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We Didn't Go to the Chapel...but....We Did Get Married...

Just some things we [z+m] learned/realized this weekend... . 

1. The Apocalypse didn't happen.

2. Sunburns happen even with SPF 30.

3. I have a new last name.

4. Zach is wearing a ring.

5. Shaved Ice is a phenomenal treat.

6. I have not gone running in 6 days.

7. Zach does NOT want to go to school tomorrow.

8. We have AMAZING families.

We Might Be Busy....Maybe

It seems as if our immune systems have decided to embark on an inconvenient-for-us, impromptu vacation-- leaving Zach and I defenseless, full of mucous, relentlessly coughing and detrimentally exhausted.

However--- seeing as how this is my last week as a Dounis (legally), we're not allowing our snotty noses to break our spirits. That's right-- we've initiated the final countdown. And with T-6days until McClure-Dounis-Wedding-A-Palooza we've nothing but smiles upon our sick little faces. 

I've taken the entire week off from work so that I can get my hands dirty in the pre-wedding-madness. For instance, I spent all of yesterday making these: 

Pom-Poms! This is a semi-action shot as I couldn't get the lil' buggar to stop swinging! I did some research and I fell under the impression that Martha Stewart's Pom Kit was the best way to go-- however, being the stubborn penny-pincher that I am....I went rogue and did them myself. Tissue paper from target (white and blue), yellow ribbon from Hobby Lobby, floral wire from Hobby Lobby and my beloved glue gun made this project possible. We wanted something* to spruce up the aisle (as if the marshmallow-white-fluffy sand wasn't enough... .we are SO spoiled) and further than that....DESIGNATE an aisle rather than just having a boring ol' break in the chairs. We're thinking of hanging these puppies over the chairs that line the aisle for some pop. Initially we wanted pinwheels but since we've invested in some adorable paper-hand-held-fans to keep folks cool, we thought the addition of pinwheels might be a little over board. 

I have a wealth of things to gush about but I think my patience (AKA my attention span) has been exhausted on pom-poms and coughing-- I have no choice but to succumb to these things and once more procrastinate on divulging the juicy stuff. I will soon. Promise.

Love to you all!

Z+M

30-Something Bliss

3 cheers for productivity!!! I feel like Zach and I deserve a pat on the back or 5 for how much we've gotten done this week and recently in general-- even if it's just us patting ourselves. I mean, a pat is still a pat no matter who is on the giving end.....right?


1) Zach took the proverbial plunge into the wedding-band-having club. That's right-- we bought his wedding band! 


2) We've finalized our casual buffet-ish menu with Castaway's: can you say pizza, wings, sandwiches, salad, fish tacos, beer and all of the soft drinks you could ask for??? No...really... say it. 10 times fast.


3) Jordan Almonds for the koufeta has been received, along with the tulle in which it will be wrapped. If you've ever wondered what 5lbs of almonds looks like....come see me.


4) Cute and quirky ceremony decor has been ordered-- I'll be hosting a 'craft night' for some excess home-made goods.


5) Wedding Programs are in the works-- I've found it incredibly difficult to fit all of what I have to say to our guests in such a small space. Good thing I'm not long winded or anything..... We've AKA I've picked out the wedding programs I want and we've started conjuring up the verbiage.


6) We've secured our "officiant." Bishop Gregg Mackay (who is the coolest guy ever) will be marrying us.


I could go on but my eyelids feel like anvils! It's bed time. 
37 days away. 

The Awkwardness of Registering

Zach and I embarked on the incredible and somewhat overwhelming journey of registering earlier this week. We walked into the Crate&Barrel at Lenox Mall-- unaware of the power trip that would soon be at our finger tips. First of all-- this was an incredibly disorganized venture. We had been toying with the idea of registering in an on-again off-again fashion...well, we were feeling "on" and a little spontaneous so we took the plunge. After a tutorial on how to work the beepy-scanny-device we were set out on our own to aimlessly wander the store. Initially, we were reluctant to click on anything..."do we really NEED one of these thingies? I really WANT* one of those other thinigies....what kind of a color scheme are we going with?.....OMG we should probably decide what we want our house to look like before we go clicking on stuff blindly!?.....do you think people will actually buy us stuff?...this feels weird.." After a lot of intimidation we finally caved and started viciously clicking. We figured that we'd cover the basic necessities [mainly kitchen stuff] and then go back and add to/take away from our registry on-line at a later date once we decided how we wanted things. It's fun planning things out-- and my dear brown eyed boy has been excitedly involved every step of the way. While walking around C&B he often paused when he realized I was lusting after some outrageously priced decor that I would never buy in a million years and explained how we could make the same object ourselves-- I feel as if we are going to have a lot of Family-Home-Evening Craft Nights!


....and in the mean time-- in the midst of the countdown, I get to receive wonderful little picture messages from my fiancée.

Who is Beaux? And what are Art Balls?

We might like each other. Maybe.

I remember when Zach and I got engaged back in August-- we both immediately downloaded "Apps" on our phones that has the sole purposed of counting down to our wedding date. Our excitement and overly [well, appropriately] enthused attitudes were quickly shattered when we realized that we had 200-and-something days until our wedding. A lot of days, a lot of complaining, a little bit of changing plans, and bumping up our date 2 weeks has landed us at 48 days from today until show time! We have obtained permission from the Carillon Beach, Florida's HOA to hold our ceremony on their gorgeous private beach-- we've booked the killer pier/patio of a walking-distance-from-the-beach kind of "bar & grill" [Castaway's] where we'll be stuffing our faces with chicken wings, fish tacos and other beach-throw-down-esque foods that have yet to be confirmed. On-line invitations have been sent. We've found a house within the community to stay in for most of the week leading up to May 21 through Sunday May 22. Jordan Almonds for the Koufeta have been ordered, along with the tulle circles in which they will be wrapped. The to-do list for our casual destination beach wedding has been virtually cut in half. This means that the bridezilla in me has long-since gone into hibernation and that Zach and I are actually able to ENJOY the planning process. 

Okay, enough with the wedding stuff. You know we're stoked and you know I've been refreshing my e-mail just about every 5 minutes to see if anyone new has RSVP'ed 'yes'!

This past Friday night we attended the Beaux Art Ball at Georgia Tech-- marking the opening of a new architecture building which will mainly be utilized by graduate students. Each "studio class" was required to design a high fashion costume inspired by an architectural structure-- Zach's group went the more science-y route and used the atom [which I applauded]. My education was spent sharing lab rooms 

and lecture halls with peers who lacked complete artistic and creative abilities-- not to squeeze all science nerds into such a hopeless category but let's face it, we like our facts. My horizons were definitely broadened because of my experience at Beaux Art Ball-- Georgia Tech kids, specifically architecture kids seem to be super artsy. Not in a bad way-- I can imagine that when half of your major revolves around creative design, artsy-fartsy-ness comes in handy. There were some incredibly impressive designs featured in the run-way show. My most favorite part of the evening was seeing my gorgeous red head friend, Carly Hansen who unknowingly planted the seed that became the plant that is now Zach+Maxine. I owe her our first born child. Okay, now that I've paid homage to the event that totally consumed the past week of Zach's life-- can we start talking about wedding stuff again?! I swear, I'm not selfish. Okay-- maybe only a little. In all seriousness-- it's fun to accompany my darling fiancee to events such as these, I thoroughly enjoy supporting his endeavors and seeing his work come to life.


In health news: I've officially given up Chick-Fil-A from now until post-wedding-reality settles in. In turn, Zach has given up Dr.Pepper. I'd like to say that I've entered into hyper-work-out-mode but really, I've just been running 5 miles on my lunch break [daily/on weekends]-- which I have done since highschool-- and partaking in the every-now-and-then p90x routine. In fact, I've taken about 3 breaks from yapping to join Zach in p90x Ab-Ripper-X...which I will now dedicate myself to in entirety.

Z+M

The Down-Low

So.. I'm going to share with our [small but very significant] blog community an e-mail that was strategically drafted and submitted to a good amount of my big fat Greek family and close friends-- unfortunately I don't posses EVERYONES e-mail address but for now, this is just to spread the word. And when I say "strategically drafted" I mean to imply that I was profusely sweating the entire time, viciously deleting and re-typing, and deleting, and re-typing and sweating some more. But: this is us announcing to the general public what's going on AND HOW FREAKIN' EXCITED WE ARE! Ready... Set...

Hi Family and Friends!!

            As I’m sure most of you have heard, if not from our blabbering blog than from hear-say, that Zach and I called off the shin-dig on June 4^th. We just weren’t happy with the way things were going. It just didn’t feel like “us.”

            Initially, after we decided to nix our plans, we were just going to elope and call it a day. But then we started thinking. And talking. And we realized that even though we weren’t doing the big sha-bang, we still want the people we love to have the opportunity to be with us. Isn’t that what being a family is all about?

            So, we’ve reverted back to our first idea for a wedding, the idea that we felt the closest to but opted out of—this is what we’ve secretly wanted to do all along. We’re getting married on the beach in Carillon Beach, Flordia [gulf side]—it’s a private beach community near Seaside and Panama City Beach. We’ll be doing a very casual/relaxed, short and sweet ceremony ON the beach [we’re talkin’ no tuxes, no shoes, no problem] after which we’ll feed everyone and then spend the rest of the day/weekend on the beach/hanging out with those who are able to come out and be with us. We really just wanted a day—a weekend to be able to enjoy each other and spend quality time with those who are able to attend. This allows us to do that—and also allows our friends/family a bit of their own vacation and also to enjoy each other.

            We’ll get something more formal [aka an e-vite] out to everyone this week with more details and the ability to RSVP. We’ve updated our wedding website to reflect our plans. I just wanted to inform as many of you as I could ASAP:

theknot.com/ourwedding/MaxineDounis&ZachMcClure

            In short:

·         Our super casual fun-in-the-sun wedding will take place around 11:30AM [before it gets hot-hot] on Saturday, May 21. You’ll be fed and drinks (both non-alcoholic and alcoholic) will be provided, after which Zach and I will change into our swim suits and enjoy the beach with any/everyone who feels like playing! If the beach isn’t your thing, there is some great* shopping not too far out and we’re close to both Destin and Panama City Beach [home of the airbrushed t-shirts; where “spring break” never ends]

·         I’ll be down there probably on Wednesday the 18^th to do some prep-work and some relaxing, so if you plan on coming feel free to come earlier than Friday [you can crash with me until Friday!] if that is more convenient—we’ll make sure you have a ride from the airport—also, and EVERYONE will be provided with a map and list of things-to-do in the area as well as driving directions to/from Atlanta.

·         We bumped up the date because:

·         A) the rental rates for hotels/condos/houses are much cheaper in May than in June and we know that traveling is expensive enough as is so we wanted to be an economical as possible for the sake of our guests and ourselves.

·         B) it’s just generally A LOT less crowded in May, so we won’t be competing for the use/enjoyment of amenities and finding places to stay seemed easier.

If you are thinking about coming check out www.Carillon-Rentals.com for information about renting a house/condo/room at the Inn; all of which are located IN the community/subdivision of Carillon. Some of the houses can sleep up to 14 people so it might be worth it to look into splitting room/board with some friends/family. There are of course many cheaper options outside of Carillon that are only a few miles away—for those who would rather stay outside of Carillon, we will of course acquire guest passes to the community so that you may have access to all of the amenities at Carillon. Also, for those of you who will be flying in—check out flights into Destin or Panama City. If you want to get a look at the actual community, www.Carillon-Beach.com would be the place to go.

Side Note(s): I don’t have all of the family e-mail address so in lieu of e-mailing I'll be resorting to the oh-so-classy act of facebook messaging, so feel free to openly gossip about how crazy my husband-to-be and I are.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience of changing our plans—really & truly, we feel a little silly about it all—but we want to LOVE our wedding day but more importantly, we want to love the way that we start our marriage and to do so on the beach, in the company of our loved ones… well, that sounds like perfection to me and now that we’ve found a way to make that happen, we’re thrilled and would LOVEfor you to be there. PLEASE let us know if you have any questions. 

...and now I can [kind of] breathe. Surprisingly enough, we've received a massive amount of support for "doing what YOU [we] want to do." We're just overwhelmed with gratitude and excited/hopeful to have an awesome beach-y weekend with friends and family!

Okay, I have to go and shower off all of the anxious sweat now..

Z+M