Jim & Rhea

I had a blast with (3 of) the girls on June 6, 2009 choosing bridesmaid dresses! We went out to David’s Bridal and tried on a few styles I knew I liked.. we all seemed to agree on one, so hopefully that should work! We raided the shoe area too and all tried on shoes.. I still need some too! That was fun, all of us trying on shoes looking for something comfy
I had the lady put all the details on my account, so any bridesmaid can go to any DB store and find out what they need to order. Pretty convenient!
After that, Jamie looked at a few dresses for herself YAY! and then we all went to Maggiano’s for lunch. It was awesome Italian food! All 4 of us split a giganto tiramisu…that’s how big it was! Anyone new to the RDU area (or if you’ve never been there) should def check the restaurant out!

Till Next Time!

I ordered my veil yesterday! It is supposed to come in the beginning of July -to the store in VA (Sestra Bridal)- and then they will ship it to me.

[ On a side note, Sestra has an amazing staff (& wonderful store): they are all friendly and helpful and take the time to answer any questions you have. It was worth the drive up there to try on my dress, etc. (back in March). I found this veil there and Sestra was one of 2 options to order it from, the other being a strange website. I had no problem ordering through the shop and allowing them to ship to me (since I won't go up there just for that). If I lived closer, I'd have gotten my dress from them too. They had by-far the best customer service of all the shops I went to! ]

Anyway! We are also working on getting addresses so we can send out save the dates. Fill out the form if you haven’t already
We are also consistently doing work on the website so keep checking back!

We ordered save-the-dates on May 18th and recieved them today! Jim did an amazing job designing these and putting them together; and they look awesome! We hope you guys enjoy them!

So our lovely photographer, Kristin Byrum, sent me a gift of a tote with my future initials on it! It’s the first time I’ve seen them so officially written out and it’s pretty exciting! (I seem to use that word a lot in these blog posts..)  It’s RMS in case anyone was wondering

Thank you Kristin!

We just got word that the contract went through with the Reception Hotel! YAY!  Our Wedding Reception will be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Raleigh, near North Hills Mall.

This was our first choice (as referenced in a previous post) and I think everyone who has seen it prior to making this decision is also really excited!

as always, more to come…

The next major thing has been finding a venue for our reception. This has been a particularily drawn out process. There has been so many factors, and they’re not all ironed out yet.  But I will highlight the fun parts so far here   Jim got a list of area hotels that had ballrooms in the RDU area. Then on Saturday (4/4/09) we were coming up from New Bern to Raleigh, and we got on the phone and called all the places and got preliminary information for each one. A lot of them had said to call back during the week because they didn’t have anyone on staff who could answer our questions.

So that following week was filled with phone calls about availability, seating capacities and the like.  (Jim did a lot of this work for me since I was at work all day, everyday in New Bern. He’s the best!)

We narrowed it down to a few hotels; and then Jim, Elaine, and I went to about 4-5 hotels in one day (4/11/09) just to check out ballrooms and talk to people.  It was a great bonding experience that we had fun with   Kudos to Elaine for noting the scuff marks on the couches and walls in certain hotels   FYI it helps to have a 3rd or 4th person who can scope out the place while you and the fiance are looking at the bigger things and talking to staff.

We picked our final choices, in order of priority and then went home to talk to my parents. They seemed to be fine with whatever we had chosen, and actually pretty excited about our first pick.

Since then we’ve been doing our research and trying to hash out the contract… will definitely update here once everything is set in stone. =)

OK,  so quick update, with no details at all..because a certain groom reads this blog …but I have to post, because that’s what you do….when you buy a wedding dress!

After a long search (since about Aug 2008) I finally found and ordered The One on April 11, 2009.   I got it from here. They say it won’t come in till August of this year, so all I can do is wait..

and try to work-out

So! It has obviously been a while since we posted last. Lots of things have happened

We have finalized and announced our wedding date to our immediate family! It is going to be October 24, 2009! This year! We are both ridiculously excited, but understand it’s going to be stressful planning a wedding in a relatively short amount of time.  Both sets of parents were happy to hear we had finalized on a date, and ready to get the wedding plans started

I’m gonna stop here, more updates to follow…