pretty pictures and a little life update

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Brandon and I have had a whirlwind of a couple of weeks, he finishing up a brutal test block, me moving forward with work and wedding things. We drove down on Wednesday after hosting a wonderful Friendsgiving Tuesday night with our loves in Chapel Hill, and spent the rest of the week through this evening in Orlando with my fam.

Yesterday, we had the BIGGEST blessing through Lori of Shutter Life Productions, who spent the afternoon with us shooting engagement photos. This is one of those God-really-came-through-at-the-last-second scenarios and seriously we were so overwhelmed with gratitude! We were even more blessed getting a text from her at 11:30 at night saying she had already finished editing our photos! What an amazing team!!

Needless to say, we are completely in love with their work. Below you can see a few of our favorite shots, and be sure to check out their blog post on us here.

I seriously want to get to a point in my life where I can capture life's moments as beautifully as they do. Wow, you guys. Just wow.

We are headed back to "real life" in NC tomorrow morning bright and early, and would love, in the most general way possible, for prayers as we enter this holiday season. Me, for some big changes professionally, and for Brandon to make it through the last push before a well-deserved break. We know God is in control, and we are trusting him through what has the potential to be a stressful December.

Anyone out there have any good Advent devotionals they'd recommend? I'm in the market for one!

Lots of love from sunny Florida,

Abby

WIP's

There's a familiar acronym for crafters everywhere: WIP. It stands for "Works in Progress".

Dear heavens above, there is no closer acronym for how my life feels these days. Silly Abby and her silly, naive thoughts on how this whole wedding process was going to go. Silly me in thinking that I would land my dream job (or at least be on the path to my dream job) right out of my senior year of college. I'm not bitter, I'm just learning.

I find myself at my drafting table a lot, crafting out stress and committing myself to small, measurable goals. It's a good feeling. I knit a baby cardigan this weekend (long story, no one is having a baby). I crocheted a flower. It's therapy.

We are making progress, though! We have a venue (sort of) and a photographer (we think). Things are moving in a good direction. But it is a lot more complicated, and taking a lot longer than this impatient heart thought that it would! It is good learning, and good growing, and I am excited to reflect back on this whole being engaged business and figure out what exactly God was doing during this time.

In the meantime, I'm choosing joy. I'm choosing to see the challenges as opportunities, and the blessings as gifts. I am counting down the days until Thanksgiving break at home with family and Brandon and sunshine and cranberry sauce. Good things are coming, and are happening right now.

xoxo.

Abby

so now we're getting married!

And so it begins. :)

The past three weeks have been quite the whirlwind. And I first want to say thank you to every friend and person who reached out to say congratulations. I tried to respond to as many as I could, and I'm sorry if I didn't get back to you right away! 

a super sweet bachelorette cupcake from a dear friend :)

I have been so overwhelmed with all of the love and help and just general wonderfulness that has been poured out on us so far in celebrating being engaged and now planning this wedding. It is a time of HUGE transition but all in the best way (although I can totally understand now how being a wedding planner could be a full-time career). I have heard from a bunch of people that the first few months are the most stressful, and then it slows down, and then gets crazy again!

Because I've been spending so much time on Pinterest recently for wedding things, I have also been finally making some of the recipes that I have had pinned for forever. I'll hopefully be sharing some of these very soon! Some have definitely been bigger successes than others.

Life is still moving at a fast pace but I'm excited to keep on sharing this unique time. Please pray for us as we are making big decisions about our big day and are going through lots of personal transitions too!

More later,

xoxo

Abby