A Couple Days Away

I know I promised the wedding recaps would start again today, but J is on his way to see his grandparents on Wednesday, so I'm going to take a couple of days away and spend some time with my husband.  I know that he is going to be at our house working hard while I'm at work all day so I want to make sure I come home and have some time with him before he leaves for another week and a half.

I'll be back in full force on Thursday... there are a few more wedding day recaps and then on to the honeymoon!

Hope you got to enjoy a long weekend and that your weekend was great!!

I Still Suck...

OK, well I know I promised that the recaps would resume today, but I spent the weekend shopping and cleaning and trying to get things that would make our kitchen function like a normal one.  I have a lot of stuff going on this week since it's the week before school starts, but I promise, promise promise, that recaps will start at some point this week.  Let's plan for Wednesday!!!

I'm also going to take some time to get caught up with everything going on with the blogs I follow... sorry I haven't been around to read and comment like I should be.

One exciting note... after wedding recaps come honeymoon recaps and then NEW HOUSE BLOGS!!!

I'm thinking about changing the blog name again... I'm working on being creative  :-D

Happy Monday and come back soon!!!

Grandma

Sorry for the lack of posts this week... it's been a hard week for me.  Last Sunday, my Grandma passed away.  The only grandparent I had left, the only grandparent who was at my wedding, and my Grandma who I was pretty sure was going to live forever.

She turned 83 on August 1.  Just the day before we were all in Indianapolis.  My cousin was playing a basketball game there and everyone went.  Grandma was her normal self... walking, climbing stairs, talking with everyone and cheering on her granddaughter.  The week before that, she had two of her great grandsons at her house for the week and took them all over the city.

She turned 83 on Monday, August 1 and just a few days later, she was in the hospital.  She had a stroke and although her motor function was not affected, her speech was.  Her sister called a couple of days late to wish her a Happy Birthday.  She was not talking right so her sister called my aunt, who called my mom.  My mom took her to the hospital where she went through tests and continued to have trouble finding words or speaking correctly.

I got to see her on Friday afternoon... I wish I had been there sooner.  I think she knew who I was... but I can't be sure.  We spent the next two days in the hospital and family members came from all over to be with her.  On Sunday, at exactly 9:00 pm, she was gone.  It was peaceful... she had sons, daughters and grandkids all around her bed.  There were a few people who didn't make it back, but who said their goodbyes on a phone held to her ear.

My mom told me that the doctor told her on Wednesday that she could no longer live alone.  I'm pretty sure that this is when she made up her mind that she did not want to live if it couldn't be how she wanted.  I am very lucky to have great memories of her from my wedding week.  She was at my parents' house every day helping me with things... she saved the day by re-making the bottom layer of our groom's cake... and I have these great pictures of her (thanks to Catie's Captures) that I can always remember her by...

 Putting Grandma's corsage brooch on her

 Mom, Me and Grandma

 Grandma arriving at tea after saving the groom's cake

 Bridal Brunch

Grandma with her brothers and sisters

Detour: Making My Vision a Reality

Let’s take a quick detour on this journey of wedding recaps… before I tell you about the execution, I need to tell you about the plan.  One of the things that this blog has allowed me to do, outside of meeting some great blogging buddies and keep my friends and family in the loop, is to put my thoughts down somewhere that I can go back to them.  I’ve kept ideas, pictures, check lists and thoughts on this blog as yet another method of keeping myself organized.  My DIY list on the side has been like my list of goals and the “to do” lists being on here kept all my resources in one place.

I planned my wedding for 19 months… yep… 19.  We got engaged on December 31, 2009 and basically started planning immediately.  Our original thoughts were a wedding in September with a color scheme of red 

and orange, which was put on the table on January 1, 2010… obviously that changed, even though I’m not so sure when.  We knew we’d get married in Ft Wayne, but living in Texas meant a lot of online research.  Our one “wedding planning” trip happened in April 2010 and we had to be ready to make some major decisions so I did a lot of research and made a lot of lists and once the list was made, J and I discussed and decided on things and moved on.  He was involved in 99% of the major decisions for the wedding and probably about 75% of the detail decisions, but when it came down to the final product, I think that I was the one who had the vision of the day.

I would consider myself a creative person, but my creativity has to be inspired… it usually doesn’t just come from my brain.  I tend to see something and use the idea to form my own version of the inspiration.  Sometimes it’s similar and sometimes my creativity develops it into something that looks nothing like the object that inspired me.

There were a lot of things about this wedding that were put together in my head.  By that, I mean that when I came up with an idea and turned it into a reality, most of that time the reality was 1,000 miles away from me where I couldn’t touch it or play with it or create a plan with the actual materials ahead of time.  Some examples for you… Escort Boards… I bought the boards, the wrapping paper, the ribbon and the easels and then immediately sent them up to Indiana with my parents when I had the chance.  I got the idea from a fellow blogger and had the vision of them, but could not measure or do anything with them until the week of the wedding so it just sat there in my head as a vision.  Or Favors… I knew what I wanted them to look like and I was even able to put parts together during some earlier visits, but the final product was not created until the week of the wedding and although I had an idea of how they should be done, but the fact that I couldn’t try it meant that I also couldn’t explain how it could be done to someone else and know it would turn out how I wanted.

When I got to Indiana I had people around who kept asking me what they could do to help.  I know it was kind of annoying that I didn’t always have tasks to give them, but basically everything that had to be done that week was something that was based on theory… a theory of how I thought it should be done, but wasn’t sure because it had been 1,000 miles away for so long.  Once I got to touch things and measure things and try things and make an example for people to follow, I was able to let people help me, but until then, I was afraid to put that responsibility on someone and be disappointed in how it turned out.

This was one thing that J and I kind of struggled with toward the end of the planning and preparation.  He kept asking me how he could help and I kept telling him that I didn’t have anything for him, but then he would be frustrated when I’d say that there was so much to do.  It’s because I had to create things and then once I could communicate what I wanted done, I could pass it off.  It was sometimes hard for him to understand because he obviously was not in my brain looking at all of the things that were sitting in there waiting to be changed from a vision to a reality. 

I wouldn’t say this caused “problems” for us… it’s not like we were fighting about it or that I was having major break downs over anything, but it made me realize that it’s an area where my communication fails me.  I can’t explain things in my brain until I have worked them out myself and made my final decision on what exactly I want them to be.  There’s nothing more frustrating than when someone asks you to do something and then gives you instructions that are either not clear or that you find out, once you have a finished product, is not what they wanted.  That’s stressful for everyone and I wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

I am so lucky to have a great family who was always there to help, but who was also so patient with me that week.  In the beginning they asked what they should be doing and I told them that I was not ready for help, yet, but they didn’t give up on me and they were there when I was ready for them to help.  They didn’t stress me out by asking me questions before I was ready to answer them… they waited until I gave them a project and then asked questions if there were things that I didn’t explain well, and at that point, I knew what it was that I wanted and was able to answer their questions without any frustration.

Next: Wedding Day Recap – Executing the Plan

On the Road

It's officially wedding week!!!  One week from today is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner!!!

Sorry for my lack of blogging this week... it's been overwhelming.  A bunch of people went out on Wednesday for a "goodbye happy hour" and then my whole office when out to lunch today.  My days have been spent packing my office, throwing a bunch of stuff away, getting all important info to the person who's taking over my job in the interim and consoling some of my employees.  I have the best employees... they made me cup cakes on Thursday and they all came to see me Thursday and Friday.  Some have been in my office every day this week, sometimes crying, other times just telling me that they needed to see me every day before I go.  I also have a few of them who are coming up to our wedding... driving 16 hours because they love me that much.  I'm going to miss them SOOOOO much!

So we are all packed up and can't see out the back window and I'm actually blogging as J drives.  He rented us a broadband wireless card for the trip so we could stay connected while we drive!  We are currently about half way through our 10 hour journey to Illinois.  Tomorrow will be another 4 hours of driving on the way to look at houses and then we may drive another 3 hours tomorrow night to get to my parents' house or we may stay in Bloomington.

Our schedule is surprisingly less full than I thought it would be, but we are still adding thing to it, like a trip to our family friends' office to get our car insurance switched over to Indiana.  Oh... and we have to go get our marriage license... I almost forgot that one.  I'm going to put that on the schedule RIGHT NOW!

Once we get to my parents' house I promise there will be a lot more blogging going on, especially as I get to go open all the packages that I've been sending to my parents' house to see what they hold... not the wedding gifts, just the stuff for the wedding.  Lots of pictures coming soon!!!

Getting Reorganized

I have 2 weeks until the wedding and I'm completely lost as far as what I have to do next.  I know that everything will start to make more sense and I'll be better once I get to Indiana, but right now, I have no idea what I should be doing.

I tried to get reorganized last weekend and that didn't work... I spent too much time shopping, bottling wine and sleeping which all seemed like way better ways to spend my time.  :)

So this weekend is going to be spent figuring out what I have to do when I get to Indiana.  I have to have our numbers into our venue by next Wednesday, which should be fine... we don't have many people to hear back from at this point.  I'm not done yet with the seating chart, which is going to be what J and I work on before we head north because we'll need that information sooner rather than later.

Here are some things that I know we'll be working on when we get to Indiana:

1. Centerpieces
2. Card Box
3. Favors
4. Table Numbers
5. Escort Cards
6. Escort Card Display
7. Find something to put Bridesmaid bouquets in on the head table
8. Find something to put our sparklers in
9. Start assigning tasks to the girls for the day of the wedding
10. Package the bridal party gifts
11. Folding programs

I'm guessing we can knock most of that out in a couple of days, especially if we work hard and just stick with the directions that I've already put together.  The problem is, I know I'm forgetting something, or lots of things.  I'm not sure when I'm going to figure out all those other things!!!

I'm not really stressing about it, yet, but I know I will... probably once we are in the car and have 16 hours to think about it.  If anyone out there has any tips for me of things that you wish you would have written down or thought of for your wedding day, I'd love to hear them!!!

Our Wine

We had so much fun on Sunday bottling our wine... I wish we got to do it more often!  We got to Su Vino shortly after the opened and got a bottle of wine to share and some hummus and pita chips.  Then we got started!  Here's how you bottle wine  :)

1. Disinfect and rinse the bottles

2. Then you fill the bottle

3.  Then you cork the bottle

4. Then you put the foil top on the bottle and heat it so it shrinks

5. Then you take a break and have some wine...

... and some wine filled chocolates (these are AMAZING!!)

6. Then you put your back label on

7. And then your front label

AND THEN YOU'RE DONE!!!

Here's a picture of the label that Su Vino made for us...

It looks so cute with a purple foil top, and you can't really tell from this picture, but the green is perfect!

I absolutely LOVE this place... the ladies who work there remember us every time we come in and they are always so helpful and fun!  So, now we have 30 bottles of wine that are making the trip to Indiana with us.

If you're ever in Grapevine, Texas you should DEFINITELY visit!!!

Bad Blogger

I know I've been a horrible blogger, although I was pretty excited about the fact that I was able to post from my phone all weekend!  I am at the end of a pretty crazy and busy week, but I promise that I'm going to get back in the swing of things this weekend and next week!

I'm working on making a list to keep myself organized for the last month, AND I'm hoping that my fantastic bridesmaids will send me some pictures from the bachelorette and shower from last weekend!  I promise I will get everything up on the blog ASAP!

Hope y'all have a great weekend!!!

WHAT A WEEK!!!!!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Last week I found out that I can post to my blog via text... AWESOME!!!  Keep checking the blog this weekend... I'll be giving bachelorette party "play-by-play"!!

OK, so this week has not gone as planned, per say.  I completely forgot to change yesterday's post, so we didn't actually start our dance lessons.  We were supposed to, but then last Friday I got a call about a job interview, so I'm actually still out of town right now.

This meant that we had to postpone our lesson to next week... it also means that J has had to deal with packing up our apartment basically by himself.  I tried to get as much done as I could before I left, but it was kind of a quick turn around on this trip.

It was also our three year anniversary on Tuesday, which I obviously missed, so we took some time Monday to go get pedicures, I got a full set of nails so they would be perfect come wedding time (I don't want to have to worry about my nails breaking between now and then) and we got some sushi to take home.  It wasn't the anniversary that I had in mind, but it was still nice to get to relax, enjoy each other and not be rusing here or there for a few hours!

I get back home on Thursday evening and have to go in for a spray tan before I get on a plane again on Friday morning for the bachelorette weekend.  I'm going to be thoroughly exhausted when I get home on Monday.

Luckily I get back early on Monday so I'll have some time to help with the final packing and get things cleaned up before we have to be out on the 31st.  J and I are staying with friends on the 31st (when we have our REALY first dance lesson) and 1st and then he leaves for his bachelor party on the 2nd.  I'm staying with our old roommates the rest of the week and then we move into an extended stay hotel on the 6th.  We'll be there until I hear something about the job.  Once I hear, we'll either find an apartment in Texas (which we won't move into until after we get back from the wedding) or we'll start doing research on relocating!

You'd think I'd be SUPER SUPER stressed this week, but as of right now, I'm ok... maybe it's because I haven't had time to even stop for 1 second and think about the craziness that is going on between now the wedding.  Send good thoughts our way... June is going to be a BIG month!

Happy Mother's Day

If you haven't entered for my first ever giveaway, you still have a chance.


Check this post and make sure you've followed all the steps so that I can include you in the drawing tomorrow! Don't forget that you have to have your entry in by 11:59 Central Time TONIGHT!

In honor of Mother's Day, I am dedicating this post to my mom.

It took my mom and dad 10 years to have me after they got married, but not for lack of trying.  My mom had lots of miscarriages both before and after I was born.  They wanted a child so badly and were almost at the point of adoption when my mom got pregnant with me.  They have always treated me like I'm special, but took care to be sure that I was pushed around by my older cousins, just so I didn't get too full of myself.

My mom has the biggest heart of anyone I know.  She is thoughtful and has always been there to help me with whatever I've needed.  She always knows just what to tell me when I need advice and she knows when to just let me vent and get whatever is on my mind off my chest.

She is so creative and everything she makes always turns out perfect.  This is going to sound silly, but when she makes a snack, the apples and cheese and crackers they always look nice on the plate or in the bowl that she puts them in.  And of course, when she makes a salad or a sandwich, it always tastes so much better than what I could make  :-D

My mom with her high school friends at a wedding


I was so lucky to have a stay-at-home mom when I was growing up.  I didn't appreciate it then as much as I do now, but she worked hard to make sure that everything I needed for school and sports were always ready for me.  I never had to worry about my uniforms being washed... they were always done.  I didn't have to worry about how I would get home from school or practice because she was always there, AND always willing to let another kid jump in our car for a ride home.  I was always lucky to have a supporter at my basketball and volleyball games and I can't remember a time that she ever missed one because I was lucky enough to have a mom who made me her priority 99% of the time.

My grandma, mom and Aunt Peggy at tea


I'm not quite to the point that my mom is more a friend than a mom, but I think that's because I'm not a mom myself, yet.  I think that as I get married and start my own family, our relationship may change... but for the better.  Since I left for college, my mom has been willing to make my own choices, my own mistakes and stand by me as I celebrate my successes.  I know that will never change.  I think our relationship will change because as my life changes with the wedding and the eventual addition of kids, I'll better understand my mom and have an even higher appreciation for what she has done and continues to do for me, for my dad, for our family and herself.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mother's of the Bride out there!!!

Long Week

Hi everyone!  I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger this week... I don't feel like the week has been long or hard, but I have not been home at night much.  There really hasn't been much of anything "wedding" going on this week, at least not for me (I'm sure things are different in London).  I'll get on top of my posts this weekend, but here's some stuff that HAS gone on this week...

Monday - J and I were supposed to go to a baseball game, but I'm still not feeling great, so we stayed home instead.  We did finalize our "grand entrance" song for the reception... "The Way You Make Me Fee" by Michael Jackson.  We are going to use the same song for both the bridal party and for us!

The only thing we had left on our form for the DJ was to pick someone to do our opening prayer at the reception.  We talked about it for a while and decided that my aunt would be the perfect person for it.  I emailed her and when she responded, she was SOOOOO excited  :)

Tuesday - The RSVPs started coming on on Tuesday.  So far, mostly just "No's", but it's kind of fun to be able to check our email everyday to see if someone new has emailed us  :)

On this day, I also sent some emails to the officiant, the DJ and our coordinator at the banquet hall.  We finalized our date and time for the rehearsal, so I'll be able to send my rehearsal invites sometime within the next 6 weeks or so (more info on these coming soon!!)

Also on Tuesday, I had an awards ceremony and reception to go to.  I advise around 15 student organizations on campus and a bunch of them nominated me for "Advisor of the Year".  I was so flattered to receive the award and the fact that they even nominated me makes the occasional stress the job brings, all worth it!

Wednesday - J and I played softball after work and then I had a Groupon that was about to expire, so we went to the movies and saw "Water for Elephants".  It was a great movie, but if you are an animal lover (and especially if you hate circuses the way I do) be warned that it will definitely hurt your heart at parts.

Thursday and Friday

I can't wait for the royal wedding... I'm going to bed early tonight and setting my alarm so I can wake up at 3:00 am and at turn the TV on.  I can't wait to see her dress!!!!

Only a couple more days of work before the weekend... I'm so excited because this is the first weekend that neither J or I have to work, in what seems like the WHOLE semester... we are definitely going to spend some time together and hopefully the weather will be nice enough that we can be outside.

Our second round of engagement pics are coming up on Saturday... I still have to figure out what I'm wearing.

I promise that next week, I'll be WAY more on top of the blogging!  My mom bought dress #5 last weekend and I think we have finally found the one... pictures to come!!!  :-D

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter to everyone!

J and I have gone 40 days without eating meat... well, I cheated once, but who can go to New Orleans and not eat a Lucky Dog?  I've lost 5 pounds over the past 6 weeks, but I'm still going to go have a hamburger today!

I'm also starting my unlimited month of hot yoga today, HOORAY!  I'm totally in love with Groupons and this is one that I'm sure will be my favorite!!!  I may even pay to keep taking classes after my month is done, which the idea of seems weird to me because I've always worked in a gym and never had to pay to use it.

Hope you enjoy your Easter and that you can take some time to celebrate!!!

Wedding Hotel

We are working with an AMAZING hotel and as we get closer to the wedding I'm getting more and more excited about the fact that this is going to be one thing that I know I won't have to worry about.

To start with, they were willing to work with us on a price as we were trying to choose a hotel to book.  We have a lot of people coming into town from a long distance and we wanted to keep the price as low for them as we could.  They also have a free breakfast and airport shuttle that they will also use to get people to and from the wedding.

I recently checked the hotel website to make sure everything looked good before we sent our invitations out.  I was worried because there were no double bed rooms listed online.  Our double bed room actually sleep 6 because every room has a pull out sofa.  So I sent an email and got a response within a couple of hours and they added a few double rooms and encouraged me to contact the people who we thought would need these rooms.  I think everyone who needed the double rooms has booked them now, so we should be all set on those!

I was also curious how many rooms we had booked so far, and she sent me an email that not only showed me how many rooms and nights were booked, but WHO booked them!  She said she'd be happy to send me updates whenever we wanted them!

The moral of the story... The Hyatt Place in Fort Wayne has been a really great hotel to work with and I would recommend them to anyone in the area that needs to book a block!

Wedding Hair and Makeup

Now that I have some REALLY fantastic followers, I'm hoping I can get some input on my wedding hair and makeup.  SO, this is the first time I'm actually posting any of my bridal portraits... don't worry/sorry... no dress shown.

Now that I've been wearing a toned down version of this makeup for almost a year now, I'm starting to second guess what I have planned for the wedding.  For those of you who are reading... let me know what you think... if there's something that I should play up more, change the tone of something... yeah... let me know what you think.

The hair probably won't change much... I want my natural curls, not curling iron curls, and this is really the only things we've been able to come up with that mostly hides my ears (I hate my ears), BUT I think I'm going to add some pearl accents to the top of my head.  It won't be anything that will stand out a ton... it's just those little things that you twist into your hair.  Let me know if you think those would be a good addition.

OK... here are some edited versions of the bridal pics (by Catie's Captures)

100 Push Up Challenge - Week 4

I know that this is the first time that I've posted about the 100 Push Up Challenge, but J and I have been doing it for the last 4 weeks and today we did a max test and we have officially gotten STRONG!

So, we started out by seeing what our max number of push ups was before we started.  We were somewhere around 20 or 25.  We did two weeks of the workout and then after week 2 we did another max out.  In that max out, we were probably somewhere around 30 or 35... I can't really remember.  Then we did two more weeks of workouts, three days a week, and we just did another max out yesterday.  So, I started around 25, increased my max by 10 in two weeks, and this week... guess how many I did...

70!!!!!!!

So now we have two more weeks, three work outs per week, and then we do the final test.

100 consecutive push ups!

I'm feeling really good about the workout... when we started, I thought that we would never make it to 100, but when I did 70 yesterday, it started to feel like I was WAY closer than I thought I'd ever be.

WOOOO HOOOOO!

Notes from an Expert - 1st Edition

One of my friends at work just got married, and by "just", I mean that she has not even been married for a month yet!

She and I have both been so busy at work since she got back from her honeymoon that we haven't even gotten to hear about her trip.  We finally had a few minutes to talk today and she gave me a few of what I'm calling "words of wisdom".  She would absolutely die if she knew I was calling them her words of wisdom... but she just went through all the craziness of a wedding week... I have to take notes!!!

So here are the two things she talked about today...
- Ceremony Music
- Rehearsal Dinner/Guest Issues

She and her (now) husband used non-traditional music for the ceremony.  They used songs that meant things to them and that fit their Mexico destination.  She said that SOOOO many people made comments about how great the music was and how they loved how personal it was!

I talked a LONG time ago about ceremony music and we have finally put all of our Vitamin String Quartet music in order for the ceremony.  The songs are recognizable (either great classics that everyone knows or songs that are slightly more contemporary), but still a little bit more "formal" for lack of a better word.  I'm still really excited about these songs so that's a good sign.

She was also telling me about the only "tragedy" of the weekend.  They had their rehearsal dinner on Friday and had a few guests who were expecting to be invited, who were not a part of the bridal party.  She said that it was kind of an awkward situation... not that it ruined anything for her, but she said that she may have people who are still mad at her about not being invited.  I told her they'd get over it  :-D

That's definitely a good thing to think about...

I have a blog buddy who is getting married on the same day as J and I and she and I have been emailing about wedding stuff.  I know that she has also had some "guest list" issues that she's had to deal with.  I'm so glad that I haven't had to deal with this.  Although, our way of avoiding guest list issues is just to invite everyone, so I don't know if that really counts.

I've taken note of the things that she was telling me today and I can't wait to have more time to sit down and hear all about everything that she did all weekend... weddings are so fun, no matter whose they are!!!

Happy Monday everyone...

Happy Valentine!

My Valentine's Day started at about 5:30 this morning.  I had jury duty today and had to get up REALLY early to be there on time... it's also continuing tomorrow (to be continued).

I did have my date with my Valentine to look forward to all day!  We started our celebration by pick up my wedding band... HOORAY!!! (also to be continued)

Then we went and had sushi (J's first raw fish experience) for dinner and it was awesome!  We just relaxed and talked and enjoyed each other.  Every time J buys me a card, it makes me cry... he's really good at picking awesome cards and he always writes really sweet things... this year was no exception!!!  When I was growing up, my parents usually bought each other two cards... a funny one and a mushy one.  SO, I have inherited those behaviors and I bought J two cards and put one inside of the other.  The mushy one was awesome... it said exactly what I wanted it to, and the funny one said something like
"No matter how stressful life gets, we'll always have one thing [open card] a corkscrew.  SO, inside this card I put J's "Valentine's Coupons.  One was a coupon for a bottle of wine to take to our favorite BYOB restaurant.  The other was a "gift certificate"... J recently bought new golf clubs so I paid for him to go have a swing analysis done.  In the spirit of learning how to play with our new toys, he got me a gift certificate for a class at Joann Fabrics so I can learn to use my new sewing machine!  HOW EXCITING! (also to be continued)

So, even though the day was long, it ended just the way I wanted it to... some time alone with my Valentine.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!

The Ceremony

This should be the most important part of the wedding... and yet... I just can't get myself to commit to it.  Not that I'm not ready to commit to the marriage... that sounded all wrong.  I just mean that I had an idea of what my wedding would be like and it's not going to be.

When I was young, I remember Christmas Eve mass at St. Mary's.  It was a children's mass and the priest really brought the story to life.  When I got older, the church had a new meaning to me... but not until it was gone.  In 1993, the church that my parents were married in and the church where I was baptized, was stuck by lightning and burned down.  I was 10 at the time, but I remember watching it on the news.  The church was rebuilt, and although it is still a beautiful church, it does not have the same character and beauty as the old one.

I'm not sure when it was that the sentiment of St. Mary's hit me... but at some point in my life, I decided that I wanted to get married at St. Mary's.  Well, as we started the wedding planning, we talked to the church and it was going to run us about $1,000 to get married at the church.  There were also a lot of rules that came along with the church regarding the ceremony and those involved.

SO, back to the point... we are now doing a non-denominational ceremony in the courtyard outside our banquet hall.  The lady performing the ceremony is very nice and I'm sure that J and I can make our ceremony very personal and basically make it whatever we'd like it to be... but not really.  It's not going to be the same as what I thought.  So, the point of all of this... I'm having a hard time getting myself excited about working on our ceremony... the wording, the format, the specific verses/prayers/readings, etc.

We do have some exercises to do that our reverend sent to us so hopefully that will get me more excited about working on the ceremony stuff.  More to come...

Exhausted

The first two weeks of school are always tough, but this semester has been exceptionally exhausting and I'm not sure why.  It may be that I'm teaching a class this semester that is taking up more of my time.  It may be the fact that I'm on a couple of committees that are currently WAY more time consuming than they normally are.  OR, it may be that I just have too much going on in my head and the combination of thinking and working is too much for my brain to handle.

I currently have 5 months and 3 days until the wedding.  It sounds like a long time, but I have so many things to do between now and then that the list is overwhelming.  We are making progress on some things, but it seems like a really long time since we've ACTUALLY crossed something off the list.

The invitations are the things that are staring me right in the face as a HUGE project that I really want to get done.  I'm sure that's probably because that's really the only thing that I have here in Texas that I can do, but I'd love to take a day and focus on getting these put together.  For these, we have to:

1. Print the actually wording on the invitation
2. Mount the printed pieced on the lime green backing
3. Put the hotel and RSVP information in
4. Fold the petals of the inner envelope and steal with our sticker
5. Stuff and label the outer envelope (no... we're not hand writing... I know... it's bad)

Because we have so many out of town guests, we plan to mail them by April 20.  We want to make sure that all of our guests have plenty of time to make travel plans and book hotels by the June 2 hotel booking date.  I know that April 20 is almost 3 months from now, but I think that looking at my upcoming calendar along with knowing that J is about to get into his super busy time makes me want to get these done ASAP before our spring semester gets away from us.

Oh geeeeeeeeez...

Dear Santa...

There are a few things that I put on my Christmas wish list that are wedding related.  I already know that my mom and dad got us the cake knife and server that I found back in August.  I also asked for some pearl earrings that I could wear on my wedding day.  I started thinking today about my Christmas wish list and I realized that I haven't written a note to Santa in a while, and I think it's about time I did!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Santa,

There are about a million gifts under our tree already, and you haven't even been here yet.  I hope you don't mind that I put your name on a couple of gifts for J... I didn't figure you would.  Since there are already so many presents under our tree, I'm going to ask you for some Christmas magic this year.  The only other thing I really want this Christmas is the patience and ability to finish our DIY projects while we are home.  I'm not sure if I'll be back in Indiana again before the wedding, so it sure would save me a lot of worry if you could just make my fingers fast and my projects easier than I think they will be.

Also, I have a super special Christmas wish for J this year... but you already know what that is   :)

Merry Christmas!
Lexi