"Plant these seeds and watch them bloom..."

I am so excited to finally post pictures of the "Save the Dates" and give everyone a little more in depth detail about them! All of these were handmade with love by myself, my SIL and the filling and labeling thanks to my hunnie! Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Kraft paper envelopes. Mason Jar cutouts with our initials to close.

Save. The. Date.

True story which I love. Mom met him before I even did. When I got home from college for the
 summer she planned to plant some flowers in the mailbox garden so I could meet the cute mailman!

The poem on the back of the seed packets. 

Seed Packets.

Green and purple labels in our colors. Black chalkboard with  "Save the Date" stamped with chalk ink. 

Save the Date card to go along with the seed packets.
The mailman & the teacher.

Nothing But Love...

Finally have gotten the time to download some of the engagement pics from the wonderful photograph Kate Bachman. She allowed Todd and I to just be ourselves and she captured our love so well. I can't wait to see what she does with the wedding! Here is a collage of some of them!

Save. The. Date.

They are finally FINISHED!!!! I am so excited about our Save the Dates! Much thanks to my wonderful SIL for her creativity and patience! I think there were times that we wanted to throw them out the window but in the end it was worth it! 

I so badly want to post what they look like on here but I will let it be a surprise for you guys! Then I will post all of our hard work and show them off. These are the most meaningful and creative Save the Dates ever, so make sure you take time to notice ALL of the little details (each detail has a meaning and I hope they will make sense!) and the time and effort it took in to making these. Handmade with love! 

Ready or not, here they come!

Sunshine. Flowers. Love.

This afternoon was the first time in a while that I have been super excited about the wedding. From all the planning and decision making just puts my anxiety at an all time high and today we were just able to relax and take the time and enjoy being engaged.

Todd and I finally got our engagement pictures done today! It was a gorgeous afternoon with Carolina blue skies. There is a field near by our house filled with yellow flowers (weeds maybe?!) that made the perfect backdrop for our shoot. After shots in the field we headed to the park. Took pictures on the bridge over a pond, then it was time for "Team Goulds" to take the field.

Kate Bachman was our awesome photographer and just let us be our goofy and loving selves and she was there to capture every moment! I can't wait to see how they turned out!

Here is the field that we took some pics in!

Simplicity.

So thanks to my wonderful future SIL we've been on a shopping spree finding lots of DIY , simple and inexpensive ways to make the wedding gorgeous but not busting the bank. Here are some things we've got so far...
(photos taken with my wonderful new camera!)

These purple and green lanterns will be pretty to hang from trees, the reception area or even to use as centerpieces.

These frames will be hung from an old tree at different heights and used as a "photo booth" for guests to pose and take pictures in!
(see below for example)

Lots of other fun things but then what would you have to look forward to seeing at the wedding?! : )

Cherish the time whether great or small...

Todd has been supervising at the Newton post office for over a month now and finding time for each other besides "how was your day?" and a quick dinner before bed. Although it isn't the time that I would love to be spending together I am thankful for having time at all.

We finally got to spend some quality time together this weekend being it was a 3-day weekend. We did the usual sunday church and lunch with my parents and we finally took down our Christmas decorations and tree yesterday! Today consisted of a whole lot of nothing and relaxing on the couch. When we got our butts moving we got out and went to the eye doctor for Todd and ran some errands.

The time we spent together this weekend didn't consist of anything exciting or interesting but it was just time spent together, with the one I love.

No matter what goes on around us or the millions of things going on in our lives, take time to appreciate and cherish the moments you have with the ones you love.

Where to start?!?!

So it's finally the new year so that means we are able to start wedding planning...but exactly where are we supposed to start?! There's so much to decide on and think about my brain is just constantly going of things that we need to accomplish.

My parents decided to buy "Wedding Planning for Dummies" and were gracious enough to get us a copy. Hoping that it comes in ASAP! I have looked through thousands (yes thousands) of different pictures and ideas on "the knot" and have gotten some ideas brewing. I found some cute ways to incorporate Todd's job working at the Post Office and me being a school teacher. All of my ideas seem to follow along the lines of Vintage Country. Simple Elegance. Colors have been narrowed down too. We like plum/eggplant and greens (sage, olives). These purples and greens I like.

We decided to start with one thing and focus on that. This weeks task at hand is narrowing down the guest list. We feel that the majority of things we need to decide on we need to know numbers first. So by Sunday we said we would pretty much have the guest list figured out so we can have a rough number and go from there. 

But I am just trying to take the time (with all of my bridal magazines surrounding me) and just enjoy planning our wedding. It's OUR day and I can't wait to be the future Mrs. Goulds! : )