Honeymoon! (Toto Tatu)

Day 5 of our honeymoon tour will begin with an early morning drive to Plymouth, the site of the beginning of the voyage of the Pilgrims! Here's a monument, yay!


After that, we head to Glastonbury, which is home to a beautiful abbey. One of my favorite things to do whenever I travel is to find amazing churches, abbeys, monasteries, etc.


Next is BATH! I am so excited about this part of the trip!! Look at how gorgeous this is:


But the history! I didn't take Latin for two years for nothing! I love seeing and learning about ancient places. I cannot wait to visit the Roman baths and soak up all that history...haha, so sorry for the awful pun. ;)


Day 5 will end with us arriving in Cardiff, Wales! I have to admit that I originally wanted a tour of just Ireland and Scotland, but I'm excited about seeing some of the wonderful scenery in Wales! Check out these pictures from Cardiff (PS ILOVECASTLES!!):



Day 6 will be spent mostly in Cardiff, including a tour of the castle, as well as St. Fagan's National History Museum (I'm a total nerd and I love museums too!):


But perhaps the most exciting part of day 6 for me is going to be visiting Brecon Beacons National Park...because they have Welsh mountain ponies!!!!

Holy crap, can this trip get any better? Amazing churches, beautiful castles, and adorable ponies!!!! Next up for Toto Nne: more of Wales, and then into Ireland!

Honeymoon! (Toto Mbili)

Day four of our honeymoon begins bright and early with a trip to Hampton Court Palace. I visited almost two years ago and it was quite breathtaking!

After a leisurely tour of the Palace, we will drive to see Salisbury, which is home to an awesome cathedral:

Apparently Salisbury also has some adorable sheep...I definitely can't miss out on those! (Check out the little guy in the bottom right corner...how cute is he?!)

Next up, one of the parts of the trip that I am most looking forward to...Stonehenge! I've heard that it's not as impressive in person, but I'll wait to judge that for myself.

After that, we'll head to Dorset, which is on the coast of the English Channel. I love how little coastal towns look:

But what I'm most excited about are the amazing cliff formations in Dorset...check these out!

Next up: Dartmoor National Park, which is "the largest and wildest area of open country in Southern England". Awesome! And look what I found...PONIES! If you should remember anything about me, it's my ridiculous affinity for cute animals. :)

Finally, day four concludes with a visit to Widecombe-in-the-Moor, which also has an amazing church: St. Pancras.

Be sure to come back for Honeymoon! (Toto Tatu)...we'll be heading to Wales!

HONEYMOON!! (Toto Moja)

Okay, so Jordan and I booked our HONEYMOON today!!!! It's going to be simply amazing, and I am ridiculously excited!

We're going on a 20-day tour of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland! There is way too much to share in one post, so I've decided to break it into smaller portions. (And I'm numbering the parts in Kiswahili simply because I can.) I'm going to include pictures too! (Note: most of these images are stock photos found by google image searching. They are not photos I took myself.)

Toto Moja!

On Friday, September 25 we will board a plane in Atlanta, GA for an overnight flight! We will arrive in London at around 10 AM local time and have the rest of the day to ourselves!

One of my favorite things to do while I was in London was to visit the royal parks...many people get so caught up by the idea of having an entire city full of things to do that they forget to seek out the natural wonders. Hyde Park is incredible.

But you can't forget those famous phone booths (which, disappointingly, often smelled of stale urine and liquor). But the pictures are nice!


On Sunday we will also have the whole day to ourselves to explore more of London. I spent a week there and still hadn't even covered half of what I wanted to see! I wish we had time to do it all!

Perhaps we'll take an open-top bus tour, or maybe I'll introduce Jordan to the thrill that is the Underground!

No matter what we do, I know it will be amazing. Next time, Toto Mbili!

Check it out check it out check it OUT!

Presenting...

The design for our rehearsal dinner invitations (original concept borrowed from here)! I made it myself. :)


PS. Jordan and I are seriously considering dressing up as pirates for the rehearsal dinner (remember, it's at The Pirates House restaurant), and suggesting that everyone else do the same. Hahahaha...

Finally found my shoes!!

I have always been ridiculously picky about shoes. I have all sorts of problems with my feet: a) they're gigantic, b) they swell if I stand for longer than five minutes, and c) I can't walk in tall heels. On top of that, I decided long ago that I wanted my wedding shoes to be turquoise and have some sort of a "jewel" or something shiny attached...oh yeah, and I didn't want to spend more than $60 on them. Talk about impossible to find!

All of this explains why it has been so very hard for me to find wedding shoes that match my many requirements. Thanks to some very helpful ladies on the weddingbook forums, I was directed to shoebuy.com, where I found this lovely pair of dyeable shoes:

I would typically never dream of purchasing shoes online, but this site has a 100% return/exchange program, which even includes free return shipping!! So if they don't fit (which is unfortunately very possible), I can send them back and try something different. I am in love with them, though, so I'm hoping that they will fit perfectly.

The next thing is to find the right color and have them dyed! I'm so excited!

Daisies and diamonds!!

I am so.freakin.excited right now!! The past few days have been FULL of wonderful packages arriving, including the rest of my jewelry and my BOUQUET!! :D

Here is a picture of my jewelry together:

(Necklace from overstock.com, earrings from overstockjeweler.com, tiara from etsy.com)

I absolutely love every bit of it, and I got a great deal on everything! Here's how it might all look together...pardon my lack of wedding attire. :P


And now for the most shockingly delightful thing that happened to me all day, my bouquet arrived and is absolutely amazing!! It's from wedideas.com and made of "Real Touch" artificial light and hot pink gerbera daisies, with stephanotis interspersed. And the ribbonwork they did is incredible!!

I think everything is absolutely perfect and I am ridiculously happy right now!! Here's one more picture before I head off to do my dreaded homework. :P

Bohemian King

*dreamy sigh*

So I've booked our hotel room at The Mansion and I am so excited about it!! We decided to splurge a tiny bit and get the upgraded, super romantic Bohemian King Suite overlooking the courtyard! Here's an image:

It features "vintage soaking tubs surrounded by lush drapery to lend a more open air romantic feel to the room" and "a bottle of wine and upgraded turndown service featuring our signature Mansion chocolate piano and one of our sumptuous bath products from Poseidon Spa".

Can you say amazing?! :D

I'm going to need some relaxation after this wedding too...gah! I've been a busy little bee trying to get deposits paid and dates reserved. Classes start back this Thursday and I wanted to get as much done as possible before settling back down academically.

Just since Christmas I have: reserved our rehearsal dinner site, ordered a DIY invitation kit, contacted five print shops to get the best price on invitation printing, contacted four Savannah bakeries to get a quote on our wedding cake idea, ordered gifts for all of the bridesmaids, purchased my bridal jewelry, set up my hair/makeup appointment, and now booked our wedding night hotel room. I've also come to realize that this whole budgeting thing really sucks. But we'll hopefully have a wonderful wedding that we won't spend the next thirty years paying for.

Speaking of jewelry, those earrings I posted ended up being sold out (and they graciously waited to tell me until almost a week after I purchased them). So I got these instead:
I think they'll still look great with the necklace, which is posted below. And I've kind of been dreaming of being a bride with chandelier earrings for a while, so maybe it was meant to be. :)

As far as bridesmaids gifts go, I think I managed to do something sweet for my girls without going broke. I don't think any of them read this, so I'll go ahead and explain. I found out each girl's favorite animal and purchased brooches for each that will go on their bouquet purses. Here are two examples:













In addition, I found an awesome deal on jewelry at allcostumejewelry.com, which was pointed out by a soon-to-be-bride on weddingbook. So I got all of them a matching necklace/earring set made with Swarovski crystals and faux pearls. Here's the necklace:

So, like I said, I've been super busy. Next time I'll post about the super sweet (no pun intended) wedding/groom's cake ideas I have. :)

Purchases!

So I've bought a lot of stuff in the past few days (AKA my student loans went through, haha).

So I wanted to share my finds and rejoice in the fact that all of my bridal jewelry together cost just over $150!

I finally found an affordable and not cheesy-looking bridal headband from this Etsy seller...and it was only $25!!

I also bought the necklace and earrings I posted a few days ago and they should be arriving within a few days!









I also found a really convenient and affordable way to get the invitations I've been wanting!! Originally, we were going to purchase the paper, vellum, and envelopes in bulk and have them cut to size, then go through the printing and assembling process. Well, I just randomly stumbled across a DIY invitation kit from Target.com that has everything we need (50 each of white cardstock, vellum, response cards, ribbon, two envelopes, and seals) for $50! All we have to do is take all the stuff to a local print shop and we'll be set!! Here's the product picture:

I might exchange the white ribbon for teal/turquoise ribbon just to add some color, but I am SO excited! I whittled down the guestlist and we should be sending out around 83 invitations to 129 total guests. Thank goodness I've finally got the ball rolling on this business.

Just to remind you, here's the image we'll be printing on the cardstock:


I also made a reservation for my hair/makeup appointment with an awesome salon in Savannah. The lady I spoke with, Jenny, has been wonderful about answering all of my questions, and she didn't complain a bit when I told her we'd need to get started at 7 AM on a Sunday!

Here is an idea of the hairstyle I want:


And I want mostly pink and very simple makeup (I'm an incredibly pale girl, with red hair and blue eyes), like this:

This post has already turned into a monster, so I'll end it there. :) But I've got a cute idea in the works for my bridesmaids!