Adventures in Wedding Venues: Thinking outside the Church

So there is a funny aspect of weddings in Panama City. Venues are limited to say the least. For the wedding, people usually marry in their church or on the beach. For the reception there are only a few choices. And if you don't want to spend an exorbitant amount on the venue price, even less options.

As for the church, I grew up at Holy Nativity Episcopal. Its where I went to school until middle school (5th grade was as high as it went back in the day), and its where I went to church, and still do whenever I am home on a weekend. I was active in the youth group and my parents are still active as ushers and choir. (Mom sings - Dad is COMPLETELY tone deaf!) [Oddball side thought: We call my mother the Momma Duck, and yet when she goe to choir practice we say that she is Squawking. Why in the world don't we say that she's quacking??] I am a confirmed Episcopalian and Adam is by default. Like many others who attend Episcopal services, he was raised Catholic, grew up enough to question the teaching, and decided that he didn't agree. Old Joke: Episcopal is like Catholic-lite - all the service, none of the guilt! :) Anyway, we knew we wanted to get married by Fr. Steve, the priest at Holy Nativity.

That does not mean, however that we wanted to marry in the church. Holy Nat is great, really, but when they built the church, someone had the "bright idea" of making it modern. Its wood, but sort of whitewashed. There is stained glass, but it looks out of place and wouldn't be seen in any pictures. There is a choir loft (from which this photo was taken), but the acoustics are not great and they choir can't be there and hear the organ/piano, so they don't use it. Its a nice enough place, but a bit blah for our tastes. I've seen it all dolled up for celebrations and weddings, its just not "us". There are some beautiful churches in Panama City, but I feel a little fake moving my wedding and priest to another church for aesthetic reasons. So we started thinking outside the church.

One of the popular trends for weddings right now is to have them in a cool museum or art gallery. I love that idea! one problem.... did I mention that this is going to be in Panama City? Notosmuch with cool museums or art galleries with fun or modern aesthetics. There are some great art galleries, but they are hole in the wall places normally.

How amazing is this wedding? Its in the Chinese Rotunda section of a history museum in PA! (Image courtesy: Wedding Bee - Ms Candy Corn) In that same museum is a reception hall that is within the Egyptian Mummy section!! Check out the blog post credited above from Ms Candy Corn for more venue porn / pictures. ;)



Next idea: Garden weddings are beautiful! And talk about saving on the florist bill - who decorates a garden!? Unfortunately, all the gardens in the area are a bit English. The Queen could have tea and be very happy that the roses aren't mixed with the tulips, and certainly not associating with any of those crazy tropical flowers!! Of course, its the tropical flowers I love. I saw one garden wedding picture (that I cannot find again for the life of me, so if anyone knows which picture I am talking about, and where to find it, please tell me) where the hedges made a low maze path that the guests stood in. These paths all focused in on one open area where the marriage occurred. It was beautiful and everyone had a good view! If I remember from the blog, the couple actually did the ceremony progressively in a circle so at some point they were facing every one of their guests. What a fun idea and great way to really make your guests feel included!

Now enter the idea that made me hate my newest sister-in-law. (Mind you, I don't hate her at all, but I would have been happier had she not pointed this out to me!) Marry in the backyard of the house I grew up in. When we moved to Panama City, everything was dirt cheap. My parents bought a lot on the water and built a beautiful house for not that much. Its the house I grew up in and what will forever be the building form of "home" to me. The backyard has a pool and a gazebo in the trees! Just past the pool the land slopes down to a flat backyard that extends to the beach and the water. Because of the sharp angle of the hill, my parents built stairs into the far left side. Everything left of the stairs is garden and trees. My mother is a master gardener and her flowers spill over the side of their territory and edge out onto the stairs. To the right of the stairs is the green slope, and the flat expanse. Further to the right are more oak trees. (We have huge oak trees - this is the south.) I wish I had pictures to show you. My parents bedroom was on the first floor, at the far left side of the house. So they had what my newest SIL pointed out to be the perfect set up. I could use my parents room and bathroom for the ready room for all the girls, and then come out their sliding glass door which leads right to the beautiful stairs that go down the backyard and then through the chairs we set up on the flat grass and right up to Adam, standing right under the huge oak tree limbs. We could have the cocktail hour up by the pool while we take photos and the flat grass is reconfigured into the dinner and dancing set up. I love it. It is my dream wedding in a beautiful place I know intimately. One problem. My parents sold the house and moved into a condo 2 years ago. I could literally cry right now thinking about it. I mentioned this to my mom once not too long ago, she said she's look into in in-case the new owners would be willing to take their kids to Disney for a week or so. She never brought it up again related to the wedding. She did however say that the new owners had gutted our house and it was totally different. This tells me 2 things. 1 - that I am pretty sure she asked and was told no. 2 - That she was heartbroken about the house too. She's an interior designer who designed every inch of that house from her heart (except my room: You know how the son of the preacher is the most amoral kid? Right - I'm the daughter of the interior designed - I hate things that match.)

Ok - I didn't intend for this to be a two part post, but this is getting awfully long! Next up - I review the options for combined wedding and reception locations.

Oh yeah - wacky and wonderful aspect about wedding in hometown with priest we know, Fr Steve loves to sing Karaoke!! He was the lead singer for a band before he went to seminary so he's actually really good. And he's going to sing "Mustang Sally" at the reception!! God, sometimes I love being from a small town. :) Anyone else have a celebrant adding in their wacky traits?

Blog Bliss: Style Me Pretty

When I first got engaged, I should have bought stock in wedding magazines because between my mother and I, we bought them all!! I would scramble through every page and article, cut out anything I loved to put in a book of ideas, made notes in my wedding notebook, and then exchanged the magazine with my mother for whichever one she had bought... of course hers were always fully in tact and the ones she got from me were shredded..... for some crazy reason she thinks she was getting the short end of the wedding magazine stick! Some people! =)

But magazines aren't cheap and they are usually only updated once a month or so... not enough to fill my curiosity. As I said before, I had no preconceptions about how my wedding would be. I didn't dream of it as a kid, and I hadn't spent any time focusing on it as an adult. So now I was curious and loving a wide variety of ideas since they were all new ideas to me!

Enter the best email I ever received. (at least wedding planning related - I have some really great romantic ones from Adam saved somewhere!) My newest sister-in-law suggested I check out some wedding blogs for ideas. Specifically, Style Me Pretty. I was skeptical because I never read blogs and wasn't so sure I wanted to trust ideas from people I didn't know. WOW was I wrong! So I thought I would begin a section of my blog focusing on the blogs I stalk and why I love them. Hence - Blog Bliss.

First up, the first blog I started to follow, and still one of my favorites: Style Me Pretty. Abby Larson has an amazing talent for beautiful and unique inspiration boards and fun fresh ideas for wedding details. Abby also does an "Ask Abby" section where the questions are relevant to almost every bride-to-be. Her writing is fun and witty while being knowledgeable and unpretentious. If any bride-to-be (or any other wedding style craver) doesn't have SMP on their list - add it now and go through her archives and inspiration boards for some astonishing eye-candy! These are some of my favorite inspiration boards, and some of the reasons I really became a blog-stalker of SMP (which lead to other blogs she featured and now my google reader has 40 some odd blogs I have subscribed to!)

I absolutely love the bright colors and unique look combined with a relaxed but stylish fete that this board brings out:

This one is just fun and relaxed while incorporating naturally beautiful elements like coral and seashells. I can almost smell the salt air breeze off the water:

If I had an unlimited budget, I'd consider having a wedding somewhere in Europe using this bright beauty as my inspiration board. Anyone else thinking Greece?
Peach is not exactly one of "my colors". I don't think I own a single peach article of clothing. I am normally a vibrant, bright color person, but I love this board. It makes me want to serve Bellinis and sorbet at the beach in Apalachicola, Fl.

And as if all those beauty's weren't enough, Abby is also a papery person with an eye for style. She finds beautiful calligraphy and invitation companies and artists and posts articles and interviews explaining why each is wonderful and special. I am not a invite-oriented person. I had to be talked out of email invitations. But the more I look at some of her finds, the more I think... hmm... letterpress - lovely... belly bands - beautiful...etc.
And to top it all off and REALLY solidify the SMP obsession - she features Real Weddings too!

This was one of the first real weddings I saw featured on SMP (before I learned to stalk to archives too!) and I fell in love with the romance of the roses and candlelight.

Oh - and looking for a vendor in your area? Check out her Little Black Book section. She only features the best and brightest of each field in each location. Need more reasons to look and love SMP? If you answered "yes", you have ISSUES!!!

(All images courtesy of: Style Me Pretty)

Wedding Location Pt 3: Location. Location. Location!

For my avid stalkers, you know exactly where we are at in the decision process. For any newbies, read these quickly for recap:
Part 1
Part 2
Ok - everyone up to speed? Good.
The reality of holding the wedding in Adam's hometown was that it was going to be a pretty intimate wedding with a down home on the farm feeling. (He's from Amish country PA. Literally - the field that backs up to his parent's backyard is an Amish farm... with an electric fence! No, I'm not kidding. He found that out one day as he hopped the fence to grab a wayward football.) Travel costs being what they are, and Amish country not really being high on anyone's vacation list means that we would be missing a lot of friends and family that might otherwise combine vacation with wedding.

In case I didn't point it out enough before, there is no central location for even a large group of our friends or family. Our parents friends are someone confined to our hometowns, but our friends are scattered throughout the country from school and careers. From Hawaii to New York and everywhere in between.

I actually said that I was ok with having the wedding in his hometown IF it was Amish themed!! Straw hats and bonnets as guests walk in? I think it sounds fun!
...Adam gave me a bizarre look and just walked away.... refused to even acknowledge my suggestion! hahahah - i love those moments.

And then there were two.......
As I pointed out in my first post, I am an avid bridal blog stalker. And if no one else has noticed - there are a lot of SoCal and LA brides-to-be posting up a storm! So I was getting a good idea of the range of possibilities that could happen in California. I was beginning to in love with winery style inspiration boards. Adam and I are wine lovers. We aren't exactly sommeliers, but we know what we do and don't like. And how could you not be thinking vineyard with amazing fun, funky, vino inspired boards like this one from Sparkalatti:and knowing that it could mean really fun DIY projects like these I saw on Its a Jamie thing.
The other aspect to to the being bridal blog informed is that I also have an ideal of costs in the area. So, I am not exactly an uber budget in either extreme. I am impressed by those who pull it of for $10,000 or less, but I also don't have a sky high "average" American bridal budget. I am the only daughter and my parents are footing the bill, but I think even spending the "average" 30K is unreasonable. With the amount of people we want to be able to be there to celebrate with us, we quickly realized that our not-so-vintage-vino was going to break the bank.

And then there was 1... Panama City - my hometown. (Yes, as in Mtv's spring break mecca. For any of you reading this who partied there for spring break - I was one of those beach lifeguards who tried to ignore your drunken swaggers in the sand, but came to help you when you found out that, as I had told you when your buddy dared you, you could not actually make it out to the buoy and back.

Now.. to find a venue.....

Tootsie Turning Point

The first thing I decided about the wedding (and yes, here I say I because its a "me" thing) was that I would be barefoot! (Hence the Barefoot part of the blog title!) I grew up on the beach and wore flip flops in the winter and only if shoes were required. I looked a little out of place in Orlando (where I started college) as I was barefoot in class next to girls wearing Gucci and Monolo Blhaniks (funny story about my monolo moment i'll tell you about later). Needless to say, I was much more in my element in Hawaii where many of us went barefoot, and if you were wearing slippers (flip flops - pronounced slip-ahs) you ditched them at the door as no one wore shoes inside the house. A number of times I would walk to class (I lived no more than 2 miles from campus so I normally walked) and only when I got inside the classroom and stepped on the cold tiled floors (classrooms were some of the few air conditioned places in the city) would I realize that I wasn't wearing shoes!!! Hot pavement, no big deal - cold tile floors?? EEK! And on top of this, I am also 100% Grade A, run into the wall, Klutz. There is no doubt in my mind that if I am in shoes, I'll not only trip during my aisle walk - i'll do a full blown face plant. No, thanks! The dress will be long enough to cover my nude tootsies!

So you would think that this revalation would automatically mean beach wedding! Notsoquick there zoomie. My toes will be covered by the dress, and I will be comfortable.. that's all thats determined. This doesn't mean it'll be outdoors. I have NO issue walking down the aisle of a church in barefeet. I've done it before, at a wedding no less!! (Though it wasn't intended and I'll tell you that crazy happening here soon.)

Here's the really fun part... Adam wants to be barefoot too!!!


(Images Courtesy of Me! See the foot with the Stars tattoo? Yup - those are my tooties! Each picture has a full story, but I'll give you the quick rundown. 4 feet in water - my foot and several classmates and friends from the Biosphere 2 in Arizona. We were in Mexico for a weekend for research when I snapped that. Random foot in the air - thats my foot in my first apartment in Hawai'i... no good reason other than fun behind that shot. Foot at edge of waterfall - thats my foot at the edge of a hidden waterfall on Hawai'i. Muddy footprint - thats my footprint in the mud on Maui at "dragon's teeth". Toes over the edge - Adam and my tootsies over the edge at Pearl Harbor... thats why the oil slick on the water below. Toes in the white sand - Adam and I on our 2 year anniversary picnic at the beach... totally his planning! And last (actually its the first on one the page) but not least (its actually one of my favorite pictures of all time) Adam and I at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach on Hawai'i. I can't put my finger (or toe!) on why I love that one so much, but I do. To me, I see it and it really reminds me of how our love feels... which makes me VERY happy we will be barefoot when we officially commit our lives together.)

Anyone else have any quirky aspects to their wedding or favorite pictures that no one else really "gets"?

Not-so-Detail Oriented Bride

We (I) interrupt this wedding locale choosing train of thought to bring you fantastic advice. I'll get back to my locale choosing in just a few...
Via An Excited Bride, I read this article that I believe every person to get engaged should read. In today's world of color coordination, DIY details, and magazine worthy wedding photography, its easy to miss the forest for all the trees surrounding you. None of these things are bad. DIY is a great chance to figure out what you can do and create! (or sometimes it leads to the discovery of why professionals charge so darn much for it!) Details can really pull an entire room together. But getting lost in those details - notsomuch. While no one intends it, sometimes everyone needs a little reality check kick-in-the-pants reminders of how to make it a truly great celebration. Sometimes it needs to be from a loved one, and sometimes it needs to be from a complete stranger. But nothing makes me laugh and gets the point across quite like this article. My favorite line: "As my caterer likes to say, your bridesmaids' dresses do not need to match the linens unless you plan to use the bridesmaids as centerpieces. (Hey! It could cut your flower bill.)" :)


Anyone else get the immediate idea of calling your bridesmaids and tell them your grand new money saving idea!??! Or am I the only one who loves messing with my friends to see the reaction?

(image courtesy of Health Literacy Innovations)


Next Stop- wedding planing train gets back on its tracks and picks a city!

Wedding Location Pt 2: Air Station Selection

The day of air station selection finally arrived!! So for the non-military crowd, a bit of explanation... Each pilot goes through the first section of flight school and comes out with a score. Each pilot then gets to put in a "dream sheet" of air stations in order of rank of where you want to go. Its called a dream sheet for a reason. There aren't enough air stations to give everyone their top choice. And there certainly aren't enough openings at the air stations to even give everyone their top choice of air frame! (The Coast Guard flies 2 type of helicopters and each air station only has one kind.) The Coast Guard Capt here takes everyone's score, their dream sheet, and the air station openings and starts matching people up. Those with a higher score start with higher priority. Of course, no one knows what their or others scores are, and only the Capt knows where the openings are... this leads to a LOT of rumors! Now this is where this Capt and being in the CG rocks. He goes through matches them up, AND looks at why the pilot wants that air station. Does he/she really want to fly THAT airframe? Or is he/she dying to be on the West Coast regardless of what type of helo he/she is flying? We picked places based on grad school options for me.

Ok, back to selection day: We arrived and the Capt found us, told us that we "had" our #2 choice of LA, but now the guys at CG headquarters had pulled a few slots and the Capt had to re-rack the whole thing!! This meant that he could give us our #5 choice of Puerto Rico (where I might hope to work at Arecibo (think 007-golden eye or Contact - it's the big telescope in the ground), or we could take our chances with the re-rack.... AHHHH!!!! If he hadn't told us that we had our #2, we probably would have taken PR. But now since we were teased with getting one of our top picks we had to take our chances.

So the Capt is a creative guy. For each aviator, he had him/her plus any family that was there, come down in front (to the tune of "The Price is Right" - sick sense of humor this man!) and on a giant screen are the patches of different air stations. One by one... painfully slowly... each patch disappears until there is one: the patch for your station. Our turn!.. one by one they fade out until Air Station LA is the only one left!!!!! YEAHHH!!!!!!!! I pounced on Adam. Literally. No joke. In front of his command AND pilot peers - i jumped up on him and latched on and kissed him like none other!.... I have never seen him turn so red!! hehehehe - that just added to make happiness and laughter!

Ok so back to how this relates to the wedding! This means that we have narrowed it to the Florida panhandle, Pennsylvania, and the LA area!

(Images Courtesy of: Coast Guard Price is Right and Air Station LA)

Wedding Location Pt 1: At Home? Destination? wait...who's home? hometown? Mine or yours? Where we live now? or where we'll be next year?...

Ahh the fun of military life... never in one place for too long. And we were not high school sweethearts from the same town... or state.... or state of mind! So before we delve into the world of flowers, themes, dresses and linens - we need to start with a city, or at least a state. And wow we have such a range of options!!

I am from Panama City, Fl. He's from Manheim, PA. We started dating in Hilo, HI. At the time he was living (and loving) in Seattle, while I was living in Hilo. We currently live in Pensacola, (the cradle of naval aviation) and we love it here. Waiting to find out our first air station which could send us to San Fran, Los Angeles, Oahu, Puerto Rico, or Savannah. And I could really picture a wedding in each of these places. eek! Too many options!!! And this list doesn't even include destination possibilities!

A Hawaiian Wedding could be great and very "us". I love the beach. I love being barefoot. Adam and I always had a fantastic time when he came to visit me in Hawaii. I love tropical flowers and Hawaiian traditions.

This inspiration board from Elizabeth Ann Designs
just makes me want to go back and celebrate the next phase of our love right where it began.

But many of our friends are still in their first jobs out of college or in grad school or for other reasons are financially strapped. We really want all our friends to have the best possibility of being able to be there to celebrate with us. Alas - airline tickets just aren't cheap enough, and it requires so much travel time, we decided that we would at least keep it to the mainland.

Ok, so we've knocked out Hawaii and any other "destination wedding" spot thats not attached to the continental US. Wow there are still a lot of options to go!

Ahead: Small details start to form our wedding ideas... and an air station fake out!

Weeping Willow Dream

So, I absolutely love these!! I actually had a dream shortly after getting engaged that I was
walking barefoot in the grass towards a beautiful weeping willow that was full of hanging lights in the branches. When I got to it I realized I was in a wedding dress and the greens of the willow were pulled aside like curtains and inside were my wedding guests and standing at the trunk was my Adam. It was beautiful! Unfortunately, we also want to have a big 'ol celebration and have friends and family there... unless the worlds largest weeping willow is near by, probably not going to happen... but it sure was pretty! So now I'm looking into lighting effects (like those above) to get that beautiful feel. (Images thanks to: Idees Deco Lucky Me Sarah K Chen)

I am sure every bride-to-be has had dreams or nightmares over invitations, decor, or being naked walking down the aisle (i've had some of these and i'll fill you in as I post - stay tuned!).... anyone else had some beautiful dreams that may or may not come true?

Silly Questions = Silly Answers

So while still in the "spreading the news" phase of engagement I was constantly being questioned with "So, when's the date?" Mind you, this question was being posed less than 24 hours into the engagement. For a while I was going with the "We are waiting to find out where we will be stationed before we decide."

Note: My fiance (Adam) is a Coast Guard pilot in training. So we knew that sometime in the fall or winter of 08 we would be moving to our first air station.

We knew that we weren't going for a quick and dirty style of planning, so that meant at earliest we were looking at "warmer months" of 2009. (I have never lived more than a mile north of I-10 so I am a complete WUSS about the cold!)

But "warmer months of 09" apparently is not specific enough for the inquisitive crowd, who wanted a specific date to mark in their calendars... (umm - who said you were coming?) so I came up with alternative answers.
Nosies: "When's the big day?"
Me: "Oh, it was last week. I was wondering why you weren't there!"
(enter very confused look of "didn't you tell me you just got engaged?)

or
Nosies: "When's the big day?"
Me: "The 3rd Blue Moon after the 2nd harvest before Easter."
(enter very confused look of trying to figure out what that meant)


images courtesy of: MidnightCafe Cyprus property and istockphoto.com

Did anyone else get the questions that make you wonder what the h*ll went through their mind before asking it?

My First Etsy!

I made my first Etsy purchase!! I've been perusing the pages for a while now after seeing lots of posts on other blogs on it. I love that everything is one-of-a-kind, or at least rare, and the best part is that its all handmade. So I finally dove in and bought a piece! It looks alot like this one from Begurple, but its blue and green. It showed up a few days before she said it would (and she's in Australia!!) and I love it. Go - ETSY! (Below is me in my new hair clip! - sorry for the wonderful world of no makeup and bad lighting!)

Whatcha think?

Spreading the good news

We spread the good new like any techno centered family - email's, shutterfly photo slideshow, texts messages, myspace, facebook and a few phone calls. We started out by calling everyone but after telling that very involved story 10 times over, I just didn't want to be on the phone anymore! It wasn't just a quick "We're engaged!" call - it was a 15 story and then the congrats. So then we moved on to the wonderful world of the web. It worked great. I sent everyone to the slideshow I posted about. I posted it everywhere and got lots of responses. Granted, most were a quick congrats followed by praise for all Adam's planning and creativity.

I realize that it's not the traditional way, and Emily Post would probably have glared at me, but I think it worked great for us.

And - bonus! - my Dad used iphoto to make our slideshow into a photobook! So we have that to show anyone we encounter in person and we have it to keep forever! And my parents have a copy of their own, and they sent one to the Future-in-laws too!

The PERFECT Ring!

I know my slideshow included pictures of my ring. But i have to tell you all about it. (Not that I really know who I'm talking to so from here on out "you" refers to whatever curious soul has stopped by to read a bit - ah the wonderful world of blogging!) So there are some things about me that would make ring buying somewhat tricky:

• I like things to be a bit funky; a little different from what anyone was expecting, but not completely crazy.

• I also tend to be very accident prone. If I can snag/hook/catch/smack it/me/anything attached to me, its a given that I will.
  
• I love sparkly things. Seriously; glitter, glass, shiny, water reflections - anything sparkly is my friend.
• I love ALL things blue!! In almost any shade. Not really a fan of navy. Too blah and brings back terribly Catholic middle school memories! Also not a baby/sky blue fan. Again - too blah for me. Opals are my favorite stone, but they really aren't very sturdy under abuse like my jewelry takes.
  
• I am environmentally aware. I started out as an environmental politics major in college and while I'm not a bleeding green hippie type, I recycle and chose eco friendly products when possible.
• I am ANTI blood diamonds. Also ANTI aussie diamonds because while its not as bad as Africa, it sure aint eco/native friendly. Thus leaving with the options of "artisan" man-made diamonds (seriously - no one knows its man made - its the same darn thing!!), or Canadian. Not great weather but no lives are being destroyed, wars raging, AND they are environmentally aware in their harvesting methods.

Oh - and I had no idea what I would want. I'm not a girl who's been dreaming and planning my wedding for years, I didn't have a "perfect" proposal in my head, and I certainly didn't have a dream ring in mind. Which brings us back to Adam knowing me so well, and then being incredibly creative.

So my ring is perfect. Beyond anything I would have picked out for myself. Its different, but not so bizarre I'll hate it in 10 years. The center stone sits low in the setting thus minimizing the snag factor, the sapphires are so pretty!!! and the diamonds on the band are only on the front. (NO offense to any circum-studded brides - I just think that the diamonds all the way around are a little wasteful and ON MY FINGER look rather gaudy.) The diamonds sparkle like none other!! AND - Nice ring, eh? Yup - thats right - its canadian! =) I love my man.

Relationship Scavenger Hunt Proposal

I'll give you a quick set up of info before telling you to push play on the slideshow: This is now a few days after my birthday, *Adam is at a friend's studying for his next flight (he's a Coast Guard rescue helicopter flight student), and I am at home cleaning house... oh yeah, and its raining and freezing cold outside. *Adam put a great deal of effort into the proposal, so I put some effort into the slideshow of the pictures. The comments tell the whole story and I certainly don't have the room to put them all on here!





So I called and told everyone we knew. All the girls responded by asking if it was everything I had dreamed of... notsomuch because I am not that creative and NEVER could have come up with anything this good. The fellas were a different story. All the married guys responded with "Man i am glad I am already married!" and all the single guys responded by saying they now hate *Adam because they can't top that proposal!! Yeah, that's right, I snagged a creative and romantic guy!

Aloha Blog World!

Aloha to any and all who run across this blog! Honestly, I am starting this because I have become an avid bridal blog stalker (as you can see from the list along the side), and it finally occurred to me that instead of just having my ideas and happenings scattered across the bridal blog world, I would condense them all to one place. I have never been one to successfully keep a journal longer than a week, but since my job (science research) means I have bizarre hours and periods of waiting for others to get their work done, and lately I ALWAYS have wedding on the brain, I figure this just might work. So, without further ado, I'll start at the beginning - err - proposal.