Something Borrowed

If it seems like it took us forever to set our date, your right. If we still wanted to have our wedding in June, we were left with June 19th and June 26th. It was about this time when I was toying with the possibility of having our wedding in September. Hmm? It's still warm out, that's a check in the right box. However, there were a couple drawbacks with having it in September, 1.) I wouldn't be able to have real peonies, and 2.) my sister would have to take time off from school. This was brought up by my mom. I didn't think it was too big of an issue.

So, June was the more practical month. Between June 19th and June 26th, June 19th is a more meaningful date. Why you ask? Well, it's the date that my parents got married. I asked Danny how he felt about having the same wedding date as my parents. His response was sweet. He said that while he would prefer to have our own date to celebrate on, he said that it was up to me. Yea, he's a sweet guy. But he happened to add, "It'll be easier to remember our anniversaries." He did have a point. He and my date could help remind each other.

I asked my mom if I could borrow their wedding date, and her teary-eyed response was "yes, of course."

We have a date people! June 19th, 2010.

Now that our date was set, it was time to solidify our venue or venues.

Bride Wars

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Well not quite, but it could have been.

There is a story before this story, so I’ve included a prelude below:

One of my best friends from college, lets call her Double T, became engaged during Christmas 2008. We met in Venice, Italy (sounds romantic doesn’t it?) during our study abroad trip in 2007. We had such a great time together experiencing and traveling Europe as any American girls would.

Fast forward to Christmas 2008 – I receive a text message that says:

Double T: “Justin gave me a diamond for Christmas.”

Me: “Are you engaged????????????????”

Double T: “YES!”

Holy crap, my best friend is engaged. I was so excited for her. She asked me if I would be her Maid of Honor, which this is not to be intended as a pun, but I was truly honored! I never thought that I could be someone’s Maid of Honor.

During the first couple months of her engagement she sent me pictures of her inspiration. She started asking me, “What have you envisioned for your wedding?” “What sort of things are you going to include and do?” She asked me opinion on many different things, and honestly I never really thought about it. Sounds weird doesn’t it, but in any case, I had no idea what sort of wedding I was going to have. So, from all of her questions, she began to pique my interest in wedding planning.

Fast forward to March 2009, Double T has yet to set a date, find a venue, or do anything. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking to myself, “What if I get engaged soon? We’re going to have weddings probably around the same time. Will I be able to plan my wedding and be her Maid of Honor as well?” Thoughts like these were flowing, and looking back I should have seen a foreshadowing here.

Ok, so back to Bride Wars.

I last left you with my experiences in setting our wedding date - June 5th, 2010. I was quick to start searching for our venue or venues. My preference was to have both the ceremony and reception at one venue, but more on that later! I had this eerie feeling that I had to tell Double T my date (soon) just so we didn’t end up picking the same date. She told me that she was leaning towards an August wedding, but knew that she wanted to have her reception outside in a tent. It must have been my sixth sense, because I had this strange feeling that she was going to switch her wedding month to June, which has a more ideal temperature for an outside wedding.

Sometime in May, I get a really excited instant message from Double T saying she has her venue and date! And sure enough....

No, she didn’t pick June 5th. She picked June 4th. And here is where Bride Wars comes in to play. I’m a little shocked at this point, and decide that the best thing to do is to tell her that I picked the following day for my wedding. So, I tell her. She doesn’t say anything for awhile, and neither did I. We start instant messaging again, and we see if we will be able to work out two weddings in one weekend. We both realize that it’s not likely to happen. But here is where is starts to get interesting. She gave me a bunch of reasons for why she could only have that date, June 4th. It had to be an even day due to chinese tradition, and it had to be on a Friday for the cheaper rate for her venue. She told me that June 12th sounded like the perfect date. I’m thinking that she is referring to herself. Nope, she actually had the audacity to say, are you going to change you date to June 12th.

Since I didn’t have our venue yet, it made sense that I was going to be the one to change my date. It doesn’t help that my personality is similar to Anne Hathaway’s character in Bride Wars -- a semi-pushover. June 12th did sound like a nice date, but my birthday is on a 12th, and sounds silly, but I wanted a new date to celebrate on.

So I was back at square one at setting our date. June 5th was out, June 12th was out. That left June 19th and June 26th as options.

Setting Our Date

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Danny and I became engaged in early April, and well, I was so wrapped up in figuring out things I liked, admiring all the tiny details we could include, that I didn't start figuring out our date until May. Late May. So it was time to stop dilly-dallying around and figure out our wedding date.

Setting our date for the wedding was not as easy as just selecting just any old date. Danny and I had several factors that helped us narrow down our date. It had to be warm outside, not necessarily hot, but pleasantly warm; not be in the month of May, July or August, so that left us with June, September or early October; and last and not least, I really wanted Peonies.

Danny and I, well mostly I wanted to have some portion of our wedding day outside, whether it was the ceremony or reception, I wasn't sure yet. I was inspired by this photo of those fabulous white chairs on green, green grass.

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Isn't this just fabulous? I fell in love. In order to have some portion of our day outside, we knew we needed to have warm weather. So we were able to narrow the month down to June. Then finding a date, wasn't as tedious as coming up with the month. The venue we were considering only had two dates available for June 2010 -- the 5th and the 19th. This may sound silly but the deciding factor to figuring out our date came down to, well, having peonies! I told you I loved them! Just look at their fluffy, romantic goodness.

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Peonies bloom in May and early June, so it was just coming together. June 5th, 2010 sounded perfect! Our date was finally set! I felt relieved, and I could now work on the other things on my quickly growing to-do list, including picking out our ceremony venue, reception venue and photographer. I knew those three things were vital as time was of the essence as it was already late May and June is "the" wedding month -- I had a little over a year to finalize these important things! As I said, I felt relieved that I could move on to the next thing on my list, but I was soon to realize that we just got on a crazy, winding roller coaster ride.

Let's Start from the Beginning

In 2007, for my 21st birthday, I along with my family decided to take a family vacation. It was my pick, and I chose a cruise, Royal Caribbean (of course!) to Mexico. It was going to be our second time going on a cruise as a family, and I was ecstatic! We left out of LA, and our ports of call included, Cabo, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta.

Before the ship set for sail, we had to go do the "in-case-the-boat-sinks-drill." Being the over ambitious family that we are, we were the first to our safety station. We took a family picture, and then put on the very attractive life vests. Soon other people started to arrive including an obnoxious, and obviously intoxicated guys bumping chests together. Needless to say, I thought they were annoying.

More people are now at the station, and my family is pushed up against the ship waiting for further details. Out of the corner of my eye I see one of the intoxicated, chest-bumping guys staring at me. I'm thinking to myself, "oh great, he is going to talk to me." And, sure enough, he did. And it was Danny, my now fiance. Looking back, I'm glad he had the courage to speak to me while he was a little tipsy in front of my parents and sister.

It wasn't love at first sight. Danny says that I had a crush on him from the beginning, because I thought he was annoying at first. Who knows, maybe it was an un-conscience crush. Well, the following day, was our first day at sea, and there were many activities going on on the lido deck, including a "Sexy Legs Contest." I'm trying to soak up as much sun as possible through the overcast day, and hear that the winner of this context is Danny. I think my exact words upon hearing this was..."He's so annoying."

The next day is my birthday, woohoo, I'm now 21! It was the first of two formal dinners on the ship, and it was a great evening. After dinner, my sister and I decided to go up to the Viking's Crown Lounge to dance for a little bit. We got hit on by some creepy guys and decided we had enough. On our way out, I noticed Danny, again a little tipsy to say the least, and dancing like he was having a great time.

While we were at Mazatlan, back on the ship from visiting the city, we headed up to the lido deck. And what I saw was shocking. My mom was talking to Danny! I'm now sitting on the lounge chair, and hoping that my mom doesn't bring him over. And sure enough, she did.

Danny talked to my family, and I learned that the reason my mom went up to him in the first place was to thank him for his services to the United States. She saw him in his dress blues the following evening during the formal dinner. Danny and I started to talk, and he wasn't that bad of a guy. And he had nice eyes. Maybe I did have a crush on him?

His family soon joined him, and I met his mom, dad, uncle, and grandmother. After spending much of the afternoon talking with him and his family, he asked me if I wanted to meet up later at the Viking's Crown Lounge for a drink. Danny and I had a nice time that evening and got to know each other better.

The following days Danny left calls in my room, but we didn't meet up again until the last day on the ship. He asked me for my number, and as this is something I normally do not give out, I had second thoughts. I had the strangest feeling that if I didn't give him my number, I would never speak to him again, and that felt very wrong.

So, I gave him my number. And we have talked everyday since.

"I Say Hello...

Hello, hello

I don't know why you say goodbye

I say hello."

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Hello. I'm back from a 4 month blogging vacation. I have been quite the busy bee planning my wedding, and let me say this, MANY things have changed since I last posted. I now have a job - woohoo! It is a relief, and I can now devote more time to the wedding planning.

Boy, do I have a lot of updates - venues, wedding dresses, dates, flowers, colors - yes, a lot has happened. And don't you worry. I am here to share the latest in my planning adventures.