A Christmas Wedding

December 14th - 16th

I had the honor of being in a good friends wedding this past weekend in Williamsburg, VA. It was such a fun time of the year to get married as everything was decorated for Christmas.

The wedding festivities started Friday afternoon when we all meet for the rehearsal. We got to wear our bridesmaid dresses to the rehearsal since we were going straight to pictures after the rehearsal. I loved getting to wear the dresses for an extra day. The rehearsal itself was a little rocky. We had this beautiful church for an hour but the person that was supposed to let us know what we were doing was 45 minutes late. So we knocked out the entire thing in 15 minutes before they kicked us out.

After the rehearsal, we headed over to the Yankee Candle Factory Store for some amazing pictures. It has a super fun Christmas village and it "snows" every few minutes. It was a great place to get pictures all dressed up and it was also where Walcy proposed to Heather so it was so fun to so and see them "relive" that in their wedding attire.

After pictures we had a quick wardrobe change and off to dinner we went. We headed to Cracker Barrel for a fun dinner with the wedding party and close family. It was a great way to end the evening. After dinner, Heather, the man of honor (Robert) and 3 of us bridesmaids, headed back to Heather's house to hang out talk, laugh and sleep before the big day.

 

The day of the wedding was so much fun. We got up and out super early so we could all get our hair done together in the big room that we had at the hotel where the reception was. We were all excited and silly and just had so much fun.

 

The wedding was on the William & Mary campus at the Wren Chapel. It was such an amazing building. The wedding, the getting ready there, the pictures, the history, it was all just perfect.

After the beautiful ceremony and pictures, we headed over to the reception at the Hospitality House. We spent the next few hours, laughing, dancing, spending time with old and new friends and celebrating Walcy and Heather.

Time passed really fast and before we knew it, it was time to clean up and head home. After we finished packing up and sending the newlyweds off, Jed and I were able to meet up with some other old friends that just happened to be in Williamsburg for a get-away weekend. We were able to spend a few hours with Jenny and Phu at Uno's before we had to head back to Chesapeake for the night.

On Sunday, we were able to send a little bit of time with Ben, Shelby, Ryn and my mom for lunch before everyone headed out there separate directions. It was such a fun weekend with friends and family.

Congratulations Heather and Walcy!

A Carribean Wedding

November 30th - December 5th

A Caribbean wedding vacation at the beginning of December is the most genius idea EVER!! So to Ben and Shelby, we owe you a huge THANK YOU!

So my brother, Ben and Shelby had a genius idea of getting married in Turks & Caicos on December 1st. They picked a BEAUTIFUL resort, Beaches, and invited friends and family to join. There were 14 of us in total that made the trip.

We had the best time just spending time at the pool, beach, bar and restaurant with family. I loved getting to spend time with my adorable niece, Ryn.

After a few days of just hanging out at the resort, Ben, Shelby, Ryn, Jed and I decided to take off on an adventure. We had heard about a restaurant called Da Conch Shack so we decided to go find it. It was absolutely worth it!! The restaurant was outside on the beach. It was perfect! It looked like something out of the movies. The food and drinks were amazing. I think we could have stayed there for days. But the driver came and got us and we wanted to take advantage of out time out so we had him drop us off at the little shopping area they have. We walked into a few shops and just enjoyed the new area to explore.

Cindi, my mom, Jed and I all stayed an extra day after the rest of the group left. Jed and I started that day off by booking a trip to go Paddle Boarding. We went through a company called Big Blue Unlimited. They took care of everything and for 2 hours we worked our tails off paddling around a cove. It was a lot more work then I ever thought it would be. It was a very small group (our tour guide and 4 newbies) so we had a lot of fun taking our time, exploring the area and hearing storied about the island. If you are looking for a good workout, I highly recommend it. We even saw a lemon shark on our excursion!

When we got back to the resort, we were very fortunate that on our last day the weather cleared up and they changed the flags from RED to YELLOW. That allowed us to to be able to do some of the water sports they had available to us but couldn't offer all week because of how choppy the water was.

So we hurried to get in line and be the first group out on Hobie sail boats and were even able to use snorkeling gear to check out the reef that was just off the beach a few feet away from the resort. Unfortunately, snorkeling with the 4 of us did not go well. We were a site to see as at one point we really did have an audience of passerby's that stopped to watch, point and laugh. (One was nice enough to offer some advice too) I can only imagine what we looked like as I literally dragged my mom into the ocean to convince her that she could snorkel before she panicked and I pushed her out of the water. In the end, I was able to make it our really far (too far in my mom's opinion) and saw a handful of different fish, coral and a sea turtle. I was so excited when I saw the sea turtle that my mom thought I was drowning. Let's just say the experience is one that we will not soon forget even if we don't have a single picture from that adventure.

We were definitely bummed we had to leave this little piece of paradise but we am so glad we were able to make the trip and celebrate Ben and Shelby. Congratulations you two! Can't wait for the next adventure.