Five for Friday!

1.) Celebrity engagement rings have gotten out of control. 

Two recently engaged stars, Kim Kardashian and Ciara, both received 15 carat diamond rings. Last time I checked, that's a cocktail ring, not an everyday ring to show you're off the market. Let's be real - we know those are blood diamonds and you could have "settled" for something a little smaller, dare I say 5 carats, and donated some of your money to charity.

2.) Ellen DeGeneres never fails to make me smile.

I have been a long time fan of Ellen and watch her show everyday on my DVR. Everything about her brings me so much joy, especially her Halloween costumes. This year was no exception, as she dressed up as Nicki Minaj in the ridiculous outfit she wore when she visited the Ellen show... on daytime tv.

3.) I believe in trying everything once, tattoos included.

Well, most things anyway. I have been thinking about getting a small tattoo in memory of my Mom. She probably would not have liked me honoring her in the form of permanent ink on my body - but you only live once and I have a really great idea that I wouldn't mind living the rest of my life with! Does anyone have a tattoo in memory of someone they lost? If so, what is it?

4.) I'm obsessed with my dog.

Yep, crazy dog lady over here and proud of it! I handed out candy last night at home and had the best assistant ever. Stella just silently sat there, in her Penn State jersey, and watched as kid after kid came to the door yelling trick or treat. She even posed for the camera, what a diva. Next year I think we'll invest in an actual costume since she proved herself this year - messy hair and all.

5.) We just hit the 10 months until the wedding mark.

And just like everyone said, time truly is flying and I can't believe it! We're going to be doing our registries this weekend at Crate & Barrel and Macy's. We really don't need much in the way of home and kitchen items, but I'm afraid when I get that little scanner gun in my hands, I'm going to think we need anything and everything in the store! Any tips I should know before we go?

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!

Love in a vineyard!

Happy wedding Wednesday, beautiful people!

I'm so excited to share our engagement photos with you all today!

Being mega wine lovers, we ( I ) decided that a vineyard would be the perfect setting for our shoot. 

Add some jumbo wine glasses, a bottle of white, a funky picnic blanket, some balloons (because why not), and the coolest bike ever... and voila!

Our photographer sent us 170 pictures from the day & I swear there are probably only 5 that I'm not a huge fan of. How the heck does one choose a save the date photo? 

Trading cards, anyone?

Here are some of my favorites! We really had so much fun and I love reliving it through these pictures. Sorry for the love overload that's about to come at ya!

Photos all courtesy of the AMAZING Becka of Lauren Fair Photography!

 

 

 Okay I have to stop myself.

So in love with my man!

And so thankful for these pictures that capture this very happy and exciting time in our lives.

Do you have a favorite?

HELP! I have WAY too many and don't know how I'll ever choose!

Goodbye productivity.

True story...

I planned on writing a blog post today,

and then a whole bunch of these showed up in my inbox from our wedding photographer.

More to come next week!

Happy weekend!

The Proposal.

Wow! Blown away!

Thank you all so so much for your sweet words of congratulations! You all just added to my glow!

If you didn't know, I'm a very new blogger, like just began May 1st - and yesterday I received the most views EVER. I'm so happy that I can share my joy with all of you - what a great little support system the blogging community is.

Today I promised to share with you all our proposal story. 

Those that know me really well know that I don't like making a scene, I don't like all eyes on me, and I tend to be very private about certain things. I'm not the girl who would want to be engaged at a sporting event on the jumbo-tron. No way, no how. Thankfully, Peter knows all this & took that into major consideration.

I mentioned on Friday that our plan for the weekend was to do some major painting at our townhouse, it's been the plan for quite some time. I got to the house, unpacked my car, and was putting together some new furniture I brought. 

Peter kept urging me to sit down and relax - 

"We can do this all later" he kept saying.

"Sit down, relax, I'll get some wine. Our dinner reservation isn't until 8."

Wine? Okay, this wino cannot complain about that. So sit and relax I did. I heard Peter rummaging around in our wine cabinet, but didn't really think anything of it. He came back from the kitchen with two options - a typical Riesling (my favorite) and a bottle of Ice Wine Riesling.

*Side story! If you don't know what ice wine is - it's created by keeping the grapes on the vine through the frost so that they freeze there. Once the grapes are picked and turned into wine, it creates a super sweet delicious dessert type wine. We bought a very expensive bottle of ice wine during our very 1st trip to the Finger Lakes Wine Trail back in 2011 and have been saving it ever since for a "special occasion" since it was so rare and pricey!

 Okay, back to the story... 

So showed me the two bottles of wine & asked me which one I wanted him to open.

I said - "No way, not the ice wine. We promised we'd save that for a special occasion!"

He said - "Well then let's create one. I have something I've been wanting to ask you."

Obviously at this point I knew what was about to happen. It also then occurred to me that he had been acting super nervous since the second I got there, but I didn't care! I think this is when a permanent smile appeared on my face and has been there every since. From there, he said some really amazing things to me. Things that make me tear up just thinking about them. Things that every girl wants to hear from the man she loves. Things that came from his heart, and weren't rehearsed or practiced. Things that I'm going to forever keep to myself, because they were meant for me only!

Since I only had 8 years to rehearse my answer - I quickly said "YES OF COURSE!!!"

Then 5 things happened...

1.) We drank the entire bottle of ice wine - totally worth the wait, might I add.

2.) I immediately became incredibly thankful that I had just painted my nails. SCORE!

3.) We both called our families and very very close friends.

4.) My picture taking streak began - what can I say, I love my ring! 

 5.) We put our phones away.

We made a very conscious decision to ditch our phones after it happened so that we could be in the moment and enjoy & celebrate! To anyone who not yet engaged - I would highly recommend doing this - the world of Facebook/Twitter/etc can wait, this moment won't last forever. This turned out to be the best decision because when I did get around to letting the social media world know later the next day - it was literally a constant flow of calls, texts, messages, comments, likes, tweets, etc! If you think your Facebook goes crazy on your birthday, then you should try getting engaged. It was insane. It's definitely an instant confidence boost though because I had no idea that many people cared about our future plans. But we appreciate the love so much, it turns out all of our friends we've encountered over the past 8 years of our relationship were also anxiously awaiting this day!

So that's it! Our proposal story. It was simple - perfect - heartfelt - private - and oh so very "us"! I wouldn't have had it any other way and will forever cherish it. We spent the night celebrating with dinner & drinks - and in case you're wondering, yes we did actually get some painting done, but not nearly as much as we had planned. I blame Peter - he had to go and distract me with a sparkly object.

Cheers to planning the wedding of OUR dreams.

Happy Tuesday, lovers!

That time I got engaged.

Well, it's safe to say I'm on cloud 9! 

Actually is there a cloud 10? 11? 79? Because it feels like I just might be there.

On Friday, Peter asked me to be his wife!
I guess after 8 years he decided he liked it, because he put a ring on it - the most beautiful ring I've ever seen! That might explain why I can't stop staring at my hand...

hello, my precious.

He did good. I catch a glimpse of it on my finger every now and then - my heart skips a beat - and I still can't grasp that he chose me, and I get to spend forever with the most perfect man for me. Oh my gosh, I'm such a sap right now!

I really still can't put into words how I'm feeling - it all still seems so surreal. I knew that this day would eventually be coming, but he really caught me off guard when I was least expecting it (on a weekend we were supposed to paint our townhouse) and completely surprised me - which I was informed was "what he was going for". Nailed it, babe.

I'm still in a constant state of bliss - I hope this never goes away. I've never felt happier. Everyone tells me that I'm glowing and I don't find that hard to believe. I'm just so looking forward to this exciting time in our lives.

I'll be back tomorrow with the proposal story & some pictures - because as you can see, today I'm just still all over the place with happiness and emotion! Not that I won't still be tomorrow...

Warning - this new shiny thing on my hand has turned me into a selfie taking machine. 
You'll see what I mean tomorrow.

Linking up with Weekend Shenanigans and I <3 Bloglovin'