And the PARTAY continues . . .

Continuing on with my road trip posts, this one is all about the PARTAY! (aka wedding reception for Michele & Will). Ill start with the decorations. I have to give some major props to Michele. See the bride and groom both live by us in south Florida, but the bride is originally from Connecticut. She managed to get everything organized for such a large wedding in a completely different state. And on top of that, all the decorations were not only perfect, but so meaningful too! (oh and total photographer fail, i forgot to get a pic of the ballroom all decorated before anyone went it. oops)

And because they were all so meaningful, I have to explain these pics to you.

1. birdcage envelope box - no special meaning that I know of, but it looks cute

2 & 3. little lollipop favors that are supposed to look like flowers in pots (so cute) that have tags used as place cards for which table your supposed to sit at.

4. the groom used to play on the Rutgers football team in college, so instead of a guest book they had a helmet for everyone to sign with their picture on it ( i know clever huh?)

5. picture frames with collages used for the table numbers. The table number corresponded with the a seperate picture of each of them at that age. We sat at table 15 (right next to the dance floor was perfect) and the pics were of them each at age 15.

6. (Now this is my favorite and it is the story I promised in this post) Ill start off with the story of how the lovely bride and groom met. Michele, as originally stated, is from Connecticut. Which means she doesn't really have the knowledge of all the neighborhoods in south Florida. After living several years with different roommates in apartments, she decided it was time to purchase a place of her own. Us native south Floridians tried to warn Michele of certain areas to not buy in. But Michele refused to listen to us and bought a beautiful townhouse in a gated community right smack in the middle of Lauderdhill, ahem "ghetto" for those of you who arent familiar. Because she did have 2 extra rooms she offered 2 friends to move in with her. So boxes, beds, tv's, and lots of makeup were brought into this "bad" neighborhood. Well fellow inhabitants of the area must have been steaking out the place seeing that it was 3 beautiful young women who had moved in. Ill give you 3 guess on what happens next, and the first 2 dont count. A few days later one of the roomates comes home to the door wide open. No one else was home, so she immediately called Michele who quickly left work to go home and call the police. Insert Knight in Shinning Armour, Officer Will. As Will pulls up in his Lauderdhill police car, the 2 girls immediately notice the attractive man in uniform. Needless to say the rest is kind of history as the two exchanged numbers and quickly started dating. Turns out Will just happen to grow up in the same neighbor hood as the rest of us so we already knew him. Ok back to the point, so this little decoration (#6 scroll up again so you can see) was a surprise from Will's Police Department back home who sent this up to the wedding. Its a figurine of Will in his uniform carrying his princess Michele, who also happens to be holding a football. Now you might ask what is that plastic bag with a brick in it behind the figurines? well that my friends, that is the evidence bag from the station with the brick that had went through the window to break into Micheles house. Now do you see why I love the story? :)

7. At last, but certainly not least, the bride and groom decided to honor the brides brother who battled cancer, with a donation to the Make a Wish foundation as their favors for the wedding. (i know my heart melted a little too)

Some things you may see here: the beautiful bride. First Dance. One of the bridesmaids actually sang the song for their first dance. It was absolutely beautiful. Father Daughter Dance. Mother Son Dance. And the last 2 pictures are absolutely epic. The MOH (aka brides sister) had been joking the previous couple of months that she was going to rap at her sisters wedding. Michele thought she was kidding. This was not the case. She told a bunch of us (bridesmaids, groomsmen, close friends, etc) that she was going to do this and she would queue us all when it was time. She literally made up this entire song of Michele leaving CT, partying in SoFL, moving to the ghetto, getting her house broken into, meeting will, getting engaged,.... i think you get the point. The best part was it went along with the background music to Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It was absolutely hilarious. I believe there was a video camcorder, so when someone finally shares the video of it I will def share it with you all. 

And then of course the infamous cake smashing in the face cutting. Not Surpirsingly it was the bride who started this little mess. I love how I captured the actual moment she smashed it on his face. 

PRICELESS!!!

Next came the bouquet and garter toss. It was actually kinda weird for me and hubs. It was the first wedding we had been to that we were "allowed" to go out on the dance floor for this part.

The rest of the night went by pretty fast. But I guess thats what happens when you combine friends + liquor + music + family + liquor + dancing = good times :)  Unfortunately I didnt get alot of said dancing pics, well, because I was dancing :D

All in all, the night was beautiful, everyone had fun, and we couldnt have asked for two better people to begin their happily ever after together.......

p.s. I think the bride enjoyed the night too, she was totally exhausted by time it was over ;)

a wedding fit for a princess

So our road trip began with our first stop in Tana-See, but the real reason for this escapade was to get to Conneticut for our friend Michele & Will's wedding.

Technically, we did have one small stop in between Tennessee and Connecticut, but it was just for one night so we wouldnt have to pay for a hotel. We decided that we would stop in New Jersey at my Aunt & Uncles house and leave before lunch the following day to make it in time for the rehearsal dinner.

It was a relatively quick visit and really only consisted of a bite to eat down by the jersey shore, some ping pong games, and a little bit of ring toss at my family's picnic facility up there. As I said, we had to get back on the road the following morning to make it to the hotel in time for the rehearsal dinner. Surprisingly the trip from NJ to the hotel in CT was only about 2.5 hours (relatively short compared to the 16hours we drove the previous day).

So the wedding festivities began that night with a buffet style rehearsal dinner and of course a few glasses of wine. The bride and groom were nice enough to also make us some absolutely appropriate munchies for later on that evening (aka popcorn, m&m's, and marshmallows in a cute little bag) that my husband kept on stealing from all the tables to take with us.

You might notice that all the wedding festivities pictures will start to look sooooooooo much better in quality. This might be because I kinda stole the newlyweds brand spankin new DSLR camera they got from the in-laws. Let me tell you something. They almost didnt get this little puppy back after the wedding, I think I might have fallen in love again (sorry babe).

The next morning (or shall I say afternoon for those of us who drank a lil too much wine) is when the bridal party starting getting ready for the big day. Although I was not in the bridal party, Michele had plenty of girls (8 to be exact) who would be standing by her side up at the alter. Ironically, when I went to go check on her all the ladies had disappeared to get their hair done at a local salon and Michele was left by her self to get her makeup done. So what did I do? I whipped out aforementioned stolen camera and started snapping away.

Once her makeup was done, the bridal party started to slowly trickle in. Mimosa's were poured. Dresses were put on. Smiles were shown on all. And it seemed like everything moved pretty quickly from there.

Isnt her dress gorgeous? Once the bridal party was on the bus, and the beautiful bride was in her limo, all headed to the castle (yes you heard me, they were married at a castle) for photos, it was time for the rest of us to get ready and head to the ceremony. There also might have been a few pre-graming shots of baby Guinness and of course a lil bit of Captain.....

Isnt my hubby handsome? Everyone kept saying you could for sure tell he was one of the Floridians, as he sported his Sperry TopSiders with his suit.  He thought he was a stud, Id have to say I didnt disagree ;) Sorry, of topic, back to the ceremony. As mentioned, they were married at a castle, St. Clements Castle to be exact. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and the ceremony had a to-die-for view overlooking a waterway with mountains. Truly, it was like it was right out of a childrens story book; a princess marrying her knight in shinning armor (Ill share their story of how they met in my next post, and youll totally understand where Im getting that form).

I do have to admit, although I think I captured the entire ceremony beautifully through the camera, I feel kind of like I didnt get to actually watch them get married. I dont know, maybe other photographers feel this way too? Or is it just me? Like I was there, but not really there. I was behind the camera capturing the moment, but not in the moment.

So, I think thats enough pictures for today. Im going to save the actually wedding reception for another post because literally I think in total I snapped like 450+ photos with this camera. (I wasnt lying when I said I fell in love, babe; this is your subtle hint, new camera wink wink)

Tana-see

Did you know "Tana-see," the Yuchi Indian word meaning “The Meeting Place,” is where Tennessee actually got its name from? Nope? neither did I..... so now that I got my one and only history lesson for you out of the way lets get down to the good stuff

As I mentioned in yesterdays post, our first stop on this crazy road trip was at our friend Billy's parents house in Tennessee. We spent a total of 3 days here and it was so nice just to be outside enjoying the hot fresh air. With plenty of land to explore and three 4-wheelers and a side-by-side, I think it would only appropriate to say we covered every inch of their property.

And for you entertainment I also took a little video tour via the 4wheeler. (dont forget to pause the music on the bottom of the page before pressing play on the video)

Did you watch it? Well then you may have heard that I was afraid of cows. Not like the "hey look theres a cow over there" but more like "holy cow?!?! how close do they get to us? Can you make them stop?" Im not kidding people. These cows were not shy whatsoever. I guess they think that you have something and let me just show you how it went down. It started off like this:

you see, they were all nice up there on that little hill. minding their own biznez. Then I turn to look the other way for like 2 secs and when I turn back around it was like bam..

yes, that is the handlebars of our 4wheeler you see in the bottom left corner. Now, i dont know about you, but i feel as though these cows were invading my space. And it sure didnt help that the boys were trying to feed them, and get there attention by trying to kiss them.... yes you heard me right

If you look extremely close on the pic with the close up of the 4wheeler you can see that the cow actually left drool all over the handlebars. I seemed to think it was pretty hilarious when one of the boys went to start it up, and OOOPPPS, i might have forgotten to tell them it was on there......

Okay, enough with the 4wheeler and cow pics. We did do some other things while there. Like shooting guns (i even got to shoot, but of course since im the "photographer" i didnt get any pics of me doing this. insert sad face)

But let me tell you, that old Ford tailgate, it didnt stand a chance against the 4 of us ;) Man im really starting to sound like a redneck. I hope I dont scare any of you off. Please I promise to add some pics that you will like.

How bout this one?

Me and the hubs on 4th of July. Kinda looks like we're on a golf course. Let me correct you. We're NOT. Its a farm.

Oh, wait. I got another! How about this beautiful sunset looking over the mountains? (FYI- SOOC)

Since we spent our Independence Day in Tana-See, it was only appropriate to go stock up on fireworks and set them off in the fields. While we were buying the mortars at a tent down the street, I just happen to stumble across a very cute rottweiler puppy in a box. I wanted to still it, but the owner quickly came and claimed it before i could. Plus i dont think I need anymore animals in my house

 Basically, out time in Tana-See was great.  Here are some random pictures of our time there.

Some things you may see: pickles (lots of them, they had a fresh garden with lots of veggies and made lots of pickles), firewood stocked up for the winter, old haunted house on one of their properties, rainstorm (so bad it struck 2 trees with lightening and tore off the roof of one of the equipment sheds), more puppies! (i almost took one of these home too, but again too many animals already), slingshot-ing smoke bombs, boys passed out from long days, pigs (oink oink), horse (if you see the top right pic, that was his parents, she has a broken arm from falling off the house in the other pic about 2 months ago), some fishing, and of course me and the hubs.

OK, I think Im done with Tennessee pics. Only about a thousand more to go through, and 2 more places (Wedding and Camping) to post about.



p.s. we starting tearing down the shelves and wall today for the kitchen remodel. Can you say EXCITED!!!!!! look forward to future post....

back from a well needed vacation

Hi everyone! Oh how I have missed you all!!!!! We got back last night (after driving 2 straight days from Connecticut to Florida. yuk) and I cant wait to show you all the pics I took. I have to some how organize them into multiple posts since it was a span of 10 days with 3 destinations and a couple of very long days of driving through basically the entire eastern coast.

Until then, why dont you go over and take a peek at our latest entry on TLC's A Conception Story. Theres some pretty exciting news to look forward to if I do say so myself.

Ill also leave you with a beautiful picture of the new Mr. & Mrs.

Congratulations you two! Im so happy I was able to be part of this special day! Luv you both!!!!

Im a country girl at heart

We drove 12 hours yesterday from south florida to tennessee to spend the 4th of july in the country to celebrate our country. And after a long day filled with four wheeling up a mountain, some target practice with the guns, and a good ole bbq im now sitting on a old porch swing taking in this gorgeous view.

 I may have been born and raised in a city, but ill always be a country girl at heart. Cant wait to share more pics with you all when we get back. P.s. Havent stuck to the whole diet thing while up here, but hey ill take good ol southern food any chance I can get