THE wedding post.

we got married on may 21, 2011 on a beautiful day. it was bright and sunny! everything went perfect which i know everyone says their day was perfect, but literally, nothing went wrong! unless you count that we couldn't exactly cut the cake correctly (sugar flowers are hard). instead of blabbering on about our day, i thought i would just post some pictures!
our vendors were great! alex & brett in morehead city did our cake, roger carter designs did our flowers and decor, and the photographs by red bridge photography.
liquid pleasure provided a full night of awesome music and entertainment! their energy is great!
the bridesmaids dresses were lulakate from bella bridesmaid, and my dress was designer judd waddell from traditions in raleigh!

intoducing iwb...

today i officially changed my name to bittner. people have been calling me mrs. bittner since the wedding (oh maybe i should do a blog post about that major life event...) but now everything i have will be officially bittner. its very weird and i still am not very good t remembering to tell people thats my last name and dont get me started on signing it! 

so i ventured to new bern about 11:00 for a nice little break from work. i figured the social security office would be much like the dmv and when i got there after 45 minutes of driving to new bern, it seemed to be- lines of chairs, people from all walks of life, and you got a number and waited in one of those chairs.  but much to my surprise, i waited for almost half an hour and my number was called! now this could have been because A146 had gone MIA. i totally expected this government woker to be rude and snippy with me since i was pretty unsure of what exactly i needed. again, unlike the normal dmv trip, the SSA officer was really nice! she didnt even check all the documents i had brought (is that bad?)... successful 3 hour trip for a ten minute process, but im glad to have it done. now i just have to get a new drivers license since i lost that on an airplane somewhere.....

wow...

first of all, i have not posted in a while. the shoe saga seems like years ago. all is well in that department, by the way! planning is definitely wrapping up and things are coming together. this past week we had a meeting with someone or had to call someone about wedding details everyday. everything seems to be in order~ now lets hope it actually stays that way... :)

we're down to under a month until the wedding. if nothing else, i have realized through this process that some people are TRULY generous.  i know everyone who is invited to a wedding does not have to send a present. they dont have to come to the showers, to the reception; they don't have to even send their rsvp's if they really don't want to. but some people really do care. they really do go above and beyond and i dont know that a simple thank you note can ever make someone feel as appreciated as i wish they could feel.  our gifts have been awesome. people have obviously put thoughts into their gifts and their cards.  even on our response cards for the wedding, we have had comments like "DEFINITELY!", smiley faces, "can't wait!" and even a song request! people seem to be excited, which makes it all that much more exciting for me that they will be there to share the day robbie and i say I DO! (29 days. wow. crazy. i'll be a MRS.)  i have also gotten some unexpected notes and well wishes, which makes me realize that impressions you leave on people, even if you haven't seen them in a while or even talked to them, really do matter.  they will remember things that you might have forgotten, and think to think of you during special times in your life. these are the kinds of things lately that have really just made me say, "wow."  i truly feel blessed. probably a good thing to feel going into the last month of our engagement, and towards the beginning of our life together as mr. & mrs.!

okay, enough sentimental posting for now. time to sleep so i look fresh for bridal portraits in the morning. hoping it doesn't rain!!!!

the shoe saga

so wedding planning has not been too bad. i haven't been stressed about details, only that we may run out of time- which is silly because 90+ days is plenty of time for the little bit we have left. but i guess everyone feels that way. one of my bridesmaids gave me good advice, and now i have a "to do sticky" on each month of my calendar. that helps... A LOT. but picking and finding bridesmaids shoes is another issue!

i originally found these really cute shoes that i loved at dsw.com but of course by the time we finally got around to trying get them, half the girls' sizes were not in stock. now i have been stressing about whether the store is actually going to restock like they said (yes i called the 1-800 number frantic) or if they aren't! nobody really seems to know exactly WHEN they will restock which is really what i want to know!

so now i am on the search for other shoes. we could do the same ones in silver, rather than champagne. silver does not seem to be as popular and all the sizes are in- but i wonder if that is because it is an ugly silver???? online it really is hard to tell.  so now i have gone through and found a few more options  should the original one not work out. funny enough, they are all at dsw (only) and all the same brand. nowhere else seems to stock this brand and it is fairly frustrating!

all the shoes would be in champagne....

the original shoe, but obviously this one is not champagne.

 the same as the original, but in wedge style and also obviously not champagne.

 peep toe heel, but sling back. but i'm not crazy about sling backs...this is also a cheaper option.

 

and the drama continues....... we will see what happens. i would like to have this decided before may...

were almost to 100 days....

....103 days to be exact. i remember when we first got engaged that may 2011 seemed soooo far away...something over 500 days away. wow. i cant believe we are this close already.  i decided i would write a little bit about life since we have been engaged as we approach the 100 days til the wedding mark.

our first real outing after we got engaged was to caroline's deb ball in greensboro. it was a blast, but i was worried the entire time my ring would fall off because it was not sized yet. hello, tape.

at that point it was basically thanksgiving and then christmas. we did not spend either holiday together (that did not happen til christmas of this year, but that will come later!) we did get to spend new years together in the BVI's sailing.  Robbie was late because the christmas bomber deal messed up flights everywhere and he was stuck in Antigua for a night...then we had a week long sailing trip of sun, swimming, and lots of bloody marys and carib!

in the spring of 2010, we got into rotary club pretty well, and started making some new friends that we now see all the time! robbie grew a moustache (that we don't need to be reminded of) for a charity event for rotary, it snowed 8 inches on the beach!, and i attended my cousin's bachelorette party in april.

 then i went to my high school reunion at the end of april. 5 years out of high school. we all felt like we had just been there yesterday. it was great to see everyone - we had a good turn out! robbie went out in raleigh with some of my high school friends and me. it was great having him meet girls that he probably wouldn't have met otherwise!

then it was off to aruba before i started my new job. another tropical trip? yes please. thats what we do! went with some great friends, and for 10 days!

summer started out pretty fun, as always. it was different working this year so we only could go to shack or to the pool on weekends. we continued to hang out with our new friends we have made in the past year! we closed on our new house on may 21 (exactly 1 year before our wedding), had a blast at my cousin's wedding in june, had our awesome engagement party in july, and  august brought wedding dress shopping! we also started our tailgate parties at our new house for football games! in our house, its go tarheels and go gamecocks!

robbie turned 25 in september. i got him an awesome cake from the beach bakery. yummy!!!

it was time for another wedding after robbie's birthday- our new neighbors! before we knew it, we were at thanksgiving again and it had been a year of engagement! it was a full year of fun and around thanksgiving, the wedding planning really got started!! 

 

on a quick break from planning, robbie and i went to st. kitt's with his family (yes, another vacation). it was a short trip, but it was great to be warm before returning to a snowy north carolina for christmas together in albemarle! everyone got more than they wanted or needed, but it was great and we were very thankful for a safe drive back to the beach in the snow!

january brought my 24th birthday and a few sick days from work.  it only brought a lot of work travel for robbie, so i feel like he has barely been in town! we look forward to the rest of winter and hopefully spring sooner than later which means the wedding will be super close! we are excited to enjoy these next few months of "single life" as we work towards becoming an old married couple :)

updated pictures

i realized that we have added a lot to our house and i have not updated with any pictures! some of this stuff has been done for a while, but i am by far most excited about my red couch. it took some convincing since red is not Robbie's favorite color... but i got it!! i am glad things are finally coming together... my next project is to find some bedside tables for our room and a headboard for the bed so i doesn't look like just some mattresses sitting there like it does now!

my newly improved living room

 my NC seafood festival poster 2010

 the furniture from downstairs got moved up to the "man cave"

 the guest room right now... i need to find a full/queen mattress set for the other bedroom which is empty right now

i want to get into some diy stuff because i have seen things that people make or refinish and they turn out so well! we'll see if that ever happens...i may just stick to scrapbooking :)

snowwww

well its a new year, and its already snowing. we missed the first snow in morehead that happened over christmastime since we were out of town..although we did have to drive home in it from my grandparents house! but this one i got to experience.

robbie left sunday for work in florida for a few weeks and that left me with the dog.  we woke up monday morning to almost an inch of snow on the ground and the sky was pouring snow!! the entire county was closed, school had been called off the night before when there wasn't even a snowflake in the air- they made a good call. i went to work wondering who would actually be there and only fishtailed once. most of the day we (and when i say we, i mean the three of us who were there!) watched the weather and out the window. it wasn't the most productive day, i would say, but what snow day is?! we finally got to go home at 2:00 and i spent the rest of the day curled up with the dog by the fire and watched lots of greys anatomy reruns!

i took some pictures of the house and of paisley in the snow