"Every place I go, I'll think of you Every song I sing, I'll sing for you..."

"And when I come back I'll wear your wedding ring"

17 days is all that stands between me and the return of the long distance relationship. In just over two weeks I'll be headed down to South Florida to start Medical School. Mr. Coastie will be staying in NW Florida and our wedding will be staying in Tallahassee. Thus I find myself back in a long distance relationship with my fiance and in a brand new long distance relationship with my wedding.

Have I mentioned that Im sad? cause Im sad. The last five months have been a blessing. With Mr. Coastie only 3 hours away We've been able to see each other every week which is almost like a normal couple and really has been a Godsend. When I move for school we'll head into a (hopefully) once a month routine. This is much better than every six weeks which is how we started our relationship and 7 hours is far better than 20 hours. I know all this. But still I'm very sad.  I know in a couple of years it won't matter and all of our time spent apart is really just part of our relationship and ultimately makes us stronger. We're good at being a long distance couple, we've got it down to an art, heck we're spending the first year of our marriage apart and while many people think that's crazy, it doesn't strike me as insane or stupid, its just how it is, no big deal. One year out of lifetime seems like nothing to me. It's hard being an adult, it's hard dealing with the not so good stuff to get to the good stuff. I look at it this way, I'm a lucky lucky girl, I'm about to start the journey of my academic/professional career that I've wanted since I was five and I'm less than a year away from marrying the man I love more than anything, what more could a girl ask for? Even though there is 600 miles between the two things I want most in the world I'm blessed enough to have them both.  I guess like Coldplay said "nobody said it was easy"

The next couple of weeks weeks will undoubtedly be crazy, busy, and frantic. getting the last bits of things taken care of for my move and putting myself back into a routine i was in 6 months ago is going to be an interesting transition. Throw in this scary thing called medical school and a little wedding planning and you have the making for a chicken with her head cut off. The last few months have been easy and a cake walk and I've got to just enjoy being engaged and enjoy slowly bringing things together and thinking about whats to come, from here on out its go time. I'm excited and scared and nervous (and all kinds of other crazy feelings) about the year to come, I'm ready to tackle the challenges, overcome the obstacles and enjoy every second that I have.

The Veil Project

A while back when I first started think about veil's I decided I was definitely not big on them. Some girls pull them off great, some girls are dieing to have that elegant blusher and cathedral and me, well I sort of think they are a nuisance. I mean you wear them for the ceremony and then you take it off so really whats the point? However I decided based on tradition I wouldn't totally discount the veil as part of my wedding day attire.

Then as I was at the Bridal shop looking for my wedding gown of course with every dress you put on the add a veil so you can get the  "full effect" and I began to come around to the idea a little more. Then I looked at the price tag, 175 bucks for a simple no embellishment veil. I almost choked. really? I mean that seams like quite alot for some tulle right? not exactly a price I factored into my budget. So I started looking around the internet and found tons of tutorials and advice about how easy veils are to make. I figured "hey i can do this" so for a total of $20.16 and about 6 hours of my time I made my own veil.

I knew i wanted something simple and something with lace, just a one tier veil that will go under my hairdo for the ceremony and be removed for the reception, after all I already have a flower for my hair so I don't want to over do it. I took a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics and picked up some bridal white soft tulle (that happened to be on sale for .79c a yard) I only needed about 1 yard for a waist length veil but I got 2 yards just in case. Then I spent an hour and half staring at all the lace and lace trim in the store before I settled one. Then I made sure I had a sewing kit and white thread and some plastic hair combs and I headed off to get to work.

First I laid out the tool and used coffee cups ( worked, well for weights) to cut the tool in half and then in a slight circle shape on the bottom end.

Next I laid out the lace trim and pinned it to the bottom, I ended up deciding I didnt want quite a curve and preferred a straighter edge so I sort of improvised with my pinning. I the hand sewed along the top and bottom edges of the trim Lace onto 3 sides of the tulle, this took forever, i took care to match up the tool and the lace and follow along the lines of the lace with my stitches so that they weren't obvious when you looked at it.

After the bottom and two longer sides of the tulle were decked with lace trim it was time to gather and attach the veil to the hair comb. To make this easy I folded the veil in a fan style making sure the two trimmed edges were facing out and ran a need and thread through it. Then I held the thread and pulled on the tulle so that the top edge gathered evenly and nicely.

Then I simply sewed the top gathere edge to the hair comb and trimmed off the excess, However I didnt like the look of the cut so I used extra lace to wrap around the edge of the hair combso it looks pretty when its in my hair.

And that's that, the veil is complete, I have a few pictures of the final product but they don't really show what the veil actually looks like, aka its much better in person, but you can get the idea.

It took a little longer than expected but the sewing was sort of a tedious daunting task, im happy with the results though and im super excited I decided to make my veil rather than buy it, aside from the monetary gains ( a great way to save a couple hundred bucks) It feels more special cause I made it myself.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

One of my favorite part of weddings is without a doubt also the cutest part. I love the little ones. The flower girls and ring bearers always steal my heart so naturally I am very excited about having my little attendants awe the crowd with their adorableness. As I mentioned before Mr. Coastie and I have an enormous wedding party (16 of our closest friends) and the little ones compose 1/4 of the party. We've got four of them, two ring bearers, a flower girl and a junior bridesmaid.  Today the lovely readers out in blog world get to meet the little ladies that are going to look so cute they may even show up the bride!

To begin with is our flower girl Ms. Kimberly Rose. Kimmie is my youngest cousin on my mother's side she will be 5 years old next summer at the wedding, She is really one of the cutest children I've ever seen, although I may be biased.

(sorry about the bad picture, its all I could find laying around!)

The other little darling in the wedding is our Junior Bridesmaid, I really wanted to include her and her brother since I have known them since birth and babysat them and have been close with their parents since i was her age. so I asked Little Ms. Sassy to be our Junior Bridesmaid and her brother to be one of the ring bearers. Their mom is also going to be helping me out tremendously in the planning process. She just turned 9 and will be turning ten just before the wedding. 

(lets ignore the terrible picture of myself here, but she is adorable)

So those are 1/2 of the little ones that will be accompanying us down the aisle, we've only got two more members of our gigantic wedding party to introduce! we're almost there folks!

All My (single) Ladies

okay, so they aren't all single but they are all my ladies.  I'm very excited to introduce my lovely bridesmaids to you! ranging from childhood friends to future family I am truly blessed to have these women in my life and I can't wait for them to stand next to me on the big day.

To start with is Seminole MOH. I couldn't imagine any one else being my maid of honor, She has been the best friend a girl could ask for for the last 5 years. We met when were wee little tikes selling christmas trees  for our brother's boy scout troops and ended up becoming really good friends after being in a bible study together in late high school. She graduated from FSU with a Fashion Merchandising degree and is currently living it Up in Jacksonville,fl. The weekend I met Mr. Coastie I was visiting Seminole MOH and her and her cousin are the reason we met, so I thank her for that and mostly she has been my taxi driver to the airport the millions of times I flew to go see Mr. Coastie. So she has a special place in the history of our relationship.  We are really like the exact same person and she has always been there for me and listened to me laugh and cry. I even had to divorce her (on facebook) when mr.Coastie and I became an item, but she'll always be my wifey :)

Next up is the girl I've been friends with the longest probably of all my friends, Lawyer Bridesmaid. I met her in third grade (eek that was a long time ago!) and we instantly bonded over boys in our class we liked and even got in trouble for passing notes about them (oops). Even though after high school she went off to Duke we remained close and now she is at FSU Law school kicking some butt! I love this girl, thats all there is to it. 

"you don't go to college to meet your husband, you go to meet your bridesmaids" absolutely. Gator bridesmaid is the "college friend" of my group of ladies.  We have a funny history, I met her in Microbiology Lab when she sat on the same bench as me. Me and two other girls always said she had a "love connection" with the kid on the end of the bench, turns out..not so true (ha ha, sorry I had to say it!) the four of us called our selves the "MCB girls" and Im pretty sure everyone in all of our micro classes knew us as the gaggle of girls who sat in the back and laughed about fake romances with professors and funny names of bacteria. From walking with cows and dishing about boys, med school and all other things me and Gator Bridesmaid became very close. Im more than excited to have her up there with me :)

My next two girls are my future family. Im very excited to become a part of Mr. Coastie's family and very excited to get to call these girls my cousins. They are so fun and crack me up every time I get to visit.  Im so excited they agreed to be a part of our wedding! First up is Mommy Bridesmaid. She is about to have an adorable little baby girl due at the end of June and she is Wolverine Groomsman's lovely wife. 

And lastly is Red Wings Bridesmaid, She is Mr. Coastie's cousin and my future cousin. She is pretty much hilarious and makes me laughwhen we're around. I can't say enough how excited I am for these girls to be in the wedding :)

So there you have it! say hello to my lovely bridesmaids. Im really lucky to have all these girl in my life and so incredibly happy they'll be a big part of my wedding.

Stay tuned for the ring bearer/flower girl announcements, after all they are too adorable to miss :)

p.s. For those of you wondering, there will be one more bridesmaid (to make our party even)

Compatibility

Pre-marital counseling, not only is it required (or at least an education course) to get a marriage license in Florida but its also required to get married by a pastor. So basically its a must, no way around it. I was actually kind of excited about this whole counseling ordeal, I mean it can't hurt to have someone give you advice and let you know where in your relationship needs work or places that might cause problems, I want to do it and actually want to get alot out of it. So last night Mr. Coastie and I had our first session. I was nervous when we went in, I won't lie, I mean I had no idea what to expect. After a little meet and greet and basically small talk about who we are and what we do and some future plans the pastor pulls out a test and says okay you're each going to take this and we'll compare next week and see how where there will be issues, this test will really tell us how compatible you are. Our reaction looked a little something like this:

  .
I mean a 60 question test that was going to tell how compatible we are? Kinda scary. so we separated into our own little rooms and took our 60 question test. and now we wait for one week to figure out how well our answers matched, should be interesting. Everything from finances, to marriage expectations, to in-laws, education and children. We've talk alot about most of these things so I guess were not completely going in blind, but still sort of nerve wrecking. Mr. Coastie and I chatted about the answers we put down on the car ride home (which I'm pretty sure your not supposed to do, but oops) Lets just say some of our answers match and some... well they don't. So I guess we find out how truly compatible we are in a week.

to heel or not to heel, that is the question

I have a shoe problem. I love cute shoes, I love to look at them and want to wear them, but then when I get them on I hate my life. For me heels are fun to look at, not so much to wear. Im not the girl that can throw on a pair of 4 inch stilettos and pull off wearing them through the agonizing pain for hours just for the beauty of them. Nope, not me. I'd rather rock some cute flops and and be comfortably laughing at the girl in the high heels.

So from the beginning I had decided I'd be wearing flats on my wedding day, because A: they are comfortable, B: I'm having an outdoor wedding and C: I'm clumsy and don't think tripping down the aisle will do much for the moment.I was looking at something adorable cute with a punch of color like this:

Lots of brides wear flats these days and I was all for this idea until i came across these:

one word: LOVE. okay these are the most fabulously perfect shoes for my wedding, I adore them, I swoon over them, I want them. problem? 4 inch heels. so here is my problem do i go for these fabulously gorgeous heel or do i got for my adorable quaint little comfortable flats? I love the heels, and It would keep me from getting my dress hemmed and make my 5' 3" self look less tiny next to Mr. Coastie's 6'6" self. but I forsee being in pain and hating these beautiful shoes before the ceremony is even over, and lets face it how am I supposed to dance and enjoy myself when I'm cutting blisters into my feet? and did I mention these shoes are $95.00? Which as far as bridal shoes go is pretty good, Some gals spend upwards of $200 on them. My precious flats come in around $30.00 but will require an entire hem on my wedding gown.

So you see my dilemma. flats or heels? comfort or fashion? someone help me decide!

we've got a logo?

Aparrently there is this new trend (it may not be new, but to me its new) to have a wedding logo or monogram. I think these are really cute, they go on water bottle labels (which we ARE doing even though this may be a labor of love more than its worth) they go on thank you cards, invitations, other random paper products for the wedding. So I've decided to do a few mock ups, I cant exactly decide which i like best or if we will use them or how we will use them but I figured I'd share and maybe get some feedback from everyone out there in internet world. okay so I made a few of them some i like more than others, im just sort of getting the hang of this inkscape thing so i dont exactly know the size they will show up on here so bare with me

This was my first creation, i don't LOVE the font like i do on some of the others

After seeing the first Mr. Coastie suggested that we add an R and a C to the mix, I think this one is a little too busy, he agrees, what do you think?

I dont know about this one, I d

I don't now about this, I like the black background but I'm not sure why I dont love it.

I actually really like this one, I happen to love the ampersand, but Mr. Coastie hates it, he thinks "that and sign is stupid"

 This is Mr. Coastie's favorite. I like it too although im not sure about the indefinite barrier, i.e no circle or anything around it, just sort of floating in nowheres land.

This baby is my favorite, It's sort of hard to see because of the size but I love it, and the font is my favorite. What do you guys think? which one looks the coolest?