Honeymoon Hotspots

People always ask where we're going on our honeymoon. Answer: We're not telling. Yes, we've booked our destination, but no details from us.

Hint: It's way more low-key and relaxing than any of these! But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy checking out some of the hotspots for honeymoons around the globe.

1. Curacao

Image via Romantic Getaways

Anyone else not know Curacao existed until the last season of The Bachelorette? After Jef (with one f, I never did understand that...) proposed to Emily with the darling buildings in the background, I had to add this one to the list. The fact that Jef & Emily are sadly no longer together does not ruin this beautiful island for me!

2. Spain

Image via Michael Jurick Photography

Spanish architecture floors me. It's so stunning. And after eight years of Spanish from middle school through college, I'm due a trip to Spain! I'm secretly still listening to Spanish music to stay up on the language... anybody want to borrow a six year-old Juanes CD?

3. New Zealand

Image via National Geographic

My grandparents went to New Zealand five or six years ago and brought back some truly incredible pictures. Ever since then it's been in the back of my mind—and this beautiful honeymoon kinda reminded me that oh hey, I need to go there!

4. Peru

Image via World Wider

We love to hike and just the though of hiking somewhere like this gets me so excited! Yes, I love hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Appalachian Trail is great. But really, do they have anything on the Andes Mountains? Actually maybe this category should just be "Mountains." I'll take any of them—Rockies, Alps, Mount Everest...

On a Plugged-In Wedding

I know I'm not the first to tackle this subject, and I'm probably not the most eloquent either. But the debate rages for and against having an unplugged wedding—a wedding where guests are asked to turn off, put away, and not use their phones for the duration of the ceremony and reception. Some couples prefer their privacy and don't want numerous pictures of themselves on social media sites. Others simply want the attention on them instead of on the phones, such as in this picture.

Image via Offbeat Bride / Photo by Solare Photography

I think all of us would say we would rather have guests watching us in person than staring at us through a tiny screen, right? So why not post a sign like this and ask guests to stay unplugged for the duration of the wedding?

Image via Weddingbee / Photo by Jodi Miller Photography

A couple of reasons. In fact, I'll number them for you. Here's my personal justification for having a plugged-in wedding—which to me means more than just allowing devices, but actually encouraging them. I'll get to that in another post!

Note: If I was getting married in a cathedral, this post would probably be different. If I was having a formal wedding, again—this post would probably be different. Everybody's situations are... different. You get it.

1. It's hard to control. I don't want to be the "cell phone" police, asking people to turn off their phones or put them away because this is my moment. No, I don't think all unplugged weddings are like that! But I don't want to feel like I'm back in high school with the teacher taking away someone's phone for texting in class.

2. I love to use my phone at weddings. I snapped this picture at my cousin's wedding over Christmas. Awful picture? Yep! Great reminder of a moment I wouldn't have otherwise? Also a resounding yes. The photographer at the wedding mainly took group shots, pictures I'll probably never see. If I hadn't taken this picture (and some others) on my iPhone, I wouldn't have any memories of hanging out with my crazy family.

Personal photo

3. I really, really want those pictures. Not the perfectly posed and framed pictures with the guys looking dapper and handsome—ok, I mean I do want those!

Image via Niki Marie Photography

I mean the casual, "just happened to snap a photo as you guys were laughing" pictures. The ones the photographers can't always get, because, well they can't be everywhere at once. If you catch my dad crying as he walks back to his seat, take a picture. I want the pictures of groups of people at tables that I only got to visit with once or twice and the kids playing with their food. Heck, take a picture of your kid screaming because he can't have more cake!

I can't wait to see them.

Rehearsal Dinner Logistics

I can't decide if I'm really excited about figuring out all the logistics for the wedding or completely overwhelmed. The obsessive-compulsive side of me is screaming ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE THIS IS AWESOME. Whether that is a good thing for my sanity is yet to be determined...

Let's talk facts. The week of the wedding is going to be insanely busy—there's no way around it. I work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, albeit only six hours a day. Wednesday my parents, Nathan, and Nathan's parents should be coming into town. Thursday thankfully I have nothing planned but my sisters have  required events at 8:30 and 10:30. Friday I have commencement rehearsal at 9:30 and commencement itself at 2:00!

The original plan was to hold the rehearsal dinner out at the venue. They have a number of pavilions available for rental around and near a lake and walking path.

Personal photos

This would have worked perfectly for us because it's a simple picnic-style setting. The menu for the rehearsal dinner is going to be pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, chips, cookies, and sweet tea—so it fits.

The problem is the logistics of getting everyone there. Everyone is staying in Greenville (30-40 minutes away). The drive isn't awful, but there a few things to consider:

1. Greenville 5:00 traffic is horrible. The highways slow down, the stoplights back up, and it's just generally a mess. You don't want to get caught rushing to get somewhere at 5:00.
2. There's a 5K in Traveler's Rest (mid-way between Greenville and the wedding venue) that evening that draws 3000+ people. Traveler's Rest is a tiny town and they close down roads to handle the 5K. Nathan & I ran it last year and it took us 45 minutes to make the 15 minute drive.
3. Everyone's going to be crunched for time all day long. Do we really want people rushing to get there, rushing to get back, hurrying around the whole time? What we're actually going for with the rehearsal dinner is a laid-back time for family and close friends to mingle and talk.

In my mind, I think I scrapped the rehearsal dinner at the venue plan a long time ago. But it wasn't until last night at 11:00 when I couldn't sleep that I came up with an alternative.

Image via SC Great Outdoors

Cleveland Park is three miles away from graduation and two miles away from the hotel where I reserved rooms for guests. It's a big park with eight shelters, several miles of inter-looping trails, a zoo, several playgrounds, tennis courts, and the Reedy River down the middle of it. It's also home to Rock Quarry Garden, which I happen to be very partial to.

Image via Rachel Hughes Photography / A wedding in Rocky Quarry Garden—I'm kinda jealous!

I think all around it just makes more sense. It's a lower-key evening and (hopefully) everyone will love the park as much as we do!

The Guests Need a Place to Stay Too

Who would have thought, right? I've been so busy thinking about where to hold the wedding, where I'd stay the night before, where I'll get ready, where we'll go on our honeymoon—that I completely forgot about reserving blocks of rooms for our awesome guests.

But no big deal, the wedding is still three months away, right? Plenty of time to book a few rooms, I mean Greenville is a nice place to visit but it's not like there's a huge demand for tourism in early May. We're not having a huge wedding plus a lot of people know friends in town to stay with so we'll only need 10-15 rooms maximum.

Duh, Laura. Not only is it my graduation that weekend—oh right, meaning people are coming to see their children walk across the stage—it's also Furman University's graduation.

Which didn't hit me until I clicked on the website of the hotel I planned to reserve rooms in from the beginning and saw that they had zero rooms available the weekend of the wedding. Zero rooms? In a tiny town like Traveler's Rest? Except... it's five minutes away from Furman. Right.

That's ok, I'll just reserve rooms in Greenville. It will be an extra 15 minutes of travel time for my guests, but they'll get to experience Greenville—which on the plus side is a pretty neat city. I've grown quite attached in my five years here!

Downtown hotels are really pricey, I mean I never expected my guests to pay $319 a night, even if it means a hotel that looks like this:

Image via Uptake

Go outside of the downtown area though and you get to the hotels that are too close to Bob Jones. And even if they have rooms available (there are plenty, although you're limited in some ways), the prices have been jacked by at least $20 because of the higher demand.

Fortunately I found a hotel with availability that's near downtown—close, but not so close that it's wicked expensive. Rates are reasonable and the hotel looks nice without being overly ritzy. It's a longer drive to the wedding venue, but I'm really hoping people take advantage of these kinds of sights just a mile away.

Image via City Data / Our cute Main Street

Image via Black Olive Photographic / Riverwalk along the downtown area

Image via Forbes / Listed as a top rejuvenated area!

Image via Greenville Daily Photo / Falls Park Liberty Bridge—the coolest park in the area!

Invitations Part II

It's about time I continued my previous post about invitations with an aptly named Part II.

Remember, we had nixed the full invitation suite in favor of keeping costs and effort down, but I still wanted to do something casual yet fun. I googled "free wedding templates"—no shame, guys—and found Wedding Chicks, who has some really awesome custom wedding printables and downloads. Take the work out of it and get something personalized for free! Granted, this does not mean you're the only person to ever use that invitation. I know that—although I figure the chances are slim that someone would receive two invitations using the same template, so I decided to go with it. 

I wanted something casual and cute that was at least vaguely in our wedding colors. I think the bunting invitations were instantly my favorites.

Image via Wedding Chicks

They have a fun coral and yellow vibe to them and preserve a little bit of traditional wording and presentation along with a casual feel with the fonts and design. After messing with the wording for forever, we came up with the following:

Dave & Ellen Dickinson

Along with Bruce & Cindy Miller

Invite you to share their joy at the marriage of

Laura Ann Dickinson

to

Nathan Bradley Miller

Saturday, May 4, 2013

at 11:00 in the morning

Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center

4232 Highway 11 Marietta, South Carolina

Brunch reception to follow

And they look like this:

Personal photo

A note on printing—we had ours done at the campus print shop and got an incredible deal on it. They also did a really great job. Breakdown on costs turned out to be $0.47/sheet for color printing plus $0.04/sheet for the ivory card stock. For 75 sheets (150 invitations) that was just under $40, but we got a 30% wedding discount, which put us just under $27 for all of our invitations.

Also, I now need to have bunting somewhere at the venue. I'm thinking draped along the mantle? For real, how perfect would that be? I can match the colors pretty closely with tissue paper I'm thinking and pull in the invitations to the decorations. That's a huge victory for an obsessive-compulsive bride like me.

Don't worry, we still have to discuss assembling the invitations and printing the envelopes. Much more to come, so stay tuned for Part III!

Countdown: Three Months

Cue a few minutes of panic, cause I really really hope I managed to complete last month's goals! With two jobs and diving back into class full time (and my car dying...) it's been a busy month.

 1. Invitations: I need to get the invitations printed, start assembling what I need, and working on getting addresses in place. Oh DEFINITELY! 

I totally finished printing the invitations, assembled all that I could (until I ran out of ribbon), and got all the addresses. I have the first batch of about 70 completely done, and I only have about 15 more to print and stamp. A few things I do need to do: finish assembling the invites that will go to shower attendees and decide on a date to mail these things.

 2. Flowers & decorations: Make progress on the table flowers (I don't need to finish these yet!) and figure out how many more books I need. EHH.

Ok, so I didn't really do anything on these last month. The good news is I'm far enough ahead that it's not a huge deal. Actually, it's not a deal at all. But I probably should work a bit on this next month.

 3. Registry: Fill out with some more items. YEP!

 I think we have everything on the registry that's going to be on the registry for now. I'm not sure if we need anything else on there, but if so it's going to be added on a case by case basis.

4. Programs: Print, cut, & organize! MADE PROGRESS.

I printed these, had them cut, and they're sitting waiting to be assembled. I decided how I want to wrap them but I haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Again though, no rush.

Goals for next month:

1. Invitations: Finish the last few and mail these babies!

2. Flowers & decorations: Same as last month. Just make some progress on creating/assembling decorations.

3. Programs: Assemble and put away not to be touched until the wedding.

4. Dress: Get dress altered! (As long as I still fit. If I don't fit, this goal becomes "Fit into dress.")

Heel Height

Nathan is definitely taller than I am. In this shot from our engagement pictures, you can see he easily has four or five inches on me—taller but not towering over me.

Image via Niki Marie Photography / Photo by Niki Marie Photography

If I wear a normal-sized heel, I'm just shorter than Nathan by an inch or two. I'm totally comfortable with this, and wear heels often. Would I wear a pair of shoes like this with a 6 and 1/2 inch heel?

Image via Zappos

Well, probably not. I mean, I'm not even sure I could walk in those, but that's beside the point!

Now look at this picture of my whole family at Lake Superior this summer...

Personal photo / Nathan, me, Emily, Dillon, Abigail, David

Ok, so maybe it's a slight incline. But it gets my point across—I'm definitely the shortest in the family! And Nathan is pretty close in height to both of my sisters.

In fact, throw a pair of three or four-inch heels on either Emily or Abigail and I'm pretty sure he'd be looking up at them. Nathan's brothers (the groomsmen) aren't necessarily tall either. Now, I'm not saying it would be a huge deal if they wore heels, but we're definitely think of going with a flat sandal. I'm pretty sure they'd be more comfortable like that anyway!

If they wear a more casual sandal, what should I wear? I was leaning towards heels at first, but now I love the idea of being able to walk around all day no problem, not trip on my dress, be comfortable, match my sisters...