Working, Working, Working

So basically our lives revolve around the 5 five jobs that we have between the two of us. Recently the newspaper I worked for decided it needed to shut its doors. So that eliminated a little bit of work from our plate. What can I say? Adam and I like to be busy.

Even with being busy, we've found ways to spend time with each other. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't work until around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. And since Adam doesn't have to be in with Provo PD until 12, we're able to spend those mornings together for the most part.

With everything going on between our jobs, I feel like we've lost a schedule and some of the structure I'm accustomed to. For anyone who really knows me, they know how much I value my sleep time. I can be a complete wreck if I'm not getting enough of the good stuff. I'm starting to see that's also the case for Adam. So I'm going to start working, hopefully with Adam's help, to restore some of that structure.

Besides all of that, we've been talking about taking a few different trips. We really want to head out to California to see Adam's friends and family who couldn't come out to the wedding. We'd also love to see that new little niece of ours. We'd also really love to take a trip out to Washington D.C. Sometime either this fall or next spring.

For now, that's about it. We have some birthdays coming up which should be a lot of fun. I have a big surprise for Adam's birthday that I know he'll just love.

Wedding Pictures Galore

So.... Anyone interested in what's been going on? Yeah, let's just say we're not exactly thrilled with the photographer we paid. She took two months to get our pictures back to us. Which, I know... I shouldn't be so picky, but really?! We paid you up front.

Enough with the whining. You came here for pictures! And I've decided to post some of the ones not found on Facebook.

My dress had these buttons down the back that were tough to lace up. So this is Stephanie, my sister and Matron of Honor doing my dress up.

Let's give Adam the credit he deserves, he was balling from the time he put on his tux to half way through the ceremony. Then he started balling again once we kissed. So here he is walking my mom down the isle while crying. Then this is me, reaching him at the end of the isle and pulling a sad/funny face at him so he'll stop crying already. I'm giving him shit, but really, it was sweet.

So... basically I'm an idiot and when we exchanged rings, I put Adam's on his right hand, not his left. I'm a fool and was so nervous I didn't even think about it. Luckily he caught on and ninja'd it over to his left hand for me. After I realized I felt so dumb!

Martin Corona was our little ring bearer. He's the son of Adam's long time friend Juan. And Kate Poulsen is my cousin who asked point blank when we got engaged if she could be the flower girl. They were so fun and looked SO cute together!

The picture on the left is of my bouquet but the picture on the right is what I wanted. So basically the colors of the callas were off and that big puffy flower, i think it's hydrangea but I'm not sure, was MIA. I know it seems trivial, but pink verses a more purple can make a girl cry on her wedding day.I think everyone has things they look back on and want to change. But one of my biggest complaints were my flowers. Granted in the picture my bouquet is beautiful. But it wasn't quite what I had ordered. Plus my flower girl's flowers were purple (which we promptly threw away and sent someone to the grocery store to buy something else to replace them) and the mini callas were pretty wilted when they arrived.


There were a few other small touches that we put on things which I absolutely loved. This was our card box. The nice thing about it is that it stays locked and the cards slide through the slot so once a card is in it, it's not being taken out easily. We just tied the color of ribbon we wanted on the sucker and called it good. Nothing too fancy, but we thought it fit the bill nicely. The other thing I've been getting lots of questions on is the monogram "W" and I'll be honest. I paid 12 whopping dollars for the damn thing on Amazon.com.

We basically hand tied every pink bow in the place. In all it must have been somewhere around 130 bows. I ordered some bulk tulle online in big bolts and just cut them around two yards a piece and tied like a mad woman. One of Adam's friends, Eric, was SO good at tying them. So it was super helpful to have him helping us as we went. The other thing our friends were awesome at was helping us with our drop ceiling. It was a lot of work and it wasn't easy. But it was pretty inexpensive and I felt like it made the space feel less like a gym and more like a location.


And last but not least is our cake. When we started talking about getting married I was dead set that I didn't want a traditional big cake. With Stephanie's wedding it was impossible to get rid of all the extra cake she had since we didn't cut hers up and serve it. So I knew that wasn't going to be the route I went. Instead we decided on a cupcake wedding cake. I had a hard time finding the right stand. I knew I wanted it to be more square and cake-like than round and tree-like. Finally I found the stand and decorated it with some help from my mom. We put a patterned paper on the top and wrapped the edges in ribbon. For the top of the cake we asked Cindy Shepherd to a round carrot cake with white butter cream frosting, not fondant. It turned out simply wonderful and we got rave reviews over the thing. The best part is, with the topper and everything we came in under $120 for the whole damn thing. And I think it looked incredible.


So that's that. We served cupcakes with some nuts, pink punch and hot pink chocolate dipped Oreos. And we stayed on the really inexpensive side not going over $2,000. It was SUPER easy and not nearly as stressful as I thought it would be. I'll be posting some pictures from our Honeymoon soon, hopefully!

A letter to my will-be husband

Dear Adam,

I was thinking tonight about what I'd write on our blog. After all I started this thing to chronicle our lives together. Tomorrow we will cement that. But it's been ages since I last updated it. I could talk about my bridals, that were arranged in a matter of three days, or I could talk about how the stress of this wedding has sent me crying in tears a number of times or even about how our family dinner with your family went so well. But after thinking about all those plans, actions and results I realized that it all comes down to you.

I'm not nervous. Lots of people have asked me about that. But what they don't seem to understand is that I know exactly what I'm getting with you. I am getting someone who loves me so much, he'll put his wants aside. I'm getting someone who loves me so much that he can't wait to see me each and every morning to kiss me hello. I'm getting someone who is willing to work his butt off so that we can be taken care of, provided for and still get the little extra things we want but don't need.

I am getting my best friend for the rest of my life. You love me when I'm happy, silly, cranky and just down right rude. And you somehow see past all of that. You're the one I call when I have amazing news. You're the one I want to hug me when I'm not feeling my best. You're the one I want to tell me everything is going to be just fine if I will just take deep breaths.

I call you boyband. It's a fun nickname I've had for you for over a year. I knew pretty early on in our relationship that you would one day be my husband. But for the time being you were only my boyfriend. Hence "Boy"friend and hus"band" were joined.

Tomorrow is that day. And although it's been a tough road to travel down the past three years, I wouldn't change it. Even the heart wrenching breakup taught me a lot about you and myself.

Life will be hard Adam. I can't promise I'll always be kind, sweet and loving. But I know you already know that and don't care. When things get rough, I hope I can remember how I'm feeling right now at this very moment. Your smile brings me such joy and your kisses make me melt. You are supportive and fiercely loyal to me.

I love you boyband and I'll see you in the morning.

Sincerely,

Jen

Wedding Dress Success!

So I went to do a fitting for my dress this morning. I took Adam with me because my sister and mom were both tied down at work and couldn't make the 10:30 am fitting time. Knowing that Adam would love to come with me, I asked and he was able to be there.

Once we arrived, I got my dress and was in it within just a few moments. Let me pause from my story and say that we LOVE Leslie Carr at Veronica Michael's. Seriously, she is one of the BEST wedding dress and formal dress business women around. While we found my dress somewhere else, we always have had Leslie do the alterations and even order bridesmaid dresses for us. During Steph's wedding, we special ordered dresses that we thought would be perfect. When they arrived we found out quickly that they were NOT perfect. Leslie was SO awesome that we were able to re-order new dresses in another color and she didn't charge us for the first set. Instead she ended up selling/renting them out.

So, I put on my dress and it fit like a glove. Seriously, one alteration is all it took. I was so relieved and so excited I started to just bawl. Adam, upon seeing me in the dress also started to tear up. As he says, he had to do a quick gut check so he didn't out right cry. It was amazing. The dress sat perfectly where it needed to be and was just perfect.

I couldn't believe that after one fitting the dress was all but ready to be taken home. I simply needed to add a bustle and have the dress steamed. My next appointment is for Thursday morning at 10:30 but Leslie said I could have it as soon as tomorrow. Since tomorrow is one of my longer days at work, I opted for Thursday.

It's so crazy to me that I've been stressing about this dress. I've worried for weeks about if it'd fit once it finally got here and then I worried about how many alterations I would have to have done just for it to fit right. Stephanie had around 5 or 6 alterations before her dress was just perfect and to find out that mine took all of one for the right fit was a HUGE relief.

Now I just need to call Jessica and schedule my bridals.

A Wedding Dress for a Wedding

So, my dress finally came from China... THANK GOODNESS! Yeah, I know I don't look really thrilled in either of these pictures, but that's because I was less than happy that we were pinning the shoulders up. In this first picture you can see my birdcage veil in my hands.


I really wasn't ready for this picture to be taken. Thanks Steph! :) haha but it's all good. You can see how much lace and beading is on this dress of mine. I'm pretty thrilled about how it looks now that we're going to let out the sides some. It'll make it sit better on the top of my body and we won't have to take in the shoulders.


Obviously this isn't how I'm going to do my hair. I just sort of had it down for the day because I really didn't want to mess with it much.

In other news, we have ordered our flowers. We have arranged for chair covers (free of charge! Thanks Debbie!) table cloths, sheer over lays, groomsmen's ties, nuts and chair ties.

Five weeks, and thing are definitely coming along.

My Boyband Has Incredible Taste

So this past Saturday, Adam and I decided to go out and find the tux he'll wear for our wedding. Since the colors are black, white and hot pink, we weren't without choices. All that being said, Once we walked in Adam instantly was drawn to the same tux I was.

He'll look pretty friggen awesome in my opinion. Instead of that icky maroon tie, he'll wear a hot pink one. The best part was that we got this tux for an amazingly good price all because we decided to go with our own tie instead of theirs. Let's just say we saved around $25 and LOVE Clark's Tuxedos. PS... the sale's guy was nice enough to let us rent the tux for my bridal pictures for half the price. Um, can anyone say, "Yes, Thank you!"

For those of you who know Adam well, you know that he's a holiday scrooge. He hates everything about the holidays except for being able to work for time and a half. I bite my tongue for now and let him work his holidays away. But he knows once we have kidlets running around things will change. For some bizarre reason though, this year he let me put up my Christmas tree in his house. I know... shock and awe! It's a little on the pathetic side mainly because the lighting in that old house just sucks, but also because what do you expect?! We're new at this set up your own decorations business.

Speaking of decorations, we were fortunate enough to attend the RE/MAX Results Christmas Party. Debbie, my co-worker, decided that we needed to buy some PVC pipe to make a sort of backdrop to hide the kitchen from the main seating area. When she casually mentioned not knowing what she'd do with it afterwards I quickly offered to buy it. So for a grand total of $25.26 I purchased a backdrop to use at our wedding. Here is a picture of the basic frame with one sheet hanging from it. We'll obviously add more than just one, but we're thinking that hanging lights behind it would be fun.

I called about my dress today and was told to check back in a week. I'm pretty excited to get that thing here so we can start doing alterations and get my bridals done. Lots going on around here for sure.

Have I mentioned?

I have probably the cutest nephew ever. I know, I know. Everyone says that. But seriously, look at how cute he was in his little Thanksgiving outfit?