Magician

I should be a magician because I have a pretty awesome disappearing act. Okay that joke was totally lame awesome! But seriously, it's been a while. Why, you ask? I'll tell you why. Because I didn't feel like blogging about my hair being pulled out and the tears coming down my face. Oh, and the yelling. Wedding planning is not a pretty sight. At least for this girl. We were thrown a wrench (luckily early in the planning) but it made us switch up everything.

Here's what went down:

June in a Tennessee valley = HOT. If it's going to be anything like this summer, the pictures wouldn't be pretty because we'd all be drenched in sweat. I'm pretty sure the guests wouldn't even want to move because they'd be cooking like eggs and bacon (ew, bacon.) We came to the conclusion that we needed to have an indoor/outdoor reception venue. 

Here's your challenge: Try and find a place with a big enough indoor facility to seat everyone in one room (~130 guests) but with enough mingling/dancing space outside, in the Sewanee community that fits our budget. GO.

Any luck? Yeah, me either.

We found lots of different options that at first look seemed perfect. Then it came to either price ($3,000 for a barn rental? Really? And all you're going to do is hose it down? AND I have to rent toilets? AND there's no AC in the barn? Yeah... uh no.)

So, finally we decided it was time to look outside of the Sewanee community and we found a place where my parents live AND we got a super amazing deal. Can't complain about that, right? Plus the Catholic church is within walking distance! I think we hit the jackpot here.

So now that I have less hair and rehydrated myself from all the water loss from crying, we can start back up with the planning.

The next step? CAKE tasting! My favorite! :)

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.)

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