Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Hold for the holidays

So, I really stink at updating this blog. Maybe blogging is not my forte. Or maybe it's because wedding planning has been put on hold for the holidays. I'm going to go with the second one so that way I sound better. I'm so involved in Christmas that I can't plan my wedding... yes that's it. Or, my parents are so involved in Christmas that I can't talk to them about wedding planning. Eh, same difference.

I recently went with some friends from work to try on some wedding dresses. One of the other ladies recently got engaged and ended up buying her wedding dress. It is absolutely gorgeous and she is going to look stunning walking down that aisle next December. I honestly don't think she could have picked a better dress and I'm not saying that out of fear of her reading this. It was gorgeous! (Hi Jennifer!) My family wasn't there, so I knew going in there that I wasn't ready to buy a dress but more to find out what styles I liked. 

My entire life (well, ever since I walked down our living room hallway in my sisters communion dress to get married to my English Springer Spaniel, Mikey, who was wearing a black long sleeve shirt of my dads) I've pictured myself in the A-Line dress or a ball gown. I still like those styles but I want a wedding that will involve a lot of dancing. There's only so much space for that and I don't want my dress to be taking up most of it! Yes, these are the issues that I am dealing with at the moment. Preventatives of dancing. Dress, shoes, space, encouragement for guests to dance [alcohol] and choreographed routines. Okay, maybe not that last one.

But I digress, I tried on the A-Line gowns. They were okay. Nothing took my breath away. Tried on a mermaid style gown. Everyone else liked it... but I didn't. And that's what's most important, right? Plus, if I'm going to go as a princess, it sure as hell isn't going to be Ariel. I like my legs. I tried on the fit and flare and fell in love. I felt skinny and I felt like it was a ball gown. Best of both worlds! But despite the fact that they were having a 40% off sale, I knew I wasn't going to get it. I can't image not having my parents see me in the dress before I buy it. And that was only one place... it's me. I need to check out all my options before I commit. That's what I did with Marshall. ;) just kidding. 

So, along with the rest of the wedding planning, the dress shopping as been put on hold until the madre and the padre come to visit (late January, early February). 

The best and newest development? We found our photographer! Didn't take much looking considering it's our friend, Donna, from softball. We were really lucky to have met her and get such an amazing photographer for our wedding. We're just hoping she likes Tennessee!

By the way, the gray hairs are gone. Hooray for hair dye! Any bets on when the next one pops up? I'm thinking two weeks after the wedding planning goes back into full swing.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Going to the Chapel...

And we're gonna get married!

I've been engaged for almost three weeks now and the wedding planning has begun... sort of. Three weeks into it and I'm pretty sure I've already spotted two more gray hairs. Let's just add "getting hair dyed" to the list of things to do before the wedding. Thank goodness I have a year and a half until the wedding!

My fiance, Marshall, proposed to me on Thanksgiving. He works for the local newspaper as the ad director and got a full page ad of him standing with a sign asking "Will you marry me?" Behind him were pictures of the two of us from our two years together. I was a little shocked at 2 a.m. when I saw it (yes, that's two in the MORNING. Someone claimed to be a little too excited about Black Friday ads to sleep...) After asking if this was real and realizing I wasn't dreaming, I put the ring on and called my best friend. Cutest proposal ever? Yeah, I'd say so... in a totally not biased opinion of course!

After pulling my eyes away from my beautiful ring (this was not an easy task and took about two days) we began researching wedding venues. I'm from Virginia, currently live in Texas and am planning our wedding in Tennessee. Talk about a bit of a struggle. I called around to a few places that I thought looked nice just to get an idea of prices. I was greeted with happy voices eager to take my money saying numbers that either exceeded my budget completely, came pretty close or I couldn't even dream of ever having. "$15,000 for a venue? Hahaha really, what is it? Seriously? Does that include my dress, the bridesmaid dresses and all decorations? No? Oh. Okay. Thanks for crushing my dreams."

This is when the gray hairs began to grown. I'm pretty sure if I stood in front of the mirror after each phone call you'd see another one pop up like a weasel in the ground. BOOP!

So I decided to save my brown hair and do the next best thing -- put on some PJ's, grab a beer and start Pinteresting things to my wedding board! Speaking of which... I've got some pins to examine.

Until the next dilemma,

Shannon