From the desk of

Hello, first wedding present! This darling stationary is from sweet Stefanie. It’s deliciously bridal, it features my future name (which is kind of surreal, really, albeit in a delightful sort of way) and it came with gorgeous fuchsia envelopes! (Pro tip: Don’t ever buy fuchsia envelopes because once you do, you’ll want to wallpaper your life with them.)

I’ve been meaning to share them for weeks (and weeks and weeks and…you get the idea) because they are just so freaking adorable (actually, I believe my first word for them was “Eeeeee!”) but something called Spending an Inordinate Amount of Time at My Fiancé’s Scanner-less Apartment came up and spoiled those plans. (And hey, would you look at me already upholding that very important marital tenant, It’s Always the Husband’s Fault! I take my Mrs. job seriously!)

Anyway, the point is that I just love these little cards, and I’m so grateful to Mrs. Stefanie for getting them for me! And now every little note I write feels like it should be sent via snail mail so everyone else can enjoy them. It's a problem, y'all!

Something blue

Sean and I (and let’s not forget the all-important hands that hold the checkbook) have been shopping for wedding venues since the weekend after we got engaged. And it’s seemed like all the ones we visited have either been too ugly, too choppy, too expensive, or simply too “meh” for at least one person’s tastes.

The biggest problem was that Sean and I had very specific notions about what we wanted: a wide open room in a stand-alone building that would absolutely wow our guests as soon as they walked in. Unfortunately, fulfilling those specifications turned out to be much easier said than done. For one thing, what we wanted doesn’t really exist in DFW—pretty much all you can get in the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States is a hotel ballroom or a country club that seats twenty people per room. And the few places that did fit the bill wanted to A) dictate which caterer we used, B) force us to have our rehearsal during business hours on a Thursday, and C) charge us a $7,000 rental fee and $25 a head for house wine and Bud Light. And I’m sorry, but no one in my immediate wedding planning circle can fathom spending $14,000 just so that my four year old cousin can walk in the door and have a glass of Merlot.

Everyone says couples should book their venue at least a year in advance or risk hosting the blessed event in the backyard, so I was thrilled that Sean’s relatively early proposal gave me a good 15 months to plan. And then our venue search started holding up the whole show. Since we didn’t have a venue, we didn’t have a date, so we couldn’t book our vendors. (Not that we knew what kinds of vendors we’d need anyway, since so many venues come with laundry lists of preferences and regulations.) We were getting so close to the wire (our negative one-year anniversary is next week, after all) that I couldn’t think about my wedding without a roll of Tums, a handful of Zoloft, and a shaker of vodka.

On Saturday Sean and I visited the only remaining viable venue within a 50 mile radius of our residences. Sean thought it was the nicest venue we’d seen so far, I liked it well enough to sign on the dotted line and just be done with the whole ordeal, and my parents were prepared to pay the deposit. When I went to bed on Sunday night, I felt a mild sense of relief that I would no longer have to fret about location and a nagging sense of fear that my wedding was turning into this big, ugly monster that was stomping out of my control. And then on Monday morning, the festering boil on the butt of my matrimony finally burst—all over my place of business.

I was two minutes away from my office when I got word that the venue that I thought everyone had finally agreed on didn’t pass economic muster. And then I spent the first two hours of my workday completely despondent—I sent countless distraught emails and texts and prayed that my coworkers wouldn’t notice my watery eyes or my quivering bottom lip. By the end of the morning, I’d actually gotten the green light to book any venue I wanted, but the damage was already done. Worries about the venue had been polluting my wedding planning experience for so long that they had finally rendered me completely numb to the whole event. I just wanted to skip it. (I know I’m prone to histrionics, people, but believe me when I say that at 3:00 Monday afternoon, the only five words I could speak about my wedding were “I don’t give a shit.”)

When I finally got face-time with my fiancé after work, I practically begged him to pick the venue. After all, he’d been super involved since day one, so surely he could be trusted to propel us through all the mucky muck to the blessed end. But no. He was also so disgusted by the whole process that he refused to play along. Plus he was adamant that his bride-to-be be happy with her own wedding, so he wasn’t about to chose for me.

The conversation that followed would have made George Banks blush: Why couldn’t we find a venue that suited us? Why are weddings so offensively expensive? Why do venues try to control so much of the couple’s day? At one point we were talking very seriously about jumping on the next plane to New Orleans and swapping vows in the French Quarter. And that’s when Sean said it: “I’d rather just rent out a bar and have a big freakin’ party with all of our friends and forget all this wedding crap.” Cue the light bulb moment. Why in the world would we spend an arm and a leg on a venue if we were both at the point of not caring? Shouldn’t we just go with a less expensive place that we’d seen and get it over with? And if we were going to go with a less expensive place, wouldn’t we then have money in the budget to create the wedding that we wanted? And since the less expensive place couldn’t care less about who assembled my cheese platters, couldn’t we just throw a party that’s super fun and super us instead of an overblown reception? WELL OF COURSE WE CAN!

Yesterday morning I called my mom to inform her that Sean and I had finally settled on the venue of least resistance. By yesterday afternoon, my mom had confirmed that it was available. And as of 1:00PM today, I can finally tell you where the party at! And when—October 15, 2011! Save the motherlovin’ date, y’all, because it’s finally freakin’ official.

The venue we’ve booked is pretty enough to stand on its own, simple enough to support our personal touches, lax enough not to micromanage every aspect of our wedding (no list of permissible caterers, no prohibitive bar packages, no stupid premiums that would prevent us from having our wedding during the popular month that we wanted) and priced fairly enough that we might actually be able to serve food to more than half our guests (so, out-of-towners, you won’t have to stop at McDonalds after all!).

Since I now have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want (and money in the budget to fund it), I’ve decided to make the whole event all about us. I’m going to stop trying to make it the greatest wedding reception ever and start thinking of it as the biggest party Sean and I will ever throw. What kind of food would we serve, what kind of alcohol would we drink, what kind of music would we play, what kinds of treats would I bake if we were having twenty friends over to our apartment? Take that, multiply it by ten, move it to a neutral site, and bingo! Cake cutting fees and corking charges need not apply.

Who cares if the venue doesn’t have all the pomp and circumstance we thought we wanted? In the end, and with a little elbow grease, what our venue will have is the distinctive flavor of Sean and Sarah. And wouldn't you know it--I suddenly and profoundly give a shit about the wedding again!

Lady in white

About a month and a half ago, I set out on my first wedding dress expedition. You remember, don’t you? I was itching to see a bride in the mirror, but reluctant to take her home with me. Anywho, that shopping trip turned out to be just a tad more significant than I intended it to be. Because the second dress I tried on? Yeah, it was the winner.

Now, as everyone who keeps up with me on ye olde Book of Faces well knows, I didn’t buy The Dress the first time I tried it on. Oh no! Because there could potentially have been a million other dresses out there that would have thrilled me more than The Dress, and how would I ever have known if I didn’t try at least half of them on? So last weekend while Sean was inventorying, my mom and I ventured to a second shop where I spent at least two hours trying on dresses that all ended up not thrilling me as much as The Dress. And as soon as we pulled out of our parking space I suggested that we return to shop numero uno for a second go-round with The Dress.

As soon as I walked in, the sweet sales girl from my first visit met me with a friendly “Hi, Sarah! I’ve already pulled The Dress. Do you want to try on any others while you’re here?” Well of course! I’ve seen nowhere near a million yet, dear. So before giving The Dress another shot, I wiggled into three more that were similarly styled. And while one of those three (admittedly) was lovely, it just didn’t have the same impact as The Dress. (As it turns out, lovely isn’t quite my bridal style. Nope, next October Imma be freaking poopin’ majesty all over the place.)

Long story short—I didn’t have to try on a million dresses! I (technically) didn’t even have to try on five! I made my first big wedding decision without my typical put-it-off-until-the-very-last-minute-because-something better-might-come-along-next-July-YOU-NEVER-KNOW reticence! Now all I need is a venue and, you know, a date, and I’ll be good to go!

So, would you like to see what holding my breath, closing my eyes, and diving in hath yielded? Because I was allowed to take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Are you ready? Ok, here we go. Hold on to your hats—Sarah in her wedding dress:

For sanity's sake

In case you missed the themes of last week’s posts, here they are again in plain English: bored out of my mind, running on fumes, and desperate for some time away from my big girl job. As luck would have it, my vacation to the Texas Deutschland this past weekend was exactly what I needed—I ate (too much), I drank (wine varietals that I cannot pronounce), I shopped (for vintage treasures that I could not afford), and I relaxed (as much as one can when one’s fiancé is prone to waging tickle attacks). Inspired by my renewed joie de vivre, I’ve decided to tackle some new (and some not-so-new) challenges that’ll hopefully help keep my spirits aloft until my next day off:

Get reacquainted with ye olde wedmill. Ok, so we’ve only been unacquainted for, like, five days, but three of those days were coded in schnitzel, flourished with ice cream, and heavily punctuated with Orange Moscato and Viognier. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve already taken in more calories than I should have for the month of September, and I’ve only seen the wedmill twice so far.

Learn how to sew. I took Home Ec. in seventh grade, y’all, so technically I know how to sew—and I’ve got a pair of cow pajama pants and a lumpy accent pillow to prove it. Still, I’ve been experimenting with a few mini sewing projects lately (think five-minute fabric brooches) and now I’d love to try my hand at skirts and dresses (and maybe a jacket if I get cocky). And wouldn’t you know it—McCalls’ patterns are on sale today! Guess it’s time to break out the old Kenmore and the twenty pound box of thread and start a-stitchin’.

Get creative. Sewing’s one way to go, but what about writing? Cooking? Painting? Photography? Since I spend eight hours of every day staring blankly into a computer screen, I’m loath to fritter away my precious evenings doing more of the same. Working on creative projects is a great way to be productive on my own time without the unpleasant side effects (boredom, sense of obligation, gray hair) of being productive.

Put my bride hat back on. I typed up my wedding to-do list a couple of days ago and ho boy is it a doozy! Most of what needs to be done cannot be done until I’ve done booked the venue (read: set an official date), and the venue that I’m leaning toward cannot be booked more than a year in advance. But guess what—“a year in advance” is now only a month or so away (hooray!), and all of a sudden alarm bells are screaming “Finish the website!” “Pick out a dress!” “Update the registries!” “Take pictures!” and so on and so forth. Ok, ok, I’ll visit the venue tomorrow, go dress shopping next weekend, and take a few pictures at the end of the month. In other words: SNOOZE BUTTON! SNOOZE BUTTON! SNOOZE BUTTON!

Working for the weekend

Don’t you just love Thursday? It’s so close to the weekend that it tastes strongly of free time, but not quite close enough to reek of Monday morning (I’m looking—mostly sympathetically—at you, Sunday). This Thursday is a particularly welcome one, as it brings with it the promise of nuptial nirvana and plenty of quality mother/daughter time, as my dad and brother will be out of town, and my fiancé will be counting lug nuts, or whatever it is he does at Saturday inventories.

Tonight: I came home and embarked on my usual wedmill routine (See what I did there? “Wedmill” sounds so much more friendly and goal-oriented than the dreary “dreadmill.”) consisting of a 3.5-mile (or 400 calorie) run, The Next Food Network Star, and buckets of sweat. Afterward, I poured over an old issue of Brides in search of helpful articles and pretty dresses that I may have missed when I was still just a girlfriend, while riding a football-induced high. (Know what was better than the start of the preseason last weekend? Absolutely nothing.)

Friday: I’ll don my casual best and drift through the workday on fumes of motivation, long conversations with Florence, and the inevitable company-wide feeling of ecstasy that is always so prevalent at the end of each week. Then I’ll go home, hop on the wedmill, and spend the rest of the evening either A) mindlessly channel surfing with my mom, B) mindlessly web browsing, or C) finishing my mindless book. Whatever activity (or combination of activities) I choose, it will be (you guessed it) mindless.

Saturday: I’ll get out of bed early to hit the wedmill if I feel so inspired, or later if I hit the snooze button. Then I’ll curl my hair all nice and bridal, collect my momma and a couple of my lady friends, and have my first go at dress shopping!

Before I got engaged, dress shopping almost never crossed my mind. I knew what I liked and definitely what I didn’t, but the idea of standing on a pedestal in front of a mirror in a white (or, you know, ivory) dress, smiling and wiping away runny mascara was pretty foreign to me. Until Sean popped the question. Since then, I’ve been wondering how soon was too soon to hit up the bridal shops. Ultimately, I decided that now was as good a time as any to at least get an idea of what looks good on me.

After we’ve had our fill of satin and lace, the four of us’ll go out to lunch before we go our separate ways. After running some necessary errands (car wash, laundry, jeweler) mom and I will go to church and then return home for dinner and The Wedding Planner.  

Sunday: Never one to tire of weddings, I’ll pop out of bed and head to a bridal show with my mom, my partner in wedding planning crime (whose nuptials are but six months before mine), and her momma. Now, I’ve been to a bridal show once before, and by the end of it I was ready to punch every single vendor who tried to harangue me into “signing up to receive spam win $100 worth of free votive candles!” However, I also walked away with a boat load of brochures, a tummy full of cake and hors d’oeuvres, and a free t-shirt. This time, I’m hoping for more of that. And I’m going armed with a taser.

Finally, it’ll be off to spend the last few glorious hours of the weekend relaxing and watching Mad Men with my one and only.                  

How about you, blog faithful? Any big weekend plans?

Registruction

Sean and I have spent the last two weeks working on our wedding registries, and while some of the items we've selected are practical and necessary (coasters and pillows, anyone?) others are downright luxuries. Unfortunately, the three that I'm currently lusting after have the potential to do a lot of damage to my wardrobe, my waistline, and my well-being. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Heart Attack Collection:

Ice cream is my absolute favorite thing in the entire world. If I were sitting outside of an igloo wearing a bikini in the middle of January, I would still embrace a bowl of ice cream. Homemade ice cream is an extra special treat that I'm almost never able to enjoy because A) it's full of fat and B) my mom's great great great grandmother once cranked ice cream in our ice cream maker using milk from a German-speaking cow THAT SHE MILKED HERSELF! Suffice it to say, I've been looking forward to registering for a more modern maker pretty much since the day I met Sean. In fact, Sean probably could have gotten down on one knee and presented me with an ice cream maker instead of a ring and I would have been just as enthused.

This is the fiance's registry obsession. He's been talking about registering for a deep-fryer for a good, solid year, and I've been resisting almost as long. I just didn't think we had enough klass to request such a present. But after months of subliminal deep-fryer messaging (onion riiiiiings...donuuuuuuuts...sweet potato friiiiiiiies...), Billy Bob Sean finally wore me down, so on Saturday morning we kicked off our shoes, hopped on our four wheeler, and cruised over to Walmart to set up our registry. No, that's a lie. We actually registered for it at Target right after we picked out our crystal goblets and our $2,100 gravy boat. And I have to admit that I, too, am now dreaming about all the goodies we could throw in there: cookie dough? peanut butter sandwiches? ICE CREAM FROM MY ICE CREAM MAKER!? Whoa, hold on, I think a few of my teeth just fell out.

I enjoy waffles quite a lot, but I don't eat them very often anymore. Still, for the past few weeks I've had a recurring daydream about getting up late on a Saturday morning, flinging open the windows, and enjoying a batch of waffles covered in whipped cream and strawberries with my hubby while we channel surf through various college football games.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to run 13 miles before I go to bed.

I. Was. Run. Ning!

I know I’ve written about my distaste for running before, but I thought I’d mention it again to help you understand the gravity of the statement I’m about to make in the fifth paragraph. So here it is again, for those of you who’ve forgotten: I am not a runner. No wait, that’s wrong. What I am is the antithesis of a runner: I am a sit-on-the-couch-and-eat-cake-balls-er. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not a big fan of aerobic activity in general, and since I consider running to be the mother of all aerobic activity, I also consider it to be absolutely not my thing. I’m winded and writhing in pain on the floor just from writing about running. Would you be so kind as to hold on while I recover? I’ll be back to finish this story next week.

Except not! Ever since I had The Surgery, I’ve been pretty inconsistent with my diet and exercise regimen. It was sort of like “here are your boobs and your discharge papers; don’t let the wagon hit you on the way out.” For a while I sort of relished the opportunity to be bad—Want to go for a walk? Can’t, I’m post-op. Should we go get ice cream? Well…it might make the scars less noticeable…—and I wasn’t exactly inspired to hit the salad bar while I was in NYC, or during those weeks that I was learning how to be a commuter. But as soon as Sean proposed, visions of engagement photos and bridal showers started dancing in my head, and I suddenly found myself wracked with fear about muffin topping all over sample size wedding dresses. (I even had a dream about it! Oh yes! Wherein none of the standard sizes would zip. Who zips a wedding dress, by the way?)

Ever since July 3 (well, let’s be realistic—July 5—I drank too much champagne and Messina Hof wine to claim my engagement day as the starting point) I’ve been acutely aware of every bite and step I take. Still, I’ve had trouble latching on to an exercise routine that I’m willing to commit to. I tried to get back into Power 90 because I know it’s effective and not terribly time-consuming, but it’s just so darned repetitive (cardio, weights, repeat) that doing it felt like a chore. Plus, it’s tough to be consistent because I’m back and forth between my parents’ house and my fiancé’s apartment so much, and I can’t take the DVD with me because my mom uses it too.

My new friend at work (I should really give her a pseudonym, huh? Like “Florence?”) My new friend Florence is a runner, and an avid one at that. She quite frequently regales me with stories about half-marathons, 8-minute miles, and being able to eat 3,000 calories per day at the height her training (I know, right!?). Yesterday, after Florence and I had each enjoyed a cake ball (my first and second-to-last of the week, thanks—the rest of the office has been gobbling them up since Monday) and after I’d read on my company’s wellness webpage that running is the most effective calorie burner around, I realized that 30 minutes of weight training with Tony Horton wasn’t going to cut it. So I made a radical decision—rather than go home and slog through P90, I would go home and run!

I’ve made decisions like this before, but I’m always quick to change my mind when I’m three minutes in and death is imminent. Still, what kind of bride would I be if I didn’t at least try? So when I got home, I put on my workout gear, turned on the most recent episode of The Next Food Network Star, hopped on the dreadmill, and I ran. And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. In fact, I ran for a whole 23.5 minutes and 2 miles and never once stopped! (Although the thought did cross my mind a couple of times. But all I had to do was look at my ring and poof! It was gone.) In fact, so tolerable was this run that I did it again today even though my legs were sore and I could have talked myself out of it if I’d really wanted to.

I was so surprised by my success that I told Florence all about it as soon as I got to work this morning. “But,” I said, “I think the reason I was able to do it is that I was distracted. When I run outside, all I can think about is how hard it is to breathe, how much my knees hurt, how tense my shoulders are, how hot it is, how much I’m sweating, how eager I am to quit, etc, etc. But when I run on the dreadmill, I can focus on the fate of the characters on my show instead of my own.” And then Florence, who was understandably excited by my change of heart, took things just a wee bit too far: “Awesome! Now we can run 5Ks together!” No, Florence, no we cannot. Not unless I can hook a TV to my shoulders and charge through episodes of Mad Men.

Weddy or Knot!

[Oh yes, he went to David Gardner's!]

In the coming weeks and months you can expect that...

1) I will post a real, honest-to-God picture of my beautiful ring that I cannot stop staring at (no, not even to do my job or drive my car IN TRAFFIC). I'd just like to show it off live and in person to my nearest and dearest first.

2) I will share the proposal story in its entirety, but not until A) I've had a chance to spread it around in real life first (three or four times, as I am wont to do), and B) I have a wedding website.

3) I will have a wedding website as soon as my fiance and I have come up with a clever domain name.

4) I will use the language of an engaged lady ad nauseam and in earnest, which means regularly referring to the proposal, to myself as engaged/bride/bridezilla, and to That Guy Who Just Proposed (see what I did there?) as fiance/groom/husband-to-be.

5) The wedding-related posts on this blog will increase 10-fold, but will not reveal any juicy wedding secrets, of which, as you might expect, there are already plenty.

It's only been eighty six hours, but I'm pretty sure engagement and I are going to go together like champagne and strawberries. 

One week.

- Sarah, Sarah, what a boob you are! I spent all of Tuesday thinking it was Wednesday and all of Wednesday thinking it was Thursday (even though I reminded myself of the actual day just before bed on Tuesday night). Not only has my confusion made my week seem longer, but it has also interfered with the timing of this post. Worry not, though, the title is correct.

- Until very recently, I'd been stuck in a breakfast rut--nothing passed over my lips but yogurt before 11:00AM. I liked yogurt because not only was it tasty and varied, but it was also full of satiating protein and low in calories. Eventually, though, it became a bit monotonous. It got so bad, in fact, that I finally started skipping breakfast all together, and any nutritionist'll tell you that this is not a habit to get into--not only do you not jump-start your metabolism in the AM, but you also set yourself up for a binge in the evening. If I wanted to keep my diet on track, I had to nip that practice in the bud. Enter apples and peanut butter: it's high in deliciosity and hunger-busting fat and protein and still low enough in calories that I don't feel guilty om noming it every single morning.

- Right around the time I graduated, I thought that self-employment would be a hoot! After all, I could make my own hours, work when I needed to, and generally lead a pretty relaxed life. WRONG! I'm currently juggling 2.75 jobs to ensure that I rack up enough hours to pay the bills (and buy pretty clothes and entertain myself). Whatever could that mean? Well, I still have my web job (that's one), I was recently hired for a new writing job (that's as much as I'm allowed to reveal about job two), I still drive my sweet freshman home from school every day (that's job .5--not hard or particularly time-consuming, but a daily task none the less), and I'm an occasional Spanish tutor for some kiddies in the area (that's job .25; I said "occasional"). I get up early and work super late just to keep up, which means...

- Good golly I'm tired! All of the responsibilities and late-nighters make me feel like I'm in college again, and not necessarily in a good way (there's no summer break or bar in sight!). I'm cleaving to the idea that I can sleep when I'm dead. Or maybe on my vacation next month!

- Egads, Mad Men is a good show! It's nostalgic, artful, and absolutely titillating! (Not to mention subtly offensive and enjoyably enraging.) Sean and I started Netflixing it a couple months ago and just received our last DVD in the mail yesterday. I'm down right depressed that I'm going to have to wait until the new season begins to find out what happens to the marginalized girls and macho boys at Sterling Cooper. Who thought it would be a good idea to make the seasons of such a well-written and well-dressed show just 13 measly episodes long?

- Remember when I said I was going to try to figure out a way to push up the wedding date? Fuhgeddahboutit. With all the other things that are going on (including but not limited to the aforementioned 2.75 jobs), it seems impractical to throw wedding planning into the mix now as well. Besides, Sean and I are both gung-ho about having the exact wedding we want, and I'm afraid that if I tried to plan it in six months some of the details would be left out. My mom's friend wondered if Sean and I would be able to live separate lives for the next year and a half, to which my only response was a series of "I think I cans." In any case, I appreciate all of the so sweet comments a few of you ladies left on that post!

- Yesterday I had to exfoliate my knees. MY KNEES! Why? Because they looked and felt like neglected elbows. Why? Because I bust my butt doing a TON of girly push-ups every other day as part of the Power 90 regimen, and the carpet in my workout room is very rough indeed. However, while my knees may say "floozy!" my guns totally say "bang!"

No one's going to say "congratulations" when you get engaged

...They're going to say, "it's about time!" This is probably true--when you've chosen your wedding party, made a guest list, planned the seating arrangements, fallen in love with a gown designer, compiled a play list, and set a date, most people figure an engagement ring is just an after-thought.

But oh, that damned date! For the past year and a half people have been asking "Why October of 2011 and not October of 2010?" and today Sean and I finally came up with a good answer, which is this: Because we are complete idiots.

Sean and I had little use for the get-to-know-you stage of our relationship. We started dating at the end of January 2008, were using the the "L" word by the middle of May, and had picked a date for our wedding (albeit in a round-about sort of way) by the end of June. Let me say that again: Sean and I picked October 15, 2011 when I was planning on finishing grad school in May of 2011 and Sean had dreams of going to Washington and working for a senator AND WE NEVER CHANGED IT. Sean says it's like this--when you're in college, the words "three years" actually mean "six semesters," which is code for "a cake walk on vodka that mom and dad are buying," and when you look at it that way, the gap between graduation and wedding seems relatively small. But then you hit the real world and all of a sudden the gap between graduation and wedding seems like the Grand Canyon, because six semesters of drinking and sleeping until noon on Monday is NOT the same as three years of working five days a week and sleeping until 8:30(!) on Saturday. Put another way, the date that we picked when we were full of youthful ignorance now feels like an eternity away.

Sean and I discussed things today and determined that we've had enough of living separately and only seeing each other on the weekends (and those rare weeknights that crop up three or four times a month). We're ready to greet each other after work, eat dinner together in the evenings, go to bed together at night, and fight over sink access in the morning until death do us part. So we've started looking at ways we could move the date up. Unfortunately, we don't see ourselves as a spring or summer couple, which doesn't give us much of a window. Anyway, the point is that we've received permission from the financiers (read: mom and dad) to move the date up and proceed with wedding plans at warp speed if possible. (I wish we'd moved our date up last April because warp speed makes me nauseous.) Don't quote me on this, friends--I dream big and execute WAAAAAAY smaller--but we'll see what happens when we go venue shopping this weekend.

Vacation, abridged

It feels like it's been forever since I last updated. And really, I guess it sort of has. For that, you may blame my trip to the more southerly and easterly parts of the state. In my absence, I took some pictures. So here you are, dear readers: amends.

These are my cousin's daughters and are also two of my most favorite children in the world. They are Kylie and Ashlyn. They are seven and two, respectively. They are bright, sweet, fun, and always eat their vegetables. (Seriously, these girls leave nary a broccoli floret untouched--they just put some hummus on it and open wide. I like that and plan to implement a similar healthy eating policy with my own kiddies. Sorry, future children, you will eat vegetables when momma's home, and you can thank your cousin Meredith for showing her that it can be done.)

I spent pretty much the whole of last Saturday taking pictures of these girls at my aunt's house in Huntspatch, and these are a couple of my favorite shots. True to character, both of them.

Here is my brother drinking a beer with lunch during our Monday in Fredericksburg. Wait, allow me to come at that statement from a different angle: here sits a twenty year old sipping a German lager. In a restaurant. Before 5PM. On a Monday. Fredericksburg was awesome as all get out!

Sean and I spent a good hour on Saturday going through his mom's photo collection. Why? Because I need pictures for our wedding slide show, of course! I figure it's not too early to start compiling it since the baby pictures we have today are pretty much going to be the same baby pictures we have a year from now, and that'll leave one less thing for me to worry about during crunch time. Sean's mom, dear woman that she is, allowed me to borrow a good chunk of her collection, and in return I told her what date we'd chosen (because she either hadn't heard or didn't remember) and promised to bring the pictures back the next time I visited Texarkana. Anyway, it was clear from all of the pictures that I looked at that Sean was just born precious.

Ring ring!

Sean: I'm taking a half-day on Friday, so why don't we meet up for lunch in Town Square and then maybe shop around for a little while.
Sarah: Ok, that sounds good.
Sean: We could even look at engagement rings while we're there.
Sarah: Ooooh yeah!? Ok! Wait, are you suuuuuure you want to look at engagement rings? Isn't a proposal supposed to be a dream forever unrealized or something?
Sean: ...yeah, well SOMEBODY won't get off my back about proposing, so I figure this might shut her up.
Sarah: So what you're saying is bugging you improves my chances of getting engaged? Good to know.

Twinkle toes and jazz hands

A couple of weeks ago I came across a "Find a Fresh First Dance Song" feature in my latest issue of Modern Bride (side note: I can't walk into a grocery, convenience, or super store anymore without casually looking for bridal glossies on the magazine racks. It's sort of like Where's Waldo?: Goin' to the Chapel, except without the red stripes because um, faux pas much?) Now, I've been convinced of my first dance song since before I'd ever had a boyfriend (which, let's face it, wasn't really that long ago), but I thought I'd take the test anyway just for giggles.

Questions one ("Are you having a band?") and two ("Do you prefer something upbeat?") both received big fat "no"s, so MB suggested that S and I dance to either U2 (gross, generally) or to a Van Morrison song that I've never heard of. I perused the other suggestions if only to find out whether they were any better and immediately spied one that struck my fancy. I showed it to Sean with a smile and a "Whaddaya think?" and he responded with an earnest, "Yeah! That'd be good!" I'm not sure he was on board with my first choice, but this new one suits us better anyway so I willfully sent my old song packing and immediately latched on MB's suggestion.

In our infinite wedding wisdom, S and I decided that the original version of the song that MB suggested (which I've enjoyed for years) is too fast for a couple's first dance, so I downloaded a well-known (but not really by me) cover to see if it would fare better. My decision? Well, let me put it this way--I completely reformatted my computer over the weekend, reinstalled iTunes on Monday night, and The Song has already been played an astounding 12 times. It'll do.

Want to know what it is? I'm tempted to say "well you'll just have to wait until 2011, biatches!" because I don't want to reveal all my tricks, but instead I'll offer these clues: Monday-Saturday, seedless grapes, and psychedelic chocolate candy. And if you can guess based on that information, well heck, I'll let you walk me down the aisle!

Destination. Wedding.

One of Sean's old amigos is getting hitched next October and called last night to ask Sean to be one of his groomsmen. In Sacramento. We were just trying to decide where our next vacation spot would be and lo! California, here we come! We were considering an east coast destination--Boston, Philly, and NYC all at once, perhaps--and well, NoCal is about as opposite as we could get without leaving the 48 contiguous. It's ok though, because NoCal means wine country and San Francisco and cool weather ALL THE TIME. Sean's so excited that he looked up airfare (totally reasonable) and Silicon Valley ("We have to visit Google! Or Apple!") as soon as he hung up the phone.

I mentioned the trip to my mom and she was all, "Well, I guess it's a good thing you and Sean aren't getting married next October!" Right mom, good thing. I can still dream in wedding, and when I do, it's about the centerpiece (notice the fiddlehead ferns!) and the chandelier here and here:

[Classic Bride]

The gorgeous macaron cake here:

[Flights of Fancy]

And the future Junior Bridesmaid here:

She'll only be nine come wedding time, and I've said over and over (out loud, this is the first you're hearing of it) that I don't want little ones in the wedding, but she's just such a doll that I can't leave her out. Plus, she'll be the token member of the wedding party who'll have to toast with Diet Coke, so at least we know one of them will still have the dexterity to catch the bouquet at the end of the night.

Dream on

Last night I had the most terrifying dream: 'twas the night before my wedding, and I'd done absolutely nothing to prepare. No wedding dress, no bridesmaides' dresses, no wedding cake, no hairstyle, no nothin'. (Not even a fiance! Sean proposed in my parents' half-bathroom with a ring that was the complete opposite of what I've been looking at midway through the nightmare.) Thankfully, I've already got a major head start on my dream self with a bulging wedding file on my desktop and a Google Reader that delivers one wedding post right after another into my browser.

I'm going to be one of those brides who blogs about her favorite wedding styles and ideas right up until the big day (even though that day is one year and 51 weeks down the road). So if color schemes and centerpieces are not your thing, then the rest of this post might be sorta boring for ya.

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1.) My parents received a wedding invitation a few months ago that my mom and I declared beautiful immediately. Sean saw it and turned up his nose. "It's just so BORING," he said. These invites are decidedly not, and could easily be made fall-eriffic. -- 100 Layer Cake
2.) Again with the invites! I love these letterpress ones from Alee & Press. I'm stuck on the idea of having lots of bare limbs in my decor and I think these fit the bill. Except they're kinda pricey and the design is not actually a limb. Can you guess what it's supposed to be? -- 100 Layer Cake
3.) The long, skinny, purple-ish flowers in this arrangement are popping up everywhere (Southern Living, the Crate & Barrel catalog, my seven wedding blog subscriptions) and I sort of love them. I'd originally planned on asking if anyone knew what they were, but I made the mistake of showing them to my finicky beau, who was quick to say "Gross!" so maybe I won't use them after all. -- Southern Living
4.) Fiddlehead ferns are adorable too, and they might actually have a chance of making the wedding day cut since both parties actually agree on them. -- DIY Bride
5.) If I could figure out how to incorporate vintage books into my decor I would in a heart beat! My New England Autumn theme and vintage are not in totally separate galaxies, so I could probably come up with something if I put my mind to it. If not, maybe I could incorporate them into the rehearsal dinner, which Sean wants to hold at my parents' house so that everyone has a chance to mingle and keep it casual. I've suggested that we serve his favorite comfort food, Shiner, and SoCo (since it's really his event) and decorate the tables (MODESTLY!) with objects that represent us. Would anything be more appropriate than vintage books for an old soul English enthusiast? The problem is coming up with something tangible for an ever-so-slightly nerdy man of business and culture. Hum. -- Classic Bride
6.) These are so precious, though I don't think there's any way I could incorporate folded napkin invites into my wedding. (If only I weren't so afraid of breaking with tradition!) Rehearsal dinner again? -- 100 Layer Cake
7.) Here's another sweet idea that has a lot of non-wedding applications. Too bad I haven't gotten my typewriter fixed yet... -- "I Do" it Yourself

Think I'm nutso for planning so far in advance? The bridal consultant who helped Jordan last weekend had her dress picked out before she got engaged, and I'm not even close to that point yet (although I will admit to having a favorite designer and a very strict price range). I'm not crazy friends, just in a class of women that prefers living life as far away from the edge as possible.

Blonde, brunette, and bridal

Hey friends, thanks for all the positive feedback on my new coif! I started highlighting my hair when I was in eighth grade, so for the past nine years I've been completely out of touch with my natural color. I'd been toying with the idea of killing the highlights for a couple of years, but I never had the cajones (if you will) to do it until now. And I mean it's not like a grew a pair over night or anything, it's just that I suddenly found myself with fewer Benjamins than balls, so my hand was forced. My stylist told me that I'd be shocked and might hate the change initially, but I was happy with the color as soon as I walked out of the salon. My parents, on the other hand, are still having trouble looking me in the eyes. I figure if they really couldn't live without the blonde, they'd contribute to the salon fund, but I ain't seen a dime of that money, so natural I shall remain.

And speaking of funds! This post is brought to you by a break from an all-day marathon of copywriting, teacher certifying, and being generally discontent about the state of things. But I won't get into that now, because blogging is supposed to be my escape. And escape we shall into the comfortable world of wedding planning.

My engaged best friend Jordan flew in from Nashville on Sunday so she could go wedding dress shopping with her first momma (that's her mom), her second momma (that's my mom), and her maid of honor (that's me). The dress she's seriously considering is only available from a handful of shops around the country, one of which is conveniently located in Big D. We spent almost two hours at the shop ooohing and ahhhing over Jordan's sartorial selections, half-planning her ceremony, and discussing our own philosophies on everything from outdoor weddings to bridesmaid couture. (I don't believe in them and I like cocktail length dresses, in case you were wondering.) By the end of the trip I was so ready for my turn in front of the 180-degree mirror that my left ring finger ached. But, like a good MOH does, I waited until I got home to indulge my wedding fantasies. The result? Two more wedding-themed subscriptions on Google Reader and one boyfriend who'll eventually get so sick of my prodding and not-so-subtle hints that he'll eventually pop the question just to get me to shut up (at least in theory).

Of course, things could always go terribly awry like they did in the newest episode of my favorite wedding show, in which the dumb groom planned a surprise wedding for his bride BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN ENGAGED. He didn't ask her to marry him until the night before their wedding (of course, he used a $20,000 ring to do it, so maybe that's why she went along with his stupid plan). I mentioned this example to Sean as a warning, because if I don't get to take engagement pictures, go to cake tastings, make centerpieces, choose the bridesmaids' dresses, tour venues, create "play" and "no play" lists, or try on dresses, I'm going to say "no." My sweet beau said he'd scratch the surprise wedding idea off his list immediately. It's compromises like these that make me sure that nothing but the cold, clammy hand of death will ever do us part.

Oops.

When September hit I was super excited, mostly because it meant that fall was upon us and I thought that meant "GREAT! Bridal magazines will be fall-themed and I can scoop up truck loads of them from now until December of this year and next!" WRONG. The only themes in bridal magazines are "How to Serve Lobster Bisque and Prime Rib for $2 a Head" (shot glasses and toothpicks, folks) and "The Dress You've Always Wanted Might Just Be At Your Neighborhood Walmart." I was disappointed for about two seconds and then I remembered that I eat that sort of information up regardless of the weather, so I picked up my first bridal (Modern Bride) and dug in. Big freaking mistake.

Now all I want to do is wedding plan, wedding plan, try to get Sean to tell me when he's planning on proposing (don't worry that I'm ruining the moment--I could beat Sean with a red-hot poker and he still wouldn't talk). I'm so possessed that I spent an hour browsing wedding blogs today and ended up with three new subscriptions on Google Reader. And while I was scanning the blogs to decide which ones were worth reading regularly, I saw this: "For those of you planning a Fall wedding, get your behinds to your local magazine racks. September is prime Fall decorating time with the major shelter magazines: Martha, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, etc., who nearly always have fun, unique, and gorgeous ideas for centerpieces, favors/treats and decor." Well thanks A LOT, DIYBride.com, for adding even more fuel to the fire.

"Great wedding idea"

When you're practically engaged to that oh-so-elusive man who actually wants to be involved in wedding planning, the ideas that you bounce off of him actually bounce back! With feedback! And sometimes he even comes up with his own suggestions, like this amazing one that I received from my beau today:

That this bride was a Lutheran and her groom was a Baptist is doubtful indeed.

A head start

Until very recently I would have been hesitant to admit that there's a folder on my desktop that's bulging with wedding ideas since my wedding is still so far off (do I sound like a broken record yet? oh bother) but then I found this blog. The author started planning her wedding before she got engaged too, so now that I've got a role model I'm not afraid to share some of what I've found as well.

-- After browsing gowns on The Knot (so I already created an account, whatever) I decided that a drop-waisted A-Line gown in either champagne, gold, or ivory is my must-have. And then I found this beauty from Sottero & Midgley and I've been hooked on the Sottero brand ever since.


[While I definitely think this dress is to die for, it's no longer my favorite from Sottero. It is, however, one that my man has already seen. There's no way I'm going to post a picture of my new favorite because my cunning beau reads this blog and is not permitted to view any dress on my short list!]

There are two branches (if you will) of the Sottero brand--Maggie Sottero and Sottero and Midgley--and both offer gorgeous dresses that are very reasonably priced. Like the author of a $10,000 wedding, I'm also challenging myself to stick to a smallish budget simply because I think loads of vacations and a house with upgrades are more practical applications for my money than a one-day event. And since I'll only wear my dress once, I'm disinclined to budget too much for it. Plus, I saw a $5,000 dress on Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? (watch it if you are fortunate enough to get the Style Network because it's AWESOME) that was so dull that I probably could have made it myself (and I'm a design school flunky).

-- Sean and I live for the fall, so we're planning on getting hitched in October. I fretted over my color palette for quite a while because there's a really complicated history behind two of the loveliest fall colors--copper and burgundy. If I opt for copper I'm afraid it'll be called "burnt orange" instead and the beau and I will be accused of being unfaithful to our school. On the other hand, if I use too much burgundy people might (wrongly) assume that we're going for an A&M theme. (We're proud of our school, but we're not crazy!) I spent a few months trying to come up with different color combinations, but in the end I like copper and burgundy gosh darn it so there take that!

-- I have absolutely NO intention of putting the uber-traditional bride and groom figurines on top of my cake, but I searched for some vintage ones on Etsy just for the heck of it and came across these guys:

I may not be a carrot top bride, but the groom? He looks JUST LIKE Sean circa 2000. Precious!