Wedding Celebrations

This weekend Justin and I attended Kristin's awesome engagement party. A few weeks ago Kristin and I planned Megan's engagement party!   So here we are 3 close friends all getting married in the same year 5 months apart!

 It is really special that we can all plan together. It ensures that there is always someone that will talk weddings with you without getting sick of it!  Megan and Brian got engaged first over St. Patrick's Day during their vacation in Asheville. Kristin and Brian were next in late May during an emotional time where they realized there was no better time than the present to get engaged. Justin and I were the most recent during my graduation celebration trip to Italy.  It was a very exciting time and we were each able to be really excited for one another.  We will all have great excuses to buy pretty dresses for all the parties and showers over the next 15 months.  The most special part is that we are all in each other's weddings! Megan my longest friend asked me to be her maid of honor. Kristin surprised me this weekend by asking me to be one of her bridesmaids!  I'm thrilled to be a part of both of their weddings - it's even more special knowing they will be standing next to me when I get married.

Megan and I 

Megan's engagement party was at the Lake house at Lake Johnson in Raleigh. I will highly recommend them for a party- they were great to work with and as long as you fill out an alcohol permit you are able to have beer/wine at your event. It is also a BEAUTIFUL venue with a great view of the lake and rocking chairs out front.  The place was spruced up with some pictures of the happy couple and flowers from the farmer's market.  I think everyone had a great time and were able to celebrate with Megan and Ryan.  

So Kristin knows this amazing cake baker and she always has our party cakes made through her. Isn't this super cute? To top it off- it was AMAZING- probably the most moist chocolate cake I have ever had.

Good old southern barbecue was on the menu by request of the groom :) Of course with german potato salad and cole slaw thanks to the help of the best mom ever! (Thanks mom!)

Kristin's friends Nora and Mandy planned her beautiful party. Everyone brought their favorite dish and then there was plenty of beer and drinks to go around.  There was a TON of food and a very nice mixture I bet Kristin and Brian are going to eat off of it for days!  The decorations were really cute as well (the ring that Kristin was wearing was picked out by Brians nephew...awwww!) 

I love this wine bottle torch I need to make one of these. I just love this decoration!

The happy couple!

Here's to a great wedding season starting next year in May! Love you girls!

October 25, 2014 at the Perfect Venue!

So we have a date and a venue!!! We are getting married October 25th at Adaumont Farm in Trinity, NC. YAYY! It was such a perfect venue and a great fit. I knew I wanted to get married there the first minute I stepped foot on the farm. Justin and my Mom just wanted to check the other places out to be sure :).  It will be an outdoor ceremony and a cocktail hour under the porch with the reception in the beautiful barn.  I'm very excited and have been able to think about all the little details because the place fits soo well! I don't want to give away the surprises so I'll have to be careful what I post on the blog.  For now here are some sneak peaks of the venue.

Our happily ever after is indeed going to start right here!!!

 Ceremony site with the grogeous pond and covered bridge in the background 

 Cocktail hour location

Inside of the barn.

I don't want to give too much away but I hope that this is enough of a treat to satisfy until you get to see the finished product in 14 months!  Justin and I with both of our families are so excited that we have this location. We will be thrilled to have all of our friends there to celebrate the start of our marriage. Can't wait to see you all there!

Venue Hunt Part 2

Sunday morning we got up with our heads still spinning from the night before.  We were all really tired but determined to see the rest of the weekend out. D'Neil decided to take a load off and go out on the boat with my dad so Laurie, Justin, Terri, Mom and I all piled in one car. It was back up the mountain to go see the Grove Park Inn.  When we pulled up I knew that it was going to be a contender.  It was beautiful! The view was great and the staff was very polite.  We were greeted by the head event coordinator and taken directly to the ceremony and reception site.  It had spectacular views.

The stone work on the front of the building was spectacular!  Very impressive as you come in.  The ceremony site was a porch in the back of the building with a great view of the mountains. Unfortunately the restaurant also had a great view of the ceremony site which made it feel less intimate. The place for cocktail hour was great! Then the reception area left me with something lacking. Though the space had a great view I wasn't impressed.  But the flowers were breathtaking. They were still set up from the wedding the night before and I was in awe!

 Then it was off to the "Country Club" which was part of the old hunt club and the place where we could hold the rehearsal dinner.  It had a great porch for playing corn hole and other yard games. Also a fire place for my ultimate want at the wedding- smores :).  Overall things were impressive and we were getting excited.

 While touring the rest of the complex we got this beautiful view of the spa. It is just beautiful isn't it? I knew I would feel like a movie star getting married at this location. The spa was great- though a bit pricey which I guess is what you expect from a world class spa. I was excited to have a "destination wedding" and be able to just have a great weekend with my friends and family. At this point we decided to cancel the next venue visit which was between Hickory and Thomasville because we were feeling like we found the one!  We were then able to enjoy a wonderful brunch buffet.

 The food was spectacular and the spread was amazing. It fulfilled yet another requirement that we want for the wedding- a place to have brunch on Sunday. It even came with complimentary champagne- what a great way to win a girl over :)

 We then headed back down the mountain with joy in our hearts that we had found a wedding venue.  We still had some debating to do - do we stick with Grove park inn or Adaumont farm??? It was going to prove to be a very difficult decision as I bet all of you can imagine.

The big reveal of our decision will be next :)

Wedding Venue Madness Part 1

I guess I should start blogging about wedding planning! Three weeks ago we visited a venue called Adaumont farm in Thomasville, NC. It was amazing, beautiful and was exactly what I imagined for my wedding. It was the first venue that we had explored and Justin felt that it was important to see the others even though I was ready to sign on the dotted line that day!

 I had the last weekend of July set up as the "venue weekend."  I found all the venues between Winston and Asheville that interested both my  mom and I and had them booked to perfection.  Justin then nixed a few (which now I am glad that he did!) and reduced our list from 9(!) to 6.  Our stop Friday got cancelled so we had some extra time to load up the extra washing machine that has been taking up crazy amounts of space in our tiny garage and schlep it to Hickory.  Picking up Laurie on the way we picked up the dinner of champions (Bojo's) and were on our way to Hickory. The next morning we woke up to monsoon weather.  Our first stop was in Hickory to the Mostellar Mansion.  It is a beautiful house but we would have had to break up our guests into 3 separate dining rooms and we felt that wasn't sufficient. Though the manager is a great friend of the family so it was a hard choice not to go with this venue- if anyone is having a smaller wedding I highly recommend this venue! Then we were off to Asheville with the first stop being The Crest Center and Pavilion   The weather had cleared up and was gorgeous by the time we got up there.  The place was very pretty and the views were fantastic.  It just didn't really speak to us. The people seemed very nice and easy to work with.

The ceremony site was beautiful and had a great view! I really am a mountain girl at heart!

The next stop was the Biltmore. I was expected to be and was BLOWN AWAY.  I loved these venues! There were three that would work for our numbers, Lionscrest, Deerpark, and Diana. First up was Lionscrest which had a beautiful ceremony site (inside so no rain plan needed!) and a great outdoor place for the cocktail hour and then a very pretty place for the reception.  It felt great. Good friends Jason and Katie got married here last October and loved this venue.

Then we were off to Deerpark. This venue is a square building with a courtyard in the center of the site.  It was beautiful but I had a hard time invisioning the guests being in a C shape around the courtyard. 

The ceremony site of this venue was BREATHTAKING! I loved it very much.

Diana was pretty - it was a blank slate because the tent was not furnished at the time of us looking at it, but the view was great!

Justin and I with the view from Diana in the background.

We left the Biltmore excited and thought that we found a really big contender for Adaumont farm. The consensus was that we all loved Lionscrest the most.  After this venue it was off to Brown Mountain Beach Resort. This place was about an hour away from our house in Hickory. It is adjacent to a campground and would really be a weekend getaway for the whole family and bridal party. Small cabins come with the property and most people get married on the "beach." The Beach is actually the bank of a river that courses through the property.  Unfortunately all that rain I talked about earlier- they got it too and the beach was non-existent. The river that is actually a shallow calm body of water on normal days looked like a great place to go white water rafting that day! 

I loved the place but it was a bit too rustic for Justin and Mom. Which to be fair it was a complete 180 from Biltmore to this.  I always thought I wanted a very rustic wedding with a fun weekend camping adventure.  So this fit right in for what I always thought I wanted.  I realized though I couldn't imagine Justin getting married here. Which as you will see later was the case with me and another venue on Sunday. So I moved on and we left the first day of the venue hunt with our top choices being Biltmore and Adaumont.