A Wonderful, WET, Sarah Grace Christmas Moment

A huge Christmas attraction here in Nashville is the Opryland Hotel's Christmas lights. Scott and I decided to check it out the night before Christmas Eve.

The hotel itself is a sight to see, with or without Christmas decorations. It is HUGE:

A large portion of it is an indoor garden with a river inside; we even saw people on a little boat tour. 

 

 

Our evening was lovely and almost ended without a hitch. 

We saw lovely trees, some even made from poinsettias, a nativity out front and LOTS of lights. 

We decided - unfortunately - to take one last stroll through the indoor garden. 

We rounded a corner and saw this lovely gazebo that I snapped a picture of: 

I noticed that couple with the man trying to take his wife's picture. As we passed them, I asked if they would like me to take their photo. The wife eagerly said, "Yes! Thank you." 

Well, as it is said: no good deed goes unpunished! 

I took one photo, no problem. 

However, I realized I didn't get the top of the gazebo in the shot so I said I would take one more picture to get the full picture. 

I didn't think to look behind me before I took a step back... right into the little river behind me. 

Yes. I fell in!?! 

Fortunately, it was only like 2 and a half feet deep and once I got my feet under me, I didn't panic but hopped right back out. 

My main focus was to NOT drop their phone in with me. By a miracle, I didn't drop their phone or mine or my jacket in the water. 

However, my entire hiney and both my legs were soaked. Scott wasn't too embarrassed to take a picture of me after ;) 

This is the little part of the river that I fell in: 

My bum hit the bricks of that little island where the plants were. Pictured below is the stain left on the backside of my bluejeans. Not pictured is the dark purple bruise left on my bum. 

The lady felt awful and they said they saw it coming but not in time to warn me, and felt awful. Scott saw it coming too but he thought I would look back to see where I was stepping or would take a smaller step and be able to catch myself. But, no, I took a huge step back, right into the river. 

The look on that lady's face was pretty priceless. I told her not to worry, that this sort of thing happened to me all the time; I even told her my nickname is Sarah Grace. Scott said that he felt more uncomfortable and embarrassed for her because he knew I did this often but she clearly felt bad. 

We laughed it off and wished each other a merry Christmas before parting ways, both with a great photo and story! 

I was just grateful I wasn't really hurt and hadn't ruined either of our phones... and that the lights were dimmed so the whole hotel couldn't see my soaking wet pants as we had a long walk back to the exit of that ginormous hotel. 

It was cold outside so we rushed home to get me out of my soaking bottoms so we could slip into warm pjs and then we warmed up with some delicious hot cocoa! 

It was a cold, wet Christmas memory and I learned my lesson the hard way but now I know to look behind me before I take my next picture ;) 

Merry Christmas from Sarah Grace! 

S#@! Happens - My Sarah Grace Moment that Led to my First Meltdown of Married Life

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Well, here is one of them that lives up to that saying:

Yes. That happened.

And, believe it or not, my melt-down did not happen in that moment.

"Ironing"

First off, I never iron; ironing for me is pulling the clothes immediately out of the dryer and hanging them on a hanger so they don't wrinkle. I never even bought a full-sized ironing board but still have the 2-foot long, 5-inch high, bright-pink dorm-sized one that I got as a freshman in college.... and it has seriously been used less than 10 times since then.

Admittedly, I am inexperienced with ironing ;)

Having said that, now that I have a husband and he often has to wear khakis to work, my version of "ironing" wasn't doing the trick. He was attempting to iron his pants and left the iron face down on the khakis and after I fussed that doing that would scorch the fabric, he suggested I iron them. Boy did I eat my own words.

Burning

I still have no idea how but in the midst of ironing and talking, I set the iron FACE DOWN on the floor. Just 5-10 seconds but enough time to do damage. And serious damage.

Sarah Grace struck again.

It burned the carpet leaving a dark indent AND we have short-haired carpet so I couldn't trim off the burn. Not that I was being rational and thinking of that in the panic that followed my discovery of the burn; here I am trying to scrape off the scorched portion with a knife. I was so focused that I didn't even notice when poor Scott was documenting his crazy wife:

To make matters worse, of course I wasn't ironing in a dimly lit corner. Nope, that would be too convenient to cover the burn mark. We set up ironing in the middle of the floor and in our teeny tiny apartment, the burn is visible not only in the living room but also from the bedroom, front door, kitchen AND breakfast nook.

I had a mini-freak out but no meltdown. That came the next day.

Crying

I didn't want to have to pay the $500 security deposit when we move out of the apartment... so I was determined to fix my mistake. I researched oodles of options and watched a few youtube videos and then set out on a mission to right my wrong.

I especially felt the need to correct the burn mark mistake since the day after I burned the carpet, my car was due in for its repair from my previous Sarah-Grace moment and the deductible was also $500. I couldn't handle being the cause of $1,000 worth of mistakes.

Sadly, there didn't seem to be much I could do to fix the burn mark. My only hope, according to the far reaches of google, seemed to be sandpaper and a scrub-brush.

Fast-forward to the end of the day: I had purchased the necessary materials and been scrubbing and rubbing at the iron burn for a good 30 minutes when Scott got home.

What was his reaction when he walked in to find his wife scrunched down on my knees, red in the face, raw-fingered, with my hair up and my nose down to the floor, sandpapering the carpet...?

Laughter.

Looking back, obviously I can see how that was a natural reaction. However, in that moment, it was not the reaction I was hoping for. And that is when my meltdown happened.

The Lesson

Why the iron burn incident was my breaking point, I don't know. 

Context: 

The backstory is that Scott and I have been great but our first bit of marriage has been filled with a lot of transition and stress. We did all the normal post-wedding stuff  like registry returns and purchases, changing over our insurance and bills, writing literally over 100 thank you cards and getting adjusted to living with one another. 

But we also moved him half-way across the country and tried to organize our very small apartment which was already a squeeze when just I lived in it. Plus, we both started and quit bad jobs AND found and started new jobs this summer. Both those new jobs have had crazy hours and lots of stress. We did a family trip to see my family and then another one to see his family - both family vacations within the same month. And, I've been prepping for the next year of grad school. 

In the midst of all of that, I had kept it together and just plugged along grateful to be married and moving forward with our life together. However, inside me was a pressure cooker of stress - trying to be the perfect wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, employee, student, friend, etc. 

The Real Problem: 

Despite all those serious stresses, what broke me was an iron burn to my carpet!?! More specifically, my husband laughing at my earnest efforts to sandpaper the iron-burn away. 

I was trying to fix my mistake, to remove the obvious blemish on my attempt at perfection. 

But the truth is that sometimes s#@! just happens. 

Fortunately, I have a husband with a great sense of humor and perspective. When my meltdown started, he immediately quit laughing and helped me realize that it was just carpet and by the end of our conversation, he had me laughing. 

Of course, my meltdown was about more than an iron burn. It was about how I was trying to do the impossible: hold myself, my life and my home together perfectly, even when s#@! happens... whether that is an iron burn, job changes, school demands, etc. 

What I Learned: 

As I mentioned, that mark is in the very middle of our tiny apartment. I can see it from just about anywhere in our home. Sadly, it hasn't faded much and doesn't look like it will :(

We might be out $500 when we leave here but I've learned a lesson that is priceless and I'm reminded of it every time I see that freakin' iron-burn: I'm not going to be perfect and I never will be. Shit happens and we can either accept it, laugh and learn from it OR be bitter and beat ourselves up. I beat myself up and took it out on the carpet with the knife and sandpaper for a few days but now I have learned to sigh and chuckle when I see the mark. 

Most of all I have learned that I have a great husband who doesn't get upset at things like iron burns or at me when I pull a Sarah Grace moment AND that he should be the one to do his own ironing from now on ;) 

Something Borrowed: Walking down the Aisle & Wearing my Mom's Dress

I love family, stories, sentimental things, vintage items, and Southern belle classy couture.

Fortunately, my wedding dress - borrowed from my mom - fulfilled all of that. 

Sometime in late high school, my mom and I came across her wedding dress tucked away in a box in the back of a closet, covered by a layer of dust. We decided to pull it out, unsure of what we would find... partly expecting it to be yellowed, wrinkled, and in poor condition. 

Much to our surprise and delight, it was in fantastic condition - still bright white, fresh looking and barely wrinkled. Even better, when I tried it on, we realized it was almost a perfect fit. 

From that moment, I decided I wanted to wear her gown as my wedding dress. 

However, it wasn't until almost a decade later that I was married: this past May 17th. 

It was an outdoor wedding, riverside and under chandeliers hanging from oak trees - the perfect setting for a vintagey, southern-belle-like wedding dress: 

But I didn't just slip into the dress that Saturday. Below is the story of the transformation of my mom's dress into the wedding dress of my dreams :)

My now husband proposed to me at Thanksgiving but I didn't return home from grad school until Christmas break. It was then that my mom and I dug out that box in the back of her closet and - with fingers crossed - opened it, worried that it might have lost some of its impressiveness since the preservation seal had been broken when we opened the box nearly 10 years prior. 

Much to our amazement, the dress was still in great condition. This is when I tried it on in our living room last Christmas: 

It was a little big and I needed to de-1980s the sleeves and add my own personality with touches of my favorite color, purple, but other than that we were thrilled with how it looked over 30 years after my mom wore it. 

This is a picture of my mom from her wedding day back in 1982; rather than purple, hers had pink details with flowers at the neckline and along the ruffled hem:

Plus, you won't believe it BUT my mom still had the Brides magazine that she first saw her dress in!?! It was showcased on the front cover: 

My mom had loved how different that dress was but never expected to actually be able to find it - she was married before the age of google and the far-reaches of the internet to track down her dream dress ;) Fortunately, as fate would have it, after several unsuccessful shopping trips, she stumbled upon THAT dress and upon trying it on, she knew she had to have it. She called my grandmother who drove to the store and agreed that it was the perfect fit and look for my mom so they bought it on the spot. 

To turn my mom's perfect dress into my perfect dress, we weren't sure how much it would cost and who on earth we could trust to cut, sew and update the dress. Fortunately, my fabulous wedding planner, Bethany Boles Hewitt, told us of the equally fabulous seamstress, Pat Wilcox. 

My mom and I set up a meeting with Mrs. Pat and I invited my granny along as well. Mrs. Pat was affordable, sweet, creative and totally got our vision for the dress. I described what I was hoping for and she magically made it happen. We met with her 4 times: my Christmas break in December, my Spring break in March, the end of April after the semester was over and then early May right before the wedding.

Here are a few photos of the process... 

After my first visit with Mrs. Pat, she sent me on a mission to find the material that she would turn into the details. I picked out purple and silvery chiffon + a few lace trims with the help of one of my bridesmaids, Anna. 

Here is an example of  one of the end products. This is a close up of one of the chiffon flowers she just whipped up from scratch, including individual beads sewn in to shimmer in the sunlight since I was having an outdoor wedding - her attention to detail and her creativity was phenomenal.

This was the bare bones of the dress without the details and with the sleeves taken down considerably: 

But Mrs. Pat didn't waste anything so she took parts of the sleeves (with all that 1980s excess) and added them to flowers and other details on the gown. She truly reinvented all of parts of my mom's dress. Here are a few more photos of the in between phase when we were experimenting with a few different options:

               

And these were photos from the final fitting:

During this process, we got to know Mrs. Pat and she got to know us. Seeing my mom and granny there at every visit and also learning my love for family and sentimental touches, Mrs. Pat emailed me the sweetest idea. She said it used to be a tradition to add the bride's name and wedding date to the hem of the wedding dress passed down. She wanted to know if I would like for her to add my mom's wedded name and wedding date along with my would-be wedded name and wedding date to the hem of the dress. I did not hesitate because I adored the idea. It was a sweet moment when we revealed it to my mom at the final fitting a couple weeks before the wedding; the embroidery is pictured below: 

The other mushy gushy but super sweet moment of wearing my mom's dress down the aisle was that my Daddy got to see both my mom and his daughter as a bride in the same gown. Here he is escorting me to the ceremony: 

So after 4 visits and about $500 with countless hours of cutting, creating and sewing, Mrs. Pat took this:

And turned it into the classy, sassy, Southern-belle like wedding dress of my dreams with touches of purple, sparkle and lace... and a story to tell

And the dress of my dreams was the perfect fit for the day I married the man of my dreams :) 

I'm not sure he and I will have a little girl one day but you better believe my mom and I had the wedding dress preserved just in case I one day have a girl who wants to carry on the tradition and wear our dress at her wedding... 

Sarah Grace and the Blog are Back with a Bang.... Or Should I Say a Crash...?

I thought I would be able to keep up with my blog in grad school but that was a funny joke. No time for blogging on top of school, homework, a job, an internship and wedding planning.

However, now that summer is here, I am hoping to bring the blog back.

One of my family members can't make my upcoming wedding but said that she was hoping to read a wedding blogpost since our last family wedding unfolded into quite a tale.

It seems she won't have to wait until the wedding this Saturday because I already had a blogworthy moment this past week.

I have not had a significant Sarah Grace moment in months (I broke a lamp way back in the Fall semester) so I was hoping that I had perhaps outgrown my klutzyness. It appears I was wrong - big time.

Last Friday, literally a week before the wedding weekend, I hit Scott's car... with my car. And it was bad. And by bad, I mean a really huugggee dent that my dad - who is usually pretty calm - described as absolutely horrible.

I had turned the wheel really tight when I parked but forgot that when I was rushing to leave Scott's apartment. I was going too fast and also trying to fiddle with my GPS and instead of backing straight out of my parking spot, the wheel sorta whip-lashed and fishtailed the front end of my car into the driver's side of his truck that is less than a year old. I felt like a kid who got caught with their hand in the candy jar - I knew I was in trouble.

I felt awful and was sorta worried to tell Scott because I thought with all the stress of final wedding prep, this was the last thing we needed to deal with. I especially felt bad because the night before was his last night of work as a cop and he had to stay late because he was dealing with a homicide. After all that and not getting to bed til 5 am, I was going to have to wake him up early with the news that I had severely dented his truck.

I walked in and told him "This is going to be really funny one day."
He immediately asked "What did you do?"
I told him I had a major Sarah Grace moment and hit his truck.

Fortunately, he was calm and positive and not mad and had great perspective about the whole incident; now I am even more grateful to be marrying him. After test driving both his car and mine around the parking lot, we were relieved that both cars drove just fine and the damage was only cosmetic. By some miracle, I hit his car just past the drivers door and just before the gas tank so nothing serious was hit and all my car sustained were some scratches and a small crack near a light on the front bumper.

He is already using this incident as leverage and for comedic relief if I ask him to do some task for the wedding or give some driving instruction, he says "Oh wait. Who hit my car?"

The really worrisome thing about all of this is that two days after I hit his truck, he was scheduled to drive from SC to TN to drop off his truck, some of his things and some furniture at my apartment in Nashville. That really needed to happen before the wedding and breaking down on the interstate with all that stuff in his truck was going to be less than ideal.

Fortunately, he and all the stuff made it safely to TN and the insurance policy is going to repair both vehicles for just one deductible. Apparently, this kinda accident happens all the time so they have a routine policy: the car that is the innocent bystander in these situations doesn't have to use their deductible because they are listed as property damage under my deductible... so at least it's not just me denting up cars in parking lots ;)

At least I wasn't having a fit of bridezilla stress ramming into his car intentionally ;)

Plus, since I got my dose of Sarah Grace out of the way last week, I hopefully won't have an incident at the wedding like tripping going down the aisle or hitting a bridesmaid with my bouquet toss, etc. ;)

Beyond damaging both of our vehicles, we haven't had too much stress and there have been no bridezilla moments... so hopefully it stays that way! We are both just really excited to get married in 2 days!!! :)