The Cute Pursuit

My fairy tale themed wedding

2017-01-07T23:03:23Z

On September 27th, 2014, Chris and I got married at Rhodes Hall in Atlanta! The theme of our wedding was "Happily Ever After" with a hint of Cinderella. To celebrate our 1 year anniversary, I'm finally posting photos and video from the big day! ❤

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Our wedding day was so perfect and magical – I still feel excited when I think about it or look at photos!! It might be the best party Chris and I have ever thrown together!

I did almost all the planning myself with some help from Chris and my bridesmaids since I love party planning… We did had a "day-of" coordinator though that assisted with lots of little last minute things a few weeks before the wedding, and during the actual wedding she was a MAJOR help making my ideas reality!!

The inspiration for our wedding's theme comes from what I always imagined true love and marriage was like when I was a child. I've never been much of a "wedding person", but as a little girl the kind of wedding stories I liked the most were the ones in Disney films due to their creative and dreamy themes. The songs, castles, the notion of true love's kiss – that's what I always thought of as romantic! I figured if I was going to have a wedding of my own, I wanted it to capture that essence of "Happily Ever After" since that's how I feel about my love with Chris. (Cheeeeese, I know! haha)

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Cinderella ended up being a major inspiration for our wedding as well! I had been toying around with the idea since I always loved the music and art style of the original animated film, and when we found my dress at a place called "Cinderella's Gowns" I took it as a sign. (Make sure you watch the video in HD for more sparkles!! lol)

After that, all the fairy tale items fell into place… We were able to book the dreamiest location – a real castle in Atlanta! And then I happened to find beautiful shoes that sparkled like real glass slippers… (here's a link to illustration on the box we found after the event!)

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My "Glass Slippers" from San Smith on Vimeo.

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We were even able to have our wedding cake designed as if the little blue birds from Cinderella were building it! It was so cute I almost didn't want to eat it. Chris got a special cake to reflect his interests as well – it was an epic mountain biking cake!!

To continue the fairy tale theme – a week before the wedding my bridesmaids and I went to Disney World to celebrate my bachelorette weekend, and we even got to dine at Cinderella's castle in a special celebratory dinner! From that, we each received special toasting flutes that we used before the wedding.

We did a "reveal" before the ceremony so Chris and I could have some time together privately, and then we took formal photos!

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After all the formal photos were done and everyone rested for a moment, we then had a brief and informal ceremony with our good friend, Seth, as the officiant.

To continue the theme of the event, my Junior bridesmaid (and step-niece!) wore beautiful realistic fairy wings in the ceremony to bring in a little "fairy godmother" element, and for the music my bridesmaids walked out to the opening song from Cinderella and I walked out to "So this is love" from the movie.

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We decided to skip a lot of the traditional wedding speech notes and events in favor of a more personal and casual atmosphere where everyone could hang out, drink and eat delicious food.

Over all, I feel like we ended up with a good balance of whimsical, romantic and laid back atmosphere for our wedding!

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Before the cake cutting, my bridesmaid, Sarah, sang and played a ukulele cover of "Kiss the girl" from The Little Mermaid and we all sang along! It was the cutest!!

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As the evening started to wind down, doughnut boxes were put out for all the guests to take home as a thank you for coming. We had a pair of Krispy Kreme doughnut for each person attending, one doughnut to represent myself and one to represent Chris (or his favorite flavor at least!!)…

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When it came time to leave, we exited under rainbow bubbles and magic wands to get on a bicycle pedicab and ride off through the city of Atlanta.

Chris and I met riding bikes in Atlanta, and now we were on another romantic bike ride to start the next exciting chapter of our life! It was super fun since many cars slowed down to wish us congrats and wave! lol

So that's how our wedding went! Casual fun mixed with some sparkly fairy tale glamour. ❤

Kinda sums up our relationship!

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You can see more photos at my flickr album here. And if you'd like to see photos from the wedding preparation, Disney bachelorette party and engagement party, check out this flickr album!

Vendors

Photography: Tim Harman Photography

Venue: Rhodes Hall, Atlanta, GA

Wedding Planner: Signature Weddings by Candice

Bride’s dress: Morilee dress from Cinderella’s Gowns

Bride’s shoes: Enzo Angiolini

Bride’s tiara: Arribas Brothers from Epcot/Walt Disney World

Bride's jewelry: San-X's Rilakkuma jewelry line

Groom’s Attire: Trio Custom clothiers

Bridesmaid's accessories: Tarina Tarantino

Junior bridesmaid’s dress: Cinderella’s Closet

Junior bridesmaid’s wings: "The Fancy Fairy" on Etsy

Cakes: Baker’s Man Inc. by Mark Brickman

Catering: Sun in my Belly

Wedding Guest gifts: Krispy Kreme doughnuts

Flowers: "The Custom Couple" on Etsy

Invitations: Minted

Toasting flutes & glass slipper: Cinderella's Royal Table engagement gifts from Walt Disney World

Other various decorations: Disney, San-X, Ikea, Martha Stewart and DIY!

Disney World Bachelorette trip day 2: Epcot & Halloween party!

2017-04-06T19:10:52Z

Day 2: EPCOT! We started off this magical day with delicious breakfast at the Grand Floridian…

Mickey Cappuccino!!

I could eat Mickey shaped waffles every day… So cute and yummy!

After we finished eating breakfast, they brought me out a celebratory cupcake in honor of my recent engagement/upcoming wedding!! SO COOL!!!

We then took the monorail to Epcot…

Meet and greet with Minnie and the gang!!! Minnie was my favorite because she took selfies with us ❤ hahaha! How fun is that?!

Riding into our future on Spaceship Earth! Apparently, Molly and I are astronauts!

We then went to check out the Food and Wine festival and our first item to try was Dole Whip!! SO GOOD!

While visiting various pavilions, Katie found her dream viking man in Norway… Here is her posing like a majestic viking lady with him. lol (Viking lady… like a vikingette?)

Look at this!! Super cute Sulley Mickey ears and tail I spotted while browsing shops…

Next stop was shopping at the Japan pavilion! Rilakkuma!!!

I wanted those pillows so bad!!!

After spending the day at Epcot, we went back to our hotel to get ready for the "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party"! Katie is Russell from Up and Molly was Ariel!!

The decorations and lighting at the party was AMAZING!!!

Even though it was raining we still had a super great time!

It was really hard to get a photo but there were amazing ballroom dancers from the Haunted Mansion in the parade! They were legit spooky and their costumes were fantastic!

During the event you can ride all the rides you want until midnight! The lines were super short! Here is Molly and I on Space Mountain with a random Snow White. lol!!

Look at everyone screaming below! hahaha I love it!!

Some final photos of all the beautiful lighting before we went back to the hotel for the night.

Disney World Bachelorette trip day 1: Magic Kingdom!

2017-04-06T19:11:16Z

Photos from our first day in Walt Disney World!!

We arrived early in the morning, checked into the Grand Floridan Villas…It Mary Poppins themed! Check out the adorable penguin fountain below – I loved it! We then got celebratory badges and went straight to the park!

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New Fantasy Land!!! I was so excited to see the park expansion since the last time I went to Disney World was in 2010. Everything was amazing!! Here is me crushing on the Gaston statue since we couldn't find his hilarious face character… lol

Trying on various ears and being super goofballs. I ended up getting both pairs pictured here!

We then did a ton of shop browsing!

Halloween decorations were out!!

Disney dad doesn't approve of my romantic photo with Goofy.

Oh, Molllllyyy…

Later in the evening we had a reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table to celebrate my engagement and Sarah's recent marriage!

We got a really nice table by the windows and all dressed up in our princessy best for the location.

Then they handed out wishing stars and wands to us, and the princesses came around to each table to greet everyone dining. It was so fun!

Aurora teaching us how to show off our engagement rings… LOL!

Then surprises began to come out!! They brought both Sarah and I rose covered platters with engraved glass slippers, special desserts and champagne flutes for each girl for a toast! While all of this was being brought out to us they had a photographer on hand to capture it all!! So exciting

The desserts were so pretty!! One is shaped like a glass slipper and the other is the clock about to strike midnight…

My slipper says "Sandy and Chris" on one side and "Dreams do come true" on the other, and the date of our wedding is in the middle. Sarah's had the date of her wedding, Happily Ever After and the names of her and her husband. ❤

After our celebratory dinner, we explored more of the park and shops!

Molly and I wearing the various Marie accessories they had for sale!

Love this Cinderella diorama by the shops!

And that was the end to our first magical day at Disney!!

Japan: Day 1 at Kiyomizu-dera of Kyoto

2017-04-06T19:11:32Z

The flight was a long one over – We flew straight in from Atlanta to Tokyo and then took a train to Kyoto…and we spent over 24 hours awake I think. I don't really remember much that night when we arrived other than my luggage felt like it weighed a million pounds, taking a bath and passing out.

The next morning we got breakfast in the hotel and I drank a TON of coffee!! (I needed all the fuel I could get!) After breakfast we set out for adventure – our major destination was the Kiyomizu-dera temple and possibly checking out a shop I wanted to visit if we had the energy.

We walked along Gojo-dori from our hotel to the temple and saw so many interesting things along the way. It was such a beautiful and relaxing walk despite feeling tired from jet lag. Along the way we stopped at a few places to take photos and look around. Unfortunately, I don't know the names of the little places we came across but they were lovely to look at regardless.

Walking up the hill to Kiyomizu-dera… The view was beautiful when we got up to the top and there were so many people!! While we were there a group of school girls interviewed us for their english project. They asked us where we were from, what we were visiting for, what we liked about Japan and what we looked forward to. I think I told them I was really excited to go shopping for cute things which they found funny.

After checking out the temple we walked further into Gion and stopped in a few shops along the way where Chris bought me the cutest figurines! I don't have a picture from that day, but it was a little mochi-like bunny and a tiny shrimp bowl… I think they are Styrofoam covered in fabric, and the bottom is rounded so you can push them and they rock back and forth. I loved them so much it inspired me to paint!

We continued walking and looking at cute stuff (check out those cat clocks below!! So many kitschy cute things like this.) until we got to Yasaka Shrine where we stopped to get meat skewers and look at our map for possible next destinations.

We decided to walk down Shijo-dori and attempt to find the clothing shop I was interested in. We stopped in a McDonald's at Chris's request for lunch and I even ran into a cute character along the way! He was the mascot for the Kyoto Gion Udon Museum near by.

Finding the shop proved to be pretty difficult and we went in many shopping centers while on the hunt, but none seemed to have the store we were looking for. It wasn't so bad though – it gave us an excuse to check out a few interesting shops we probably wouldn't have looked at otherwise. Above is a fancy Lush cosmetics store – isn't it super cool?! I didn't go inside because we have plenty of Lush stores where I live, but I love the exterior of it so much!! It reminds me of a Studio Ghibli place! You can see it better in this video someone uploaded.

We eventually found the store, which I discovered was called "Enfant". (I only knew an address, not a name!) They carry Emily Temple Cute, Milk, Katie and a few other cutesy alternative brands. I originally found it on Milk's shop list and went there to get a few of their items, but I ended up leaving with stuff other than that and learned about a few new brands that make great stuff! It was such a fun experience shopping there because it was a very small and intimate store and the girls that ran it were so nice! We chatted a bit about clothes and accessories (all of us loved Q-Pot) and they gave me a ton of freebies after learning I was a fan of Milk! Once I was done at the shop we headed back to the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel we unpacked, relaxed for a bit watching the sunset from our room window and then headed out for dinner and beers at Bungalow Gastropub.

I'm not a big beer drinker but I tried two different kinds while there and they were super delish!! I ended up getting pretty tipsy (it doesn't take much lol) and stopped in a convenience store to buy eyeshadow on the way home. I rarely buy make up so I was surprised I did this, but the next day I discovered my beer-fueled purchase was actually pretty good! Very sparkly neutrals from Shiseido. I think after that we watched tv for a bit and then passed out. It was a long and exciting day!!

Many photos in this post were taken by my boyfriend, Chris.

You can see more of his photos here!

Stay tuned for day two coming next week around Friday!

In memory of my father, Lloyd V. Smith

2011-05-14T00:54:13Z

In memory of Lloyd V. Smith

January 31st 1952 – May 14th, 2006

—

Lloyd loved fixing and building things. He built cars, he fixed cars. He built airplanes and he fixed airplanes. But I believe when he dreamed, he dreamed of flying. At the age of 23, Lloyd took his solo flight at Ferguson’s in Pensacola, FL. It was February 28, 1974 and Lloyd was attending the University of West Florida. He had met Arleen, the woman he loved. Soon they would be married and have a wonderful daughter, Sandy. The family grew together, constantly in the midst of sounds and smells of Lloyd's latest project – be it a Corvette or a Skybolt.

Lloyd Vincent Smith was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 31, 1952. As the oldest of four children in an Air Force family, he lived in a number of places including the Philippines, Kentucky, Texas, and Florida. He was a 1970 graduate of Choctawhatchee High School in Ft. Walton Beach and from Okaloosa Walton Junior College in Niceville, Florida in 1972. Lloyd completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology in 1975 from the University of West Florida in Pensacola. He served with the Navy and was stationed on the USS Lexington in Pensacola and was a later employed at the Naval Air Station as a Civil Service employee in the electronics division. Lloyd was an active member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and past Chapter Advisor for SAE for a number of years before relocating to the Atlanta, Georgia area. At the time of his death, Lloyd was a senior staff engineer at Nestle-Purina.

Everyone looked to Lloyd for answers about how to fix things. Fix cars, fix radios, fix lawnmowers, fix computers, fix relationships. If you couldn't fix it yourself, he would fix it for you. Lloyd would take the time to listen and help his friends with the big questions. Should I buy this car? Should I take this job? Should I move here or there, should I quit school, should I go to school. Should I get married? In these ways Lloyd was everyone's big brother and was always there for them. He was very much loved by those close to him.

He never stopped loving to fix things and build things. He never stopped dreaming. He never stopped loving to fly. We lost Lloyd while he was doing what he loved. And we will never stop our loving him.

He is survived by his wife of 31 years, Arleen Smith of Newnan, Ga. and his daughter, Sandy Smith who resides in Atlanta, Ga. Additional immediate surviving family members include his mother, Corine Smith, Ft.Walton Beach, FL; and siblings Alice Batzel, Brigham City, UT; Kathy Hebert, Destin, FL; and Dennis Smith, Oakton, VA.

– Neil Seeley

5 years ago today, I lost my father. He went for a flight after Mother's Day brunch, experienced an engine failure, and was killed on impact when his plane fell from the sky. This was a horrible day for my family, but over the years we have grown closer by working together and staying positive.

My father's death was an awful thing for me, but I don't want to dwell on the sadness. Instead, I'd like to focus on remembering his spirit. My dad lived a wonderful life, filled with adventure, positivity, hard work, and he followed his dreams. He was a great father and truly one of the most amazing people I've ever known, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had him in my life for 23 years. I will always remember him teaching me that it's always worth pursuing your dreams and that all things are possible with a little hard work, planning and ambition. I think of this every day and aspire to be as hard working, honest and positive as my father.

Life is too short to not live it to the fullest, but sometimes it's shorter than we think… so please take hold of yours and make it everything you've dreamed of. Remember it's the experiences we create through out it all that make life special.

On that note, one of the last things my dad discussed with my Uncle Dennis was this:

When I last talked with Lloyd a couple of weeks ago, he summed things up by telling me:

"We are awful proud of Sandy getting ready to complete college…
Things are great with the family…
Things are great at work…
And I'm having the time of my life messing around with these airplanes…
What more could I ask for?"

Indeed… How many of the rest of us could sum up our current situations with a similar statement of complete contentment ?

We should all be so lucky.

A few photos of my father over the years and some of the things he built:

My mom and dad.

More after the cut…

Photo of my father during college, and a picture of us at my Father/Daughter dance for Girl Scouts.

Family photo when I was 19.

His 1967 coupe drag race car he built.

One of his favorite motorcycles.

His red Skybolt biplane.

His Pitt's Biplane he was building… I always really loved this one because it had the 3 diamonds like my arm tattoo and I helped him work on it a few times. Unfortunately, he died before he could finish it, but I cherish the fact it's something we shared together.

A 1964 roadster corvette… I think this was my favorite out of all the cars he built! So cool.

My dad and I with my cousins Lauren and Kara.

Family photo at age 21.

This was the last photo I ever took of him… We were at a party together at the local airport he flew at, and someone brought their bird. It hopped on my dad's shoulder and we were both so shocked and couldn't stop smiling. I still can't believe he let it sit there! He was always so funny.

In loving memory… Dad, you'll always be in my heart.

-Sandy