April (Bridal) Showers :)

I am down in Savannah for Spring Break (yaaahooo!) and while Brian's at work, I thought I should do a little bit of catching up on my blog. :) The first weekend in April, my bridesmaids threw me the most beautiful bridal shower ever! The theme was "April Showers Bring May Flowers," and all of my girls, with my mom and Brian's mom, made the day so special!

I started out the day by enjoying some of the delicious food (like my sister's now signature Curry Chicken Salad with croissants) and ran around to greet everyone who had come to celebrate my day!

The food spread!

Delicious desserts....cupcakes and cake balls! :)

Then, it was time to open presents! Brian and I have certainly been spoiled by our friends and family, and I can't wait to finally have somewhere to set up all of our new kitchen things! While I opened gifts, all of the guest played Bridal Shower Bingo. Before I started, they filled out their card with gifts they thought I might receive. When I opened it, they crossed it off on their Bingo card. I thought it was really cute and took some of the focus off of me while I was the center of attention, which made me much less nervous. :)

Opening a gift from Shannon....a "woozie" aka wine glass coozie :)

Filling out Bingo cards!

But, by far the BEST part of the whole day was celebrating with a room-full of family and friends who have supported Brian and I throughout different parts of our lives, and now as we plan our wedding. I can't believe it's been ten months since we got engaged, and our big day is just around the corner!

Me and another Lauren, one of my good friends/running buddies from high school!

Me and my Phi Mu sisters :)

Me and my amazing bridesmaids!

 It was a perfect shower, and I am so grateful for everything these ladies have done for me to make the days leading up to our wedding special and memorable. :)

(...and because I can't even believe it, here's a screen shot from the app on my phone that's been counting down the days until our wedding since we set the date. Crazy!)

Wedding Wednesday: Honeymoon!

Brian and I have been in the process of planning our honeymoon for a couple of months now, but I had been very hesitant to spill the beans. After Brian got leave for the wedding and a honeymoon, he had to submit even more paperwork to get our honeymoon location approved. We watched airfare prices climb, twiddled our thumbs, kept on researching, and waited. Eventually, Brian heard that everything would "likely" go through, so we booked without official confirmation (talk about rolling the dice!) This week, everything went through officially, so I feel much more comfortable sharing that we will be honeymooning in...

St. Lucia!

Narrowing down a location when the options seemed unlimited was tough! I knew that I wanted to do a lot of relaxing (after planning a wedding during my toughest year of grad school, the thought of finally relaxing is the only thing getting me through!) Brian also likes a little bit of adventure, so we definitely wanted to go somewhere with options! I think St. Lucia is definitely the right choice!

After stalking Jax's St. Lucia posts and picking her brain about her trip there (I love bloggidy friends...thank you, Jax!), Brian and I decided to stay at Jalousie Plantation! The resort looks absolutely gorgeous, and it was named one of the Top 25 in the World by Conde Nast Traveler so obviously we are in for quite the experience! :)

Plus, look at these pictures!

I will most likely park my butt on one of those glorious looking chairs/beds and refuse to leave. Ever.

Gorgeous view of the Pitons, one of the "1000 Places to See Before You Die." 

We are both soooo excited! As of today, there are only 73 days until we get married and 75 days until we relaxing as husband and wife in beautiful St. Lucia! :)

Centerpiece Mock-up

Have you guys ever tried to buy flowers for a wedding?! Holy expensive! Luckily, when Brian was home for Presidents' Day, we got to tackle one DIY project that will cut some of the costs in that department.

This story starts this past November, when I went to visit Brian in Tucson. The resort where we stayed, Starr Pass, is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I pretty much loved everything about it! But imagine my surprise when Brian was the one who pointed out these flowers that decorated the lobby....and insisted on having something similar at the wedding! Good thing I'm so agreeable! :)

After meeting with the florist, we decided to tackle creating these centerpieces for 1/3 of the tables at our reception (1/3 of the tables will have a short floral centerpiece, and the remaining 1/3 will have a tall floral centerpiece). We set out in search of supplies and came up with this:

4" Rocks Glass Candleholders from The Dollar Tree

7 1/4" Glass Cylinder Vases from The Dollar Tree

  

  10.5" Glass Cylinder Vases from Michael's

Multi-Toned River Rocks from The Dollar Tree

A couple of stems of fake orchids from Michael's


  Floating candles

(I will probably order some longer-burning floating candles from here; the ones from The Dollar Tree burned for around 3 hours and our reception, not including cocktail hour, is 4 hours).

We decided on three different heights for the vases on each table. Here is what they looked like put together!

 

I'm thrilled with how they turned out! I think we definitely did justice to Brian's inspiration, don't you?! :)