A little dose of reality.....

For those of you who think planning a wedding is step one of a happily ever after fairy tale story....think again!! Here is a little sneak peek at the behind the scenes, ugly truth of wedding planning:

This folks is what used to be my bedroom, now it is wedding central. My bed has become a factory, cranking out one do-it-yourself project after another. My floor, a breeding ground of wedding essentials, my half unpacked bachelorette party suitcase and laundry from last century. This is it people, real life! However, my vow is that tomorrow with the kick off of our very own wedding month my attitude will be positive as I soak in my last couple of weeks of wedding planning (the good, the bad and the ugly). My first step in fixing my attitude is organizing this thing I call a bedroom.

GET 'ER DONE....

T-minus 19 days until the wedding. Brittany and I are in full wedding planning mode... If you want to talk about things besides either family or religious emergencies or the wedding, do not bother! If you receive a phone call from us, it's because we want to get information from you about the wedding!

Okay people, that's how you help us keep our sanity...You want to contribute to the wedding? You can either give us money (hahaha, always welcome in this economy, wedding or no wedding lol) or follow the instructions above! With the help of all our wonderful family and friends, I know we can do it! Let's shove the -zilla right out of this Bride (okay and sometimes this Groom, I'll admit it, but only SOMETIMES) and have an enjoyable final 2 and a half weeks before we have the best day of our lives!

Love and God bless...the Groom.

Best wedding gift!!

Justin and I were surprised a few weeks ago by an early wedding gift from our friends Reagan and Jenna (for those avid blog followers they are Emmy's parents). Knowing how much Justin and I love baseball, they landed the four of us the most awesome seats to the Dodger vs. Angel game (aka Freeway series). Reagan and Jenna are avid baseball fans, although unfortunately Dodger fans and fully understood how much we would love this opportunity. It was my first trip to Dodger Stadium, and I don't know if I will ever be able to return after the experience we had. Not only were these seats in the very first row of the ENTIRE stadium, but they were in the Dugout Club. For those of you not familiar, the Dugout club is an exclusive section of seats directly behind home plate. This "club" features its own restaurant, complete with a sushi bar, dessert station and all sorts of yummy foods. Being a part of this "club" gives you full access to this restaurant, did I mention its all you can eat? Also, the all you can eat perk includes in-seat service and to-go boxes to enjoy all restaurant food at your seat. Let's just say, Justin was in complete heaven. Here are some other highlights from the night:

-My favorite player Torii Hunter waved to me

-Justin fist pumped Napoli

-Justin took his picture with Erik Aybar

-Reagan took his picture with Larry King

-Rob Reinter gave Justin and I the evil eye because the Angels were winning!

-Calista Flockhart and I enjoyed a nice conversation where she denied me my only chance at a real celebrity picture

-We were on TV!!! and not just any TV, but SportsCenter!!

-The Angels won!!!

Happy Father's Day!!!

A belated happy father's day to all the wonderful dad's out there!

I have...

...the greatest fiance in the whole entire world!

Brittany is the greatest woman ever, and I am so blessed that she said yes a year and one day ago. Thank you to everyone who has ever touched her life in a positive way, because now I am reaping the benefits of having the coolest chick by my side!



Did I mention she's a good kisser?

6.16.09

One year ago today, Justin got down on one knee and popped the question! It was by far the best day ever. However, as we approach the one month mark until the big day, I have a feeling 6.16.09 is about to get surpassed. I can't believe it has been a year already and the wedding is in 32 days!! What I really can't believe is that I have lived to tell about a year of wedding planning :) haha just kidding!! Although wedding planning can be, um stressful? I have honestly loved every part of this past year. I am going to try and remember that I only have 32 days left of being a fiance and I will never get to plan my own wedding again (can I get a hallelujah?!). Anyways today shall serve as a reminder to myself to enjoy this time and take a chill pill. I will begin this challenge by returning with my wonderful husband-to-be to the scene of the crime and hopefully enjoy a nice halo victory!

Wedding Party Member of the Month #2

Preface: So it was my brilliant idea to feature Justin and I's best man and maid of honor for an entire month since they are just so special to us. However, Justin went first and he totally slacked so I being the wonderful wife-to be also slacked so that his best man could indeed enjoy a full month in the spotlight. See I only slack when necessary. Your welcome :)

Now that that is out of the way, without further ado I would like to announce our 17th and final wedding party member.....

Heather!!!!

First of all, let me just say it is really weird to call her Heather. Heather and I have called each other by various nicknames since the very beginning of our friendship almost a decade ago. These nicknames include, but are not limited to, snookums (or snooks for short), hbo (honey bunches of oats), lucky charms, and my new favorite moh (maid of honor). However for clarification purposes, I will call her Heather.



Heather and I have been friends since the summer before we started high school. I must admit Heather was not a huge fan of me for reasons that won't be mentioned, but luckily my charm eventually won her over. Pretty much once school started we were inseparable. We caused quite the ruckus at ol' TP. Then, as most of you know my family did the unthinkable, we moved!! Luckily, only about a year later, we convinced Heather's family to move too. For the next three years we practically lived together, annoyed everyone in sight, and stalked every boy at Stater Bros. I could probably go on for days about all of the memories and inside jokes we made, however like most things with Heather and I , you probably wouldn't get it.



For the last four or so years, Heather and I have lived much further apart and have been knee deep in "adult responsibilities." However, our friendship foundation is strong and was built to last. We can go weeks, even months without seeing each other, but it doesn't matter. I know she will always be there for me no matter what and I could not imagine having anyone else standing next to me on the day Justin and I get married.

I am so proud of Heather for her most recent accomplishment, graduating from Loma Linda University with her Bachelor's Degree in Dental Hygiene. What a talented snookums I have!!!!!

I must add, after all of these years of friendship you would think we would have loads of adorable pictures together...not the case, like I said you wouldn't get it. You look perfect hbo!!!

Bridal Shower #2

Last year after Justin and I got engaged, my dad's cousin Kelly offered to throw us a shower. We finally decided to have a family shower for all of the girls on all sides of our families. Kelly took on all the planning and created such a special day I will never forget. I must say we faced a bit of a hiccup the morning of thanks to the overachiever marathon runners taking over San Diego. My maid of honor, mother and I set off for my first dress fitting scheduled hours before my shower. However thanks to the road closures, we arrived about 30 minutes late to my own shower half ready. It really was a lovely hot mess. Special thanks to my maid of honor and shower guests for calming me down and making me have a fabulous time.

The food was so yummy and the company was wonderful. Our family blessed us with some amazing gifts and I couldn't wait to show them all to Justin. Justin might be most excited about the chips and salsa bowl from my aunt, since he could live off chips and salsa :) I think I was most excited about my Grandma's gift....she bought us decorations for each holiday. I am so excited to have decorations for our new place!



Justin's mom had sent me a package and I was supposed to open it at my shower. It was a trunk full of all sorts of wedding goodies! It was so much fun opening each one and reading why she included each thing.

Thank you so much everyone for sharing in my bridal bliss!!!!


Our friend Jenna made the trip down to our family shower and surprised us with the best gift and I will be sure to share all about it next week so stay tuned :)

Bridal Shower #1

I was so blessed to have two bridal showers thrown in my honor. The first shower was more of a friends shower and it was so much fun. My maid of honor, Heather (who you will be learning about shortly) and my mom really threw me the most perfect shower. Bless Heather's little heart she planned the whole thing in the midst of her last semester of college! Luckily she had such great help and it was the best day!

My two requests for the shower were 1) funfetti cupcakes and 2) to play my most favorite shower game of all time "the clothespin game" (you know where if you say the forbidden word or words someone can take away your pin....) Anyways both of my requests were fulfilled! The cupcakes were adorable and the game was a hit!



We also played the toilet paper bride game which is a classic. It was hard actually being the judge rather than the participant, they all were very creative with their designs!

After the games, I opened all of our presents! Wow! I was overwhelmed by all of our friends and their generosity. There were so many thoughtful gifts that I know Justin and I will cherish for a very long time. Although we can't pick favorites here are a few that were captured by photograph:



I know Justin already thanked everyone in a previous post, but I just have to thank everyone again.

First and foremost, thank you to the best maid of honor a bride could ask for. She put a lot of heart in to this party and made it so special for me.

Also thank you to my wonderful mother who was Heather's right hand man. She made such yummy food and didn't let me worry about a thing, even though Lord knows I tried!

One of the most special things about my bridal shower was actually having my entire bridal party there! Thank you all for making the trip down!

The best surprise ever was having my cousin and bridesmaid Kathleen fly in from Florida to come to my shower! It was so unbelievably special to have her there. Thank you cousin!!

My wonderful Aunt Jamie also flew out from Florida and she was such a huge help. I absolutely loved sharing this memory with my aunt and cousin! Thank you guys so much for making me feel so special! And not only did they come all the way out here, they also bought Justin and I the cutest chalkboard to hang in our kitchen! Don't let the cute thing fool you, its huge! I can't wait to put Justin's honey-do list on there :)

Thank you to everyone for making Justin and I feel so special! I will never forget my beautiful shower!

We aren't going to be homeless!

We have found a place to live!! I know I have promised two other blogs this week, but this was just too exciting to not post! Justin and I put a deposit down on an apartment today. We are so excited that a) we won't be homeless after the big day b) we no longer have to avoid questions about life after the big day and c) we found some super sweet brand new apartments to live in. Woo hoo!

ITS JUNE!!!!!!!

We are getting married next month!!!!! Oh my goodness!!!! So I have quite a bit to cover since well school pretty much took over my life and now I am officially on summer vacation!!

Summer- I know I just said it, but its SUMMER! Last week was my last week of school and now I have two months of freedom aka wedding central. I can't wait to finally concentrate on this wedding!

Shower- Luckily my wonderful fiance posted almost immediately about my wonderful shower. I have totally slacked on posting about all the fabulous details. I will be sure to fit in the schedule for this week so be on the look out for that.

Final wedding party member of the week(month)- Another thing to look out for....our final wedding party member! It is sure to be a page turner (or mouse clicker I guess). Also don't forget to check out Justin's best man, last month's wedding party member.

Rings-rings!! Justin and I picked up our wedding bands over the weekend. We both love them and of course can't wait to wear them :)

Invitations- see post below :) they are out people!

I hope everyone had an awesome memorial day weekend! Thank you to all the service men past and present!
We went blueberry picking

Signed, Sealed, Delivered....

The invitations are out people!! Enjoy!!