Wedding Pictures are Posted!

Check out all the wedding pictures from the big day! Go to http://luckysoda.instaproofs.com/, choose Greg & Natalie, and enter my email as the password. The email address to use is owensnm@gmail.com. We hope you love them as much as we do!!! We can’t wait to order!!!!

Thank you Lucky Soda for being such amazing photographers!

Mr. & Mrs. Ivory!

We did it! The wedding is over and it was SUCH a magical day! We hope all our guests had as much fun as we did and enjoyed their weekend in Des Moines. We were lucky enough to have friends and family from California to New York, and every where in between in attendance! It was so fun to have so many special people in one place at one time. Now I’m slowly getting used to being “Natalie Ivory” and working through all the documents and places I need to change my name.

We are still waiting for all the photos from our professional photographers to be posted, but have seen so many great ones online that our friends and family took. Here are a few of my favorites:

Dad and me going down the aisle!

We did it! Mr. & Mrs. Ivory coming out of the church.

The trolley ride back to more pictures and the reception.

At the reception

 

As soon as the photos are up from the photographer, I will let everyone know so you can check them out!

After the wedding on Sunday Greg and I drove to Chicago Midway Airport and jumped on a plane to Fort Lauderdale, FL. We arrived around 1 AM, picked up our rental car (a Ford Mustang Convertible!) and got to our hotel for some shut eye. Somehow, I got REALLY sick during the night, and Greg learned that “in sickness and in health” started right away! I felt miserable, but Greg found a Walgreens near our hotel at 5 in the morning and after taking a bunch of medication, I was feeling good enough to get on the road to Key West. Luckily, I never got sick again on our trip….so it must have been nerves or a 24 hour bug.

On Monday we made the 4 hour drive down the Keys on Highway 1. It was the most amazing drive–absolutely beautiful!

I will do another post soon with the rest of our honeymoon details and more pictures!

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the last couple months of summer. I always know once it’s my birthday, summer is coming to an end…..and my birthday is Saturday. We are planning on meeting both sets of parents in Cedar Falls for lunch that day, followed by hanging out with the Ivorys and staying at The Blackhawk Hotel. Sunday we’re going to Lost Island Waterpark for some fun in the sun. I can’t wait!
It has been an AWESOME summer!

1 Week Away

Wow….I cannot believe that 1 week from today, we’ll be getting ready to walk down the aisle to get married. Everything seems to be coming together, and we can’t wait for friends to start arriving next Thursday. This weekend we are staying pretty low key, trying to get those last minute items taken care of. Looking forward to a 3 day weekend and fireworks on Monday in Cedar Rapids. We’ll be to Des Moines on Thursday evening! Can’t wait to see everyone for our special day. We know it’s going to be amazing! Have a happy 4th of July weekend, everyone!

Home Stretch!

Well, after over a year of planning, we are in the home stretch! I can’t believe we are down to less than 25 days. Where has this past year gone?!? This morning Greg and I were discussing everything that still needs to be done, and I must admit it makes my heart flutter just a little. We are still waiting on about 60 RSVP’s. If you haven’t sent yours back….please do so ASAP–the hotel needs an accurate count. If it’s easier, feel free to just email me your RSVP to owensnm@gmail.com. We also ran into the little problem of our hotel selling out. We had 60 rooms reserved and they went a lot faster than I expected. If anyone is still needing a hotel, there are rooms available at the Embassy Suites On the River or Hotel Fort Des Moines. Both are less than a half mile from the reception and are very nice hotels. Let me know if you need any assistance!
We are so excited to see all our family and friends at the wedding! Last weekend was my bachelorette party and my bridesmaids really out-did themselves. It was a perfect celebration and I had a blast. Greg’s bachelor party is this weekend, and knowing him and his friends, I’m sure they’ll have fun! I’m off to Chicago with my parents and Marlee like old times this weekend to celebrate my cousin Carly’s high school graduation. I’ll leave you all with a picture from my party! Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!!!

We’re still alive!

I need to apologize for leaving you all hanging for so long. Life has been so crazy with work and trying to get settled in our new home and of course wedding planning….I haven’t had the motivation to blog! But I just wanted to give a quick update to let you all know we’re still alive! (Plus I’ve been getting many requests from a certain few!!)

In January we moved to Cedar Rapids and Greg took a job with Hybrid Transit where he is an account manager. Things are going well for me at Groupon. I stay really busy, but enjoy meeting so many business owners and learning the land of Eastern Iowa. If anyone knows any business owners in the area who are looking for new customers, send them my way!

As usual, we have a full weekend ahead of us this weekend. Saturday morning I am heading to Des Moines to try on my dress and pick my veil and accessories! I also get to pick up our bridesmaid dresses! After that we have our appointment with Bella Flora to design our flowers and decorations. I’m so excited for this and have been cutting pictures from magazines/printing things from online to show them my ideas. I can’t wait to see it all come together. After that it’s back to Des Moines as we have our Pre Cana wedding preparation Saturday night and Sunday afternoon with the church. This is one of the last steps we have to do to be ready to be married! We’ll let you know how it goes…. Previously when we met with the deacon we had to take a 189 question test about our compatibility and things that could come up after we’re married. I’m proud to report the deacon said we were “clearly very compatible” and our marriage seemed to be very “vanilla”. I think that was a good thing!!!

In other news, I had to take Ms. Dory to the vet this week for a bad ear infection. Turns out she has allergies (she fits right in with Greg and I) and sometimes ear infections are the result. It also means that the poor thing is itchy a lot! We got some meds and are trying them out. Putting ear drops in her ears are NOT my favorite….but she does pretty well.
I think that’s all for now. I will write again soon to tell you all about the other exciting things coming up. We are down to 3 months until the BIG DAY and we have tons of parties and celebrations planned the next 3 months to lead up to it. We can’t believe how fast the time has gone since we got engaged. It will have been a year ago at the end of this month! WOW time flies!!!

Have a great FRIDAY and weekend, everyone! Oh, and check out today’s Groupon!!

Week One…DONE!

Wow–what a crazy week in Chicago I had! It was week 1 of training, and I sure learned a lot. So much info about Groupon rolling around in my head….but it’s even cooler than I thought! Groupon is actually the fastest growing internet company of ALL TIME. Yeah…faster growing than Facebook, Google, Amazon, or any other internet company. And they are taking all kinds of steps to ensure that they don’t go DOWN just as fast as they’ve gone UP. I am SO excited to get in my market and just start setting up great offers for people. While I was in Chicago I took a little time this week to see some friends who I hadn’t seen in awhile. I also got to go to the Chicago Blackhawks game–which was a first for me! It was SO much fun!!

I’m on my way home now for the weekend. I’m excited to see Greg and Dory and not so excited to work on packing up our apartment. Won’t get much relaxing this weekend….but looking forward to getting a lot accomplished so we can MOVE in a week! Ahhhh, I’m just so pumped!

I go back to Chicago on Sunday night for another fun-filled week at Groupon. Next week I get to spend a lot of time with my team, AND I get my new iPhone 4! Whoo!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! We’ll be seeing a lot of you VERY SOON!

New Year, Big Changes!

Happy New Year, family and friends!We were VERY blessed in 2010 and it was a great year. We got engaged, went to lots of fun concerts and sporting events, spent time with family, and started making lots of plans for our wedding and the future!

We are OH SO excited for 2011….the year that will bring big changes in our lives. We are very excited to share with you all that after almost 3 years for Greg and a little more than 1 year for Natalie in Ohio, we are moving BACK TO IOWA mid-January!  Natalie accepted a new job with a great company based out of Chicago called Groupon where she’ll be an outside sales rep in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City market. It was her last day at The Province yesterday and while she’ll miss the students and her co-workers, she’s excited for this new opportunity. Greg is now actively searching for a new position and has several interviews lined up for the week after we move.  We found a cute little house in Cedar Rapids to rent and will leave Ohio January 14th to return “home”. Tomorrow Natalie will go to Chicago for training with Groupon for the next two weeks. Luckily, she’ll come home on the weekend to help pack things up.  We look forward to getting back to the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area and being much closer to our friends and family. It is also fun to say WE’RE GETTING MARRIED THIS YEAR! What a great year 2011 is looking to be!!

 

Homeward Bound and Happy Thanksgiving!

We are heading home today! We’ll spend the night in the Quad Cities tonight with Katie and Sean, and make our way to Traer tomorrow! We are excited to spend Wednesday celebrating Natalie’s mom’s birthday and catching up with Traer friends. Thursday we’ll drive to Fort Dodge to spend Thanksgiving with Greg’s family. Friday is Greg’s brother’s birthday and hanging out with Greg’s family some more. Natalie is also VERY excited to drive down to Des Moines on Friday to try on her wedding gown for the first time. Saturday it is back to Traer for Thanksgiving/Christmas with Natalie’s family from Chicago. We’ll spend a lazy day on Sunday with Natalie’s family and head back to Ohio on Monday!

Lots of family and friends to see….lots of traveling….but I’m sure we’re going to have LOTS of fun! Hope to see many of you this weekend. For those of you who we won’t get to see, we wish you a blessed Thanksgiving and safe travels!

Have a great Holiday!

Halloween and Hiking

I just wanted to post a few pictures from last weekend! Greg and I took Dory to “Howl-a-week Dog Paw-ty” at a local dog park and it was a hoot! There was a dog treat eating contest, costume contest, and dogs were everywhere! There were even people dressed up like their pets….WOW! We let Dory run around in the dog park with all the other costumed pets. She was a bumble bee, but wasn’t too interested in playing with others. She stayed close to my side the whole time. Unfortunately they didn’t have a costume contest category for “cutest” or she would have most certainly won!

Dory ready to leave the dog park….not a fan of dogs sniffing her behind!

Me and the bumblebee! Happy Halloween!

After the dog Halloween party, we decided to go looking for an adventure. We decided to go hiking at a nearby state park. Dory loved hiking and we all had a really nice afternoon. Here are some pics!

Hikers at the park!

Beautiful!!

We had another lovely weekend this weekend. I got some engagement pictures ordered and can’t wait to get them and hang them all around the apartment! I just can’t believe how fast time is flying…2011 is right around the corner, AND I CAN’T WAIT!

Engagement Pics are Here!

Check out our engagement pictures at Lucky Soda! We are so happy with them!

I will post more pictures and tell you about our trip to the Iowa/Michigan game next week! Have a nice Sunday evening!