Friday, May 31, 2013

Wedding Pictures - Family and Bridal Party

Here are the formal family and bridal party pictures.....

This picture cracks me up for many reasons.  Dad laughing and me giving Kevin grief about something.  Then Mom is just happy as a lark posing!

My family!  My parents, brother, SIL and two nieces!

The four "kids"

With Kevin's family minus his precious niece!

The "kids" - Kevin and I with his brother and SIL

Us with our minister...who came all of the way from Maryland to perform our Methodist ceremony.










With our parents!

All three of us have the same rings.  Meant to be!






One of the biggest things I didn't want in our bridal party pictures are the ones that EVERYONE does uptown Charlotte.  I'm glad these are just classic, simple pictures.  I wasn't interested in fountains or awkward couples standing next to each other.  Again, to each their own, I just didn't want that.  I like how these turned out, I just wish we could see everyone's faces and everyone was looking at the camera at once.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Wedding Pictures - Kevin, Mills and I

One of my favorite things we did for the wedding was to have Mills' camp counselor Stephanie bring Mills uptown so he was there right after the ceremony.  Mills was the first "person" we saw after we walked down the aisle and that was SO fun!

Also, my favorite picture from our entire wedding is in this post with the three of us.  You'll see it...

But here are some right after the ceremony.  I'll be honest, I don't LOVE the ones of Kevin and I but...it is what it is.






This is my favorite wedding picture!!!  We love our buddy!








Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Recipe - Cabernet Burgers

Cabernet Burgers

My cousin Laura gave me this recipe a few years ago and we love it for special occasions!  These burgers are out of this world, I'm telling y'all!

Ingredients:
 - 1 750-ml bottle Cabernet Sauvignon (we use two buck chuck)
 - 1/4 cup minced shallots
 - 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
 - 2 teaspoons golden brown sugar (we only use one)
 - 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

 - 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
 - 1 teaspoon salt
 - 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
 - 1 cup (packed) coarsely grated extra-sharp white cheddar cheese (we use slices)

 - 4 4 1/2-inch squares focaccia, cut horizontally in half (we use onion buns)
 - 8 large tomato slices (we omit)
 - 2 cups arugula (we omit)


Boil wine and shallots in medium saucepan until reduced to 3/4 cup, about 20 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon butter and brown sugar; whisk until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.
 
Mix remaining 8 tablespoons butter and rosemary in small bowl. Set aside.
 
Prepare grill  (medium-high heat). Mix beef, salt, pepper, and 1/4 cup wine-shallot mixture in bowl. Form meat into four 5-inch squares or rounds. Grill burgers until brown on bottom, about 3 minutes. Turn burgers and brush with wine-shallot mixture. Continue grilling burgers until cooked to desired doneness, turning and brushing occasionally with wine-shallot mixture, about 4 minutes longer for medium-rare. Sprinkle with cheese after last turn and grill until cheese melts.
 
Spread cut sides of bread with rosemary butter. Grill, cut side down, until golden, about 2 minutes.
 
Arrange bread, grilled side up, on plates. Top bottom halves with burgers, then tomatoes and arugula. Cover with top halves of bread.           

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Wedding Pictures - Hotel Gift Bags and Paper!


For our wedding, Mom and I talked about sort of a theme at the very beginning.  We wanted simplistic elegance.  We didn't do any crazy extras that would make us stressed at the end (ie seating charts, too many DIYs, crazy expensive and complicated hotel bags, unity candles etc etc.).  Nothing against any of that - some people are great and love DIY, some people think unity candles or whatever unite them more - more power to them all!  I just wasn't into any of that.  

So, simplistic elegance it was.  Or at least we tried to make it that way.  

Here are my hotel welcome bags that I put together.  The tags, itineraries and programs were all designed by Lisa at Paper Twist in Charlotte.  She.is.amazing!  I would use her again in a heartbeat.  She knew the etiquette - she knew we didn't use a "G" (Kevin's last name initial) on a hotel bag because I wasn't a G yet when they were given (therefore we had a font file made with our first names as you'll see below), she knew how the wording on everything should be.  She was simply amazing to work with.

Inside the bag was this is the itinerary that Lisa designed for us.  April had sent me hers and I used her ideas to convey to Lisa what I was thinking.  This is how it ended up (minus the tissue covering my name)...


Also in the bag was the following:  2 waters (didn't need the extra label with our names - I'm not that crafty haha!), peanuts (our favorite), crab chips (I'm from Maryland), advil (always necessary), mints (for the church) and our favorite chocolate.  We included 4 mints and 4 chocolates in each bag.  The best part was the bags cost less than $5 to make.  Woohoo!

By the way, I had these babies made six weeks before our wedding.  I made 60 of them and it took me two hours one night after work.  Easy peasy.  

Below is our guest book that I also got at Paper Twist.  It's by Graphic Image.  It is really gorgeous in person.  It's ivory with the gold writing on the cover and ecru paper inside.  Classic.  

Something really special happened a few months before our wedding....I got an email from a lady that reads my blog and she and her sister asked if their company could send me a Waterford pen of my choice.  I still cannot get over how generous these sweet ladies are.  I'm not going to post their company because I want to be sure they would be okay with it.  I don't want people contacting them to ask for a Waterford pen, ya know?  But, I cannot thank them enough.  They are the sweetest and so incredibly thoughtful!  Seriously made my engagement!

This is the wedding program.  It was the tall half of a 8.5"x11" piece of ecru paper bought from Michaels on sale.  Lisa designed and printed for us.  They were done to perfection.  On the front was the program, on the back was the wedding party and directions to the reception.

The formal font matched our wedding invitations.  They were printed in black ink even though it doesn't look like it in the below pictures.

We had the most traditional ceremony with the most traditional music.

I know you all are shocked!

I hope this may have helped you gain ideas for your wedding planning, see what we did or maybe this post is just for my journal! :)

Monday, May 27, 2013

Our Chill Memorial Day Weekend

My goodness has it been nice to be home!!!

Our Friday started by me visiting the Farmer's Market at lunch then escaping early to head home.  We met Kevin's parents for dinner at Harper's and then looked at porch furniture a couple of places.  We didn't find anything we HAD to have. 

Saturday we were up early so I went to the store and Kevin got started on yard work.  I joined him when I came home and we worked hard.  I took a break mid afternoon to take Mills for a run.  Kevin kept on going.  Mills and I picked up the branches he cut down from trees in our backyard and we put them in the firepit.  I also picked this magnolia blossom and rose from our yard.

We have had plans with Dave and Jenn to come over for the longest time on Saturday of Memorial Day and boy did we have fun!  I got to put out our new lanterns we got for our wedding from Pottery Barn and I love them.  They looked really pretty when it got dark.  

We fixed the perfect summer meal - wine burgers (I need to post this recipe that my cousin gave me), grilled okra (thanks to Fran's recipe), tomatoes with feta, basil, fresh salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil), corner, grilled corn and Skinny Taste potato salad which is not pictured because I forgot I had made it, haha!

Jenn brought the most fantastic dessert that she found off Pinterest.  It was a lemon cheesecake type thing with blueberries on top.  It was made "skinny" and was just the perfect, light summer dessert.  

Then we called our guy Tony to come grab us and take us up to Cosmos and Hawthornes for some beverages and live music.  They were having a luau type block party.  It was really fun.

This is the only picture from my camera.  I wish I had gotten one of the four of us.  In this one, Kevin and David decide to be odd and share an Alabama Slammer.  Interesting....

We arrived home to find Papa John's and then us in a cab both pulled in our driveway.  Coincidence? I think not!  Haha!  

Dave and Jenn spent the night with us and we went to Toast for recovery food.

Sunday we have taken naps, shopped more for patio furniture and a new TV and had TCBY for dinner.  Perfect.  

Today we are going to Kevin's parent's house for a cookout.  Looking forward to it!

Hope yall have had a nice Memorial Day weekend!

Friday, May 24, 2013

Jo Jo Bling Sale!

Hey Ladies - it's that time again!  JoJo Loves You Bling Sale!!!



These are my three bling picks that would be perfect for your summer outfit!


Get the in time for your summer par-tay!