Three Years Ago...

The anniversary of our engagement isn't until Monday, but it was three years ago after the BBQ for the graduating class that there was a ring/candlelight ceremony hosted for me and thus was my engagement announced to the PHC student body and community. Graduation day, I think I got as many wishes of congratulations as some of the graduates did, as the word continued to spread among students, faculty, staff, and their families.

Now, three years later, as I'm typing this, I'm taking breaks to feel and watch my belly move. Another three months and I'll be the mother to a baby that I can hold in my arms.

Happy Independence Day!!

Two down, Two to go.

The cloggers performed at Lovettsville on Thursday evening at 7:30. Joyce organized a potluck picnic with hamburgers and hot dogs. We ate while watching the fireworks.

Just before 1:00 on Friday morning, we were waken up by my cell phone ringing repeatedly. It was D. All she said was it was urgent for me to call home immediately. When I called, SR answered and announced that she was wearing a new pretty ring. She had just gotten engaged to her boyfriend, AK.

Friday morning (after the usual time to wake-up), JM and I headed over to Round Hill where we barely in time to catch the parade and ride the truck with WLCC. After the parade, the church was part of the fun in the town park by organizing sack races, water balloon tosses, and hoola-hoop contests.

Friday afternoon, we watched Unbreakable. It was a Netflix movie that JM had already seen and I was only somewhat interested in seeing. It was nice to watch it and know what people are talking about, but not on my favorite list.

Friday evening, in a light run, but under a tent, the cloggers performed at Franklin Park at 7:15. Joyce had organized a potluck picnic with pulled BBQ. It was very good! As we finished
eating, the fireworks started going off.

Today, we've run two loads of laundry to get our clogging performance clothes clean and will be leaving in just a few minutes to head to another clogging performance in Ashburn followed by a clogging performance in Hillsboro at 7:00.

I'm off to do my hair and get dressed!

Appreciate your freedom!

Anniversary

It was one year ago (May 18) on a Thursday evening that Jesse waited out the talkers in the clogging barn, wrestled down his nervousness, and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him! :)

A few weeks ago, I picked up a book on the World's Greatest Proposals. The book is filled with proposals over romantic dinners, as part of suprise weekend get-aways, and even one where the guy pretended to get himself arrested. As I read the many different proposals, I realized that as romantic or grand as some of them may have been, I wouldn't have traded a single one of them for mine.

License

Warning: Another very typical post inspired by "pre-wedding excitiment" that will leave the rest of humanity shaking their heads and saying, "Why in the world is THAT worth posting?!?"

We got the marriage license this morning! Now we've got 60 days to get married before the license expires.....but there's only 19 days until the wedding! :)

People are asking a couple of questions commonly.
1) Are you excited/stressed/ready/etc? Yes, I'm excited, but not nearly as excited as I'm sure I'll be as the time gets closer. No, I'm not particularly stressed, but maybe I'm not thinking about it enough. Ready for what? I've barely begun my Christmas shopping. Buying gifts for attendents and other wedding participants isn't going much better. I've still got a list of things that I should've done last week, but really won't take that much time when I do them. But I have no doubts that things will come together and the wedding will happen on December 30th and (from my perspective) it will be beautiful!

2) Housing. Yes, we've found a place to live--a 2-story townhouse in Leesburg. It'll be a bit shorter commute for Jesse and a slightly longer one for me (more like 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes). Technically, my drive is counter-commute. But having made the commute for 9-months when I moved here 6 years ago and from stories I hear from others, I'm still losing the sweet exit off of Rt 7 to the college. Jesse has practically all of his stuff moved to the townhouse. My stuff is making it over there slowly, but surely. I'm trying to take a few more boxes everytime I go. I'm still living quite comfortably in the parlour, aside from the fact that I don't have a couch.

One Month and Counting

Thursday, November 30 - 1 month to the wedding
Thursday, November 30 - 30 days to the wedding
Saturday, December 2 - 4 weeks to the wedding
In less than 696 hours, we'll be married.

There are some moments when that still seems like a long time away. There are other moments when it seems like not nearly enough time to do what still needs done and properly enjoy this time of anticipation.

In the last month:
- I received a visit from my Mom and my sister! They were both here for my bridal shower on the 11th with friends from work and clogging.
- I've had a seemingly un-ending saga with a bad tooth. (Hopefully I'll recover quickly from the extraction yesterday and get to feeling better very soon.)
- I signed the contract with the florist.
- Met with Beth about the food for the reception.
- We mailed the invitations out!! (And are getting back RSVP cards!)
- We wrote our vows. (Still need to run them by our pastor, I think.)
- Signed a lease for a rental townhouse in Leesburg. (Jesse plans to pick up the key today, I think!)
- Got out the thank you notes from the shower.
- Started putting together the favors. 2 boxes down, 5 to go.
- Put together the order of service, but still subject to changes.
- Got the major pieces of the rehearsal & dinner settled (time, place, etc). (Though just got an e-mail that might change some of that.)

Planned for the next few weeks:
- Finish the favors.
- Put together the final order of service & print the program.
- Announcements. Get them worded, printed, and addressed (including pulling together the needed addresses).
- Reception. Put together background music. Work out the order of events. Put together a slideshow of pictures.
- Get gifts for everyone involved in the wedding.

Oh yeah, I still need to go Christmas shopping. I'm sure there's lots more that I'm forgetting at the moment. But at the moment, it's feeling very manageable, in that I'm confident that everything that HAS to happen will happen. At some point, I may have to decide that some little things just aren't happening, and hopefully I'll be able to say that before we get too stressed.

2 Months and Counting

Monday, October 30 - 2 months to the wedding
Tuesday, October 31 - 60 days to the wedding
Saturday, November 4 - 8 weeks to the wedding

I was hoping that by today I'd be able to post that the the wedding invitations were all addressed and going into the mail within 24 hours. Well, my toothache and 25 "inner" envelopes that turned out to be outer envelopes have both slowed that down just a bit. Still, I have high hopes of having all the invitations in the mail by the end of the week.

Housing still isn't quite settled. Again, dental work for my toothache is causing a bit of a problem, among other complications. We think we have a decision made and then something comes up that the place isn't available. We keep praying about it and know that God has the place for us.

As the wedding continues to draw closer, details are more and more of what we need to work on:
- Making decisions about music and readings for the ceremony
- Making decisions about vows and rituals for the ceremony
- Preparing the order of service/program for the ceremony
- Finishing up the details of the favors
- Making final decisions about the flowers for the ceremony
- Working out arrangements for the rehearsal dinner
- Planning for all the little things around the wedding that we want to do while our families are in the area.

And, oh yeah, I still have to do Christmas shopping.

Invitations

This confession may not have a good effect on my macho reputation, but as the big date gets closer, I'm getting sappier. All the stuff I knew I would never do, I'm doing. I've got a picture of me and Charlessa for my computer background, and the next time Pat walks up and says "Wow, pretty girl, but who's that big ape holding her," he's going to get a fat lip! Actually, it just makes me grin like an idiot. I'm doodling hearts and C's on my notebook during meetings. I'm re-reading old emails from her. I'm doing that whole staring-into-her-eyes stuff. And of course lots of daydreaming.

The wedding had better hurry up or I'll be a complete mess! 64 more days!

As it is, I feel really lucky to have Charlessa. She's doing all the hard work for the wedding while I get to do cool stuff like plan the honeymoon and find housing, and Charlessa even did plenty for those. If any of you married women out there have stories about how your husbands were wonderful and so helpful with the wedding, please keep them to yourselves - I don't want to feel bad. :^D

The big thing that made me realize all this - invitations! I was going to be really nice and helpful and go address and fill out invitations last night.

Einstein, Bohr, and Planck together couldn't have figured out all those envelopes and inserts!

This gets folded like that; that only has the guest name on it; this has the guest name and address; make sure to follow proper standards for writing names and addresses; little (%$&*#!) piece of gauzy paper goes inside that (I'm skipping that!); and have an ID system for all the response cards so that if they leave off their name, you still know who it's from.

Steven Hawking couldn't develop a more complicated Superstring theory!

And as I'm fumbling around with them, Charlessa seems to know which piece goes where almost without looking. The only salve to my ego - God must have put a special set of "Wedding Invitation" genes into women and left them out of guys.

Here's my background picture. Can we all say WOW!

A big thanks to Chris for taking some pictures of us on Saturday!

3 Months and Counting

Saturday, September 30: 3 months to the wedding.
Sunday, October 1: 90 days to the wedding.
Saturday, October 7: 12 weeks to the wedding.

Another month has flown by in wedding preparations. At this point, I think I've got all the major pieces covered and have shifted to working on more of the details. In the past month:

• Food. Confirmed that two of my clogging friends are willing to coordinate food. They are in the midst of preparing to serve 2,000 for lunch on Saturday, so we'll talk details after they recover from that. But I figure if they can handle 2,000 for lunch, surely they can handle a light reception for 200.
• Cake. I met with the cake decorator last week to discuss details of what we want and settle on price. I know her through BRBC and she was recommended to me by others who have had her do their wedding cakes. (Unrelated, her daughter, AG, started working for me in the library in August.)
• Photographer. Have a photographer that I know through BRBC agree to do our wedding. He traveling to a wedding the second weekend of October, so we'll talk more details after that.
• Videographer. I believe Jesse is confirming our videographer this week--another friend through BRBC who has done other weddings.
• Flowers. I met with the florist over the weekend to talk about some details. Expect to meet with her again in the next week or so to decide on more details.
• Sign Interpreter. Jesse has confirmed a sign interpreter for the wedding. His sister isn't sure she wants to have an interpreter, but I'd rather have one available and leave that decision to the last moment.
• Hair stylist. It looks like a former PHC student will be doing the hair styling for myself and my sisters (bridesmaids) for the wedding.
• Guest List/Invitations. Over the last week or so, I finally (with much help from Jesse) got all of my guest list names compiled in one place. Last night, I ordered the invitations. At the moment, the number of invited guests on the list is just under 440. Hopefully, I haven't missed too many people. Since the church doesn't actually seat 400 and their reception hall doesn't either, we are counting on a number of people not being able to make it due to distance or timing. But I expect we'll be able to handle everyone that does come!

Nothing definite has been settled for plans beyond the wedding. We continue to discuss various ideas for the honeymoon. I think we have narrowed our decision down, but nothing completely settled. Housing is also something we continue to investigate. We looked at one basement apartement just over a week ago. There's a possibility that we'll be looking at a couple of apartments or townhouses in the next week or so.

We had our third pre-marital counseling meeting last night. I still find it a bit uncomfortable when I have to admit that I didn't learn anything about myself or Jesse in going through the prep materials for the session. The session was focused on the fact that marriage involves leaving your parents/family and accepting your mate as from God. Well, we are both living independently already, so not a lot of "leaving" issues to address. We've both been raised in Christian homes that believed and taught us of the permanence of marriage, so no revelations in the committing to your mate part either. Next week should be a big one--looking at individual expectations going into the marraige. Expectations like roles in the marriage (from who cleans the bathroom to who keeps the finances), standard of living (where, how quickly, what type of furnishings), and a bunch more. As soon as I find the time to go through it for myself, I'll be looking forward to discussing it!

4 Months and Counting

Wed, August 30: 4 months to the wedding.
Fri, September 1: 120 days to the wedding.
Sat, Sept 9: 16 weeks to the wedding.

Well, more items have been crossed off the list in the last month than in the month before.
Done:

• my dress
• bridesmaids dresses
• tuxes (thanks, Jesse!)
• rings
• guest book (thanks, Mom!)
• color scheme (determined by bridesmaid dresses)
• slippers/shoes for me, bridesmaids, and Mom

In Progress:

• Musicians for ceremony (Looks like we'll get a cello quartet! :)
• food (getting ideas formed, need to arrange more help)
• cake (this has been on the bottom of the list, not much has happened here)
• photographer (have about 3 names and am working on talking to each)
• videographer (have a couple of names, need to decide if we can afford)
• flowers (been watching for pics, need to pull them together and talk with florist)
• guest list (I have most of the info in my possession, need to get it into a manageable list)
• sign interpreter (Jesse is following up on possiblible names.)
• hair dresser (Need to decide if we want one and find one.)
• honeymoon (Narrowing down ideas, still rather vague.)
• housing (to rent or to buy, that is the question....and where in N. VA?)

Then there is various detail stuff:

• veil & tiara (Mom's working on veil. I need to decide on tiara.)
• jewelry for me/bridesmaids (Looked at a couple of possibilities.)
• ring pillow (Mom's working on it.)
• Decorations for reception (We've got so many ideas, it's coordinating them to work together.)
• Ceremony order & wording (Borrowed a couple of books, including the pastor's for ideas)
• And so much more!.....order invitations, create ceremony programs, create & address announcements, bridal showers, marriage license, and all the resultant thank you notes!

Time to quit thinking about everything that needs done and go back to working on the next item on the list!

From the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die Calendar"

The Las Vegas Strip
Where Megawatt Crass Marries Nouveau Class
Nevada, U.S.A.

The 3 1/2 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard known as the Strip is the world capital of glitter, festooned with pleasure palaces, quick-hitch wedding chapels, and cheap, all-you-can-eat prime rib buffets--and, of course, it's alive with gambling, anytime, any kind, and everywhere. This is where Bugsy Siegel laid down the law and the Rat Pack laid down the style; where Howard Hughes hid out and where Elvis made his last stand; but, maybe sadly, maybe not, all that is changing. In an attempt to promote itself as a cultural and haute dining destination, Vegas is hell-bent on attaining bourgeois respectability, trading in its seedy Sin City image in favor of a luxury future that's more about indulgence than naughtiness. That said, visitors will still find their fill of female impersonators and splashy dinner shows galore.

Tuesday, August 29, I responded to a radio ad on a whim. Now we are booked for a stay in Las Vegas immediately after the new year.

Definitely Agree

At work on Thursday I had started talking with a new guy, KC, and it turns out that he's from Pittsburgh! We talked for a while and I stopped in later to see his Terrible Towel. Friday he stopped in at my cube:

KC: "Mmmm mmm, very hot."
Me (swiveling around): "Hey KC, what's hot?"
KC: "The babe on your wall. She your girlfriend?"
(It's a picture of C&I with BIG lettering above it "SHE SAID YES!!!")
Me: "Or something, fiance actually. Thanks, I definitely agree!"

First, the "SHE SAID YES!!!" in 60pt font should have been an obvious giveaway.

Second, I'll forgive him since his attention was obviously distracted from the words and I can't blame him! She's hot!

5 Months and Counting

By the calendar, this past Saturday was 22 weeks until the wedding.
By date, Sunday, July 30th was 5 months until the wedding.
By days, tomorrow is 150 days until the wedding.
I'm leaving on Thursday to visit my family in Kansas. The Saturday I return (Aug 12) is 20 weeks before the wedding.

I can't say I've crossed much off my to-do list from last month. Most of my accomplishments in the last 4 weeks have revolved around just making some initial contacts and starting to get some ideas about what we want to do for the wedding. I spent an evening looking through cake books. I've spent 3 evenings/afternoons bridal gown shopping (and countless hours looking at bridal gowns on the Internet). I spent an evening going through books with ideas for flowers. I've spent several hours looking through photography websites and portfolios.

At the moment, I'm excited about the fact that I expect it will work out for us to have a cello quartet for our ceremony music. Jesse and I spent the other evening going through some possible music for the ceremony.

Also in the music considerations, yes, the Blue Ridge Thunder Cloggers will be performing at our reception.

And while I've been working on ceremony and reception details, Jesse has been exploring possible honeymoon destinations and housing options. Nothing definite in those areas yet either, but making progress in figuring out the realistic from the dream.

Engagements

There are so many ways that I get reminded how great Jesse is to me! Lately, I've been reminded about how good he is in agreeing to a 7 month engagement!

Two other couples we know have gotten engaged after us and are planning weddings before us. One couple got engaged the first week of June and are planning a late August wedding (just shy of a 3-month engagement). Another couple got engaged at the beginning of July and are planning a mid-October wedding (3.5 month engagement).

When I hear of these short engagements, it just makes our engagement seem that much longer. But I'm enjoying the planning, the preparations, and the anticipation (at least most days). Hopefully I'll be able to maintain the stress-free attitude with less than three months to go!

Update. Just thought I'd add to the list of current short engagements: a couple I've met, but don't know well, are in the midst of planning their wedding--getting married just six weeks after they announced their engagement.

Happy Independence Day!

My family has a reunion in Kansas this weekend. As I'm not going to be there and am now engaged, they were asking for pictures. So, Saturday, Jesse, Jer, and I headed out and got a few pictures taken. I meant to get them in the mail on Monday, but missed that. Since yesterday was a holiday, I'll get them in the mail today and hope they make it.

With Independence Day this week, Jesse and I are getting a bit of extra time together. So sweet, after all the travel earlier in the summer.

Sunday evening, we made it to Shenandoah University's performance of 42nd street. A musical that is song-and-dance heavy. Most of the dance is tap--close enough to clogging that it made it fun for us to watch and think about the challenges that went into the choreography and performances.

Monday evening was a clogging performance in Lovettsville for their celebrations. The performance went well. We both had a couple of songs that we performed for the first time. That always adds a notch of anticipation and energy to a performance. The evening was on the warm side, but very comfortable--as long as you weren't doing much. Clogging was hot with very little breeze. After our performance, they had a limbo contest and a hoola-hoop contest. Jesse was the runner-up in the hoola-hoop contest against teens! About 9:30, they shot off their fireworks display. We found a place with some of the other cloggers for a good advantage point for the display.

Tuesday, we had a clogging performance at 1:00 for the Pride of Purcellville celebration. That was a very hot performance. Fortunately, we had shade. But after the performance, it was home to recover in the AC and ended up taking a nap.

In the evening, Jesse and I headed over to Franklin Park to catch the community fireworks there. By the time we arrived, it was definitely getting dark. We knew that our pastor and his family were there, but we didn't know where they were in all the crowds. So, we gave a guess and started walking. While we were searching, we encountered a PHC/clogging family and stopped to chat for a few minutes. Very enjoyable, but made it that much darker as we continued our search for the pastor's family. By some coincidence or miracle, we did find them as we were wandering through the crowds. We enjoyed another good fireworks display and some good conversation as we waited with the family for the traffic to clear out after the display.

Tonight, the usual Wednesday evening church activities have been canceled. Jesse and I expect to have another evening together to just relax and enjoy the time.

6 months and counting

183 Days until December 30. [No, I didn't figure that out myself--one of the features of a wedding planning site.]

Considering that I didn't get serious about wedding planning until less than two weeks ago, I think things are going ok.

Accomplished:
- Pastor
- Church
- Reception hall (at church)
- Attendants decided on
- Invitations & wording selected, I believe
- Colors narrowed down to 2-3 choices. May depend somewhat on what we find for bridesmaid dresses in August.
- Started working on guest lists.
- Started a gift registry

Still to do:
- Cake
- Other food & drink for reception
- Photographer
- Bridesmaid dresses
- Bride's gown
- Attire for groom and groomsmen
- Pre-marital counseling (Have the book. Scheduled to start meeting in August, after everyone's vacations.)
- Music
- Flowers
- Favors
- Accomodations for out-of-town guests
- A minor million other details.

Am I ready to elope? Nope. As long as I work on one thing at a time, I'm having fun. And as I'm a big family person, I really can't imagine the day being quite as perfect without my family there to share it.

I promise I'll post something besides wedding stuff next time!

Together times

It's been a bit of a running gag that as soon as we got engaged Charlessa left the country for Greece and I flew a couple thousand miles even further away to Arizona. And then we've got my karate camp coming up and Charlessa has her library conference that's going to take a week. Just when were we going to spend time together now that we're engaged?

Well, we've managed to squeeze in a few hours here and there. Just not enough of them! But in spite of the tens of thousands of miles that have pushed between us recently, we're still slowly making progress on wedding plans.

We're going to look at a church on Wednesday, we've got our pastor, we're starting in on collecting the contact info for the invitations, Charlessa has gotten some cool tools to help with the wedding planning, and of course, we've got books about planning weddings! (What else are a couple of bookworms, one of whom is a librarian, going to do?!)

But until I get back from karate camp and Charlessa gets back from her conference, things probably won't have much progress. Anybody got any good wedding tips - things to avoid, things to do?

Here's remembering times together!

The Story: The Big Day

We've got a little announcement to make:

We've tentatively set our wedding date for December 30th!

Jesse: What, you didn't know we got engaged? Yup, she said yes on Thursday night, after clogging! I had a great little speech all memorized, and then promptly forgot it when I went to ask.

Charlessa: He SAYS he forgot the speech. When I read it later, I think there was only one sentence he forgot.

J We've probably spent more time in the clogging barn together than just about anywhere else, so it was an appropriate place to pop the big question. Just one little snag: they wouldn't stop talking!! Mary, Joyce, and Beth usually stay around for a bit after clogging before they leave us for the evening. THIS time though, they decided to talk for an extra hour! I had the ring burning a hole in my pocket, butterflies holding a party in my stomach, and I had to sit there waiting for them to stop talking!!!! Aack!

C: Before I'd left work, I'd caught Jesse's blog post saying "today is the big day." He just didn't say a big day for what. Then after clogging, he changed back into his work clothes--a bit unusual. I was suspecting, but didn't want to presume or start thinking about it too much, afraid I'd end up disappointed if it was something more mundane.

J: I had picked up the ring last Friday, so I had been carrying it around for a couple days. There were several times that I had almost pulled it out to ask the question ahead of time. The 18th was exactly 9 months since I had first asked Charlessa out. Probably the hardest time to resist was when we were watching a movie one evening and I actually had it in my pocket. (thankfully on the side away from Charlessa!) But when I actually did ask, I'm glad I waited - I got to experience the full blast of nervousness and anticipation! It was getting late and I knew I would have to ask right away or not at all that day. I was looking forward to this more than anything else, but I still almost chickened out! I think the girls have the easy part - they only have one word to say, we have the whole speech and knee and ring deal we have to take care of. Do you have any idea how hard it is to coordinate knees, mouth and hands when you're trembling like a leaf!?!

C: I had a meeting in Charlottesville (2.5 hours away) the next morning that meant I had to be on the road by 7:30 Friday AM. I had decided early in the day that I would need to leave the clogging barn earlier than usual and try to be in bed by midnight to be up the next morning. I knew that if "the day" was what I suspected, there was practically no way a midnight bedtime would happen! So when it was 11:00 before everyone else left and it was getting to be 11:30, I figured a midnight bedtime was a good way to force the topic.

J: And I appreciate it! Once I got started, it wasn't so bad, but trying to figure out how to start was a killer! Of course I had a great scenario worked out in my mind how it would seamlessly happen, but of course as I was trying to remember how I had planned to start off, I came up with a total blank. So, there I was on one knee and I hadn't the foggiest clue what I was going to say! And by this point it was obviously too late to get back up and try to shrug it off. So I said something, but I'll be darned if I can remember what it was! The important thing was that she said yes though, so whatever came out it must have been intelligible.

C: Yes, it was intelligible, intelligent, and sweet. And of course, it concluded with the important question. At that point, my ability to think coherently was pretty much gone. The only thing I could remember was that I wanted to say "yes."

J: Well, I like that! She can't think straight so she says yes! Well, thinking straight or not I'm glad that she said yes. And it's too late to take it back now - she's stuck! We finished up the evening with a couple more hours of talk and phone calls to parents before we finally took off. And then we were supposed to get some sleep after all that?! Huh. I eventually got to sleep, but still woke up a few times during the night thinking about it - I'm engaged!!!! Woot!

C:Sleep did seem like an impossibility! I think I managed to actually be in bed for 4 hours that night. Time asleep? Not that much. I did make it down to Charlottesville and managed (I think) to be coherent for the meeting, even if slightly distracted. I had a constant reminder on my finger that my life was changing, even if it hadn't completely sunk in.

So nine monthes after we started off, here we are planning the wedding. We've started the announcement going around, but figure that there will still be a few people that we'll forget, so if you're one of those who just found out, sorry!

We've had just over 40 hours, and we're starting to work out some of the details like when and where. Check back for further details!

Dating is nice. Engaged is GOOD! Can't wait for MARRIED!!

Continue: The Story: Jesse's Wrap-Up