Boo!

We're headed up to Stillwater for the UT-OSU game tomorrow! This will be our third time to go to our rival game, and I'm felling pretty good that it will also be the third time Texas wins while we're there! It's turned into a mini tradition for us to go to the game each year, and it always seems to fall right around my birthday, which makes it extra-fun!


us at the game last year, in Austin

Mark's brother/Best Man is home for the week (all the way from China!!) to come to the game with us. So it's me and two Cowboys headed up to OSU. I think I may be cheering alone this year!

It Rained on My Parade

Well, ok. Not on my parade exactly, but on our engagement pic day? Yes, it rained. Hard. And it was freeeeezing. And windy. And if you know me at all, you know I hate the wind with a passion. Sigh. We have to reschedule. For November. Isn't it cold in November?

I was a grump all day yesterday. Mark and I both took the day off from work and spent the weekend up in Muenster, where we were going to take our pics. The weather was perfect Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then come Monday morning, the temperature drops twenty degrees, it rains off and on for the entire day, and the sun decides to skedaddle. Not exactly the weather we're looking for to create those oh-so-perfect shots. So I moped around all day and cursed the skies. At one point my mom said to me "well let's not let this ruin our day," to which I grumpily replied "it already has! my day is ruined! ruuuuu-iiiiiiinnnn-eddd." (yeah, drama much?). My mom's response? "Well fine, but don't ruin our days too!" Mark got a good laugh out of that one.

Humph.

But we did make the most of our day in Muenster. First, we finally sat down with our florists and talked about what we wanted. Colors, flowers, linens, candles, sticks, lanterns, wood, iron, crystals.. we pretty much want it all! They are going to put together three sample budgets/levels of decor that they can do, and then we'll pick and choose from there. I'm excited to go back and see what they put together for us!

After leaving the florist, we decided that since we didn't have to go home and get all done up for our e-pics, we would road trip it to Denison to check out A-1 Rentals. We wanted to look at linens and try to pick out some colors. It didn't take both my mom and me long to realize that we of course LOVE the super-expensive, $30 each linens. Go figure!

So the weekend wasn't a total bust, but I am still bummed with-a-capital-B that we didn't get to take our pictures. For now, it's still on the To Do list.. and I'm sure ready to start crossing things off!

Perfect Proposal, Part 2

When I last left off, Mark had asked me to dinner and told me to wear something nice. I convinced myself not to get my hopes up, and assumed he just wanted to go out to dinner somewhere nice, nothing more. That Friday at work, I wouldn't even let myself think about our plans, because I was always hyping our dates up and expecting anything and everything to be THE NIGHT when he proposed.

He told me to leave work right when I got off and go change, because he wanted to go eat dinner early (clue # 1 that this was something unusual!), so I raced out of the office at 4:00 on the dot. When I got up to my apartment and unlocked the door, I jumped because he was already in my living room, dressed nice and waiting (clue #2! Why did he leave work early?). At this point, I am still ignoring all the signs that something is up, and proceeding as if all of this is totally normal.

"Oh hi! You scared me. I didn't expcet you to be here already.. is that what you're wearing?"

Now to prove to myself that I wasn't expceting anything at all to happen, I hadn't even thought about what I was going to wear. When I saw Mark in his Sunday best (so out of character for him!) and could tell he was anxiously waiting to leave for dinner (Ummm why? It's only 4:15!), I scrambled into my closet and tried to quickly pick something out. I grabbed a dress that I had always liked and put on a pair of dressier than usual shoes. In my head I briefly thought "hmm is this the dress I am going to get engaged in!?", but then quickly pushed the thought out.

I barely had time to run a brush through my hair before we were out the door and on the road. I didn't ask any of the normal questions while we were driving ("So, where are we going to go eat?") and just pretended like this was all perfectly normal. Then there was clue #3. Mark's cell phone rings and I hear the following (one-sided) conversation:

Hello?.... Oh yeah, we're just on our way.... ok... ok... ok... ok... ok... ok.... Great, see you soon.. Bye.

He honestly must have said OK about 8 times! I turned and looked at him after he hung up and asked who had called. His response, "oh, just someone."

I didn't ask any further questions. Something was clearly up. At this point, I started to get freakishly nervous and my stomach started hurting. What this really IT?!!

My Best Girls

I like to think of myself as a somewhat professional bridesmaid.



No, I don’t have 27 dresses stashed away, but I’ve been in four weddings so far, will be in two more before my own, and I do have a dedicated corner in the back of my closet just for bridesmaid dresses. I know that being a bridesmaid can be tough work. Planning theme showers and bachelorette weekends within groups of other girls usually involves some drama. Attending numerous parties and purchasing the various wardrobes required for b-maids is often financially straining. Getting up-do’s, traveling out of town, paying for hotel rooms, purchasing silver shoes, gold shoes, brown shoes, white shoes, getting lingerie for the bride, pots and pans for the couple, a round of drinks at a party - weddings have pretty much been a line item in my personal budget for the past five years, long before I ever got engaged!

Bridesmaid Hall of Fame, Starring Yours Truly:




On the flip side, I know how fantastic it is to be so closely involved in the weddings of your closest friends and family members. It’s so exciting to shop for wedding dresses with your best friends. I love being included in every shower, party or event honoring the couple leading up to their marriage. Some of my best weekends ever were at my girlfriends’ bachelorette parties in New York City, Dallas, Vegas, Austin and holed up in a cozy lakehouse. And don’t even get me started on how much fun the rehearsal dinners are, with their Ode to Couple slideshows and hours of open mic time! Plus, no matter how costly the dresses, shoes and accessories add up to be, there’s nothing better than being with your BFF on the morning of her wedding, sipping champagne while everyone gets their hair and makeup done together, anxiously awaiting the time to put on the dresses and head to the church.

Ever since I started to know that Mark was The One, I’ve been mentally constructing my own wedding party list. There have been days in the past couple years where I pulled out the post-it notes at work and started listing out the names of all my best girls, trying to figure out who I would include. The problem? I have waaay too many friends. Best friends. LLYAS friends (that’s Love Ya Like A Sister, for all those who didn’t speak in AIM code all through high school). I usually just pushed the list back into my mind thinking “I’ll figure that out when the time comes.” Well, fast forward to May and the time was here.

My initial thought was to narrow it down to six ‘maids. That would include my two sisters, two friends from high school, and two girls from college. Seemed simple enough and certainly nice and fair, right? But it wasn’t. I don’t have two BEST friends from high school or college, I have tons. And how could I take my circle of BFF’s and cut out 3-4 of them, when we all love each other and share in our lives together equally? I agonized about this for the first several weeks of our engagement, truly not knowing that to do. I considered doing only high school friends or only college friends, but that would eliminate a big chunk of my very best friends, and I couldn’t imagine my wedding without them there by my side, as I had been for some many of their big days.

So I did the only thing that made sense. I included them all! All twelve of them. My two beautiful sisters, my five high school girls who have stuck by me for the past 12+ years (through countless loser boyfriends and bad hairdo’s), and my five college besties, who’ve been by my side through frat parties, football games and countless late night Taco C runs. Sure, I get some odd looks when people ask how many bridesmaids I’m having, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And really, is it ever a problem to have too many best friends?

e-pic Shopping

As you all know, I don't have much luck when it comes to finding a dress when I actually need one. So when Mark and I started planning our wardrobe for our engagement picture session this weekend, he let out a groan and said he wasn't going dress shopping with me this time. Ok. I'll admit it. I get a little particular when it comes to shopping for dresses for any occasion. What can I say? I know what I want and I won't stop until I find it (on sale, of course).

On Sunday, I called friend and Bridesmaid Stephanie to wish her a Happy Anniversary (she got married last October 18! Time flies!) and mentioned to her that we were taking e-pics at my parents' house this weekend and we had no idea what we were going to wear. We want a casual, country, we're-from-Texas feel to our pics, so we knew we were going to wear our cowboy boots, but not sure what to pair them with. Steph remembered a friend of hers who had great e-pics that fit our description and emailed them over to me.

Prepare to swoon.



How perfect is that? I pretty much want to recreate it to a T. Next up:



And now for the piece d'resistence. The most adorable Save the Date. Ever.



I simply had to do these poses with Mark and me, running through the fields of Muenster, chasing the cows in our boots with the sun gleaming down on us. So I set out for the mall this weekend, sans Mark, to find me a dress. Because surely I can find a white, summer, sundress in the middle of October, right?

Right! For once, the Shopping Gods shined down on me and there it was, sitting on the Clearance Rack at Macy's, in just my size. Marked down to $26.



I grabbed it and went straight to the register, where it rung up at $22. Score! It's not exactly like the dress in my e-pic inspiration, but I think the embroidery on the bottom and ruffle hem gives it the perfect country flair. Now all we need is a sunny day (And preferably a somewhat warm one. Come on Texas, I know you can do it, even at the end of October.)

Wedding Dress Shopping, 2.0

As I mentioned before, this dress shopping is proving to be tougher than I thought it would! After going to three different shops last week and really not finding anything that said to me I'M YOUR DRESS!, I felt discouraged and lost on where to go from there. So I did what any bride in this situation would do... I stalked anyone and everyone whose wedding photos I could find on Facebook. I like to see real brides wearing their dresses at their weddings more than just looking at the pictures of the models on the designers' websites, and what better place to find hundreds of wedding photos that the good ol' FB?!

I started looking through all the photos of my friends and if I saw one that looked like it was at a wedding, I stalked that person's photo album and found all sorts of lovely weddings, brides and dresses! I'm not going to lie, several of the photos in my Wedding Inspiration Folder on my computer (ok, they are actually all just saved to my desktop, taking over the screen, but whatev) are from random people's weddings that I don't know but found on Facebook!

I came across one of my Facebook friends whose profile picture was of her on her wedding day. She was wearing a gorgeous dress, with lace and detailing and a sweetheart neck and pretty much everything I was looking for. I am real life friends with this girl, sort of. We went to college together, she was a year or two younger than me, and I haven't talked to her in oh... five years. But I was feeling desperate and sent her a message asking who made her dress and where she got it. She wrote back right away and was super sweet (whew! I'm not a total Facebook stalker creeper!) and told me it was a Paloma Blanca and that she got it at Mockingbird Bridal in Dallas. Wha? I went there last week! But admitedly, we had just come from another store where I must have tried on 20 dresses and we barely had time to scarf down a quick lunch before our appointment at Mockingbird, so once we got there I was tired, hungry and slightly crabby. I breezed through the racks, grabbed five totally random dresses and tried them on, not liking any of them. I knew I didn't give Mockingbird a fair chance, so I called and made another appointment for Friday.

I did my research this time, scouring the Paloma Blanca site and picking out eight dresses that I wanted to try. I was off work Friday (Fair Day!), so I grabbed my BFF and Bridesmaid Virginia, and we showed up with a plan. We tried on four of the PB's I had on my list, as well as two others that I ended up snagging from the girl who was in the dressing room next to mine. She kept coming out in these gorgeous dresses that I'd be eyeing, and my sales associate was kind enough to get them for me to try as well.

I pretty much loved every one of the dresses I tried on. They were so fabulous. I have my Top Three, with a very good chance that one of them is The One! (!!!!)

I'm going to hold off posting the ones in the running, but since it's alway fun to look at dresses, here are more of the rejects! PS. These aren't the best photos because you aren't technically allowed to take pics at this shop. But BM V was totally awesome at sneaking them when we were in the fitting room!

The Perfect Proposal... Part 1

In college, my roommate and I used to spend a lot of time watching our favorite channel, TLC (hello, Trading Spaces was THE best show ever!). One of our favorite shows was Perfect Proposal - please tell me someone else out there used to watch this every afternoon? - where perky host Nikki Boyer would help scheme with guys who were wanting to propose to their girlfriends in a very extravagant way. They would plan out these whole plots where they would trick their girlfriends into thinking they had been selected to participate in a television show about something or other (because how else would they explain the camera crew following them around everywhere?) and would lead them along until bam! They dropped down on one knee, pulled out the ring box and asked the big question. The girl’s entire family was usually hiding behind some bushes, watching and waiting to celebrate with them afterwards.

Here's a clip for all those who didn't watch this show every day before lunch, like we did:



Roomie and I loved this show. At the time, she was hoping for a proposal from her then boyfriend so that she could have a candle lighting ceremony at our sorority meeting. We used to joke that Nikki Boyer was always just around the corner, disguised as a waitress at the restaurant or the sales clerk at the Gap, waiting to pull a fast one on her and start the grand proposal into motion. I remember thinking that I wanted to be surprised whenever my engagement came around (at the time, I didn’t even have a boyfriend), but wasn’t exactly keen on being on television for the big moment! (side note: my high school boyfriend asked me to prom on a Jumbotron at the Dallas Mavs game and I was slightly mortified. Public stunts? Not my cup of tea!)

Fast forward to last Spring, Mark and I have been happily dating for almost three years, I’ve started dropping the we-should-get-married hints for at least six months and I’m secretly hoping that every time he’s running late or claiming to be “busy” after work that he is actually plotting his grand proposal plot, with or without Nikki Boyer. Needless to say, my heart sinks after every dinner date, or trip to the mall, or evening at home on the couch when there isn’t a proposal and I continually tell myself to stop expecting it. I didn’t even know if he had bought the ring at this point, so I set myself up to wait it out for at least a few more months.

So when Mark called me one Thursday evening and asked if I wanted to go get dinner on Friday, my heart skipped a tiny beat before I mentally told myself, “No, this isn’t it. You and Mark get dinner all the time. This is nothing new.” And then when he told me to “wear something nice” my heart leaped again, a little bigger this time, but I still shoved any proposal thoughts into the back of my mind. I wasn’t going to get let down again! But just the play it safe, I didn’t ask any questions and just pretended like him planning a nice dinner for us that required any kind of dressing up for no reason whatsoever was totally normal (which, it was not!).

To be continued….

Looking for "the one"

What do you think would prove to be more difficult? Finding a fiance or finding a dress? Well let me tell you my friends, it might have taken me 23 years to find Mark, but it's going to take me at least as many dresses to find "the one."

Any girl who has known anyone who's gotten married has heard stories of dress shopping. Stories of friends who put on a dress in the store and suddenly angels started singing and trumpets started sounding because it was the one. They just knew. Their heart skipped a beat and the suddenly saw themselves walking down the aisle to their one and only wearing this most perfect dress.

I haven't found that yet. Haven't even come close, really. I've found plenty of could-be-the-one's, or good-enough-to-be-the-one's, but nothing that's making the world halt when I step out of the dressing room. After trying on at least thirty dresses and (are you surprised?) some tears of frustration, I leave you with.. the rejects.










My mom and my aunt came along on this round of hunting and we ended our day with some margaritas while I sulked about dresses and nothing being out there that I liked (that didn't cost three times what I can spend) and why oh why are weddings so expensive?? But a few days later, I'm ready to start again and have a new perspective on it all. I know my one is out there!

Wanted: Free Wi Fi

I have a confession to make. For the past nine months I have been "borrowing" other people's wireless internet. When I got my new laptop last year, it was immediately super stealth at detecting wireless connections from anywhere and everywhere. Like as soon as I took it out of the box and turned it on, it was all "hello, I've found you an internet connection!" So earlier this year when I made the switch over to the iPhone and I was going to be paying an extra $30 a month on the cell phone bill, I wanted to find a place to cut that expense out. My choices were to either quit the gym or drop my internet provider. Well this was back in the day when I was actually still working out and I wasn't even using my internet anymore, yet continued to pay it on "good faith" every month. So I officially quite Time Warner and have been living blissfully internet bill free ever since. I had three neighbors who didn't have passwords on their wireless access, so I jumped around from the three of them and was home free, quite literally. Today, only one of those open networks is still available and it's been pretty spotty here lately and this entire weekend its been zilch. No connection.

I have been oh so lonely.

So I packed up my computer and all its cords this morning and sought out some free Wi Fi. Library? Boring. Starbucks? I don't even like coffee! Corner Bakery? Bingo! I snagged a back corner booth, ordered an oatmeal cookie and have access to not only the free Wi Fi, but an endless supply of Diet Coke refills! I may never leave here. Well, at least not until my battery runs out because I can't seem to find an outlet anywhere around here. In the meantime, I'm (finally) downloading the iPhone update (picture text messages! about time!) and getting my fill of wedding blogs that I have been so deprived of all weekend. And looking hardcore at wedding dresses because we are going to look on Wednesday! Me = stoked.

October!

I LOVE October and have been anxiously awaiting it's arrival. As I was driving to work this morning it dawned on me that this would probably be my ideal month to get married in, except for the whole getting engaged in May and wanting more than a five month engagement.. well, and the whole college football rules our lives in the fall and between my Texas games, Mark's OSU games and my family's Tech games, we would never find a weekend that would make everyone happy! But I am excited to celebrate our future anniversary this month because it's finally really fall! (We celebrate the 10th of each month as our "future anniversary" because it's super fun and it makes the counting down to the wedding seem to go a little quicker, when every month there's a day to look forward to.) This month we'll be in Austin on the 10th for some UT football and a delayed engagement celebration with Miss Sadie Caplan.

October is also my official start of Operation Get My Bridal Booty Into Shape. My handy dandy wedding checklist recommends starting your workout regime eight months out, but since I am anticipating failing at this for awhile, I am going to go ahead and bump it back to nine months out. I certainly sent September out with a bang: we ate at Texas de Brazil on Tuesday and then had McDonalds TWICE for dinner last night. Seriously, we grabbed a burger around 7:00 and then hit it up again for a full blown meal a couple hours later. I checked the scale this morning and yeah.. it turns out its pretty easy to gain weight in a week. Let's see how tough losing it is!

To prove to you all that I am serious about this whole workout plan, I took the ultimate plunge and enrolled in a Boot Camp class that starts next month. It meets three times a week for six weeks and I am slightly terrified of it. I'm going to spend October getting ready for the pain that I know is coming (is it silly to work out in preparation for a work out?). It will end just in time for Christmas, where I'm sure I will promptly reverse all the good I did, but here's to hoping not!

October is also when wedding planning will finally really get kicked off! Yesterday Mark and I met up with the WP and her fave DJ. We went into it thinking we'd talk to the guy for 30 minutes, then maybe go check him out at a wedding later before deciding if we wanted to hire him. But, we ended up talking to him for an hour and a half and leaving with the feeling that he's our new BFF and asked him to go ahead and send over a contract because we were SOLD. He's just what we're looking for - not cheesy, totally normal, promising to build up the energy throughout the night and swearing he will not play Brick House or We are Family.

The WP gave us a fantastic calendar she made up for us mapping out what we need to be working on month by month. On the agenda for October (among some others): find a DJ (check!), look for a dress (more to come on that soon) and take our engagement pictures (so excited about this one!). Mark loved the calendar/To Do Lists (he loves a good list) and I was glad to call my mom with some specific tasks for us to start working on.

After our time with the DJ last night, we raced up to McKinney to meet with our sponsor couple from St. Gabriel's to start really discussing the results to our compatibility test. We covered the first four areas of the test and we actually scored a 100% on one of them: Friends and Interests. So Mark and I are pretty much in agreement that our friends all rock and we both feel totally good about each other's interests. It was really so interesting to look and see how our answers to certain questions differed and it really got us talking about some aspects of our relationship and communication styles that differ from each other. Nothing was a big surprise and the couple we are meeting with were really great about sharing their own experiences in their 20 year marriage and how they have learned to make their conflicting traits work well. I also had one of those "wow this is really happening" moments when they were reading a passage from the Bible about marriage and I started imagining being in the church on our wedding day, actually getting married.

We've got a lot coming up and I'm thrilled to get it all started!