My Wedding Archives - Page 3 of 3

It was a busy year…

… of partying.

Okay, well maybe not just partying. There were some other things. Like crafting. And packing with a little bit of moving. And glittering. And pondering. And planning. All for one weekend. One weekend of fun and glitter and love with all of my favorite people in the entire world.

I got married!

Even as a wedding planner by trade it wasn’t easy to balance life, work, blogging, unpacking, wedding crafting, wedding planning, and wedding partying. Because let’s be real… there’s a lot of partying involved when it comes to getting married.

We got engaged in January and set our wedding date for November 9, 2013. With an engagement party, a few showers, a couple birthday parties, holidays, and a bachelorette party (that was just a tad bit painful and required a solid week of recovery,) the actual wedding, the giant brunch that followed and then a week of honeymooning in paradise we literally spent the entire year surrounded by friends, eating good food and drinking good wine.

Which, trust me, all this celebrating definitely doesn’t yield an un-fun year. But I will be quite frank with you… when all the dust settles and you find yourself in a new situation, in a new house, with a new relationship status and new last name on facebook - it’s time you find your roots. And go back to the things that made you happy pre-wedding year.

Like blogging.

And creating weddings that are not my own.

And writing.

And sipping tea or drinking wine.

So let me let you in on a little secret. No Mother, it’s not a grand-baby (nor will it be for anytime in the near future!) I am reopening the 2 Cats & Chloe Shoppe! I have really been enjoying my own delicious loose leaf teas and want to share it with all of you! Plus, it’s the perfect time of ~~life~~ the year to sip tea with the ones you love.

Notice the image above? Do you see the coupon code on there? You need to take a mental note or maybe just pin it on your “too hot to handle wish list” pinterest board… The grand re-opening will be January 1, 2014. And for the first month we are open I am giving you 10% off your purchase!

I know, it’s been quite a while… So how’s this blog gonna work? My goal is to take 2 Cats & Chloe back to what it was. Me, writing about life, joy, my family, my travels, wine and tea, and my new shoppe. Please continue to follow along with me on this awesome ride.

Don’t remember how to get in touch with me? Well don’t be bashful friend - it’s okay to ask for my digits! Well, maybe not my digits really. Pretty positive the hubs would go all totes magoats crazy over that one. But I will give you a trillion other ways to follow along and stay in touch:

Instagram: @2catsandchloe

Facebook: facebook.com/2catsandchloe

Twitter: @2catsandchloe

Etsy: etsy.com/shop/2catsandchloe
BlogLovin: bloglovin.com/blog/3866548/2-cats-chloe

And when I say a trillion, I only mean five.

I have missed you all terribly. I hope to catch up with each and every one of you and your blogs! xoxo — Suz

My Bridal Shower at a Winery!

by Susan

Where to begin… where to begin?

It’s one of those mornings where I am starting my day off simply exhausted. How can one be so tired after a ~~good~~ night’s sleep? It’s one of those mornings when I want to sit here and pour my heart out to this blank blogger screen. I want to tell you that I miss my cat, that I miss my home and how we all used to lived peacefully together. I miss life before I started planning my own wedding, before family drama magically appeared, before I had five hundred DIY projects laying around my house mostly unfinished, before I knew what it meant to actually be out of money, broke, in the red, looking under couch cushions. Life before I felt like I needed to please everyone.

Maybe I will tell you about that nonsense tomorrow. Or possibly the next day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sad. I’m just tired. And I need to vent it all out.

In the mean time, I realized that I never actually told you about my first bridal shower! After years of hosting and coordinating showers for other girls, I finally got to experience one for myself!

And it was great!

The shower was held at the New Kent Winery about 45 minutes from my house. Lovely venue. Good wine. My sister asked me if I would mind having the shower at a winery… It made me wonder how well she knew me!! The event planner in me loved this venue because they allow guests to bring their own food! The deck area was first come first serve! So they set the shower up on a beautiful deck with the vineyard and green fields in view!

Most of the group went on a wine tour… Interesting… But I was in a “less talky, more drinky” kinda mood.

I taught my future mother-in-law the ins and outs of wine tasting!

There were delicious purple and gold cuppies made by Leslie!

(Below) The party people on the side deck of the venue! I was so flattered that so many amazing women fought the traffic (and boy was there traffic!!) to come and celebrate with me!

Knowing I am anti-shower games, my college roomies planned a fun, non-showery game for me! It was similar to the newlywed game. They had emailed Michael days prior to get his answers to certain questions. If I answered the same way he did, someone had to write something HE has to do for ME on a wine cork. If I got it wrong, they wrote something I have to do for HIM. Cute right?! And notice I said “if I answered the same way he did”… I didn’t say “if I answered correctly!” Good thing I know him well and only missed one question!!

I was pretty surprised that everyone nailed my future monogram! I had not told anyone yet that I will be dropping my “A for Ashley” and legally become Susan Benjaminson Geoghegan in November. SBG is much better than SAG. Am I right?!

(And the feminist in me just can’t completely peace out my current last name.)

Then of course we snapped pics of all the guests! Below is my mom (far right) with two of her sisters, Jenn and Cindy!

My sister and I, with our God Mothers Lou and Jean.

Leslie and I. Do you think we look alike? No we are not twins… we are four years apart in age!

Bleeding purple with my JMU girls! Love them oh so much!

My favorite italian in the whole wide world! Fun fact: This girl tweets for the President.

She’s kinda a big deal.

Kathy (below) is my cousin who is also getting married this fall! I will be working her wedding on September 21! So glad to share this season of weddings with her! She is going to be a beautiful bride!

Did I mention there was wine? I can’t believe Leslie snapped this picture of me!

Thanks everyone for the great time, gifts and love!

Thanks Leslie for all these awesome pics too!

Ombre Nails and Wedding Nightmares

by Susan

All of my friends and clients who have been through the whole “I’m Getting Married” Phase of their lives have ALL told me that at some point in the planning process you begin to have crazy dreams about your wedding. I woke up this morning in a cold sweat from my first official wedding nightmare.

My photographer did not show up and I saw on Instagram that he was at another wedding, Michael and I never picked out our first dance song so the DJ took it upon himself to pick “Funk Soul Brother,” and I ended up not hiring a videographer so I spent the entire evening running around with my point ‘n shoot camera asking people to record the festivities. I was so frustrated because my guests had the nerve to be put out by this and they had no clue how to use my camera.

Needless to say, I will be emailing a few vendors today and forcing Michael to help me pick our wedding song. Funny thing is, exactly 4 months from this moment I will be at The Chamberlin, drinking Mimosas with my girls and getting my hair-did. Time is flying by!

Speaking of hair and makeup and my sparkly wedding… last night I went to one of my newest, dearest friend’s house for some wine, pizza, and girl time. Scratch that. First we went to Ulta and spent some dough on semi-needed makeup. Then we had girl time. And she did my nails.

Welcome to Salon de la Kim!

I have always been impressed by her DIY “Home Salon” Gel Nails. In a moments notice she busted out the whole set up… the neon light thingy, the work station board and light, professional nail cutters and shapers. And don’t forget her slew of color and pattern options! I decided to go with the gold sparkle ombre look. Because let’s be real… I love me some gold glitter.

This was when the UFO landed in the backyard. Jay Kay. My nails were baking in that neon thinga-ma-bob. And many thanks to the person who let me out of the bell tower… I’m all Hunchback of Bad Posture in this one. Time to sit up straight!!

I’m a wiggle worm. Sorry for the blur. Wigglin’ does make my ring looks ginormous though!

Not to bad right? I am in love with the ombre look and have decided this may be a contender for my wedding nails. I did tell her though, next time we are definitely doing a purple coat under the gold ombre for a legit JMU manicure. 🙂

I hope you all have a lovely Tuesday. I am heading to Washington DC for a job “meet and greet.” More on that later though.

And let’s not forget the pit stop to visit my soon-to-be sister-in-law and my soon-to-be nephew who is just a mere 9 days old! The G-fam is growing! Can’t wait to meet the little guy!

Now if I could just wash Funk Soul Brother out of my head…

Going to the Chapel!

by Susan

Once upon a time, Michael was dating a girl who was a crazy planner. Not only did she plan just about everything for fun, but she was also a professional Wedding Planner.

Michael deserves some sort of award for not only putting up with all of my obsessive wedding talk and hours spent on Pinterest, but he deserves an award for all the thoughtfulness, time and energy he put into planning the perfect proposal! It takes a lot to out plan a planner… but he did it!

Here’s how it all went down:

We had been talking about getting married for several months. Michael even gave me permission to start planning, and to tell people we were “engaged to be engaged.” Whatever that means! I told him that was silly. Only crazy cat ladies actually start planning (and booking) their weddings without officially being engaged!

I went to a conference for wedding vendors in DC with one of my great college friends. On the way home we were talking about my “tentative” fall wedding. She informed me that she (a wedding photographer) was starting to book up in the fall, and she was concerned that she would book something on the day we were supposedly going to be getting married. I told her that I would talk to Michael… I too was getting worried, that if we wanted a fall wedding, places and vendors would be all booked up.

I met Michael for lunch when I got back to Newport News. I casually mentioned the conversation I had had with Katie… and how I was getting concerned. I timidly threw out the idea of us just going to look at a few venues… just so we were ready when we actually got engaged. I told him I had a few places in mind, but there was one venue that I absolutely LOVED… The Historic Chamberlin at Fort Monroe.

He calmly and casually said “Yeah, we could go check it out. I have been wanted to go see Fort Monroe and the historic museum there anyway.” (Which he really had been talking about for several weeks…) Testing the waters once again, I explained that I would have to call and make an appointment to tour the venue. Again, he agreed that it would be okay, even though we weren’t officially engaged.

Then he changed the subject and said “Oh, that Christmas present finally came in for you… want to come to my house and get it?” What girl doesn’t love presents!? It was an easy subject change! And I loved my NY Mets jersey that had David Wright’s number on the back, with my last name BENJAMINSON on the top!

Later that day I called The Chamberlin to set up an appointment. I found out that she still had a couple of dates available in November and got very excited. I told her that I was a local wedding planner, explained that I had seen the venue, but told her I wanted him to see the venue. She asked me what my fiance’s name was… I paused… trying to figure out if I should tell her that I was crazy and we weren’t engaged… or just play it off and spell out G-E-O…

I did what every crazy, non-engaged, wedding planner would do! I spelled his name, booked the appointment for Thursday at 4pm, hung up the phone, and danced around my room because my first choice venue was still available!

Thursday January 24 arrived! Michael was leaving for military work on Friday, so he told me that he had the day off. He just had to go into work in the morning to drop off all of his bags and help wrap up a few work issues. I planned to meet him at his house around lunch time and then we were going to head to explore Fort Monroe and the casement museum (ranked #3 on trip advisor’s ‘things to do on Hampton’s page! Which is why he really wanted to go.)

Of course it was the coldest day of the year. And we were planning to walk around a little island surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay. We toured the museum and wandered a bit. Then it was time to head to the Chamberlin for our appointment. I was sure to keep my left hand in my pocket as much as possible, just in case the lady called me out on where my ring was!

We toured the historic hotel… we saw the ballroom, some bridal suites, the lobby, the space for outdoor ceremonies and much more! I was asking my normal wedding planner questions, and would ask Michael a few things here and there to see what he thought. He didn’t really have all that much to say. To make me feel even worse, he really didn’t even seem to care we were there! My inner dialog went something like this… “He doesn’t want to be here. This was too soon. I shouldn’t have pushed him to come here. This is stupid.”

I asked the lady if we could see the rooftop solarium. I had had meetings there in the past and loved that room. It would be perfect for a rehearsal dinner and I wanted him to see it. She informed me that they were wrapping up a meeting and getting it prepped for a 50th anniversary dinner for two of the residents - but that we could sneak up there to check it out real quick. After going over the menu and the contract a bit (too thoroughly and slowly for my skill level… she was just dragging her feet!) it was time to go up to the rooftop before we headed out. We got into the elevator and Michael began playing with his cell phone. At this point I was really getting mad. This poor lady was doing her best to give us a great tour and not only was he not paying attention, but he was messing around with his cell phone!

When we got up to the room I saw the table set with champagne and flowers for the folks celebrating their 50th Anniversary. We stepped outside to look at the view, but it was so cold I just wanted to go back inside. The lady who was giving us the tour had a call on her walkie talkie. She said she needed to run downstairs real quick, that we should look around, and she would be right back up in a minute.

I looked at Michael and he is taking his coat off. I said in my sarcastic manner “What are you moving in?!” His response was “I’m just so hot. It was cold outside. But now I’m inside. And I’m hot.” Ummm ok.

I was looking around and noticed a present on the table! Here’s how the conversation went down…

Me: Michael look! A present! AND IT HAS MY NAME ON IT!

My Internal Thought Process: WOW! What great marketing! They have a gift for me! This is awesome. Bridal goodies so that I will have my wedding here! WOW She must have facebooked my company because the giftwrap is even purple and yellow. She must have known I went to JMU. Man this is awesome marketing!

Michael: Open it!

Me: NO! She hasn’t given it to me! You don’t open presents before they are given to you.

Michael: Well it has your name on it… you should open it.

Me: No. I’m not opening it until she gives it to me. That’s just rude.

At this point he has awkwardly pushed me in to the corner of the room with the present in his hand. I was trying to escape when he started to pull the tissue paper out of the bag!

Then I noticed a NY Mets jersey in the bag and immediately knew what was going on! But how?! (The jersey had HIS last name on it this time though!)

He got down on one knee and proposed. The ring had been in his pocket all day long!

My answer: YES! But how did this happen?! I don’t understand!!

He told me that he would explain it in a while, but first my sister was coming up to take pictures of us. Leslie said that as she was walking down the hallway to meet us all she could hear was me saying “I don’t understand!! I booked this appointment!! How did this happen!??!”

We had a few photos taken, then we had dinner at the private table that I was told was for the couple celebrating their 50th anniversary! It was for us all along! Champagne, flowers, dinner, and dessert! We had the whole room to ourselves! It was amazing!

Little did I know, not only was the Chamberlin Lady in on this the entire time, but Michael had been planning this for about a month! When I came home from DC and mentioned that we should go to The Chamberlin he freaked out! The plan would work after all!

Like I said… anyone who can out-plan a planner deserves an award. 🙂 It was such an amazing evening and will be a great memory for the rest of our lives!