Friday, March 24, 2017

The Wedding Series

This blog is WAY overdue, but at least I’m getting to it before I’ve been married for a full year. Maybe I’m getting old – actually, I know I’m getting old. Had my wedding taken place when I was in my 20’s I might have shared daily, weekly or at least monthly blog posts in the midst of the wedding planning mayhem, but I just don’t have the same oomph that I did back then. And although I made many notes throughout my wedding planning journey, I was so overwhelmed and stressed that I didn’t have the energy to pull a full blog post together.

I learned a lot about myself during the process of planning my wedding and reaffirmed things I already knew about myself but had forgotten. For one, I am super anal. I like order. I want everything to be perfect. I want things the way I want them; and when I want a certain thing to go a certain way and it goes left or right, I begin to spiral.

When planning a wedding, no matter how perfect you expect everything to go, you need to accept that an area of your expectations might not be met – and that’s okay. Things may not go exactly the way you anticipated, but everything will turn out to be amazing! I’m still working with myself on my expectations, reality and ACCEPTING reality. It is a daily struggle.

Anyway – on to my reason for being here...

The Proposal:

Edward proposed to me at the karaoke bar where we first met. Kudos to him for remembering, because I’d completely forgotten the name of the place. Trickery and lies were used to get me to the karaoke bar (and how good can a surprise be if there isn’t some level of deception involved?). I thought I was there to eat food and have drinks with a friend of ours and I was hungry and ready for some adult beverages so I wasn’t really paying attention. Although I did have an idea that a proposal was on the way, I was still totally thrown off.

I don’t know how I remember this, but the moment when Edward walked into the karaoke room on the day we first met, my friends and I were all singing and booty popping to Get Low, by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. So after Edward proposed to me in such a special and profound way; with such class and heartfelt emotion, it only made sense that I trash up the moment by playing that song in honor of the day he walked into my life.

The Ring:

Edward proposed to me with a ring, but it wasn’t THE ring. Edward is very traditional, but he broke tradition by taking me to the ring shop and giving me the option of choosing my own ring (which I stare at often). The following days and weeks went something like this: 



Engagement:

With our engagement now in full effect, it was time to begin the wedding planning process. I have a SEVERE magazine addiction so I really expected that I would subscribe to just about every bridal magazine available, but I surprised myself by not subscribing to any because - Pinterest.

I pulled my Pinterest boards together in a ridiculously short amount of time. Edward and I had been together for 10 years so I was ready and prepared, like yesterday, for this wedding to take place. With my pin-boards settled, I thought I had just about everything figured out. I was very naïve about how many details, timelines and dollars actually go into a wedding, depending on the type of wedding you envision for yourself. And this girl right here had bourgie aspirations on a penny pinching budget. I wanted to feel like a celebrity on that day, and feeling like a celebrity damn sure aint cheap.

Up Next: The Wedding Party