Our Wedding Featured On HGTV

HGTV.com kindly featured our wedding this week. The entire gallery is here. Thanks HGTV for letting us take a walk down memory lane. :)  

Wedding on Ruffled

Our wedding was featured on Ruffled last week, which was such a sweet surprise. Head over to Ruffled to read about our inspirations, vendors, and wedding day, if you'd like. :)

Wedding Video Sneak Peek

Jill & Lucas // Sneep Peep from Wade! on Vimeo.

The amazing Wade Koch from SharkPig filmed our wedding and sent over this sneak peek of the video. We love it -- when he sent it over, Lucas and I probably watched it 10 times in a row!

Wedding Partybooth

BFF Kristina made this fantastic backdrop for our wedding Photo Booth. We were super pumped with the outcome of it. It's amazing what 700 tassels and some glitter can make. These Partybooth photos turned out to be pretty epic. There are about 200 more where this came from.

{Pictures by the talented duo Caroline Fontenot and Ben Massey}

Boom: We're Married!

We're officially married y'all! Our wedding was on November 9, 2013, and it was an absolute blast. It was so incredible to be surrounded by our friends and loved ones. Thank you to everyone who made it such an incredible day. Our amazing photographer, Caroline Fontenot, sent over this sneak peak. We can't wait to share more soon! Now -- back to blogging...

Wedding Invitation Crunch Time

We got our envelopes back from the calligrapher yesterday, and now we're attempting to get them in the mail before we leave for a wedding this weekend. Our living room looks like a disaster zone! Here's a little sneak peak. We're so excited to start getting response cards back -- it's becoming real. Geez!

My Bachelorette Party

Last weekend was one of the best weekends of my life. My BFF, Kristina, planned the most amazing bachelorette beach weekend in FL. I've been close with most of my girlfriends since elementary school, and our moms are close friends too. We decided to just make it a big friends/family reunion weekend and rented a huge house in Seagrove right on the beach.

The first day, we all arrived in the early afternoon, unpacked, and headed out to the beach with cocktails. My future sister-in-law, Anne, is an amazing cook, and she whipped us up a batch of spicy jalapeño mojitos, which were super refreshing after a long drive.

Thursday night we had a game night. We played Catch Phrase and What the F*ck (a hilarious drinking game) for hours.

The next morning, Meaghan, Shelby, Kristina, and I went to a Pure Barre class and then we hit the beach. The weather was perfect and the water was super warm, which was a welcomed change from the chilly California coast.

That night we went to a really swanky town called Alys Beach, which feels like stepping into a Mediterranean coastal village. First we went to Caliza Pool for cocktails (they have amazing happy hour deals for anyone planning a trip to South Walton...) and then to George's for dinner, which was the perfect place to get our seafood fix.

After dinner, the party really began. We went back to the house for a pre-bar celebration. Kristina's sister, Jennie, taught my mom to make Jell-o shots, which my mom was thrilled about. Kristina made me the cutest "Bride" sash. Several shots later and glow sticks in tow, we hit the beach bars. Bud & Alley's has a really fun rooftop bar and they stayed open late. We were up into the wee hours of the night hanging on the beach and then all crashed hard.

The next day we recovered on the beach and then on the last night, the girls threw me a sweet shower and we just hung out and drank beers on the porch. Such a perfect trip -- getting to spend quality time with friends/family is the best when I live so far away. Thanks for everything, Poochie. xoxo

Wedding Shower

       

Our friends Meredith and Kristina held the sweetest wedding shower for us this weekend. Hooray for having lovely friends! It seems like just yesterday that the roles were reversed and I was co-hosting Meredith's shower, and now she's all married. :)

The day was so much fun. Kristina made all of the decorations (she's the best DIY'er) and my friend Haley designed the little state print of California, North Carolina, and Georgia intertwined.

Meredith cooked up the most amazing spread of food. We snacked on homemade caramelized onion dip and then she served delicious comfort food for dinner: pulled pork, mac-n-cheese, fruit skewers, baked beans, and homemade ice cream sandwiches. Of course, I ate two ice cream sandwiches (she made two types, so it would be rude not to try them both, right?). She even whipped up individual cocktails in tiny mason jars - spiked Arnold Palmers, which were amazing.

Thank you so much for hosting, Kristina & Meredith. We were blown away by the adorable shower and loved being with such wonderful friends. xoxo

Have a great long weekend!

Do you guys have any fun plans for this long weekend?

We're heading to Half Moon Bay this afternoon to see our dear friends Meredith and Andrew GET MARRIED! Check out their adorable wedding website, designed by our friend/colleague at Google, Brad Williford, who also designed our own website. Their rehearsal dinner tonight is at an Italian restaurant called It's Italia - we ate there during this trip, and it is delicious! Tomorrow they're getting married on the beach, which should be windy, but beautiful, and then the reception is at La Costanera, where the views are supposed to be out of this world. We're staying at the Oceano Hotel & Spa - the room has a fireplace in it, so I'm excited to cozy up with Lucas and drink some wine. :)

On Sunday and Monday, we're driving down to Santa Cruz, to spend some time with our friends Derek & Lena and Emily & Jeff. We all work together, but life is so hectic that I feel like I haven't caught up with them in ages. I am predicting lots of Italian food and Catch Phrase tournaments in our future.

Can't wait to spend some much needed time with our friends. Happy long weekend! xoxoxo

DIY Distressed Sign

When I was home in April, my mom and I made a few decorative signs for the wedding. We're having a rustic, barn wedding, so we were going for the shabby look. 

The first step was to pry apart this old wooden pallet. The boards were naturally old and distressed, so we just sanded them a bit, washed them with soap and water, and left them in the 85 degree Georgia heat to dry.

Next, we painted each board with an antique, off-white matte paint. We just asked the fine folks at Home Depot to mix us up a small sample of this color. It was more than enough paint and only cost us $3. Just take a brush and paint the color almost all the way to the edges. Again, leave it out in the sun to dry. If you want it to look a bit more distressed, lightly sand the board after it dries.

Print out the words/phrases you want to create onto computer paper. We used the phrases "let's celebrate" and "oh happy day", but the possibilities are endless!  Get yourself some tracing paper (we used the fabric kind because we had it on hand), place the tracing paper face down on the board, place your printed phrase on top, and then use a pen to trace each word onto the board. You might want to use a few pieces of tape to hold the tracing paper and computer paper steady.

The last step is ridiculously easy - you just retrace the letters with a fine-tip Sharpie and color them in. For the sake of time, we used a larger Sharpie to color the letters in. That.is.all. I was afraid it would look super shiny, but it turned out great. Again, you could lightly sand it again to make it look even MORE distressed, but we didn't really need to!

And there you have it - all done and ready for the wedding. I also painted this "Welcome" sign to put beside the guest book, but I'm not super happy with it, so I think I'll re-do it next time I'm home. :)

Wedding Hair

I just secured a makeup artist to do hair and makeup for me and my bridesmaids. Since then, I've been scouring Pinterest for hairstyle inspiration. While I normally wear my hair down, I am planning to wear it up for the wedding. I'm planning to get my dance on, and I don't want my hair to look stringy. :) Here are a few of my favorite up-dos that I've found.

Any wedding hair tips?

Found here: {Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3}

DIY: How To Paint Your Own Monogrammed Cornhole Set

Last weekend I spent the weekend in Georgia with my family, and my mom and I went into wedding DIY frenzy mode. Our largest project involved making our own cornhole set to use during cocktail hour at the wedding. I snapped a few photos on my iPhone (sorry for the poor quality!) throughout the crafting process, if you'd like to see. 

What You'll Need:

-Drop cloth

-Saw horses or something elevated to balance your cornhole set on while you paint

-Paint tray

-4'' or 6'' paint roller

-A few extra roller covers

-1 high quality paint brush

-Frog tape

-Con-Tact paper

-Eggshell paint & primer in white. We purchased 2 of these tintable samplers (we didn't add any color), and it was the perfect amount to paint 2 boards, paint the monogram, plus paint any touch up areas.

-1 qt. of paint tinted to whatever color you want to use. We used Behr Premium paint. 1 qt. is more than enough for multiple coats of color on each board.

-1 qt. of clear, fast-drying polyurethane. Again, 1 qt. is more than enough polyurethane for this project.

The first step is to make or buy an unfinished cornhole set. If you're handy, you can find several tutorials online to build a regulation cornhole game, including this one. I also suggest searching on Etsy and Craigslist for vendors in your area.

Before you start, make sure that you fill in any holes and then sand the surface of each board so it's smooth and ready to go.

I suggest putting down a drop cloth outside and placing the boards on sawhorses or something elevated to do your painting. You should definitely apply a layer primer to the boards before attempting to apply any color. We used samples of eggshell finish paint and primer in one, which worked perfectly. Make sure to apply a few layers of the primer to any areas that you'd like to tape off and leave white. We did this around the border and around the circle. Feel free to use a roller for the priming and painting but NOT for the polyurethane step at the end. More on that later! :)

The next step is to tape off any areas that you'd like to leave white. My favorite painters tape to use is FrogTape. We also used Con-Tact Paper that we had on hand to tape off the area around the circle. This step is completely optional, but I like the way the white contrast looks. We used a 9" paper plate to trace a circle on the Con-Tact Paper and then carefully pressed it down on the board to get all of the bubbles out. We later decided to add a "P" to the board - looking back, it would have been much easier to put Con-Tact paper down for the letter before painting the entire board orange. You live and you learn!

Next you should paint your entire board with whatever color you decided to use. We're using bright fall colors like orange and coral for our wedding, so we went with this bright, tangerine color. 

After we painted 2 coats of orange and it got nice and dry, we cut out two "P" letters out of Con-Tact paper and placed the stencil in the middle of each board. We painted three coats of the eggshell paint/primer combination inside of our stencil, waited for it to dry thoroughly, and then peeled it off gently.

At this point, you might want to take a small paintbrush and touch up any areas where the orange bled onto the white. It's pretty easy to touch it up, but I recommend using a really tiny brush!

Finally, you should take a high quality brush and paint on a layer of polyurethane. You should let the layer of polyurethane dry for 2-3 hours before painting on the next layer. The board should feel very smooth and dry (not sticky) before you paint your next layer. I recommend painting 4 layers in total. After 4 coats, you should take some very fine sand paper and lightly sand the entire surface of the board - make sure to go with the grain! Paint one final layer of polyurethane and let it dry completely. Once you do this, the boards should be sealed and very smooth.

The final step is to grab some friends, some beers, and test out the boards. We made our own beanbags too - I'll post a follow up tutorial next week. And there you have it - a cornhole tutorial just in time for summer BBQs and weddings. Happy playing everyone! xoxo