Reception Part I

So blogger has been being really stupid while I have been trying to do this post, making me mad, but these are the only pictures that it is letting me put up, so for now it will have to do, hope you enjoy these pictures at least.

Anyways our reception was exactly how I wanted and dreamt it would be, just wished it were longer, but we were all so tired. When the wedding ceremony was over we took the rest of the family pictures that we didn't get to do before the ceremony, which mainly consisted of my abnormally large family haha, but our amazing photographer made it all work. After pictures were over Jake & I started to mingle with all our guests that came to celebrate with us, while the men broke everything down to get set up for the reception, like moving tables, chairs, centerpieces, and stuff. Once they got all that figured out & moved where it was supposed to be everyone began to serve themselves at the delicious buffet, provided by Celebrations Catering in Abilene, Texas.

So below is just a few of the family wedding pictures that I could get to load, the rest will be in the next post along with much much more about the reception. Sorry for the problems blogger was causing for me today, oh well! Reception Part II coming up next with LOTS more pictures :)







Jake's mom side of the family: (left) aunt sally, sandi (jake's mom), me & jake, nanny (jake's g-ma), & josh (jake's brother).

Jake's mom, me & jake, & jake's brother

My brother, Christopher, mom & dad, me & jake, my sister Jenna & brother in law, Matt

ALL of my mom's side of the family...too many people to name sorry :(

most of my dad's side of the family, some people that weren't able to make it to the wedding!

(left)uncle luther, cousin cara, aunt barbara, cousin robbie, brother christopher, dad, me & jake, sister& brother in law, jenna & matt, aunt vickie & uncle skipper, uncle cecil, & little cousins Carol Anne & Patrick

my sweet little girls: Maggie, Claire, & Elizabeth with Jake & I

I DO!!!!

Ok so here is how I decided to blog about wedding day, there are so many pictures that I just LOVE and wanted to share so bad and so much I wanted to say about the whole day and experience. So I decided to divide up the long day into different posts, part I is The Ceremony, so here are a few pictures from the ceremony, yes of course there are tons & tons more, but you know I can't post all 500 of the ceremony ones :)

So of course like I do everytime the pictures are in reverse, so the picture below is the the last one of the ceremony, of us leaving to "Do you believe in magic." First thing I must say about the ceremony is that it is EVERYTHING I absolutely dreamed of everytime my little wedding planner mind thought about it, which I just love! Now remembering back to wedding day the only thing that went wrong was totally and completely out of my control, which was the weather. Yes of course it was sunny and blue skies the entire week of the wedding, until friday night when a cold front blew in from the north, with of course infamous abilene winds and hard rain storm, which for saturday morning meant sleet, ice, and snow flurries, and barely 32 degrees, can we say FREEZING!!? Yes we all woke up to go to my lingerie shower at Sara's house in our cute spring dresses, seeing as how it was the official first day of spring, but God definitely had different plans for the weather. Oh well, if the weather was the only thing that went not as I had planned, I feel like a blessed bride. I was thanking God for all the wedding party being there, all the food, beverages, decorations, flowers, dresses, and everything else about the wedding going completely as planned with nothing wrong at all.


If I were to remember just a few things from our wedding ceremony to write down and always remember those few things would probably be:

1. being able to have my dream wedding
2. being completely stress free, so calm that people were worried I was too calm
3. not wanting it to end because I enjoyed this day so much & had dreamed of it for so long
4. how special it was to have ALL my family & closest friends there celebrating with us
5. how special it was to have my dad marry us, something I will always hold so close to my heart


Like I said there are so many more pictures, but here are just a few at the main parts of the wedding ceremony, ENJOY! Next post will be Reception part I, look for it very soon!






I now pronounce Mr. & Mrs. Jacob Alexander Nassar

Waiting as my daddy is about to hand me off to Jake

My gorgeous bridesmaids & I before the ceremony taking some glamorous shots

The boys down in the basement

My groom & I taking some pictures at our "first sight"

I'll NEVER forget this moment as long as I live, the look on his face when we first saw each other

Here I am Jake :) Absolutely LOVE this picture, think its so cool what Hannah & her talented photography skills were able to do!

The groom putting on his cuff links, getting ready for our "first sight"

The bride putting on her jewelry getting all ready for our "first sight"

Wedding Rehearsal

Our wedding rehearsal went so great, we had so much help getting everything figured out to make sure the wedding ceremony went absolutely perfect & we cannot tell you how much we appreciate all the help we had from all our family in every way, if you are reading you know who you are and THANK YOU! Originally when all our wedding planning was taking place there was a small chance that we were not going to be able to do our wedding rehearsal until the early morning hours of our wedding day, but thank goodness that was not the case. Instead we were able to get into the building all day long on the friday before the wedding & ended up getting to have our rehearsal at 5:00 on that friday. We had the place for two hours, which gave us plenty of time to get everything planned out the way we wanted it to be & to actually practice running through the ceremony about three whole times.

Now that everything is over I can remember there being a few set backs on that particular day, but nothing that was any huge deal, it really all went over so well & the place looked absolutely fabulous! After we had finally finished rehearsing the wedding ceremony we had a great, delicious meal at a little local italian restaurant, Little Italy. It was so so tasty, a little crowded with the room that we ended up being in, but we were all just fine & really just enjoyed all being together to celebrate our big day! After the yummy dinner the guys & girls all went their seperate ways to have a little fun on our last night as single people. The girls chose to pick up a few sonic drinks and go over to my cousin Rachel's house and travel down memory lane, talk, talk, and laugh until we cried (as if we weren't going to cry enough at the wedding the next day). We all had a great time since it had been so long since we had all been together and able to talk about all the good times growing up. While we were having girl time, my mom, aunts, & nana were all at the house working on all the rest of flowers and finishing up the wedding cakes, I cannot thank them enough for all the fabulous work they did, it all turned out to be just as I had ever dreamed & imagined!

Here is just a few pictures from our rehearsal, sorry I don't have ANY from the dinner, but enjoy







sweet little flower girls practicing throwing petals

father of the bride & my "fill-in bride" thanks Bailey :)

The Elks Art Ballroom all set up, decorated, & ready for the wedding

Maggie & Claire cracking all of the bridesmaids up while we were all practicing, love these girls so much, SO funny!!

All of the bridesmaids at the back (minus Lindy) waiting to practice walking down the aisle

THE WEDDING WEEK!

The week of my wedding was absolutely stress free, wonderful, & so enjoyable & I could never thank my family enough, they were the absolute greatest, working on everyday so hard to make it all PERFECT! Since I worked quite a bit that week, they made sure I didn't have a thing to worry about that whole week. The only thing that could have been better was the weather, which was totally out of my control and now when I think back on the weather on my wedding day, it really didn't phase a thing, it was just PERFECT. The week of the wedding our families came into town in shifts haha, Jake's nanny & aunt Sally were the first to arrive on sunday evening which was great since I had never met either of them, we got to spend alot of time together that week, they were the absolute sweetest & I can't wait to get to know them better! Next my sister came into town Tuesday afternoon, she picked up my dress at the Bridal Salon in Waco on her way up to Abilene, it was being steamed & pressed, thank goodness for an awesome maitron of honor. Then Wednesday my Aunt Monica & Rachel came up to start helping with all of the wedding stuff & to follow them was my grandparents, aunt beth, bonny, & becky, cousins alexandrah, amelia, & harrison all on Thursday. The rest of all my family all arrived Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.

It would have never been possible to execute such an amazing wedding, that literally turned out wonderful without the help of all my many family members who very graciously offered their help with pretty much everything as you will see in all the pictures below. Most of the craziness all got started on Thursday, with baking all the wedding favors for the wedding guests, I chose to do linzer cookies since they are so pretty & delicious. We also baked special homemade breads for all of our out of town guests who were staying in the hotel, we got busy preparing the flowers to be put into bouquets, boutonnieres, arrangements, or corsages, & my sister, cousin rachel, and me all went to get mani/pedis before the weekend got too crazy.

On friday my aunt monica and nana got started on all the flowers, doing all the centerpieces, all the girls' bouquets, corsages, all the guys boutonnieres, & rose petals for the flower girls to throw. My mom & aunt beth also got started on decorating both of the wedding cakes, which turned out absolutely GORGEOUS, I honestly could have never asked for a more beautiful cake, that tasted so so delicious also, I owe that all to my Aunt Beth & Mom! Friday night we had rehearsal for the wedding, rehearsal dinner at Little Italy, Bachelor & Bachelorette time before the big day, & last minute preparations before the big day finally arrived.

Enjoy the pictures from our wedding week & up next is our rehearsal & rehearsal dinner :)




Aunt Monica and Nana working on all the flowers

our beautiful & delicious linzer cookies we used as wedding favors for all the guests

my beautiful belles of ireland, that really perked up & turned the perfect green once we got them all in buckets of water for awhile

Aunt Beth working on the cakes, actually I think she is making the icing for my cake in this picture, which was so delicious

my gorgeous roses we used to bouquets, centerpieces, & boutonnieres, minus the pretty pink roses we added later on

Look at all those delicious linzer cookies, love em'

This was all our work space, which worked out great!

John Mayer Concert

So the night of my bridal shower I had the privelege of having kind of a mini family bachelorette party, my aunt Monica, cousin Rachel, mom, & Jenna & myself all went to the John Mayer concert in Houston at the Toyota Center. This night was such an amazing before getting married gift, thanks so much Monica & Rachel, it was SO SO fun, I enjoyed myself alot! There is not alot to say about this night besides that it was just down right AMAZING, I love concerts so much, especially when you are listening to awesome musicians like John Mayer. It made me so excited for this coming September when Jake & I are going to see Dave Matthews Band in Dallas, I cannot even explain the emotions I have already in anticipation for this concert. It has recently become one of our new goals in our newly married life to go to as many concerts as we possibly can, we absolutely LOVE music & think its a great way to enjoy ourselves together, but be able to get away from daily routine life at the same time. Anyways hope you like the pictures from the concert!





me & Rach waiting for the concert to start

the sign up above the Toyota Center :)

the sweetness of John Mayer in concert

he was absolutely amazing, such a talented musician

the cousins-Jenna, Rachel, & me before going into the concert

My Beaumont Bridal Shower

I am back to my regular blogging life now that all the craziness of wedding season is over for me. And I'm going to start from where I left off, which leaves us at the beginning of March for the weekend of my bridal shower in Beaumont with all my family & close friends down there. It was such a great shower, my family really knows how to put on a good party, for whatever the reason may be. We had my shower at my aunt Monica's house, it turned out so wonderful, the food was absolutely fabulous, my nana did all the flowers & were SO gorgeous, really just about everything was perfect! I got some great stuff to start the new married life off with, thank you everyone who pitched in & especially for all the great gifts we received from everyone, we love ya'll! Here are a couple of pictures to enjoy from the shower...John Mayer is next :)







The Bride in front of the great food table

All the girl cousins, love them so much, also some of my best friends in the world

Nana did such an amazing job with all the flowers at the Beaumont shower & the food table looked excellent.

sweet little cousins Amelia Jane & Elise

All of our awesome gifts we received at this shower, thank you EVERYONE!

its coming SO SO soon!!!!

So i'll apologize in advance for this post not having any pictures, I'm not writing it at my own computer so unfortunately there are no pictures :( (next post I promise)

So wow I know I say this everytime I write about how many more days till wedding day & how fast it is approaching, but I'll say it again and will probably keep saying it until it gets here because I guess it just never felt like the day was finally going to arrive, but I have one month till the day I have been planning for basically a year, in 4 weeks I'm going to change my life forever in the most wonderful, magical, exciting way that I can imagine! So as you can tell it is consuming my thoughts at work & home, has taken over my daily errands, my dreams, my emails, my phone calls, pretty much everything and I still don't mind it one single bit! In 29 days or 4 weeks whichever you prefer my life as Jillian Grace is going to be totally different, my priorities will be different, my daily life will be somewhat different, even my name will be different, but I know all these changes are going to put me on cloud nine because I am so excited!

Aside from all the excitement yes I still have plenty on the agenda to do before wedding day can happily make its entrance. So far here is the list:

-get rehearsal dinner invitations ready & mailed

-take care of all wedding party gifts

-order flowers

-figure boutiouneers

-figure out rest of hostess gifts for Beaumont shower in March

-do trial run of wedding favors

-pick up dresses at alterations place

-get official guest count from rsvp cards

-meet with caterer for last time to finalize head count

-finalize schedule of wedding day

-send guest list to my boss for lingerie lunch

-finalize wedding party & family pictures pre-wedding & after wedding

-paint tree

-paint and decorate flower girls baskets

-get white ribbon for my bouquets

-buy champagne from the liquor store

-get marriage license

That is all the stuff I can think of right now, but I'm fairly certain there is more I just of course cannot remember. I have been such a busy little bird the last month it seems like and I know that is all just going to pick up alot more during these next 4 weeks and I am geared up and ready, not sure if I could be any more ready! Aside from all the serious stuff I have been practicing with my little flower girls Maggie & Claire for the big wedding day and they are so excited, Maggie really does wonderful and will be precious, Claire haha she is just precious and I know it will be so cute, she just doesn't get that she has to walk the same speed as maggie, but I know they will both do SO great and will be the cutest little flower girls ever! I'm just so excited to see them all glamed up and stuff I just can't wait for everything about the wedding. And I have officially bought all the dresses I am taking with me on the cruise, all the shorts/pants I am bringing with me, I'll probably buy a few tank tops to take with me & a good pair of flip flops for by the pool and on the beach and stuff, but aside from that I am done shopping for honeymoon stuff. I bought new swimsuits, plenty of new sundresses and fancy dresses, shorts to wear, & new tops to wear, and got a few new pairs of shoes for the trip, so I really think just from all the cute stuff I have bought for this trip that its going to be such an amazing vacation I literally cannot wait!

Well I guess thats about all I have to say right now about how fast the wedding is approaching, I'll be back sooner than later hopefully with some sort of pictures and another wedding update as the time flys by! Enjoy your weekend, I know I will! :)