Nashville

Next June, Chris's sister is getting married!! Her sweet, kind, wonderful fiance, Billy, is from Fort Worth, Texas and instead of getting married up north, here in Illinois, they decided to plan a destination wedding. Far from the typical destination wedding, their wedding will take place on the dreamy estate of the cutest southern plantation home you've ever seen. Cedarwood is located just outside of the hustle and bustle of Nashville and it will be the perfect setting for my SILs big day.

So on Friday afternoon, we loaded up her SUV with Henry's car seat and headed south to attend a style show at her wedding venue. It was everything a girls only road trip should be. We listened to LOTS of cheesy '90s and early '00s music, reminiscing over junior high and high school. We ate very well. We talked about how truly awesome her wedding is going to be.  We got in snuggles with Henry whenever we could and laughed at him babbling on in the backseat as we made our way to and from Tennessee. 

We arrived in Nashville at 11pm on Friday night. We were troopers and drove the 8 hours there straight through. On Saturday morning, we took a leisurely drive past some beautiful antebellum mansions on our way to the famous Loveless Cafe. Emily had already been there once and insisted that I had to try it for myself. While there, I honestly lost track of the amount of homemade biscuits and jam I wolfed down. I also enjoyed the best slab of salt-cured smoked ham I've ever come across. Whenever I go to a different region of the US, I try to eat the regional specialties. On this trip, that included ordering the cheesy grits as a side instead of my usual, bacon. They were just as good as everything else I ate there. So if you're near Nashville, look this place up and I promise it won't disappoint.

The style show started at 11am at Cedarwood and it was such a posh affair. They had tables set up featuring complete wedding themes. Everything was there, from invitations to the place settings to the floral design (which was my favorite part!). We sampled food and hors d'oeuvres from 3 different caterers. We ate our way through at least 15 different cake flavors and had a few flutes of champagne punch. The sweet tea was a revelation! You can take me back to the southern states any time. 

That evening we hit up Edley's BBQ for dinner as one does after they google "best bbq in Nashville". Edley's was ranked number 2 behind Jack's BBQ, a place Em tried during her last visit. So we decided to change it up for her and go to Edley's. We shared our individual orders of bbq chicken and pulled pork and were wowed. Henry shared my mac and cheese with me. The best part was the near 70 degree weather we experienced that day. Edley's has garage doors all around the outside of the restaurant and due to the lovely weather, they were open so we got to enjoy some sunshine and fresh air as we dined. Then we went back to our hotel, and as one does when daylight savings time approaches and one has a nearly 1 year old boy, we went to bed at 8pm!

It was such a great weekend!  Em also asked me to be her matron of honor! I am extremely excited and so very honored to be there for her on her wedding day. Here are a few photos of our weekend. I didn't lug my Canon around down there as I knew I'd have Henry on one hip all day, and that boy is a heavy one. So I apologize for the iPhone photos, but you'll get the gist of it.