Here's to...

...more laughs, more blessings and another marvelous year! 2009 has been good to us and we just hope 2010 is going to be even better! Happy and blessed new year to everyone of you out there.

Much love from The Weagraffs =)

A year ago today...

...he asked.

 and i said yes. =)

I dare you to watch this...

...and NOT be changed.

So Thankful.

Things I am thankful for:

my love
Blessed to have found a the love of my life, and I'm thankful to call him my husband. I'm thankful for the new life that we are going to embark on.

my family
They're simply amazing.

the pup
He's such a pansy, but we love him anyway.

great friendships
Like with this crazy lady.

And of course, none of this would be possible without The Lord. I'm so thankful for all of the blessings that He has bestowed upon my family and I.

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't really know if I'll get a chance to blog tomorrow to say this so:
Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, everyone!

Source

Big news!

We interrupt this blog to bring you this announcement... We found a house to rent!! We're moving!!! (Well, just like 5 minutes away from where we are now... lol) But, yippee-skippy!!! I've been wanting to nest for so long now and it was hard to, living with mom and my brother. But now... I finally get to nest. With my husband. And our pup. Life is good. Praise the Lord! =)

And I smell a trip to IKEA....

Christmas came early.

Happy, happy. Joy, Joy. I must say that I am blessed with the most generous and loving mom. She helped me get my new baby:

Happy, happy! Joy, joy! It's a 17-inch MacBook Pro! I'm beyond excited. You can't even tell that it's a refurbished Mac... It's... it's... it's BEAUTIFUL!!! And with the money left over, I got this bad boy:

The Apple Magic Mouse! Eye lahv eet! The only drawback is that it's hyper sensitive... Sometimes I find myself zooming in on stuff when I've just clicked. Takes a little getting used to.

I also got the latest Adobe Creative Suite! These tools are going to help so much. God has been working His hand in my life right now. He's giving me tools to help with the growing freelance opportunities coming my way. It's going to help us so much!! Thank you, Lord! I feel so blessed. =)

Little Miss Amelie

She's oxygen free!!! I got this sweet little picture texted to me by Katie's sis, Lucie. Thanks for praying for this precious little girl... keep 'em comin'! She's still in the hospital, but she's doing so much better! Oh my gosh! I can't wait to meet her!

Welcome to the world, Little Peanut!

Amelie Faith Palamaro
Born October 30, 2009, 7:46am
6lbs 9oz, 19 inches long
Please keep beautiful little Amelie, as well as Katie and Ant, in your prayers. She's battling a major infection. The doctors are keeping her in the hospital for a minimum of 7-10 days to continue to give her antibiotics and monitor her breathing. The Palamaros have been in my thoughts and prayers constantly. I can't even imagine what they're feeling, not being able to hold their precious new baby. It's very hard, but her parents didn't name her Faith for nothing. Giving this all to God. She's a fighter just like her mommy, I can feel it!

We're pulling for you, Little Amelie! I can't wait to meet you!!

Love, Auntie Hazel.

The Peanut and Mommy Get Showered

It's a week overdue, but I'm finally blogging about Katie's "Little Peanut" themed shower. I do have 2 regrets...
1.) That I did not have a better camera and...
2.) That we didn't have more time!!! Time to set-up, time to spend with Katie...

It was a whirlwind! We had to rush to set up that I didn't even have time to take pictures of the whole set-up like I originally wanted to. Or rather, I was just so tired from the night before and happy to sit down once it was set up, that I honestly forgot to take the pictures! I think I was more flustered planning and setting up this shower than I was planning my wedding! ahaha But it was all worth it to see Katie and have people there that love her and Peanut so much!

Minh-Thi and I worked until the wee hours of the morning on the day before baking cupcakes, making buckeyes and prepping for the shower. Needless to say we were delirious by the time it all rolled around! See?

During all of our planning stages, I came across this blog entry from Elsie at A Beautiful Mess. She hand drew a sign for guests to take a picture with for a shower that she hosted. I loved the idea so much that I made one for Katie. I'm happy to say that it was a hit! =)

We even took a group picture! Well, two of them (at least on my camera.. there were a couple of other cameras floating around.) Take one. Jennifer (far left) had just finished setting the timer and ran over when Matthew came in to the hall. This is us trying to get Matt to hurry and get in the pic. Obviously the timer went off before he could get there. But it's a hilarious picture!

Take two is more refined as you can see:


I wish I had more pics of everything! But I'm so happy that we could put this together. It was an honor to throw Katie and Peanut a shower! I can't wait to meet him/her!! =)

This weekend...

Will be amazing! Why, you ask? Because I get to see this preddy lady here:

(Favoritest picture of us--ever!)
And we get to celebrate her impending mommyhood with her shower on Saturday! We're so excited! =D You bet I'll be posting those pictures up!!

One Year.

October 4, 2009 will be here in two days. Feels like yesterday that it was October 4, 2008 and not...

525,600 minutes.

8,760 hours.

365 days.

12 months.

One. Year.

I've missed you for this long and I will continue to miss you.

I love you, Dad.

Great Message. Pure Genius.

This is called "Dirt Poster" by Roland Tiangco. (Via Creature Comforts) It's simply amazing. While removing the poster from the envelope, your hands get dirty and the paper gets smudged as you handle it. With the dirty hands, open up the poster and reveal a message (printed using a spot varnish.) The message is very poignant for today's times.

To tide you over...

I've finally compiled all of the pictures that others took from our wedding! I'm still waiting on the pictures from my friend. Anxious doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. But for now, you can enjoy this album. =)

I'll keep you posted when the other pics come!
 
PS: In case you missed the story behind the best day ever, you can read all about it here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

How N.E.E.T. =)

I stumbled upon this little gem via A Beautiful Mess. It was too awesome not to share!


N.E.E.T. Magazine

In their own words:

N.E.E.T. began in December 2005 as a quarterly, online publication, laid out in a magazine format - as a showcase for grassroots creativity. N.E.E.T. is the first of its kind - online, free and packed with everyone from a crafter creating from their kitchen table, to a fashion design graduate straight out of college, to a team of people doing it for the love of it. N.E.E.T. Magazine is an eco-friendly, grassroots style bible for the digital age. It would be impossible without the wonderful contributions of all those involved and many thanks goes to a wide network of global talent, with the internet playing a vital part in research and communication.

So cute! Go check it out! =)

Typography Inspirations

I don't know how many of you are font nerds like me, but I saw these today via black eiffel. (Which is fast becoming a daily read for me) Great source of daily inspirations. So font geeks enjoy, non-font geeks, enjoy anyway! =)


F is for FAIL from Brent Barson on Vimeo.


Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

So tomorrow...

Is 30 Rock for me! Since we're spending all day at Disney, I won't be able to post this tomorrow, so I'm posting it today.

You didn't think he'd be the only one with a cool poster, did you? hehe =)

Happy Birthday!!

It's been quite a busy day today and this is the first chance that I've gotten to get to a computer, but better late than never!

Happy 30th birthday to my wonderful husband! I love you! =)

So true...

I'm interrupting my wedding recaps. I saw this video on That Wife's blog. It SO sums up some of the clients that I've seen come through my work office looking for design work. They expect Mona Lisa quality work for a Polaroid price...



I want to start doing more freelance and I need to remember to stop underselling myself!!

Backtracking: Part 5 - Just a day, just an ordinary day

That's what July 17th has been for us until now. How did we end up deciding that July 17th would be THE day?

After Katie tuned me in to The Winter Park Farmers Market, I downloaded all of the brochures that their website had. I found out that it was affordable, considering that Winter Park is known to be a pretty expensive area. I decided to inquire more about availability and contacted Janet at the WP Civic Center.

Janet promptly replied to my e-mail with a more detailed pricing and rules and regulations. She was super nice and accommodating. I actually wanted to do it on a Thursday [waaayy cheaper to do it on a weekday, if y'all don't know that yet]. But Chuck thought we need to have it on a Saturday so that our guests wouldn't have to worry about having to rush to our party after they got off work, only to have to to go home early to go to work the next day. Made sense...

So I decided to call Janet and check on availability dates for a Saturday in August. I figured an August date would give us enough time to space vendor payments out [since it was early June already] and not have to be strapped. Janet got back to me with two available Saturdays in August and she was kind enough to put a 1-week courtesy hold on those dates while I discussed things with Chuck.

Silly me... I was so excited about the dates that I totally overlooked the fact that there was a chance Honolulu would call in August. [D'oh!] Chuck pointed that out so back to Janet to see if there were any Saturdays available in July. She told me there were none, but she had 2 Friday dates available--July 17 and July 24. I told her to transfer my hold for those dates instead of the August dates.

[FYI: If you're considering hosting your venue at any of the City of WP locations, DO IT! Their customer service is AWESOME!]

So I told Chuck about the 17th and the 24th. The 24th was his regularly scheduled shift and he was trying to save as much of his vacation days that were still available in case of HI. So the 17th it was then!

At this point, I had only been corresponding with Janet through e-mail and Phone conversations. Nothing had been signed yet and Chuck had never really been to the Farmers Market building before. If you go back to this post, you'll recall how we signed the contract and set our date that same day those pictures were taken.

That day, I told my boss that I was taking a longer lunch to look at our possible engagement party venue. I met Chuck and Jen #1 there and after the contract signing, I went back to work and Chuck left to run some errands.

Ok, see this picture?
My awesome parents...super precious!
This is my dad's all-time favorite picture of the two of them. It hung in the living room of our old house. When my dad died, this was the picture that I chose to be blown up and framed and showcased at his funeral. That larger framed copy is now what's hanging in our new house on the wall that's right by the front door.

What's the significance of this picture, you ask? Well... When I got home that day from work, Chuck was already home and was sitting in the living room. He asked me how the rest of my day went and then he said: "You wanna know what makes me even more happy now about July 17th?"

"What?" I smiled and said. And he got up, and walked me over to the picture. He said that he came home and he placed his hand on the wall where the picture was. He was trying to hold himself up while he was taking his shoes off and something told him to look up at the picture.

Scroll back up and see if you see what's coming up next.... Don't see it? Well, I didn't either at first until Chuck pointed this out to me:

See that? Hidden in plain sight over by mom's arm. My father's favorite photo, taken on a July 17th way back in 1988. I welled up (and STILL do every time I tell this!) and tears came. Chuck hugged me and told me that he took it as my dad's way of telling us that he's happy for us and was giving us his blessing. I also love the fact that Chuck was the one to notice it. Like dad was talking just to him. I've always told Chuck how much dad liked him and now I think Chuck knows for sure.

We knew then that it wasn't a mere coincidence about our special day. God had already written this for us and all the things that led up to it was just His way of making us realize how even more amazing He really is.

We wanted to honor dad on our day. I put several of my little tea lights at the table where my mom would be sitting, a special place right next to her. We incorporated the picture and placed it prominently by our cake table. BIG thanks to Jen & Gretchen for making the table so lovely!

Photo by my bro, Lawr

In case you're just tuning in, here's what's happened so far:
- How this all came to be
- Who we told
- How we fed & entertained our guests
- Will you marry us?

Stay tuned for more wedding details! =)

Backtracking: Part 4 - Will you marry us?

We worked so hard to make our day as personal to us as possible. We both knew that we didn't want a "normal" wedding ceremony. We both knew that we wanted all the important things but without all the ceremony that went along with the ceremony... Does that make sense?

I was born and raised in the Catholic church and I have been to MANY of my cousins' and friends' Catholic weddings. Don't get me wrong, I believe that Catholic weddings--or any weddings in a church, for that matter--are truly beautiful and joyous... But I knew even before I met Chuck that I didn't want a "church wedding." But even though I didn't want a church wedding, I still wanted a Christian ceremony. Because ultimately, a wedding is two people's vows to each other and to God.

So no church wedding, but who would give us the ceremony that best fit us? I couldn't think of anyone better than this lady right here:

Meet awesome Jenn #2 =)
I met Jenn through my good friend and bridesmaid, Katie. They were roomies for 6 years! How they met is amazing and you can read about it briefly here in Katie's own words...Seriously a God thing, no doubt about it.

Everyone knows Jenn, and I guarantee you that ANY one of those people will tell you that Jenn is utterly amazing. She is a Status pastor at Discovery Church.

I had just finished having another IM conversation with Katie and she was telling me that Jenn just got done officiating the wedding of one of their former roommates. She gushed about how awesome of a job Jenn did. So I knew that she was THE perfect choice for our officiant. God knew, too.

[side note: I will never get tired of telling this story =) ]

So as soon as we decided to ask Jenn, I texted her that I needed to ask her something and to give me a call as soon as she could. Well, being the Director of Operations and a pastor for a large ministry, you can only imagine how busy she is. So I knew that her "as soon as she could" would probably take a bit.

So a week went by and I still had not heard from her. I decided to call her and I left her a message. She called me back not too long after. I'm always so happy to hear from Jenn, since we don't see each other as often. I was especially happy this time since I was about to ask her for a HUGE favor!

We chit chatted about how much we hadn't seen each other in so long and then she says: "I had a dream about you last night, but I don't want to tell you about it yet until you ask me your question."

"Hmm..." I thought and said: "If you dreamt about what I'm about to ask you, I'm gonna freak..."

So Jenn says: "Go ahead, ask me."

So I said: "Jenn, will you marry us?"

To which Jenn replied: "That was my dream."

OH. EM. GEE.

Had I not been at the office, I probably would've flipped out more than I did! She and I were both SO excited and she proceeded to tell me a little more about her dream. She didn't want to tell me beforehand, in case it wasn't what I called to ask her.

Here's where it gets even more interesting...

She dreamt that she was in a brick building (um, hello!) with people gathered (double hello!). It was just a bunch of people standing around like it was a party. She then realized that she was officiating a wedding, she just didn't know exactly WHO'S wedding it was yet. Then all of a sudden, Chuck was standing up there with her. So she knew now exactly what was happening and then the crowd parted and I came down the aisle. She then started the ceremony and said "Surprise!"

I wish I had someone else in the office with me video taping or taking a picture of my reaction because I must have just been standing there dumbfounded! I didn't even tell her yet that we were planning a surprise wedding! I had heard of Jenn's premonition-like dreams before, but this was unreal!

Needless to say, she accepted and agreed to be our officiant. And she did the amazing and wonderful job that I knew she would!


Photos by Lori
In case you're just tuning in, here's what's happened so far:
- How this all came to be
- Who we told
- How we fed & entertained our guests

Next up... Why July 17th?

Backtracking: Part 3 - Feeding & Entertaining This Crowd

Remember how I said that God was an integral part of my planning. Who knew that part of His plan for our special day started more than 2 years ago? Flashback to Halloween 2006... To when Chuck first met our awesome caterer, Kamalu.

Chuck was driving down the road and was actually on his phone at the time. If you've ever seen Chuck's truck, you'll know that it's pretty hard to miss. He drives a huge F-150 that has a lot of fire and island stickers on it and at this time, he had a huge Dakine sticker with the Hawaiian islands on the back of his truck gate.

So Chuck's on his phone and he just so happens to be at a stop light. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees 2 guys next to him in a big pickup truck, too trying to get his attention. He turns to see 2 Hawaiian guys smiling and giving him the shaka, to which he tells whoever he was talking to that he'll have to call them back.

So he rolls down his window and is greeted with: "Eh, brah! Pull over!" So the light turned green and both Chuck and the other two guys pull over into a nearby church parking lot.

Chuck was warmly greeted by Kamalu--like they had been friends for the longest and not just meeting. Apparently Kamalu saw all of Chuck's fire stickers and the big Dakine sticker on his truck and decided to say hello! Chuck thought that it was weird at first, but he thought that this would actually be normal had they been in Hawaii. It's just the embodiment of the Aloha spirit.

So they got to talking and Kamalu invited us to his house that night. He was having people over for a cookout. That night we went over and everyone there was just as nice as Kamalu. Warm and inviting, like we were family. Which, in any island culture--even Filipinos--is not uncommon.

Kamalu and Chuck have also bonded over their professions--he works for Orlando Fire Dept. So ever since this fateful Halloween, Chuck and Kamalu have kept in touch.

Fastforward to January of this year. We attended a fundraiser luau that Kamalu was a part of through a company called Island Vision Productions. It was awesome to see the spirit of Aloha alive and well here. That so many people cared enough for one lady's dying wish. It's the kind of stuff that just brings a tear to your eye... So ever since this fundraiser, I knew that I wanted a luau.

Fastforward to our planning days. Chuck decided to ask Kamalu to help us out with the catering and entertainment and boy, did he ever! He was so generous and accommodating to us! And our wedding was even better than I imagined!!

Take a look!

Yummy! Pic courtesy of my MOH, Minh-Thi.
Me stuffing my face. Captured by my lovely MOH, too.

These next four pics were taken by my new cousin, Lori.




Gotta love audience participation! Photo by BM Morgan.
Everyone has complimented us about how entertaining and fun our wedding was. I couldn't have done it without God... Because without Him, Chuck and Kamalu's paths wouldn't have crossed and we wouldn't have had the opportunity of having Kamalu as our friend.

Next up... Who's gonna marry us?

Backtracking: Part 2 - Who to tell?

Picking up from where I left off...

Obviously, I had to tell Katie. I told Chuck about how she guessed and I think this was the point when we decided to let our entire wedding party know what we were planning. Which made it easier for me--now I had people that I could discuss things with and help me plan.

I have to share with you all how incredible God is, because He seriously had a hand in EVERYTHING in my planning process. Once the ball got rolling from Katie, it seemed like everyone we decided to tell became an integral part of my planning.

Case in point...

Chuck decided to tell his friend and old roommate, Stephen. Stephen just happens to know any and everything that has to do with A/V and sound and production. So he agreed to lend us his skills and be our DJ.

Aren't they presh? =)
Stephen is dating awesome Jennifer #1. [There's more than one Jennifer in our story, obviously.] Jen is an events coordinator and she happily agreed to be my wedding coordinator. She was AWESOME throughout this whole process--just what I needed.

Gotta love how God works. And He's not done yet.

Next up... Catering this shindig.

Backtracking: Part 1 - How it all came to be

It's already been a little over a week since our surprise wedding! It definitely gets better everyday! HUGE sigh of relief and bliss? Yes, please! I can't tell you how hard it was NOT to blog about our plans in detail this whole time!

How did this all come about? We've been asked that A LOT!

As many of you know, things are still uncertain for us in terms of moving to HI. When we got engaged in December, we agreed to wait to set a date until we knew for sure where we were with HI.

You all know that in March, we flew out there for two weeks so that he could take the physical agility test for HFD and he passed! Not too long after we got back to FL, though, he found out through the Honolulu Star Bulletin (he tries to read it online every day) that HFD was suspending the hiring process until August. Which meant we REALLY weren't able to set a date for sure!! [sad face]

We were both so ready to just get married, but we just waited... and waited...

Until one day, one of us (I forget if it was me or him that said it) jokingly blurted out: "Wouldn't it be cool if we threw an engagement party and surprised everyone there and got married?"

I had read through one of the [many] wedding blogs that I follow on my Google reader, about a few surprise weddings--usually taking place during the rehearsal dinner. I believe actress Kimberly Williams and country singer Brad Paisley did that to their guests (surprised them and got married during the rehearsal dinner, I mean). We didn't discuss it with anyone, but the more we joked around about it, the more excited we got!

Then we got the idea to make it a luau. If we can't bring people to HI, we can bring HI to people here! Just one problem... Where are we going to host a party like this??

[Insert Divine Intervention here...]

I was at work one day and IM'ing with Katie. We chit chatted for a bit before she asked me what everyone else always asked me: "So, how's the wedding planning going?"

All I told her was: "It's not going, really... but there may be an engagement party on the horizon."

I kid you not... She pauses for a moment before typing out: "Wait... are you guys just saying it's an engagement party, but you're gonna surprise everyone and get married??"

WHA WHA WHADJU SAY???? I froze and thought "Dang it! How did she know that?!?!" This is the problem when you're such good friends with someone and know them so well that you practically share a brain...

So I had to tell her. She got super excited--1.) about being right and nailing it and 2.) that we were getting married! I'm telling you, it was Divine Intervention that she found out. Because if you recall this post, Katie was the one who found our venue for us! I never would've even remotely thought of looking at the Winter Park Farmers Market if it wasn't for her! So the ball got rolling from there...

Next up: deciding who to let in on our little secret...

SURPRISE!!

So this one time... at the Farmers Market... WE GOT MARRIED!!!

Yes, you read that right... I haz a huzband. =)

So for those of you who have been following my planning, we sent out invitations for our "engagement party"... Well the plan all along was to surprise our guests and get hitched! I can hear the collective "Ohhhhhhh's" right now, i.e...... "Ohhhhhhh.... so THAT'S why she's been so excited about this party..."

I promise I'll recap more in-depth with the hows and whys later. But for now...


ALOHA from Mr. and Mrs. Weagraff!!!

Today's the Day!

It's finally here!! I can't even believe it! These last six weeks of planning are finally going to come together... Wow O_o SO excited!

Stay tuned for the recaps!! =)

Is it Friday yet?

That's all I have to say!

Man... This week is CRAZIER than I could have imagined! All these teens in tiaras will be the death of me! I need a padded soundproof room so I can just scream! It's really overwhelming being the only designer here at work when there are a bagillion things coming at me.

So, you can't really blame me for wanting Friday to get here--STAT!

2 DAYS! WOOOHOOOO!!

Seven Days.

I was going to write something quirky and cute that had something to do with seven, but I just can't contain my excitement! Yep, it's t-minus 7 DAYS until our engagement party!!! It came up pretty fast! Man, time flies!

This next week is going to be extra stressful... Not only am I having to deal with last minute details for the party, this planning just happened to coincide with the busiest time we have at my job! Ugh. So needless to say, I'm so looking forward to next Friday more than ever!!

Please pray that I don't lose my mind. :)

I got some blog love!

I couldn't go to sleep last night so I was online reading blogs in my google reader. And LOOK!! I got awesome blog love from Mrs. Green Tea, the lovely lady genius whose original idea paved the way for my centerpieces. She rocks my socks! I can't wait to take pics of or table set ups! I also made thread tealights--which was what originally led Mrs. GT to creating the thread centerpieces. Who's got 2 thumbs and is super excited?

THIS GIRL!
So it's 10 days and counting until our big luau! I can't wait!!!

The Center of Attention

Well at least for the center of the tables. I present to you... Our centerpieces!


Neat, huh? I got this idea from here. This website never ceases to inspire... Mrs. Green Tea, you're my heroine! Who knew tin cans, empty jars and some yarn could be so pretty??



So if you've got some tin cans that you're just going to recycle, recycle them to me! I need all the help I can get! Otherwise, I have A LOT of soup and canned food to eat...