Erin Akin Carroll

I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to Dallas and Ruston! The whole five days was great and I was so happy to see so many friends and family and to get to eat such great food! 🙂

I picked up my dress on Thursday after Todd’s mom and I got to Dallas. I had my hair done on Friday morning in Dallas, then we were all off to Benton, Louisiana to meet my photographer, Kelly Moore, for the bridal portraits. It is always such an adventure with Kelly and I couldn’t be happier about my photographer choice. We were in true Louisiana areas for the pictures and I was only slightly scared that my dress was getting dirty! I can’t wait to see her work.

The next day, we had the shower at the Ropp Center on the Louisiana Tech campus. The shower was hosted by three ladies that I grew up knowing and loving and these women are dear friends of my parents. So many of my college and childhood friends were there and it was great to catch up. Two of my friends brought their babies and it was so much fun to see them for the first time! Here are some pictures of the really fun shower!

Rachel, Hudson, and me

PC and me

Jennifer, me, PC, Lisa, and Maisie

like sisters– Jennifer, me, and Kate

me, Lisa, Blair, and Maisie

After the shower, my friends, family, and I went to Cajun Cafe for some boiled crawfish and then I knew my trip home was complete!

My favorite college professors and their daughter gave me this adorable little sign that said, “Ruston: My home town.” While it wasn’t something on my registry, it was by far my favorite gift. I love that place!

A big thank you to Abby at Style Me Pretty for featuring my inspiration board that I created for Catherine’s Arkansas barn wedding on her blog. Style Me Pretty is my favorite wedding blog and always features so many great vendors, ideas from brides, and beautiful real weddings. I’m so excited to be on her blog today!

I told my friend, “LeCorn” that I was looking for an all-white, modern chandelier and hadn’t been able to find one. She told me to check out Wisteria.com and she was right! I found the perfect chandelier for our bedroom. We have really classic and traditional features of our house, but the pendant fixtures in our kitchen are really modern and I really want to modernize our master bedroom. We picked a really traditional bed, but chose really modern fabric. I moved my blue and brown living room accents up to the bedroom and will have a blue and brown bedroom with white accents.

Isn’t this chandelier perfect? It’s also perfectly expensive.

Todd and I have basically created “dream lists” of items for the house that we’d love to have some day and we’ll just have to add this one to it. It’s definitely going on my “Must Find at Market” list for July 2008 in hopes of finding it at wholesale price.

We’ve officially entered the throws of wedding party central. We had a couple of engagement parties and showers that spanned 5 or 6 months, but we’re into every weekend now and it’s so much fun!

Last Friday, a couple of Todd’s coworkers and one spouse hosted a really fun engagement cocktail party at their beautiful home. It was fun to catch up with all of Todd’s colleagues and eat great food. I also got hooked on Guitar Hero because of the children in the house. This weekend, Todd’s mom and I are headed to Dallas and staying with my parents. I’ll pick up my dress, get my hair styled, make a bouquet, and head to Shreveport to meet Kelly Moore for my portraits. We’ve got a shower in Ruston on Saturday morning and I really can’t wait. Three of my bridesmaids will be there and it will be so nice to hang out with them on Saturday afternoon and Saturday night– and get some crawfish, finally!

This shower is being hosted by the ladies that worked in the Louisiana Tech Admissions office with me and a lot of my college friends will be there.

It’s fun celebrating with friends every weekend and it definitely keeps the stresses of the actual wedding at bay.

I didn’t take any pictures at last weekend’s fete, but promise to this weekend.