Is Wednesday too late to post about my weekend?

Well, hello there.

Against all odds, I'm finally making an appearance in the blog world this week. There's been a lot going on, one of them being me losing my gas cap this morning and calling several gas stations to track it down. I did track it down, thank goodness, but that is neither here nor there.

Side note: While complaining about this to Jonathan this morning, he texted me saying, "Count your rainbows, not your gas caps," which put a big smile on my face and made me laugh. This, along with many, many other reasons, is why I love that man.

I'm leaving for my annual work trip tomorrow...at 5:30 a.m. to be exact, so I've been busy all week preparing for that. I also had the most amazing weekend. I know you're all probably thinking weekend posts are for Mondays, but just go with it.

Friday night was perfect. We were trying to figure out if we wanted to go out or stay in when it started monsooning outside and we decided that staying in was a pretty good idea. We made an awesome seafood dinner, watched a movie and drank several glasses of red wine. Life has been jam packed with family gatherings, wedding planning, work, etc., so this was exactly what we needed.

Saturday we headed to Jonathan's grandparents' house for a big family get together. Jonathan's aunt and cousin were visiting from California and we even had my parents joining us, which I was so very happy about. We ate, we drank, we danced, we re-enacted our proposal for Jonathan's aunt and talked a lot of wedding stuff. Such a perfect day and can I just say that having a dance party with my mom and my future in laws was absolute perfection?

My dad headed home and left my mom with me for the night because we had big wedding dress shopping plans for Sunday. We hit the road to spend the night with my sisters and had such a great time gossiping and spending some quality time together.

Sunday was the day I've been waiting for...wedding dress shopping! In all the wedding details I've planned so far, the dress was one thing I hadn't started looking for yet, so I was anxious to hit up a few salons and see what I liked. After my momma, sister and I met my maid of honor, Taryn for a big breakfast, we headed off to our 1st of 3 appointments, where we also met up with my friend Laura so she can join in on the fun.

I'm pretty emotional and as I've been planning our wedding, so many times I've found myself getting super emotional when I think about our day. I do have to say though, putting on a wedding dress for the first time made everything so real for me. Finding a dress I loved at my first appointment really made me envision walking down the aisle on our day and I was completely overwhelmed with joy.

Like I said, I did find a dress I loved at the first place, but my mom encouraged me to head to our next appointment so I could try on a few more and compare the dresses. I liked my consultant at the first place, but my second appointment is exactly what you envision your wedding dress shopping to be like. We walked into The Collection in Winter Park and the girls immediately started looking through the sample racks while I checked in. We were greeted by our consultant, Mimi and I loved her immediately! The girls had picked two sample dresses to show me, so I told Mimi I definitely wanted to try them on first. Long story short, I found my dress and I couldn't be any happier about what I'll be wearing the day I say I do. I'm so surprised by the style I went with, but it is true when you find the right one, you just know it. Even better, it was a brand new sample dress and we got a great deal on it!

After purchasing my dress, we headed up the road to celebrate with a champagne toast outside of our venue. We took lots of photos, drank and celebrated, then headed to a late lunch in Winter Park to continue the celebrations.

Momma and I

This day is one that I will never, ever forget. Sharing these moments with my mom and seeing her genuine excitement and emotion when I came out in my dress is a memory I'm going to cherish forever. Being able to share this day and so much excitement with those ladies was so amazing. I'll never forget calling Jonathan to tell him I found it and just being flooded with tears of joy on the phone with him.

Needless to say, I'm so excited about finding my dress and I can't for Jonathan to see me in it on our wedding day.

Things are slowing down a bit in the wedding planning process since we have most of the big decisions made already. I'll be in Philadelphia for a week working, so I won't have much time to do anything else. We are focusing on the honeymoon right now and I'm looking forward to getting that booked soon. It's going to be a hectic few months, so we'll be looking forward to the vacation!

I hope you're all having a wonderful week!