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I am not a cake person. For some reason it’s just never been my thing. Even as a child I would pass on the birthday cake. Now show me some warm chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies, and we have a different story; however, in the past year or so I discovered something very curious: my distaste for cake comes to a screeching halt when cake becomes CUPcakes. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that cupcakes come in so many flavors: key lime, apple pie, salted caramel, carrot cake, red velvet, s’mores, banana split, peach cobbler. (I could fill a whole post, but for y’alls’ sakes, I’ll keep myself in check.)
Trying new flavors and cupcake shops has almost become a sport for Mr. Hawk and me. If we find a new shop in town, we pick out a half dozen to take home and feast on them rest of the week. (Correction: mine last a week. Mr. Hawk eats all of his within two days and then pouts until I share my half with him.) We even have our favorites cupcakes and shops ranked. (Moistness of cake, cake-to-icing ratio, and cupcake size are all considered.) It.Is.Serious.
Pearl’s Deep Dish Apple Pie—my absolute favorite! / Image via Foodspotting
So naturally, since cupcakes are somewhat of a large presence in our lives, they must be a part of the wedding-dessert menu. It makes me a little sad to be missing out on some gorgeous wedding cakes, but it just wouldn’t be the Hawk wedding without cupcakes.
This weekend we finally ticked off another major task on the to-do list: our registry. I’ll be honest with y’all. Registering was on the bottom of my priority list. I knew it was something that had to be taken care of at some point in time, but I was kind of dreading it. In a lot of ways I was thinking it was going to be a pointless exercise. I mean, Mr. Hawk and I have been living together for over a year now. What could we really need? When we decided to rent a home together, we both brought a good amount of things into our home: pots and pans, plates, silverware…or so I thought. Being little miss type-A, I printed several suggestion lists—Real Simple, Macy’s, and Crate&Barrel—and reviewed them thoroughly. When it came time to take a good solid inventory, I realized that we were definitely lacking. I’m embarrassed to admit that in a lot of ways we’ve been living like college kids (at 26 and 30, no less)!
The majority of our cups (I can’t even call it glassware) are emblazoned with either Green Leafe logos (one of my favorite college bars) or sports logos. We have a collection of mismatched wine glasses we’ve collected at our various wine-tasting outings, and our serving platters are all Tar-jay plastics. I was incredibly surprised that I only was able to eliminate a handful of items from the registry lists! Apparently this registry thing was something we needed more than I originally thought.
With my notated lists in hand, we went to Macy’s. We decided to take care of a lot of big-ticket items there such as our china, silverware, and small appliances. At first I regretted bringing Mr. H when it came to china patterns. He thought china was pointless, yet was somehow very opinionated when it came to decision-making. (Sigh.) In the end we were able to agree on a great pattern.
Then after a Starbucks visit (and venti-sized coffees in hand—did I mention the exhaustion?), we were on to Crate&Barrel. C&B was the place I was most looking forward to after our in-home inventory. I knew that we were in desperate need of everyday items. We found some great glassware (plastic cups, begone!) and grown-up serving platters. One of my favorite items we found was the lightly green-tinted Miguel pitcher and glasses.
I’ve already mentioned some ways Mr. Hawk and I are different. (Like I’m a crier and he’s pretty unemotional. I can be a gut-feel gal, and he likes the cold hard facts.) But the reality is that those differences are just the tip of the iceberg with us. I’d even venture to say that we are more different then we’re alike in a lot of ways.
Mr. H and I grew up very differently. We come from different ethnic backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, and different lifestyles. Mr. Hawk was one of four children and spent most of his adolescence living out in the country (the sticks!). I was pretty darn spoiled, being an only child most of my life. Growing up I moved around quite a bit. From Arizona to Virginia to Texas to Tennessee and back to Virginia, I never really had a “hometown.”
In fact, our differences were so blatantly obvious that when Mr. H and I first started officially dating, I received a lot faux-pleasant “oh really?”s. (The Southern equivalent of “no effin’ way!”) I heard whispers (not always so quietly) from friends. None of the talk had anything to do with friends disliking one of us—I think we just really took everyone by surprise. They didn’t picture us together.
A couple weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Hawk and I met up with Valerie of Valerie Demo Photography in Downtown Richmond for our engagement session. When trying to decide where to take our photographs, I had a little difficulty. After my relentless stalking of Valerie’s blog (along with other inspiration like SMP, Bride’s Cafe, and Weddingbee…), my brain was clouded with so many beautiful ideas.
I adored the look of on-the-beach photos with dreamy light:
But the beach isn’t really Mr. Hawk’s and my thing. (We’re kinda more pool people!)
I also loved the rustic countryside photos:
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This may sound a little silly, but I L.O.V.E. my hair (and the versatility of it!). From a very young age, my mom meticulously styled my hair with a new look daily: braids, ribbons, bows, curls, and ponytails. In my world, every day was a new adventure in hair. Apparently wanting to change up my look with different hairstyles stuck with me all these years. Changing my hair to combat boredom has been my MO:
College years: Long with highlights: “Look ma, no hands!”
One way that Mr. Hawk and I greatly differ is in our emotions. In the nearly two years that we’ve been together, I can only specifically recall seeing Mr. Hawk cry three times (one of those being the day he proposed—awwww). And even then I’ve never really seen him cry more than a couple glistening tears down his cheeks.
I, on the other hand, am a crier. I’m sure Mr. Hawk is lucky to see a week or two go by without my tears. I don’t want to make myself seem coo-coo-cachoo, but I often get moved to tears by movies, music, TV shows, or even commercials. And, unfortunately for me, also unlike Mr. H, I am not a one-to-two-tear crier if I’m feeling particularly moved.
Image via FanPop via ABC’s 2003 special “Britney Spears: In The Zone” with Diane Sawyer
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
The road to finding the perfect bridesmaids’ dresses was certainly not an easy one. Having a bit of a perfectionist streak, I didn’t really allow for much wiggle room once I had a set vision of what I wanted. As I previously mentioned here, I had my mind set on a more organized version of mismatched dresses. I loved the look of completely individual non-matching dresses, but I did worry about creating a cohesive look. (Remember when I described my active imagination? Well, it was telling me free rein could equal complete and utter chaos.) I thought that an easy compromise would be to find a collection with many options for my ladies to choose from. But when it came down to it, shop after shop left me feeling disappointed and less confident about my decision.
Now for a little backstory that y’all are missing… Long ago when I first started researching options, I found the J.Crew bridesmaids’ dresses online. I immediately liked them, but there wasn’t a J.Crew Bridal Shop in Richmond, and I’ve never really been the type to order clothing online willy-nilly. I wanted to be able to hold them, touch them, feel them, smell them (well, maybe not smell them, but you get the idea). So I pushed the option to the back of my mind and went on my way, visiting every bridal store in town; however, with the passing of every failed appointment, I found myself back at J.Crew’s website admiring the dresses.
L.O.V.E. / Image via Once Wed Photo by Jill Thomas Photography
There is something so elegant and classic about a monogram. And us Southern ladies just L.O.V.E. a monogram. Bags, jewelry…hell, we even monogram our cars! (No really, our cars.)
So what does this have to do with the wedding? Well, naturally I wanted to incorporate Mr. Hawk’s and my newly minted monogram into our wedding reception. And what better way to do that than use a Globo light? (And while we’re at it? Add a little uplighting!)
(Or maybe just mine.)
Do enough blog stalking of SMP (along with every other bridal blog out there!), and you’ll be hard-pressed not to find a least a dozen inspirational photos featuring Chiavari chairs (AKA ballroom chairs).
Image via The Knot / Photo by Next Exit Photography
So after selecting my tablecloths, I knew I was ready to add another layer of pizzazz in the form of a table runner or overlay. Perhaps unluckily for me, there were an abundance of options available to keep me from nailing down a decision.
At first I was mesmerized by the beauty that is doily table runners like these:
I think it’s possible that some of y’all might be operating under the misconception that I’m a decisive person. I mentioned how I found my dress on my first outing, and I’ve described the ease of booking some of our vendors and even securing our ceremony venue. But let me be very clear: those situations were exceptions to the rule. I just happened to have a strong feeling about those decisions, and my gut led me in the right direction. When it comes to most things, I am crippled with indecision. (OK, maybe crippled is a little extreme, but it is serious, y’all.) My latest dilemma? Picking a domain name for our wedding website.
Image via Joe the Nutrition Pro
When Mr. Hawk and I met with Laura of Williamsburg Catering Company a few months back, she was offering a special that included use of their linens for no additional charge if we signed by the end of the month. At our initial meeting, after discussing the basics of our menu, Laura showed us some of the linen options so we could get an idea of what they offered. Her first suggestion was to begin with our color palette. She showed us their aqua and yellow table cloths. The look was fine and her samples did match the colors perfectly, but I quickly realized that I didn’t want to be so literal with our colors.
Imagine something like this stacked:
Image via Factory Direct Party
Mr. Hawk works in retail. More specifically, he is a district supervisor for a chain of retail stores. If any of y’all have ever worked in retail or have been in a relationship with someone who worked in retail full time, I’m sure you have an idea of what his job entails: long hours, working holidays, and (my least favorite) travel. (Lots.Of.Travel.) He is gone so often that sometimes it feels like we are in long-distance relationship even though we share the same address. On the off chance that he can actually make it home, it still feels like we’re just crossing paths. He walks in the door around nine and, being an early riser myself, I head to bed around 10 or 10:30. Come morning, I wake up earlier than him to head to work. When it comes down to it, we’re lucky if we’ve actually spent over an hour of (conscious) time together!
Pretty early on Mr. Hawk and I knew that we wanted to have a smaller wedding, surrounded by our closest family and friends. The thought of being introduced to some distant second cousin twice removed at the reception just didn’t feel right to me. We decided to keep it as small as possible for such an intimate occasion; however, not unfortunately for us but unfortunately for our guest list, our families alone could easily exceed the 120-guest max mandated by Wren Chapel. Actually, let me clarify—Mr. Hawk’s family alone could easily exceed 120 people. (FMIL has over 10 siblings, so with their children and grandbabies, well, you can do the math ’cause my head just started hurting.)
We knew we had to draw the line somewhere if we were even going to have room for friends (and maybe some of my family members). So we decided to have an adults-only ceremony and reception. Now, I know that the idea is still considered somewhat controversial, but like I said we had to draw the line somewhere…
Image via Zazzle
Now here is the tricky part:
I have quite the active imagination, but unfortunately it doesn’t always serve me well. It is great for, say, writing short stories or daydreaming to pass the time, but perhaps not so good when it comes to anxiety-related issues. I can visualize the absolute worst outcome happening. (And this vivid imagination often carries over to dream land…)
A couple nights ago I awoke in a start. I was brought back to reality from a nightmare, and I couldn’t shake the feelings I had (even a whole 12-plus hours later).
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Mrs. Hawk, Richmond, VA Age and Occupation: 26, Finance Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, District Supervisor Engagement Date: March 13, 2011 Wedding Date: May 2012 Venue: The Chapel of the Sir Christopher Wren Building, 2007 Legacy Hall About Me: I’m an Arizona-born girl who has spent the majority of my life living below the Mason-Dixon line. The South has definitely earned a special place in my heart (alongside my Virginia born and bred fiance, of course!). We are planning a traditional Christian ceremony at my alma mater in historic Williamsburg, Virginia, followed by a rocking reception filled with Southern cooking and vintage/shabby chic details. When we’re not wedding planning, we enjoy spending time with our three dogs, going for runs together, watching plenty of football (or baseball depending on the season), and sampling new wine.
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