Popping the Question

One of the first hard decisions earlier on was determining our wedding party.  Narrowing down potentials for the wedding party was an extremely difficult task.  At the same time, we were also looking for an intimate group of those who had the greatest impact throughout our relationship.  The ones we gushed to for hours about after an amazing day together, or we called in the middle of the night when we had our first fight.

Despite all of that, we've ended up with 14 attendants and 1 hairy dog. As my mom likes to constantly point out, we have a very large party. From my experience, it's a pretty standard size. But, we don't typically agree on most things. What do you think is the "right" size for a wedding party?

After narrowing down who we wanted, I sought out the help of my trusty adviser, Pinterest for ideas.  I knew I wanted to ask the bridesmaid in a unique way.  While pinning around one day, I found the perfect fit - handcrafted paperdoll cards.  I'm no paper-crafting expert, but these cards were easy enough and pretty low on necessary artistic skills needed to complete the task.  Total, it probably took me an entire Sunday afternoon just because I had to make five individually cut paperdolls with attached weaves.

I added some finishing touches, slapped together a little card with everyone's contact information, and added a black band with the potential BM's name and stuffed them into envelopes to present. It was so fun to be able to have something to give each girl!  The anticipation as they opened their envelope was unsurpassed. Luckily enough, everyone who I asked eagerly agreed!

Officially an Officiant

We found someone to marry us!  Now my mom can finally release the panic button that everything is going to come together up until the fiancé and I are all lined up in our wedding-best waiting to get married, but there will be no one standing in front of us to marry us!  And then the wedding will be ruined and it'll be such an embarrassing day.  A stain on both of our families. Forever.

Yet, really, how could we forget to book the officiant?  We didn't.  And, we wouldn't. Things take time and there's pleeenty of time to get to it all.  There's no need to panic quite yet.  Let's save all of that for at least the week before. One of my co-workers planned her entire wedding in 3 months. In less than 90 days, she planned a wedding, they successfully got married, and no one died.  If she can do it, I can do it in over 4 times the amount of days.  Challenge accepted.

I am so enthusiastic about the officiant we selected.  He married our friends Stephanie and Robby many moons ago and has been marrying happy couples for over 20 years. He's from Ireland and speaks like a native Irish.  He has many, many tales of the homeland.  We had a lengthy two hour meeting with him to discuss the entire ceremony, so the most important part of the wedding day (besides the getting ready and reception and after party parts) is planned out and ready to go. It should be pretty simple and painless for all the guests.  I do hope that each and every guest sheds at least one tear.  If they don't, then no cocktails for them.

Some scenes from Stephanie's wedding in 2010:

Dream, Dream, Dream

I heard that wedding planning slowly takes over your life so that is seems all you're doing is living and breathing wedding. Your friends grow bored with you quickly as your one-dimensional conversations are always about the upcoming wedding and just drag on and on.  The peak of this wedding overload is when it creeps into your sweet dreams and you suddenly wake up in cold sweats after a horrifying nightmare where all of your table linens are African Violet and not Raspberry like you had planned for months. What a disaster indeed.

While I haven't had any dreams like this, yet, I have had a few engagement related dreams.  I've always been a pretty active dreamer.  In fact, yesterday I was telling a friend that Josh and I were getting Korean BBQ for his birthday, which we did.  Later that night, in my dreams, we were enjoying Korean BBQ with those same friends and then decided to get Bubble Tea. After driving to the nearest Bubble Tea dispensary, I hopped out of the car to make my purchase and came back with two teas, one for Josh and one for me, completely forgetting our couple friends in the back seat!  The rest of the car ride home they could not stop saying how rude I was!  And then I woke up.  Well, not really, I woke up at a normal hour some hours later, I'm sure. 

The point is (yes, there is a point), my brain runs rampant while I slumber.  The first night of our engagement, I woke up several times in the night in a panic that I had lost my brand new ring, or that the diamond had fallen out, never to be found. Or, that I broke the diamond.  Is that even possible?  Dreams sure are silly sometimes.  As the wedding day gets closer, I can only anticipate what new and exciting dreams are to come!

Besides having a weird dream over the weekend, I also helped Josh celebrate another year of birth - Happy Birthday to my best friend, one who I can vent all my vents to, laugh nonstop, and truly is my one and only love! 

 Also, notice Winston stalking in the background.what.a.creep.