kaitie lately...

Let me start with...holy {words i try not to use but still pop into my head when really excited/surprised/anxious/in sudden severe pain} my wedding is in two weeks and two days.

Is this real life?

Also the title is because kaitie lately sounded better than kaitlin lately and because my family and my man and my closest friends call me Kaitie basically always. My brother has called me Kaitlin twice ever and both times it was highly upsetting.

Since I'm kind of a homebody with a love for my family and a love for all things handmade and artisan crafted, here's the pergola my father designed and built and younger brother stained for me to get married under.

Heyyy little brother who is actually much bigger than me. Thanks for the stain job!

My family is pretty talented, I must say. If you love timber and are in the home building market (decorator, architect, builder, new homeowner...) you should check out Accent Truss. I'm biased but I have toured many houses in my day and seen many jobsites, and I must say...no one does trusses quite like my parents. Dad has the best eye for timber frames and he and my mom are an excellent partnership.

Here is me telling my amazing hairdresser for pretty much ten years straight because I have trust issues and no one else is allowed to touch my head what I want my wedding hair to look like.

Donna Hathaway. Upstate SC peeps, find her. She's the best at hair. Plus she's gorgeous, hilarious, and happens to be a super cool biker. For real, go get your hair did by her. It's great.

Drew and I are really really good at presents, but we are also really really bad at them. We cannot keep secrets from each other basically at all, and we have the hardest time not accidentally revealing surprises. So obviously we decided that we should just go ahead and open one present each (he had me open 2 because he technically got me a higher quantity of presents within our budget) this week because we won't be together on real Christmas and have to do it early anyways.

Open gift one and....

We got each other the same thing. Each of us has talked about cast iron skillets so much we each decided it would make a great gift for the other! And we were right--we love them.

He also got me a French press! I adore it. I've admired them for ages but never bought myself one because it wasn't a staple and Liz gave me a big regular coffee maker she and Kyle had before they got a Keurig for their wedding. But it's so pretty! And makes the perfect coffee for my pretty mug collection.

I made our stockings this year by buying the $0.98 ones from Wal-Mart (I've only started shopping at WalMart since moving. I still hate it. But it's cheap.) and then embroidering our names on them. I think they're super cute but I think next year I'm going to make some nice ones that have more detail.

I also made my garters. I took basic ones from Hobby Lobby and totally changed them up. In true refashioning form, I had to take old to make this new...

...so I used beads from my mom's wedding dress all over one. The dangling part on the garter I will be keeping was hanging where Mom's bodice met her skirt. I love it. And I took lace from the hem of her dress to my florist to carry in my bouquet on the big day. She's also my matron of honor. Have I mentioned that I love my mom?

So that's life in the world of the soul behind the seams right now. How about you, readers? What's new in your world?

PS--I'm super excited because on Monday we are FINALLY having a last minute engagement photo shoot! Stay tuned for the pics!

PPS--There is a strong chance I'll be somewhat MIA from the blog for a few weeks due to wedding and a honeymoon cruise but I promise I'll be back soon!