Weekend Review (Part One): Wedding Style!!

I feel like I need to split up this Weekend Review into about five posts but I will manage to summarize as much as possible! WARNING: Lots of pictures! Friday Night: I headed down to Louisiana for one of my best friend's wedding. Melissa is a dear dear friend of mine. We are seriously like kindred spirits. She is everything I am striving to be everyday- thoughful, compassionate, a true Southern lady. She knows how to have a good time and be so classy doing it. :) To see her around David almost brings me to tears because I can honestly say no two are more perfect for each other. They truly ADORE each other. She treats him with such respect and I can honestly say I have learned from her how to treat my husband better and adore and respect him even more than I already do. Needlessto say, Melissa is special to me and I was truly honored to be a part of her special day.

Rehearsal Dinner was held at the University Club and was simply elegant. Melissa and David said something unique about each and every bridesmaid and groomsman. There were many tears of joy and so many hugs.
Saturday: This day was a day of pampering the bride and bridemaids. We started at 10 am to get everyone's hair done. I'm pretty sure mine was the only one that took less than 5 minutes to fix! It was already curly and they just added in some extra bounce. It looked fabulous if I do say so myself - as did everyone else's! With makeup and hair complete, there was a short amount of time just to hang out and relax with Melissa and the bridemaid's. This, of course, was one of my favorite parts. We kept saying over and over "You're getting married today!" I remember that feeling on my wedding day of just feeling like I was in a dream - and Melissa too kept saying, I'm REALLY getting married today!" :) Here is Melissa holding her block calendar with her wedding date! The day is finally here - November 21st. Well, you know how a wedding goes... pictures, pictures, primping and MORE PICTURES! I really loved our dress and loved my shoes, even though they KILLED my feet.

Take a look at the location! AMAZING! There were no words, nor are there pictures to describe just how breathtaking the Scottish Rites Cathedral was!

Saturday Night: Well, the wedding is here and Melissa looked gorgeous, as usual! The wedding was so short and sweet - MY kind of wedding, especially is THOSE heels! I think the ceremony lasted about 17 minutes, but it was perfect!

The reception was so much fun - New Orleans style food and live jazz band and lots of dancing! My favorite part was the traditional New Orleans second line!
Afterwards, the whole bridal party went out in a limo to a dance club. Melissa wore her dress and the girls wore our bridesmaid dresses! So fun! My feet were hurting so badly that I changed into my cowboy boots! :) I had a blast dancing in my boots with my best friends!

Ok. Believe it or not, there is more! I have to tell you the story about Sunday but I will save it for another time.

Fall Family Pics

Families are trying to squeeze in last minute fall family pictures before it gets too chilly! Last Saturday I did a photo shoot for a family of five. The mom is a lady I work with and her daughter and son-in-law are moving to ALASKA to be missionaries! I took this picture below for them to use as their prayer cards to pass out. They can write all of their information on the side and make prints and pass out to their prayer partners!

Check out more of their photo shoot here on my Flickr page!

close up

mom and dad

the whole gang

I had a good time on this photoshoot and I'm digging the black shirts against this brick red wall! Super sharp!

I must give credit to Grant Harrison for the idea of the prayer card.

Stella Success!

Last night was the Stella & Dot jewelry party that I hosted. My longtime friend and basically my second mom, Julie, came into town to show her fabulous display of jewelry! Here are a few of my favorite pieces: Check out the celebrities wearing Stella & Dot!
Paris Hilton Debra Messing
S&D jewelry has been featured in so many fasion mags like this one in INSTYLE just last month. Where else have they been featured? Just take a look!
My good friend Christen made this wonderful cake for everyone who attended the party last night. Everyone RAVES about her cakes! So if you need one contact Christen! She can pretty much do anything! :)
We had such a good time visiting and trying on jewelry, I seriously don't know how I'm going to pick which pieces I want! They are so vintage and so classic. Stella & Dot has so much variety- they have a little something for everyone's taste. Go check out their jewelry here. If you plan on buying something this coming week, please click on Hostess Connection and type my name (Cara Beth Buie) in and the credit will go towards my party. Thanks so much! Enjoy your fabulous jewelry!
Don't forget about people on your Christmas List!

Engagement pics!

I had the honor of taking my older brother's engagement pics this past Sunday... Let me tell you the story...

My brother, 30, is an amazing fella! He is everyone's friend and is an older brother to so many...yes especially girls. Chris has always been a "ladies man" but not in the player type. Err, maybe I'm not explaining this very well. Chris has always been surrounded by his "girl friends" but mostly they have just thought of him of a best friend, a brother, a pal, an amigo. Get my point? Yes, he's dated every now and then but nothing stuck. In my opinion, no one was good enough for my brother. ;)

Then along came Amanda! And we couldn't be happier - they are the same age and get this! - they went to elementary school together. When Amanda ran into my mom and started talking, the rest was history. My mom immediately heard wedding bells ringing in her ears. She encouraged them to reconnect through facebook and that they did. Only one small problem, Chris was living in Africa for the next SIX MONTHS! So they facebooked, emailed, and talked on the phone for six whole months before reconnecting in person- since sixth grade! We were all so nervous to see how the chemistry would be between them. But no worries! They saw each other in June after talking via email since January and were engaged this past October! Truly a match made in heaven!

Wedding date - January 16th! Can you image all this happening so fast! I mean, a year ago to date neither one of them had marriage on the brain. Now they are on the fast track to walking down the aisle to a life of wedded bliss! And we are all grinning from ear to ear!

Here are a few pictures from our engagement shoot this past Sunday.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Well, it was a fun nights of long lines, McDonalds dinner, new cookbooks, new friends, LOTS of photos and celebrity stalking! Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman, came to Little Rock! (Click here to find out who the heck I am talking about..) I grabbed my cookbook and five more cookbooks for Christmas presents and headed to Walmart on Cantrell to meet up with friends. Little did we know every woman in Arkansas would also be there! We had a blast though! Here are a few pics from the night!

me with Marlboro Man - Ree's cowboy husband :)

Yes, Pioneer Woman is probably most known for her Southern cowboy cooking and her super easy step by step recipes but I first fell in love with her for her photography. Take a look at her work on her flickr page.

Guess who I get to meet today???

That's right! It's The Pioneer Woman! Read about her here on her stinking amazing blog! I've got my camera (both of them) ready to go and SIX books for her to sign. I hope she doesn't mind. I may bring her a present too but I'm not sure what yet...

You asked for em!

I have had several requests for pictures of my poochies in their costumes. Let me start off by saying, these are really bad pics. They wouldn't hold still and these aren't taken with my good camera... but without further ado (thanks to ryan byrd for helping me on the correct spelling of 'ado' - I could have sworn it was something fancy like 'adieu' but the word 'adieu' means goodbye, so definitely not the same. Bet you didn't think you would get a spelling lesson on my blog, huh?) here are my pups all decked out.

Conner...as the mailman. He even has a little mail pouch!

And Scooter's first time to wear clothes.... he was an inmate! :) Which was appropriate since he spent most of the night in his kennel during our Pumpkin Fest Party. Scooter is a rescue dog and is still not sure about children, so just in case we kept him up so we wouldn't have to watch him closely all night. But don't worry, we gave him lots of treats and a nice big bone to munch on.

It was impossible to get a picture of Scooter with his hat ON because he was convinced that his hat was his newest chew toy! Oh well! He didn't mind the tshirt though.

Hope you had a great Halloween!

I'm alive!

Yes, I'm still alive! I haven't been on my blog in forever because I've been a little...err...under the weather I guess you'd say. I have migraines really bad and man did I have a bad one this week! I called in sick and stayed in bed all day long!

Anyway, I'm super excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. Last night I sat down with about 10 Christmas catalogs and went to circling with my trusty sharpie marker. Most of the things I circle never get bought but it's fun to dream, right?

I've been working on Thanksgiving plans and Christmas lists and decorations, etc. I just ordered Scooter, the newest member of our family, a new stocking that matches the other furry children's stockings. I've already bought presents for everyone in MY family - now we're working on Buie's family. I am determined to have all my presents bought by the end of November so I can enjoy December. I hate getting caught up in the holiday rush towards the middle of December. I like to sit back and watch everybody scramble around like idiots and laugh at them all the while thinking, "You should have done your shopping in November like I did!" This has actually never happened and I'm ALWAYS one of those idiots running around like a chicken with its head cut off but there is always the dream of being finished in November, right? Sigh... there is always the dream.

This is one of the items of my "must buy" list. Since we have a mantel this year, Buie and I will hang our stocking on the mantel. We purchased this stocking holder that sits on the ground (they also have a table top one) for the four animal stockings. :) I can't wait to get it in from Ballard Designs and hang the stockings on it!

Buie and I will hang our Pottery Barn stockings on this Fleur de Lis stocking holder from Ballard Designs...one of my favoriate online stores, especially for the holidays.

I just realized I haven't posted pics of our doggies in their Halloween costume! What is wrong with me? I'll have those up soon!

Have a great day, everyone!