As many of you know I married my high school sweetheart last month. Now, I know this blog is supposed to be about sewing but I’m making an exception for this entry. I’d like to tell you about my real life fairy tale.

I went to elementary school and middle school with my husband. However, we never really had any interaction. One day when I was in the 8th grade my mom was picking me up from school. I got into the car and she said “Who is that boy over there? He’s cute!” I quickly responded with “eww mom! hes a dork!” Well about three or four months later I was on vacation for the 4th of July with my family and friends. I was walking with three of my friends around the campground we were staying at and saw this boy on an orange bike with a GREAT tan and orange sunglasses on. I immediately said to my friends “he is so cute! I know him from somewhere!” My friend then responded and told me he was from Camden but we couldn’t remember his name. (I know we were so stupid… Camden is so small how do you not know his name.) However, I did realize who he was. When I got back to our site I found my mom and asked her if she remembered the boy she had said was cute. She said she remembered and I went on to tell her “Well he is really cute now!” (My mom still gets a kick out of that one.) As the week went on I continued to see the boy on the orange bike and we finally asked him his name. He told us his name was Billy Bob. We saw Billy Bob everyday and even got in a water balloon fight with him on a the beach. I can still remember that night like it was yesterday. He pegged me with the balloon then continued on to pick me up and try to throw me into the ocean. It was an instant spark… except…. as Bree would say “he had all the ladies in the campground.”  We became friends and continued to talk when we got home. My parents ended up buying a place at the campground that summer and I would see him down at the beach on the weekends. Billy Bob would have a different girlfriend every week. After the summer ended we went back to school and started our freshman year of high school. We continued to talk and became really good friends. Our friendship blossomed and on October 2,2001 he finally asked me out.

We  not only became boyfriend and girlfriend, we became bestfriends. We had both just turned 14 and neither one of us could drive. Needless to say we spent a lot of time at my house. He would come over to my house every Saturday and we would go out to eat with my parents. Every Saturday brought on something new. Whether it was watching a movie or my sister and her friends pretending to marry us. We dated all through high school. We both had our first kiss, he took me to our junior and senior prom, we took Denver to  Disney world for the first time, we watched many soccer/softball games, and our relationship continued to grow. We had no idea what we wanted to do when we graduated and didn’t have a clue where we would go to school.  After we graduated, we both ended up going to the University of South Carolina by chance. Well not really by chance… we never thought we would ended up at the same school and had left it in God’s hands. I know God sent us there together for a reason. He has been with us through out our relationship and we know we were made for each other.

The college years were not too much fun. People say that your college years are the best of your life. I would have to definitely disagree. Neither one of us were in the party scene and liked being home. However, we had each other, which really made all the difference. We made it through our college years together and not too long after graduating, Denver (Billy Bob) proposed after 7.5 years of dating.

Denver had worked really hard to get my ring. He found a guy in Columbia who used to work for Tiffany’s and he designed the perfect ring with lots of meaning and symbolism inside. One day, my good friend Mary Ellen called to see if we would like to take a carriage ride that was supposedly given to her. They said they couldn’t go because one of the children was scared of the horse. I said sure and she then said “ok! be at my house at 8 AM on Saturday!” I responded with 8:00AM? Are you serious?” She said yes and of course that Saturday Denver and I showed up at her house at 8:00AM. I wasn’t really expecting anything because who proposes at 8:00AM!? Denver and I hopped in the carriage and took a carriage ride around Camden. Our ride took us to the Cup grounds. When we got to the cup grounds I saw the viewing stand completely decorated and jockeys out riding their horses. When we got o the viewing stand I saw that we had breakfast and champagne. I was thinking to myself… “I don’t think this was apart of the package.” After we started eating our breakfast a jockey came over and handed Denver a box. He proceeded to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him.  I later found out that he had decorated the viewing stand and called all of the jockeys to come out and ride. He had also set up the carriage ride and there was a photographer there who caught it all on camera. It was perfect…

We set our wedding date for April 17th, 2010. Between June 6, 2009 and April 16th, 2010 we both got new jobs, bought a house, and just about everything that could possibly go wrong did. However, on our wedding day everything went perfectly. With 300 of our closest friends and family members, we said the vows that we have felt in our hearts for over 8 years, I married the boy my mom had picked out for me on the side of the road in 8th grade, and started the next chapter of our fairy tale. It was amazing to see all the beautiful faces who shared our special day with us. We were overflowing with happiness. We feel very blessed to have found each other at such a young age. I have felt like I am in a real life fairy tale. See the thing about fairy tales is that they are never perfect. Something always goes wrong in them, but they always end up living happily ever after. I can’t wait to continue on with my fairy tale and to live happily ever after.

Below are pictures. My famous Aunt Trish and I made the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner.

I am so excited! Last night, we ordered the fabric for Ab a dress! She picked out some gorgeous pink and white Amy Butler fabric. I can’t wait for it to come in to make the dress. I also made some new bow ties. Sorry, there aren’t any pictures. I cannot seem to find the cord to recharge my camera, which may be a problem since graduation is Saturday. I will try to get some pictures up this weekend. I am also going to make some headbands. I’m pretty excited about that as well. I have so much I want to do and not enough time. If there any people out there who love to sew, I have a magazine to suggest! It is called Sew Hip. It is a sewing magazine from the UK and has become my FAVORITE magazine. It has awesome ideas and comes with patterns (which makes the magazine definitely worth it)!

Hi All!!! Earlier this week, I drug Denver with me to the fabric store and found some GREAT bow tie fabric. I am super excited and cannot wait to make some more bow ties! This week, I haven’t been able to sew much due to exams and coaching. However, after Saturday at 11:00 I will be free of exams! (I don’t know whether to be excited about that or not! lol Real world here I come!) I’m going to make up some more bow ties by the middle of next week. I found some awesome striped fabric, a garnet piece (Go Gamecocks!), a couple of pieces that will make awesome abstracts, and a few vibrant solids. I am thinking about making some Carolina/Clemson bow ties. What do ya’ll think? If you see any fabric you like for a bow tie, let me know! Below are my new found treasures! (Click on the thumbnail to make larger.) Oh yea, if you don’t know how to tie a bow tie, no worries, these are already tied and all you have to do is velcro them on! Easy, Right?

I said earlier that I worked on some bow ties. Below are some of those ties that I made. The red and navy is actually a child’s bow tie, and the rest are adult’s. Almost a year to the date, I went to an antique store. While there, I found a veritable treasure chest… full of fabric! I kind of went crazy and bought a ton of it. I bought table cloths, napkins, a french hand written menu, etc. I got some really neat stuff. When I bought it, I had the vision of making aprons. My aunt told me not to cut my treasures up until I have thought about it long and hard. Well one year later I decided to cut up one of my vintage napkins and make a bow tie. (It is the red, yellow, and navy one.)  I think the fabric gives the bow tie character. As I sewed it, I thought about the history of the fabric and where it came from. I think it really makes the bow tie special and unique. The seersucker and light blue was my Papa’s creation. He came over while I had all my fabric strewn from one end of the house to the other. He picked out what he wanted to match his suit that he wears to church on Sundays. My little sister’s boyfriend, Ro, became my model and male fabric consultant. (LOL!) He helps me pick out the colors that the high school guys would wear and lets me see how the bow tie looks worn. THANKS RO!  Anyways here are some pictures below. Click on the thumbnails to see the whole picture!

I can’t believe my little sister, Han, went to her first prom. She looked gorgeous! My sister and her best-friend (My second little sister, Kay, also looked gorgeous!) asked me to make them clutch purses the Monday before prom. I never made them before, but said what the heck, I’ll give it a try. I based my pattern off of one that I found online. I used the silk shawl that went with my sister’s dress for fabric. Luckily, both of the girls’ dresses were made from the same material and were the same color. I was also lucky enough to find some zebra print fabric to go with Kay’s dress. After many long hours at my kitchen table, I had two clutch bags. I think I could have a done a better job if I didn’t have two tests that week and a paper… but I was pretty satisfied when it was all said and done. One thing I would do next time is make them a little bigger.  The girls put so much stuff in them that they busted the snap, basically tearing it right off. (I guess it’s a little hard to go from carrying a suitcase to something a little bigger than your hand!) A picture of the clutch bags are below.

H's on the bottom and K's on the top. Click on the picture to get to the sewing tutorial I used! It is an AWESOME sewing website!!

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