Surprise!

You guys may want to sit down for this. I mean really, it's something that is going to be a bit shocking to you. Sitting? Ok great. (Although, if you are on the computer while standing up, you are strange. Just saying...)

I finally made the phone calls that I had intended to make right after my parents were here. Yes. My parents were here in February. It is now the end of April. Regardless of how long it took me to get it done, it still got done, right!? Yay me!

But seriously... WHY ARE WEDDINGS SO EXPENSIVE?! People are just monopolizing on other peoples' happiness and excitement. Rude. In the words of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, "I object!" [Yes I did just quote Legally Blonde and no you can not judge me because we all know you secretly love that movie as well. Just stop denying it.] The worst part is that since we are getting married in a small town, there aren't a lot of options for rentals. So unless I take some sheets out there like I was a kid making a fort, I'm going to have to pay the money. [The fort is looking more and more appealing.] Unless anyone wants to lend us one of these:

[from]

Or some of these:

[from]

Great, thanks :)

On a happier note, I received an e-mail saying that my dress has arrived! My friend Racheal and I are going to drive down to Houston on Sunday to go pick up my dress and veil. I am so excited to just put it on again! I ordered it a size larger than what I tried on at the store just in case of weight fluctuation [did I ever tell you I worry a lot?] You can always take something in but you can't take it out! The hardest part about it will be hiding it from Marshall. I have no doubt that Marshall will not peek but it's more me hiding it from him that will be the challenge.

Oh and by the way... 422 days until the wedding. Just in case you WEREN'T counting (I know, nonsense. Everyone is counting down the days.)

Field of Dreams

My mom is referring to our wedding as the "Field of Dreams." I have to say that I'm quite impressed with all of her creativity about this! With that being said, we have decided on the theme of our wedding. Drum roll please.... drrrrrrrrrrr (that's the keyboard drum roll sound in case you didn't know) Baseball! (Marshall love his Red Sox and our cat is even named after it.) Now, I'm not going to give anything away simply because you don't want everyone knowing exactly what's going on at the wedding before it happens! There's got to be some sort of surprise! But, after talking with my parents and Marshall last night, I couldn't sleep because I was so excited.

Fenway Park 

Fenway the cat.

I feel as if we got a lot accomplished this weekend while my parents and best friend (maid of honor) were here. Although nothing is set in stone, we have everything laid out so now it's not as much as a cluster as it was before. We now just need to go through and get all the details ironed out.

The best part of the weekend (apart from my best friend flying out to Texas from Oregon and my parents coming in)? We bought my wedding dress!!! Of course I'm not going to add pictures of the dress as I'm sure I have forbidden eyes as a reader of this blog. Therefore the only thing I can say is that it's beautiful and is definitely a "Shannon" dress... whatever that means. I hope you are picturing a dress with a high slit and a very busty top because that's definitely the dress!

Marshall and I have also decided on our invitations (well, the idea for the invitations) and have an idea for our save the dates. We will meet with our photographer next weekend and discuss what pictures we want and hopefully get that scheduled!

Unfortunately, without spilling all the beans, I feel like this is all I can share at the moment.  I've got to make a few phone calls in regards to pricing of certain things so I'm sure that's when the gray hairs will start poppin' up again. Yuck.

But we shouldn't worry about that. I'm just excited to have a grand slam of a wedding.

Yeah. I know you like that play on words.

No news is good news!

It's been a long time since I last posted. Partly because... I haven't done any wedding planning! Man, I'm a slacker. But I figured I'd fill you in on what's been going on in the life of the future Mrs. Stephens (Surprisingly, it's been quite adventurous).

As you all know (well that's pretty presumptuous but whatever,) Marshall and I moved to Nacogdoches, TX in June. We moved into this 900 sqft apartment that we had only seen online since it was kind of hard to make a trip to find an apartment. It wasn't bad but it definitely wasn't great. The layout made it feel small and cramped. The carpets were stained and gross. The walls were a dull gray color and the worst was that there was no good spot for the cat's litter box except the second bathroom which made it completely unusable and stunk up the house.

"Hello, welcome to our humble abode! Why yes, the air freshner that we use is cat shit! Isn't it lovely?"

Anyways, by the time January came around we were just fed up with it. We looked at the option of getting out of our lease (not an easy task considering there's no section for breaking the lease in our lease.) When I called, the manager was not so friendly. Those of you who know me know that I don't do well calling people to begin with but adding in a bitchy manager who doesn't want to accept the fact that I am not a college student but a working adult with a college degree did not do well with me. So, my knight in shining armour (or button up with a tie) went to the apartment office and worked his magic to get us off the lease. *My hero, he's just sooooo dreamy!*

So, the time came to start looking for a house to rent. The very first house we looked at was great. It was in a small, quiet neighborhood and it had somewhere around 1,500 sqft. It had lovely wood paneling on the walls (sarcasm, my friends) but other than that, it was great. Oh, except for the rent. $1,000/mo. Not really feasible here in Texas and trying to have a social life. So, we declined. The landlord then showed us a house in Garrison which is about 20 minutes outside of the city for $675/mo. We saw it and fell in love. We weighed the pros and cons (mostly being outside of the city) and decided to take it. Unfortunately (but fortunately) the landlord and his family ended up having to move into that house. They wanted to give their son the best education and attend the high school there and had to move into that house to prove residency. The landlord felt so bad that he gave us the first house (with the beautiful wood paneling) for the same price as the Garrison house.

[Look at that wood paneling. It's so purty! ;)]

So, in short, we have moved into a house inside city limits for the same price as a house outside city limits! We moved in last weekend and surprisingly enough, I don't mind the wood paneling! All the positives of the house definitely outweigh the wood paneling (and the fact that once there's furniture in the house it's not as bad!) The kitties LOVE being able to run and slide and we LOVE that the litter box is off to the side so our wonderful air freshner is only kept in a small area. We even have a large backyard with a patio. We immediately bought a grill. Because, I mean, that's obviously an important and valuable investment. I'll be sure to add more pictures of the new place when we get the whole house decorated!

Best investment yet!

On a completely irrevelvent note, I think I mentioned before that I was modeling in two Bridal Shows for a local dress shop. I had so much fun! It's always nice to put on a pretty dress (especially an expensive pretty dress!) Let me say that by no means am I a model, nor am I coordinated enough to not trip over my dress (fortunately, that did not happen but the train of one of the dresses did decide to wrap itself around me so in order to get out I had to take a giant step over... so graceful!) Regardless, I had a ton of fun and met some beautiful and sweet young women! The best perk is that I get 20% off my next purchase ("Shut up and buy it Daddy!")

One of the dresses I modeled. I use the word model very lightly.

My parents will be here in two weeks (along with my best friend who is flying out from Portland, Oregon EEEEE!) to go dress shopping. We are also meeting with our photographer where my dad will inevitably ask her how to cover up Cydnea's tattoos (or as he likes to say "how to FIX it!" Oh Daddy, you never cease to entertain...

Hopefully the next post will be a little more timely. But who knows... I don't own a watch.

Ew, that was a Daddy joke.

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!