flowers

after we met with a potential florist last week, i've got flowers on the brain. girly i know, but here a few of my new favorites:

pink astilbe

craspedia

green button mums

and more inspiration:

inspiration

when you're planning a wedding, there is a lot of inspiration out there! it has been exciting (and also overwhelming) to create the look of the wedding i didn't even know i always wanted.

we've met with so many talented people who have helped us brainstorm, problem-solve, and create. we get new ideas every week and then work to make it happen- it's awesome!

mom has collected over 180 vintage plates to help create the look. here's a sneak peak:





And as my friend Serwah says, "let's look at the blogs....":

Love and Lavender

Style Me Pretty

Grey Likes Weddings

Sparkle and Hay

proud sister

a few weeks ago my little brother stephen finished his eagle project, and it is awesome.

let me start out by telling you a little about stephen: as the youngest sykes child stephen could have easily just followed in doing things that his brother and sister had success doing when they were his age. instead stephen chose to be different. he pursued creativity and became an excellent worship leader, student, friend, and servant of the Lord. He grows everyday in so many ways, and I am humbled and proud to be his sister.

stephen worked tirelessly during his hectic junior year: he carefully designed a bridge, raised money for the project, lead a team during workdays, and worked hard until he finished. as jonathan sykes (who is also pretty awesome) claims:

"Only a nuke would take that thing down."

confession

although being engaged has been a fun and exciting time, it has also been a challenging one.

there is weekend after weekend of wedding plans, fun people and fun experiences but monday after monday i return to an empty apartment and it's back to work until the next weekend. i have never lived by myself and i'm glad now that i will never have to come october. it's been hard to motivate myself to do things when the only one holding me accountable during the week is me.

while i don't want to overwhelm austin with all of these expectations, i still believe that it will be way funner doing things with two people rather than one: bikes rides, walks through the neighborhood, going out to eat, watching movies, and cooking.

being long distance stinks. i'm not sure if it stinks more with an end in sight or without one.