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Friday, May 7, 2010

We have reached the 6 month mark!

Where do I begin! SO much has happened since the last time I wrote. Well for starters May 1st was our 2 year Anniversary from the day that Austin asked me to be his girlfriend, ahhh! Oh what a story that is and I won't go into it now but it was 1 of the most wonderful days of my life. We love to celebrate our love for each other so we are planning to go on an all day date tomorrow to celebrate. On May 1st our precious Watkins family (Austin's sister Courtney & her fam) were preparing to leave the next day to move to Belgium. So wonderful for them but so sad for us. It was an emotional day so we decided to celebrate this weekend instead. So tomorrow we will celebrate 2 wonderful years together!!

The biggest thing as far as the wedding? umm....I FOUND MY DRESS!!!! We all loaded up on a Saturday morning and headed to Dallas to shop for my wedding dress. My Momma went of course and I had most of my bridesmaids with me, which made it that much more fun! It was the most perfect day, the sun was shining and it was such a beautiful day. So we go to 1 shop that was so adorable but not a lot to choose from. Then we go to another shop and that is where it was. It's funny how finding "the dress" works because I went in thinking I knew exactly what I wanted. I had pictures to show, the exact fabric I wanted, and then Courtney said, "Hannah you need to try on all kinds of wedding dresses because you never know if you will fall in love with something you TOTALLY never thought you would wear." WELL thats exactly what happened! We walked into the store and there was this girl I saw with this dress on (my dress), and I thought, WOW thats stunning. All my girls of course said, YOU have to try it on, so I did to please them. Well as soon as my Mom helped me into it my heart changed. When I looked in the mirror I just KNEW it was the one! I never thought in a million years I would get the dress I got BUT I ADORE IT WITH MY WHOLE HEART!!! It's beautiful and stunning in every way imaginable! I hate that I will only be able to wear it once! I think I may wear it to all my sisters weddings, that wouldn't be weird, would it?

The 1st little dress shop we went to was so quaint and cute but they had very limited dresses but we got some cute pictures to start our day off.



This is me of course hunting through the dresses.



Then we went up the street to another bridal shop & that's where my dress was waiting for me!!
Can you tell I'm up in the clouds?



My Maid-of-Honor! I love her!! Notice her pin?



This is a pose we have often done together when we are so excited!



And it was natural to do it with 1 of my new sisters!



And that is all I can show for now.... 

After we found "The Dress" my Mom took us all to an awesome lunch at Bread Winners Cafe in Dallas. It was so much fun to have a nice relaxing lunch together. Here was where I formally asked the girls to be in my wedding. Of course they all knew already but I wanted to write down my reasons as to why I wanted them to stand by my side on my big day. I got a few to cry so my job was done. Here's a few pictures of our lunch.

Rachel went before we left for the day and got me this sash & it came with a tiara/veil and a bride button. She knows I'm so sentimental and this is something I can keep from our day of FINDING my dress!!



Here are some of them reading their letter I wrote them.



And this is all of us in front of the restaurant. Of course Mom is taking the pictures and I did get 1 with her but I'm in MY DRESS!!



So that was my AWESOME day of finding my dress with some of my most favorite people!!


A few weeks before looking for my dress my Mom and I took all my little girls that are going to be in my wedding to have a "Princess Tea" - everyone was there but my little Lyric who is living in Belgium now. I wanted to make them feel SO SPECIAL, like a little Princess, and give them some special prizes & formally ask them to be in our wedding. It was such a lovely lunch. They all felt very special all dressed up and at a big girl Tea Room. We had Princess Lemonade and fancy sandwiches and fruit. Then to top it off we went to McDonalds for ice cream and to play (enough of that foo-foo stuff).

Here is a little video of me explaining to the girls all their Princess goodies.


Here are a few pictures of us at our "Princess Lunch"

Kadyn and I are waiting to order our Princess food.



1 of my 3 Flower Girls - Kaylie Grace and her special Princess Lemonade.



Kaylie is my miracle cousin. She is like a niece to me. Her Mom is my
1st cousin & like a sister to us girls. We thank Jesus for our KK.



Ashlyn will be my Jr. Bridesmaid (Grant will be Austin's Jr. Groomsman) 
and Layla will be another 1 of my Flower Girls. Layla is my precious cousin 
(her Dad and my Mom are brother & sister) and I was her Nanny when 
she was a baby. I love their matching dresses!



My little Watkin nieces!! Maddy and Kadyn are going to have a special honor
at the wedding and be our Candy Girls. They will be passing out candy at the
reception (that would have been my dream job as a kid).



And here they all are, but Lyly: ( -- aren't they the most precious little
girls you ever did see? They all have such a special place in my heart!!



I think they will all be ready for the millions of pictures that will
be taken of them. YAY!!



It's really hard to believe that our wedding is 6 months away. We have been engaged for 3 months and now things are kicking into gear for the wedding. All of the big things have already been decided on and the planning is moving forward! My Mom designed our darling "Save the Date" cards and most of them got sent out this week. We are working on projects, shopping for things, and planning all the little details. Our work days will really start next month because I will be off from my job for a whole month. I will be using that time to get a lot of things done. My Mom has been just amazing to do so many things to help with the planning and executing my dreams. We talk and talk and talk about all the things that I want and then she gets it done. It's such a load off of me with a full time job to know that it will be so perfect in every way. My Aunt Toni (our wedding is going to be at her house) has already spent so much time with my Mom making detailed plans, shopping and researching every aspect of the day. She is so wonderful and such a blessing to my Mom and of course to Austin and I. I really don't know how I will repay her and my Uncle Mike. Aunt Toni is so selfless and giving and wonderful. I can't wait for everyone to meet her! I feel Jesus pouring out His love on me when He so wonderfully puts people like my Aunt Toni in my life. All my family is just simply amazing. My Aunt Tricia is helping with her expertise which is decorating and flowers and HUMOR! ALL of my family when it's all said and done will have a huge part to play in my wedding day and that makes me 1 of the most blessed brides on the planet. 

My Mom has meetings with my Aunts often and she is going to bring home homework for us to accomplish & a deadline to have it done. Our goal is to do stuff little by little so we aren't crunching/going crazy the last month. This past week we had our 1st bit of homework to do & we all worked hard to get it done. Well of course I recruited my "bridesmaids" and anyone else in the house to help. Believe it or not I even got the Groom and the FOB to help!! Here are some pictures of that.

Don't we look like we are just loving this little job we are doing??



NOT!! At 1st we thought, OK, this is good and then 200 candles 
later we felt like this...


And the FOB & my Groom (were big helps?), Austin was jumping up
constantly to check the Ranger game out but they did help! 


Here is what the guys did. Of course we had to go back and trim
them up because they couldn't do that. 


That is the 1st of our "Wedding Jobs", COMPLETED! We are going to try to 
love and enjoy every second of this process.


That is an update of me becoming The FUTURE Mrs. Benjamin!! I'm sure I have left many details out and I've figured out I'm not so good at keeping up with this blog of mine. I won't even promise to do better because I probably won't! But I do feel as though this blog is 4 in 1 so enjoy that. Next big thing to tackle is our WEDDING INVITATIONS because they are going to be awesome and very unique!! Our Save the Date will be clearer when you see the awesome invitation! 

So until next time everyone, bye for now!


Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Oh the JOYS!!

WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING!!!!


Hello blog world. I wanted to start a blog for family & friends that are out of town about the updates of our wedding planning. Since this is my 1st blog I will chat about random things but the biggest updates regarding the planning is as follows: the date is set, November 6th 2010. the venue for the wedding ceremony and reception has been decided on, my wonderful Uncle Mike & Aunt Toni's house (i will talk later about that, in more detail). the look of the wedding/food/colors/invitation ideas/ideas for save the date cards/table settings/decorations/desserts/drinks/THE wedding party/who is singing/who is going to marry us---has all been decided. Well after looking at that list I feel very accomplished! OH!!! The BIGGEST of all has been planned and booked, the HONEYMOON!!! YES!! We will be leaving on November 7th for wonderful, gorgeous, beautiful Cabo San Lucas. Next blog I will learn to post a link and show you all the awesome resort we will spend a week at!!


But on to some random thoughts of mine. Nobody warned me how difficult this would be at times! I mean I love it so much but it does at times get incredibly stressful for a gal like myself! Good thing I have an amazing Mother and Aunts who are doing most of the work...I told them what I want it to look like, the colors and they have pretty much just run with it! They send me ideas of things in emails and I say yes or no. Pictures are flying on the internet between my Mom, a few of my Aunts and myself. My recent purchase of my new computer will make this process so much easier. They have been wonderful to spend the time to search out things for our wedding! I'm so grateful for them!! Having a full time job makes it hard to find the time. I work 9 hr days & my commute is an hour 1 way so it's a grand total of an 11 hr work day! Don't get my wrong I LOVE my job and I love my little Lively girl (she is the baby that I Nanny & I'm sure she will make this blog in the future), but it does make me not have hardly any time to do things for my wedding.

I think the thing that has been the most challenging through this process of planning our wedding has been the "Guest List", WHAT a drag!!! I have a HUGE family & lots of friends of my own & family friends and my beloved fiance has not so much a huge family but a HUGE church family & friends!!!! Oh and did I mention we have room to invite 230 PEOPLE, that's 115 peeps for each of us to invite! REALLY??? Seems like a lot, but when you see the guest list that we started out with and then have had to slowly revise, you would be simply amazed!!!! So other then that, this whole thing so far has been a breeze! Where my head is at this moment would be to take every moment in! I will never get this time with my family back! I realize that I have less then 8 months left at home with my wonderful family and I don't take that for granted. I don't want to be that girl who gets lost in her wedding and forgets about everyone else around her! I love my family and friends so dearly and I would never want to make them feel as though a wedding is more important to me then they are! ALTHOUGH a wedding is a once in a life time thing, I do know that but I would much rather spend this time with family rather then being all consumed by wedding plans!

Well I guess I should talk about my lovely fiance, who is clearly the reason why I'm getting married! ha, ha :-) Since I was a little girl, like most girls, I have dreamed about and prayed for my husband! I would think about the simple things like, laying around watching TV, cooking, cleaning, buying things for our home, and serving him just as much as he serves me! Now here I am 234 days until I get to do all those things! But one thing is for sure, I COULD of never dreamed that I would be marrying a man as AMAZING as my beloved Austin! He's just wonderful! He's such a selfless thinker and an AMAZING leader in this relationship! The key thing in our relationship and in EVERYTHING is the Lord first and then everything that comes after that! His goal has always been to make me the happiest gal in the world and he has FAR outdone himself! The kind of love and passion we have for one another is something a movie just simply can't portray. He really does complete me in every way imaginable! I didn't know that there were things in me until he brought them out! There was always a missing piece in me until my love came! There is something about being SO vulnerable to another human being. Where they know everything about you, they know your faults, they know your likes and dislikes, they know whats going on in your head by a simple look. Its crazy to me that he sees ALL those things and still loves me and loves EVERYTHING about me! My favorite thing about Austin is how he shows me the love of Christ! Everyday that I am with him I realize how deeply the Father loves me! Hearing the way Austin expresses his love towards me and knowing that the Father's love IS WAY more intense, it's unfathomable to think about at times!!!! I just couldn't be any happier or in love with a man, then I am right now! Everyday I think to myself (I SO don't deserve this wonderful, selfless, loving, kind, passionate, gracious, servant, hard working, goodlooking, PERFECT in my eyes, MAN, whom will be MY husband forever!) That's another thing that's crazy, for the rest of my life I know that He (Austin) is the man I will wake up to and go to sleep with every night for the rest of my life! I find true comfort and joy in knowing that reality! He is mine and I am his, forever and ever! Thank you Jesus for allowing me to have such a precious gift!

OK, enough of the mushy stuff. The next thing on the list to go do is bridesmaid dress shopping with my girls. That is going to happen on April 10th. I may look for my dress on that day but that will probably happen in the Summer. But because Courtney is moving, we need to get this done before she moves: (

So here are some ideas of bridesmaid dresses that I like that I will share with you all because I hear that blogs without pictures are BORING.

All 3 sisters in these would be presh & i'm not sure on the umbrellas...














I can see Destiny looking GREAT in this...


















Wouldn't Holly & Landon be cute in something like this?



















I'm so torn because I think Courtney would be so precious in this
and really all the girls would!





















KIDDING!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOSH those are UGLY!!
I want my girls to look & feel beautiful and I'm sure they will be the most beautiful bridesmaids ever!

Well that's all I have for now! Until next time that is!

-The future Mrs. Benjamin-