The great cable experiment!

The thought of initially canceling our cable made us both a little nervous.  I have no idea why.

After months and months of dealing with our cable provider, we have had enough.  We’ve made tons of phone calls,  had 4 different service technicians out, and been “disconnected” from 2 different supervisors.  We’ve even threatened to cancel our service, which sadly prompted more action than reminding them we’d been loyal customers for years.  With all that in mind,  we decided to cancel our cable and put the money will be saving in the house fund.  Our motive was to say “take that!” and I think secretly we hoped they’d show up the next day with a magical fix for the problems plaguing our service.

Last week, Brian was taking a graduate glass at GMU, and had homework pretty much every night.  While he was working, I was on the couch reading, working on my bible study, writing some snail mail only getting up to flip the record!  After several nights of dinner at the table, conversation, making our way through our record collection, we realized that not only had we  not turned on the TV, but we didn’t even miss it.   At that point we decided that we would go ahead and cancel the cable, but we would do it because we really wanted to!  How many times do we walk in and just turn the TV on to have background noise … or watch random shows and re-runs just because.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love TV and think there are some really great programs on, if you can navigate the trash (yes, I’m talking to you Real Housewives of DC), and yes, I can get Project Runway on Hulu.  We all have our guilty pleasure.

So, tonight is the last night of cable boxes, hd, and the dvr!  Here’s to books, records, conversations, and netflix!

 

Keeping up with The Kent’s!

Here we are eight and a half months later, and we’re finally ready to head   out on our honeymoon!  We are very fortunate to take an amazing trip through the Mediterranean and then some.   We’re going to see some amazing countries, cities, towns, ruins, and so on!  If you know me, you know that I have about 4 lists going of what to pack, how to pack it, where to eat, sites, how many euros we’ll need ….  while my sweet hubby is just going to throw some clothes in a bag the night before we leave.  He thinks I’m silly now, but when he has an ailment after eating and drinking in Egypt, he’ll be happy for me to pull out my nice organized and  labeled bag of medicines!  Internet will probably be someone spotty, but we hope to keep everyone updated on the amazing things we’re seeing and doing …. clearly we’re assuming people will care!    While I’m really excited to see Egypt and Greece, I think I’m most looking forward to Israel.  We’ll be taking a tour to see the Garden of Gethsemane, the Wailing Wall, Via Dolorosa, Bethlehem, and more!  I can’t wait to see some of the places I’ve read about my entire life!  Side note … my women’s bible study group has recently started the Beth Moore study “Jesus the One and Only” and prior to watching her video I was planning to take my study with me.  However, on the first video Beth tells a story of meeting a newlywed in the Paris airport who was so excited to meet her because she had brought her Beth Moore study on her honeymoon!!!  Everyone got a good laugh out of that, so it’s yet to be decided if the bible study workbook will make the trek with the Kent’s!  Ha!

Next update will (fingers crossed!) be from the road! Now … there is packing to be done, and things that need crossing off of lists!

 

At Last. A Honeymoon.

What a horrible blogger I have been lately.  There was so much post-wedding paper work, consolidation of stuff, then the holidays, work travel, and well….life!  The Kent’s have settled into a good routine and pace and we are really enjoying married life.  Since my sweet hubby spends his days nurturing and teaching today’s youth, an extended honeymoon right after the wedding was out of the question.  We took a few days off to bum around, and to be honest, I’m really glad we did.  I cannot imagine traveling right after the wedding, or enjoying any kind of trip that involved having to actually be active!  We were so tired, that it was nice to be at home and have a chance to recharge.

Now, 7 months later, we are putting the final touches on one AMAZING honeymoon vacation.  Thanks to my MIL, we will be exploring some of the World’s most interesting (I think!) places.  Over the course of several weeks we’ll be able to visit Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, and Italy!!!

We are both so excited that we have the opportunity to travel together to such wonderful places.  I must say that it is definitely worth the wait. My goal is to be a very dutiful travel blogger and photographer, but I’m making no promises!

 

Vendor Brag: Part 2

Makeup: I must thank Emily Forrester for coming to the church on such a rainy day to make me look so beautiful  Emily is with Premier Makeup and was so incredibly wonderful to work with.  I did a lot of research on makeup pricing, since I literally had NO idea what was reasonable.  Emily’s prices were very reasonable, especially considering they included a trial run and travel to the site. On top of everything, Emily was amazingly sweet which made working with her such a pleasure!

Flowers: I was fortunate to have some wonderful friends who can arrange and make bouquets.  Ladies, if you can find someone who can put the flowers together, I HIGHLY recommend buying wholesale.   I first visited a wholesale warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia and found several things that I could order as our wedding date got closer.  When I called a couple of months before to start the ordering process, I discovered that they had gone out of business.  Awesome.  On to plan B.  Well … on to making a plan B.  I had read about a website called Fifty Flowers so went to check it out.   I was a little skeptical of having flowers just shipped to me, but after some research and a couple of phone calls, we felt comfortable enough to order from the site.   A little bit about the process:  you go online and order whatever you want.  You can search by color, flower name,  what’s in season, etc.  You need to have a good idea of how many arrangements and bouquets you’ll need so you don’t over order.   Fifty Flowers gives you a time line of when you should have your flowers arrive, based on the date of your event and the type of flower.  Once you place your order, a representative will call and confirm the order and delivery date.   For our wedding, we ordered chocolate ranunculus, some mango mini calla lilies, some regular and spray roses, and hypericum berries.  On top of the wholesale prices and free overnight FedEx shipping, I found a coupon code online that saved us another 10%.   Our first batch of flowers arrived on Wednesday before the wedding.  We were instructed to have a bucket of water waiting, and to get them in water as soon as they arrived.  About 20 minutes after FedEx dropped them off, we received a phone call from a Fifty Flowers rep to make sure everything looked OK and she reminded us to cut 1 inch off the bottom and get them into water.  On Thursday, when the remaining flowers arrived we had another courtesy call.   Since we didn’t need 100 stems to complete the 2 large arrangements for the church, my MIL made some calls to Costco.  The florist at Costco will order flowers for you (we took some lilies, dahlias, and mums) in any color they have available and you can come to Costco to pick it up.  The wonderful thing is,  you’re not obligated to buy any of it!  What you don’t want, they’ll just sell in the store.  So,  we had them order several bunches in a variety of fall colors, but only had to buy what we wanted!   I was very pleased with the quality of flower that I received from both places, and would highly recommend ordering your flowers from Fifty Flowers.

 

Vendor Brag – Part 1

I wanted to take a minute to brag a little on some of our wedding vendors.  I had read so many horror stories of cakes not arriving, brides never getting their photographs, horrible venue owners, and so on.  Fortunately for us,  we had the most amazing vendors who all worked tirelessly to make our wedding day so special.

Photography:    Kudos to Mat Courtney of Courtney & Company who came all the way from Atlanta to shoot our wedding!  Mat is a friend of our family, so I was very excited to have someone I knew their to shoot everything.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t suitable for outside shots but he managed to make the most of our church and Old Ebbitt.  Mat also includes the rights to digital copies of all the wedding pictures, which is something I highly recommend getting!!  We could not be more pleased with how all the pictures turned out.

Cakes:  Not only is Stephanie super sweet and wonderful to work with – her cakes are delicious!  I stumbled upon Stephanie the Baker in an attempt to find someone to make a groom’s cake that resembled Brian’s favorite guitar!  I was very excited to find someone who was so reasonably priced and was willing to customize anything I wanted!  After finding Stephanie, I also decided to go with cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake.   The hardest part – choosing flavors!  Fortunately Stephanie let us have as many flavors as we wanted, and even let us change our mind up until a few weeks before.   I believe the Fender guitar cake was the highlight of the reception!  An added bonus – Stephanie will deliver and set up your cake/cupcakes, which was one less thing for a busy bride to worry about!

 

M to the R to the S…..

Well, we did it!  Not that there was any doubt we wouldn’t, right?  We sealed the deal on a cold, rainy, downright yucky Saturday with 180 of our family & friends!  It was truly one of the most amazing days of my life! I was so happy to put my wedding band on and say “I DO!” …

(courtesy of Lisa Hare)

All of our planning and hard work paid off…the ceremony was beautiful and un-complicated, yet was full of meaning, and the reception was pretty rockin’ with an awesome band, delicious food and cupcakes, and one really sweet Fender guitar cake.  I am in the process of collecting photos from our guests and 12 table cameras.  It’s interesting to see people’s perspective and what they were seeing that night.  I hope to have my professional shots in the next couple of weeks and really can’t wait to see those.

In the meantime, I hope to post little things here and there about our vendors (who were all AMAZING!) for those of you working on wedding related stuff.  As well as any DIY tidbits and tips, since I learned there is so much you can do yourself and save a ton of money!

More to come…

XOXO -

MRS Kent!

 

Ladies Who Lunch

My wonderful aunt and cousins hosted the most lovely bridesmaid luncheon for me last weekend. Every little detail, from the place cards, to the favors, to the bows on the chair covers was perfect! I am very fortunate that I have cousins…like 2nd, 3rd, 2nd once removed…who are like sisters to me! The more people I meet, the more I realize how rare it is to have grown up so close to extended family. Most people don’t even know their extended family! On top of that, my very first friend from D.C., Taylor, flew down to spend the weekend with us and Lianna flew in from Philly to help get everything ready! The rain finally stopped and we had a beautiful Saturday together enjoying wonderful food and fellowship on Carol’s sun porch. I found myself looking around and realizing that I have five of the most beautiful, fun, smart and accomplished bridesmaids! What a wonderful bunch!!

MOH extraordinaire, Laurel, had even planned a very special night for everyone that of course included a hot pink boa and bachelorette crown. The littlest detail was not forgotten…from the “he said, she said” game cards at dinner, to the scavenger hunt clues at Target! We started with dinner at Il Localino which I highly recommend! We had wonderful Italian and a ton of laughs as I opened the lovely and scandalous presents the ladies brought! After dinner, Laurel had prepared a very clever scavenger hunt at Target, and I came away with some interesting goodies. We then headed over to Dad’s Garage for some improv and read/laughed our way through the Cosmo (procured during the scavenger hunt!) while we waited for the show to start!

What a great night with great ladies! Once all the fun was over, it was time to get back to work. Not “work, work” per se….wedding “work”. I had my last dress fitting on Monday and was happy to see that there were no alterations needed. Now to get the dress up here. We finalized all the reception table decorations, most of the flowers, the veil, the jewelry…and so on. It seems that with every thing I accomplish there are 2 more things that show up on my list. Everything will fall into place as we continue to get those RSVP cards in and get our head count. So thanks to you who have already sent them in! Your Type A bride really apprecaites it. So, we’re down to about 44 days. How quickly the 17th approaches. I must admit that I’m pretty tired of the planning process and am just really ready to be married and celebrate with all our friends and family!

 

Douglasville meets the District.

I take pride in being a details person. To me, it’s the little things that make the difference. Hence the ribbon that will always be tied on your package and the matching colored pen used to address it. Since we’re not getting married in my most favorite state of Georgia, I’ve tried to find little ways to include little touches of Georgia as well as honor the history of the great (well, sometimes!) city of Washington D.C. The hostesses of my first bridal shower had the same idea, hence the Peach Mimosas they served! One of our first ideas was to have jars of peach preserves for everyone at the reception.    Initially we all thought it was a great idea, until we realized that someone would have to make about 200 jars  of these things right before the wedding, since ordering them pre-made was definitely not in the budget.   This just had “last minute disaster” written all over it.  Not to mention the fact that someone would have to drive them up to D.C. since my 1940′s apartment kitchen can barely fit 2 people in it….let alone 2 people, with 200 jars, a ton of peaches, and nerves associated with getting married in less than a week.    On to plan B…which I really didn’t have at the time.  However, with much research and several phone calls later, I had the perfect idea/favor/Georgia-esque item! I’m super excited that we’ve found a way to incorporate some of the 88 million pounds of PECANS that Georgia produces every year.

On to the D.C. portion of this reception.  While I had already purchased my Washington D.C. gift bags for my “Out of Towner Welcome Bag”… I needed something else.  On a long 10-hour drive from Douglasville to Arlington, it came to me.  The White House is pretty much across the street from Old Ebbitt Grill, so why not use Presidents and First Lady’s as our dinner table numbers.  I thought it was a pretty good idea until Brian brought up the idea of people sitting at tables named for President’s they didn’t like.  Ugh.  You’d think people would get over it…but who wants to risk it.  I think I’ve been able to find enough Presidents and their Lady’s  (complete with wedding date and a sweet quote) without having to venture too far into the modern age.  Hopefully no one will have objections to Taft, Wilson, Adams, Madison, etc.

I know Brian will be happy when the wedding is over.  Today, we’re spending our Saturday printing and assembling these beauties.  Guys should be warned that in between proposing, picking up their tux, and the actual wedding there are tons of wedding crafts that will need to be done…and a bride really likes it when her groom wants to help.  Especially when it involves gluing, cutting,  and licking and stamping envelopes.  We’ll handle all the pretty stuff.

 

Can you believe it’s August?!?!

I have to admit that I did a double take this past weekend when I looked at something and it said “August 1″…. what?!?! How did August sneak up on me like that?  I quickly went to consult Martha’s website where she not only reminded me that I was down to a little less than 80 days before the big shindig, but so diligently gave me a checklist of things I need to (and should have already!) do.   For most things, I’m pretty ahead of the game, but of course she reminds of a few things I’ve forgotten…or neglected to deal with.

Fortunately, like Martha, I surround myself with the most talented and gifted people.  Brian and I had a great trip in Douglasville a few weekends ago.   I had a great time at my shower and opened so many wonderful gifts!  (Not only are these people talented…they’re super generous!)  We also spent a great Saturday night up at the lake with a ton of friends, grilled kabobs and smores, and just spent some much needed time fellowship with our family and friends.  We’re truly blessed to have such a great support system.

Of course, this trip was not all fun and games.  We had several wedding details to take care of.  First and foremost, I had a wedding dress fitting which I had been stressing over.  When I first tried on and ordered the dress, it was that time of the year right between Thanksgiving and Christmas, where you might not be at your slimmest.  We decided that since I measured right in between two sizes, we would order the smaller one.  What more motivation does a girl need to drop a few pounds, right?  Fortunately, when I tried everything on two weeks ago, it fit like a glove! Minimal alterations need.  Phew!   We were also able to take care of flowers and ceremony music.  I’m really excited about the music.  In addition to my wonderful cousin Carol, we’ll have three of our great friends, Susan, Kate and Emily who are going to rock some cello and violin.  It’s going to be really beautiful.   I’m almost sad that I won’t be able to hear everything.

Since it is August, and Brian will have to go back to his classroom in a month we’re trying to get as much as we can out of the way.  We’ve recently addressed, stamped, and sealed our invitations.  Those should be arriving in your mailboxes within the next 2 weeks!! We’re also going to start our pre-marital counseling with Nancy & Brent next week.  Fingers crossed we only need the 4 scheduled sessions!    On top of that, we’re going to head to the Arlington County Courthouse as early as we possibly can to pick up our license.  I kinda get butterflies just from typing that.

I’ll try to do a better job of updating the blogs.  Work has been pretty busy lately…interfering with my personal life.

Don’t turn around…September is creeping up behind you!

 

Natalie’s not cheap, she just loves a sale!

If you know my mother, you know that she would only raise a daughter who could bargain shop with the best of ‘em! The only thing I love more than coupons is a good sale!

Brian and I are humbled by how many of our friends and family are going to make the treck to DC for our wedding in October.  We know that it’s not cheap to get up here, stay in a hotel, eat, sightsee…compounded only by the fact that the economy is still not quite where we’d all like it!  With that in mind, we’re doing our best to keep up with sales and specials that might help.

Right now, Airtran is having a great airfare sale from Atlanta (ATL) to Washington Reagan (DCA)…$64 each way.  With taxes, it come to about $149.20 round trip.   I was able to get this price with ATL-DCA flight on the 15th and 16th, and DCA-ATL flights on the 18th.  Keep watching Delta too, because they often have good deals too!

Keep in mind though that Delta and Airtran charges $15 for a checked bag, so carry-on if you can!

Happy booking!