Engagement Photo Sites

This weekend we traveled around the ranch looking for fun places to take our engagement photos. Our session with the photographer is this coming Sunday afternoon and we are very excited! Here are some of the places we've chosen.

Prom 2012

Taylor was so gracious to go to prom with me this year. He keeps telling people that 'they will think we are pretty serious with me coming to prom with you two years in a row' !!!!!!! It was a crazy weekend with long hours on our feet but we had a ball!

The dresses that weren't

Taste Test

Friday night our parents joined us at Zino's Italian Restaurant to sample food for a possible rehearsal dinner venue. We had such a good time! We all ordered something different and then passed each dish around to taste! I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard! I'm not sure if it's a good thing or bad that our parents keep pulling out embarassing stories from our childhood!!!!!!

Mother of the Groom

Oh , the wonder of it all. What a special time for me. My breath was taken away when Laura floated through the mirrored door.  Lovely!!!  

Grandmother of the Bride

Saturday was a very special day for me. Wedding dress shopping with my granddaughter was an experience that I will not likely  be privileged to experience again. We got a very early start and stayed until late, but it was worth every minute. We saw many beautiful dresses as the day progressed, but the most exciting moment was when Laura came out of the dressing room at David's. We all got to experience an incredible WOW! momen. The dress she wore fit her like a well made glove. It was as if the dress had been made just for her. After a few more try ons, she came out of the room again, and there was the same WOW! as before. That confirmed that she had, indeed, found the perfect dress!! The day was made extra special by sharing it, not only with Laura, but with my daughter and Laura's future mother-in-law. To cap off a fantastic day we shared dinner with her fiance', Taylor, and his dad. The perfect dress for the perfect wedding for the perfect couple. What more could a grandmother ask?

Mother of the Bride

We embarked on the grand adventure to find “the dress” expecting it to be the first of several such day trips.  The shops were fun, and the dresses beautiful;  although most were lovely, none were breathtaking.  After a relaxing lunch, we arrived at David’s Bridal. The atmosphere was charged and the shop crowded with cute prom shoppers and a sprinkling of brides (none as pretty and poised as ours, of course).  The fitter was personable and had an air of confidence and good taste; she was straight out of a wedding shop in the movies.   Arms loaded, Mom, Debbie, and I made our way to the “viewing area” and Laura into the dressing room.   After a few minutes, Laura emerged to a captivated audience!  Time literally stood still as the entire crowd of shoppers turned in awe.  “The dress” and especially “the bride” were in fact breathtaking!  I had not felt even remotely misty-eyed up to that point……suddenly, I found myself tearing up and just touched of my beautiful daughter!!!  A mother’s dream moment! Laura went on to try on a few more…..each was okay, but none could top “the dress”!  The bride was heard to say, “I love this dress” and I must say it fit and looked like it was made just for our bride.

New Pics

Engagement Party pics are posted now! See the party post dated Wednesday, March 21 to view! Can't wait to go dress shopping tomorrow! Ps We just learned how to skype with Katherine in Waco~!

Wedding Dress Shopping.........round 1

Tomorrow morning Debbie, mom, and grandmother will go with me to Tulsa to shop for wedding dresses! I have three appointments arranged at 10, 12:30, and 2:30. I am really excited to see what is out there and am glad that my women will be there! Will keep you posted!

Thursday, April 12

Today I went around Ponca City and registered. I went to Brace Books and Prairie Rose. I had such a good time! Can't wait for you to see what we picked!

Happy Easter

Taylor: The celebration of Christ's resurection began Saturday evening at my new family's home in Ponca City.  We had so much fun having dinner and sharing stories everyone.  Tamara and Norma prepared all my favorite Easter foods.  Kelly smokes the best turkey and ham too.  For desert, we enjoyed Laura's and my favorite cake,  LEMON....Oh and we shared our new herbal life shakes with the entire family..everyone enjoyed the chunky monkey flavor.   On Sunday we went to Easter service in Pawhuska at the First United Methodist Church.  The place was packed, and everyone had their young kids with them  (not in the nursery).  During the joys and concerns, Mom was so kind in announcing our engagement and how happy she is to have a new daughter-in-law. It was so good to share our excitement with the church family and friends.  Here is a photo taken at my parents home in Pawhuska.

3 down .... a few to go.

Friday we headed to Tulsa to go engagement picture clothes shopping. Before we hit the mall I needed to go to Sam's and get my membership card. We became official Sam's Club members for the year as  I am prom sponsor and will be shopping there for prom food! Taylor really enjoyed shopping at Sam's because every single aisle offered some different kind of free samples to eat! He didn't need lunch once we left there! We loaded up the truck with all kinds of crap... I mean... quality products in bulk. Once that hour and a half long pit stop was complete we headed for Woodland Hills Mall. Since we had some time we decided to register for wedding gifts. Our plan was to keep it simple and affordable. We decided that we don't really have much need for china........ well, who does????? Instead, we opted for Wilton Armetale silver plates as our 'china'.  This seems more practical to us than delicate plates you can't put in the dishwasher and hope not to drop! We also registered for WA serving platters of all kinds. We chose the dot pattern for our servers. For all of those of you who have registered lately... how much fun is that scanner gun!!!!! We are now experts in the art of the gun and say that the Target and Macy's gun is MUCH better than Dillard's. We have taken to calling Dillard's dillardos... unsure why but we are entertained none the less. Our silverware matches our dot patterned WA. The utensils all have the dots on them ! For our daily use dishes we chose a mixture of cream/tan dishes in multiple patterns. That way if we drop some or find something in the future we can just add to it! We chose some fun brightly colored plates from Macy' too! For Taylor, we picked a few cool grilling tools!Oh yeah~ when we were scanning things in Macy's this makeup woman came up to us and handed me a free Clinique lip gloss as a courtesy gift. Taylor put his hand out for his free gift and was told 'he doesn't matter at this point, stand out of the girl's way.' I know it's a cliche' but couldn't be further from the truth! He has been right in the middle of all of the planning and is having a ball doing it! When we returned the scanner gun in housewares the woman told us she was distracted by my ring!
By this point in the evening we were famished! We went to Zio's (one of my favorites!) for dinner. It was FREEZING in there! Taylor had the best baked ziti and I had an amazing brick oven pizza. Target was our last stop. We needed a few basics but also registered there as well. That was fun too! All in all the day was wonderful. We truly enjoyed each other and loved that fact that we liked the same things as we were shopping.  So: we are registered at Dillardo's, Macy's, and Target. Next stop: Prairie Rose, Brace Books, Mud Pies, Lowry's.... and maybe the dollar store (ha! kidding!).

We have a photographer!!!

Last night we met the most amazing couple. We have signed on with Blue Elephant Photography out of Stillwater for our engagement and wedding photos. The vision we have for our wedding is simplistic, warm and welcoming. We want our families and friends friends to come and relax while sharing our special day. We are not overly frilly or formal and we want our day to reflect that. Some of our decorations will be family pieces and heirlooms to give the reception a homey feeling. The photographers are totally on board with all of our ideas and even contributed some even better suggestions to consider. They work very hard to make their products appear natural with as much natural light and props as possible. As soon as we saw their website we knew they would be perfect for us. When I opened up their webpage the first pictures I saw were of Hannah and Kevin Ward!!!! It was meant to be. Blue Elephant is a perfect match for us! We encourage you to go to their site and see what you have to look forward to! www.blueelephantphotography.com