When in Rome

So the much anticipated third installment of Hopefully Not... will be put together soon, as soon as my adorable husband is done with school and has slept a full 8 hours. Until such time, I figured I would work out the Roman Holiday!

We had a frickin blast. We were very Roman in our adventures, taking part in siesta, not waiting in lines, eating pizza, pasta and drinking lots and lots of wine and the most important part....gelatti! Love.

Everything needed for semi successful flight with the New Mrs. McKenna

 This was the view straight out our window, down an alley in Piazza del Pantheon.

This was a window much like ours. Pretty much everyday we opened the shutters and let the breeze and music float in during siesta. There was always someone playing accordion, violin, or singing in the Piazza. This honest to goodness was one of my favorite parts of our stay. 

 The Pantheon from our window.

Monday 

We arrived after a rough flight at 11 am Italian time, about 5 am USA time. We were exhausted because neither of us slept very well on the plane. So we took a nap (which would become a theme in our adventure).

First stop was the Pantheon. Obvi. Actually, I lied, first step was wine and pizza. Then the Pantheon. However, we were very uneducated and didn't appropriately appreciate its splendor until later in the week. 

Then we hit up the Gesu and the home of St. Ignatius, William's confirmation saint. 

 Well done, Italians. That's terrifying.

The first of many bottles of wine. 

William and his short little patron. 

Artsy fartsy window.

 A handy dandy mirror for being able to see the ceiling appropriately. All of the paintings were 3D, including the ones in the chapel in St Iggy's house.

The light pouring into the Gesu. So pretty. 

Around 5 pm we headed to the beautiful Piazza Navona, where we people watched, ate gelatti, and looked at all the strangely similar street vendor art.

Coconut and Tiramisu, the first of many gelatti nights.

The most beautiful piazza in Rome. 

 And so began my relationship with these dudes. It was my mission to figure out how they did this by the end of the week. I was unsuccessful, but I know its fake. I just can't figure it out. Curses.

 The dome of the Pantheon

 The first of many espressos

 The glorious Trevi Fountain

 And the hoard of people who came to see it.

Aw. Love.

I just love seeing that ring. Pre bedtime vino.

So that was day one. A Top Ten of the rest of the trip will follow! Buon Giorno!

Hopefully Not the Happiest Day of Our Lives: Part Two

The rehearsal dinner was a blast. Probably too much fun for this poor little restaurant slave that never goes out or has any alcohol. We had so much, but I crashed into sleep on Friday night. I had bought melatonin because I was afraid I was going to be rolling around in anticipation all night. False. Crash. World War 3 could have happened outside and I wouldn't have known. However, I did wake up at 6 am bright eyed and bushy tailed, much to the chagrin of my beautiful bridesmaids.

That's when it started. The stomach turning. The head ache. The heartburn. I listened to my poor little Katie throwing up in the next room and dreaded what I imagined was an impending doom. (Side note: she was SUCH a trooper. She looked beautiful and poised even though she was surely suffering from the plague.) Meh. What's wrong? I'm not nervous but I just feel like I could die. Sweaty, shivering, nauseous.  This is not what I had in mind!

The morning went by, everyone got their hair done, make up done, we had some delicious coffee, bough by a random stranger behind Kimberly in Starbucks. This is why I send her to do things like this for me. We narrowly avoided being sighted by William, because I secret agent dove into the MD McKenna's mini van and we made a speedy getaway.

The whole thing was such a whirl wind. As time passes, I remember seeing people that I'm like, "Oh yeah, they were there!" It was kind of like a dream because I remember very few specifics of the day. (Everyone told me this was going to happen but I don't really remember) But then, when I had a few minutes to be alone with my daddy, it hit me. This is it. Here we go. The actual wedding I can remember like it just happened. I was certain I was going to throw up until we actually said our vows. I kept trying to make our friend Cory laugh, but he was being serious. Who does that?

Saying our vows was one of the highlights of my day. I instantly felt better. I knew neither of us was going to back out, but it was still an option up until that moment and so the instant it was finally said and done, I was on a rocket ship straight to Cloud Nine. William said his vows like he was being sworn into the office of the President instead of marrying a girl that grew up not wearing shoes to play outside. To my surprise, I didn't shed one tear the entire day. Not so much can be said for my beloved Blove. She is so precious.

And now for the meat and potatoes. My top five of the day.

5) All of my bridesmaids putting my dress on- Now while my dress was beautiful, it probably weighed as much as a huge sack of potatoes. Luckily, I had the most incredible bridesmaids. I guarantee you that no bridal party in the history of forever has run a wedding like those girls. They worked so well together, protected me, loved me, did everything without questioning or complaining. They are the best friends I have ever had. They all took my dress out of the bag and held it up so that I could get in. With intricacy and the tenderness that only sisters can share, they put my in the dress that I had dreamed of my entire life. My beautiful maid of honor, the one who originally laced me into that dress, the first time, laced me up that afternoon. It was so special to me. I couldn't have imagined it going more perfectly. I also thoroughly enjoyed Megan putting my garter on. :-) Also be informed my loves, that the flash mob to Love on Top is number 5.5 on this list.

4) Be Thou My Vision- There is so much that went into me picking the song that I walked down the aisle to. First, having the blessing of having my father walk me down the aisle was incredible. I have always been a Daddy's girl. I was telling someone the other day about the massive tantrums I would throw when he left for work (in part because I watched too many Lifetime movies and was certain he was never coming back). He thought he looked like Big Bird, but I thought for sure he was the 2nd most handsome man I had ever seen. He was my first love and it was such a joy to be escorted by my father, a privilege denied to many.

The first time I ever remember hearing it was at Brittany MacAlester's wedding, when I was in high school. It was such a beautiful moment, it struck such a chord in my heart. Brittany had changed my life and to see her in such beauty with this wonderful Irish hymn walking towards her husband left quite an impression. I decided that day, 8(?) years ago, I was walking to that song.
The first time I ever heard our cantor, Rose, William's cousin, sing I was certain there was some 30 year old woman singing, but I'm pretty sure she was like 12 or 13 at the time. Such an incredible voice. The combination of those two aspects play in my memory over and over. I may be biased but I have never seen such a handsome sight as William standing at the end of the aisle waiting for me.  It was like magic. Finally. We were here.

3) Grandma and Papa's Car- Riding away in their car was like the cherry on top of the sundae of the whole day. It was my tribute to the beauty of their marriage. They celebrate 60 years of marriage this year and I pray that we may see and learn from their love.

2) The End of the Night-   to an outside to this event, I am sure that this was the weirdest thing that they ever saw. But that is how Belmont Abbey rolls. For our last 30 minutes, William and I finally got to dance and party with our friends.  We got to see little James, tear up the dance floor to "Ganghnam Style". He's six. It was nuts. After the horrifying experience of them picking me up and all the horror that went along with that, we had our last dance, I couldn't tell you what song it was to. It was so surreal. All of our friends were in a circle around us, singing and dancing.  It sounds weird, because it was, but it was so awesome to be surrounded by those that knew us best, celebrating us and our love. Then we actually did our exit with a rousing chant of "MCKENNA!"  Thank you dears. We will never forget that. I know that was one of William's favorite parts of the day and mine as well


You will have to tune back in for my very favorite part of the day. It is a blog post in itself. I am pretty certain, the post, like the best part of the day, will be a collaboration between my husband and I.  It is sure to scandalize, cause a stir, inspire, and embarrass. Be on the look out.

Hopefully Not the Happiest Day of Our Lives

It was coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, here, and gone. William and I had the most wonderful day on our wedding day. Someone told me it was raining that day, but I don't really remember. We both agreed that it was one of the best days of our lives...thus far. One of our wise friends said they hoped it wasn't the happiest day of our life and that the happiest days were ahead of us. We couldn't agree more.

I have so many thoughts about marriage and new found wisdom from my three weeks as a wife. But I wanted to post some of my favorite parts about the wedding and honey moon first. The honeymoon may take some serious time, because I took some serious pictures.

So you can obviously see all of the pictures that are on FB but I wanted to share some of the behind the scenes ones.

Thursday

I was so happy to be with my little Megan. I had seen all the other bridesmaids since graduating from college, but Megan moved to Minneapolis so I hadn't seen her in a year. But nothing ever changes about our friendship. I was so happy to see her. 

 As soon as I had people to help me with the wedding, I put them to work. We tied 200+ bells to place cards, it only took like 2 hours. No big deal. So helpful. Also, I had gotten my spray tan the day before, hence why I look like I just came back from a cruise.

Friday

 We took all the bridesmaids out for lunch and mani/pedis. Literally, the worst manicure/pedicure experience I have ever had, but everyone managed to keep their cool. Good thing because I was stressssssing about it.

 This picture is at the rehearsal, and I just thought it was interesting because these two people had never met before that day, but they were two of the most crucial people in supporting our relationship. Such contrast. Sacred and secular. Old and young. Both wise. Both holy. Both loving.

 Little James, the show stealing ring bearer. 

 Ha. 

My beautiful friends.

Saturday 

 Such a typical Megan face. I love it. 

 Signing the license

 Going to take pictures

 My poor little sicky was so beautiful, even if she felt like poop.

 This girl. I swear everyday I hear about something else that went wrong with the wedding that she took care of that I never knew about. As the wedding was going on, I thought to myself, shouldn't this be more stressful? The answer is no, not if you have the best bridesmaids ever to protect and love you, lead by the best friend and maid of honor ever. They were seriously like Alpha Team. They are available for rent, for a modest royalty fee of course.

 My brother Thomas was given the strict job of taking pictures of people crying. Spot on, Tom. She is so beautiful. 

 I love the look on his face.

 Me and Thomas, the photographer of most of these lovely shots and my baby

Blove giving her speech. So proud. 

Double Edged Sword

William and I happened to have the most annoying seats in the entire world at mass yesterday. There was a little kid behind us that kept pulling my hair and saying, "Stop, stop" over and over again as if someone was tickling him. Beside me was a dad, who I'm pretty sure slept in his church clothes and was wearing flip flops even though he seriously needed to cut his toe nails. He kept cuddling his 9 or 10 year old daughter. Horribly distracting.  William laughed as we walk out and said, "We always get the worst seats when it's the "love one another as I have loved you" reading. Touchee, Lord.

The readings at Mass yesterday could not have been more perfectly fit to our life situation right now. Its true that the Word of God is alive and still sharper than any two edged sword. 

Acts 14:21-27

Now it may seem like the first reading is just an account of what Paul and Barnabas were doing. However there is a line in their that went straight into my heart, 

“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” 

I think sometimes people forget the purpose of the marriage and get caught up in the wedding, let me tell you, I understand. The wedding seems like an all consuming vortex. However, the purpose of my marriage to William, is that I believe in my heart of hearts that he is the person most capable of helping me get to Heaven. I believe that he will make me laugh when I want to cry, and be an incredible father to our children.  The devil has been prowling like a lion, trying to find opportunities to ruin what I know to be our vocation. He comes veiled with the best of intentions, but with a horrible bite none the less. But Luke gives us these words of encouragement, "It is NECESSARY for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God." He doesn't say just that it is going to happen, he says it is NECESSARY. I could not agree with him more. Coming out on the other side of a hardship strengthens our faith and resolve. These necessary hardships only make us stronger and more assured of our love for one another and confidence in the support that we will offer one another during the difficult times that are assuredly ahead. 

Behold, I make all things new.

I think the book of Revelations is weird. It has never been my favorite, since 5th grade when someone tried to tell me that Catholics were going to Hell while waving a Book of Revelation at me separated from the rest of the Bible. Still, I cannot get over how many times John makes reference to preparing ourselves for salvation being like the preparation of a Bride for her Bridegroom. In fact, throughout the Bible, there are tons of mentions of the Bride preparing herself for her Bridegroom. 

 For the wedding day of the Lamb has come,his bride has made herself ready. She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment.” (The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones.) Revelation 19:7-8

I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:2

My dreaded final Confession before the wedding is quickly approaching. While I don't want to because I view the confessional much like the doctor's office and I have a serious case of White Coat syndrome, I know how important it is that this bride's soul be prepared for her Bridegroom. In the times that the Bible was written, preparing for marriage was a lengthy process (somehow still not as long as our engagement). The betrothal is first, when the Bride is then considered married, and then she is given a year to prepare herself for being a wife before she is taken into her husbands home. Interestingly enough, the Bride would not know the time when the groom would be coming to get her to take her into his home. Thank God, that's over. I can only imagine the anticipation. The Hebrews put immense value on this year of preparation for the Bride. At the end of the passage from Revelation from mass yesterday, I am filled with comfort because "The One who sat on the throne then said, "Behold, I make all things new." Rev 21:5a  I will be prepared for my Bridegroom because through confession I will be made new and more worthy to be given as the best wedding gift to my groom. 

I could write a whole separate blog post about how "love one another as I have loved you" applies to our preparation for marriage. Perhaps for another day. 

We are so excited. I feel like saying that has become very tired and trite. I am too ready. We are so prepared, I feel like I do about Christmas around December 6th, when I am just like, okay get here already. I know getting to NC will renew all of our excitement and fill us with the necessary patience until we arrive safely on the other side of our honeymoon and can begin our married love story together. Keep praying. Keep encouraging. You have no idea how your kind words sustain us. 

8

March 8th

If you know me with any sort of intimacy you know that saying I take a little while to wake up is kind of an understatement. I just don't like waking up in the morning. People often say that I don't like mornings, which is false, I love the beauty of the morning. I just don't like waking up. It's whatever. These were the things that I was thinking about on March 8th, 2008. It was 6 am when I woke up in my room in our old house, messy as usual. I had made Blove come sleep with me that night. I had closed the store last night, why on earth ice cream stores had to stay open till 10 pm would only become clear to me later. Rolling over, I convinced myself that I had five more minutes. It's always five more minutes, isn't it? 20 minutes later I HAD to get up or we were going to be late. And my mom and dad would start the annoying hassling to get me out the door. I threw on my favorite jeans, a red tank top that I would later decide was too low cut and give to Goodwill, and my favorite new hoody from this awesome new store in the mall, Forever 21, that was black and white and covered in sheet music. I bet everyone there will already think I go there. We had already sent in my deposit to hold my spot. I may as well suck it up, this is the path that God has brought me to, time to put on your pumps with the bows and see where I will be spending the next four years of my life.

I didn't shower. I did my make up in the car. We drove my beloved Billy down there. I rode in the back, car sick the whole way. We had to make it quick because I had to be at work at 5. We had to be in Belmont at 8 am. Even then I wondered why on earth a college would schedule its campus visits so early on a Saturday if students were the one's leading them. Some things become clearer from the inside.

We did a bunch of random stuff that I don't remember, unimportant things that I thought were so crucial. We ate lunch in the cafeteria, and all of the students called it the "caf" which I thought was horrible and sounded stupid, so I vowed then and there I would never call it that. Then, all of a sudden,  there he was. The boy. That one. The one I had seen last week in the musical, when we came to spy on the theatre that I was clearly going to become the star of. The one that's cast bio had made my heart flutter. That was him.

We met up for tours and things. I supposed I should probably get a better idea of the lay out of campus if I was going to have to come to school here. There he was again, he volunteered to take a group for a tour. No time like the present I thought. I took my first steps toward my future husband without even knowing. Uhhhhh who does this other girl think she is? Listen sister I know he's hot stuff, but clearly I am way more outgoing than you are so I've got you beat. My first thoughts about my very best friend couldn't have been any farther from the truth.

I had no idea the impact that freezing, windy day in March would have on my life. When I woke up and debated brushing my teeth, I couldn't have convinced myself, that would be the day that I would meet the love of my life. But it was. That was the day. It was the day that God had ordained in the beginning of time and I ever so begrudgingly followed Him. That day with sweaty feet and freezing hands, I checked him out for the first time. I loved the way that he knew I was flirting with him but played it off because he wanted everyone to know he was serious about his work.

I also instantly knew that this tiny little girl who had ruined my alone time with the older actor and I would never be friends because she wasn't Catholic. Why was she even going to a Catholic school? I was so right about my soul mate, and so wrong about the girl who became my best friend. The only girl  who I swear has access to my mind, who has literally been there since day one, and whose truthful tongue cuts like a knife right through my BS. What a loss I would have suffered if I had written her off the first of many times she third wheeled our "date".

The moral of the story is that March 8th, 2008 was nothing special to me when I woke up and it has in turn been one of the single most pivotal days of my life. God gave me two of the biggest blessings ever, no less than five minutes apart. I didn't have the cutest outfit on. My hair did not look beautiful, in fact it was probably greasy. But that was THE day. The day that girls dream of.

What a difference 5 years have made in all three of our maturity, understanding and in our love. Praise the Lord that I have grown past the judgement, the imagined superiority and the "Catholic" box. I praise Him for the ways that I have changed and in the ways I have stayed the same, I can still spot him in a crowded room and my heart skips a beat. Every time I look at him, I still hear the whisper in my heart that I did the first time, "that's him."


I told my mom on the ride home that I was going to marry that boy. She said, "I know." Seventy days from now, I will.

Friday Phone Dump: Valentines Edition

1) Heee. I have been making my own laundry detergent since October and it has cost me like $10 max. However it's really annoying to grate the soap...or at least it used to be. If you microwave soap it like...explodes and makes it a lot easier to grate. I have loved making this, my clothes smell great, they are clean and I don't have to spend money on laundry detergent. A batch costs me like $2 and lasts for the better part of two months.  BE WARNED: if you microwave soap, do it with the windows open. I almost died of asphyxiation from soap fumes.

2)We bought wedding bands. :-) This was another one of those wedding to do's that made the whole thing become real. We have both had issues staying excited for the wedding. We are really tired of living apart from each other. I don't wanna live alone anymore. He doesn't want to commute back and forth in DC traffic anymore. I don't care about cakes, and favors, and invitations. I just wanna get married. I suppose this is a good thing. It'll come back. I know it.

On the wedding band subject, I have noticed a trend lately with blingy wedding bands. They are gorgeous. This gal I work with has the prettiest one I've ever seen. However, our wedding bands are plain. All of our parents wedding bands are plain, and I am pretty sure all of our grandparent's wedding bands were plain. I was thinking/praying about this idea a few weeks ago, because while the jewelry lady had tried to sell me a beautiful blingy diamond wedding band....I didn't want it. Which you wouldn't expect from me because my engagement ring is perfect for me and is very sparkly. I've come to this conclusion about the whole thing. Our wedding/engagement/dating has been very sparkly, we have had a lot of blessings, parties, gifts, trips, etc that were just part of being young and in love. Our relationship has been very blingy up until this point. But this is a step into a new life, one that will be considerably less sparkly at times, that requires great steadfastness and sacrifice. Marriage is about day in, day out, commitment solely to the life I share with my partner. Our first promise was to get married, in our case to have a big white wedding, a honeymoon and all the trimmings that come with getting married. This promise is about life long commitment. That's why we chose plain bands, because our marriage won't be about flashy things everyday, but about deep, abiding love.  **disclaimer: if we were rich, I might feel differently about blingy wedding rings. :-)**

3) I finally french braided my own hair. Yes its inside out, I just can't get it to be normal. Keep practicin'.

4)My daddy made me feel good with a sweet email....after I told him how much more money I need for the wedding. ;-)

5)I decided to put in a throwback to camp. You can't tell but I am crying in this picture. I couldn't stand getting muddy. I don't know why. I just really hated it, but I did it for my campers. True, I only did it 2.5 times out of the 5 I was supposed to. But I really just couldn't stand it anymore. But I loved my campers and my summer staff and I miss them and pray for them always.

6)MY VALENTINES: my sweet baa boo sent me roses for the V Day...however we have a really big problem with surprises, so he told me about them last Thursday when I gave him his Valentine because I couldn't wait any longer than the two hours that I had it in my possession fail.

Also for my Valentine to myself, I bought a new table cloth, place mats and napkin rings. It was kind of silly how long I actually spent figuring out which I wanted.

7)This goes back to my comment early about not caring about the wedding at the present moment. My mom made a funny. She is just trying to make sure I get what I want. She's a good mama. And I'm sure whatever she picked for my cake will be spectacular and I will love shoving it into William's face.

8) I sent my Valentines, on Valentine's day. Sorry. At least you know I love you.

9)William McKenna nearly gave me a heart attack when he called me at 6 am on Monday to let me know that Pope Benedict would be resigning from his position as Pope. At first I was really sad. How could he do this to me? I am coming to see him in 92 days so that I can finally ask the man if he likes grilled cheese and he resigns?? I don't know if I can ask the new guy. What if he is lactose intolerant and that question would really hurt his feelings?

Moving on, I am so proud to be Catholic right now. In a world of instant gratification and me me me, Pope Benedict has shown the world what it is to be prudent and humble. I love the beautiful quote circulating, that Pope John Paul the Great taught us how to persevere and Pope Benedict is teaching us how to be humble. What a brave, brave man. I hope that he lives the remainder of his days in peace, doing what he loves best, with plenty of orange Fanta and Prada shoes galore. I love you Papa Benedicto!


That's my week. 92 days.

Friday Phone Dump

So my childhood friend does this on her blog every Friday and I think it is a brilliant way to show you what has been up in the life of me. And now that I finally have a phone worth showing you its pictures, it can commence.

(L to R) 1) my mama is planting these flowers in her garden in honor of her new son in law. 2) We have officially reached the double digits. Hallelujah. 3) I got a new stamp for my new last name. You may not know this about me, but I love stamps and I have about 567890 of them so this is tres exciting. 4) William's mom sent me this little gem. I hope my kids are half that cute. I just wanna pinch his cheeks. 5) I discovered Snap Chat and now my friends enjoy receiving pictures like this of me with my teddy bear. Lucky ducks. 6) This is the confirmation email of our flight for our honeymoon. I am probably going to pee in my pants with excitement. However I am uncomfortable with how close 720 and 815 are. If you get the reference, that is why we are friends.

Maybe next week I will have funner pictures.

This week in ABC's

A- arranging all of the millions of boxes of Christmas stuff...fun.

B-bought the remaining stuff I need to make centerpieces, except one little piece, they are gonna be boss, aka I am going to like em.

C- cackling at The West Wing that William has been watching recently.

D- dreaming about our upcoming Roman vacation, I AM SO EXCITED!

E- Exercising....not. But this week, that will all change.

F- freezing to death because we got our December heating bill, and dropped the thermostat by 4 degrees. :-)

G- Griping because I am upset about my 2% pay roll tax. 2% is a lot when you are poor, but not poor enough to receive government benefits.

H- hating a particular someone for ruining the end of "Lost" for me. You will never be forgiven.

I- Invitations. It just occurred to me that three months before May 18th is not March 18th, its February 18th. So I am currently putting invitations together and we are deciding on the A list, B list and the people we don't actually want to send an invitation to but we are going to in hopes that they can't come but they will still send a present.:-)

J- Javert aka the bad guy in my new undertaking of reading Les Miserables. Maybe I'll be done before I change my name.

K- is for Krispy Kreme and King Street Blues, mine and William's new restaurant by our house. We could walk but its freezing in these here parts.

L- loving our last break before he doesn't have to leave anymore aka he is stuck with me forever. Lifetime without the chance of parole.

M- missing my family, A LOT.

N- is for Cheer cheer cheer for old NOTRE DAME!! Great season. 

O- one hundred and twenty six days.

P- Pinning. Always pinning.

Q- quality time with my sweet baa boo, including lots of LOST and lots of Italy planning.

R- I am planning on reusing some of my Christmas lights in some classy decorating, not dorm room style, pictures to come.

S- the Simpsons app on William's I phone has woken me up or scared me or annoyed me no less that 56789 times this week,

T- turkey sandwiches.

U- Usurped William's guess that they Bronco's would win. The Ravens are my super bowl pick. Bow to the queen.

V- very Hipster glasses, aka William's new glasses. Circa 1960. Love.

W- wishing wishing wishing that May 18th- 25th would come quickly and pass slowly.

X- I kind of knew from the beginning of this post that I wouldn't have an X. Oh well.

Y- yawn, this whole alphabet thing took a lot more thought than I thought it would.

Z- for zebra, I don't have to have a reason.

lovesies.

10 Simple Things

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I am pretty sure this year is going to be my favorite year yet. We are 4 months and two weeks away from the wedding (what???) which is also 134 days. That is an incredible jump from the 400+ days that we started with. I would say it has flown by, but I like to be transparent on this sucker. 

Since the holidays have come and gone, leaving a bevy of engaged young ladies in its wake, I decided to make a list of 10 Simple Things that I have learned whilst trying to plan our wedding. I am by no means an expert but experience is the best teacher. I will probably have to make a Part 2 after the wedding because I am sure there are going to be more flubs in the future. 

Without further ado....

10 Simple Things To Do and Not Do When Planning Your Wedding

1) This ones for the MEN: Propose in a time frame where you would get married in the next 6-9 months. It gets really hard to wait on a lot of things, a lot of my mistakes came from trying to start things to early because I had a year plus to plan. I will elaborate more on this later.

2) Join The Knot: This website has guided me  A LOT  in time management. If I had obeyed its awesome To Do list, I would have saved money for sure. And if you need ideas they have a huge database of dresses, floral arrangements, invitations, etc and they also have most vendors in your area reviewed and rated. There are also some really great Q&A articles about etiquette etc. Its really helpful, I had one before we were engaged because I'm a freak but it is really helpful. I printed a To Do list out for myself and one for my mom, so that we would be able to keep up with the list on hard copy and keep all our paper contracts in one place. 

3) BEWARE giving out your email: I have two email addresses; my school one which became my junk one that I give out when I know you are going to send me a bunch of BS I don't care about, and then the one I used for important stuff, bills, Craft of the Day from Martha Stewart, and personal emails. I thought that wedding stuff wouldn't be junk and I should just give out my personal email so I don't miss all of those awesome opportunities! False. I get no less that 30 emails a day from Wedding stuff that I couldn't care less about. I am currently in a purge of unsubscribing from these bitties. Yes this sounds like common sense, mostly because it is. 

4) Registering: Don't register too early, however if you feel like you have to, it will be okay because you can update it online.  William and I registered in April, mostly because I had just totaled my car and I was really sad and I was moving to a new state soon and we didn't want to run out of time. It was a fun date (for the first hour) and then we got ice cream and went to see a movie. But since then, because I have moved three times since then, we have had to go ahead and get things that we really needed but had registered for already. For instance, I lived for 2 months without a microwave and then was like WRRRRRONNNG. Santa brought me one so that I could eat hot food. Thank you Santa. We also registered for the Big Bang Theory, all of the seasons on DVD, and William's sister got him the first season for Christmas. We haven't gotten any presents from our registry yet and I have just had to keep updating it. Make your registry a little bit before you send out your invites or whatever tells people where you are registered.

5) Time Talent Treasure: I have made in abundantly clear that I refuse to spend a ton of money on the wedding. This is all well and good but weddings require a lot of things that cost money. How does one still have the beautiful wedding that you want but not have to refinance your soul? William and I are so blessed to be surrounded by generous people. People have/ are giving us more gifts of time, talent and treasure than we could possibly name. We are so grateful. We will treasure these things far above the toaster oven someone we will never see again will give us. For instance: my dear sweet Johnny is addressing our invitations because he can write beautiful calligraphy (I'm pretty sure he is going to address his own in pencil chicken scratch, but I don't blame him). This is a huge gift of time and talent. My grandparents have the most beautiful car, the same make, model and color of the one they left their wedding in, and they are letting us use it for the wedding. An example of treasure that is being shared to make our wedding beautiful. Ask the people around you to do things. Do you have a friend with a beautiful voice, ask them to sing. Do you have an army of laborers that will help you to put things together? Use them. People love you and want to feel included in your day. 

6) Bridesmaid Dresses: Now, I have the most wonderful bridesmaids ever, I am blessed with a support system of beautiful women that are there for me no matter what. There is one in Minnesota, one in Winston Salem, three in Charlotte, and one in Baltimore, and I am in the pit of Hell aka NOVA. We are far spread. I wanted to be helpful and not make everyone have to make a trip to a central location so I just showed them a selection of dresses I really liked and a place from which they could order them. This sounds like a really nice and considerate idea. FALSE. It really just ended up being more stressful for them. I should have just added some extra time somewhere and had everyone that could come, come and get their dress at once and then if someone couldn't, we would figure it out. Just do it up right, have a scene from outta Bridesmaids minus the explosive diarrhea. It's fun and will be 56708 times less stressful. 

7) Practical: There is a bevy of places from which you can order things for your wedding, however, I have had the best experience with Oriental Trading ( SO CHEAP) and they have a huge variety of things, and surprisingly, I received this advice from another bride, check Ebay and search "cancelled wedding" People cancel fully planned weddings all the time and then have tons of stuff they just want out of the way. Etsy is also awesome, you get an original work of art that no one else will ever have. I like it. Also Groupon and Living Social can be really helpful. 

AND THIS AMAZING WEBSITE. I am not exaggerating when I say this website has saved me close to $500 dollars, it gives you codes for free shipping, and percentages off of purchases. I use it for everything now. If you don't do anything else that I suggested in this blog, and even if you aren't getting married, check out this website.

8) Have no less than 10 people look over things you get printed : SERIOUSLY. I ordered these invitations, (too early I might add). Our first batch of invitations were lovely but didn't have the church on it. FAIL. William looked at them, my mom looked at them, I looked at them, my sister looked at them, my dad looked at them. And yet we still ordered invitations with no location on them.  The second batch, all those people looked at them, three bridesmaids, the MOG and his sister. These better be perfect. Or else.  (yes I judged myself by making reference to the MOG instead of just saying William's mom, but it was convenient)

9)Take Things With A Grain of Salt: It is impossible to plan and execute a wedding the way you have it envisioned without hurting someone's feelings. Someone is going to get mad at you. Someone is going to feel snubbed. Someone will try to cause drama. OH WELL.  Get over it, just let it roll of your back. You cannot make yourself and everyone else happy at the same time. But the truth of the matter is that this is your wedding. They are going to be involved in 100 more weddings, but you only get one. This is not to say that if someone's feelings are seriously hurt you shouldn't apologize but seriously. Someone's pissed and doesn't want to come because of something you may have said 2 years ago? Oh well. Don't come. Saves me money. Didn't address something correctly? Sorry.  Didn't invite someone that you wouldn't know from Adam? It's your wedding. The most important thing about this wedding is the marriage. Period. 

10) If You want something a certain way: If you want something a certain way and someone else has to do it; for example; the music, make sure you go in to your meeting or whatever with a very concise yet exhaustive plan. It's your wedding, if you want something, know what you want, and get it done. If you want something else done a certain way, do it yourself. Keep people's limitations in mind. For example: I wanted to do my Bridal portraits at my Grandma's house, they have beautiful barns and a big white house and huge fields perfect for fun bridals. However, they aren't young anymore and if I asked them to do that, I know they would stress and try and make sure everything is manicured and gorgeous, and I don't want to put that stress on them. Ergo, I chose somewhere else, where it's their job to keep their lawns manicured. 

This is my advice. Take it or leave it. I am stoked for my wedding and wish I had listened to this advice before I got well into planning.