Progress Update

FH is at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up in Seattle this weekend with about 10 of his closest friends having an amazing time so having the house to myself all weekend has given me a chance to catch up on some things.  I feel like we should have more done in the planning department but I guess we're not too far behind the "schedule" at a little over 7 months to go!

Things we've decided on:
Venue
Food (who doesn't love TACO's!)
Officiant
Bridesmaids/Groomsmen
Tuxes
Dessert Bar/Cake
Photographer (though we still need to book him officially)

Things to do:
Pick a dress
Make  bouquets/boutonniere
Figure out/purchase decorations
Decide on Ipod playlist or pick a DJ
Decide on hair & make up
Pick out bridesmaids dresses (this should hopefully be done next weekend!)
Book tent/chairs/table vendor
Figure out rehearsal schedule
Finalize invitations
Figure out DIY photobooth setup
Find shoes/accessories

I'm sure there's a million other things on the to do list but those are the ones on my mind at the moment. FH picked out my wedding band in May and we're still picking his out. My stepmom has been slaving over our invitation books (16 pages of handcrafted awesomeness revolved around love and our wedding theme) and I finally get to see them in person next weekend! Lots of exciting things going on.

I'm finally feeling excited about the wedding again. I was getting so frustrated early in the process because we had a million ideas but no official budget or plan of action. I took a few weeks off from wedding stuff and I think it helped a lot. Now that we're 7-ish months out I know its time to finalize the big things and we have a set budget to work from now. FH got a job after a year of not working so things are back on in full swing.

Next weekend I'm heading "home" for a weekend of wedding shenanigans with my lovely ladies. We're going dress shopping all together followed by drinks/dinner and bonding time. I'm so freaking excited I can't even explain. Planning our wedding living 500 miles from my closest friends is harder than I'd ever imagined! Hopefully a weekend with the girls will be enough to keep me going till I go home again over the holidays :)

Sorry for the hiatus...

Lots and lots has been going on this last month and I keep meaning to update my wonderful blog but every time I sat down in front of the computer I just got writers block. So alas this one may be a bit long but I'll try to keep it summarized.

Lets start with dresses. Oh dresses.. lots of dresses. Big poofy dresses, slinky satiny dresses, halter dresses, strapless dresses, boleros, veils, corsets, trains, colors.. good god there are so many options. Its been a bit overwhelming to say the very least. I think my biggest stress is that I really don't know what "look" I'm going for on my wedding day. I figured I'd try on a few dresses that caught my eye and one of them would stand out as "The One" but no such luck yet. I tried on a bunch at Davids Bridal and a few of them are still on the potential list but I definitely haven't made any decisions. I'm not sure that I'll have that a-ha! moment with a dress, I have a feeling its going to be a more gradual process for me. You know where you try it on and like it but try on some other dresses and end up comparing all of them to the first dress you tried on and that's how you figure out that its "The One". So I guess we'll see how that goes. I was excited that I got to show some of my favorites to my mom while she was up here visiting over Memorial Day weekend. It's funny to realize that her opinion really matters but she ended up picking out a dress I probably wouldn't have tried on otherwise and its now my top choice. I guess sometimes mothers do know best ;)

We've also made some definite progress on other aspects as well. My stepmom has gone all out on our invitations. She's putting together a mini-book of all sorts of cute/romantic/sappy sentiments around our theme that will be a keepsake that you can keep after the wedding. FH had a chance to go check out a few of her ideas while he was visiting his family and said they look good. I can't wait to see the finished product! She's amazing at all things craft related and she's doing all kinds of hand painting/overlays/interesting fonts etc so it should be beautiful. After she gets a full one done shes gonna have it reprinted and then fly up here for a long weekend so we can add the finishing touches on it together and send them out. Not only are they going to be one of a kind I'm excited for all the personal touches. :)

So on top of all of that progress we also have rings! While in So Cal visiting friends/family FH apparently picked out our rings and is having them made. This all came as news to me and I was a bit disappointed (ie had a total freakout when he called to tell me he ordered them) that we didn't get to pick them out together but now I'm kind of glad that its taken care of. I guess he had already picked out my wedding band because it goes with my engagement ring (not as a set but as in they sit next to each other without being bothersome) and while at the store he found a ring that he liked for himself so he ordered that too. Another thing to check off the list.. woot!

So I guess that's it for now. I'm dragging FH to try on tuxes tomorrow so will probably have an update on that soon. Good night all!

The Dreaded Guest List Decisions

Sooooo apparently FH and I know way too many people! We finally sat down last weekend and tried to hash out a preliminary guest list so we could get a round about number for logistics planning moving forward. In doing so we realized that our initial estimates were way undershot. Granted, I had a feeling this might happen. Both of us have large families that we see fairly regularly (holidays etc) and big groups of friends. I guess I just assumed the "narrowing down" process would be easier than it is. At this point we're still trying to decide if we're just gonna go for it and invite more then we planned or how to make more cuts. We're trying to avoid hurt feelings and at the same time not limiting ourselves to just family because our friends are a huge part of our lives too. I think most brides go through this process at some point, the narrowing down of the guest list and figuring out who you REALLY want there is a difficult one. We have this vision for our wedding of a giant party with all our friends and family having a good time and cutting some of those people out seems like a contradiction to our overall vibe. I've read lots of suggestions and posts about how to cut your guest list and "making the hard choices" but at this point I guess I'm just not ready to make those decisions. I'm sure we'll revisit the list again soon as it is a necessary part of the planning process but for now its on the shelf.

I have my first appointment to try on dresses next weekend so we'll see how that goes. Its a store in SF so I'm not sure if they'll even have dresses in my size to try on but I guess I'll find out next weekend. I know you're not supposed to go shopping by yourself but I don't have my close girlies up here and I don't wanna invite my coworkers (who have offered to go shopping with me) if the store isn't gonna have anything that fits anyway. I'm not planning on buying my dress yet but it would be nice to get an idea of what style I might look best in and all that jazz. Besides.. playing dress up is fun right!? haha

Well I'm off. I'll try to update again soon!

Lots of Updates!

This is going to be a LONG update so bear with me. FH (future husband) - I really can't bring myself to say fiance'- and I have been throwing a lot of ideas around for the last 6 weeks but we didn't have any actual concrete plans until last week. We flew back to our hometown(s) for a friends wedding and made a mini-vacation out of it.  It was crazy busy with back to back plans with multiple friends/family members but it was a great time. While we were home one of my bridesmaids threw us an engagement party (more on that later).  In the midst of all the fun we actually got some big wedding things accomplished.

Ironically, the original reason for the trip- our friends wedding- never ended up happening. We got all gussied up went to the venue only to find out the wedding had been canceled 3 weeks earlier.  The groom had apparently posted a status on facebook about it but never bothered to let us know (not that we're the most important guests but we were flying in just for the occasion).  And of course my FH never saw the update and we were all dressed up with nowhere to go.While we were driving away from the venue- speculating on what caused the canceled wedding- FH says "so you sure you wanna get married in April?!".  I, being in complete wedding planning mode, immediately reply with "if you're gonna bail the week before just let me know now so I can save myself the stress". He's cracking up uncontrolably at this point because he thinks it's hilarious. Now I can laugh about the joke but at the time.. sooooo not funny.

First- the venue. FH and I both knew from the beginning that we wanted to be able to choose our own caterer/vendors and do things our own way. As such that eliminated a fair amount of venue's since a lot of them have contracts with certain vendors for food/drinks/etc.  I made a joke about a year into our relationship that we should just get married in his uncle's backyard and well... that's where we're going to get married! His uncle has a beautiful big house with an amazing backyard with an in-ground pool/rock slide/small waterfall combo that will be a nice back drop for the ceremony. It's also HUGE and should be able to hold our fairly large guest list.  His aunt/uncle seemed excited about the wedding and had some very good insight into logistical issues that they've worked through before with other parties that we probably wouldn't have thought about but are now part of the budget/planning.

Second- the date! We knew approximately when we wanted to have the wedding but obviously we had to clear it with FH's aunt and uncle since we're having the wedding at their place. While we were home we made a point to go visit with them and get some wedding details hammered down. Pending any serious issues, we're officially getting married April 14, 2012! ZOMG it's really happening :)

Third- the wedding party! So I got a million crazy looks when everyone asked how big the wedding party is going to be but we're super excited to officially have all 14 members on board! I know 7 bridesmaids is A LOT but I think it's going to be fun :) It was even hard to narrow it down to 7 to be honest. FH and I both have big circles of friends and I've known all my bridesmaids for over 10 years so ya... I guess we had to cut it off somewhere. I love my friends and I'm suuuuper excited they all wanted to be a part of our special day. My sister is going to be the MOH and I can't wait!

Fourth- budget and schtuff. Less specifically but also equally important we now have a rough budget set and some plans to get things done. We're very lucky in the fact that we both have large friend circles and big families (he has a big family and I have 3 families so overall we've got a lot of people around us) that all have jumped in and offered to help us make our wedding day amazing. Both my parents offered financial help and our friends have offered everything from home-brew beer for the reception to flying up to help me with invitations.Squeeeeeeee!

I can't believe how much got accomplished is just 6 short days of running around so cal. From Long Beach, to Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Hesperia and Riverside there was never a dull moment but it was worth every minute. I can't believe how much love and support we've gotten from everyone about our wedding. I feel amazing and one of these days I'll actually get down to the nitty gritty details but for now I'm going to enjoy the progress we've made and catch up on some sleep!

Nostalgia and Motivation

Over the past few days I've been feeling extra nostalgic. I'm not sure what brought it on, perhaps the idea of starting the next phase of my life has made me reflect on the last one. My college days were full of some amazing times with amazing friends. I have very few regrets in my life and I love looking back at the thousands of pictures and laughing at all of the good times that were had. It amazes me how much life has changed since then. I never thought life would take me where I am now. I never thought I'd leave So Cal.. yet here I am living in the Bay Area doing a job I always said I didn't want to do. I guess life had other things in store for me than I could have ever expected. A good friend of mine told me that I've had to endure more than most people will go through in a lifetime and that life would make up for it with some amazing memories. So far so good on that promise.

In addition to reliving some of the amazing memories from the last 8 years (holy shit I feel old) since high school I can also see a progression of my size. Over the last few years I've taken very few pictures because I've been embarrassed about how much bigger I've gotten. Call it the "relationship" comfort weight and what have you but its definitely not something I'm happy with. Future Husband and I have had bouts of motivation where we get back to the gym and start eating healthier but inevitably it's been an ongoing struggle. Since we moved to the Bay and are living on a single income now we've finally got most of our bad eating habits in check. We eat at home almost all of the time, I take my lunch to work (well 90% of the time anyway) and we've started exercising again. I've been going to the gym here at our apartment complex pretty inconsistently over the last 8 months. Some months have been good.. 2 to 3 times a week... and some not so good. I've lost about 20 pounds since July which although a good start I could be doing much better. My goal over this next year as I prepare for this wedding is to be more consistent with my exercise. I know I need to be healthier and now I have more motivation than ever to get it done. My goal is not to just lose weight for the wedding  but for us to be healthier together. We both want kids someday and we want to be able to keep up with them! Feel free to harass/comment/message me and keep me in check. I'm sure there will be good weeks and bad but my ultimate goal is 75 pounds in a year. I know its a big one but anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty stubborn and I HATE losing so let the soreness begin!

Until next time...

Decisions decisions

The wedding discussions have begun! There is already so much running through my mind and we have barely started the planning process. I have to keep reminding myself that we have a whole year to figure it out and that staying relaxed is essential. Every girl is afraid she's going to end up being the bridezilla we see on the reality shows. It seems weddings bring out the best and worst in people. My favorite part of this first planning phase is all of the advice. The first thing you hear about when you tell people you're engaged is what they  loved and hated about their own wedding (or if not married what they loved/hated about a wedding they went to). The stories all have the same general outcome- don't fret the small stuff and don't go overboard on the planning. Even if I had $50k to throw the wedding "of my dreams" I don't really see myself ever dropping that much money on a single event. Having been a part of so many weddings already there are so many things I just don't care about. Centerpieces, napkins, tulle... all things I don't really care about. I want our wedding to be fun and interesting. I want people talking about how much fun it was, not how much they think we spent or how they would have done it differently.

The good news is, we've decided on colors! Assuming everything works out I think we're going to be going with purple and green.

Lets try this again shall we?

I've tried to start this blog on multiple occasions only to end up staring at a blank screen. It's hard to know what exactly I want this blog to be about and it seems every blog is about something. So given the new excitement in my life this blog is going to be about wedding planning and my life as I start this new phase. As anyone who's ever planned a wedding knows, there is tons of time/effort/patience that comes with planning your "big day" and I figured why not share it with people. Since I don't have a lot of friends close by I figured if anyone wants to know how things are going.. they can come here for the up-to-the-minute updates (which honestly will probably be weekly). In addition to the traditional wedding planning hoopla FH and I will be continuing to try to lose weight over this next year. Not only do we want to look hot on our wedding day, (because who doesn't right?!) but we both have definitely gotten a little - honestly more like a lot- comfortable over the last three years and we need to be healthier. So let the fun begin!

In keeping with this wedding theme I figured the first thing everyone wants to know is "How did he propose!?". So here's the story (from my perspective of course):

I came home last Friday from work expecting to spend the evening finishing up some chores and making dinner but found that Boyfriend had already cleaned the apartment. When I asked what he wanted for dinner he said "you should take me to sushi since I cleaned the whole apartment"... who was I to refuse? So we went to the sushi place we went to for our anniversary in January.

About half way through dinner Boyfriend got up from the table and got down on one knee and asked me to go to frozen yogurt with him.( No.. this was not a euphemism for something kinky... when we first started dating when we'd go out to restaurants and as we'd leave he would get down on one knee in front of everyone and ask me to go to frozen yogurt with him to embarrass me. He's very charming that way) Back to the story.. obviously I was a little in shock that he was fake proposing again so I called him a jerk. He laughed (still on one knee might I add) and pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. Obviously I said yes! <3

Until next time....

~Tina