Meg & Barrett's Wedding

Our fourth wedding this year was here in Atlanta to celebrate Meg & Barrett! They had a beautiful ceremony at the Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, right in the heart of Buckhead. I've probably driven by it a hundred times and never been inside it. The church was gorgeous! In many ways, the church and ceremony itself reminded us a lot of our own wedding, which definitely brought back some great memories :)  There was no photography allowed during the ceremony but it was too pretty to not sneak in one shot of it.

I first met Meg a few years ago and have loved becoming better friends with her. Three of my close friends from college - Sarah, Sonya & Ginny - moved here before I did, and I met Meg (and several other fun ladies!) through their monthly "PR Girls Night" events. They were all in PR/Marketing/Advertising or some other similar field, and back then I think I was one of the few, if not the only, non-PR girls. Even after all three of my original friends in the group moved away, I'm glad I kept hanging out with this crew. They are so much fun and I always have such a blast with them, so I was really looking forward to celebrating with Meg on her big day!

Kelly, Chelsea & me

The reception was at the Cherokee Town Club, which was just gorgeous. And Meg somehow kept it a surprise from most of us that Yacht Rock was playing for the evening! They are a really fun 70s tribute band and were great for a wedding.

I thought this was so cute :)

our table - very fitting!

PR girls table with the stunning bride!

and this time with the groom :)

Of course, no wedding would be complete without Bo spilling wine on himself. Or me forgetting the Tide pen and having to clean him up. Really not much different from our everyday lives, actually.

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Fun fact: The dress I'm wearing may look familiar to some of you...since it was also my senior prom dress from 10 (!) years ago. And these outfits are the same exact "uniform" (as we call it) that we've worn to every other black tie wedding we've attended. Mom, I'm sure you didn't believe me when I promised I would wear this dress again. But for probably the only time in high school, I was right.

Senior Prom, 2002

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Meg and Barrett, congratulations again! Your wedding was a beautiful start to your new lives together. Hope you had a wonderful honeymoon :)

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P.S. Thank you Chelsea for some of the photos!

Summerfest

The first weekend in June was the Virginia Highlands Summerfest. Saturday morning I ran in the 5k through our neighborhood streets. It was surprisingly chilly that morning - 55 degrees! There were probably several hundred runners, and it was actually a lot of fun running past our neighbors' homes as they all cheered us on and handed out water. Most of the course was part of my regular route, so the familiarity was a great perk. Plus, I got a nice warm-up walking over to the starting line (and a few extra minutes of sleep!). It was a great race that I would definitely do again.

Afterward, Bo made mimosas and we hung out on the front porch for a couple hours until the festival started. Since Bo's been traveling so much lately, and we're hardly here on the weekends, our champagne stock was piling up. We figured a beautiful Saturday at home was reason enough to pop some bubbly. As if we really needed to create an excuse ;)

love my little family

After the champagne disappeared, we walked over to the festival. Summerfest is a two-day event held a few streets away from us, and kicks off the start of summer. Almost all of our neighbors are involved in one way or another, so it really is a community event and we love it. Admission is free, and Virginia Avenue is lined with artist markets, food and beer tents, local businesses, children's events, and live music. For those of you in the West Palm Beach area, you can think of it as a very, very, extremely small-scale Sunfest. Usually it's scorching outside by early June but thankfully the cool weather held up all day long - it was so nice to walk around without sweating! And without my ice cream melting...

I just had to reward myself for the run that morning

As you can see, everyone else thought the same thing. It was packed. I've never seen it so crowded. I'm sure all the vendors were pleased with the turnout, since they had a lot of really cool things for sale (of course..no photos allowed). We didn't end up buying anything, but we did pick up a handful of business cards. We walked around for a few hours checking everything out before heading home. We always enjoy Summerfest, but this year was probably our favorite due to the amazing weather. Wish it had stayed cool a little longer! Summer is in full force now...

iPhone Disaster Recovery

While we were in Camarillo, CA for Alana & Matt's wedding, we all spent a lot of time at the pool during the day and in between events. Bo and I even managed to get our traditional California wedding sunburns. However, we really didn't spend very much time in the pool.

That is, until Bo jumped in.

With his iPhone still in his pocket.

womp womp...

I had heard that you can save a phone from water damage by putting it in a bag of rice to soak up all the moisture. Right away, I checked with Bo's sister who said she had pretty good luck doing this, and followed her plan (thank you, Dudley!): we took his phone out of the case immediately and dried it as best we could. Then I got a huge bag of rice, and filled a small ziploc bag with it - enough to completely cover the phone. We left his phone in the rice bag for two full days, and changed out the rice every 12 hours or so. 

one of our many rice bags

By the time we were back home in Atlanta, his phone turned on for a few minutes while on the charger, and then died again. Bo had to leave town for work early the next morning (let me tell you, that was not a fun week), so I left the phone on the charger and attempted to turn it on every night that week when I got home from work. Every day it got a little better, and would stay turned on for a little longer, but it always died when I took it off the charger. Which sort of defeats the purpose of a mobile phone.

not very mobile

We tried coming up with all sorts of creative plans to get him a new phone for cheap. Retail prices are insane if you are not setting up a new contract or if you aren't yet eligible for an upgrade. Surprisingly, the cheapest and best route was avoiding AT&T altogether, and going straight to Apple. Bo went to the store when he got back in town that weekend, and told them what happened and what we had done to try to restore it. Turns out, if your phone works at all, you can turn it back into them and buy a brand new iPhone for just $150. Who knew?!? And since his old phone had been working on the charger, he had backed up everything on it to our home computer. When he got back home, he plugged in the new phone, and it was up and running in no time. Easy peasy.

So far, no one we've told about this adventure knew that this was an option, so in case you get drunk playing putt-putt golf and jump in the pool with your iphone your phone gets water damage, I figured I'd pass along this info. We saved some money (well, relatively...) and a lot of hassle compared to the other options.

Alana & Matt's Wedding Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Camarillo, CA for Matt & Alana's wedding. Their engagement was almost as long as ours was (about a year and a half), so we had all been looking forward to this wedding for quite a long time!

We flew into Los Angeles on Friday night around the same time as Tricia & Jordan, and went straight to Dodger stadium to watch them play the Astros. We cheered for the Dodgers even though we really didn't care - not surprisingly, they lost 3-1 and our sporting event losing streak continues.

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On Saturday, all the girls went to a bridal luncheon for Alana. She was a blushing bride already :)

sisters - Riss (MOH) & Alana

Chi Omegas

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We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool, and later that night we all met up for drinks after the rehearsal dinner.

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Sunday was the main event! The wedding ceremony and reception were held at Camarillo Ranch. It was absolutely gorgeous and as always, the California weather was perfect. Sunny and pretty, but not hot.

pretty mamas! Kelly (and Kyla, due next month), Alisha (TBD, due December), and Trisha (baby boy due August)

love these girls

After the ceremony we enjoyed cocktails, appetizers, and lawn games - so fun!

Baby Cameron, so cute in his onesie tux

the trees were enormous!

beer mugs - great favors! and used immediately :)

 

Turrander! Cam's induction into our band.

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Monday morning we headed back towards the airport and stopped at Manhattan Beach to hang out before catching our flight home. Alisha & Tristan used to live there - thanks for the recommendation! We didn't have enough time for lunch so we just walked along the beach and the pier, it was such a cute beach town. Great way to end the weekend! It was hard coming back to reality.

 

Congratulations Alana & Matt! It was such an amazing weekend - couldn't ask for anything better than that! Hope you two had a wonderful honeymoon! xoxo