I am getting married in 47 days, which still feel likes a lifetime away... althought at one point it was over 365 days away.....

 

 

 

I'm getting married in 100 days!

So, instead of studying, like I should be. I'm on the internet.. of course.. I graduate on Saturday, CRAZY! Unforunately, I have 3 finals on Thursday... which I am not looking forward to any of them. I also have to go to class tomorrow night from 6-9pm... I am SO ready for Thursday to get here!

 

Oh and check out our awesome new blog

 

http://www.grayandbecca.com/blog 

So classes end in 3 days and then I graduate in less than two weeks.

 

AHHHHH

 

Oh and Gray and I have a new blog:

 

http://www.grayandbecca.com/blog

 

Check it out! 

So I have 4 more days of class... forever...

 

It feels so strange to think that in a week I'll be done with class. Craziness. My schedule for the next two and a half weeks is kind of crazy.

 

Monday - presentation

Tuesday - 3 papers due.. yes 3; and Makeup class final and portfolio due

Wed - last day of class

 

Then I have a take home final due the Monday of finals and 3 finals on Thursday 

 

 

crazy 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I spent today with my family and tomorrow with my future-in-laws. 

Seriously... I thought living in the apartment would be nice, but the people below us play loud music ALL THE TIME. Is it really neccessary? No it is NOT. ugh. I'm tired of calling the cops on them.
On another note, I'm getting married in exactly 6 months!

So today Gray and I ordered his wedding ring, which I got for a steal of a price. Yay!
We're almost down to 6 months and we have our first pre-marital counseling session in a week. It's kind of early, but I think Britt is spreading the sessions out some since we have a while. wee!!
I have also finalized the bridesmaid dress and location of dress.. now to get those ordered and get a list of pictures for my photographer. It's starting to finally get busy!

I am getting married in 7 months!

This may seem like a long time for some of you, but I've been engaged since January... 9 months to be exact, so 7 months to go is GREAT!
By the time I graduate I will be down to 5 months... AHHH!!!

So it turns out that my friend Devin, who took those engagement pictures, is going to take pictures from my wedding! I am SOOO excited about this.
Talk about finally hearing some good news about the wedding... now if only the rest of this stuff would go smoothly!

A lot of the time I will look at theknot.com or weddingbee.com to get inspirational ideas for my wedding. Right now, I'm not doing major planning because school and work on my life, but I like to get a few things accomplished.

 

This month I've been working on figuring out what hotels in our area are going to cost for our guests. I've managed to find a few good deals and later this month I'm going to call and set aside some rooms for our guests and wedding party people.

 

Another item I've been looking at is bridesmaid dresses. In my head, I know exactly what I want and so I'm just trying to find it in a reasonable price range and with sizes to fit all my girls. 

 

The thing that I find most annoying is that David's Bridal, where I got my dress, will not have their spring collection out until January... less than 5 months before my wedding. I would rather start making a decision before the holidays so my girl can be ordering their dresses before January. I've looked at a few places and the ones I've really liked are all from aftersix.com. 

 

I'm either going with clover or moss, I need to see the color in person.  

 

I'm excited to go and see the dresses with my girls and I'm excited to buy wedding invitations soon! Gray and I have decided what we want and now all we need to do is buy them and diy! 

We had a friend of ours take some more engagement pictures. And here they are:

 

photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo



photo from becsaboo

We're very happy with them. :)

 

I still can't believe I am getting married in under 8 months, it seems so surreal. 

 

So, my life has been crazy the past two weeks. Taking 21 hours definitely is a challening thing and I hope I can manage it all semester long. Thankfully, my job is easy and I can do my homework there. I get paid to do my homework.
It's now about 8 months away from the wedding and I'm starting to feel better about certain things. Friday afternoon Gray and I met up with a friend of ours to shoot some engagement pictures. We did some in the spring but I wanted to wear this great new dress I got and we definitely wanted some fun ones to add to the others. So, we asked a friend of ours and he agreed. I think that from what I saw, they are going to turn out amazing. He also was able to use us for models in some photos for his photography class roll. It was a lot of fun. I'm definitely going to start saving up money if I can and putting it towards photography for the wedding because that's something that's very important to me. I know who I want and I know that right now its out of the question because of my family's financial situation. However, I also know that I have 8 months to go and that's a lot of time to come up with money. So, we'll see what happens. Some changes occured over the summer. For example, I asked a good friend to be a bridesmaid, one of my bridesmaids pulled out (very good excuse, missions trip for a year in another country) and I asked a good friend to be a honorary bridesmaid. So I have 4 bridesmaids, a junior bridesmaid, and 3 honorary ones...
As far as planning goes, I haven't been doing much. My timeline says to look at dresses, talk to hotels for the guests out of town, and I think to look at cakes and flowers. My florist said come back closer to the wedding, the cake might be made by my aunt, I looked up hotels but need to call to set aside rooms and I know what the bridesmaid dress will look like, but must wait until January to start buying them with the girls.
So, that's it for planning. We sent out save the dates two weeks ago and will be sending out more soon to my family.  I'm in the midst of working on the favors and next up will be the invitations... craziness. 
Well, time for some sleep, I must get a lot done tomorrow.

Week one: I've determined that I will make it this year. I am taking 21 hours of classes and I have a job... 14 hours each week working at the desk in a dorm. It's a crazy busy schedule, but I think I'll be just fine. I get paid to do my homework and then some. 
As far as life, it's intersting right now. I'm loving living off campus with my roomies. I have the best roomies ever. I'm loving the time I get to spend with Gray, although it's brief. I am just loving life right now.
It's hard to believe that I graduate in 3 1/2 months and get married in 8... crazy!

So Gray and I finally mailed off about half of our save-the-date postcards today. We actually mailed 40, all his side. Now I just have to figure out who my mom hasn't given one to on our side. 
The past week has been great and exciting, as well as tiring. I moved into my new apartment on Sunday and I've been adjusting to it. I absolutely love it here. SOOOO much nicer than living on campus. I love haivng a kitchen to make my own food in. It's much cheaper and actually fun to look for things to make it more homey. We've done some re-arranging and organizing to fit us in a bit better. We need more storage space. 
Since I've been here our air conditioning went out. That was not exactly fun... two days of a sauna. I am unpacked though and ready to start classes. I even already have an assignment.
Yesterday I went to desk assistant training and I start work Sunday at the Corlew desk. I'm working 14 hours a week which means I'm basically getting $340 or so a month. More than I made as a RA last year. Pretty sweet deal considering my schedule is crazy! My hours are all morning hours MWF except on Sunday afternoons. I'm pretty happy with that. 
I'm just enjoying the last few days of summer vacation. I have to finish the rest of the postcards, do my frequent flyer miles, and work some on the favors so I will have it all done before school starts back. 

Well, I am moved in to my apartment in Murfreesboro. Now I just need to unpack and get settled. 

So, I arrived back at my house last night. Today has been spent playing The Sims 2 a lot and making a few phone calls.

 

I received a phone call from the Goodlark Education Foundation in Dickson. They are offering me a $1,000 scholarship for this fall to help me finish my degree. I am estatic! God has provided back all the lottery money I am not receiving and more! It's been amazing to see what has come in. 

 

I also received a phone call from my good friend Shannon today. It turns out that because of financial reasons, she's not going to be able to be in my wedding in May. She has a good reason though. Shannon is going to Slovakia for one year to be a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ. She can not afford to come back in May... it's completely understandable and I'm perfectly ok with it. I'm just sad she won't be there to see my big day and be a part of it.

 

Aside from that, I'm pleased to say that Gray and I have finalized (minus a few details) our guest list! It was a lot of work but we've managed to do it. Next week we'll begin the exhausting fun of mailing out save-the-dates. I'm excited because now I can start looking for invitations and deciding how I'm going to do my invitations. I know, I have 8 months to go, but I'm determined to be stress free about the wedding and the best way I know to do that is to get things done early.

 

Speaking of wedding... Gray and I got an email from Carnival the other day. The cruise we were going to take to the Bahamas was cancelled because the ship needed to be repaired. So we've re-booked another Bahamian cruise that's a day shorter with them. We'll be staying our first night at the Brentwood Hilton Suites Hotel before flying to Florida and boarding the cruise ship Sensation at Port Canaveral. At this point we're trying to decide if we'd like to stay in Orlando at the Walt Disney World resort a night or two. I'm really up for that because I love Disney and would love to go back, I miss it. Right now we're not too sure what are options are. Gray has family in Orlando that can get us into the parks for free and possibly a reduced hotel room rate. We're going to ask them if they would be willing to help us out with that before we plan the rest of the honeymoon. I'm so thankful that the cruise is almost paid for and that our first night is taken care of. So much stress off my shoulders!

 

Well, I am off to enjoy the rest of my night. Tomorrow Gray and I are going to Murfreesboro. We need to put some stuff in our storage unit and I need to go and fill out payroll for my job.

So, my parents and I had decided that I would take a small student loan out for this last semester. We accepted the loan via pipeline over a week ago. Today we took action into our own hands.

Apparently I was supposed to fill out an application and then I'd get my prom. note to sign. Thanks MTSU for letting me know this.

 

I've now taken care of this and signed the prom. note online. I'm only going in debt about $3,000 but since my mom is not working, it was neccessary. Between the loan, scholarship money and our last bit of college savings, I have enough money for tuition, books, food for this semester and my apartment's rent for the entire 12-month lease. This is great becaus e we'll be able to pay for the year up front and get almost a month's worth of rent for free. Great savings and it's one less thing to worry about later.

 

Aside from all of that, today I decided was going to be the day I made a list of everyone I'm inviting to my wedding. This way I know how many invitations I'll need... etc. We're not completely done, but we have around 150 written down with Gray's family still needing to contribute some more.

 

blah to planning 

This entry is long over due because I started working on it over a week ago.

 

While we were in Sweden, Gray and I came across these rubber ducks. I had a rubber ducky bathroom theme in high school and so I started collecting rubber ducks. Well, Gray saw this when we first started dating and told me I'd have a collection by the time we got married. I now probably have 15-20 and we couldn't resist adding these two to the collection. These will probably be used on the wedding cake as toppers. Notice my rubber ducky bathrobe in the background. ;) 

 

photo from becsaboo When I set out to do favors for the wedding, I knew immediately I wanted something that would save money and be practical. We chose from the beginning to use the bubbles as favors.
photo from becsabooSo I watched and found a great sale and managed to buy all the bubbles for our wedding for under $25. Then I took ribbon that is in our colors (pink and green) and wrapped it around. The finishing touch were favor tags that I printed off myself. 


photo from becsaboo
It's nothing too original but it's a start to helping the wedding be cost effective. Since our budget got a lot tighter over the past few months, I'm trying a lot of diy ideas out. I would like to even make my veil myself if possible. So, we'll see what happens. 

 

So I woke up today to the sound of my mother stating I had mail. It was a letter from the lady who gives me a private scholarship. We had called her office to ask if I could get the scholarhsip one more semester. She agreed so the letter was the usual letter sent to me about the money.

 

It seems like my time at home has gone by very slowly but also very fast. I leave Friday to go to Memphis for a week and when I get back I have a few short days at home and then it's off to Murfreesboro for the year! I'm definitely excited for the new changes.

 

I'm going to be living at University Gables with three of my best friends until I get married.

 

The time at home has been good but I've been going crazy with boredom. 

 

It feels like there is no time to get anything accomplished, although I know there is.

 

My room is pretty much packed up. That feels strange. I've been trying to leave some things because I feel I won't need them, like my stereo system. We'll see I guess.

 

This past weekend was wonderful because I got to get out of the house and see some good friends. Friday night, Gray and I went to see Bourne: Ultimatium. It was a good, but dizzying movie. Saturday we drove to Hickory Hollow Mall to hang with Kelsey, picked up Shannon and visited Jenny and Alice at home before catching dinner with Shannon. It's hard to believe that Jenny and Shannon are going to be gone for a year and Kelsey will be away in another state. Crazy.  I'm learning that it's not goodbye forever though, just for now.

 

Well, I am off to enjoy the relaxation time I have.