Wedding Newsletter

Hey everyone!

We will be sending out a newsletter with our Christmas letter this year. Just a reminder of all the things going on for the wedding.

More to come after the New Year...

Love you all,
R + S

The Marriott Santa Ynez

Hey Everybody!

A lot of people have already been asking us about accommodations when they come out to California for the wedding.

We will be staying at the Marriott Santa Ynez.

It is an absolutely beautiful hotel and is the first certified "green" hotel in Santa Barabara County!

We will be hosting a welcome reception at the hotel on Friday night (June 10th) from 8-10. It is also conveniently located right next door to the brewery where the rehearsal dinner is on Saturday night!

We are hoping to have as many people as possible stay here with us and with that in mind we have negotiated a great rate with the hotel for anyone who reserves under our block of rooms including a fabulous breakfast every morning.

They have set up a website for us http://cwp.marriott.com/sbasy/provencalwedding/ to make it super easy to reserve your room, but you can also call them at 1-805-688-1000 and tell them you are with the "Provencal Wedding."

We are encouraging everyone to find a room buddy or two (the rooms accommodate 4 and include breakfast for everyone already, so sharing a room brings down the cost significantly).

If you would like to share a room with someone but don't know who.. let me know and we will help play match maker for you :-)

If you are not interested in the Marriott, there are a number of hotels in the area depending on your budget and I would be happy to send you a detailed list. (e-mail me at sugarfree73@msn.com)

If you know you'd like to stay here with us, please start reserving your rooms today. That way if we need to block more rooms, we will know with plenty of time before they get booked.

Can't wait to see you all there!

R + S

Engagement Photos

Richard and I were so excited to get our engagement photos done this past May when we visited Arizona for my baby sister's wedding!

We knew we wanted to do something "different" so we decided to bake cookies, have a Starbucks date, and do a little dancing in the desert- all while being photographed. Non-traditional to say the least, and we needed to find a photographer up to the task.

Scott Milam not only agreed, but added ideas to our unusual visions.

Beyond being INCREDIBLY talented, he was one of the nicest people and most devoted, enthusiastic Christians we had ever met. We loved working with him and LOVED the way the photos turned out. We are so happy he will be there next June to shoot our big weekend and share in our joy.

Here are a few of the photos he took- the rest you can check out on facebook. :-)

R + S

Smock Letterpress

Picking an invitation "suite" is a daunting task. The name in and of itself is daunting.

So when we first went looking for invitations... let's just say we underestimated the weight of not only the decision but the options.

Every store we walked into had bookcases lined top to bottom, wall to wall, with giant binders filled with invitation mock-ups. Overwhelming would be the understatement of the year.

After a few hours we were too exhausted to go on and were no closer to finding what we wanted...

Then we came upon a small paper store in Nashville that we completely fell in love with. Social Graces is an upscale, boutique paper store specializing in invitations, cards, and everything wedding.

The first page of the first book we opened struck us. It was practically perfect in every way. Pale pink, hand calligraphy, simple, and timeless. It was everything we were looking for.

We continued looking for a few minutes, but we couldn't stop flipping back to the invitation that had first caught our eye.

It was a smock design.

What is Smock?

Well...

Smock is a new line of letterpress wedding invitations, letterpress announcements, and letterpress greeting cards — sustainably printed on bamboo paper in upstate New York. We are serious about being a truly green letterpress print shop. We are powered by wind energy. We donate 1% of sales to environmental causes. Our retail packaging is tree-free and petroleum free and certified biodegradable. For our employees, we subsidize 20-week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) memberships with a local organic farm. Our commitment to the environment affects everything we do.

We believe in the creation of beautiful things. So enjoy browsing everything in our shop made from 100% post consumer recycled paper.

Welcome to Smock.

As soon as we read this on their homepage we were hooked.

Absolutely stunning. Environmentally friendly. Classic.

http://smockpaper.com/

We hope you love them as much as we do!

R + S

The Proposal

It was about 5pm the night of our going away party in Arizona and we were running late.

I was standing in the bathroom bent over in front of the sink, one hand attempting to strap my heel and the other holding on to the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth.

"Babe." Richard called to me from the bedroom.

"Yes?" I said, only half coherent as I was attempting not to drool toothpaste all over my outfit.

"Come here for a second."

I paused, looked at myself in the mirror quizzically and spit out the toothpaste- my shoe still un- strapped. I grabbed the door and opened it slightly.

"What?"

"Come here for a second. I made you something."

This did nothing but further perplex me.

Honestly I was wondering if it would be rude to ask him to give it to me in the car as I knew we were already running late (and Richard is not the fastest person in the world... at anything) so who knows how long this might take.

"Babe, we're gonna be late..." I decided on instead as I wiped my mouth and hopped toward him, still no luck with my heel.

"I know, but it will only take a minute. I want to give it to you before we leave and then we are going to be with so many people all night..." he trailed off. I could see it seemed important so I sat down and joined him on the bed.

My stomach was anxious, but not because I was nervous... because I was impatient (as I tend to be) and worried that our guests would start arriving and we wouldn't be there to greet them!

He pulled out a card from under the pillow. I opened it and began to read. It was sweet and mushy and touching. I would expect nothing less from Richard. And it did, for a second, make me forget about the party we were missing.

He then pulled out a small photo album. It was familiar. The color and texture were exactly the same as the photo album he had given me over 2 years ago; the first gift he ever made me.

"Last time I made you a photo album it was to tell you how I felt about you and to commemorate our friendship and the journey we had taken finding each other. This time, I wanted to make you something to remember our time in Arizona. The journey we took here together before we embark on a new journey..."

I, of course thought that the "new journey" he was talking about was our impending move to Tennessee.

The first photo album he had made me, he had written on the backs of every picture. As I opened this one and flipped the first picture over, I realized he had done the same again. It was filled with pictures of the two of us and all the things we'd done over the last 2 years. It was amazing.

As I flipped through it, my heart started to race a little. I could feel my face get flush and I dared not hope that this gift was leading to something more...

And then, I was staring at the last picture in the album, my heart pounding.

On the back it said- " The Future."

Honestly I wasn't sure how to feel about that... touched, excited, let down, annoyed that we still weren't at the party after all that... a little of all those emotions ran through my head and body.

Of course I knew the future was Richard and I getting married, that was no surprise.

What came next, though, was.

"Oh, I have one more thing for you." he said nonchalantly and pulled out a teal colored box from under the pillow.

As a woman, you don't have to see the name on that color box to know what's inside it.

"Will you marry me baby?" he said softly as he opened it, revealing the most beautiful, most perfect, exactly what I would have chosen diamond set in platinum.

"Of course." I answered.

I really thought I would cry, but instead (thanks mom) I turned bright red and spoltchy.

We were pretty late for the party...

... ask me if I cared. :-)

R + S

Hello everyone!

This is the one-stop, all-access, way more information than you ever wanted to know blog about Shea and Richard's wedding!

If you are reading this it means we love you.

(or by some freak accident/coincidence/twist of fate you stumbled on this blog and have no idea who we are...)

Assuming it's the former (and welcome anyway if it's the latter), you have all been a part of our story and the beginning of our Happily Ever After, so thanks.

We look forward to years of memories to come with each and every one of you.

And for now, sharing our joy as we plan our wedding.

Thanks for stopping by. :-)

R + S