Pre Ceremony!

Due to time and wanting to spend as much time with our guests as possible, Jason and I chose to forgo yet another tradition and see each other before the ceremony. We originally really wanted the big "ceremony reveal"-but decided that making our guests wait at the reception wasn't very considerate, and we wanted LOTS of pictures. Thanks again for that, Jennifer Creed!

Anyway, while Jenny was taking all of our miraculous pictures (that we get to see Monday YAY!!), my uncle was running around snapping tons himself. Here are a few shots that we got pre-ceremony!

Typical us-Ready to get this show on the road!!!

Sweet Riley playing the piano with Ashlee.

I LOVED my flowers. Such beautiful hydrageas, wrapped in my "something old." My baby bonnet!

My beautiful mother and niece.

I love this picture of Jason and I, and even more so with the expression on my friend Ashlee's face! She really is the funniest, coolest friend EVER!

Sharing another moment.

My back was hurting from all the standing in shoes that I forgot to break in. So we went to sit for a while. I ended up barefoot before the ceremony started, and stayed that way pretty much for the rest of the day! I tried flip-flops at the reception, but they were just so constraining they got kicked off quickly.

Jason and his incredibly awesome groomsmen.

Jason and I with my parents.

Me with my whole family-minus Jason

The Crowe family.

I love this shot with me and my bridesmaids, even if it looks like there are raindrops on the lense. I especially love Ashlee in this picture!

The Details

So ok. This post just MIGHT be forever long. Sorry. Jason and I had a BEAUTIFUL wedding day, and I want to tell you everything!!!And share lots of beautiful pictures! I actually may separate this into a few shorter posts so that it's not ridiculous. The pictures I am posting are taken by my talented uncle. Once we get our professional pictures back, I'll be sure to send you the link. We used the incredible Jennifer Creed and her husband as our photographers, and they were WONDERFUL. Check out the sneak peak! They worked SO hard all day long, and even after we told them they could go home after such a long day, they STILL stayed until Jason and I left. Talk about some dedication!

The day started off a little hectic. Beginning with setting up the reception site with my parents, everything seemed to be going very smoothly. I ran upstairs to the reserved room for me and my bridesmaids to get ready in to take a shower before my hair appointment. My poor niece is teething something terrible, and her little belly was really in bad shape. Ashley and Adam spent the morning trying to care for their sweet girl, and luckily ended up feeling "some" better throughout the day. Once Riley had some medicine in her and in the care of her Daddy, Ashley came to get me to get our "hair did." I loved my hair dresser! She was so great to everyone, and SUPER quick!

Here are some of the little details we included.

Some wonderful friends of our family gave Jason and I this gift for our wedding. I opened it up the morning of the wedding, and am so glad I decided to! It made a great asset to our cake table.

Our gorgeous cake table!

Isn't this cake beautiful! My extremely talented mother made and decorated this cake! It was pretty yummy too!

The grooms cake table. Jason is a huge Red Sox fan, and Ashley and Adam made the cake and ordered him a Louisville Slugger that said: Jason and Paige Orlando May 30, 2009! Love it!

We chose to do a sand ceremony instead of a unity candle. It was so pretty, and the middle vase is gorgeous now!

Next up, some pictures before the ceremony!

I'm BACK!

Hey guys! I'm finally back in the States and feeling "somewhat" normal!

I have TONS to tell you guys, so I have lots of blogs planned, forgive me if I post multiple blogs in a day, or if it takes me a while! I'm having a really hard time narrowing down which photos to share with you all on here, so you also might get picture overload! Sorry in advance!!
Soooo let's start with the rehearsal dinner and day before the wedding!

The day before was a bit of madness, with last minute errands, visits to the florist, and making sure everything was ready to be taken over to the hotel. Once we got to the rehearsal, it was even more chaos with out of town family arriving, trying to get organized, etc. we managed to have a nice time.

I have lots of pictures to show you!
Aren't my parents cute?

Arm wrestling at the "unity" table

The beautiful atrium.

My brother in law and Riley!

Jason and his mom and brother. His brother is getting married in October! Congrats Nathan and Ashley!

Me and my cousin Amy-in a typical pose.

After the rehearsal and dinner, most of our wedding party ended up back at our house to hang out and enjoy the evening. It was lots of fun catching up with everyone, and our groomsmen and bridesmaids really hit it off! We were glad to see everyone getting along so well. I went home to sleep much earlier than anyone else-but heck! I needed my beauty sleep!!

Peace Out!

Sorry I've been MIA again.  This will be my last post as a single woman!!! With all the craziness of the next few days, I know I won't have time to blog or post pictures of rehearsal or anything.  I PROMISE-when I return from my honeymoon, I'll post pictures of the rehearsal, wedding, and honeymoon! And I promise I'll tell you all about it!! :)

Have a WONDERFUL week and weekend guys!  Love you all!! 

Party Time!

I must say, I have the coolest sister ever!!!  I had my Bachelorette Party/Lingerie Shower this past Friday, and I must say that it was FAR from ordinary-so me!!  We started off for dinner at TGI Fridays, and ended up with one hilarious waitress, and then it was back to my house for totally 80's board games: Mall Madness and Dream Phone!  It was a BLAST!! Thanks Ashley for throwing one awesome party, and for everyone else for coming!!!

 

Onto the pictures!!!! They may end up out of order, because I'm too lazy to arrange them.  Sorry!

Me with my seester/aka the BEST Matron of Honor and sister ever!

Drink Numero Uno
Me with the rest of my bridesmaids (minus my cousin Amy-she's coming FRIDAY!!!!!) outside Fridays
Seriously-this waitress was hilarious
Until she brought me a shot and wanted me to take it with my hands behind my back.   Didn't happen.  I have NO skills in the shot taking department other than the normal way.  And it didn't help that they brought me a shot called a Blow Job, and everything I said was made out to be outrageously dirty.  I say this part of the night (even though she had nothing to do with it) was my sisters secret revenge for all those years I teased her about her boyfriends.  :-P
Gift time!!  And yes, I put panties on my head.  No, I wasn't drunk.  It was just a great way to put some humor into a somewhat awkward situation haha!
Pretty Card from my sister!!!
Mall Madness!
My "coolest friend ever" won a food token in the game, and called it her food stamp all night.
Trying to exchange  her food stamp for some real food.  My friends are pretty hilarious.
Dream Phone time!! Since the boys in this game are totally 80's, we decided to rock the side ponytails.

See?!

I'm hoping to become a better blogger when i return from my honeymoon-but hopefully I will have a few posts for you guys to let you know how the final week before I become a Mrs. is going!!

Jason James

After talking with my good pal, Christine today, I realized that not everyone knows my fabulous husband to be (in less than 2 weeks!).  So I thought I'd share some pictures with you all, as well as tell you a little bit about him, the way I see him.

Look how different we look!  We met 3 years ago, on a spring break trip to Gulf Shores.  I was seeing someone else, and looking forward to a week with my girlfriends.  He was there with a bunch of friends, and coincidentally knew one of the girls that I was with.  Thanks for deciding to meet up with all of our new friends Rachel!!  Who knew I would have met the love of my life on that trip?

What a goofball this one is.  I think his humor is what hooked me.  I was addicted to conversations with him, because he always made me laugh.  He LOVES cheesy lines, and can put a funny spin on just about everything.  He even used silly pick up line text messages shortly after we began seeing each other.  Thank goodness he wasn't serious!  If he's not laughing, or doing a weird dance, something is WRONG.  He dances to the beat of his own drum, and taught me to do the same.  
Don't worry about anyone else, do what makes you happy.  Be as you are, and those that are the most important will be glad that it shines through.  Thank goodness for these lessons.  He saved me from a lot of heartache from old friends with these lessons.  It doesn't matter who he is around, whether his boss, a parent, a friend, or a kid-Jason can only be Jason.  He has no idea how to mold into what people think he ought to be in certain situations, and I LOVE that.  And that's what so many people love about him.  
What a romancer he is.  Our first "official" date was June 16, 2006.  He took me to the top of a parking structure of our college, and we watched the sunset as he played music and danced with me.  We make the trip to that empty structure every year.  As weird of a date it was, it sure beat dinner and a movie!!

We have a TON of pictures.  He's so sentimental.  What a girl haha!  He LOVES taking pictures together, and I'm so glad we have so many.  Granted, a lot of them are the same pose as the one above, but we have a lot of different times in our lives documented thanks to his sentimental heart. 

He's also a HUGE softy.  He fell in love with our niece probably as quickly as I did (at the first moment we heard she was coming!).  He sat with my entire family that day, only to leave for a few short hours to take an exam.  He was there for her birth, and our first meeting of sweet Riley.  Too bad so many people gush over her, he doesn't get to hold her nearly as much as he'd like!!  But Riley likes to laugh at his funny faces.

He'll be a great Dad someday.  I always joke that we will need kids soon (but not too soon!) just so Jason will have someone to play with and watch cartoons with.  They'll love his love for board games, frisbee, and the toy aisle at Wal-Mart.  (Jason has started many stories with me by saying: "So today, I stopped by Wal-Mart to play and you will never guess what I found.")

There you have him.  My Boston born, southern raised, music lovin', 5 year old trapped inside a man's body.  I love him. :)

Could it be?

Yes, I think it can.  I'm actually, finally, EXCITED!  After being SO freakin' annoyed with certain aspects of this wedding planning, and my bittersweet lessons, I'm EXCITED!!!  I'm taking my bittersweet lessons, filing them under new knowledge, throwing the annoyances out the window and just saying whatever with it all.  Regardless of what has happened over this past year, the most important thing has remained constant throughout this whole process.  I have the man of my dreams in love with me and he actually wants to marry me.  And that's exactly what I'm gonna do.  I've always been excited about this part, and looked forward to it. Unfortunately, some things overshadowed it once in a while.  

But at the end of each day, I'm reminded why we've chosen to do this and that no matter what happens, we're going to stand together. If it's not a perfect day, it's just one for the "not perfect day" column in our book.  There will be more "perfect days" in our marriage than "not perfect days," so what does it really matter if Day 1 is perfect or not?  What matters is that day 1-infinity is happiness, regardless of perfection.  Our marriage won't ever be perfect, Jason will never be perfect, I will certainly NEVER be perfect, so why worry about our wedding day being perfect?  Something WILL go wrong, I'm sure.  It's inevitable.  But we will be Mr. and Mrs. at the end of it, so that MAKES it all perfect.

"We go through life

So sure of where we're headin'
And then we wind up lost
And it's the best thing that could have happened
'Cause sometimes when you lose your way
It's really just as well
Because you find yourself
Yeah, that's when you find yourself"

If you've never heard this song by Brad Paisley, I strongly recommend it.  It's called (what else?!) Find Yourself.  I found it a few months ago, and I love it.  It's really been a theme song of mine throughout this whole wedding situation, because I really feel that's how Jason and I ended up together.  I had NO intentions of finding someone when I met him, I had other plans. Somehow along the way, I lost that path and found myself and my new life in him.  It's also been a wonderful song for my bittersweet lessons.

I find myself being EXTREMELY sentimental these days.  My parents and Jason and I had dinner last week and discussed all of our last minute plans, and that turned into some sentimental moments.  And if you know me very well, you know that tears do not flow often.  You'd never believe that I cry ALL the time now.  When something is sweet, when I feel sad, when I get angry, and even when I'm happy.  It's all very weird.  I'm hoping it's just a "wedding thing" and goes away soon.   I HATE crying.

I'll leave you tonight with one of my favorite engagement photos:

I love that boy.