Wedding Photos!!!!

Here are some pics from the wedding...

John and the minister waiting for the bridal party to enter...doesn't he look handsome?? :)John, the minister and the groomsmen waiting for me to enter....

My bridesmaids watching me walk down the aisle...Kissy Kissy...During the unity candle...The original kissy kissy... :)My cake - yummy yummy - had a strawberry filling...
John's Dallas Cowboys cake....surprised? Didn't think so! ;-)

First dance...

Toasting...do you see how RED that punch is? Was scary to toast that way! I was convinced I'd be wearing it!!

Daddy Daughter dance...

Mother Son dance

Our parents being honored for both celebrating their 40th anniversaries!!

Aggies doing the Aggie War Hymn!!

The Sendoff!!

Those are some pictures that my uncle took....I'll post the professional ones when I get them in a few weeks!!! Hope you enjoyed!! :)

Wedding Pictures - Part 1 Pro Engagement.....

A teaser pic from the wedding reception...my sister Julie and my niece Taylor.... the rest of the pics are engagement....;-)






We didn't do our engagement pictures until a few weeks before the wedding. So here are a few of the professional shots from the photo shoot at the Dallas Arboretum.

I think my mom has some of the wedding pics that family members took - so when I go over there later, I am going to see what I can find :)

I'll update on our wedding/honeymoon in spurts - partially for your reading pleasure and partly so I can print this out at some point and have a record of all the events that transpired. We had a blast!!

Enjoy these for now...I'm off to run some errands!!

It's TOMORROW!!

Wow - It's finally here!! This will be my last post before the wedding because I won't be back home until Sunday just to drop off the way to the airport. Yesterday was a whirlwind but it was a lot of fun..Hair, nails, dress.... Also found out some sad news about a wedding that was called off by someone I know and care about. 2 months away from the date. I could say a lot of things here but we'll just leave it at that. My heart breaks for him and we are praying for him and his family.

It was so good to get to visit with family yesterday evening too! Some we had seen relatively recently (this summer) some that we hadn't visited with in years.

Everyone will be hanging out at mom and dad's today, but I don't think we will get to see everyone again until the rehearsal tonight. We have soooo much to do still!! That's why I am awake at this horrible hour. John had one stop left to do so he is out doing that and then I will pick him up at 7.

We're about to kick this journey up a notch...I'm so excited!! :) 30 hours.....wow...the countdown is in HOURS!!! I'll post some pictures after we get back from Lake Tahoe!! Ciao! Pray the rest of the time goes smoothly!!

2 days!! The Wedding that Almost Wasn't!!

Only 2 more days!! What a deal!! Yesterday was such a tornado of a day!! Oh my goodness! In addition to the hustle and bustle of trying to wrap up things at work - I happened to be looking at the website to get the marriage license address as we were going to go pick this up on Friday when we were both off work. Well - I hadn't remembered from looking at the site previously that you had a 3 day waiting period which meant - we HAD to get it yesterday or we couldn't get married this Saturday!! Yes, John was less than thrilled at my oversight, but we went down to the office and got it all taken care of so we can officially be married on Saturday. Praise the Lord that I went on that site yesterday and not today or tomorrow!!

My sister came in town last night so got to love on the baby a little. She is so adorable. Julie brought pics of Doug as a baby and she is the spitting image of him. Too funny. She showed off her rolling over trick and had some laughs before it was bedtime for the little punkin.

Today will be a busy day...The real final fitting at 9:30, hair at 11, nails this afternoon, have to take guest bags to the hotels this afternoon and finish up wedding paper products. Cutting the silly program paper will take the most time because this batch didn't line up as smoothly as the first 100 for some reason. Family starts coming in tonight....and we have a big dinner planned at mom and dad's with whoever is here. It's getting really real!! :) Yay!!!

Last day of work!! 3 more days!!

It's my last day of work!! Whoohoo!! Well working at the job...lol I still have a lot of running around to do...last minute things...hair...nails...final fitting... It's getting very exciting!! Julie, Doug and baby Taylor come tonight!! John had a softball game Monday night and it was so windy that the dirt got caught in my sinuses so I was a sneezy mess yesterday. Claritin D didn't do much to help, so I made a quick trip to the doctor for some of the strong stuff. Normally, I would just let it run it's course but I can't have allergies turning into a full blown mess like they did a couple months ago. My wedding is in 3 days for goodness sake! So I got some medicine that has a bunch of scary side effects to it (on rare occurance of course). Hopefully it will just do it's job and the only job the tissues will need to do is wipe tears of joy....

All the DIY stuff that I was going to try to do....well some of it got done. The aisle runner got nixed because it was too much a pain in the booty. The tears of joy packets were just an excessive cute thing that I didn't have time to do. The programs are still in process. Almost done but still working on it. I need to get a new print cartridge and finish up the table signs. We also need to do laundry and pack. I'd like to go shopping for a new outfit or two but I don't know when I will have the time. We are getting our marriage license on Friday. I wish we hadn't waited until the last day to do it but it was hard to coordinate a time for both of us to take off to do it.

Only 3 more days!! The rain woke me up early this morning, so it's still only 6:45am. Well I guess it's time to get this last day on the road. Lots of loose ends to wrap up. Do you ever worry a little bit when you go on vacation that you'll come back to chaos because of things that happened while you were gone? I pray that isn't the case.

4 days!!

Only 4 days left!! Julie comes in tomorrow and the rest of the fam will trickle in Thursday and Friday! I'm excited, stressed, nervous (just about the little details - not about getting married), ready to relax, and at the same time wanting to soak in all the moments. Only working today and tomorrow this week. Off I go..... Next time I blink it will be here!!

Single Digits!!!

Wow!! Can you believe in a couple hours we will now be in the single digit countdown to our wedding day? I'm starting to feel overwhelmed at all the little things that still have to be wrapped up. It will all come together...I know....it's just a crazy whirlwind right now!! People start coming into town next Wednesday!! 1 week from today!! Ok - back to the program printing!! No time for blogging these days! I promise I'll post pictures of the big event stuff for those who are interested! :) So fun!!!

Shower the people you love with love....

Yay!! This weekend has so much fun in store!! Bridal shower is tomorrow with so many of my fabulous friends and family - some who I have not seen in years!! My sister and niece will be attending via webcam (isn't technology fabulous?) I can't wait!! After the party I probably will hang with the fam. John is on call so I don't know if he will be able to venture over to Plano or not. Sunday morning he found someone to fill in for him and we are venturing out to the Arboretum to do our engagement pictures. I know the wedding is 22 days away. Why are we just doing them now? Well - because we hadn't had time to and we wanted to do them before the wedding. :) We also are going to do a little video montage thing. I think some people play those at the reception or whatever but I think I'll just treasure it as a keepsake for us. I'm making a slideshow for before the wedding. So this weekend is all about our wedding!! How fun!! The excitement is building!! Yay!!

26 days

2 big checks this weekend and both happened at the same time. I was going to go veil shopping this weekend. I mentioned this to one of my besties and she suggested Craigs list. What could it hurt - I started poking around on there Friday before John got home and found a lady who had exactly what I was looking for - the same one I had been eyeing on David's Bridal. To make it even better - she was selling a headpiece that was mostly pearls with some Swarovski crystals - which is also exactly what I was looking for. We got both for what we probably wouldn't have even been able to get the veil for. What a deal!!

After that, Mom and I went shopping at a local mall looking for the right jewelry. I already had in my head what I wanted it to be. I guess I'll just have to get the ones I wanted online. We did have another exciting find though. Well - exciting for us anyway because we saved a lot of $. Carlton Cards is going out of business at the end of the month in this mall. Everything was 75% off!! I was able to get 200 Thank You cards for $13.00!! Wow!! Amazing!!

I love good deals!! :)

Angriest Bride in the Metroplex

Isn't that funny? I didn't even seem mad in the interview.... It ran at 4, 6, and even headlined at 10!! At 4 it was funny because the story was tucked behind an exclusive on the rise in sales of granny panties. Hee hee hee!!

I'm on TV!!

Well - I reported the reception venue to ABC and NBC news - NBC contacted me and wanted to come out and interview me! Yikes - I thought he was just going to get an audio of my voice - but he videotaped me. Yuk! Hopefully this will help us getting our $ back. It will air today at 4pm.

TGIF!!!

I don't know that I have been more ready for a weekend than I am today. This week was a doozy!! I have a second dress fitting tomorrow and then we go to our new venue to add our signatures to the contract and take a tour of the property. Because we were working, we weren't able to see it before we had my parents sign - just the online pictures. The excitement is back! I can't wait for March 14th!! :)

YAY!!! SUCCESS!! WE HAVE A VENUE!!

It's perfect! It's official! It's even more beautiful than what the evil Summit would have been. They even include the chair covers and bows which I wanted initially but unfortunately weren't in the budget. It's all included. Now if we could only get our $ back from the thieves, we would be all set.

If anyone knows anyone who was affected by Summit Ballrooms untimely departure or is planning a wedding in the DFW area, I now have a list of vendors that I would recommend in a heartbeat based on their incredible willingness to help out those of us fielding this curveball. Leave me a comment if you would like me to email their information out to you.

A few other lessons learned: 1) If you pay vendors with your credit card, you can have recourse through your credit company if the company does not honor it's contract. (Dave Ramsey would not approve though ;-) ) 2) Wedding insurance may not be such a bad investment - though it may not allow you to recoup all of your monies(some is better than none, though right?) 3) Listen to what other brides have to say about vendors/venues. (Though everything I heard about the Summit was great at the time) 3) Ask questions - LOTS of questions....

One step closer...

Well we have 2 beautiful options with 2 wonderful facilities that are willing to work with us. Drawing up final numbers will help determine which one it is. It seems that people in this whole industry are as sickened (well - maybe not to the same degree) by this horrid company as we are and have bent over backwards helping brides affected by it to network for replacements. Some have even helped to make phone calls along with us. Our wonderful friends and family and even online friends have offered wonderful suggestions. I've heard of some brides who were left with only a week or two before their weddings. I'll feel much better once we have a signed contract, but until then.....it looks promising...keep praying it through!! :)

a small glimmer....

Ok - so we have a meeting tonight at 6 to check on this one venue that could be a possibility. Say a prayer or two or three!

No answer yet...

I feel like I'm losing my mind. I've realized in the last 24 hours though -that there are still compassionate people out there and that I have the absolute best friends in the world!! Not that I didn't realize that previously but it's like everyone is networking trying to help us figure out how to get this all resolved. No answers yet....working on it still. 38 days and counting...Yikes!!

WTH?? No Reception??

I'm so frustrated and sad right now. I took off the afternoon to go get fitted for my wedding undergarments. On the way back home, I stopped by the post office to get my mail. A letter from my reception venue - oh they must be wanting to confirm our final meeting seeing as the wedding is in 39 days....but NOOOOOO this letter was a half-assed apology saying that they had gone out of business. No signature - no real promise to repay our money - just kind of a we "hope to" but don't know when non committal crap. What do we do now? We have 39 days to find a venue that will hold our reception. The dj and catering were booked with this as well. When mom called the dj tonight, he didn't even have us on the books!!! He was very accomodating though and worked something out. So now we have music back - just no where to hold it and find out tomorrow about the food. After we finished moving on Sunday I was finally starting to get excited and be a little less stressed. Why? I know in the grand scheme of things - it's not that big a deal - but it's our wedding - and we had it planned so nicely. It was such a pretty venue. Now - what do we do? Will we get our $ back? What are our options? I'm still kind of in shock. John is more mad than sad because of all the money and because of how upset I am. I guess it doesn't help that it's that time of the month where my hormones are running crazy. I'm not even to the point of being mad yet (I'm sure that will come) I'm just flustered at how this can possibly turn around. I feel bad too because it's not fair that my parents or us have to put out any more money!! Well I guess I'm going to go try to lay down and fall asleep. Pray we find out some good news tomorrow.

Spinning in Circles

What a whirlwind of a weekend!!

We took Friday evening off - which perhaps we shouldn't have - but John won that one. We went to dinner and then to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It was funny - kind of in an I Love Lucy way where sometimes you want to just step in and stop the humiliation - but it was an enjoyable movie.

Saturday, I had my dress fitting. The lady doing the alterations kind of looks like Whoopi Goldberg. She is a trip. I was about to do some major flipping out though because she got 2 drops of blood on my dress from opening the box that my dress came in with a razor blade. Luckily she had a solvent that took it all out - can't even tell that it was there. Lucky!! I love my dress. Wish I looked different in the dress - but nonetheless - here we are and that's what we have to work with. I have to make a trip over to the Maddox shop this week to get some wedding unmentionables customized for the dress. Can you believe that the alterations were almost as much as the dress??! Yikes!! I'm so glad I got flip flops for the reception. The pretty heels I bought to wear for the wedding really are just for the pictures. After standing in them for about 30 minutes while we decided what to do with my dress my feet were about to revolt. I can see it now. I'll be up at the altar supposed to be thinking about this wonderful man who is about to become my husband and all I will be able to focus on is when I can get out of these heels.

After the fitting it was time to get serious. We spent the rest of the day packing up stuff at Johns. We went over Sunday before church and Sunday after church to work on it some more.
We put linoleum on the floor on top of the carpet in the cats' room - to make for easier cleanup with the little terrors. That linoleom was quite the pain. Yes - that is why it is not supposed to be set on top of carpet - I realize this. I wish I had a video camera to capture my parents, John and me trying to keep this silly covering against the walls. My wish is to have the new apt settled by the wedding so we don't have to come home and deal with all this moving clutter. Once it is all in one apt - we can work on getting it a little more organized. We both have donated and purged so much stuff. Why were we keeping it????

I'm hoping that we can possibly be ready to move into a house by our first anniversary if not soon after. No, I can't fathom packing and moving AGAIN but hopefully that time would be for at least the next 5-10 years if not longer. They are building a new subdivision right behind the airport. I would love to be able to move into a new house. How awesome would that be?? Waiting and hoping and wishing and praying.....

First Dress Fitting Tomorrow!!

I have my first gown fitting tomorrow morning!! Kind of excited and kind of anxious. 50 days! Yikes!! Not nervous about the marriage - just nervous about all the stuff that has to be done before we get to that point!! At least I'm finally feeling human again. Let's hope this weekend will be a productive one:

-First dress fitting

-Get everything moved from John's apt

-Get stuff situated with apartment people. They are trying to mess with us and I'm really irritated over it. Hopefully we can come to a resolution.

-Get apartment a little bit more unpacked and settled.

We only have this weekend so I don't know how unpacked we will get - but I'm tired of living in a state of chaos with half unpacked boxes everywhere.

99 days!!!

Can you believe that we only have 99 days left until the wedding?? Double digits!!! Exciting and scary because there is so much yet to do!!