Best Day Of My Life

As promised, I'm here to share all the details of the most wonderful day of my life.

The day started at 8am... after a night of girl talk and giggling, we finally went to bed around 2am only to awake up early the next morning. Tina, my hairstylist, came to the hotel to do my hair for me. She did such an amazing job and I couldn't be happier. We weren't able to get together to do a trial run so she did it based on pictures I had printed and pictures I'd sent her from my bridal portraits. Thanks Tina for such an amazing job!

Afterwards, mom and I headed to get our make up done at Macys with Clinque.  That's when I got the first phone call of the day telling me it was an hour after the time the Officer's Club said we could come and no one was there, except for my two bridesmaids trying to get in. I told them to call me as soon as they got in. About 30 minutes later, things were fine.

It was a little after Noon when I reached the venue and I wanted to check everything out to make sure things were going the way I wanted. I was nervous at all. We had a room for all of us to get ready and it had plenty of windows for us to look out to see what was going on.

First Look

Soon after the photographer arrived and that's when time started flying by. We were taking lots of pictures, having fun, and getting me dressed.

Dave and I decided that we wanted to see each other before the ceremony, not only to calm our nerves but for the beautiful pictures that come from it. I've seen so many great pictures from this moment, I couldn't pass it up. We had the perfect location.  Out to the side of the lawn of the Officer's Club is a bridge, so that's where the photographers took Dave, giving me the chance to walk up behind him. It was a priceless moment, just like I hoped for. He actually cried moments after turning around and seeing me there in my wedding dress.. just an hour or so away from becoming his wife. After a few moments to ourselves, we were whisked away for pictures.

We then noticed guests were starting to arrive, so I took off back to our room and the guys hung out in the reception area. We also let guests hang out in there as it was like 90 degrees outside and no breeze. The ceremony started about 15 minutes late as it was Retiree Appreciation Day on base as well so the front gate was backed up, and there were still a lot of guests waiting to get on base.

The ceremony was by no means perfect, but perfect to use. Everyone looked amazing standing up at the front as a I walked down the aisle. I loved the parasols and how it looks from this picture and I know the girls enjoyed them since it was rather warm. I have to admit and always will, I did jump the gun on the "I Dos". I heard Mary Louise (our officiant) pause when reading the the vows and I jumped in and said "I Do" when she actually had another line to read.

Jumping The Gun on "I Do"

The guys wore aviator sunglasses during the ceremony, including Dave but when I looked into his "eyes" or glasses, all I could see was my reflection, So I took them off of him during the ceremony so I could see.

During the exchanging of rings, Ryan, the best man decided to play a little trick. He handed Dave the ring box... and it was empty. Then he decided to be silly and act like he didn't know where the rings were. He then pulled them out of his pocket... and I had trouble getting the ring of Suzanne's finger.. it was stuck for a quick second.


We had one part of the ceremony we had to skip over and come back to later on. We wanted to give our mom's roses as a representation of our love and thanks for everything. It was supposed to happen near the beginning of the ceremony but someone forget to put the roses on the table. But the coordinator was able to get them and had the guys pass them up to us.

And the only other issue we had.. well I did was during the sand ceremony.. it took forever.. and I kept spilling my sand on the table.. Oh well! lol

Mr. & Mrs. Turner!

I'll stop here and come back at a later time to recap the reception.. that's something you won't want to miss.
Where else where you find a gamecock, pink converse sneakers and groomsmen running around without their shirts..... Um that would be our reception! Stay tuned....

Cake Tasting

One of the things I think Dave was looking forward to the most...and I have to admit I was to..was cake tasting. We've been looking online and asking for recommendations on Facebook from friends for wedding cake bakeries in the Columbia-area and options were pretty slim. It seems there are only three or four popular places that people use.

We used one of the more popular ones for our engagement party cake... I loved the way it turned out. It was exactly what I asked for....the only problem.. the cake was VERY dry and the icing had no taste. There was some fondant on there... like the endzones, yard markers and the stars but I just wasn't pleased with it...especially for the price we paid. So after that experience, I knew I wouldn't go back there. Plus the day I picked up the cake, the baker/owner wasn't very pleasant.

So I continued to search... I heard a lot about one place in West Columbia that's pretty well known....but I wasn't pleased with the things I saw on the website... so I Googled....googled...and googled..... and out of no where, I found... Parties To Go. Carol Sturkie is the sole baker/employee who's been in business for 30 years. I spoke with her by phone last week and was pleased to talk to her and what she had to say. So we made an appointment for this past Saturday to have a consultation.

Mom, Dave and I ventured out to her bakery shop, which also happens to be out in West Columbia.. and completely fell in love with Carol. Her bakery smelt amazing as soon as we walked in. And her cake...omg! It was amazing! Her wedding cake is a cream cheese pound cake...delicious!!! I showed her what I had in mind.... I wanted this cake exactly as it is...except I wanted orange and pink..rather

than the yellow of course. I told her off the bat I didn't want it completely covered in fondant so the plan is for the cakes to be covered in butter cream icing with the dots only being done in fondant. The layers in between the cake will be done in pink.. with the majority of the circles b ein g done in orange tones and the smaller dots will be pink! And her pricing... it can't be beat!
I really can't wait to see what Carol does for us come May.

In the mean time... Dave kept talking about wanting a cake for this weekend's football tailgate. It's the weekend (other than the wedding) we have been looking forward to. Carolina and Tennessee will take to the gridiron Saturday. So after we ordered/discussed the wedding cake, Dave and Carol talked about a cake for the tailgate.. I'm not sure what the plan is or what's going to be on the cake so I guess we will wait and see.

One other thing we completed this past weekend was the ceremony planning. Mary Louise, a friend of mine and girlfriend of my college professor, will be marrying us. Dave and I had dinner with her and Dick Saturday night to kind of catch up and plan the ceremony. So that is pretty much done... Lots of things getting checked off the TO DO list... with a lot still left to do.

One other thing I hope to complete this week is to pick out the font for the invitations. The print company who is doing out invitations is in West Ashley and we are living in Summerville now... so it's like a 25 to 30 minute drive over there.

Until next time...

Moving On Up....

The last few days of our lives have been crazy! We have packed up and left our apartment in West Ashley after hundreds of problems and am now living in a beautiful place in Summerville.... moving up the interstate, a little closer to my family by about 25 minutes! It's been a transition getting used to light switches, having more space, and climbing three flights of stairs as our apartment is on the third floor. 

It's a fairly new complex...only two years old and a place we plan to call home until we buy a house.  I can't thank our friends enough for helping us with the move... I know once they found out it was the third floor, they wanted to run and hide. So a big thanks to Geoff and Vicki, Gino & Elisha, Mandy, Kentrell, Andy, my grandparents and my mom... without yall, Dave and I would still be trying to move in.

Anyways.... enough on the side note...back to the wedding.  I found a place to print our invitations finally. It's a printing company in West Ashley that did the invitations for our friends, Joe & Krystle Yozzo.  The company has a graphic artist on hand and was able to recreate the invite I made and we are in the final stages of picking out a font we are happy with.  I can't wait for the final product.

This coming weekend we are hoping to get the wedding cake planning done. I think I've found two bakeries I want to check out while we head to Columbia to see Darius Rucker in concert on Sunday.  So that's on the to-do list. We are also planning out our ceremony this weekend.  My friend Mary Louise will be marrying us.  She's such an amazing woman and has a special place in my heart.  Not only did I get the chance to work with her on the Crimestoppers board when I was in Columbia working at WLTX but she is also dating my favorite professor from college who has helped me so much.

One other thing I'm pretty excited about right now wedding-related is my first bridal shower. My matron of honor, Suzanne, is hosting it December 11th in Columbia for all my friends/family there. I can't wait to see all my WLTX girls as well as some of my sorority sisters!  Here's what the front of the invitation looks like.

I'm so excited and really looking forward to it. Now I just need  update our registries since Dave and I have been living together for almost a year and have gotten a bunch of things.

Until next time...