I want to give a few shout-outs:

1) My sweet and wonderful parents who allowed me to clutter their basement with ALL THE THINGS! I mean, stuff collected under tables, in rooms, at the bottom of the stairs.... It's a lot. Dad helped build and put together the photobooth and all the things that will go with it. It looks AWESOME and I can't wait to get it up and running! Mom helped with the dress which has more details below. They let me use their printer to print all the envelopes (because I'm a millennial and I don't own a printer) and they helped gather mailing addresses. They were also super understanding when I started wedding planning and told them I didn't want a very traditional wedding. I know a lot of couples that have been engaged recently and felt the pressure of family to do things a particular way and I am very blessed to have parents and in-laws who are just happy that we are happy. I also want to thank my dad who was downstairs with me everytime I started working on wedding things. He also had the fun job of helping me today put all the reception things in boxes and shove them in closets and behind doors to be in storage for a year. wompwomp. So thank you for letting me use your home as a climate controlled storage facility. 

2) Tina helped me turn my dress into a BEAUTIFUL dream! I found my wedding dress..... i hope you're sitting down.... at GOODWILL FOR TWENTY DOLLARS!!! I was frequenting Goodwills on my way home from work to check out their board game selection and see if they would have anything interesting to use for our reception. 98% of the time the trip was a bust. On my way out one night, I saw a dress hanging by the register. I checked the tag, David's Bridal brand, not damaged or discolored in any way and 2 sizes bigger than what I tried on at David's Bridal. It was simple which I liked, but it was a little too plain. Tina knew a lady downtown that sold fabric and did alterations. She traveled the world and picked up beautiful fabrics from all over. We were so sad to hear of her passing but her family didn't know what to do with all of the fabric so they did a big estate sale. Tina spent literally HOURS in this old musty house with me searching for fabric and lace we could add to this dress. The next day, Mom met me back at the house and we spent another few hours looking for additional lace and ribbons. Gallons of fabric later, we finally found some lace appliques and sheer lace to add. Tina stitched on the border of my veil and the two lace appliques we chose for it. We also tucked under the front of the dress just a wee bit so I wouldn't step on it barefoot at the beach. We added a few lace pieces to the front and back of the dress. I added "buttons” to the back and cinched the neckline to make it a sweetheart instead of a boring straight neckline. My mom measured and fitted the waist cape and added snaps so it can be removable for the reception. It is by far my favorite detail of the dress! Tina also spent countless hours at my parents house helping me bring my visions to reality setting up tables and laying out different table designs with all the small details to make sure we didn't miss a thing! She was a soundboard that helped me not go insane and kept my ideas cohesive.  Tina, I cannot thank you enough for all of your time and energy you put into the dress and reception!

3) Michele from LuckynLove- OMG I cannot say enough fantastic things! When I started searching for ceremony options, I emailed a lot of people to see what my options were. She was the most responsive and genuine one out there! Her responses are always within 24 hours and have all the information I asked for and more. Before we settled on a place, she called me and just asked what kind of activities and environments interested us the most. She gave us several locations to choose from that were all in the same price range so it was easier to compare. Costa Rica was suggested to us for their beautiful weather and options for activities. Through this whole process, she has thought of every detail I didn't even know I needed to know. Planning my wedding has been a breeze because of Michele. She has also been very responsive and helpful during this shutdown time. She is always looking out for us and making sure all bases are covered and we get to Costa Rica asap with no hassle. 

4) Sabrina, Seriously Sabrina Photography. Middle of March, Rick started a new job and to sign up for benefits with me included, we needed to be married. Also, Costa Rica was always going to be a symbolic ceremony because the hassle of getting a marriage license in a different country and in a different language is too much. At the beginning of March, Rick and I went to the courthouse to say our vows and get our marriage license! We also had Michael and Mallory come with us to be our witnesses and they did a fantastic job by taking pictures and videos which we are so grateful for!! We decided to not exchange rings at the courthouse because we were supposed to be in Costa Rica to do that in April. When the world shut down right after the courthouse, we didn't want to pause our relationship and keep waiting on the edge of our seats for this virus thing to be over so I asked Sabrina if she could meet us at a local park to take some pictures as we exchange rings and dressed as we would for the ceremony. I planned for us to take pictures on Ricks birthday since he was turning 30 and we had no real way to celebrate. Sabrina went out of her way to drive all over town to check out different locations to see what places were not crowded and what location had the best setup for pictures. She also brought me a bouquet of flowers to have for the pictures. She was so sweet and wonderful to work with and I really appreciated her taking pictures for us with the social distancing thing being in place.  The pictures turned out AMAZING and she got them back to us within 48 hours! I am pretty sure I wouldn't be taking this virus/social distancing thing very well if we were anxiously waiting to start our married lives together. A very untraditional marriage/wedding this has turned out to be already... It will be quite the story to tell years down the road!

We will be going to Maria's in a month from now to finalize our menu and give them a guest count.

Tina and I have just about finished making some small changes to my wedding dress and its perfect!

It took us a minute to find 20 clear wine bottles for our centerpieces but we got there. Apparently lots of bottles have a green or blue hue or like 90% of wine bottles are dark tinted. We finally them all, peeled off the lables, stuck lights in them, attached a picture and table number to each bottle. They look ADORABLE!

I have finished gathering all the games. It took a while to find games that are easy to pick up and play and dont have a ton of game pieces. Some games have been modified to be played without boards and intense scoring rules so that should be interesting.

My very handy dad has helped me put together a structure for the backdrop for the photobooth! He also made a rack to hang and display some of the fun props we will have available. I found a printer that prints photos so you can have a copy of your time in the booth. I have also found a really cool app that will let you upload and download photos from other guests at the wedding! You will be able to find full size pictures of your photobooth pics and download them. This app also does a live slideshow which will be pretty fun. As photos are uploaded, they will be added to the slideshow. 

We havent really had a whole lot of things to do other than getting the photobooth ready, making small adjustments to my dress, and finalizing what the tables will look like!

We are so close and we are getting so very excited! 

HOORAY! I wont be stepping on the dress anymore! Tina and I worked on the dress for several hours Thursday. She hand-stitched the hem in the front of the dress. It is PERFECT!! We are working on adding some additional lace appliques and buttons. We CANNOT wait for you all to see it! This has been a blast adding personal touches to the dress and veil!

We have asked you all for your addresses and we appreciate your timely responses!! About half of the invites have been addressed, stamped, and are on their way to you! We have SO many people we would love to see at our wedding so its taking me a minute to fix them all up. If you dont see yours soon dont fret, its on the way!!

Three days early, the invites are in!! No, you didnt miss the Save the Date card. We are merging invites with save the date. Because most of Rick's family will be traveling in from out of state, we wanted to give as much time as possible to make traveling arrangments. Also, its 2019 so when the time gets near, we will be posting about it on social media of course. Its going to be hard to forget. But if you need a reminder or a second invite because the first one walked off, just let us know. I lose stuff all the time so its seriously no big deal. 

I feel a bit like Santa. We made a list and are checking it twice to make sure we havent missed anyone! I didnt think I knew so many people but this has proven me wrong and I cant say I'm mad about it. I am truly thankful to have crossed paths with so many caring people in my lifetime and I cannot wait to celebrate with every single one of you!

Be expecting invites as soon as we finish getting everyones addresses down!

Y'all, if this wasnt a wedding reception, I'd tell you to wear stretchy pants. Heck, what do we care- do it! Maria makes the most bomb Mexican food in all of Lexington!!! We are still working on the menu. Mostly, we are waiting until April when we know about how many people we are having so we will know how much food we need. The more people, the more variety we will have! They literally said "whatever you want,  she can make it. It doesnt matter if it is on the menu or not." Maria is a machine and I'm excited to see what she can do! We have been to her restaurant in Lexington several times to try a little bit of everything she has to offer. 

I may be the most excited for the CAKE!!! She is making a tres leches cake for us! It is massive and absolutely stunning

I found the perfect wedding dress pretty early. I put it on and it fit like a glove! It is a little simple at the moment but I have been working on it with Tina, a close and creative family friend, to jazz it up and make it unique to my taste and style! Im so excited to customize the dress and make the veil. We have so many ideas, its hard to settle on THE look.

So we have decided to travel for our wedding ceremony. We really didnt want the stress of planning the details of everything that goes into the ceremony, which is an insane amount of work. We really wanted to make sure we focused on what is important, us. The most told bit of advice when we first announced our engangement was "remember to do _____ for yourself." I dont want to have to worry about eating because I'm stressed about everything happening on time, or the flowers arent exactly what I wanted, or someone is late (probably me), or literally any small detail that doesnt make us any more or less married at the end of the day. We plan to show up to the resort, relax, and have them do what they do best. 

I reached out to many companies about "eloping" in the US and in the Caribbean. Michele from LuckynLove has been an absolute dream and blessing. She has taken the time to get to know us to figure out where we would like to go and what would be the most important to us. She was able to pick the perfect spot for us. She has every detail covered and has literally been the least stressful part of planning our wedding. 

We chose this date and couldnt get around having our reception Derby Day for a few reasons. Before this week, they wouldn't do the ceremony because of Easter and it being a heavily Catholic. Before Easter is typically spring break, no thank you. Coming back the second week of May instead of the first landed us on Mother's day weekend. Any time after that is getting close to hurricane season. So here we are, getting married last week of April, having our reception first weekend of May, derby weekend.

We have officially booked our flights and reservations in Costa Rica. We will be staying in  Guanacaste, Costa Rica which is on the Pacific side of the country. 

Here is where we will be posting updates to our wedding planning and things to do around Lexington for those interested!