The Four Seasons...

 Our Engagement Photos are inspired by the four seasons.

Since Cliff and I will be married almost exactly a year to the day of our official dating

anniversary, we wanted to do a take celebrating each season of our love so far.

WINTER

Winter was taken at Mississippi College at Provine Chapel

and on the steps of the Library.

The story goes that Dandy first spotted Mimi on these steps

as he watched the girls come out of chapel. We tried to

recreate this precious moment. Cliff was a true dear to put

on his winter clothes including his coat, to indulge his crazy

future bride and allow me a winter shoot in the middle of June!

Laura Marie is of course amazing!She truly captured the look

of Winter even on this hot Summer day.

SPRING

James Taylor's famous song goes,

"Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, All you have to do is call..."

and I really think this set of photos captures the look of a

young couple in love just relaxing and listening to his smooth sounds.

This part of the shoot was taken behind Lake Woodmoor in Clinton.

This was not as easy as it looks. I had a make up melt down half way

through, but Laura Marie powered through and ended up with a

beautiful setting for Spring.

SUMMER

Cliff and I made our relationship official on the Fourth of July~

Our first kiss in the streets of New Orleans after fireworks at the point!

For the Summer shoot I wanted to capture the essence of that

holiday and the love that we shared that special day.

This was a fun part of the shoot. These pics were taken at Lake Woodmoor.

I hope that they make you feel the fireworks!

FALL

This last part of the Four Seasons shoot just might be my favorite!

I think its because I love the boots so much!!

They were a gift from Minda a few years ago and I think that this

was the perfect opportunity for me to wear them!

The pics were taken in beautiful downtown Clinton and in front of

The Owl Cafe mural. It was after that Provine sighting that Mimi and

Dandy first spoke at the real Owl Cafe and so I find it fitting for Cliff and I

to pose here as well.

A very special thanks to Laura Marie, again. She truly shared my vision and

helped me to see it come to fruition with her sharp eye, talented lens and creative touch!

Also, a thank you to Coday, who helped Laura posing my ring, wiping my melting

mascara and holding my many props! You are a great photo helper and an even

better brother and friend!

And of course, again, thank you to my sweet Cliff! He put up with my crazy

vision for this shoot and I love him so much for it! You are the man that has brought

love to the last year of my life, adding more joy and laughter to each passing season.

I can not wait to spend all the rest of the seasons of my life sharing in love with you!!

It's coming down...

As I sit here typing it is really coming down outside.

We have needed the rain and I know

that all of the beautiful plants that Mom and Dad

 have planted will enjoy this down pour.

It is also coming down to the last few days of

wedding planning! I can't believe it has gone by so fast!

We have been so blessed by great antique finds and by precious

friends who have offered items that can be borrowed. Our

tables are filling up with cake plates, cookie stands, silver and

various other items that will soon display all of wedding goodies.

 In addition to these lovely vintage glassware items we have

also found table cloths, umbrellas and several other unique pieces

that we are planning to use in fun ways!

Just how are we planning on using all of these items? You will just have to

wait and see!!!

The back yard has totally transformed. What once was a nice little garden is now a Wedding Oasis!

The pergola is finished and it is absolutely gorgeous! I could just sit under it for hours and hours.

There is a new little sitting area and a fountain that Schminka seems to enjoy and

Daddy has put in a sweet little walk way for someone to use as she walks down the isle!

Perhaps the sweetest thing that I have come across in recent days is this little to do list in my precious Daddy's own handwriting. It just almost brings me to tears when I think of how hard he has worked to get the yard looking so good. He is such a hard working man and it means the world to me that he has put in so much effort in order for me to be able to be married in such a lovely place.

Packages have been arriving right and left from friends and family sending sweet gifts and from our various ebay and etsy finds for the wedding. My favorite package yet arrived yesterday!It contained the hanger that my wedding dress will be displayed upon on the big day!

I will very soon be Mrs. Harris and I am so happy! I am such a blessed woman! Not only have  I found the

most wonderful man in the whole world to spend my life with but I have the best family too! Not just the Anthony crew, but my new Harris family as well! I am so excited to see them soon and to join them as a

Harris!!!!



And the greatest of these...

Oh my goodness! Where has the time gone? Very suddenly almost two months has slipped away and only six weeks remain!

The pergola is built, the gown has been perfectly fitted, the invitations are mailed!!

But still sooo much remains!

I am excited to take our engagement photos with Laura Marie soon!

We are doing a vintage take on the four seasons! After seeing how amazing

Coday and Laura's engagement session turned out, I can not wait! Laura is such

a great photographer and I am blessed to have her doing our shots!

I am most excited about the showers starting because I am looking forward to seeing everyone! Most notably, Scott and Molly,who though they will have to return to Scotland before the wedding,will make the six weeks leading up to the wedding great!

I am also looking forward to seeing some of Cliff's friends again, like Seamy and Dawn, and Brian and Nikki from Nola!

I am also so super excited that my dear friend and "big brother" Matt Crosby is bringing his whole family and coming all the way from Texas to help with the music! Seems that sometimes when promises are made nothing, not even the miles, can cause true friends to break them!

Also, traveling all the way from Texas will be one of my bride's maids and her whole family, Angel Truss Heath. I was in her wedding a few years ago and I can not wait to see her again and meet the two little boys she has had since.

I am also eager to meet some of Cliff''s friends who will be traveling all the way from Georgia to be here to stand beside him on this special day.

 I have felt from the very beginning and still feel that most important in all of this is our friends and family coming together to celebrate with us!

Love is one of those amazing things that when it is true can stretch, and grow and outlast anything and I think that this will be evident on the big day. As we are surrounded by those who love us and who have gathered near to us both presently and in spirit we are worshipping the Lord with this love, His love, shared together with Him.

What a beautiful thing marriage is. A friend of mine once said that in a way marriage here on earth is practice for our time with Christ in Heaven when we will be his bride. What a glorious thought that all the preparation we are doing now is a symbol of the preparations we should be doing for the coming of our future bridegroom.

Its so easy for me to get so caught up in the details of the show and arrangements of the wedding. Its too easy to forget in this day and time what a wedding really is. What a wedding really should be.

My precious Mimi and Dandy were married in a little ceremony at the old Woodland Hills Baptist in Jackson before it moved to its new location in the Fondren. The spot where the old church was became a cleaners and so one of Dandy's big jokes was always that he got married at the dry cleaners and he had been in hot water ever since! Heh.

But I bring this up because it strikes me now that as pretty as the day was, the place where the ceremony took place is gone. The flowers have long since died, the pictures have faded and though precious reminders and cherished links to our past it is not even the pictures that truly will last. One day they too will be gone.

And sad as the thought may be, even the memories
 of Mimi and Dandy will become distant. As the memories of them pass down through the generations of our children, perhaps Baby Reed holding the final chapters of a beautiful book in hands, they too will become faded leaves on a family tree, just as we look back now at black and whites of Jim Tom and Linda George, or Lavernice and Frank Sinclair. I don't recall if I ever looked on the face, even in black and white, of old Mr. Ed Anthony, my great grandfather.

But then again I have. If ever you looked on the face of Tony Anthony, my sweet Dandy, you would see him now on the face his son, my sweet Daddy. And I think, though the memories are muddied by time like the waters of the Strong River he lived on that I can see in the distance sometimes Mr. Ed in them both, that I would almost have to, the way that they seem to resemble each other, it only makes sense.

But even these things fade. Family resemblances and genetics are strong but even they are not what truly last. And look at a case like Cliff, adoptions can throw a beautiful curve in family histories. Launching the blood lines in spectacular new directions!

And yet when I look back at the Anthony family line, at the Coday side, and when I learn more about the Harris' and the Jefferson's too, I see something bigger at work.

When I look at Daddy, sure I see Dandy on his face. But it is more than that. In his mannerisms, in his spirit in his heart he is becoming more and more each day a Dandy. And when I think, really think, what was Dandy that made him so special to us, I realize it is because he was so much like his father. Not Mr. Ed, but his Heavenly Father, and that when I think of Him now and my heart swells with love, it is for a man, yes, but it is for a man who lived his life exuding something bigger than anything on this earth. After all are we not taught as one of the very first verses as children that "God is Love".

That makes love divine! And never ending, never fading, always stretching and growing and out lasting everything! Its the only thing here on earth that we can do as humans that has any kind of lasting effect. Its the only real legacy we can leave.

Long after Cliff and I are gone and our memories are faded, no one will remember this day I am now stressing over the details of. Soon we will be like those fading leaves hanging high on the family tree as stretched far beneath us are our children and grandchildren.  And when our earthly vessels are laid  beneath the ground and all our practice is made complete the things that remain will be few, but the greatest among them will be love.

My Daddy Duke reminded me once that in Heaven we will be known as we have been known. He said that was how he knew in Heaven his wife, my Mamal, would look to him as she did on her wedding day, as his beautiful bride. I believe with all my heart that Daddy Duke worships our Lord beside her now, and that Dandy waits with a divine anticipation none of us can understand for his bride to once again stand beside him to worship. What a precious thought that perhaps how I look in thirty-four days will be how Cliff sees me for an eternity in Heaven, but more precious still that I will be a symbol of how Christ sees us, all of us, now. As His pure and spotless bride who He made pure with His sacrifice and love.

There will come a day when the pergola Daddy built for us to say our vows under will fall, but as long as Cliff and I truly live each day making the commitment of those vows complete, then the love that the pergola was built with, the love that the generations of our families has been built with, will stand forever.


And so as I prepare and stress and make ready for our wedding it is my prayer that no matter what our guests take away from the big day, that take away that Love.