Wedding Season 2014

Forget the baby talk, Wedding Season has begun! My best friend for the past 23 years (I'm 28 years old) so my lifelong friend - is getting married. She is a savvy sexy successful woman who is way to cool to call me her friend but for some reason she does. (Thanks!) Her #1 no-no is most social situations is children. She'd just "rather not". Rather not deal with the crying, rather not deal with the distraction and just "rather not". So at her upcoming wedding at the end of February she has a strict NO CHILDREN rule. Five of her nine bridesmaids are married and three of the five have children. More like toddlers, not children. Either way, they are not invited to the wedding.

I was so anxious for her reaction when I announced my pregnancy. I expected her initial reaction would be one of the following Pinterest comments:



    

YIKES!! Not so nice...
 Style Unveiled.com

God Bless this bride with THREE pregnant BMs
source

Ack! Even hubby recalls the bride-to-be saying "You better not knock her up!" ayayay

When the day came I missed my chance to tell her face to face. However, she knew something was up and asked me a few days later. She is happy for me and hasn't banned me from her wedding.

Let's face it, this pregnancy hasn't change me much. I'm a pretty lame friend anyways. I'm definitely not the one you call for a crazy night out. A crazy night IN? I'm all over that! lol

For all other pregnant bridesmaids out here: I found this website with pregnant bridesmaid advice. 

1. Be honest with the bride With this being my first baby I have no clue what to expect! But she is my BFF so she pretty much knows everything about me anyway.
3. Order a bigger dress Done!

       

This is the dress straight from the boutique. Yes I said boutique, not store because it came with a boutique price tag, we're not talking David's Bridal here!

 I took this picture in my 17 year old sister's bedroom so the color doesn't do it justice. It's a really pretty dress I will ABSOLUTELY wear again, believe it or not. Also I had extra spark that day (notice the static cling). 

This is before alterations. Can't wait to see how big I get by the end of Feb!

More advice....
7. BYOB: Bring snacks and water to stay hydrated. Fainting bride, cute. Fainting preggo, "TIMBER!!"
8. Comfortable shoes! Flats for sure!
9. Laugh at yourself Hormones = emotional. But tears at a wedding are OK!


I'm signing off with Grits on this. Being pregnant is hard enough, add in supporting your BFF on the most important day of her life and it's hard to remember to take care of yourself. So a definite Grit post.

Grits,

It's not like I can wear high heels right now anyways.

Where have I been?

I'm sorry I've been absent from blogging.  The week just got away from me! 

The easiest way to catch you up would be via Instagram:

 

BACON

Do I have your attention?

I have never been a fan of bacon - Please don't leave my blog!! - but hubby loves bacon.

I became the world's best wife when I had a hot BLT sandwich waiting for him when he got home the other night.  His sandwich got double the bacon (see below)

 

 

Does that basket weave of bacon look familiar?  Thank you Pinterest!

 

 

Birthday Party

For 10 year old nephew

 

 

Pre-Drinks

Knowing there were 16 kids at this party, none of which are ours....we decided to pre-drink.

Shake your head all you want.  It didn't help.  They still drove us crazy.  And once the parents knew we were drinking, they wanted some!

Party Time

Mexican Loteria game and St. Patrick's day confetti. 

A collision of cultures

Group Photo

A goal of mine is to take more pictures of J's family.  They see each other all the time, but don't have enough pictures of each other.  This was taken on my phone in a dark room, so next time I'll bring a 'real' camera.  But it was a success!  As soon as I posted this on Facebook, J's sister who lives in Ohio commented on it.  She likes to SEE her family. 

 

 

Pinterest Inspired

 

 

Picture frame Template

I cut out the sizes of my frames and hung them up to see if I liked the placement.

One week later, these have moved around multiple times and I'm still not satisfied! Good thing I didn't put holes in the wall!  Saved by Pinterest.  And no Salmon is not my first choice in wall colors, but it's growing on me.

 

 

Kid Friendly Breakfast

My Sister in Law was traveling this weekend, so I baby sat her kids (that's a whole other blog post).  She got sick while she was on the road, so the morning she gets back her kids are like "yay! Mommy's back!  What's for breakfast?" 

I had just bought bacon and eggs so.....

Bacon + Muffin tins + eggs + cheese on tip = Breakfast!

Kid-friendly too! The nieces and nephews (ages 5-10) helped me make these. 

Chef Mommy was taking a break!

 

 

Organize Organize Organize

We finally used some wedding gift cards and went to Bed Bath and Beyond this weekend.  I would have spent $107 but with all the gift cards only spent $11!

First thing out of the bag: a Real Simple drawer organizer. So much easier than situating a bunch of baskets in a drawer. Thanks Danielle, Aunt Edie, and Patterson's for the gift cards!

 

Which reminds me, I have GOT to get my wedding Thank You's in the mail.  That's what I get for DIYing....

 

 

High Heels!

Hashtag JRMWedding

We asked our wedding guests to share the pictures they take.  The easiest way to do this was with a hashtag, so we chose #JRMWedding.

I've created an instagram album of this hashtag you can visit here: #JRMWedding

I'll try to post the actual pictures at a later date.

Bridal Portraits

I still don't have wedding photos, but I do have these bridals from January.  My dream was to have them in a cotton field at sunset.  And we got it!  I was a little nervous at first, I think you can tell in the photos.  But by the end of the shoot I was comfortable and at ease.  Those photos came out the best!

This last photo was the portrait featured at the wedding.  It was a huge hit!

High Heels!

The Honeymoon that wasn't

The great thing about Texas is that we have it all: Mountains, lakes, rivers, snow, heat, international borders, oceans, ports, beaches, etc.  The Sunday morning following our wedding, after breakfast with the best friends in Dallas, we headed down to one of Texas' gems: Galveston, a coastal town in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Being Sunday we didn't want to miss out on our first Sunday mass as a married couple.  So we found a church with an evening mass we could make.  It was at St. Anthony of Padua (of course! this is J's patron saint) in the Woodlands.  It was the youth mass and it was an amazing experience.  The deacon's homily was about the role of a father in the house and how the faith life of all children comes from the father.  Pretty cool thing for my 1-day-old-husband to hear! 

After mass we pulled into Galveston and decided to stay at a beach front, but hole-in-the-wall motel.  The weather is cold and rainy, but we'll be on a cruise ship for the next week!  No need to spend money on luxury now.  And since we'll be eating fresh fish from the ocean all week, we decide to order a pizza.  J is acting weird and he hates this hotel (it costs $47/night).  He has a feeling we should stay in a fancy hotel.  But when I suggest pizza he lightens up.  We walk into our hotel room and think "This is the type of room people are murdered in".  But we suck it up and enjoy our pizza.  We picked this place because of the free wifi, but the wifi doesn't work on his new iPad.  Now J really wants a 5 star hotel. 

We flip on the TV and hear the news: A Carnival ship is stranded in the Gulf of Mexico and will be towed to shore within the next few days.  You know you heard the story... 

Source

With all the wedding commotion, travel and lodging decisions we hadn't been listening to news radio.  I hadn't been checking twitter.  We were relaxing and enjoying each other's company!  Now we sit on a cheap hotel bed with pizza we have no appetite for, and discover our honeymoon is no more.  J is so disappointed because he had a feeling we should have stayed 5 star.  And now it's 11pm and we're stuck in this dump.  Happy Honeymoon. 

At 10 am on Monday (the day we are supposed to board the ship at noon - in 2 hours) we get a call from Carnival saying they have important information regarding our trip.  Are you kidding?!  We called our booking agent at 8am!  By now he's on the ball telling us what to do and offering what little help he can give. 

Realizing we need to start heading home and not waste our vacation days in this misty, cold and windy town, we start packing up and checking out.  We do stop by Hotel Galvez for a mimosa and bloody mary. 

 

yay! for wedding rings!

He had huevos rancheros and I had lox and bagels. 

  

Love this display!

Then we bought some sad souvenirs to remember this fiasco. 

Of course we made the best of it by traveling through San Antonio and enjoying a night on the Riverwalk with dinner at Fogo de Chao.

  

 

and breakfast at our favorite taco place.  Taco Haven

As of now, we're back to Green Acres, still awaiting our full refund and travel expense reimbursement from Carnival.  We're exciting to book our next cruise with the 25% discount we'll receive!  This time we're flying to Miami and getting on the brand new ship!  Viva Mexico!

Grits,

MAWWARIAGE

We're married!!



You know I'll have to wait on the photographers photos before I share the big wedding day post.   But I wanted to let you know it all went well and we did make it official!

Every time I say "I'm married" in my head I think of The Princess Bride priest




hahaha, but really it was a beautiful day full of ups and downs, and in the end we are MAWWARIED!! 

As my husband said when asked what it feels like, it feels pure.  It feels right.  It feels amazing.  I got an extra long kiss as I got in the car for work this morning and I was FINALLY called "wife"! 

Why I'm not on my honeymoon and am at work this week is another story I will share shortly!


High Heels!

Less than a week

In less than a week I will be marrying the man of my dreams!!

 

Revisit the proposal and dress shopping and all wedding posts
on my previous blog

and after Saturday look forward to posts about the entire process!

 

In case I forget to mention it before the wedding,
look for #JRMWedding on twitter

and instagram to see the fun on the big day!

Wedding Website

After the location and date were set for the wedding I knew I needed to make a wedding website.  I mean, if it's not on the internet it's not true, right?

There are a lot of wedding website platforms out there: theknot.com weddingwire.com and even some pricey options:

I went with mywedding.com because 1)it was free 2)I found a template that I liked and 3)the url mywedding.com wasn't as annoying as the other ones.



The Home Page

I really liked the wood grain on this template.  There wasn't a specific color that showed what our 'wedding colors' were because at the time I had no clue what the wedding colors were!  I just knew I needed to share the date and location so that my out of town guests would be able to book flights and hotel rooms.

I, of course, leaned on my designer friend Alexa Michelle for suggestions on the title, subtitle, photo, etc. 

The Our Story and Wedding Party pages are up next!

We have no wine!

Sr. Lale sent me a link to this blog the other day.  The blog Canterbury Tales is written by Dr. Taylor Marshall.

Source: CatholicGag

I thought Sr. Lale was sending me this link because I'm a bride-to-be and this blog has to do with the Bible wedding.  Remember the wedding at Cana?  Jesus' first miracle? 

The wedding runs out of wine and Jesus' mother, Mary, tells the servants to "Do whatever He tells you" and Jesus tells the servants to serve from the water barrels, water that has been turned into wine. 

In his blog, Dr. Marshall tells us to remember this story when "life throws curve balls into your marriage".  He says "Of course, marriage is a great gift and full of joy. But what happens when the wine runs out and all you have is water?  Sometimes, you just have to turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary and say,

 "We have no wine. The joy has run out. All we have here is water. Please transform it!"

And guess what?  Jesus and Mary will do just that.  Catholics know Mary doesn't preform miracles, only Jesus can do that.  But when we pray to Mary she uses her motherly role in guiding us to the solution and challenging us to listen to Jesus. 

 

In the story Jesus turns barrels full of water into wine.  We must have the fullness of heart in order for Jesus to work within us.  If we are running on empty, spiritually, emotionally and mentally then Jesus can only change what we have.  We need to nourish ourselves so that He can completely nourish our souls.

As Dr. Marshall says: "The more water in the jugs, the more they can transform into wine."

 

Thank you Sr. Lale!

 

High Heels!

Sr. LaLe's Wedding Advice

I had a special visitor in my office today.  She's no stranger to me, I eat lunch with her most days.  Sr. Lala Pelikan is a nun in our Christian Formation office here at the Diocese.  Along with being my lunch buddy she's also knitting me a Virgin Mary prayer shawl for my wedding day.  It will be my something blue!  So after our lunch in the break room she stopped by my office to look at my bridal portraits (which I can't wait to show you!).  Then she passes along this marriage advice:

1) Never keep score.  Don't say "well I did it last time" or "I did this so you do that"
2) Never give up on your children.  Never say "I've done all I can do", because when you do - that's when the communication stops
3) Never stop praying for your marriage and your children.  Because if you don't, who will?  God gave you those responsibilities because He knew you could take care of them. So keep praying for them!

I thought this was great advice for this Bride-to-be!

High Heels!

Bridal Shower

My aunt Betty and our family friend, Helen, hosted a bridal shower for me!

<insert photo of bridal shower invitation>

It was a great group of Dallas women invited to our wedding. This was an AMAZING taste of the love and warmth we'll be surrounded with on our wedding day. It was a 2 hour shower, but us women can talk! So we almost ran out of time to open gifts!

Helen's daughter is a budding artist (in fashion and photography) so she took these great photos of the big day.

Apron from my chef-to-be Sister! 

Maids of Honor

Towel cake!

Sisters and mom

Grandma, aunts, cousins and sisters

 

The Hostesses

Dallas bridesmaids! <3

Aunt Betty explaining the games:

 

Each guest received a notecard during lunch. They were asked to write down an item in their house that they would like to sell and write a classified ad for that item.

Then at gift opening time, the cards were read with my fiancé's name inserted as the item for sale.

 

<insert pictures of funniest cards>

 

Guests were also asked to share a piece of marriage advice.

 

One Maid of Honor read the "for sale" and the other read the marriage advice.

It was a hoot!

Heeyyy!! Bride to Be is happy!!