The Ever Growing To Do List

Happy holidays! They're coming to a close, but wedding stuff is picking up for us.

We've discussed details further. We're trying to nail down a lot of the smaller details like centerpieces, decorations in various places throughout the venue, favors, etc. My mom and I met up with Sharon, her florist friend who is doing our silk arrangements, and picked out ribbon and the last of the silk flowers. 

All five of my girls have ordered their dresses and they should be in by mid to late March, which leaves plenty of time in case anyone needs alterations. 

Emily has booked my shower venue. She was asking me stuff about my registries today, so it sounds like she's getting started on doing invitations already too. 

Speaking of registries, we started a small Amazon one a bit ago. And now on Saturday the fifth we're going to huge Bed Bath and Beyond on the Boulevard to do our big registry. We're both pretty excited about it. Our menu tasting and details meeting is in only two weeks as well. So things are really starting to come together. 

Next week I plan on taking my ring to the jeweler too, then hopefully we can finally order wedding rings and be done with that whole debacle. 

So that's what's going on for the next two weeks. Then after that it's going to ordering invitations, making place card and escort cards, getting my silk arrangements done, buying favors, a cake topper and the other cake decoration we need to purchase for the baker, buying the last of the decoration things, schedule and have my hair and make up trial, figure out a card box things, figure out the flower girls dresses/baskets/flower/etc., put together welcome bags... just everything else. So yeah. Still quite a bit to get done.

Just 156 more days to go. That's five months and five days!

Is This What Stress Feels Like..?

Okay, so it's been a while now since I last updated. Things are rolling right along, sort of. 

We've gone back to looking at rings. It's been quite the trying issue to make a decision here. But we've got some solid plans in the works. Rob is planning on getting his meteorite ring. I'm having the guard removed off mine after the new year so I can purchase a wedding band. Then that should be all set on both accounts. 

We have our meeting with coordinator coming up soon; January 11th to be exact. We have the big list of "things" we need to be able to answer by then, but I don't how much of it Rob or my parents have actually thought about it. I also have a running list of detail ideas and questions to ask. 

We went to Rob's cousin Daniel's wedding in Chattanooga over the weekend. It was nice to see a wedding in action with ours being so close now. And now that Daniel's wedding is over we can start thinking about our ceremony. Daniel is officiating for us, so now that his plate is clear of his own wedding we can start putting together out own. 

On top of that, going to another wedding has sparked Rob's interest in things he normally didn't care about having a say in. Things like centerpieces and escort cards. I originally showed him a picture of escort cards I wanted to make and he said they were fine and that he didn't care what they looked like. Now he wants to scrap that idea in lieu of another. Which is fine by me. I'm by no means going to have a disagreement about escort cards of all things. My only issue with this though is that some things he wants to change are things I have already invested money in. So I kind of wish he had wanted a say earlier, ya know, before I spent money. But it is our wedding, so I want us both to like it. 

I went ahead and made a partial payment for our DJ today too. He's about 50% paid off at this point and I'm hoping to have that paid off soon. He was by no means the cheapest in the area, but a great DJ was high on our priorities list, so we splurged. I also bumped up the price by insisting I had to have uplighting, which I'm still excited about, even though it racked the bill up some.

I got a sample invitation from Wedding Paper Divas, who I ordered our save the dates from. They can custom color our invites to match our colors for a small fee. That's fine though because I have yet to find anything else I really like and love the idea of having the matching set. So I'll splurge here too I guess. Money for everyone (except me of course). 

Finally, for now I guess, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, is that hopefully Saturday my mom and I will get out to Hobby Lobby. I really want to buy any more decoration things that we need. I'm starting to feel slightly stressed and panicked that things aren't moving along quickly enough anymore and feel like buying some detail related items will help quell those feelings. Hopefully. 

Alright, 5 months, 1 week and 6 days left. that boils down to 164 days to go. Getting there we are. 

Decisions

So, a lot of decisions being made right now.

First off, I scheduled our menu tasting and details meeting with our venue for January 11th. That give my parents enough time to make adjustments to their work schedules since it's a Friday. So this is exciting. Our new coordinator sent us a semi overwhelming list for the details meeting to make sure we have answers to when we meet. So I need to sit down with Rob and go over it as well as speak with my parents about a few of the things on it. 

Another decision we made was to switch from a buffet dinner to a sit down dinner. The package we want that has all night open bar and the works only comes as a sit down dinner. The next package down with a buffet option has a pretty limited time frame for the bar, and we want the roaring party after dinner, so bar time it is! I only wanted a buffet because I'm a picky eater, but since I get to dictate the menu, it doesn't matter. Plus, sit down dinners feel classier. 

The next big decision we made is wedding rings. This is something we've both waffled over since we first got engaged a year ago. Rob has finally made up his mind about getting a meteorite ring, which I'm happy about. It's what he really wanted and he has to wear it forever and be happy with his decision forever, so I'm really glad he finally said definitely to the ring. For me, I can't find anything that fits next to my engagement ring. Nothing. The ring is too big and to awkwardly shaped. When Rob's mom gave him the ring to give to me she offered to have the guard removed and he said to leave it intact. The day we got engaged she told me I could take it off if I wanted and said no, I love the ring as is. But when push comes to shove, it's very important for me to have a wedding ring that Rob and I go pick out to symbolize our marriage. So we've decided that I'm going to have the guard taken off and just wear the white gold, five stone original engagement ring and we'll give the guard back to Mary. When we brought it up to her over the weekend she sort of chuckled and said she was surprised I'd kept the guard on this long and that she didn't mind if I had it taken off. So that's on the docket for the end of this month after we get back from Daniel's wedding.

Speaking of, Daniel's wedding is in two weeks and we leave to drive to Chattanooga in a week and a half. I'm really excited to go, see Rob's family, take a trip together, and just enjoy someone else's wedding. 

Sooo, we passed the six month mark yesterday! We have 5 months, 4 weeks and 2 days left to go. That's a mere 181 days! Ahhhh, what happened to the 550+ days we started with!? 

Oh, Home Ownership...

Let's go ahead and start this post on a positive note. 

Friday we booked our florist. She did a mock up of what my bouquet will look like and I'm very happy with the results. Check.

Today I paid the deposit and booked our baker. We went with Lori from Bagels and Cakes because she makes awesome "Cake Boss" grooms cakes, which we want. And, the best part, she'll make our rock candy cake for us! This is the inspiration for our cake: 

Obviously ours will be have purple and orange rock candy on it, but that's the gist. Now to find a sweet baseball themed topper.

I also have banana spice muffins in the oven and they have walnuts and white chocolate chips in them. And I'm making pumpkin better than sex cake tonight too. So be jealous of my sweet baking skills. 

Now, for the less exciting part, home ownership.

Right now we're dealing with the dryer. It's not producing heat and our wet clothes are just tumbling endlessly because it has a sensor in it that adds time if things aren't dry yet. It's just over a year old, we got it last year the day after we closed on our house. We bought the extended warranty  but they can't send someone until NEXT Thursday the 29th. Seriously. That's more than a week, it's insane.

We also got our gas logs hooked up in our fireplace. The bill for that hasn't come yet. I can only imagine what that will be. We ended up having to buy a hood for it too since we have an old school, heat producing fireplace with a very shallow firebox with outward slanting walls. Can't risk ruining our tv that's mounted over the mantle. Or, ya know, the custom, hand carved, original 1930's wooden mantle. So today we figure out the technique for how to properly use masonry bits and screws to drill that into the brick face of the fireplace. It seems to be diverting the heat enough, so we'll see.

Annnnnd, just to add more to the fun, last night we discovered the kitchen sink leaks. I remember when we had our inspection Hans told us there was still one rouge ceramic pipe under there to keep an eye on. Surprisingly enough though, it's the pvc pipes and they've obviously been leaking for a while. It smells like moldy broccoli under there. Good thing nothing of value is underneath. Just the left over paint cans from when the house was painted while it was on the market. I had intended to take them out, clean up under there and move our cleaning stuff under there. Now, until we fix that, and probably the floors under it that are probably rotting, it's nothing but a bucket so we can still use the sink with minimal fear of further destroying our floors. Not that we like them anyways, but still. I had every hope to lay new floors over the existing since I'm terrified of what an 81 year old sub floor looks like and have no desire to find. I may have to face that fear now. 

Our next house will definitely be newer. This will be my only blue and yellow 1930's kitchen and pink 1950's bathroom. Not that I don't love our house and all it's charm. But I'd give up my pretty original glass doorknobs with skeletons keys for a newer house that didn't require so much damn love. Joy.

Anywhooo, 192 days to go! That's 6 months, 1 week and 4 days. Woo!

Crunch Time

I feel like I'm in wedding crunch time right now. It's getting down to the wire (sort of) and things are starting to get to the point of have-to-get-done-now. 

I've been in contact with our new coordinator a bit. I told her I'd get hold of her after the new year to set up a details meeting. Asked about menu tasting and she said we can set that up whenever. So I'm thinking I may contact her next week about that and set something up for prior to our details meeting.

I have my florist appointment and the final cake appointment on Friday afternoon. Once both those things have deposits down on them I can draft our vendors list to have both for myself and to give to the Ramada, as they require one. I still need to call our DJ again about adding the ceremony music to our contract. 

Speaking of details, I started putting together a list of all the different "details" things that I need to have an answer to when we go to the meeting, such as "centerpieces", "arch decor", "aisle decor", "linens", etc. I figure if I can give a super detailed list, including pictures when possible, to the Ramada, then they can just replicate it on the day of and I won't have to answer any questions or whatever. 

I also met up with my friend Brittany yesterday and asked her if she would do a reading at the ceremony. She said yes and I'm sooo excited for her to be part of our wedding.

I've started to go through my wedding pinterest board and put together a must have list of shots for our photographer. I'll have to have my mother and Rob's mother draft formal family line up must have pictures. I plan on having a list of everyone who will be in pictures, in the order we plan to take them, and give everyone in them a copy so they know when they're needed a for how long. I'd like to take only about 20 minutes for formals then move onto wedding party and then just us pictures. 

Lauren is officially my first bridesmaid to order her dress! Those need to be ordered by December to be here on tim and have time for possible alterations. 

Yesterday I went adult trick or treating, as I called it. I drove down maybe about ten miles of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail to go a cork gathering rampage. I went to maybe seven or eight wineries and it's great because they just dump the corks in a bag and off you go. Love free stuff! I got about half of what we need. If I had the time I would have drove more of the 40 miles trail and been able to get enough, but I'll just go again in a few weeks. I'm going to use them to make escort cards. I figure since we live in wine country that can be my slight nod at that. Plus now my car smells nice like fine wine. 

I feel like I'm forgetting stuff, but maybe not. Anyways...

200 days!!! That's a mere 28 weeks! Or 6 months, 2 weeks and 5 days. 

Coordinating Conundrum

Little snafu today... our coordinator is leaving our venue. I'm a bit sad about this. She's been there 15 years, all the vendors in the area know her and love working with her. She has nothing but amazing reviews. I was so excited to work with her. And that was coming soon, after the six month mark. And now she's leaving. 

I didn't hear this from our venue though, which is some what disconcerting. I found out at work. Our secretary called to confirm our date and room reservations for our winter luncheon, conveniently being held at our venue. She called the coordinator who confirmed, then gave her the new name and contact information for the new, soon to be coordinator. I planned to email to current lady tonight, but I go too caught up with other house things. It's on my to do list for tomorrow. Just... frustrating. I've read too many horror stories on The Knot about girls having the coordinator switched and things not going well. I'm hoping because we still have some time that'll work out alright. 

Otherwise, on the planning front, all the silks I bought showed up. We officially have all our flowers except for the few real ones we're getting for myself, Rob, and our parents. I also bought shoes. I found them a few weeks ago and wasn't ready to commit. I went back for them and they were marked at 30% off. Score!

My dress... I'm stressed again. When I picked it out, the sample was an eight and fit perfectly. But sometimes samples are stretched out from being tried on. I got measured and all my measurements were in between sizes, three different ones to be exact. The consultant told me to pick whatever I was comfortable with so I went with a ten, thinking that was safe. But I tried on some party dresses with Emily and Annie a month or so ago now and those were all eights and fit perfect. I wanted to order an eight when I ordered the dress, but I was nervous it'd be too small and I'd end up in tears. Now I wish I had gotten an eight so I wouldn't have to pay for so many alterations. 

Lastly, rings. My engagement ring is a large, awkward shaped ring that takes up a lot of finger real estate. It's going to be difficult to fin a ring to put next to it. My thought has been to move it to my right hand permanently post wedding and put something flashy in it's place. I found what I wanted online, but the price recently went up. Like way up, like doubled in price up. So in a panic I went to a bunch of jewelry places to search for something similar in store, only to come up disappointed. I finally caved and tried something on next to my ring. I can fit a very thin, small band behind/under it, but I'm not sure. I'm so torn about what to do. 

I'm ready for this wedding to happen already so we can be married and happy and move onto the marriage part. I'm really excited for the wedding, but seven more months might kill me. 

Anyways, today marks exactly seven months! Woohoo!


Update 11-2: A letter came from our venue today. It was really nondescript, just stating there was going to be a change in contact person and that someone would contact us soon with the updated contact information. So it sounds like they haven't actually hired a new coordinator yet. The name that the coordinator gave our secretary was the Sales Director's information, so she must be the stop gap until someone new starts. Hopefully someone's in there soon and we can get caught up on the new person's information and schedule a time to meet them. Frustrating. 

House Keeping Checks

I've been vaguely productive this week. Wedding wise at least. The rest of my life, not so much.

Wedding:
Made a florist appointment
Made a cake finalization appointment/tasting
Temporarily postponed my make up trial until after the holidays
Called our DJ to add ceremony music to our contract. He was on another call and was supposed to call me back but never did. This is just pretty much how he rolls and I'm not concerned. It'll get added one of these days. 
Ordered ten more bouquets of orange gerbera daisies. I now have enough for all five girls bouquets and all our centerpieces.
Ordered three bouquets of purple tulips for the five groomsmen/best man boutineers and to fill out the girls bouquets a bit more. 

That's it. Once we secure the cake and florist we'll have all our vendors booked except for the rehearsal dinner caterer. But that's not a big deal, the place we want to use is aware we intend to book them at some point. Otherwise it'll just be detail now. After the six month mark we can schedule our first appointment with our venue coordinator to start on the details and what not. 

We also Have Daniel's wedding coming up soon; mid December. I'm pretty excited to go down to Chattanooga and see everyone and enjoy someone else's love and hard work. Then after that we can start talking to Daniel about our wedding too, since he'll be officiating for us. 

As for the rest of my life, I've been unusually tired. I've been going to bed early and sleeping right through Rob coming home from work. Normally I wake up when I hear him come home if I'm not still awake, but the last week or so I've slept through it. I'm a really light sleeper. No idea what the deal is. Getting up to work out has been harder than usual too. 

Iron Girl registration in one week. Time to get my triathlon juices flowing. Mini Mussel registration is in three week. Going to tri my tail off this year with three races. Game face time.

220 days to go until wedding day. That's 7 months, 1 week and 1 day!

Picture Perfect Updates

Okay, wedding updates, go!

I bought 150 plum napkins and 150 eggplant chair sashes. I gave the two different color names because that's what they were listed as on the classified posts I purchased them from on The Knot. I know they'll be different shades of dark purple and I don't really care. The table runners I bought a few months ago are a slightly different shade of eggplant then a sashes which showed up over the weekend. So goes life. It'll be dim lighting in the reception, so people won't notice anyways. The napkins should be here any day. I need to do something about the wedding stuff. It no longer fits in the guest room closet. The door no longer closes, and with napkins still to come and two more orders of silk flowers to be placed, it's only going to get worse. 

I need to reschedule my makeup trial. I really need to make it for after the holidays when I can spring the extra money. That means I need to call soon since the trial is scheduled for next week. I also need to call about placing a deposit with our baker and set up a first floral appointment. I plan on sitting down and making all those calls in one swoop some time this week. 

I just sent Emily the tentative shower guest list. There's a few people I'll need to add at some point and a few addresses I need to round up. A few peoples addresses have changed since we originally got them all back in February, so hopefully people will be quick to get back to me. 

Scott took out engagement pictures on Saturday. We went out to camp and the weather was perfect, the sun was shining and the leaves looked pretty and colorful. We took most of the pictures on the challenge course, so they'll be very different and unique from the typical engagement pictures people take. Scott already finished up editing them and put them on a disc that he mailed today. They should be here tomorrow or the next day and I'm sooooo excited to see them. 

Rob and I started to finally actually plug some music into our DJ's online playlist builder. That's fun, but it's not broken down specifically enough so I'm keeping a very detailed running list in a word document as well to have when we meet with him once the date gets closer. 

I'm too tired and headache ridden to rack my brain for non wedding related updates. Work, working out, keeping the house in order, having some really good weekends with Rob and our friends lately. I have my National Credentialing CHES exam this Saturday, so fingers crossed for me.

Also, friends and family coming to the wedding, remember that room reservation are now available  After April 16th you will not be able to get a room and odds are you won't find one anywhere else in town. Geneva is a summer vacation town and is booked solid everywhere all summer. Please plan accordingly. 

As usual, 229 days left, or 7 months 2 weeks and 3 days!

Butter Cream Let Downs

I've been meaning to post for a while now. Oops.

I've been insanely busy at work. It's calming down now. Covering two counties has me running all over the place and consequently I've left a program I need for tomorrow in Yates County. But I have zero desire to go get it, so I'll plan something else instead and we'll do that program the following week. I've also started to let some of the Yates programming slip, since it's not going to be my county much longer and I'm losing my interest in the back and forth nonsense. My boss extended the formal job offer to a girl I graduated college with, but she has to relocate, so it may still be a few weeks or so before she starts. No rest for the weary I suppose. 

As for wedding stuff, it's been slow. There isn't much more to right now until after the holidays other than securing a baker and florist and taking our long over due engagement photos. We went to another cake tasting yesterday with my parents and we were all pretty disappointed. Her cakes tasted generic and out of a box, she didn't make any fillings for us to try even though she told us she made the peanut butter filling as I asked for. She also said she'd have three cakes with all the flavors I asked for and instead we go one cake, no fillings, only plain white and chocolate cake with plain buttercream on half and peanut butter buttercream on the other half. She kept pushing us for specific design details, which we don't have yet, and she can't do a "cake boss" style grooms cake. So, she's out. My parents told me to make another appointment at Bagels and Cakes, where we went last time and we'll go eat more cake there and put down our deposit with Lori. 

I told my mom I'd make a florist appointment for October sometime for her and I. I also ordered one of those cute custom hangers for my dress. It's made of cherry wood and will say "Mrs Fields", which is exciting. 

Our engagement photos are the next hurdle. We were supposed to do them like a month ago, but rescheduled for October 13th. We picked that date because the camp 5K is also then so we'll be in Syracuse anyways. But Annie made her birthday shindig for that afternoon now, so it might be hard for us to get Scott to get back out to camp after the race to take them. He's running it with us, but we'll want to go home and shower first then go back. So who knows. It's frustrating. 

Anyways, that's enough for now. 

250 days left until the wedding. That's 8 months, 1 week and 1 day. Woo!

Party Time!

Oh my, I've been meaning to write, but I've been busy! We have finally finished the deck. A few balusters left to stain and one more lattice sheet to go up underneath to keep butthead puppy from going under and digging, but it's done. We even bought fancy furniture to put on the deck. 

We put up cute color lights around the umbrella too. Looks like a stock photo out of a BB&B catalog. We're good like that.

Before and after of the back of the house. Yeah, that took two and half months, but it was worth it.

Also not wedding related, work has been busy! The Ontario county educator got a job offer elsewhere and money talks. And they needed her IMMEDIATELY. Like they called her and asked her to start the next day. She stuck out that week, but she was gone after Friday. So my boss has me covering Ontario and Yates county right now until we hire a new educator. And when we do, they'll take over Yates from me and I get to move into Ontario. No more commuting! My office is only a few blocks from our house and I get to work with people again! No more endless hours in an office all alone anymore. 

Wedding related, not much. We have a cake tasting scheduled for the 16th that I need to change. I forgot I have to be in Syracuse that day to watch Cloe while my parents are down in NYC for a Yankee game. Talked to our photographer a bit about an additional photo shoot. I reallllly, need to get a jump on finding a florist. OH, I also emailed our DJ and asked him to add doing the music for the ceremony to our contract. We originally only booked him for the cocktail hour and reception. But we need him for the whole day. Haven't heard back yet, but since he's the most highly sought after DJ in the region, I'm not taking it personally. I'll call him in a few weeks if it's still no return email. I know he's busy.

That's my news for now I guess. All our friends are coming this weekend for an early birthday bash for Rob. He turns a whooping 29 next week. What an old man he is =P

In my usual fashion, 270 days left. Or 8 months and 4 weeks. Sooo close. We were over 500 days away like yesterday, I swear. The time is getting away from us!

Free Cake!

So, we went to a cake tasting. We went to Bagels and Cakes because I've heard nothing but amazing things on The Knot local boards about the lady there. She was awesome and her prices were good. She can make us a really cool shaped grooms cake too. I was disappointed, however, that we only got to try two different kinds of cake. I plan on making us another appointment at another baker to taste more things before we settle on working with Lori. I have the "preferred" list from the Ramada, but only one of the four Geneva bakers besides Lori seems to still be in business and I left a message. Hopefully they'll get back to me promptly. 

Not much else on the wedding front. Still debating honeymoon ideas; where to go when, how to get there, the dog, etc. 

I should call a florist too I guess. Otherwise, I just made a google documents list of everything left to do. I'm sure I left a thousand things out. Like how I just remembered as I type this that I put nothing relating to our coordinator on the list. Ya know, like scheduling our rehearsal, detail appointments, menu tasting and selection, compiling and providing vendor lists, everything that has to with the venue essentially. Dur.

Not wedding related, the deck still isn't finished. The stair railings are proving to be a huge challenge. Since they had to be so high we had to plan and cut our own stringers and make the stairways from scratch completely. One starts from the box the other from the beams, so they aren't the same angle. It's making things difficult. But we do have like a third of the balusters in place, so that's great. 

Anyways, guess that's kind of it for now. Hopefully I'll have more concrete updates one of these days.

Count down... 285 days or 9 months, 1 week and 5 days. Getting there. 

298

First and foremost, let's start with wedding related things today. I finally bought a dress. I agonized over the same two dresses for like two more hours on Friday. Annie came in to be the voice of reason, as she sometimes is. Also, she hadn't seen either dress yet and was completely unbiased. I ended up settling on the second dress. As much as I'll have to push the images of ruffles out of my mind, I'm happy with my choice. I think what finally did it for me was when I put it on the last time, Better Together by Jack Johnson came on. Rob and I both love us some Jack and our first dance will be a Jack song. So as I was being laced up and listening to it, it made it feel right. Although, I did spend many a months envisioning the first dress, so here's to hoping I don't wake up in a cold sweat a few months from now questioning my decision. 

Other than that, nothing really wedding related is happening. Rob asked again about cake tastings, so I guess I'll call this weekend and set one up. Next month I plan on finding a florist. Then everything will be booked except a caterer for the rehearsal dinner. 

On a non wedding related note, I ran my triathlon on Sunday. I killed it! I finished in 2:14:45, way under my less than 3 hour goal. I averaged 16mph the whole bike ride, which is great! I'm hoping to run three next year. Scott was there taking photos for The Eagle and took a bunch of me and submitted them for the spread in the paper. It comes out tomorrow, so I'll have to look for it. 

Compliments of Scott Schild Photography

Also, a most happiest of birthdays to my beautiful mother!

Ok, enough bragging! As usual, there are 9 months, 3 weeks and 4 days until the wedding, or 298 days! Woo for being under 300!

Wedding Checks, Triathlons and Decks

So, it seems we finally have an officiant and two flower girls. That's exciting! Rob's cousin Daniel is ordained and is going to officiate for us. And two of Rob's cousin's little girls will be our flower girls. There's too many boys to make it fair to pick a ring bearer, so we may forego that. Though, Rob really wants Griswold to do it. I don't think he'll be well enough behaved and I'd be hesitant to ask someone to truck him back to our house after the ceremony. So we'll see. 


I still don't have a dress. My mom and I are going back to New York Bride after she gets out of work on Friday. Should I chose the dress that's been causing my agony though, we'll go buy the sample from Spybaby, since that one is my size. The sample at NYB is way too big for me. I've exhausted my salon options in Syracuse at this point, so I need to bite the bullet or be prepared to drive to Rochester in hopes they'll have other options out there, which I don't want to do. 


I have a makeup trial scheduled for late October. I may call and bump the time to an earlier slot in the day, take the day off of work and also go get my hair done that day too. Get the full effect.


I also ordered 18 eggplant purple table runners off the wedding classifieds board on The Knot for only $36 including the shipping. It's an awesome deal and they'll be here Friday. Our venue includes only white, ivory or black linens free of charge. Custom colors have to be ordered and paid for, so we're going to use the white and try to find out own colored linens. If I can find enough eggplant colored napkins we'll be all set. 


On a not wedding related note, Rob and I are still grueling away at the deck. It's finally starting to look mostly finished. We'll be finishing up laying decking this weekend, finishing the second stair case and hopefully starting to put up railings. He says this will go quick. I beg to differ. Nothing about this project has been quick and we're going to have to some major cutting for the railing posts. 


And speaking of the deck, I fell through it Sunday. Literally, through it. We had some four foot deck boards laid out and the ends were hanging over an opening between joists. I took a step backwards without looking where I stepped first. I stepped on the ends hanging over the nothingness and they popped up like a cartoon character stepping on the end of a rake and down I went. I caught myself on the joists, thankfully, considering the deck is well over five feet off the ground. I thought I broke my wrist at first, but everything wiggles and moves mostly pain free, so I opted out of going to the hospital. My triathlon is Sunday and I've been training since November. Last thing I need is to be told I can't race seven days before the event. 


I have tomorrow and Friday off from work. Tomorrow we'll do deck stuff in the morning then go to camp in the afternoon. Friday I just couldn't justify driving back to Geneva just to turn around and come back to Cuse on Saturday to rack my bike and pick up my race packet. Then Sunday is my big day, the Syracuse Irongirl! Wish me luck!


Today also marks ten months until the wedding. Only 304 days left!

Dress Dilemma

Oh gosh. I've been dress shopping and I think it's starting to eat away at my brain. We've been engaged almost eight months and I have yet to be stressed about anything up until this point.


I've been to five dress appointments at four different stores and have probably tried on like 60 or so dresses. I'm struggling to make a decision. My problem lies in the fact that I saw a dress I fell in love with back at a bridal expo in January. Knowing I wasn't going to go dress shopping until July, I didn't really look at dresses over those seven months. But in the back of my mind I always thought back to that one from the expo.


Now that I'm trying on dresses, I'm having a hard time seeing myself in anything else. The dress from the expo has completely clouded my vision. I've found other dresses that I love, but I keep going back to the first one. As I look at pictures of myself in the two dresses I'm currently fixated on, I wonder if maybe I should try on more..? I feel like I'm just confusing myself at this point. I'm also wondering if I have that expo dress on an imaginary pedestal by now. The first time I put it on though, I was ready to just walk right out of the store in it. However, it's also over budget. To get it vaguely in budget I'd have to buy the sample. But it'll need alterations and I just don't know.


I feel like I need time to think about it. However, as the days in between appointments drag on, I feel more confused and overwhelmed. Like the extra time to think about it is just making me dwell and question it more and more. I feel like I should try on more dresses but I also think I'll just confuse myself more. I just don't really know where to go from here and I'm so torn and confused about the whole situation. I need it to be Friday again so I can try both dresses on again and try to figure out a decision. I'm not usually this indecisive and it's really, really frustrating me. Blerg.

Playing Catch Up

Oh gosh, a lot has happened since my last post. I've been soooo busy lately with everything. Wedding planning, working full time, school, building an enormous freaking deck on our house. I'm so tired.


Wedding related things, go!


Trying to find someone to bring on site to do at least my make up for the day of. It's been difficult to say the least. The first girl I contacted I was totally set to book. She came highly recommended from the CNY board on The Knot and a bunch of girls there used her and raved about how awesome she was. She's out of Rochester which is fine by me. But her Saturday on site minimum was $500! Plus $1 per minute of travel (about $120) plus taxes and tips. It'd end up costing like $800. There was just no way I could ever spend that much for make up. So I booked a consultation with a girl in Canandaigua who is much cheaper. I can have her do come out and do my make up day of and everything will be about $100. She doesn't do airbrushing which is kind of disappointing, but for a $700 savings, I can live without it. Though I have to call and reschedule the consultation because I accidentally made it for my triathlon weekend.


Rob's mom and I talked with Dana, the owner over at DTO's and we're pretty sure we'll have her coming to cater our pre-wedding rehearsal picnic in the park. So that's exciting. We booked a pavilion big enough for our whole guest list and we're going to extend the invitations to include an rsvp to this to anyone who would like to join us.


I went wedding dress shopping. It was kind of disappointing. I had fun and there were so many pretty dresses, but I've been drooling over a specific dress since I saw it at a bridal expo in January. I tried it on and loved it and so did everyone who was with me. But it's over budget. The second dress I liked is much more budget friendly, but I'm really concerned about the cut height of the waist, mostly because I'm very insecure about being bottom heavy. My mom and I are going again on the 27th, so we'll see how that goes. I need to make a decision soon since I'm quickly approaching the ten month mark and dresses take on average six to eight months to come in plus a month or so time frame for alterations.


I also ordered bridesmaids gifts and ten bouquets silk flowers for bridesmaids bouquets and decorations. I felt like I was behind for a while there. We booked a lot of big vendors so early then didn't have much else to do for a while and then the year mark came and went and I realized we still had things to book. Now we just need to finalize that caterer for the RD, find a baker and a florist, and Rob needs to still formally ask his cousin to officiate. He needs to get on that. I'll pester him this weekend.


We are officially ten months and two weeks away, or 318 days. Whichever you prefer.

Plans in the Works

Well it's been a while. Sorry about that. Not much else has really happened concretely, but there's a lot in discussion right now.


We've been discussing the logistics of our road trip honeymoon and the dog. We want him to come with us, but it will severely limit a lot of things we want to do. Rob is talking about going for a shorter time, flying part of the way, renting a car and only touring like half the places we originally wanted so we aren't away from the dog for as long. I contest that this is probably our last chance to take a big trip like this and that we should take full advantage of our opportunity. His parents have offered to watch the dog, as have mine. So we'll see how that shakes out. 


We've also talked a fair bit about the rehearsal dinner. Obviously the rehearsal itself will be us, our parents and wedding party. But for the dinner we originally were going to host it at our house. But my mom and Rob's mom both voiced concerns about us feeling the stress of hosting a huge party the night before our wedding. Then we dabbled on the idea of the Belhurst and only inviting certain people. But with sooooo many people coming from out of state, most people will be in town with little to do Friday night and we really want to take advantage of our time with everyone. So the new plan is to rent the big party pavilion in the park, about a mile or so down from the Ramada, have backyard bbq catered and invite anyone who's in town by then to come down, eat and relax. I am all about this idea. Rob's mom and him devised it and since his mom and dad are technically hosting the rehearsal, I value their opinion on it. Rob was saying he'd go down and check out the pavilion one of these days. I'm thinking it'd be fun to walk down there with the dog and check it out together so we can make a final decision. 


I also started to consider flowers. We'll be using a fair amount of fake flowers to cut costs. I ordered a bunch of orange silk gerbera daisies online the other day and they should be here soon. Also, we've been talking about setting up cake tasting soon. Honestly, who doesn't want fee cake..?


My two dress appointments are only two and half weeks away at this point. I'm getting really excited to go shopping!


We officially have 340 days left to go. That's 11 months and 6 days! Getting closer everyday!

Less Then One Year To Go!

Well, we made it to the one year mark! Yesterday was the day, so now we're seriously counting down.


Not much new on the planning front. Rob and I are still having fun making music playlists for the reception. 


Annie, Emily and I went to a local boutique the other day and they tried on Bridesmaids dresses. The ones the girls tried on and liked last time were really nice, but they didn't fit my vision. I wasn't feeling the satin or the sheath fit. But we found fabulous chiffon a-line dresses that I'm super excited about. 


I also called and made two appointments to go dress shopping in July yesterday. I'm so excited for that! 


So, we have 364 days to go! Or 11 months, 4 weeks and 2 days, however you want to look at it. Woohoo!

Trivial Affirmation

Wow, it's been a while. Mostly because we don't have a lot to plan right now. All the big necessities are book, for the most part. The upcoming things are going to be picking out attire (us and the wedding party), cake, flowers, ordering wedding party gifts, and an officiant. But that's all stuff that can be done after the one year mark. 


We went to trivia on Tuesday, and we'll go again tonight. The DJ running trivia here in Geneva happens to be Ken Paradise, our wedding DJ. He is awesome! He was hilarious, made the game so fun, got right in with the groups, it was great. We want to go every week just to really build the report with him and get to know him really well prior to the wedding. 


We talked a lot this weekend about wedding music. Ken has a really cool online playlist builder for putting together our wedding/reception music and we'll hopefully start plugging some songs into that soon. Rob and I have agreed pretty much on all the kinds of music and songs we want for our reception. It was pretty easy to make a decision really. We're going to have small children at our wedding, so the music needs to be kept PG. And that's fine by us, as neither of us are big into rap/hip hop/r&b/etc. 


But really, going to trivia and having Ken Paradise running it and making it so fun completely reaffirmed our decision to pick him as our DJ. We could have gone with someone less expensive, but you get what you pay for, and we're excited to pay for a fun reception!


There are only 382 left until the wedding... that's 17 days away from the one year mark!

399

Haven't done anymore planning lately. That's ok by me. 


Went and saw the Five Year Engagement last night. Cute movie, more serious than I expected, but still funny.


I mostly just wanted to update to say...




Only 399 more days to go!! Wooooooo!!!!

Making it Meaningful

We changed our colors again. It was such a point of contention to pick colors we could both agree on. But right from the start there was a combination we both liked; orange and purple. We nixed it originally because that also happens to be Hobart College's colors and we didn't want everyone thinking we chose them because we had some emotional attachment to the college. 


I remember we went, with some of our friends, to Washington DC last spring break. I drove down with our friends and Rob drove up form his NIRSA conference in New Orleans. He stopped on his way up to visit his Space Camp friend Cici. He told her he was thinking of proposing. That was eight months before he actually did. One of the days in DC, we were walking from the metro station down to the National Mall and we walked past the World Health Organization building. Outside of it was a huge patch of orange and purple tulips. I remember seeing them and thinking about how beautiful the color combination was and that someday, if I got married, those would be my colors. And now they are.


We also came up with the most awesome idea for what we want "thrown" at us for our recessional after the ceremony. I figured we would just do something traditional/normal like bubbles or confetti, but we're going with something very personal to us. It will require some DIY work, but it's something we're both excited to sit down and make one day and I'm sure we can get a few of our friends to help us. I have no intentions of blowing our surprise on here though... everyone is going to have to wait until next year to find out. 


There's only 405 days left!

"Banded" Together

When Rob and I first got engaged, one thing he got really involved in looking at were wedding rings. We have the same outlook on the rings, which is that we both need to be happy with the ring we wear because we're the ones who have to wear it, look at it, like it, forever. 


Right after we were engaged, we looked around a lot for wedding rings. There was a jeweler going out of business here in Geneva (he was retiring and closing shop) and the prices were crazy good. We almost bought plain bands just because the prices were so low. But essentially we decided that rings were one area we planned to splurge on. Men's bands are much less exciting and have less variety, so it took Rob a while to find one he liked. I stumbled across a meteorite band on Pinterest and sent it to him and he's completely sold on that now... cool isn't it?

I on the other hand am completely in love with tension set bands. On top of that I want a two toned wedding band to match my two toned engagement ring. And, I want something kind of fancy and bold, since I won't be able to wear both rings on one finger. My engagement ring is just too big to put another ring next to (and that's a problem how, haha). So when I have just a wedding ring on my finger, I want it to take up some space on my finger! I found a jeweler I really like, who sells two toned tension set rings, with the diamonds included both in the setting and in the price. Typically the diamond has to be purchased separately, so I'm stoked to find some I like where it's included without jacking the price out of reach. Granted, the one I really want, if money was no object, is out of reach (so many diamonds!) I'm going to be a good, economical bride and settle on a single stone ring. I think I'm going to go with this one:

Isn't it pretty? I'm pretty excited about it. And I'm really happy that Rob and I both have the same philosophy about wedding rings being worth their money. I mean, you have to wear it EVERYDAY FOREVER and be happy about it FOREVER. 

On a different note, I'm excited to go bridesmaids dress shopping again soon. And then my mom and Sharron and I are going to look at flowers and start planning some floral arrangement ideas. So exciting!

Only 410 days left. 

Elements of Us

Slow, slow, slow. Our planning has slowed some, which is fine. We've booked all our time sensitive vendors, so now we can slow down. We still have a bit of time to kill anyways. 


We've done a bit of talking about elements of the wedding, such as flower girls. I think we've settled on a decision. We're going to ask to have Rob's little cousins Isabel and Kathryn. They'll be the right age to be young enough to be adorable, but not too young to get shy/cry/not make it down the aisle. And speaking of Rob's family, we still need to send Daniel his house warming card/save the date/please officiate our wedding card.


My mom and I have started talking flowers. I definitely want Gerbera Daisies as one of the flowers. I think I'm also going to do tulips, which are Rob's favorite flowers. My mom has a close friend who happens to be a florist. She's kind of far away to do fresh flowers for us, but she's offered to make us silk flower arrangements. At first I wasn't too sure about this, but the more I think about it the more I've realized, I only care about myself when it comes to flowers. As long as I have a fresh bouquet, The rest can be silk. I think I'd also get Rob's boutonniere fresh, for consistency.But the rest of the bridesmaids bouquets can be silk, the rest of the groomsmen can have silk boutonnieres, and all the arrangements around the wedding can be silk. It will save us money, still look beautiful and as long as i can have fresh, beautiful flowers, everything else will be fine. 


I'm getting together with my bridesmaids again next month to do another round of bridesmaids dress shopping. I did like the ones we kind of settled on last time. If we don't find anything better this second time around then that's what we'll go with. But those dresses don't necessarily fit the image I have for our wedding. I really want something more playful, flowier, and more laid back. The ones we had settled on were sheath style dresses, which just feel too formal. Our wedding is going to be mostly traditional, but we still want it to feel laid back and fun. And strapless, fitted sheath dresses just don't feel that way to me. So we're going to go to New York Bride on May 12th and hopefully find some more options. They carry so many designers for bridesmaids dresses, including the one we settled on last time. So we should have more to choose from. So far Emily is in and Annie is in, which is good since she didn't get to go last time. Crystal and Elaina are both in pending getting out of work. Lauren I haven't heard back from and will have to get ahold of. 


Rob and I got sucked into watching some wedding cake show for hours today. We're both excited to go to cake testings and eat lots of free cake. We talked some about what kinds of designs we might like, but didn't commit to anything, which is fine. I have a feeling no matter what we end up going with, it will be pretty whimsical. I like that though, it fits us as a couple. 


Our wedding is going to be traditional, fun, laid back, whimsical and eclectic. It's going to be the epitome of us and who we are. And I can't wait! Only one year, one month, two weeks and three days left! That's 412 days to go! 

Color!

Choosing colors for our wedding was such a point of contention between Rob and I. Every combination of colors I liked he said reminded him of some sports team or something else arbitrary. Yellow and purple looked like the Lakers jerseys, orange and yellow looked like the sun, yellow and pink looked like Animal from the Muppets... (can you tell I really wanted yellow). We finally settled on pink and blue. Fuschia/hot pink-ish and a bright cerulean-ish blue. Yes. 


The Ramada, where we're hosting the reception, charges extra for linens and chair sashes in your colors. I don't feel like the extra charge is worth it basically to make only me happy. No one else will notice or probably care. But I want to incorporate our colors somehow. 


For the table tops I'm thinking of using satin ribbon to tie around the napkins. Each table can have either pink or blue ribbon. We're also planing on buying votive candles and translucent marbles in our colors for the centerpieces. For the chairs, I'm thinking of buying tulle in our colors and making my own sashes. Or maybe I'll do it in some sort of satin fabric. We'll see how much money I feel like spending (blowing). This sounds great in theory, but I also don't know if I have it in me to make 120 chair sashes. Though if Emily and Elaina help me, it would go quick. They both love doing that kind of stuff and are better at it than I am, so it's possible. 


I think Rob is probably ok with my favor idea. He was a bit concerned about the cost, but they're only $2 each, which is actually pretty good and pretty typical. He didn't even have any idea about what people usually give as favors, so like I figured, he seemed somewhat indifferent with the exception of the cost. 


That's ok, we have time! 421 days to go!

Small-ish update

I'd like to go ahead and attribute my lack of updating to my lack of planning. Seeing as we've now book all of our time sensitive vendors (reception and ceremony, photographer, DJ), we're holding off on getting anymore contracts until it gets closer. We don't need a baker or a florist yet. They just need to come, drop off my stuff, and leave. They don't need to be booked for the whole day, so I'm in no rush. 


However, my next planning move is to find things for welcome bags for out of town guests. I also want to slowly start acquiring favors. I've pretty much settled on what I want to use, and I won't say on here just yet, since I have the link to this on our website and therefor visible to everyone invited. My plan is to go get a few more every time I get paid until I've bought enough. I plan on getting a few extras too. I'm going to guess they'll be popular, get swiped quick and that some people more take more than one. Hint, it is in fact, something that can be ingested. You'll find out at some point. 


I still need to run all this by Rob. I will probably tomorrow, since I just solidified it in my own brain today and he won't be home from work until late tonight. This is an area of planning I can see him being indifferent too, or not even knowing your supposed to do, so I'm guessing he'll be fine with my decision. 


And when I say run this idea by him I mean the favors. We've briefly talked about having welcome bags for everyone staying at the hotel, so I know he's on board with this. I went out and looked for things to make these bags out of today. I only managed to find four rolls of ribbon in the right shade of blue. They were sold of the right shade of pink, so I'll keep checking back and buy it when they have it again. I have no idea about the actual bag part. I think I might make them myself. They sell pre-cut pieces of fabric. I'm thinking of buying enough of those and making little drawstring bags. 


Anyways, that's really it. I wanted to make sure I posted something, but until we get within the one year mark, our planning is going to be slower than it was before. Posts will get more frequent and hopefully more exciting and planning filled as the date gets closer. But until then, I'll keep on top of it, I promise!


...and hey! Only 424 more days to go!

Another Deposit...

So we met with Ken Paradise from Paradise Entertainment yesterday morning. We have officially secured him for our wedding, so yay to getting first choice vendors!

We were supposed to meet with him a few months ago, but on the Saturday morning we were supposed to meet, the radio station we planned our meeting for was locked and no amount of knocking got anyone to let us in. So when we bumped into him at the Geneva Bridal Expo last month, we brought it up. He immediately apologized profusely and offered us a discount rate if we chose to use him.

We went with a package that's normally $750 for four hours of DJ service. He gave us five hours for $795 (instead of charging us the extra hour at the rate $125, which it normally costs), we also got 10 uplights for $199 (instead of $350) and he gave $150 off the overall price. So what should have been well over $1200 we got for a grand total of $845, and I am happy about it! He's the most sought after DJ in the Finger Lakes region and I really wanted to make sure we got him. And we did!

From here, things should calm down. I may even hit a lull in planning to some degree. The remaining vendors we need aren't the kind who need to be there for the whole event, such as a florist and a baker, so they can wait. My bank account would appreciate it I'm sure.

And, only 432 more days til we get hitched. The days are dwindling!

Entertainment

Oh, I'm terrible. It's been a few weeks.


I haven't done too much. I started a new job two weeks ago and have been busy. 


We finally settled on a photographer. I met up with Sonia from Sonia Maria Photography the other day, put down the deposit and signed the contract. So that's exciting.


I also sent Ken Paradise an email, but I sent it through his website and haven't heard back yet. I'll call him Monday. After standing us up a few months ago, he has graciously offered us $150 off a package or free uplighting (if I remember correctly. It was hard to hear him in the busy bridal expo show room). But I do want uplighting, and he's the best of the best in the Finger Lakes area, so I want to snatch him up. I've heard he books up quick. And a good DJ is something we're willing to pay for. 


Oh, and it's only 435 more days until our wedding!

Vendor Hunting

Even though our wedding is still 449 days away (but who's counting, right) I have every intention of locking down vendors as quickly as possible. I know I'm not the only 2013 bride sniffing out vendors already and I want to make sure we get who we want, at the price we want, for the date we're very much tied to now. 


Making a deposit on our venue was huge. With one deposit we secured a ceremony, cocktail hour and reception site, a caterer for food and drinks, tables, chair, linens and china/serve ware. That's a lot of coordinating we no longer have to deal with. That deposit also includes the cost of the venue wedding planner, so we also have her. Which means I don't have to do any set up, break down, constant vendor coordination contacting, etc. She handles everything. As we collect vendors, we just send her the names and numbers of them and she does the rest. I love it. 


I've also secured a hairdresser. But this wasn't really because I sought a local one out. Our family friend Tina is a licensed cosmetologist and has done my hair for every formal occasion I've gone to pretty much since we moved to New York. We're going to pay for her room at the hotel in return for her to do both my hair and the bridal party's hair for the wedding. 


I spoke with a photographer yesterday. This is something I'm quite adamant about settling on as soon as possible. I have every intention of paying under $1500 all said and done as far as photos go, preferably including albums. But I still intend to get a good, experienced photographer who takes photos we both like and someone we jive with. I spoke with Sonia from Sonia Maria Photography yesterday and she seems wonderful. She was very nice, easy to talk to, and very sweet. I like her work and her prices are very good. I'm having a hard time getting Rob to give me a straight answer about what he likes as far as the photographers we've been looking at. I'm sure my onslaught of persistence is mostly to blame. But I don't want us to over pay for someone who we got stuck with because we waited too long to make a decision, as opposed to someone we actually like and want to work with. I'm hoping to be able to make a deposit on a photographer within the next week or two, at the most. Then after that, it's DJ time.


We were supposed to meet with Ken Paradise a month or so ago. He's the best of the best in the Finger Lakes region and comes so incredibly highly acclaimed. We had made an appointment to meet him on a Saturday morning at the radio station he works at. But we got there and the place was locked and no one answered our knocking. So when we found him at the bridal expo in Geneva a few weeks ago, he apologized profusely for "blowing us off" and promptly offered us a $150 discount off any of his packages. Now I definitely hope to use him. Originally, we were just going to snag him to DJ, but with the discount I want to upgrade to the package that includes up-lighting. We're having our reception in a relatively generic hotel ballroom, so up-lighting would be a big help to make it feel nicer, more romantic, less generic, more fancy, whatever. 


We're going to Syracuse this weekend to watch the Big East Championship game with our friends then staying the night at my parents house. I'm sure they'll want to talk wedding, so hopefully that'll help us settle on a photographer. I really want Rob's honest input, I want us both to be happy with the choices we make for this. This is our wedding, not my wedding, and the last thing I want is to start a marriage following a wedding where we didn't compromise and one of us was unhappy with aspects of it because of that. I want us both to be happy. After all, we're getting married!

A wedding, a wedding

Oh my gosh, a wedding blog. Original, right, haha.


Anyways, Rob proposed to me back in December, the 17th to be exact. He was kind enough to not propose on Christmas. He also proposed to me at camp. It makes our entire relationship come full circle. He's so good.


Anyways, we settled for a long engagement. Our wedding date isn't until June 1, 2013. That gives us a year and half. But now it's three months in and the planning has begun. We've settled on colors (after much disagreeing, what a point of contention that was), a venue for everything (ceremony, reception, hotel block), caterer (in house through our venue) and other small details. Things like the possible cake topper we plan on ordering, possible wedding party gifts, the color of the bridesmaids dresses and suits/ties/shoes, etc.


We still have a lot to do, and as much as I just want to go crazy and do everything NOW, I'm not letting myself because I'm going to want to have things to do when the times gets closer. I mean, we're still about a year and three months out, so no need to go planning crazy just yet.


One thing we did jump on quickly was save the dates. Now, I like to occasionally chat on The Knot CNY board and on the "Wedding Wednesday" update a week or so ago, I mentioned I sent out my save the dates already. Someone curiously  asked me "why so soon?" To be honest, I've seen those list of "what you should do when" like how during the sixth month out from your wedding day is when you SHOULD send out save the dates. Honestly, I'm going to do things in any order I please. I understand some things are contingent on others, like I should buy a dress first before picking out jewelry and have a final guest count before deciding on how many centerpieces to make. But sending out save the dates this early was done out of courtesy for our families. I'd say about 98% of our family is from out of town, 95% from out of state with the potential of one from out of the country. Rob's family, the most of them anyway, will be coming from Chattanooga and Biloxi and bringing enough small children to man an army. And traveling with kids is never easy. It's just polite to give guests who need to make so many travel and vacation accommodations as much time to figure it out as possible. I've never understood why six months is "the time" to send out save the dates. I mean, wedding season is also prime vacation season, and if you want people to not go "oh, sorry we already have a vacation planned for that weekend", giving them a wide time frame is beneficial to you, the ones getting married. And because we sent them early, we did magnets to avoid having people toss them out or lose them between now and invitations in about a year, or whenever a billion bridal time lines tell me I'm supposed to send them. 


I'm currently on the hunt for a photographer. We were going to use Lauren Spinelli because she worked at camp with us for a few years and we were very comfortable with her. But now she's moving to Florida and we just can't afford those travel expenses. So photographer hunting is my main prerogative right now.


I did have a lot of fun going bridesmaids dress shopping with four of my  five ladies last weekend. Going into bridal boutiques and making decisions makes me feel like a bride. Being engaged was surreal at first, but now it feels like nothing's really changed. Rob and I still live together, as we have for a while now and our relationship hasn't really changed. We just have a lot of new things to talk about with all this planning.


I think I can manage to update this mostly regularly, more so as the day gets closer. I'm supposed to start a new job on Monday, but I have yet to go fill out the paperwork to make it official. I'm the first hired person to be subjected to their new background check policy and it's taking longer than anticipated. I also have grad school still. But I'm on par to get a 4.0 again this semester, so I'm not sweating that.