time but I need to get all the pictures my dear friends JB an Jessica took of the big moment uploaded as well before I do that. Here's a few shots of the bling, boy did good. :)

So wedding planning has officially began and let's just say I am a moving quickly. In the 3 weeks and one day since we got engaged we have chose a date, booked the Church and reception venue, selected our photographer and videographer, chose our wedding party & wedding colors, and last but certainly not least, I have bought my wedding dress! We will be getting married on February 15, 2014. Can you tell I don't want a long engagement? 

Booking our church turned out to be way more complicated that I thought. With faith being something very important to both Trevor and I, we of course knew we wanted to get married in a church. We attend a Catholic church in the Copperfield area of Houston called St. Elizabeth Ann Seton  It's a very large congregation and they actually have like 8 masses on Sunday. (Very different form the church I grew up in with your choices on Sunday being 8 AM or 10:30 AM.) The head Priest at SEAS is Father Paul E. Lockey, PhD, and he is absolutely amazing. His homilies are incredible. This guy knows how to make you listen! We quickly fell in love with him after attending for a short time and new that is the church we wanted to call home. Well wedding planning comes along and I call to make an appointment to meet with him about planning our wedding. Not only is meeting with him just not really an option but the next appointment wasn't until June 4th. (I called on May 6th) That was a disappointing blow. 
So over that first week I called nearly every catholic church in our area trying to work out appointments...epic fail number two. Most of them wont even offer you the church for a wedding unless your a member...fair enough. And the ones that would allow it either A-was extremely expensive to rent, B- Not only expensive but you have to use our organ player for all music (old world wedding anyone?), or C- all of the above options and you could only get married at like 2 PM. Lucky for us though, we quickly found a lovely alternative that worked out great. 
Our friends, Marina and JC, attend a great Methodist Church (which works out because technically Trevor is Methodist) in the Memorial area which is an idea location since it's pretty central to all the places we were looking at using for the reception. After calling and chatting with their wedding coordinator, I was certain this is where we were met to get married. She was so easy to work with and wasn't asking me to give her $1,000 just to hold a tentative date and BONUS, the church is STUNNING, like for real. It's really big and dramatic looking and if there is one thing I've realized I like when it comes to my wedding it's dramatic things. THINGS not PEOPLE. No dramatic people please.

 After touring three venues in Houston and getting prices from countless others, I have decided one thing; the wedding industry did not suffer from the bad economy. HOLY CRAP are some of these places insane. You put a down payment on a monster house with what some of these people spend on wedding in the city of Houston. However, through the rainstorm of searching for a venue we found the sun, an incredible venue located in the neighborhood we both lived in when we first moved to Houston, The Heights. The owners of the place are just good people and aren't out to "nickle and dime" you out of everything nor do they ask for your first born as the down payment. The venue is called the Grand Ballroom at the Height's Villa. I can't wait to share more details and plans regarding our reception at this wonderful venue. If you are in the market for a wedding venue I HIGHLY recommend checking them out. Unless you have an unlimited budget then by all means head to the Crystal Rice Ballroom and go ahead and submit your application for Platinum Weddings. 

Our photographer choice was a no-brainer. Foto-Tech is a photography company based where I grew up, Beaumont, TX. Now some of you may ask why I would go with a photographer from back home when I have tons and tons of amazing photographers right here in Houston. I'll tell you exactly why...1-their work is amazing. 2-Their prices are equally amazing when comparing to Houston photographers giving the same quality of work, and 3-They are a husband and wife team that we have met at weddings we have attended and they are just good people. We already feel comfortable around them and have seen how hard they work at the weddings they photograph. Did I mention they are a blast and love to have fun as well? Win-Win situation. We have selected our videographer but haven't signed our contract yet so I will share once that is done.

Nearly all of our wedding party knows they have been picked to be a part of our special day. All of my girls know and Trevor has two groomsmen left, one needs to check his mail, the other has a special surprise coming. By next Thursday everyone will know and I can share how we asked in a later post. We are having 8 bridesmaids and groomsmen each, plus one honorary bridesmaid and 2 ushers. Yes I know that is a lot, do I care you think that's too many? I do not. Moving on.....

Wedding colors!!! I have always wanted a black and white styled elegant evening wedding with small use of an accent color. Choosing an accent color turned out to be a challenge. But after open house at our reception venue we have decided to go with..........a Tiffany blue/turquoise color!  It will be really fun to watch everything come together. Hopefully I can stick with the accent color selected without changing my mine between now and February.

 Lastly and most exciting for me I think was buying my wedding dress. I wanted to wait for a weekend when I could have my MOH's and bridesmaids in town but I clearly had Z-E-R-O self-control. One week plus a day after I got engaged I decided it would be good to just go look at wedding gowns since I truly had no idea what styles I liked or hated. My dear friend and Bridesmaid, Marina, came with me and it was such a fun experience to share with her. We went on a Friday at 2 so the salon was nearly empty. It was so fun to try on all the different styles and I quickly realized things I liked and things I absolutely hated. I walked out that day being in love with two dresses but knowing that my mom and grandma (who so graciously offered to buy my gown) wanted to be there when I tried on dresses I made plans to come back. Well, as you can see from this post, I don't move slow, and three days later I had my Mom and Grandma in town and we were off for another day of dress shopping. I'll share a post later about the experience of finding the dress but it was everything I could have hoped for an more. My dress is SO different that what I thought I was going to wear, which only makes me more excited! And my Mom and Grandma there with me meant so much and I know I will treasure that moment forever.

Okay enough wedding talk for today. I just had to share the exciting news and all the wonderful things to come!

Any advice or words of wisdom for me? Leave me a comment!

Happy Friday dolls!