PROCRASTINATION....is easy :(

Hello! I have terrible at updating this blog lately, things have been a blur! WE'RE MARRIED! And finally all moved in to our new house (pics to come soon!) and back in to the swing of things. We are both working, spending time with our families, and working ono making our little house cute! Home reno's are my new thing; I don't think I've ever been to Lowe's more in my life than I have in the past two months. Anyways, just wanted to post something to say that we will be putting pics up soon of the wedding, honeymoon, house, and holidays! So much to catch up on :)

Lately...

We had plenty of weddings to go to this summer, including tow of Nick's cousins, and one of his good friends, who also happens to be in our wedding. Nick's cousin Emily was married in June in Camden, SC, and his cousin Kaitlan was married on the fourth of July in High Point, NC. This is a picture from her beautiful reception!


My mom made a wonderful birthday dinner, and the love of my life, Sarah, came home from Africa just in time to eat some wonderful home cooked food. My mom made a cake that looked like presents stacked on top of each other, and this is the picture after I blew out the candles. She's so Martha Stewart sometimes. :)

I celebrated my birthday on August 11, and Nick took me to a show at Blumethal Performing Arts center called Shear Madness. It is absolutely the funniest thing I have ever seen, and we had great seats, as you can tell by the picture! It was almost like a dinner theater, and our table was right in front. In the show, they cast interacts with the audience, and Nick got picked on ;) It was so funny and a wonderful birthday present!

I can't believe the summer is almos over, and we have three weeks until the wedding! Ahh!

Bridal Shower with the Herman and Lafone side of the family!

The adorable tables and favors for all of the guests

The wonderful gifts!

Papaw decided to tough it out with all the women to stay for some food and to play with baby Mackenzie, who also got into the food ;)

The lovely spread!
Malachi and I, after he ate about 15 funfetti cupcakes
We played the classic make-a-dres-out-of-toilet-paper game...Emily's dress looks great!
Sandra Herman made me the cutest corsage out of a sponge, mixing spoons, and a wine opener. She knows me so well! :)

The Herman and Lafone women did such a good job- we had so much fun playing games and eating all of the wonderful food. I cannot wait to be a part of this awesome family!

HOUSE: Updates!

Nick and I have had a very special experience with finding a house for us to live in. We knew that we didn't want to buy new construction, but rather find a foreclosed home in good shape for a much lower price. Our three-year plan is to cosmetically fix up a house, and sell it in three years for much more than we paid for it. Well....this process took much longer then we thought. We made 7 offers on houses, and got out-bid on all of them. This is something we expected, because finding a foreclosed house for the price we wanted to pay puts us in competition with investors, who are often willing to jack up an offer on a house. Well patience paid off for us, because the eighth house we made an offer on we got! Thank God for our realtor Sandra, because she earned every penny. We must have walked through 25-30 different houses, not counting the dozens of other we just drove by and deemed unacceptable.

The house we have under contract is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with 2,200 square feet. It's in a cute little neighborhood with a pool and great trees :) The value of the house is 50% more than what we paid for it, so we're so excited about this investment opportunity, and well as a place to live! The house needs almost no fixing-up...just some new carpet in places and a new refrigerator (can we say new stainless steel? My favorite!)

We are definitely very excited about the house...so depending on how well the appraisal goes, we should be closing on it from the middle to the end of August- talk about cutting it close! I was beginning to think that we would come back from the honeymoon to have nowhere to live....but my parents house. Not happening!

The financial burden of a mortgage is now apon us, and I couldn't be more excited :)

Tea Party Bridal Shower!

I'm so very bad at updating this thing when it should be updated, but I figured I'd catch up on the past month or two. In June, Jocqueline Propst, Madolyn Helms, Phylia Smith, and Terri O'Bryan threw me a wonderful tea party themed bridal shower. We had so much fun! They did such a good job with the food and the cupcakes (thanks Mad!) and the games. I had such a good time! Here's a few pictures from the day:

Adorable candy they had made!
The Hermans :)
Crock pot! My favorite :)
Mariah playing with the tissue paper


My Mom!
My mom has saved these tea cups over the years, and most are passed down from her mom and grandmother
Adorable "S" cupcakes, made by Madolyn
The delicious food!

Honeymoon!

Today, Nick and I FINALLY booked our honeymoon...we now have a trip to look forward to together! We had talked about Jamaica for the longest time, so last night, Nick said that we should just go and book one. So we did! We are going to Riu Ocho Rios in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, for seven days and six nights in an oceanfront room. I can't wait! Here's the website:

http://www.clubhotelriuochorios.com/


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Engagement Photos

Nicholas and I had the luck of finding a fantastic photographer, Jeff Cooke for our wedding. We met this weekend in Freedom Park to take some engagement pictures, and here they are!

I FOUND THE DRESS!

I found my dress! My mom and I went shopping at a bridal boutique in Matthews because we heard they were going to have a sale on Saturday. We just wanted to scope out the store to see if we saw anything that we liked, and if we did, we would go back the day of the sale. We walked in to the store, saw the dress at the same time, and grabbed it. I tried it on...and I knew! The dress was on the sale rack (it was a mistake) and we got it at a great price, which my mom loved. It's fabulous, and I can't wait to wear it! I'm so picky, I thought I would never find it. You'll just have to wait until September 5th to see :)

Update- New Web Page!

I've updated my Knot.com website to include more information about the ceremony and reception, including directions and other goodies :) Please sign the guestbook to let me know you visited!

the website is:
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=7868687558807864

Enjoy :)

Save-The-Dates!

My wonderful brother Ryan took some time out of his very busy schedule to take pictures and edit what Nick and I wanted for our save-the-dates. We decided to do something simple and cute, that was both "us", and affordable.

I won't show you the whole thing, but here's a little preview ;)

Thanks, brother!

Flowers, Churches, and Registries

This month has been crazy hectic. Unfortunately, Nicholas and I both had to work on Valentine's Day, but after an awful night at work, he surprised me with flowers and tickets to see a concert in Nashville. On April 25th, we will be traveling to Vanderbilt University to see my favorite, Jason Mraz! I am so excited :)

We hit a bump in the road with the wedding planning last week, and have lost the date at the church that Nicholas is a member of to another member that had originally reserved the date. They mistakenly told us that September 5th was available, but unfortunately someone else had already reserved it. So we had already made the deposit at the country club for that day, so there was no budging. We had to search for another church/location! I have completely talked myself out of an outdoor wedding due to the possibility of bad weather, so we started looking for other churches in the Hickory area. There is a church right next to the original church that I have always admired, but Nicholas told me it was "the place" to get married so I figured that it was too late and that September 5th was probably already taken. On a whim, I called the church's secretary a few days later, only to find out that the date was available! But to get married in the church that day, Nicholas and I have to become members. So, the next Sunday we took my parents up to visit the church and we all fell in love with it. Everyone there is wonderful, and the church is absolutely breathtaking. We start "Pastor's Classes" this Sunday, and must continue them for the next 13 weeks to become members! The good thing is that our names are penciled in for that date, and as long as we are on the path for membership, it's ours!

After we visited the church, we took my parents to Belk for a wedding show. My dad was less than thrilled at this idea, but he had fun nonetheless. It could have been the barbecue buffet that we bribed him with for lunch ;) We registered at Belk, and met lots of vendors from the area. I even won a bottle of Chanel perfume, and Nicholas won the men's cologne. We also won brunch at Rock Barn Spa. We had so much fun registering that as soon as we got back to Charlotte, we set up a registry at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond as well!

The flowers that Nick surprised me with when I got off work

This is Corinth Reformed Church in Hickory, where we're becoming members!

beautiful

inside

Nick, at Belk, holding our free perfume and the registry scanner...He's very excited.

Notice the 49er hat, the 49er shirt, and omg we HAD to register for these 49er cups at BB&B. I think we registered for 12.

The times, they are a-changin'...

Like Bob Dylan says, the times are a-changing. We are getting married in 207 days! There is so much to do and so little time to do it in. This weekend, however, Nicholas, my mom and I got a lot accomplished! On Friday, we drove to Hickory to talk to the church and to reserve the country club. And guess what.....September 5 is officially ours! I am so excited, we even picked out our wedding cake :) The plans are coming along rather quickly, and things are falling together without any hitches, so far...knock on wood! More to come soon :)

First Blog!

I have finally decided to succumb to technology and start a blog. I really wanted to keep friends and family up-to-date with what was going on in our lives, so here it is! Enjoy :)





Nicholas and I were engaged on October 16th, 2008. I came home from work to find that Nicholas had written a note on my mirror with a bar of soap, along with flowers and another note leading me to the place where we first met. After I finished the scavenger hunt and arrived at the last clue, I caught Nicholas lighting hundreds of candles at the place that overlooked campus where we used to sit. He proposed and I said yes! He had taken my family (my brothers included!) out to dinner that night and asked for permission to marry me. It's a good thing that they said yes, because he had already planned the proposal and purchased the ring :)


Here are a few photos of the events that happened shortly after.

Right after he popped the question! It was about 1 a.m., and I was tired and crying.

He did a great job!

An adorable table at the engagement party that my wonderful roomates planned for us! We had a great turnout- about 60 people crammed in my apartment!

Cute sign made by my roomates Brittany and Jessica, with the architectural help of Ryan, of course :)

Nicholas and I are now in the beginning stages of planning our wedding! We have a perfect venue that will be reserved shortly, then the real planning can begin! More updates to follow...