Our Wedding Day is just a week away, TOMORROW! In honor of that I am writing this blog post to 1- take a trip down memory lane at this past year since being engaged to Cory and 2- to let you know that after today I will be enjoying time with Cory, our friends and family when they come into town and getting ready for our day the following Saturday! You’ll see personal photos over on my instagram @jessicaryanphoto if you would like to keep up with us, leading up to our wedding week, but today is the last day of work, editing and blogging until we get back from our Honeymoon!

I can’t believe I am typing this, we still feel as if we have been talking and planning our Wedding for lack of a better word, forever! Now, it is here! This past year has been amazing and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Cory and I’s life together. I know that our life together will be adventurous, fulfilling, filled with purpose and full of love, because that has been our life together these past several years. He is my soulmate and my best friend and I cannot wait to get our future started!

These photographs are all from my phone this past year. They are a combination of our engagement, wedding planning, the celebrations and events that come along with it as well as celebrating my best friend’s engagements and wedding days! I hope you enjoy looking through these photographs as much as I do. Thank you all for coming along this ride with us and I can’t wait to live in and experience our wedding day to each other.  My birthday in 2015, when Cory proposed to me!  Then we moved in together!  Jamie with Jamie Leigh Events is our wedding planner and we loved having Bodhi along for our linen meeting! We booked Erika Mills Photography as our wedding photographer because the way she talks about photographing couples’ legacies and love stories true to who they are. She lines up with how I run my business and how I want my couples to feel when I photograph their wedding day, so she was the perfect match for us! We also booked Roost Flowers and that was probably my favorite appointment, because I am flower obsessed!  The year of us all getting engaged and married. I hid in the woods in Yorktown for my Matron of Honor’s surprise proposal!  I asked these ladies below to be in my bridal party and I am also was/in their’s! (Two of them are married now) I also asked Katie, Cory’s sister, to be a bridesmaid too!  Picking our wedding venue was a no-brainer because we love the outdoors, and this was where we had our first kiss on one of our dates.  I said YES TO THE DRESS at Studio I Do and at my first appointment! We pretty much got everything from them, wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, accessories, suits, etc. Katie, Cory’s sister got married as well in July and I loved photographing it and celebrating with their family! Our engagement party was the hottest day of the year, in July!  We went to see the Alabama Shakes during the summer. Hint: One of their songs is going to be our first dance song!  Then we had my bachelorette party where we went to Williamsburg Winery. We did this in the fall, which was pretty early, but I am so glad we did because these last couple of months have been extremely busy with everyone else’s weddings and events!   Cory and I made a weekend out of our engagement portraits, when we went to Carter Mountain for them. We stayed at Wintergreen, hiked and went to breweries.  The dogs were very tired after hiking!  Picking up my wedding dress and sending out Save the Dates! In November, we traveled to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with Cory’s family. My cousin Kathleen lives close by so we went to St. Augustine for her engagement portraits and spent some time with her and her fiancé, now Husband! <3 Then it was time for Kathleen and Nicole’s bridal showers!  I loved spending a late night getting ready for Nicole’s Bridal shower with Caitlin! I just love them both and am so happy to have their friendship!   Sending out invitations was a long task that involved wine, but they were so pretty and designed by April from Paperdolls Design! My bridal shower was an outdoor’s theme equipped with a S’mores bar! Below is a picture of all of my bridesmaids and I in one place at one time! Two of them live in Florida, so I was very happy to have them all together!   These friends are family to me! We have been in each other’s lives since High School and I am so happy that we have such a wonderful bond together! Nicole’s bachelorette party was perfect for love of glitter, gold and Beyonce!  Nicole was the first of the four friends to get married this year! She had the three of us as her bridesmaids!  The morning of Nicole’s wedding! Some of these are iPhone photos and the other ones are from her photographers, We are the Mitchells! PS- Do you even have to guess who got the venti coffee?  I still don’t have the words to tell you all what it meant to be a part of Nicole’s wedding day and see her marry Tyler.  Kathleen’s wedding day was a long weekend away in Annapolis, Maryland. I had so much fun with our family and seeing her as a gorgeous bride!  Our dogs won’t be at our wedding, I know you all were expecting that, BUT we did take them recently to see where we all will officially become a family! We really did tell them, “This is where Mom and Dad are getting married!”  Then my dress was officially done being altered and steamed. It was ready to be picked up and then it all felt so REAL! Our wedding week is really HERE! In just seven days, one week, Cory and I will be here at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens starting the rest of our lives together. It is going to be beautiful, magical and surreal. It is going to go by in the blink of an eye. It will be the best day of my life. Our family and friends will be in town to celebrate with us and to support our marriage together. We will say our own vows to one another and exchange rings. We will feel like the most loved people on earth that day. And as much as I can’t wait for it, I also don’t want it to pass by in the blink of an eye. I want to savor every moment and take it all in. I want to remember everything, and I am glad that I will have a photographer to help me remember it all, because I know the excitement, the love and the adrenaline will make it tough but I know without a doubt that this will be the best day of my life!