Wedding and Honeymoon Goodies!

Okay, so I've been promising this post for about a week now, and I feel like I finally have time to sit down and write.  Just a warning:  with all the details, this is kind of a long post.  Feel free to jump to the pictures if the details don't interest you.  Don't worry, my feelings won't be hurt, I promise!  :)

It's official--I'm a Mrs.  And I'm pretty much loving it!  Although, I don't think the whole "we're actually married" thing has really sunk in.  Last week, I was talking to the mother of one of my students and I said "yeah and my husband--" and I totally had to stop and think for a minute!  "Husband" came out naturally, but it caught me off-guard at how naturally it came out.  It was one of those "who just said that?  Wait, that was me?!" moments haha!  But being married has been wonderful.  I know we're in the "honeymoon" phase, but the love that we feel for each other is immeasurable, and it's been so much fun being the new, silly married couple.

So here's how the day went:

My sister and all her wonderful cosmetologistness (yes, I just made that word up) helped me get ready by doing my hair and helping with my makeup, and she could not have done a more incredible job.  I looked and felt like an absolute princess!  We'd tested out my hair a few weeks before, just to see if the style I wanted would work with my blusher/birdcage veil, and it looked fabulous during the practice run, but it was seriously amazing for the wedding.  Surprisingly, I wasn't feeling very nervous most of the morning.  I helped my mom do the finishing touches on the great room where we would be having the ceremony, took some "artsy" photos of the rings, flowers, etc., and even did some laundry!  Who does that on their wedding day?!  This girl right here...

In case you forgot, we had the wedding in my parents beautiful 2-story livingroom (the great room), and while I'd never pictured getting married at my parents' house, it could not have been more perfect!

So about an hour before the wedding was supposed to start, I was still running around the house prepping things while my mother chased me around yelling "go to your room, people will be here soon!!"  Then she banished me to the bedroom to watch TV until she and my sister came to help me get dressed.  So what did I do?  Um...watched My Fair Wedding and ate cheese crackers.  Yup.  I didn't actually start feeling nervous until I was in my dress, wearing my veil, holding my bouquet, and waiting for my daddy to come get me.  Cue the instant "ohmygoshi'mgonnavomit" feeling!

The ceremony was perfect.  A long-time friend's father who is a pastor married us, surrounded by our parents, grandparents, best man, and maid of honor.  It was intimate, and that made it so much more special.  But the best part of the whole thing?  The look in my soon to be husband's eyes when we finally got to look at each other.  Just thinking about it still makes me melt.  If there was ever a time I questioned his love for me, in that exact instant I knew I would NEVER question it again.  I cried a little during the vows, but surprisingly I held it together really well!  And to top it off, it snowed on our wedding day!  Not a big, wet, gross Ohio snow, but the light and fluffy kind that just made it magical.

After the ceremony and lots of pictures, we went outside where my parents surprised us with a stretch limo to take to the restaurant we went to! The restaurant was delicious, too, and they were so amazing with the service there.  First of all, the restaurant was gorgeous and the food was incredible!  If you ever get a chance to check out Bravo! Cucina Italiana, I totally recommend it.  They were even kind enough to take our cake that we brought with us, plate it and prepare it for cake-cutting, and boxed it back up for us after.  While we were there, a random couple came up to us to congratulate us and gave us $100!!  Just totally out of the blue, they said they were local pastors that loved to see new married couples and that they felt called to bless us.  It was crazy!

After dinner, we got changed and headed off to Cleveland for the weekend for our honeymoon.  My parents got us 2 nights at one of the classy hotels in downtown, and our plan was to stay until Sunday afternoon since we both had to work Monday afternoon/evening.  We had plans to grab a late dinner/wine tasting Friday night, but by the time we got there we were already exhausted so we checked in, unpacked, and passed out.  Saturday was spent at the Great Lakes Science Center (so much fun!) and then we had dinner at Brasa downtown, which is probably the single most incredible restaurant we've ever been to.  It deserves its own blog post--it was seriously that good.  After dinner, we called the hotel to have the shuttle come pick us up...45 minutes later, they still weren't there.  At this point, we were a little bitter about the fact that they forgot to pick us up, but when the driver finally got there, he felt so bad that he comped us an extra night at the hotel!  We got an extra night of our honeymoon for free!  It was wonderful, and it gave us a chance to try out one more restaurant, do some walking around town, and have dinner with our best man Tony and his new wife Jen.

Overall, it was the single most perfect weekend we could have possibly dreamed of.  We are so thankful to my parents for all the work they put into it, and to our friends and family for being there to celebrate one of the most important days with us!

Okay, okay, enough with the details.  On to the pics!!

Mindy helping me get into my dress - the best Maid of Honor I could ask for!

 

 Me and my momma before the wedding

Taking pictures to pass the time while I wait for my daddy

My daddy giving me away!  This also made me a little teary

 With my parents after the ceremony

 With his mom and John after the ceremony

 Mindy, my maid of honor, and Tony, his best man

With Carter, our little nephew/Godson/ring bearer

The cake at the restaurant--I can't believe he actually smashed it!  (Wait...yes I can...)

Provisions and Painted Shoes

God provides.

I know I talk about this a lot, but it always amazes me how God comes through just in the nick of time.  Granted, sometimes God's timing scares me; I'm a planner.  I want to know what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, who it's going to happen with, and I want to know all of this at least a month in advance.  That's my timing; God's timing doesn't usually match up with that, so I get worried until He works things out.  One day I'll learn not to do this.  Until that day, I'm going to keep thanking God for providing just in what I consider the nick of time.

My fiance and I have been stressing about a few wedding things.  I guess he doesn't worry that much; he lets me do all of that! ;)  But I've been worried with good reason.  Just about two weeks ago we went and got our marriage license, which meant we could finally call the courthouse back home and schedule our JoP wedding for next month (side note: it's less than 3 weeks away now!  Where does the time go?!).  So I called and spoke with Eddie the Bailiff, who informed me that due to Veteran's Day all the courthouses in Ohio would be closed on 11/11/11. 

WHAT?!  ::insert Melissa freakout mode here::
So as I'm trying my hardest not to let Eddie the Bailiff know that I'm almost in tears, I thank him and hang up.  Next call?  To Mom, hoping she can fix this.  How?  Not totally sure.  Maybe she has an ordained minister and a beautiful wedding location that are both free and available on 11/11?  Close.  She recommended an elementary schoolmate's ordained father and their beautiful great room for the ceremony.  After a few frantic phone calls to hunt down our (hopefully) minister, as well as a sitting on my friend Krista's floor deciding if getting her ordained online would work, I hear back from Pastor Oglesbee and set up a meeting to talk about it.  Now my nerves are going full-force: what if he won't marry us because it's last minute and we haven't done any premarital counseling with him?

It's funny how God works.  :)
We met with Pastor Oglesbee on Sunday afternoon, and it was perfect.  He's every bit as wonderful as I remember him being when I would go to his house to play with his daughter, and he's more than happy to perform our ceremony!  Best part?  At the courthouse, it would have been a very clinical "ceremony" without any mention of God at all.  Pastor Oglesbee's ceremony, on the other hand, is a traditional Methodist ceremony and puts God right in the middle of it, much like our marriage will be.  It's perfect, and it's amazing how God makes things work.

It was actually a very wedding-filled weekend.  My fiance, Mom, and I checked out a gorgeous, absolutely perfect ceremony/reception venue for the traditional wedding next year, their date of availability is perfect with our plans, and the owner is doing so much to help us work within the means of our budget!  It's truly a blessing to find this place, and hopefully we'll be signing the contract for it very, very soon.  On Sunday Mom and I went to a bridal show.  We may have found the DJ, we got the tux situation settled (yay for deals and me winning a $50 gift certificate!), and we tested roughly 15 kinds of cake.  It was wonderful!  I also got to grab my shoes from home and was able to spend today getting them ready:

The bottoms of my shoes are now my "something blue" and they have the names of my grandmothers on them: Madeline Lucienne and Ruth Marie.  I got this idea from combining a few things from Pinterest.  The blue shoe bottoms totally came from Pinterest, and they aren't that creative on my part.  I've seen different pictures of things on the bottoms of shoes:  I do.  The wedding date.  Your married name.  But since both of my grandmothers were very important in my life, this is my tribute to them since they are both in Heaven watching down on me for my wedding day. <3

Lots of blessings, lots of provisions, and lots of excitement for our wedding!
It's going to be here so soon, and I can't believe how quickly it's coming up.  In 17 days, I will be married to my best friend and starting the next chapter of our lives together (plus having a pretty great little honeymoon, too!)  The next 2 weeks can't go by fast enough!

We're Engaged!

We've kind of done this whole thing backwards.


Since he's going into the Military, we've been talking marriage for the past year, and for the past 5 months we've really considered ourselves to be engaged.  We've been planning both our justice of the peace wedding and our traditional wedding and ceremony during this time, even though he had never officially asked me to be his wife.  Backwards, I know.

Today is the the 4-year anniversary of the day we met, and I came home from work 40 minutes early, which was apparently a bad thing.  When I got to the door, it was not only locked but deadbolted shut.  He told me I couldn't come in yet, and that I had to go find something to do or sit in my car for 40 minutes.  I eventually convinced him to let me come inside and hide in the bedroom if I promised to keep my eyes shut.  I knew he was planning an anniversary dinner, but I didn't think he'd go this far with it!


When I got into the bedroom, I noticed all of our photos and candles had been taken down, which made me a little suspicious... but I hid out for almost 45 minutes before he came in and told me it was ready.  Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to go out the bedroom door--I had to walk out the back door, down the fire escape, around the building and come back in the front door!


When I got to the front door, there was more waiting--after about 5 minutes (which seemed like an hour at this point!) he came to the door and unlocked it, but told me I had to wait 10 seconds to go in. 


When I opened the door, the lights were off but the house was lit by candles.  Strung across the livingroom was a string with handwritten notes from him and photos of us clipped to it.  All over the room, there were photos and memories of us, and on the ground leading into the kitchen was a trail made of construction paper hearts.  In the diningroom on the table was another note, and when I turned into the kitchen he was there holding a sign that said "Happy 4 Year Anniversary."  I was crying like crazy and he hugged and kissed me.  

He asked me "did you think I was going to propose tonight?" and I said "yes!"  


The next part is kind of blurry :)


He said "why would I do something silly like that" as he was getting down on one knee!  He pulled out a ring, said something incredibly sweet (which, in my mess of tears, I'm not totally sure what it was...but I know it was beautiful and made me cry more!) and put a ring on my finger!  It was perfect, and so much more than I could have ever dreamed of!!

Isn't it funny...

Isn't it funny how life works out sometimes?  How one or two little choices can change everything?

Four years ago, during what would turn out to be one of the toughest times I've experienced, on a night where I wanted to just stay curled up in a blanket at the sorority house, eat junk food, and cry, my best friends convinced me to go to a sorority/fraternity social.  I didn't really want to, especially because I was in the middle of a very bad breakup, but with a little "liquid courage," they got me dressed in Hawaiian clothes and out the door.  I ended up having a great time, and it really got my mind off of the not-so-great things that were going on, but even better--that was the night I met my soon-to-be husband. 

I almost didn't go.
What would have happened if I had stayed home.  Would I have ever met him?  Would we have started dating?  Would I be 53 days away from my wedding right now?  Possibly, but who knows.
One little choice to go out that night resulted in meeting my best friend and better half (don't tell him I called him my "better" half---you know that's going to go to his head and I'm going to hear about it for-ev-errr lol) 
PS. If you want to read about our wedding plans, check out this blog post.

A few months ago, my mom, sister, and one of my bridesmaids and I were going shopping for a dress for the justice of the peace ceremony.  I was expecting to go to JC Penney's or Macy's to find something simple and not too expensive, but my mom suggested we check out David's Bridal just to see what they might have.  It wasn't something that I was expecting to get results out of, but we decided to check it out anyway.  That day, we found not only the perfectly simple dress for the justice of the peace ceremony, but also the traditional dress for the ceremony next year with all of our friends and family--all for super cheap thanks to amazing sales and discounts.  And not only that, but one of the dresses is by my dream designer and is a dress I had picked out as a favorite weeks beforehand, which just happened to be a discontinued dress that was the last one in the store and also happened to be a perfect fit without any alterations needed.

I wasn't planning to go into David's Bridal, let alone find anything there.
One little choice to check out the "maybe we'll find something" possibility ended in me finding 2 perfect dresses (side note: I only tried on 4 dresses total, and we bought 2 of them!)

Thursday will be the 4-year anniversary of when he and I met.
On Saturday I am going to my wedding dress fitting.
I could not be happier with the little choices I've made that have brought me to where I am today.

It's funny how little choices make big life changes...
Feeling very blessed this week!

Our Wedding Plans

A lot of people recently have asked questions about our wedding and how we're going about doing this whole justice of the peace thing, how the engagement has worked out, and about our plans for a traditional ceremony and reception in the future.

So here, spelled out, are our wedding plans:

Last year, my soon to be husband and I began seriously talking marriage.  We knew it was something we both wanted for our future together, and with him going into the Army we knew we wanted to be married before he left for basic training.  While it might be unconventional and take away from the surprise of the "will you marry me" surprise (Are people actually legitimately surprised when their partner proposes? I mean, yes you can/should be surprised by the style/timing of the proposal, but I feel like if you're at the stage for proposing you should have already had lengthy convos about getting married and your future together.  So the fact that they are proposing shouldn't be that much of a surprise, right?) we wanted to make sure that we talked and planned things out, discussed how we would raise our family, and make sure that we were on the same page about lots of things.  Plus, we wanted to make sure God was at the center of our marriage so we took the time to pray and make room for Him in our lives.

Because of him joining the Army, and the fact that we knew we wanted to be married before he left for basic, we had some things to work around.  We knew that with him being in school and me being a first-year teacher and having so many student loans to pay back, we could not save up for a big traditional ceremony and reception before he left.  We started talking to other Military couples and reading about how they handled the Army/marriage situation, and we learned that it's actually very common for couples to be married with a justice of the peace before the husband leaves for basic training and then later in the follow year, when he has a chance for leave, to have the big, traditional ceremony and reception with all of their friends and family.  After doing a lot of talking with each other and our parents, we determined that this would be the best plan for us.

Even though we have been planning out this wedding situation for almost 8 months, he has not technically proposed yet.  We've purchased the rings, but he is waiting for a very specific moment/date to officially pop the question (I still don't know what this date is, but apparently it has some kind of significance to us.  I like the surprise of it, and I can't wait to tell everyone the story of how it finally happened!)  We consider ourselves to be engaged, and refer to each other as "fiance" when talking to other people, he just hasn't put a ring on it yet ;)

On November 11, 2011, he and I will be married by a justice of the peace at the Cuyahoga County Courthouse with just our parents, maid of honor, and best man in attendance.  We want it to be a very intimate ceremony, and that is why we have chosen only a very select few people to be there.

Next year around Christmas, he will be on leave from Army training and will be able to come home to Northeast Ohio.  At that time, tentatively on December 29, 2012, we will be holding a traditional ceremony with the full wedding party as well as a large reception.  At this time, we will be celebrating our love and marriage with a vow renewal (the traditional ceremony) and reception with all of our friends and family.  We are so thankful that even though we won't have all of our friends and family at the justice of the peace ceremony, they will be able to join us for a true celebration the following year!

No, it's not necessarily traditional.  No, it's not necessarily the way either of us imagined.
But it works for our circumstances, and it will allow us to be together during times that non-married soldiers would have to spend apart from their loved one while saving up for the traditional ceremony and reception we've always dreamed of.

We both hope that people aren't offended or upset that they won't be a part of our justice of the peace wedding, and that our friends and family will be understanding of our circumstances.  We can't wait to celebrate with all of you who have been such an important and supportive part of our lives and relationship together!

Photobooth Fun

I am newly obsessed with photobooths at weddings.  Sarah and Brandon had one at their wedding, and we went to one last October that also had a photobooth.  They are so much fun!!  Here are the pics of my fiance and me from the photobooth at Sarah and Brandon's!

I feel like this strip accurately depicts our relationship and personalities.  Goofy, silly, fun, and passionate :)  Hmmm... I think I'll put this on our wedding wishlist...

Wedding time!

I love a good wedding, especially when it's uniting two people who truly belong together. For instance, our friends Sarah and Brandon. H and Brandon were college roommates, and H got the pleasure of watching Brandon and Sarah's relationship from the start! I've known them for about 4 years, and they are both some of the most genuinely good people I've ever met. Their wedding was absolutely beautiful, and we were both thankful to be invited to be a part of it!

Here are a few of my favorite pics:

The newlyweds!

So beautiful and happy!

Myself, Sarah, Brandon, and H

We had an amazing time, and we send nothing but love and blessings their way! It made me so excited to be there, because all I could think about our wedding! Granted, we've got a little over a year before the big ceremony and reception, but it's still so exciting! At the wedding, we got a chance to tell our friends about our wedding plans, too, which was so wonderful to share our exciting news!

We are 67 days away from our JoP wedding, and I couldn't be more excited! In a week, we can go buy our marriage license, in about 6 weeks we can call the courthouse and make an appointment for our wedding, and in 67 days I will be married to my best friend, my lover, and my soulmate. (wow...that got really mushy really fast...my apologies lol) My mom bought me a wedding planner, which should be here sometime next week, and we're planning on going to a bridal show back home (in the part of the state of where we'll be doing the traditional ceremony and reception next year) in October. I'm so excited for the REAL planning to begin!

Gosh, weddings are the best!!

Reasons to Celebrate

Even though the reality of H officially joining the Army hasn't fully set in yet, I wanted to show him how much I support him, so I made him a celebration dinner: honey-balsamic cedar plank salmon, roasted crab legs, broccoli, and Summer Shady. So yummy! You can get the recipe and read about it here, on my Paleo blog. It turned out quite yummy, and it's definitely a recipe I'll make again!

There are lots of big changes coming our way starting next year, and it's crazy to think about what the future holds for us, right now I'm trying to stay focused on the present.

I got hired at a local preschool and elementary school to work as an after school care worker and substitute teach for them occasionally. I'm excited to be working with kids in such an amazing, supportive school, even if it's not as an English teacher. I'll be making enough to pay the bills right now, too, which is important. I'm just really happy to be back in a school working with kids again! :) H is working on finding a job right now, too--still turning in applications and waiting to hear back, so say a prayer! Selling Avon is also going well. I love getting to meet new people, to share these great products with my friends and family, and to make a little extra money (which I usually end up spending on products for myself...but that's okay, because it's basically like getting make-up for free!)

Wedding things are going well. We had some beautiful engagement photos taken by a girl that I work with, and we used them to make up some engagement announcements. We'll mail those out as soon as the engagement is official (gosh, I feel like we have to do everything backwards because of the Army, but we're making it work for our situation so I guess that's what's important!) My mom is going to pick up my wedding dresses today (yes, more than one--long story short, I got a dress for the JOP wedding and the dress for the traditional ceremony for super cheap at David's Bridal so my mom was amazing enough to get them both! I cried lol)and I've got invitation samples on the way, which is making me super excited! Yes, the traditional ceremony with friends and family isn't until late next year (probably Christmas time), but just playing around with wedding ideas is making me really excited and is giving me something to do. We are going home late next month because I need to get my dresses fitted and so we can get our marriage license--November 11 is coming so soon! Less than 3 months away now, and I'm getting all giddy and excited! :)

I'm just so thankful for all the blessings, even when things get rough and aren't going totally how you'd planned. God is good.

262 Days.

That's how many days until my then-husband leaves for the Army. That's how many nights I have left to curl up next to him and fall asleep. That's how many mornings I get to wake up before him and make breakfast, then climb back into bed and cuddle for just a few more minutes. That's one Thanksgiving, one Christmas, one New Years, one Valentine's Day, and one birthday. 262 days.

March seems so far away. Forever away. But I know that time is going to fly, and I need to hold on to every minute between now and then. We have our wedding to look forward to, we have 262 more days together to watch our nephew grow up, and so many little things to treasure in the first 4 months of our marriage.

Thank God for support systems, friends and family, and a strong faith in God's plan for our lives. That's what's going to get us through the next 262 days (and then some)

Lazy Summer

I haven't sat down and written a blog in what seems like forever. I don't mean just a little update here or there, but actually written something of substance. Although, since I really only blog for my own catharsis, do I ever really write something of substance? Hm.

Summer has just slipped by. It's been amazing to be home every day, working out 4-5 times a week, focusing on not only getting healthy but watching the weight drop down (20 lbs down, 25 lbs to go! Read about it here) on the scale and keeping myself motivated. Being home this summer has also brought H and I a million times closer. It's like as we get closer and closer to getting married and him leaving for the Army, our love develops this deepness that I can't begin to explain. I'm sure this sound ridiculously corny and silly, but it's a love I've never felt before. And as this love develops and grows, any fear or worry I have about following him into the Army melts away. I have absolutely no doubts about our life together, following him through the Army, or what the separation and deployments will bring. None. And every day I get a little more excited for what's to come next!

We recently began focusing more on wedding stuff. Even though we aren't technically engaged yet (aka. there's no ring on my finger) we still want to get things planned and ready to go for engagement/wedding stuff. We got "engagement" pictures done by a good friend of mine, and she did an amazing job! We now have beautiful pictures of us (something that is hard to find, considering H feels the need to make ridiculous faces in EVERY picture ever taken of us) which we can use for our engagement/wedding plan announcements that we plan to send out after the official proposal. We've started talking about various wedding details, too, and a few weekends ago Mom and I went out and picked out my wedding dresses (Yes, plural. One very simple one for the justice of the peace ceremony, and one fancy-shmancy one for the traditional ceremony next year. I can't even go into how much I owe my mother for this, because it's above and beyond what I could have asked for!) I know that a majority of the planning for the traditional ceremony is going to take place while he's in training, so it's nice that we can discuss and plan things together now. Yes, I suppose this is putting the cart before the horse since technically we aren't officially engaged, but at this point we know we're getting married in a few months because of the Army.

On another note, I have spent the summer looking for a job. I feel like this is deja-vu to my posts about this time last year when I didn't have a job for that school year, either. Oy. Achieve had to cut my position due to budget, but told me to call back in August to see if they were able to bring my position back. Currently, there are ZERO English positions posted on any of the 3 websites I check for teaching jobs in the Northwest Ohio area. Heck, there aren't any English teacher positions posted for this half of the state! I got contacted by a district in Toledo about applying for a position, so I did and I guess now it's a wait and see game. Trying to remember to trust God in all of this, because He still has a plan for me. I'm collecting unemployment and trying to get a part-time job as well as subbing again, but I'm still praying for a teaching job to come through. Just trying to remember: a mustard seed of faith is all it takes. I think I need to get back into reading my Bible and having my one-on-one time with God more, to continue building on that mustard seed of faith...

So that's life.
It's been a lazy summer of working out, preparing for Army life, playing with fiddler crabs, toying around with wedding stuff, and falling in love all over again, but I love very minute of it.

Migraines, Part 2

Okay, so I feel like maybe the doctor's office was productive for two reasons today.

First of all, we've got a plan of attack for the migraine thing. I've got a prescription for Imetrex and I'm getting a C.A.T. scan at some point in the next month or two to make sure that I don't have a brain tumor or something. If I do, it's completely my little sister's fault--I've been telling her for years that her talking was giving me a tumor ;) So prayers that this works and that the scan comes back clean.

Second, they made me get on a scale. Not pleased. The number hasn't changed (my fault for not being as hard working as I should be lately) and it's frustrating. I have 10 months to lose 50 pounds. I'm going to do it! I just HAVE to stay focused!

Alright. Here's hoping the changes I need (no more migraines, no more overweight) will be coming soon.