For my Seeeeester.....

I'm taking a break from the wedding posts today to blog about a loss my sister experienced this weekend. My sister lost a very dear friend in a car wreck early Saturday morning. She had just spoken with him the day before he passed away about coming up to Lubbock to hang out with her and some of her friends this past weekend. Unfortunately this didn't happen.

We are from a very small town. Most of us have had the same friends from pre-school all the way through graduation from High School. This was the case for my sister as they've been friends since elementary school. The loss was a big shock to my small town and an even bigger shock to my sister. My sister turned 25 on March 21st and 2 of her best friends Cheche and Bird (again we're from a small town, everyone has a nickname) came up to Lubbock to celebrate. It was Bird that passed away. We had a blast at Lindsey's party and a lot of that was due in part to Bird. He was the life of the party, always there to make everyone laugh, even it was at his own expense. He was a WONDERFUL friend to my sister and my heart breaks for her.

His funeral was this morning at 10:00, and though I had planned to be there to be by my sister's side, I got called in to work. Because I couldn't be there I decided to write this blog about my sister's sweet friend and I've been listening to Deftones all morning in remembrance of him. Bird loved the Deftones and luckily I was able to hang out with him at 2 separate Deftones concerts. That was one thing about Bird, he absolutely LOVED music. Here's to you Bird......

Bird and my beautiful sister at her 25th birthday party just a little over 3 weeks ago...

Lins, Cheche and Bird
And lastly, Bird was in a band with Chech and I thought this song was a perfect ending for this blog.

"And God bless you all
For the song you sang us..."


Love you seeester.......

The Ceremony...

Ok here we go! So since we had our first look, this definitely made the ceremony way less stressful! One of the things I placed a great deal of thought in was my music choices. For all of you that know me, you KNOW how much of a music fanatic I am. I chose several songs to be playing while people were arriving and being seated for the wedding. Here is the list: If you want to take a listen, click the link and then click the play button right underneath the title :) 1.True Love Will Find You In the End- Beck 2.Shelter- Ray Lamontagne 3.Fade Into You- Mazzy Star 4.First Day Of My Life- Bright Eyes 5.What Light- Wilco 6.Flightless Bird- Iron & Wine 7.I Will Follow You into the Dark- Death Cab for Cutie 8. A few instrumental Wilco songs....the lyrics are a little weird but since it was all instrumental it didn't matter :) The parents and grandparents were seated while Iron & Wine's cover of 'Such Great Heights' played. The groomsmen/bridesmaids/flower girls and ring bearer walked in while Jose Gonzales' cover of "Heartbeats" played. I chose Heartbeats mostly because I LOVE it and secondly because this song was playing the moment I realized I was in love with Taylor.....awwww! I chose the Sigur Ros song "Staralfur" to play while I walked down the aisle. The first time I ever heard this song was in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.....one of my favorite movies! I didn't want a song that was super traditional and I didn't want to pick something that you hear ALL the time at weddings. Staralfur was the perfect song for us! Here is my sweet Papaw walking me down the aisle. We also chose to do a sand ceremony instead of lighting candles. I need to take a picture of the finished piece because the design is REALLY cool! It ended up looking like two bird wings, one big and one small right on top of each other. This was so fitting because I love birds and incorporated them in several aspects of our wedding. Taylor said he's the big bird wing and I'm the baby bird wing haha! We chose Band Of Horses' "No One's Gonna Love You More Than I Do" to play while we created our sand art :) Next up: The vows. Taylor is and has always been an EXCELLENT writer. Me? I'm an okay writer but nothing I write is ever as good as Feeeedler! When he said he wanted to write his own vows I wasn't surprised at all. Me however, I knew the ceremony would already make me a blubbering tearful mess, so I elected to choose vows from a book that our pastor had and do the whole repeat after me :) Here are Taylor's vows: "You have motivated me to be a better man and I feel that my life is balanced and purposeful with you by my side. I’m proud to have you as my wife and I want to give you a life of happiness and love. Whatever comes our way, we will face it together. You are a blessing in my life and I can’t wait to start the next chapter in our lives." Awwww so sweet :) The kiss! And afterwards we walked out as Mr. & Mrs. to The Talking Heads "This Must Be The Place" We literally chose this song DAYS before the wedding. We couldn't agree on a song to use, we wavered between Arcade Fire "Neighborhood 1", Cake "Love You Madly," The Knife's original version of "Heartbeats," Wilco's guitar solo in "Impossible Germany," which if you remember was the song that was playing when Taylor proposed to me at the Wilco concert back in 2009. We just weren't sure if any of those would fit and even though we had pretty much every other aspect chosen, this was the one thing we weren't sure about. Then it kind of hit us! We love Talking Heads and listen to the "Stop Making Sense" live album all the time. We even watched their live performance of "Stop Making Sense" on DVD on our one year anniversary back in 2008. So when we were scrolling through my ipod on shuffle and this song came on, we immediately knew this was the song we wanted to use. And lastly, here are Madison and James dumping out their petals and putting them back in, from what I heard, they did this many times throughout the ceremony which is plenty fine with me because it kept them occupied! Too cute! Next up......The reception!

The First Look....

Taylor and I opted to do the "first look" prior to our wedding so that we wouldn't have a TON of pictures to take afterwards. This allowed us to get the reception started faster and definitely made the actual wedding much more laid back and we were able to control our nerves! What's funny is Taylor was way more nervous than I was, his palms were so sweaty! Taylor was of course ready and very excited to marry me, he was just a little uneasy about being in front of all our wedding guests! Here's my faves :)
And here is our amazing wedding party, these guys and gals mean so much to Taylor and I and we're so glad to have them as our family/friends!

This picture cracks me up every time I see it! Spencer is one my dearest friends and he served as one of our ushers. Our photographer called him up and instead of standing next to Taylor like everyone else did, he wraps his arms around Taylor. This picture makes me laugh because if anyone who didn't know these two saw this picture they would think they are in love and are having a commitment ceremony!

Here is my AMAZING family!And here is Taylor's amazing family as well! They were so much fun to be around and even traveled to little ol' Lubbock from all over the U.S. just to be with us!
Speaking of which, we had friends and family travel from California, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, New York and North Carolina. Taylor and I are very, very lucky to have people in our lives that love us enough to travel this far!

Next up.....the ceremony!

The Big Day (Part 1)

Ok, so that I don't bombard my page with a humongo (yes I just used the word humongo!) entry about my wedding day, I decided that I'll break it up into several mini posts. The first? Getting ready!

I am so lucky to have the wonderful Lorrie Caballero hair stylist extraordinaire as my friend. She is a miracle worker I tell ya! We met quite randomly 3 years ago and she's been amazing to me ever since. Here she is rolling my hair into humongo (haha that's twice now!) curls. And that froyo I'm eating? That's the only thing I could eat that day because of nerves! Many thanks to Lins and Christi for fetching it for me :)

Flashback to 2001! Suleika used to be my personal stylist/groomer back in the day and I literally had a case of deja vu on my wedding day when Suleika found a few strays that needed plucking!

Not only did Lorrie do my hair but she also did my make-up for the day. I love this picture because you can see Christi in the background on my phone which was ringing non-stop the day of the wedding. I got tired of answering, so Christi became the designated phone answerer that day. We also had a running joke (that we still use today haha!) about how Christi's job was the same as Anne Hathaway's maid of honor in Bride Wars. Her main job was to tell me about my bridal beauty!

Here's Lori taming my mane!

This moment is pretty bittersweet. Here's Lins putting on a brooch (part of my something old) that belonged to my step-grandmother. She and I were kindred spirits, loving all things vintage and even jewelry making. Back in October I had a bridal shower and my Mom brought Cleo with her. She spent the entire shower making conversation with everyone and was never without a smile on her face. Sadly the very next day she passed away quite suddenly. Here she is sitting next to me playing the bridal bingo game.

My something borrowed was something from Taylor's Mom. We pinned this little mustard seed pin underneath my cummerbund. The pin belonged to Dana's grandmother and is something very special to her.

And here is the finished hair with my cage veil and brooch fascinator. Seriously ladies, Lorrie is a miracle worker, I looooved my hair that day! I had originally planned to make my veil myself with some veiling I bought on Etsy. Well the way the veiling was cut, it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to, so TWO days before the wedding we went to David's Bridal and bought the veil for $20 bucks! I did however make my brooch fascinator with a vintage brooch that was a gift from Taylor for our first engaged Christmas.

Meanwhile as things were all abuzz in the ladies area, here's what the boys were doing haha!

Yup, drinking and playing the Wii haha! I had our photographer take a gift to Taylor from me and I swear it's the gift that keeps on giving......Call of Duty Black Ops. He seriously plays this game almost daily. Well there you have it my friends.......part ONE is done! :)

Roooooooad Triiiip!

I'm deviating from the wedding posts because today Taylor and I leave for our honeymoon! We wanted to take our honeymoon sometime AFTER our wedding because we were already going to be doing a lot of traveling because of the Christmas holidays. We were originally planning on going somewhere at the end of May......well that was the plan! One of my co-workers informed me in January that I could be gone Spring Break because he was wanting to be gone in May. We decided to go ahead an opt for Spring Break since Taylor wouldn't have any classes.

This left us with little time to make plans/reservations/save money so we opted for a road trip! We rented a car and are driving to Shreveport, New Orleans and Orange Beach , Alabama. Taylor has pretty much made all the plans and even typed out a handy dandy itinerary for us. Among the plans....a little of this....well I won't be feeding them!And a little of THIS!

And lastly a little of thisI'm super excited to be gone, BUT i'm super bummed that I have to wait a week to meet little Miss Presley, Erica's new baby girl that is due ANY MINUTE now! Hope all of you have a wonderful Spring Break! :)

Rehearsal!

So on December 3, mine and Taylor's families arrived in Lubbock along with 4 members of the bridal party that flew in. We had people flying in from Dallas, Charlotte, L.A. Des Moines, Orlando and Kansas City! Luckily for me, Christi arrived a week early to be my (in her words mind you!) my wedding slave!

We had our rehearsal at The Legacy and afterwards we all gathered at the Lakeridge Country Club for dinner. We had some delicious Italian food and some delicious wine! Here are our good friends Todd and Kayla who joined us from Ft. Worth and then there's Jeralyn and Tim whose daughters Raegan and Sydney were our guest book attendants!

Here are the two most influential women in my life, my Mom and my Memaw! With a special guest appearance by a framed Jenn and Taylor :)
Half of the bridal party...Adam, Graham, Court and Logan looking through their goodie bags full of gifts from me and Feeeedler!
The other half of the bridal party, Spencer, Jenny, Jer Bear, Suleika...with a special appearance by Christi's back!
My matron of honor, my beee-utiful seeeester Lindsey! It looks like she's accepting an award haha!
Mi Familia! My uncle Tony, Lins, Step-Dad Steve, my Mom, and my sweet Memaw and Papaw! With a sneak attack from Baby Feeedler in the back!
Taylor's family flew in from all over the country, starting at the top, Taylor's Grandad and Uncle from Florida, Taylor's brother Jacob who flew in from Norman (yes he goes to OU but we love him anyway!) Taylor's Aunt Janey from Iowa, cousins Andy and Jess from Minnesota, Grammy from Iowa and Feeeedler's parents who flew in from Kansas City!

On a very WEIRD side note, Taylor's cousin by marriage Andy used to play semi-pro hockey and was a member of the Lubbock Cotton Kings which I happened to go to many games during undergrad. What's even more weird is that we both lived in the same apartment complex at the same time! And now almost 10 years later we meet and become cousins!

Taylor and his Aunt Julie from IowaBrian, Taylor's childhood friend, Baby Feeedler, Dana (Taylor's Mom) feeling groovy haha and Graham, Taylor's best friend in High School. We had a great time hanging out and getting to know each other (this was the first time our extended families met) and afterwards the bridal party came over to our house for an impromptu pre-wedding, last night as single party! Next up.....Pre-wedding! :)

Sending the Bachelorette out in STYLE!

Ok so yeah my bachelorette party happened 7 months ago, but since I've been a blog slacker, I wanted to chronicle everything that occurred before my big day! This will be the first of several in the next coming week ending with the wedding.

August 4-7, myself and 3 of my lovely bridesmaids (Lins, Christi and Court) boarded a plane and headed for VEGAS! I had never been and boy did we have a great time! Here's Court and I enjoying a frosty beverage on the flight to Vegas!

The first night we got there we got dressed up, and as you can see they gave me the bachelorette treatment by making me don a red feather boa that matched perfectly with my dress! My sister got us tickets to Thunder from Down Under and we had a blast! Contrary to popular belief, the men do NOT get naked.......Phew! Aaaaaand luckily for me, I did not get called up on stage :)


The second night we were there, we ate at a restaurant in the Bellagio run by world renown chef Todd English called Olives. A fellow colleague at Tech recommended it and we absolutely LOVED it! We were able to grab a table on the patio and had a front row seat to the fountain show at the Bellagio. Here we are on the patio!

After dinner we of course stopped to pose for pictures before heading to our next stop. That was the beauty of the trip, we kind of just went wherever we wanted to!

Our next stop was Gilley's bar located inside Treasure Island. Gilley's was pretty much our home away from home, they played country music.....which we felt much obliged to show everyone how to REALLY dance, none of that line dancing bull crap haha! The bar had saddles for bar stools, a mechanical bull riding contest (which we did NOT participate in haha) but we had ONE major complaint, the bar was called Gilley's, after the legendary Gilley's John Travolta made famous in the late 70's. Now one would think this Gilley's would remember its roots and honor the legend of the original Gilley's by having Urban Cowboy playing continuously on a loop, but alas they did not. Now don't you worry though, I took it upon myself to tell the manager how Urban Cowboy on a loop could make his bar just that much better if he took care of that one minor detail. Now normally I wouldn't take it upon myself to tell a manager how to run his bar, but I'm pretty sure the margaritas we enjoyed had a hand in helping ;)

After Gilley's we started heading back to our room at the Monte Carlo and walked back through the Bellagio. We ended up getting sidetracked and found ourselves in Jay Z's club called The Bank. While there we met some super nice folks who live in Vegas and invited us to their VIP lounge area. Aaaand just to show how small a world we live in, one of our new friends was born in Amarillo!

After the bank we finally headed back for our hotel and of course stopped for picture ops along the way..."Did the real Caesar stay here?" haha

The last day we there, the boys joined us for a day of fun. Here are some fun pics taken at Aria, pretty much one of the coolest casinos we saw on the trip. There is a HIGH END mall located inside and when I say HIGH end I mean HIGH end. Stores I had never even heard of and waaaaaay out of our budget were located here. Yup that's a Dior located just behind me!

That night our whole group went to dinner at a restaurant called Stack located inside The Mirage. The food was delicious and we all had a great time! Afterwards we went out to a couple of bars as a group and then us girls went back to our room since we were flying out the next morning while the boys stayed for a couple more nights.

We absolutely had a BLAST in Vegas and I can't wait to go back. Taylor and I have discussed going back together and going to some shows and doing things that we weren't able to do the first time around. HOPEFULLY this will be something we'll be able to do this year!

Next up.....the rehearsal dinner!