82 Days until we're Mr. and Mrs.

I had my first shower a few weeks ago.  Whitney and Jamie did an amazing job hosting!  Love those girls.  I had such a great time seeing everyone.  Tyler and I got a lot of great stuff that I can't wait to use in our new place.

I move into our new apartment this weekend.  I can't believe it's already time, time has flown by!  We got to see our apartment all spruced up and ready on Sunday afternoon.  To our surprise we found out that we got all new stainless steal appliances!  A big improvement from my 1980's appliances in my apartment now.  Woohoo!

Today we also booked our florist!  I can't wait to see everything come together on our wedding day.  I really loved everything the florist came up with.  It was like she knew everything I was envisioning.  Also, after four months of searching, we FINALLY picked our DJ.  I'm so glad the search has ended.  I could sing from the roof tops!  Now I'm looking forward to putting together the song list for the reception and all that jazz.  We're gonna party like it's 1999! Or 2011...whichever you choose.

- Meghan

p.s. I hope you all enjoy this fabulous photo of Tyler and I.  Personal thanks to Jamie Clark for showing me http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ tonight.  Have an hour to laugh so hard you'll cry? Check it out...

Kade Michael Hale

On Tuesday I became an Aunt!  Ryan and Teri had their first child Kade Michael Hale at 9:47am.  He was 7lb and 19.5 inches long.  I am so excited for Teri and Ryan they are going to be great parents!  I added a picture so you can see the little guy.  He's adorable!  I'm a little biased but he is :).

I can't wait to meet my nephew next month!  My family and I are going to Pensacola, FL for Thanksgiving.  I can't wait to hold him all week long, haha.  Kinda like Melanie told me today, she just wants to squeeze him, haha.  Anyways,  you will all get to see him at the wedding when he makes his appearance as the hottest little guy ever!

-Meghan

Home Sweet Home

Last week Tyler and I put a deposit on an apartment.  Woo hoo!  We got the last two bedroom in the complex, crazy.  We are going to live in the village, but in a different complex than I live right now.  I'm moving at the end of October and Tyler will move in after we get married.  I'm so excited to start decorating our new place.  And once Tyler moves in he'll get to make me breakfast in bed every morning!!  YES!

There's a First Time for Everything

This week was such a fun week for Tyler and I.  We started out the week designing our invitations.  I can't wait to see the final design next week.  Gabe, a friend of Tyler and I's, has custom designed the whole thing.  He has done such an amazing job so far and I can't wait to see the final product.  We feel so incredibly blessed to have him helping us with this.

We also went to our first cake tasting!  Wedding cake has always been one of my favorite things at weddings so I've been looking forward to this since we got engaged.  I really loved the ideas that they had for our cake.  I'm excited to try a few other places to see which one we will actually use.

I also met with our first florist this week.  Tyler knew her because he worked with her husband when he was at Apple.  I loved all her photos and her ideas.  I still have to meet with a few more florists but I really enjoyed meeting with her.

The most exciting thing that happened this week is...drum roll please...we got our first gift off our registry!!!!! When I got home from work and saw the box I was like a little kid at Christmas.  Luckily Tyler was with me so I could open it immediately and didn't have to wait.  Yay!

-Meghan

Magnets & more...

So by now most of you should have received our save the date magnet!  We ordered them through magnetstreet.com and are really happy with what they did.  I find it surreal to walk to my own refrigerator and see Tyler and I with our wedding date.  It's like, oh yeah I'm getting married.  Hahah...anyways.

We have also been working on getting our wedding website ready for everyone to see.  If you have not been able to check it out I've included a link below.  It has everything from how he proposed, where we're registered, and who is in our wedding party.  Hopefully it will give you all the information you need for our wedding day.  And if you have time you should leave us a little note on our guest book!

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/MeghanHale&TylerGatewood

-Meghan

The honeymoon is booked!

It's official, we booked our honeymoon!  I'm thrilled to share that we will be going to, drum roll please....Ocho Rios, Jamaica!!!  

We have gone back and forth on this but finally decided Jamaica was the perfect place for us to spend our honeymoon.  Big thanks are in order to everyone who gave input on where we should go.  Thanks to your recommendations and guidance we were able to choose what place was the best fit for us.  We will stay six nights in paradise at the Sandals Resort in Ocho Rios. 

I am so excited that Jamaica will be the first vacation that Tyler and I take as husband and wife!  I seriously can't wait to sit under one of these umbrellas.  This picture will now be my computer background...really.  I'm serious.    

Until next time, love you guys!

- Meghan

149 Days...

Hey look at that, I have not updated my portion of our wedding blog in a long time. Silly me for nothing keeping my end of the bargain.

It's amazing for me to see how close the wedding is, only 149 days away. You may say that the wedding is still a long ways off, but in all reality it is not at all. When I first purposed in March and we decided the wedding would be in January, it seemed like that was forever away. I wanted to marry Meghan right then and there (note: I still do), and since I am ordained I began to wonder if I could officiate my own ceremony, Yeah, just think about how crazy that would be.

Minister (Me): "Tyler do you take Meghan..."
Me: Walking to hold Meghan's hand..."I do..."
Then back and forth several times....

Ok I know that kind of sounds weird and dumb and whatnot, but hey it would be exciting. I may become winded though. Yeah, Meghan make me delete this section. Anyways back to what I was saying...

It has been amazing so far through our engagement to see God bring us closer together through joys and difficulties. It is so great to see where God has brought us in over 2 1/2 years. We are beginning an amazing journey together and I look forward to 80 more years together. It amazing to see God love us so much individually and as a couple. He has blessed us immensely and one thing I am reminded of is that God's love does not change, His love remains. He has been there for us in the past, in the present, and will be in the future. He will never leave us and that is so comforting to know. He really does love us like He says He does in the Bible.

My prayer is that I continue to love my God first but secondly love Meghan as He has called me to do so. To daily sacrifice and give myself up. I need to always work on that. I pray that husbands love their wives, the same way Christ loves the church. I challenge you men to do this and work at it, be a student of her.

I know I need to always work on it, especially because like I said earlier, 149 days is closer than you think.

Give Grace, Live Truth, Reflect Jesus
Ty

Here we are, four months in...

It's hard to believe that Tyler and I have been engaged for four months.  The time has flown.  We're almost half way through our engagement...CRAZY!

We have gotten so many things done since our last post.  We got our save the dates in!  They should be arriving in everyone's mailboxes over the next few weeks.  Tyler and I have also started looking at apartments!  I know it's a little early, but we want to look everywhere we can and see what location works best for us.  My office moved downtown and Tyler works in Arlington so we're working on finding a great place in-between that we can call home.  We also have been interviewing DJ's.  I've learned that hiring a DJ is much harder than I anticipated.  They are in charge of the whole feel of the reception.  If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

We also have chosen our colors.  The colors are navy, champaign and a splash of pink.  I'm so excited that we are incorporating pink in the color palate.  I always thought I'd get married in the fall and had my heart set on pink, but when we chose a winter wedding I thought there was no chance we could have pink.  I love pink and navy together though so I'm super pumped!!

Only 160 days to go!

- Meghan

Engagement Entertainment

Check out this video of Tyler and I...we're REALLY excited about getting married.  It makes us want to break out into dance...

- Meghan

Check, check, check!

Only six more months until the big day!  I can't believe we've already been engaged three months.  Time has flown by.  We still have a lot of stuff to do, but have already gotten so much accomplished.

First of all, I got MY official wedding dress.  After sending two back to the designer the third one ended up being a winner.  Yay!  I can't wait to see Tyler's face after seeing me in it on our wedding day.  

We also took our engagement photos.   So fun!  Hillary, from Hillary Anne Photography, took our photos.  She's amazing you should check out  her website: www.hillaryannephotography.com.  Tyler knows Hillary from Tech which is an extra bonus!  Aside from it being 100 degrees outside, we had such a great time with her, I can't wait to see what the photos look like.  

We picked our minister for the wedding.  Justin Bindel from FBC Wichita Falls will be officiating the ceremony.  We are thrilled to have someone who knows both of us do the wedding.  Justin and Amber, his wife, have been around Tyler and I since we started dating, when Tyler was working with Justin in Wichita Falls.  Justin and Amber are such a great example of what a godly marriage should look like and we are honored to have them be a part of our special day.  

That's all I have for now.  Will update on more very soon!

- Meghan

Reception, Rehearsal and Registering

Ok, ok..so we have not posted in awhile. Yes, I'm sure you're thinking we are lazy, but nope this is not the case. We have been all kinds of busy. Apparently planning a wedding is a big task. 


We finally decided on a reception venue. I am a small town country boy (yet I do not own boots, cannot 2-step and own only 1 pearl snap shirt, which I think is some sort of crime being from Texas) so I typically like simple places, but this place is beautiful. Meghan and her family did a awesome job of picking it out. Plus, I get a free round of golf, which is AWESOME! 


As for the rehearsal venue, we are still looking for places. So if you know of any places to have a sweet rehearsal dinner in the Plano/Frisco/Carrolton area, let us know. We could have a bbq and countryfi it. Interesting....


Ok, so this registering thing is crazy. By crazy I mean it makes you want to pull your hair out. Well, not for Meghan, but for me. I will let you in on some things I've noticed during these registering adventures. First, did you know that there's like 6 billion types of flatware, aka silverware, aka those things you eat with. Now 6 billion may be a bit of a exaggeration but there are tons. Plus none of these options come with sporks, I mean really, no sporks, geez. I was really bummed to learn that, almost as bummed as I was when I learned that one-z's do not come with butt-flaps. Trust me, I've asked around. Apparently people laugh at you when you ask these questions. Next, there are tons of shades of towels. I want a towel to do 2 things; 1) dry me off...2) not leave little towel fragments all over me, well apparently towels are much more evolved than that now. Like I said, I'm a simple guy.


Now, the one thing I'm learning about marriage is dying to myself and sacrificing for my future wife. I have heard from several men and through pre-marital counseling on how this is vital for men to do, and I completely agree. Although Meghan loves to register, it is not my idea of a party, I'd rather be at a football game or something like it. But, part of dying to myself is doing things like this. I want put Christ first, her second, myself third. I encourage all men to begin to die to themselves daily, put their agenda aside and sacrifice. 


Ok, that's all I got for now...
Give Grace, Live Truth, Reflect Jesus

Mark Your Calendars, We picked a date!

The deposits are in, the time is set, so now it's time to announce when we are getting married... drum roll please...we will officially become Mr. and Mrs. Tyler Gatewood on January 15, 2011.  That will be 4 days after Tyler and I celebrate our 3 year anniversary.  

So now it's time to set your calendars!  The ceremony will be at Prestonwood Baptist Church's Faith Chapel.  It's absolutely beautiful and I think it will be a perfect place for us to exchange our vows.  It's extra special to me because it was my home church growing up and I was baptized there in 2004.

With the date set and the dress bought, it is all starting to come together.  Something that's just been an imaginative thing is actually becoming a reality.  We still have to choose our colors, ask our attendants and register, but we are on the way there.

So here we go, the countdown begins, only 251 days to go...

- Meghan

Biblical Roles in Marriage

What kind of picture do you want the world to see through your marriage?

Last week at premarital counseling we split into two groups, guys and girls, and discussed the biblical roles of marriage.  Here are a few things that stood out to me...

Love is an attitude of unconditional acceptance.  So first we must recognize that we are two in-perfect people, he has faults and you have faults.  We live in a broken world, look at Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Marriage isn't a Partnership.  This was news to me.  Tyler and I have always said that our marriage will be a partnership, we were wrong.  It's not a partnership because marriage is never 50/50, someone is always doing more than the other.  This means that you maybe giving 80% while he's giving 20% or he's giving 90% while you are giving 10%.  It goes back and forth.  The bottom line is that you have to be willing to give 100%.  God gave us each other to help each other.  Like is says in Genesis 2:18 "It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make him a helper suitable for him."

So when it comes down to it what do you want your marriage to look like?  What do you want it to reflect? Don't confuse this with making everything look great on the outside, but inside it's a disaster.  We must come together for each other and for a common goal.

Through this Tyler and I have decided to have a verse that we want as a theme in our our relationship & marriage:  "We love because he first loved us" - 1 John 4:19

-Meghan

Hello World

Hello world, this is Tyler, the fiance. I was told that I'm suppose to blog on this, so I decided to write a short little note to all of our readers out there. So this is me saying hello to all of you, "HELLO READERS!"

This whole wedding planning thing is fun. Meghan has done a great job of including me in this whole process. I cannot wait for when we get to register because we get to use that gun thing. And since I'm not much of a hunter, a registry gun is about as close as I will be getting to a "gun". I really want to register at Best Buy for a TV but Meghan does not, let us know what you think from our poll over there ------>

I look forward to speaking with everyone again as we continue to plan this wedding and "do life" together.

-Ty

Wedding Update: The Dress

I found my wedding dress this weekend.

I still can't believe it.  After only two weekends of shopping I found THE dress.  Walking into the store I had no idea that I'd find my dress, but God had something else in mind.  Mom and I went to go look at reception venues that morning and after we finished we went to a local dress shop near by called Terry Costa.

When we walked in we found that they were having a trunk show that weekend.  So I picked out about five dresses and Leticia, the saleswoman, helped me suit up.  She was so awesome, I felt like I was on Say Yes to the Dress.  Anyways, the first one I tried on took my breath away.  I came out and didn't want to take it off.  I probably stood infront of the mirror for like 30 minutes. While I was admiring the dress I got to meet the designer!  His name was Arthur and he was amazing, such a nice guy.  After awhile I realized I needed to give up the mirror for the other girls that were shopping there too and tried on some other dresses.

All in all it came down to two dresses.  I left the store that morning and came back that night with an entourage (Mom, Dad, Tyler's Mom, Whitney and Candice)  to help me decide.  When it came down to it I picked the first dress that I tried on, in that store.  I'd go into detail, but Tyler and I still have nine months until our wedding so I need to keep it hush hush until then.

Now I just have to wait four months for it to come in.  I'm counting down the days....

- Meghan

Welcome to our Blog!

On Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at approximately 5:15 p.m. Tyler Gatewood made me the happiest woman in the world and asked me to marry him.  We are three weeks into the planning process and so far so good.  Soon enough we will have a date to report to all of you!

As we embark on the road ahead we thought it'd be fun to create a blog to update our friends and family on the engagement process and then wherever else life takes us.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as we enjoy writing it!  Tyler and I are so excited to start the next chapter of our lives as husband and wife and look forward to sharing the journey with you.

- Meghan