Meet the boys...

Wayne's Best Man is his longtime pal, Patrick Robbins. Wayne and Patrick grew up on the same block, and share a love of football and Tampa Bay Lightning Hockey. In fact, as kids, Wayne and Patrick played a lot of backyard football, naming many of their plays after Duran Duran songs. That's right... Duran Duran. To this day, Wayne can still run a pretty mean "New Moon on Monday."

Wayne's brother, Chuck, is his other groomsman. While different in many ways, Chuck and Wayne share a love of camping and devotion to family. Chuck lives in High Springs, FL with his wife, Laurie, and their children Carson and Caroline. One of my favorite memories of spending time with them was a few years ago when we were visiting them in their hotel room. Wayne was tickling Carson and he looked up at Chuck and laughingly said, "tell your little brother to stop tickling me!"

Wayne's Junior Groomsman is his nephew, Carson. Carson is an unending ball of energy. He loves his Pokemon cards, anything Star Wars, and playing video games. He is genuinely sweet and caring, and a very protective big brother to his sister, Caroline who is our flower girl.

Meet the girls...

My Matron of Honor is my best friend from college, Lynn Davidson. I've actually known her for half my life now. I had the honor of standing up with her when she married her husband, Mark, and I'm thrilled that she'll be with me on my big day. We used to joke about having geriatric weddings and I liked to kid her about reminding me to put my teeth in before she rolled me down the aisle. When I told her I was engaged, she quickly responded that a geriatric wedding wasn't in the cards after all!

My Maid of Honor is my best friend, and fellow UGA die-hard, Nikki Cortes. Aside from the fact that she makes me laugh so hard that I can't see straight, she has one of the most genuine hearts of anyone I've ever met. Don't let her bold attitude fool you... she's a genuine sweetheart and would do anything for her friends (well, except root for the Gators!)

My Junior Bridesmaid is Nikki's daughter, Morgan. I've known Morgan since she was about 9 and I've watched in awe as she's grown into a beautiful and talented young woman. She has inherited her mother's fiery personality and devotion to the Bulldogs, which are traits that I love and admire.

Ring: check. Now what?

Step one is accomplished. We have the ring on the finger. So now what? Where does this world of wedding planning begin? With colors, of course. Hmmm...

OK, so our wedding vision has changed a bit over the last few months. First, we were determined to get married on the beach and wanted an aqua, yellow, and coral color scheme- complete with shells and sand. But then, cooler heads prevailed and we realized the logistics were a bit overwhelming.

So, now we've decided to keep this an intimate affair and get married at my parents' house in Weeki Wachee, FL. This gives us a lot of freedom with the date, so we're considering December. (Read: more time to get in shape).

We went around and around with color ideas, to no avail. As I was taking a break from wedding planning, I perused a scrapbook magazine. And it hit! The perfect color scheme, inspired by a winter birds layout:

We've decided on red, blue, and brown as our color scheme. I love that it is a little bit holiday, a little bit wedding, and a little bit natural.

Here is my vision:

I think this will allow us to take advantage of Christmas decorations, while also bringing in a little wedding "something blue."

We're Engaged!

Most of you reading this probably already know the story, but in case I left out details in your version...here goes.

Wayne came home from work on Friday evening with an envelope marked, "Clue 1: Do not open until Saturday, November 7 at 8:30 a.m." Well, despite my inability to quit bugging him about it, trying to get him to allow me to open it early, I did manage to wait until Saturday morning. The clue indicated that we were going somewhere new for breakfast. We ended up at Long's Pharmacy, which doesn't sound like a culinary juggernaut, but it does a surprisingly brisk breakfast and lunch business in the soda shop area of their retro-fabulous pharmacy.

After breakfast, I got my second clue, which had us heading to Gatlinburg to a winery. We did a wine tasting at Smoky Mountain Winery and tried a handful of locally-crafted wines. We purchased our favorite-, a white muscadine wine, and off we went.

In the truck, I got a choice for my next clue and selected to head to a "land with no land." The destination was Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies and we explored all the cool exhibits. They even had a new exhibit on sea creature defenses and we had the chance to try to shoot plastic bugs off a log with a fish-shaped water gun. The exhibit was inspired by the archerfish, which preys on land-based bugs, shooting water at them with sniper-like precision to cause them to fall into the water. But I digress, you're here to hear about the proposal- NOT get a marine biology lesson!

After the aquarium, we headed home and I got the last clue. It indicated that we were heading to the Melting Pot and that my "chariot [would leave] at 5:55 pm." Pretty specific for a chariot, huh? Well, we ended up at Melting Pot and had a great dinner and even some dessert fondue. Wayne excused himself to the bathroom (nervous, perhaps?) and when he returned to the table, asked me to pass him his jacket.

Hidden inside the jacket pocket was a ring box and he proposed! I have to say that even though we had been dating for almost 4 years and I figured the proposal was on its way, he still managed to surprise me. I was thinking somewhere in the holiday season, not just a Saturday afternoon in November!