Fly Me to the [Honey]moon

As I went to write this post, I realized that our love story has been chronicled by Disney vacations. How fitting.

I had the opportunity to go with Emily on her very first trip to WDW. We were brand new friends/co-workers, and we had the most magical trip I think I've ever had. Being with Emily for the first time she saw the castle and meeting Minnie Mouse? This is what Disney is all about. 

Meeting Minnie Mouse!

The second trip we took together, we went back as friends. This time, we did the Disney-as-a-kid approach, meeting characters and collecting autographs. We also celebrated Emily's birthday. I typically associate this trip when I started to fall in love with Emily; right in the front of the castle, under the Wishes fireworks. Also, remember that one time on this trip that the brand new mine train ride caught on fire WHILE WE WERE IN LINE? 

In line for Be Our Guest lunch

The (now sadly discontinued) Jalapeno Cream Cheese pretzel

The following Spring, we opted for a cruise. We took a 7 day Disney cruise with our dear friend (and officiant!), Kristen. This trip marked when we first started dating. Kristen was also the first to know that were officially together. 

Captain Mickey!

In front of the ship in Cozumel, Mexico

We then went back to WDW in the Fall for a Halloween trip, and we dressed as Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse and classic Minnie.

Epcot International Bridge

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Costumes

The following spring we did another cruise, this time a short 3 day with a quick visit to EPCOT before we hit the seas. This trip, we also found Emily had been accepted to grad school. We de-boarded the ship and it was the first email we received when we had cellular access again. 

At Castaway Cay

Spaceship Earth

The next trip was our engagement! You can read more specifically about this in my very first blog post. 

Happily Ever After

Right after we got engaged in front of the castle.

And last but not least, we took our most recent trip on another cruise as a treat for Emily's mom. 

Just before boarding the ship

Funnel Vision

All of that being said...it's only fitting that we will be taking our honeymoon to Walt Disney World! It will Emily's 5th trip to WDW and my 12th. We are PUMPED!

I thought it would be fun to share our itinerary with you. We got to select our fastpasses this morning, so all of our plans are officially in place. We will be leaving for our honeymoon the afternoon after our wedding.

Also, here's a fun little tidbit. We started our disney/relationship journey when Wishes was the the castle fireworks show. On our honeymoon, we will be entering a new chapter with Happily Ever After as the castle fireworks show. Such a full circle moment. 

October 15, Day 1: Arrive for our stay at Caribbean Beach Resort

October 16, Day 2: EPCOT!

9:30a Fastpass+ for Test Track

10:50a Fastpass+ for Pixar Film Fest

12:35p Lunch at Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria

3:30p Fastpass+ for Spaceship Earth (thank the phoenicians!)

7:50p Dinner at Chefs de France

October 17, Day 3: Disney's Hollywood Studios!

10:50a Fastpass+ for Toy Story Mania

2:50p Fastpass+ for Rock'n'Roller Coaster

4:15p Fastpass+ for Tower of Terror

5:55p Dinner at 50s Prime Time Cafe

October 18, Day 4: Off Day

8:00a Breakfast at Kona Cafe

10:00a Spa Time

4:00p Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (any guesses what our costumes will be? IOU Disney Swag if you get it right!)

October 19, Day 5: Disney's Animal Kingdom

11:30a Fastpass+ for Kilimanjaro Safaris

1:30p Fastpass+ for Finding Nemo: The Musical

3:35p Fastpass+ for Avatar Flight of Passage

October 20, Day 6: Magic Kingdom

9:05a Breakfast at Be Our Guest

11:05a Fastpass+ for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

12:30p Fastpass+ for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

3:50p Fastpass+ for Peter Pan's Flight

4:30p Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern

October 21, Day 7: Disney Springs

9:15a Breakfast at The Wave

7:30p Dinner at Flying Fish

October 22, Day 8: EPCOT

9:45a Fastpass+ for Frozen Ever After

10:50a Fastpass+ for Spaceship Earth

12:10p Fastpass+ for Turtle Talk with Crush

ALL THE FOOD AND WINE

October 23, Day 9: Flight Home to Richmond 😭

These are only the scheduled things on our itinerary. There are so many other things we have planned that aren't tied to a schedule. It will be the most magical trip yet because I get to spend it with my WIFE.

Adventure is Out There!

Hello Friends!

It's been a while since my last post, which seems to be the common theme of this blog. And honestly, of our planning in general. Things have been very calm and standstill--good or bad, you decide. But, seeing as how we are now 80-some odd days out, we need to get our act together!

In a previous post, I shared how we were adding some "disnerdy" touches to our wedding. On that post, I shared our Up-inspired Card box. We also have a guest book to go with it!

I loved the idea of using an Adventure book for our guest book, especially when combined with the hand print mailbox. Turns out, to buy one is crazy expensive. And also nothing had everything we wanted. So, in typical Lexie fashion, I just made one myself!

I found this blank scrapbook for like $5 on sale online, with the red spine already attached. And, even better, I found the leather-esque fabric in the remnants bin, which meant it was also a steal! Y'all know I'm all about that clearance rack life.

I made what is essentially a pillow case in the shape and size of the book's covers, and slid them on. I then covered the seems with a little hot glue and ribbon. I sketched the letters on front cover and sewed them with my machine.

The best part about this is at our wedding, it will be out with some materials for guests to make special pages and pieces (sort of like a scrapbook). We wanted more than just people's signatures--we wanted something that people could put themselves into to really remember how they made our day special. Plus, we'll probably put photos in it after the wedding--an all-in-one collection of our big day.

 

Dill Eclair Groves

I realized I did a special post for our "first born" hound, Lavender, but Dill never got one of her own. So, here it is. The story of our sweet Dill.


Once Emily and I were both working 9-5, Lavender had a lot more alone time than she was used to. She just seemed sad all the time, and we felt terrible for leaving her alone for 8 hours a day. We had moved to a larger apartment, and decided that we both wanted and could afford adding a second dog to our family.

We started searching around all the shelters in the area (and there are a lot of them!) for another hound to catch our eye. We stumbled across an animal sanctuary called Caring for Creatures. This sanctuary is at the end of a long gravel road in the middle of rural Virginia--we didn't even know if our GPS was taking us to a real place when we turned down the road. What we discovered was an almost completely outdoors sanctuary. Caring for Creatures takes in animals that have had rough pasts. Most of their animals are being rehabilitated to find their forever homes, whether they have had trauma, health issues, or behavioral problems. They do some incredible things for these animals that most people would pass on.

We had read about one hound in particular that, based on her online profile, we thought sounded like a good match for Lavender. She was quiet, a little shy, and learning how to be a loved pet. Her story sounded a lot like Lavender's, plus her name was Rosie (a name that we thought would always be cute to pair with Lavender). When we arrived to CFC, they told us that Rosie was currently in the care of a foster family and wasn't at the sanctuary. While we waited for a chance to speak with her foster mom (who happened to be volunteering that day), they gave us a tour of the pens and introduced to a few other hounds.

We walked into one of the pens with two hounds. One of them went crazy and was running and barking all over the place. The other, a filthy freckled-face with big brown eyes came right up to us with a puppy look on her face and asking for pets. "Annie" had us hooked.

The Face that Won us Over

Because CFC was a pretty far drive from where we live in Cville, we brought Lavender along in case there was a potential adoptee to be tested for compatibility. We took Lavender and "Annie" to their play yard to see if they would get along. In typical hound nature, all they wanted to do was sniff down the entire place without even acknowledging each other.

We then went to the office to learn more about "Annie"'s back story. She was originally discovered by another area non-profit that helps owners provide adequate shelter for outdoor dogs. She had been tied to a tree in the woods for most of her life. When she was found, she appeared to have some blunt force trauma to her face. Her jaw was all kinds of messed up, and they were able to convince the owner to surrender her so she could receive the medical attention she so desperately needed. She had some pretty intensive surgery on her face, which removed most of the teeth on one side of her face and helped to set her bottom jaw back in place. I'll save you the gruesome photos they gave us from that surgery, but trust me when I say it was pretty intense. She still has a big knot on the bottom of her jaw and her tongue hangs out of the side of her face.

Dopey Dilly

Really, all this sweet hound needed was someone to show her a comfy, cozy home with endless amounts of love. We were the perfect match for that. Although the adoption process usually doesn't happen on the same day, we lucked out that our vet is open 7 days a week and able to provide a glowing reference on the spot. They felt good about the potential for relationship between "Annie" and Lavender, and allowed us to adopt her then and there to save us a trip back out from Cville.

Our First Family Photo

Happy to be going home. 

It took us the entire trip back to Cville to come up with her name. As much as we loved Rosie, it just didn't fit her. We finally landed on Dill Eclair Groves, both fitting to her and coordinating with her sister. We realized in hindsight, they also fit in the song "Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)," which is connected to Disney. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTjdZYTjBGI

Lavender and Dill are now the best of friends, and practically inseparable. They both look for each other if they are out of sight on a walk. They cuddle and wrestle. They give each other kisses and love nibbles. It's like they were destined to be together. The best part is that they make each other happy, which helps us worry less when they're home alone during work hours.

Dill is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met. She loves to be in the house, curled up on the cooshiest surface she can find, head on a pillow and covered in a blanket. She certainly takes advantage of the fact that she is no longer living tied to a tree. She struggled a bit with potty training, which is completely understandable for a dog that has never lived in a house. She has a hilarious, raspy wail that comes out when we come home. She will not let you stop petting her; she'll put her paw on you and give you an "excuse me?" look, and if that doesn't work, she'll move in as close to you as she can get. She's not a fan of the perceived threat that comes with screaming/loud noises in her space, so excited kids and adults make her nervous. She loves to chase squirrels and is obsessed with any and every dog she sees.

"Excuse me, why did you stop petting me to write a blog post?"

Instagram Famous!

The Invitations

We have finally started working on our invitations! 173 days to go and real, tangible wedding things are starting to happen!

We bought our invitations IONS ago. We found them randomly chilling in a clearance aisle at a Michael's craft store. This aisle had dozens of boxes of random invitations and other miscellaneous items that were so thrown about it looked like a tornado had blown it's way through.  We spent at least half an hour digging through the piles, hoping to find enough boxes that matched in a design that we liked for our invitations. Luckily for us, we were able to scrape enough of them together! We walked out of the store with all of our invitations for $45. The only thing left would be to print our information on them.

Special shout out to my office, the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA). While cleaning out basement storage, I found an old printer that had been sitting there for who knows how long (and not even sure if it actually worked). I asked if I could borrow the printer for our invitations, and they were generous enough to allow me to do so. With some tinkering and searching for the right number ink cartridge, Emily and I were able to get the printer to work! We settled on final layout and wording for our invitations and we are all ready to get them printed.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Y'all. Life has been so crazy. Emily and I keep having these moments where we have a chance to pause and we reflect on the fact that we have no idea where the time is going. It keeps passing and we don't even realize whats happening. I realize that I've been relatively absent on my blogging journey...the good news is that you haven't missed much. Until very recently, we haven't been doing much wedding work.

Today I thought that I'd share a bit of an update regarding our venue. It has been an interesting journey, to say the least!

Shortly after we were engaged in August 2016, we took a trip back to the Midwest for a wedding. While were there, we took the opportunity to browse around the area for some potential wedding venues. We visited 2 that were near my hometown in Illinois. After totally hating the first, we fell absolutely in love with the second. Emily even had a made-for-TLC moment and cried with overflowing emotion on the spot where our ceremony would be taking place. It was SO affordable, quaint, and fit perfectly with the motif that was guiding our wedding vision. We left there by putting a hold for our date with a promise from the venue owner/manager that we would focus on a contract at a later time (since we were more than 2 years away from our actual wedding date). We left there feeling great about our venue. It was a perfect fit. There were only a couple things about it that we weren't crazy about, but they certainly weren't deal breakers.

Fast forward several months, and we reached out to the owner/manager asking about a contract so we could sign and start making payments. We received a new version of the contract that we had browsed during our initial visit, but the price had gone up and what was included was a bit different than what was initially offered.  We had another visit to the Midwest planned for a few months later, so we scheduled a time to meet at the venue to officially sign everything. At the time, my mom was the only one of our parents to have seen the venue, so we also invited the rest of our parents to join us for a tour and dinner.  We all met up, and everyone fell in love with it as much as we had. It was still almost-as-perfect as it had been the first time we saw it.

The owner was out of town, but another manager planned to help us out in signing the contract. We explained the confusing difference in the two contracts that we had seen after she handed us a third version that was even more different and expensive. She said she would check with the owner when she returned. We signed a TBD contract and left without paying anything.

After much deliberation and some conversation about other options, Emily and I decided that the original venue no longer matched what we wanted or needed. It was going to be significantly out of our price range if we were not offered the original price we fell in love with, and those things we weren't crazy about were slowly becoming deal breakers. We decided that since we still had not officially booked the venue, that we would back out.

We then moved to a camp in my hometown. It was much more affordable and had a lot of bare bones with the freedom to create it was we wanted. It wasn't as perfect as the original venue, but it would do. Plus, because it was a summer camp, it had cabins that we planned to rent out for guests who wanted to stay on property with us. It was available for our date and the price was right, so we put our names down for the weekend.

We sent our save the dates out with our wedding website all set up with information about Oregon, IL. Two days later, a series of unfortunate events that were completely out of our control, that venue was no longer going to work.

Panic mode ensues.

We were now less than a year out from our wedding date and suddenly had no venue. We started calling any and every venue between Milwaukee and Oregon and nothing was available in our budget for October 13. October is apparently the new June when it comes to wedding dates, so the prime time Saturday we had been planning on for 2+ years was also booked well in advance for other couples.

Thankfully we were able to find a beautiful venue with the right price that was available the next morning. It seemed to have all worked out the way it was supposed to, because a morning/brunch wedding was so much more us than a traditional evening ceremony anyway.

SO. If you received a Save-The-Date from us, this is your official pre-invitation alert that our date is now Sunday, October 14, 2018.  Invitations will be making their way to you shortly.

Our new (and official all paid for) wedding venue is the South Shore Pavilion in Milwaukee, WI. It's a beautiful pavilion right on lake with huge windows and the freedom to essentially do whatever we want. And, special thanks to Emily's mom and her neighbors, we have some great photos they took while another couple was setting up for their wedding. We can't wait to turn it into the space of our dreams and share a special morning with our loved ones.

The Main Entrance to the Pavilion

The "cocktail hour"/kitchen area

The main hall