June 21 Shopping Trip!

I went grocery shopping without any coupons in hand. Can you believe it?

I only used 2 coupons at Food Lion, and I found them in the store! And I still saved a decent amount of money! Just what I needed to get back into the coupon game! For the most part, I loaded up on drinks and paper products, things you don't find a ton of coupons for anyway. And the Gatorade... Matthew spends the same price on bottles half the size! So that is a huge deal for us! He should have enough Gatorade for the next month!

Lowe's Foods is having some great produce sales! I am definitely going to enjoy this!

Food Lion
Last week and this week, Food Lion is having a Big Deal sale. If you buy 10 items, you get $5 off. If you buy 20 items, you get $10 off. And if you buy 30 items, you get $15 off. That's $.50 off each item!

(4) Poptarts 8 count $2 each = $8
          (2) $1/2 coupon
          Big Deal Promo = $4, or $1 each
(10) Pepsi 2 liters $1.25 each
          Big Deal Promo = $.75 each
(10) Gatorade 64 oz. $2 each
          Big Deal Promo = $1.50 each
(1) Oscar Mayer Ham and Salami Sub Kit $6.99
          Big Deal Promo = $6.49
(2) Sparkle Paper Towels $8.99 each
          Big Deal Promo = $8.49 each (Not too proud of this deal. I could have sworn they were on sale for less than this. Oh well, we did need them.)
(2) Charmin Toilet Paper $4.50 each
          Big Deal Promo = $4 each
(1) Pedigree Dog Food (15 or 20 lbs., not sure) $11.99
          Big Deal Promo = $11.49
Total: $74.82
Savings: $33.57

Lowe's Foods
(2) Hershey candy bars $.49 each (because Matthew acts like he's 5)
(1) Nature's Own Whitewheat Bread $1.99
(2) Fajita Mix vegetables $1 each (from $2.69 each! love marked down produce!)
(1) Milk gallon $2.99
(6) Peaches 2.29 lbs. $1.53
(5) Bananas 2.70 lbs. $1.86
(1) Vidalia Onion 1.02 lbs. $.68
(5) Green Bell Peppers $3.35, just $.67 each!
Total: $15.75
Savings: $10.42 (which doesn't include how much those Fajita Mix vegetables were marked off. That's another $3.38!)

Wedding ABCs (part 2)

Music

A highschool classmate and her dad sang "The Prayer" during the ceremony. Our first dance was "At Last". And that's all I remember. One of the bridesmaids put together the list of songs for the reception. It was a mix of hip hop and oldies; we had to please everyone!

Newlyweds

By definition, newlyweds means "Recently married", and recently means "Of, belonging to, or occuring at a time imeediately before the present". So by that, I would not consider us newlyweds. Everyone asks if the honeymoon is over. I always say, "Uh, yeah, that was over during the actual honeymoon!" I joke! I have felt like it was over from the beginning. We jumped from wedding to honeymoon and then back to work and school. We haven't had any length of time spent on us. The last year has been one class, meeting, appointment, and event after another. The next two years will not be any different. And once we have kids, things will be even busier. I guess we are adjusted to our few moments of hangout time.

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

I didn't really make a big fuss about doing this tradition. But I wore old underwear, new dress and shoes, borrowed my mom's biker short things (it was hot.. my legs were sticking together.. nobody wants chafing haha), and I think I might have had blue on my underwear. I can't remember.

Photography

We had an awesome photographer named Brian Fleming! He was exactly the type of photographer I wanted. I don't care for all of the crazy and goofy pictures or the super artistic pictures. I simply wanted to get all of the pictures, and I wanted them to be good! I didn't want to have to buy individual prints for outrageous prices. I liked that he was honest and upfront, especially about the service of making a photo album and that he would go to a website just like I could do myself. And the price was extremely reasonable!

Question Popping

I went over that in yesterday's post. It was perfect!

Reception

There were orange and pink tissue pom-poms hanging over the dance floor. There were food tables along all of the walls. We had shrimp, carved beef and turkey (or maybe it was pork!), a pasta station, hot crab dip, a fruit display, cheese and vegetable table, some kind of chicken, and I can't even remember what else! Everything was good, but we didn't get to eat a whole lot there. Luckily, our caterer packed us a cooler for the road! And we hauled that thing into every hotel room (for midnight snacks) until we got tired of filling it up with ice!

Shoes

If you know me, then you know that I love nothing more than a Rainbow flip flop! They are my shoe of choice no matter the occasion. If I could wear them to work, I would! Since a wedding is slightly more formal than everyday life, I got a white pair of rainbows (whiter than my dress, but who cares!) with some bling on the strap! These shoes cost more than I wanted to spend, but I have worn them a couple of times since. They might just go in the shadow box haha. I also picked these out because I wanted a flat shoe (since we are about the same height and I do not do heels) and a comfortable shoe.

Trash the Dress

I would never in a million years trash something that cost that much! I am too cheap! Plus, I want to keep my dress. It's all cleaned and boxed up!

Unique

Hmm.. I'm not sure if we had anything super unique. We did have pinwheels for our favors. And I guess it was unique that we barely danced, because I hate to dance haha. We also did a sand ceremony instead of a unity candle. I know that's not unique, but it wasn't super popular around here at the time.

Vows

We just had the traditional Baptist vows. I couldn't even tell you what we said. Is that sad? I mean, I meant what I said. I just have a terrible memory!

Wedding Woes

There wasn't really anything that went wrong on the day of the wedding. I didn't want to wake up that early and setup for the reception. And I might not have shown up at the time my mom wanted me to. But other than that, everything turned out just like it was supposed to!

X-Rated

The only thing x-rated was Matthew's groomsmen and their foul mouths. But they managed for a day to be semi-polite and gentleman-like.

Young Kids

We requested that no young children be brought to the wedding. The only ones that were really there were the flower girl and ring bearer, along with their older brother, and my cousin's baby (but he slept the whole time and they had traveled from Georgia to be there).

Zzzz

Yeahh, when was I supposed to get the sleep? I didn't have that in my itinerary! After the wedding, we rode around until we realized neither of us had keys to get into our cars or my parent's house. After fixing that problem, we hung out at my parent's house until midnight probably eating leftover food and cake and hanging out with my family. Once we got home, we opened all of our wedding gifts, which took about 2 hours! And then we passed out to sleep. We had planned to leave at 7 a.m. the next day for our road trip, but we probably ended up leaving closer to 8:30.

Wedding ABCs (part 1)

On Sunday, Matthew and I will be celebrating our first anniversary! I saw this over at The Luckiest in Love and thought it would be a good idea to relive the wedding!

Attending

We had about 200 people. There were mostly family members (I have a big family!) with a few friends too.

Bridesmaids

My sister was my maid of honor. I had four bridesmaids, all friends from various stages in my life. And there was one flower girl.

Cakes

I loved our cake! It was four layers of chocolate, carrot, and lemon cake with white buttercream icing. We were browsing wedding cake ideas online when we found one that simply had words describing marriage all over it. So that's what we did! Matthew's cake was a special surprise for him. It was the most fantastic cake I've ever seen!

Dress

I remember looking all over for the dress. It was pretty much a nightmare! I'm not a little bitty girl, nor am I a plus size girl, so I had the hardest time looking for dresses as most stores carry only size 6 and 8. If they carried larger sizes, they were way larger. I didn't want anything poofy or super sparkly. I didn't want a long train. I didn't want a veil. After several dress shops and several incidents of leaving in tears, we were finally told about a little shop called AVA Formal a little over an hour from where we lived. The owner was fantastic and I loved the personal help I got from her. I found my dress that very day, something I would never have picked for myself. But I loved it! It made me feel so beautiful!

Engagement

We were engaged for just over a year. Matthew planned a little trip to Charleston, SC for a weekend. We went to Magnolia Gardens, which is a beautiful old plantation that you can tour the house and grounds. After touring the house, we took a walk through the amazing gardens. And as we walked over a white bridge over a small pond, Matthew got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was a million degrees that day, but it was perfect!

Flowers

I picked gerber daisies as the main flower for the bouquets. I wanted pinks, oranges, and greens. And the florist went from there! I think he did a great job! We did do the arrangements for the reception ourselves. They were fun to put together!

Groomsmen

Matthew's dad was his best man. He had four of his friends as his groomsmen. And we had one ringbearer, the brother to the flower girl.

Honeymoon

We took a roadtrip up north, stopping in DC, Philadelphia, Boston, and Vermont. There were a few disagreements over directions, but we quickly learned that I am in charge of directions now. I wish the trip had been longer than a week!

 

Invitations

I searched and searched for invitations. I knew in my head what I wanted, but I just couldn't find them. And if I found ones that I liked, I didn't want to pay that much for them. We were on a budget after all! Once I saw them, I knew that's what I wanted. There were just so different from anything I've ever seen!

http://shop.getmarried.com/Invitations/Wedding-Invitations/2909-GM6021-Rosie--Wedding-Invitation.pro

Justice of the Peace

My cousin's husband married us. He did a great job and we so appreciate him standing out in that hot sun to get the job done!

Keepsakes

We had a guest book for everyone to sign and write advice in. But apparently our guests can't read because most people just signed it haha. We also had a picture frame for everyone to sign. It now sits at the end of our hallway so we see it every single day.

Ladies Night

This was a planned weekend to Charleston. However, I wouldn't call it a Ladies Weekend since only my sister and I went. None of my friends went. I was more than upset about that whole situation. But we ate and shopped our hearts out. I had a great time and I'm so thankful that my sister loves me enough to do that for me and to be there for me when nobody else was!

Menu Plan Monday 6/6-6/12

Monday: Shrimp & Baked Fish (tilapia or flounder, whichever I have) with potatoes and green beans
Tuesday: Spaghetti with salad
Wednesday: Baked Chicken, stuffing, and cranberry sauce
Thursday: Everyone for themselves!
Friday: Hamburger Helper with salad
Saturday: Grilled BBQ Chicken, grilled peaches, and some vegetable (tbd)
Sunday: Pepper Steak with brown rice