2009 Wrap-up

So here we are, at the end of possibly the most thrilling, exhausting, unexpectedly exciting year yet of our nearly 3-year relationship. One year ago we were not yet engaged (though Darryl had just picked-up the ring), we had just gotten Dewey but did not yet have Ginger, we lived ten minutes away from each other, Darryl had just finished his BA at Vanguard and had not yet been accepted to UCR, we had no idea we would be traveling to Chicago, or anywhere else for that matter, our flower girl had not yet been born, and Darryl's X-box was fresh out of the package having been shipped through UPS where he still worked hideous holiday hours. The list of significant events over the past year alone goes on and on, and it's truly hard to imagine what this upcoming year has to offer.

Two major events to catch-up on: Chicago and the dress...

We took our first vacation together to Chicago back in November! I had vacation time to use up, and Darryl had the week off of school for Thanksgiving, so we hopped on a plane and went to visit our fabulous hosts, Justin and Meesa. I was hesitant at first, since we are trying to save up for a wedding afterall, but we needed to get away and have a real adventure before the craziness of this upcoming year begins. Chicago totally lived-up to my high expectations, since I've never met anyone who has been there and hated it, and made us greatly miss good public transportation, chilly weather, old buildings, and the other perks of city life when we returned to the OC.

One of the most exciting things we did on our trip was visit the Macy's bridal salon, the biggest and oldest department store I think I have ever seen, and the only one that has a bridal department in the country.

I had mentioned to Meesa before we arrived that the Macy's in downtown Chicago had a bridal salon and that if we had time we might try to sneek in and try-on a dress or two for the fun of it. Meesa, being as wedding crazy as I am, squealed with glee via AIM and when we were wandering around town our second night there, we stopped by to see if they were open. As it turns out, Chicago has two Macy's and we were at the wrong one. So we traveled all the way to the correct location, the one by the Chicago Theater where we took our (awesome!) Chicago sign pictures, only to find that the bridal department was already closed for the day, but they had fliers out advertising their sample sale which started the following morning by appointment only. So the plan was then to return to the apartment and call them in the morning to see if there was some slim chance they actually had an appointment slot available the next afternoon. So as luck would have it, I called early the next morning and was actually able to get an official appointment for my very first dress shopping extravaganza in the one-and-only Macy's bridal salon! I honestly felt kind of guilty since I had no plans of actually buying a dress and knew I would probably just be wasting some poor consultant's time, and had... well, lied.. about my exact wedding date since I knew if I said "June, 2011" they would never take me seriously because only a crazy person would buy her dress over 18 months before her expected wedding date...right?

So, after touring the Shedd Aquarium and browsing downtown and Millenium Park once again, we (me, Meesa, and yes, Darryl) headed boldly in the direction of Macy's. We were about forty minutes early so while Darryl searched the 30-something floors for a restroom, Meesa and I took a look at the selection of bridesmaids dresses. They definitely left something to be desired... like taste, or style perhaps. This made me rather concerned about their possible selection of bridal gowns, but even if all I tried on that day were horrible dresses, we'd still have fun doing it. Then they told me I could start looking at the gowns on display for ideas and at the racks of sample gowns for sale, most of which were 50% off or more. Once again, I was a bit underwhelmed. The gowns on display were just not my style and were insanely overpriced, and most of the sample gowns were stained, damaged, or just laughably ugly. My consultant came out and asked if I had seen anything I'd like to try on, and on a whim I picked a lace dress off the rack because I liked the train, but didn't have high hopes for it. It was the very first dress I tried on...

And as cheesy as it sounds, I knew right when she zipped it up and I saw myself in the mirror that this was my dress. Of course I didn't say that right then; afterall, this was the only dress I had ever tried on, so how was I supposed to know it was the one? But out of all the dresses I had this one on the longest since the consultant was gathering other gowns for me to try, and so we had plenty of time to admire it and for more people to walk-by and gasp with approval (which I'll admit felt pretty darn good). But then it was time to move on to more dresses...

Dress #2 was a cinderella-like ball gown, which I don't have a picture of, but lets just say it brought out my inner-disney-princess-sparkle-cupcake.

Dress #3: This dress was actually what I kind of assumed I would like for a pretty long time - mermaid/trumpet sillhouette, straps, silk taffeta, and some beading but not all over the gown. As it turns out, I was wrong. While it did give me a version of my figure I did not know existed, I was ready to move-on and try on the next one.

Dress #4: Once again, this dress was something that could have been a possibility in my mind, and I was wrong. Very wrong. It basically replaced my chest with fabric petals.

Dress #5 (I think I messed-up the order, oops): This one was actually a close contender with the first dress. I liked the shape of it, and there was some but not a lot of beading, but it still just didn't quite seem me.

Dresses #6 & 7: The last two dresses were, well, not worth getting pictures of, except for maybe comic relief (and I think the consultant was starting to notice Meesa taking pictures with my iPhone behind her back, hehe). The were both polyester, both had a giant fake flower on the side, had clear plastic beading, and the last one was topped off with a black velvet sash at the waist. It's amazing what can still cost over a thousand dollars these days.

So then my hour was up and the consultant made no assumptions about me buying any of the gowns since I had mentioned that we were from California and were on vacation, but she was cool about it and just gave me the sku numbers for the two dresses that I liked so that I could try to find them online. I got back into my street clothes and stared at the first dress which was still on the rack in the dressing room. I really liked it. The more I thought about it, the more perfect it actually was, lack of beading and all. It had kind of a vintage feel, but without being old-fashioned, if that's possible. I walked back out to Darryl and Meesa, still mulling over the dress, and ended up going back in the room to take it back to the racks outside so we could look at it again. I agonized over it for a good 45 minutes or so, wondering if I should just take it, or deal with trying to find it somewhere back home, probably not at the sample sale 50% off price, or not finding it at all and trying to get a similar dress by another designer. By this time I'd attracted the attention of my consultant again, as well as her coworker, who stood back and analyzed my dilemma for themselves. There was no pressure from them, just my own paranoia about not being able to let this dress go. Even Darryl loved the dress, but it was up to me to make the final call. So then I said it: Alright, I'll take it, I'm saying yes to the dress! Everyone in the room cheered, I signed the paperwork, she swiped my credit card (afterwhich I had to call the customer service line in India to tell CapitalOne that I was, indeed, in Chicago making a major purchase, afterwhich the guy on the other end extended his congratulations), and then the dress was mine.

There was just one little issue: we were still in the middle of downtown Chicago and were not planning on heading back to the apartment right away since we were meeting Justin at a place to have Chicago-style hotdogs for dinner. So, Darryl carried my plastic-wrapped dress all over the city, on the subway and all, for the rest of the evening, until we returned and had to pack it with the rest of our luggage on the flight back home the next morning. The good news is that the dress survived, and although it still needs to be altered and cleaned, it's still my perfect dress and I have no regrets whatsoever.

I do, of course, realize that there are many people who wanted to be there when I bought my dress, but I promise that there will be an appropriate reveal after it's altered and the design is finalized. I also realize that I broke a pretty major tradition of not allowing the groom to see the bride in her gown before the wedding, but I was actually already considering that before I even booked the flights to Chicago. Darryl was watching Say Yes to the Dress with me one day, and he mentioned the possibility of shopping for my dress with me, and after I thought about it for awhile, it made perfect sense. Brides go bridal shopping with their best clothes shopping buddy, and for me that is Darryl, and it would have been an even harder decision without him there to say he loved it. I wouldn't trade the fun experience I had that day for anything.

Done with one year, and on to the next. This year will have much more in store for the wedding as we get closer and closer to the big day. Let's keep a tally of how many times I change my mind on color schemes, shall we... or maybe a drinking game would be more like it. Happy New Year and cheers to 2010!

Floralific

In an effort to be more like a real bridal blog, I decided to make an inspiration board of my favorite florals for the big day: pink peonies, billy buttons, and garden roses. Ta-da!

Something Old

As everyone knows by now, my grandfather passed away earlier this week. He was really the only grandparent I ever had since my grandma and the other older relatives passed-on before I was born; this will also be the first funeral I will attend for one of my own family members. Most of my memories of him are of the couple of years when he picked me up from school everyday. Every single day he pulled up to my elementary school with a double cheeseburger, fries, and a rootbeer or a shake from Carl's Jr. It's a mystery how I wasn't obese. Then we would drive to my brother's high school and talk about my day until my brother made his way out to the car. I also remember when he speant a very long time in Toys 'R Us trying to pick-out a Barbie wedding dress for my birthday present one year. So while I can't say we always had very much in common, I knew that he was always there for me no matter what, no questions asked.

To be completely honest, I was kind of surprised by how much his death has affected me since we had all been expecting it to happen for the past few months. After a lot of thinking and talking with Darryl, I think that it's because I now feel kind of disconnected from my past. While my family has always shared stories and old photographs of little bits of our family history, I don't think it ever mattered as much to me as it does now. It wasn't until now, in the midst of planning my wedding and beginning to form a new family with Darryl (and the cats), that I've become more curious about what happened way back when my grandparents, and great-grandparents, got married and made all kinds of decisions that sealed the fate of the family's future. All of the sudden it matters a lot more to me what happened to my grandmother's wedding dress and rings, or my great-grandmother's antique dishes. Sure, I have tons of stuff from my own mother, as well as little things from my childhood that I'm saving just in case we have a daughter someday, but it would be nice to find something from our earliest known history to feel a connection to.

So while I am going to try and hunt down some of those things, ultimately I can focus on the memories I alone have, and also on the fact that Darryl and I can create those kinds of heirlooms for our own kids and grandkids so that they can have "something old" for their wedding days.

Fall Update

I know, I know, it's been a very long time since my last blog. It's a good thing I don't have one of those bridal blogs with sponsors and such or else they would have all left by now. Honestly, I really have been busy. This is probably the hardest and most time consuming semester of my degree. After this quarter it should be smooth-sailing, so hopefully more blogs will follow.

Also, my whole office went to San Francisco for a weekend, which was a very nice break from the normal day-to-day, but proved to not tame my travel lust but to make it greater. So the good news is that Darryl and I will be taking our first real vacation together in November to Chicago to visit Justin and Meesa for three blisteringly cold days. I was hesitant to drop that much cash on plane tickets when we are supposed to be saving for our wedding (606 days from today), but truth be told, if all I do is focus on the wedding this early in the game, I will surely lose my mind. Thus, the trip is a much needed distraction, not to mention one of those rare opportunities to travel to a new place, and to buy cute outerwear.

Darryl's student teaching is well underway now. Despite the exhaustion of actually teaching classes all day in addition to still having night classes, he loves teaching and is very happy with his career move. We went to our very first high school dance (seriously, ever) last weekend as chaperones and discovered that we didn't miss much as teenagers. Maybe winter formal will be better. Homecoming consisted of sitting at a table with the other student teachers, watching a door which security opened up later anyway, for four hours. We learned two things: DJs are still using the same music that was popular when we were in high school, and teenagers dancing is like watching a big group of little animals in heat. I feel so old.

Personally, I've decided that if I can't handle teaching one day, I'll become a pastry chef. Some back-up plan, right? I've recently discovered that I'm actually pretty good at cake decorating, even the more complicated stuff. Making things pretty with icing is like a zen experience, as long as you don't get too stressed-out by it. Pastry school would be fun and exciting, but is very expensive. Maybe if we win the lottery or retire rich I could have my very own little cupcake and wedding patisserie. Rest assured, though, I'm not crazy enough to try and make my own wedding cake; we'll leave that to the professionals. In the mean time, you can all expect some very impressive birthday cakes in the future.

The Benedict Castle

Today Darryl and I took a tour of the place we were considering using as our ceremony venue: the Benedict Castle on the grounds of Teen Challenge in Riverside. We had seen a video about it online, and had heard from different sources that it was a really neat wedding location. I had also contacted the castle coordinator, Ardee, and received a bunch of info on it a few months ago. The whole two year thing still earned us a couple of confused remarks, but I figured it was never too early to get the venues straightened out since that pretty much determines everything else about the big day.

One thing that is important to remember about this location is that it is on the grounds of a drug rehabilitation center run by the Assemblies of God church, which is actually one of the best programs in the country. Apparently it's not where the people going through the first phase of rehab are, but the people in the second phase of recovery, meaning that they're off drugs and putting their lives back together. Part of that often involves working on the grounds of Teen Challenge, and I gathered that the two guys who let us in were in recovery judging by their overall demeanor, but they were very helpful and I've heard that the entire staff there is very accomodating and nice. One of them was starting to set up for a wedding that's taking place tomorrow and is the worship leader for their chapel services; he said he would be there the day of our wedding, assuming he's still there in two years, to set up all of the sound equipment and run it for us, which was nice to know. Another nice thing about this location, unlike the Mission Inn chapel next to our reception venue, is that we would have the whole day to set-up and decorate and it's uncommon for them to schedule more than one wedding in a day.

As soon as we walked into the building, we were in love with it. It was actually better than the pictures and video we had seen. For one thing, there is a lot of natural light that shines through these big windows on each side of the room; my pet peeve is nice buildings with crappy lighting. It has a lot of space on the stage for everyone to stand and to have our huppah. They have a piano off to one side for Stella to play, and also an area for our bestman, Johnny, to play a song during the ceremony on his guitar. As you go through the main entrance, there is a double-sided iron and marble staircase that leads to a balcony that looks out over the sanctuary. The castle was built in 1922 and still has a very vintage feel. We didn't get to see the rest of the castle, but it has two other towers and hidden rooms from when it was a house. The whole place just had a really good vibe, and I'm more excited now than ever to get married there.

A Very Long Engagement Goes Long Distance

Today marks week 2 of Darryl living back home in Riverside, almost an hour away from me in Tustin. It's been an interesting week including Darryl getting the chicken pox, my office having a swine flu scare, and me trying to determine how to best manage our new long distance lifestyle on the weekdays that I am away from my betrothed. So far the longest we have been apart since the move is three days, so the time aspect isn't that big of a deal as of now; it's more just the fact that he doesn't live ten minutes away anymore so I can't just come right over anymore, and I can no longer rely on Darryl to come to my rescue for such occurances as locking my keys in my car, fainting at school, killing scary insects, etc. It's still an odd feeling that when I get home from work, unless I'm going to class, I'm staying home and not going out with Darryl for dinner and Starbucks. What's harder to fathom is that this could be the way it is for almost the next two years.

In an attempt to make the best of our new weekday lifestyle, I have begun exploring my many interests, not including as much wedding stuff. Darryl and I joke that I'm working on my MRS. during this period of time, which includes all kinds of things as we think of them, but the one thing that I'm most interested in is cooking. I began pouring over cookbooks, culinary magazines and websites, and even got an app on my (new!) iPhone for Whole Foods recipies. I'm determined to cook as organically and healthily as possible since I don't see much point in cooking whole meals unless I know that what I'm making is better health-wise than getting take-out. So far I have gone grocery shopping once, which was a much more frustrating experience than I had anticipated due to a lack of planning on my part, and have made one meal completely from scratch: whole wheat couscous with tomato and red pepper sauce and tofu. Despite how bad it might sound, it was actually quite good. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'm planning on making ratatouille and eating the leftovers for the rest of the week. My visions of making a different meal every night don't seem very feasible right now, especially when cooking only for myself in a very tiny kitchen that is not entirely my own. When every recipe requires buying all new spices and other stuff most people might have already stocked-up on, and always somehow buying more produce than I can use before it goes bad, it also isn't very cost effective. Hopefully by the time Darryl and I are on our own in our own place I will have learned how to manage a weekly menu and food budget more efficiently. For the sake of the wedding budget I'll have to start improving on the budget part asap.

Now it's time for bed and in the morning it's my day off which means breakfast out with Darryl after he gets out of work! :)

Photography blogs

I have spent the past few hours of my Saturday in Riverside clicking through wedding websites, but especially wedding photographer blogs. I hadn't realized until recently that most up-and-coming wedding photographers all have similarly designed websites and accompanying blogs where they post their most recent work and comment on it. It makes me want to take all of the photo brochures I collected at the last Mission Inn expo and shove them down the garbage disposal. Not only do the weddings look awesomely vintage and diy style, but the pictures really are the best I've seen so far, especially for the price. I am also both appreciative and amused that many of them have the same "no beach photoshoots, please" policy for engagement pictures as I do. Instead they have them in more creative, secluded locations of all kinds.

Jagger Photography: http://www.jaggerphotographyblog.com/

Dana and Jeremy Photography: http://www.dana-and-jeremy.com/

Stephanie Williams Photography: http://stephaniewilliamsphotography.com/blog/about/

The Spanish Art Gallery

Over the past month or so, I've been contemplating some of the major specifics of the wedding. Granted, it is still nearly two years away, but some things are worth deciding on now. One of those things is the guest list. In an attempt to keep our budget managable, we've pretty much settled our guest list of about 100 people. We wish that we could invite more, but hopefully everyone will understand that it is only a result of our status as presently poor college students. The room that best accomodates that number of people for the reception at the Mission Inn is the Spanish Art Gallery. I fell in love with it the first time I walked in. It's a bit narrow, and hopefully the tables won't have to be too close together, but otherwise it's perfect. I can't wait until the next expo in August to check it out more seriously this time. Other decisions pertaining to the reception are still in process, including our choice of food, drinks, cake, etc. I think that with this one big decision made, everything else will start to fall into place.

We have also come up with a new idea for our honeymoon. At the time of the wedding, (God-willing) Darryl will be on his first summer break as a teacher, and he is definitely not planning on teaching summer school that year if possible. I have also begun researching the possibility of becoming a teacher, but since math is my all-time worst subject, and everything else either isn't hiring or is lame, I am considering special ed. My current job has exposed me to a lot of different mental/developmental issues in kids, and I think it's pretty interesting. So if I opt to do that, I will also have my summers free, which means that we can go pretty much anywhere we want for extended periods of time in the summer months. If the timing is right for everything, we would like to spend about a month going up the west coast, ending up in Seattle, WA where we could rent a vacation apartment for about the same cost as a normal month's rent here. The mere thought of it fills me with excitement to the point of giddiness. I have a deep desire to live someplace else, someplace different than here, and this way we could experience lots of different places, not just as a tourist in a hotel, but living as much like a local as possible. Again, a lot could happen between now and then, but right now this is what makes my insides flutter.

June 18th

If all goes as currently planned, two years from today Darryl and I will be married. It is our -2nd anniversary, or pre-anniversary. More importantly, after today the wedding will be slightly less than two years away, which counts for something in my mind. We celebrated by going to Wahoo's fish tacos and Barnes&Noble where I indulged in two hours of wedding magazine browsing (since the new summer issues were released this week) while Darryl increased his ice cream making knowledge with the official Ben & Jerry's guide to ice cream.

Regardless of what happens over the next 1.9ish years, I refuse the allow the engagement to go beyond that date; one way or another, we will be married by June 18th, 2011! *sigh* So close, yet so very far away. It's hard to believe that by this time next year I will have graduated college, Darryl will be looking (or hopefully will have found) a job in teaching, and we'll be making final decisions on not only the wedding plans, but where to live, handling student loans (eek!), etc. And even then, there will be another year to go before the wedding day! I'm positive that it will all be worth it in the end and that one way or another we will have an unforgettable wedding, but obviously the best things in life often require the most patience.

The party, graduations, etc.

I'll admit it, I haven't really felt like blogging in awhile, or have had the time, so I'm kind of playing catch-up...

First of all, the engagement party has come and gone. It was a lot of fun, and was at least pretty close to my original vision.

The thing that made me the most happy was that my parents and our friends got to meet some more of Darryl's family, and everyone seemed to get along well and minlge. Of course, Darryl's ice cream was the biggest culinary hit of the night, so he was rather pleased with himself, as was I. The signature drink, Randy's custom strawberry margaritas, set the tone for the night for sure (especially after we broke out the umbrellas). I couldn't believe how fast it went by, and that I didn't have party stuff to constantly think about. It was all worth it, though, since I think that it made our engagement more official to the family and bridal party members, and was just a good excuse to get together and have some crazy fun. I'm assuming everyone has seen all of the pics on facebook, so I'll just post this one which has consequentally become my desktop wallpaper :)

After the party was over, the main focus became Darryl's future in teaching. As his graduation from Vanguard grew near, he had decided to put all of his eggs in the UCR credentials program basket, since it was the fastest and cheapest program available. Afterall, he needs to secure his career asap so that we can not only afford the wedding of our dreams, but also to be able to live comfortably in our marital bliss. This all became increasingly and unexpectably complicated, however, as people in that school were a lot more disgruntled and less helpful than he expected, causing a lot of stress, frustration, and anxiety for us throughout the admissions process. But finally, after a second interview, writing tests, financial aid applications, and CSET tests, he's officially admitted! Unfortunately, he did not know until about a week ago that he needs to take summer classes, robbing him of the summer break he had been anticipating, but it does give him an excuse to move home and quit UPS a little sooner than he had planned. And oh, how he is looking forward to the day he leaves his five-year career with the Brown. Among other things, he'll be able to have a normal sleep pattern for the first time in years.

With all of the stress and tension building over the past few weeks, I decided that we needed a break from things, so on my day off last week I drove us down to Crystal Cove for a couple of hours in relaxing, beachy surroundings. It seemed to work, at least for that day, to get our minds off of things. Things are looking up now, but sometimes we need a moment to get away and remember that everything has always worked out before, and it's not going to stop now.

The rest of the week was almost completely consumed by graduations. First, there was Jason, the son of Darryl's landlady, who graduated from Crystal Cathedral high school. His graduating class was only 6 people, so that was by far the least painful ceremony I have attended so far. Next, there as Kasey's high school graduation. We couldn't go to the actual ceremony since I got out of work too late, but we stopped by for the after party. Finally, there was Justin's graduation from UCSB, which we were looking forward to for awhile since we've never been to Santa Barbara before, and it was another chance to get away. We had a lot of fun being with almost the entire family in a new place. I must say that Meesa's apartment is the cutest ever, and that plus the neighborhood of Goleta made us want to move more than we could bear. Unfortunately when I looked up the cost of living and job prospects, it doesn't look like a possibility any time soon, but I can dream can't I?! Honestly, anywhere but my present living situation would be nice. As much as I appreciate being able to grow up in a place like Orange County, there is a big part of me that wants to get the heck out of here and on to something different. There are still a lot of things keeping us here for now, though, so we'll see what happens. Maybe we'll just spend a lot of weekends away. Hopefully where we live won't matter as much as the fact that we'll finally be living together in our very own place with our own rules and way of life. Lately I've been looking forward to that even more than the wedding.

Hair

I'm having a bit of a dilemma. So far I am planning on growing out my hair for the wedding, just so I have more style options, but I can't decide if I want to start growing it now or cut it short a couple more times. I like my hair short, and so does Darryl, but I'm starting to miss having long hair. For one thing, I can simply pull it back in a pony tail at work instead of constantly dealing with bobby pins or clips to keep it in place. Also, certain outfits just look better with longer hair. However, certain other outfits look cute with short hair, and it's easier to style, besides at work. Or I could go even shorter than usual just for the heck of it before I grow it out.

I'm up for suggestions.

the office

I work as a back-office assistant (RDA) in a pediatric dental office, Irvine Kid's Dentist. My co-workers include Carmen (far left) who works at the front desk, Merissa (center) who is in the back with me, and Maria the office manager. We all started around the same time as interns and have speant around 40 hrs. a week together for over a year now. I'm very grateful to work with people who I not only get along with, but can honestly label as close friends. In this picture, taken about a week ago, we're out with the doctors celebrating Carmen and Merissa's 21st birthdays which were 4 days apart.

As you can see in the picture, all three of us got engaged within the past few months. Carmen was first, and had to endure the rest of us giving her a hard time about sneaking a peak at her ring before her fiance gave it to her. It was also around this time that Darryl slipped-up and confessed that he was planning on trying to get my ring and propose by my birthday, causing me to analyze every move he made and word he said for the next few months with the girls during our lunch hour. One of the doctors in our practice got married last fall, and once she realized that we were all on the brink of planning our own weddings, she fed the obsession with a big stack of her own wedding magazines. They have their own special shelf in our breakroom which we lovingly call "the wedding porn library." For weeks we poured over every one of them, pointing out to each other what we liked and disliked, fantasizing about our own big days.

I don't think anyone else (besides me) was more eager for Darryl and I to get engaged than these two. As much as the suspense was killing me, they also dealt with it everyday as we delved into the agony and ecstasy of wedding planning. The day that it finally happened, they were the first ones who got a text message of the announcement, and also the first to reply back their enthusiasm.

It was another two months before Merissa received her ring on her birthday in April. Needless to say, being the last to get it when you know it's coming soon isn't easy. Carmen and I were about ready to call her fiance, Brad, and demand to know what he was up to because it was killing all of us. But she finally got her wish, and she can finally pose with her (huge!) ring right with us.

Maria the office manager, on the other hand, is the perpetually single one, and gives us the hardest time out of anyone for getting married so young, or at all for that matter. So if anyone knows any tall, blonde, super hot guys who are looking for a date, let me know!

So congrats guys! Our waiting is finally over!

Darryl's Graduation

Congratulations, Darryl, on no longer being a nerd, but a college-educated nerd! I'm so proud of you!

Wedding website

Our wedding website is up! You can find it at...
http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/AdenaDavis&DarrylRoyster

Some of the information is not completely complete yet, but it's mostly done. Check back in a few months after I have more info.

If you're wondering why I'm writing this so late, it's because I have the day off of work tomorrow since my office has been rather slow lately due in part to the state of the economy, and also in part to state standardized testing this week. Hopefully they won't cut my hours much further so that I'll be able to afford this fairy tale wedding of our's. But I am going to make the most of my day off and get some things done for the party.

See you all at Darryl's graduation!

PaperSource

A moment ago I finally got around to assembling the invitations for our engagement party. I purchased the supplies at the finest stationery store South Coast Plaza has to offer: PaperSource. While most brides-to-be may settle for a mere notecard style package of fill-in invitations, this simply would not do. Similar to wedding invitations, but on a cheaper and more casual scale, making custom invitations from this brand involves the mixing and matching of notecards, envelopes, envelope liners, notecard shashes, seals, and possibly a flourish of some kind. The possibilities are endless! So needless to say, at the mere idea of throwing a party for ourselves I became quite excited to actually have an excuse to go to this Mecca of decorative papers and be able to design invitations of my very own; a kind of practice-run for our save-the-dates and wedding invites.

I only needed at most 10 invitations, so I figured that this should be a fairly cheap and easy endeavor. I had a free afternoon two weeks ago after church, which happens to be fairly close to South Coast, so I was eager to go and fulfill my creative destiny. I think I spent at least an hour walking around the store in circles, my mind spinning with possibility. It was actually more frustrating than I expected. Since I only needed a small number of invites, it seemed that buying a package of inkjet-compatible notecards would be best, and there was entire quarter of the store devoted to them, yet none of them seemed quite right. They all seemed either too girly, or not girly enough, too dark, or too plain. I was about ready to give-up and send out evites. And then...there they were. I had probably walked past the window display 5 or 6 times without noticing them. A perfectly coordinated kit of rather cute, blank invites with all of the components I was looking for in different color combos, at half the price of buying the individual papers. Success! I made my purchase, and now here they are, ready to be addressed and mailed-off to our guests. To the naked eye, they're nothing that special, but to me and other stationery freaks alike, they're perfect.

Engagement Party Update

I will be sending out (super cute) invitations soon, but for those of you who already know that you will be attending our engagement party, here's the latest info...

I have decided on having a taco party with various filling options, including taco beef, chicken, and (if i can figure out how to make it the right way) fish. It's still potluck style for the sides and drinks. I'm really looking forward to our signature drink of the evening: strawberry margaritas by the family bartender, Randy =P. I'm also planning on either getting a small cake or baking cupcakes.

We're keeping it pretty casual; just an excuse for everyone to get together and catch-up while celebrating this new phase in the lives of Darryl and I. As usual, the entertainment of the evening will most likely revolve around rockband or whatever else people want to pop in Darryl's xbox. Everyone will also have the chance to meet my parents and whichever members of our bridal party that can make it.

Hope to see you all May 30th around 5pm at Reesa's house!

The death of the old blog

Due to a series of bad google judgement calls, my old account was accidentally deleted. I'm really bummed about it. The first blog was started right after our engagement and would've followed our entire engagement process, but now it'll be a couple of months late. So on that note, I hope everyone will follow the same blog by a different address, containing the same level of wedding-obsessiveness as its previous self.