Serving up a wonderful day!

Guys and dolls, I am SO excited about this day!!! It's starts with breakfast for the gamers, which I haven't been able to do in months. I've missed it. Then, onto lunch with my family for a surprise birthday gathering. My sweet grampa turned 83 on Thursday, and we're taking him to one of his favorite spots. This afternoon, Nichole and I are meeting because OUR PHOTOS ARE READY!!! I can hardly contain myself. It's silly. Then tonight, we're meeting a whole group of friends at the North Texas Irish Fest. Huzzah! I love all things Irish. I really hope we make it there some day. Till then, I'll just go to festivals and wear knotwork.

This newlywed stuff is pretty darn cool.

Photo from Photobucket.

Good habits

So, since I put on, oh, roughly five pounds during our good-food-and-good-beer filled honeymoon, I'm trying to get back into my good habits. I'd slipped into the world of pre-packed dinners every night and getting to the gym three times a week.

Well, I can't guarantee more than three times a week even now, but I did add my bellydance class to it again this week. So, that gives me four good workouts each week instead of three. That's part one of the hot wife plan. I just don't want to be that person that lets herself go just because she's married and no important photos are on the rise!

Part two, healthier eating. I have cooked every evening since I returned. I honestly feel that helps when it comes to weight. Now, I need to work on our snacks. I've become too dependent on granola bars and grab bags of sun chips. I've been making a list this week of healthy, fun, tasty snack alternatives to help me shed this five pounds (well two pounds, I lost three this week), plus five more. On my list: fat free yogurt parfaits, edamame, cheese sticks, apples and peanut butter, cous cous or quinoa salads, bean salad, and fruit.

Does anyone have any other fun ideas for snacks? I need inspiration!

What's in a name?

Frustration, that's what. I chose to take my husband's name. I'm not a huge feminist, and I there wasn't a compelling enough reason not to take it. So, I took it. I wanted my first name, my middle name, and his last name. Simple, right? Nope.

The DMV would not allow me to get my middle name back because five years ago when I was divorced, the divorce decree that stated I wanted to change my name back to my maiden name but failed to include my middle name in the type. So, I couldn't have my middle name back at that point. Fine. I thought, good, now I can have it back. Nope. They were required to use my maiden name as my middle name in the absence of a legal middle name because my original middle name could not be recognized because of the divorce decree! Ugh. Fine. Whatever, I will use what I want to use for everyday, but my legal name, again, is not quite what I'd hoped.

Then I tried to get my place of business to change my name. They won't change so much as my email address - which by the by was never fully changed from my old married name because it posed "too much of a hassle to change everything" - until my new social security card comes in. REALLY?! Lame.

Ladies, did any of you run into this crap?

Bask in the glow

After the rehearsal, it was time to get to work. I was elated at the news that people.....lots of people.....had decided, without so much as me mentioning any need of help, that they were coming to my house to do whatever it is that needed doing. Four women - four fabulous friends - showed up at my house without me asking them to. All the men went to an arcade to play laser tag. Something about that cracked me up. The girls head to work; the boys head to avoid us working. Let me note that I fully supported this decision.

The ladies and I started with spiked cappuccinos and hot cocoa then we dove into the flowers. My mom and I trekked to the flower market in Ft. Worth that morning. We came away with with 110 roses for under $200. It would have been MUCH under $200 had I been brave enough to just pick what was in stock instead of preordering anything, but I am not that brave. So, I preordered 50 roses of a specific color and the rest were from the Texas Dozen bundles that they offer. Ladies in the DFW area.....that's 15 roses for $14!!! I grabbed four of those in similar but different color combos. All of them were an orange, red, yellow mix but in different variations.

The thing about bulk flowers.....no prep work has been done whatsoever. We had to dethorn them and remove all of the outer petals that were not so pretty. With five people helping, that task was so quick! We had 110 roses done in under and hour. I did one bouquet completely, then my hairdresser bridesmaids did all the rest, mimicking me. She let me tie them all. Then I added the little charms that I'd made for each lady. That was icing on the cake. It finished the bouquets beautifully. We moved on to corsages and table decor after the bouquets.

We were completely done and had the car loaded in four hours. I was so pleased and so relieved. It was a fabulous time with the ladies.....with my reception playlist playing the whole time and coos of "oh I am so glad you included this song" or "oh.........I love this one......." in the background. One of the best memories of our wedding was the prep with the ladies. Who knew?!

Sorry there are no photos of this. We were all completely consumed in getting it done.

Thank you girls. You're the best!

A happy jingle

I wanted to encourage our guests to make noise when we were pronounced husband and wife and kissed. To me, that should inspire whooping, hollering, clapping, cheers, and just an all around joyous sound. That's the moment you do all of this for, right?? So, I made noise makers.


I used a portion of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe printed on cardstock then glued pretty scraps of paper. A little hole punched in the corner allowed me to tread ribbon and bells onto the card. Getting the bells on the ribbon was a pain! It took hours. I used this amazing ribbon all over the wedding - included in the bouquets, corsages, bouts, favors, invites - that was 100% silk and custom dyed. Go check out Cam Creations. The ribbon is truly awesome. It's also a tad on the fragile side. So the bells tried to shred the ribbon. I taped the ribbon to a toothpick, threaded all the bells on, then just moved them down the spool in order to section it out so that there were a pair of bells per poem card. They were a lot of work, but it was so cook to hear all the bells at the end of our ceremony......along with some whooping and hollering.

Photos by me.

In case you forgot

About a month before the wedding, I was on the phone with my best friend and maid of honor at work because, well, she's a very busy gal and I'll take whatever time she can give me! As background, I let the gals pick any dresses they liked, so she called me to let me know she'd finally found a dress. She loved her dress so much, which was really important to me. I didn't want my friends to waste any funds on something they hated and intended to get rid of immediately after the wedding. As she was professing her love for the dress, she mentioned that she needed new shoes.....and new jewelry......and something sparkly for her hair! To which I giggle because at the time I didn't even have something sparkly for my hair. And then she said it. One of the best, most grounding things said during my wedding planning. It was awesome. It was epic. With a little giggle and a heap of sarcasm, she said "Oh....how adorable. You still think this is about you, don't you?!"

I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. Then we proceeded to use the comment over and over the day before and the day of the wedding. I was a nice, snide little mantra. Because, for those couples out there that think this day is all about them, I have news for you.....it's not. It's about you, but it isn't ALL about you. If you want it to be ALL about you, perhaps you should elope. If you didn't elope, then you probably have reasons along the lines of "it would kill his mother if she couldn't see him wed". Therefore, it's about that person too, and it's about any other person whose presence at your wedding matters to you. My best friend loving her dress mattered to me. My mother-in-law getting a great view of her son's face during the ceremony mattered to me. Walking on my brother's arm mattered to me. Having my uncle pronounce me a wife to this wonderful man mattered to me. You know what else, I guarantee you that it mattered to THEM too.

Photos like this don't happen because it's all about you!

...by A Love Story Photography.

Hello again!

Did you miss me?

Well, I'm a Mrs. now! We're back from Baltimore, much more relaxed and refreshed. I think I'll start off by sharing some of my absolute favorite little memories from the wedding. Hope that works for you. :)

• My uncle's speech 7 minutes before our ceremony that nearly made me bawl....until he ended it with "and now you have 5 minutes to curtain", very matter-of-fact-ly which made me burst out laughing instead of crying.
• Champagne shooters with the girls before we walked.
• My groom mouthing that I looked pretty at the end of my walk.
  
• The mic kicking in on the word "madness" at our ceremony.
• The speeches. Wow. I truly love my best friend and my groom's best friend.
  
• Picking up the first dance right where the audio died on the first try.
• Line dancing and a country swing.
• Kicking back with our bridal party after everyone else had fled the wedding early (definitely a hazard of a Sunday wedding).

To have everyone there and involved was worth all the stress and hassle. Not for something between him and I, but between us and all of them. There was joy. Overwhelming and unselfishly given. More joy than I could ever imagine.

Photo snagged from a friend's facebook of one of our tables in the reception area.