The Full Faith and Credit Clause

Yeah, I know that govt can be a boring class, but it is required, and today's class really rubbed me the wrong way. My professor likes to pick example topics that will get the class talking and so they are all controversial issues. Today's lecture was on the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the Constitution. For those of you that want to know, it is Article 4 Section 1. Basically it says that each state will respect public acts, records and judicial proceedings of another state. For example: If you marry someone in one state the other states should not argue it because it is a public act, you can get the records publicly, and if you were married by a JOP it is a judicial proceeding. Same with divorce, if you divorce in Missouri, you are divorced in Iowa.

Well the controversial issue here is Same Sex Marriage. I am one of the odd girls out in my class being that I am very open minded and I believe that same sex marriage should be allowed. It really makes me sad that I can marry the love of my life and one of my close friends can't. Not only is it unfair and biased, it is unconstitutional to not honor the marriage of Billy and Joe from a state that allows it when they have to move to a state that doesn't. Here is Missouri the Mo Constitution even states that they will not honor it. To me that is BS, how is it that we can pick and chose and when we back ourselves into a corner we just change it.

So anyways, we start the debate and one girl says this:

I think that they(homosexuals) can just stop being that way, it's a choice. We just need to recondition them to be the right way(straight).

WTF!?!?! So folks, now you know that we can just "recondition" anything that is "wrong" with people. My FH told me to just let if go and let her live in her "self serving world." Seriously, if someone would have said that at my old school they would have probably been tied up in the quad and stoned. Well I think that is it, I think I have run out of steam for now...

Maybe I will call one of my homosexual friends and tell them that I need to recondition them so that they are straight and then we will laugh and people who are so discriminatory.

Wedding Day Hairpiece Delima

I have wanted to wear some form of a tiara in my wedding for as long as I can remember. I don't know if it is because I always wanted to be a Disney Princess, or if it is just because I really like shiny things. Currently I have a little comb tiara that I picked up for a great price that I really like. Here is my man so graciously modeling it for me:


When I went wedding dress shopping my bridal consultant did my hair and put a veil on me so that I would get the total package feel with my dress on. Along with the veil she clipped in some little flowers. I never in a million years thought that I would like the flowers in my hair, but I do. Here is me where you can see the flowers:

So now I am torn. Do I wear the tiara that I have always wanted to wear or just switch to the flowers because they are so pretty. I like both options and so here I sit, torn. I know I have several months to decide this, heck I could just decide the day of the wedding, but I may go crazy over this issue by then.

So what do you think people, keep the tiara or try the flowers? Have any of you had a similar issue? What did you decide?

Our Precious Rings

So today I woke up to it poring down rain and quickly made the decision that I was staying inside as long as humanly possible or until the rain quits. So here is where I decided to park myself:
While I was just hanging out with my lovely PC and being deprived of clear desk space to work on some wedding crafts due to the overwhelming amount of room that turn tables take up, I thought it would be fun to take some time and get some shots of my boys wedding ring.

So a little about his ring and the journey we had finding it:
His ring was rather hard to find. I think he was just as picky as I was when it came to this choice. I was told that it had to be a comfort fit shank and it had to be either Tungsten or Titanium. Since he has to work with his hands a lot I was totally on board with the idea of getting something that wouldn't end up getting really scratched. But, it seemed like every single little circle I found to adorn his hand wasn't right for him. There I was spending hours on the above machine searching the Internet far and wide with not much to show for it. We had been to all the local stores and had come up empty handed as well. I tried everything I could think of, even looking at some custom stuff on Etsy. Still nothing was right.
I was about to put this shopping hunt on hold for a few months so that some new items could join the old inventories and maybe give me something that we both liked when I came across a little shop on Amazon. The seller is Sabrina Silver, and they have some amazing things at some AMAZING prices! And that is where we found it, the Titanium band that he would wear the rest of his life was there among all the other pretty shiny things. We were so excited to click the buy button and check out with one more item crossed off the list. I waited VREY anxiously for less than a week when the little brown box used for shipping was found inside our mailbox.

Well as soon as we got it I made him try it on and the little butt head wouldn't take it off. We had to go to the store and he insisted that he wear it "just to be sure." Finally, after a couple hours I coxed it off his had and into the safe, until now that is.

So today I got our bands out and started snapping! Here are some of my favs from the lot:

Cute Invite Idea!

I know that I already have my invites done, but we got a wedding invitation in the mail the other day from my brother and his fiance and just had to share it because the idea is so cute.

Normally when you are searching for wording to invite guests to a wedding you find heaps of them that are "the parents of" or the couple themselves inviting you. Well, theirs is similar, but just so cute. The invitation that we received was from this little cutie:Isn't she a doll! The opening of the invite read "Lillian Grace warmly invites you to celebrate the marriage of her parents"

I love cute ideas like that!

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet, Give Me Something Good to Eat!!

I heart Halloween a lot. When I was a kid I used to think that people gave me candy that day because my birthday just so happened to be a few days prior and they were celebrating with me. I was mad that other kids got candy too and would throw a fit! Nowadays though I just like to dress up and go out!

This year is extra special. Our photog freind/ best man has been given the opportunity to host the Midwest Modelween that is put on by OMP each year. That just gives me an excuse to dress cute and go out. I may even be a guest bartender that night at the bar that I used to work at full time. But honestly, me and my man don't have out costumes! We kind of know what we want to be, but we really need to get them. In the meantime, I am going to reminisce on last years party...

Here I am as Rainbow Brite for one night of work (I had to dress up two nights)


Here is the next night. This was Friday night, which was our big costume party for the year!

Here is my man as Agent 47 (Hitman) he even had the bar code on the back of his next! PS: Those are just air soft guns!

I had to add him in! Meet Gizmo, the fun loving clown. He and his father are actually professional clowns and they are amazing. All that face paint took about 5 minutes and stayed on all night in a hot club with a few secret tricks that he has!

What are you going to be this year?

Click!

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You know you like the thought of being able to pause life and rewind it with your very own personal universal remote.

Well if I could rewind to the day that I wrote my last post, I may be able to change my frustration into my current feeling of accomplishment.

Currently my FH is out of town on business, and I am bored.Due to this boredom I cleaned the house, and I mean SUPER clean! While cleaning I found a little notebook that I had written the phone number of the lady who did pictures for my sisters wedding. I thought she would probably be booked already, but decided to call her anyhow. She is the sweetest lady and is so reasonably priced it isn't even funny. And as luck would have it, she is available for our date, and there is no payment required until the wedding day!!

Normally I would be leery of a vendor who didn't require contracts or a deposit, but I am actually really comfortable with this. She works for herself and only operates by word of mouth. this allows her the freedom to actually get to know her clients and not rely on rules and regulations. My BIL is actually her printer when she does proofs and orders, and she did an awesome job at their wedding, so that *may* be a factor to why I trust her a little more without the contract. And I was really surprised that I didn't need to send her money for a deposit. Her prices are pretty cheap so it almost pointless, but still, I am ok with that though. One less check I need to write now.

Man, I wish I had a copy of some of her work right now!! If I get to my sisters house in the near future I will have to get some eye candy for you guys!

Do you have any vendor's that don't require some form of contract other than your name and phone number written on a calendar? If not, would you ever consider it?

Capturing Our Day

This is one thing that I was dreading... I love being in front of the camera, I work with a local photographer here and have a small portfolio with him. He did our engagement photos for us and offered to do our wedding day as well. But that is a but of an issue all on its own.

Well I LOVE my photographer to death, but he is IN THE WEDDING!! Now that is awesome that he is going to be my mans best man, but where does that leave me in terms of photography?I have no clue. There isn't that much around here, and what I have found is that it is all WAY out of our budget.

I would love to have the guy that I am super comfortable working with take pictures on our big day, but I am not going to have him do that and try and be in the wedding, that would just be crazy. I guess I am just going to have to continue searching for someone that is decently priced and available.

Anyone else out there with photography issues, be it price, location, or other conflicts?

If the shoe fits....

wear it! And that is exactly what I am doing! That's right ladies and gents, i have my wedding shoes! This was quite a journey for me. And I ended up somewhere totally different than where I started.

My original thought was that I would want something flat. I love ballet flats so that was my obvious pick. And I love the pops of color that people have with colored shoes so why not get them in my wedding colors. Like something from Dessy maybe.
I also hate my toes. They are all screwed up from years of pointe ballet. Rarely do I wear pep/open toed shoes. I never get pedis, and I don't wear flip flops anywhere but to the pool or river. So I was set on a closed toe shoe.

Well I searched the web high and low with no luck. I found a lot of cute shoes that I would not mind having in my closet, but nothing was wedding worthy to me. I figured that I would have to wait until the next seasons lines came out and keep my fingers crossed for something.

Well one night while sitting at home bored I was looking at the David's Bridal site and fell in love with some shoes.

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I asked if we could make a trip to David's Bridal real fast and look at the shoes and color swatches since I wanted them dyed. When I got to the store and tried these on they were so adorable...but the tiny little platform felt like it was way high!

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So the search continued. DB was having a sale so I started to look at those shoes. And among the tattered boxes that had been dug through and were all mixed up, I found them. THE shoes. And they were something that I never thought I would want.

Heels, Peep toe, AND I am keeping them white. My pop of color will be somewhere else!

I love my shoes! They are beautiful and they are so comfortable. I was actually very surprised at how much I liked wearing them. They don't bother me at all.

So ladies, did any of you end up with something anything different than what you thought you wanted while you were shopping for your wedding shoes?

The Pain in Blogging

So I have been absent from the world of blogging lately. It is not entirely my fault though. I really wanted to be on here and share some of the things that I have been up to, but alas, my doc told me that was a BIG FAT NO!!!

You see, I have been blessed with some serious tendinitis in my right arm... It has been a persistent problem throughout my college career, and now that I am in my last year it seems to have gotten a lot worse than it was even last year. Pain, tingling, and numbness is not helpful me being a part of the blogging world at times. There are days that I can't write so I have to record my classes. I have to wear a lovely little compression glove every day, and a "tennis elbow" band on my arm a lot of the time.

Recently I went to the doc. She told me that I had to take a break or risk some costly physical therapy or surgery if i mess up my arm more. So what does that mean?? No golf *sad*, no taking notes (use a tape recorder now), daily exercises, and the hardest: "as limited computer use as possible". I was allowed to type a paper if I had it, but other than that I wasn't on the PC. And I was having some serious withdraws from my favorite sites. I mean how did I survive without Facebook, Myspace, WeddingBee, The Knot, and Gmail . Well, now that I have been released back into the World Wide Web, I will have to update some recent progress....

Has anyone else had some unexpected issues arise in the midst of planning a wedding using primarily online resources??

Invite Wording Debut

Wow, I have really gotten behind on here.. But with good reason! My older sister and BIL did the MS150 this past weekend. They rode their bikes about 160 miles in 2 days. I went to go meet them at the first day finish line, so I was off here all day.. And then with school this has been the time for first tests! It seems like all classes decide to have their first test the same week.

Well, on to more wedding stuff. I did my invites this weekend. And while I don't want to put them up on the web until after I send them out, I will put up the wording. It took me a couple days to make our design and get the wording just right. I used a couple different samples from one of my wedding planning books and just cut out parts I liked, put them together, and voila, here is what we have:I really love the font!! Thanks DaFont!

I really like how they came out. We are very non formal people, but we still wanted to have that semi-formal feel to invitations. They are very simple, and how things are phrased is a little more traditional, but they are still very much us. Also, I love that font, it is fun, but still very pretty. I can't wait to get the rest of the paper stuff done, printed, and mailed so that I can post it. One of these days I will get to post the pretty pictures online... I have so many sitting in a folder labeled "Blog" just waiting to make their debut!

What do you think about our wording? Did anyone else take a couple of different ideas and make them your own?

Color in my Crinnie?

So I went and tried on my dress the other day while I was picking up my refund check from school. It seemed like a good excuse to go visit my beauty as she is tucked away safely at my sisters house in her spare bedroom's closet. This not only keeps the furbabies at bay, but keeps me from putting her on and wearing her around the house every day.

Anyways, I put her on and my sister got me all laced up and secure. Then, for the first time, I tired my wedding day shoes on with her. And as we looked and I walked around we realized something... I DON"T NEED ALTERATIONS!!!! WHOO HOO!!! That will save a couple hundred bucks. But now I had an important decision to make, and I AM NOT a person who likes to make decisions. How should I color my crinnie???

If you have never seen a colored crinolie or underskirt, here is what I am talking about.Source

This is one of the many pictures that make me want a colored crinoline. It is just so fun. But I am pondering just how I want to add the color. Here are the options that I am thinking about, please give me some feedback!

1)Totally dying the whole thing and leaving it at that. I have experience dying and know that I can do this.
2)Dying the whole crinnie my fucshia and then sewing in some black tulle for some contrast. I also have sewing experience. I took classes all of my childhood.
3) Leaving the crinnnie white and just getting some fucshia and black tulle and sewing that in around the bottom for some color pops.

So what do you think ladies? Which one would you do?

So I ment to update this sooner....

And then i got distracted doing other things. Last night I started workin on our invite wording and made our monogram...I was up entirely to late doing that.... but it was so much fun!

So I planned to get on here today and actually show some eye candy are our STD and our monogram, or talk about our venue or our something like that...but no such luck.

What kept me you ask? Well as I was laying in bed this morning pondering if I should roll over and go back to sleep or get up I heard my phone ringing in the other room. I figured that it was our photog friend wanting to know if we were up and willing to watch his son while he did a shoot with someone so I just rolled over and let the boy answer it. Well not to long after that my FH came into the room and handed me the phone. It was photog friend, but he was not needing a babysitter...He was actually needing a model to shoot that day. So instead of sleeping in I got to get up and get all picture ready... I can't lie and say that I don't enjoy getting my photos done, but I really didn't want to get up... But I did... And here is a little taste of what we did....Credit: Silver Dreams Photography

Oh Pink, How I Heart Thou...

So if you didn't already notice my my wonderful color scheme, I LOVE PINK! And I really like it with black. Not to dis any other colors out there, but pink and black together are just fabulous!

What does this have to do with my wedding you may ask. Well, I will tell you, I have the most fan-tabulous fiance EVER! He is letting me use my two favorite colors for our wedding color scheme! I had a feeling he would be ok with it, I mean he did wear pink at my sisters wedding for me, but seriously a full on fuchsia wedding was a far cry from that...right???

None the less he said that my colors were fine, as long as I am happy he is happy, yadda yadda, mushy mushy. And so I got my pink wedding! And thus began drooling over inspiration boards to match my fantasy:Source

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And then I just had to start thinking about stationary, and how it all had to be in the same color scheme... Since I am doing all the stationary myself I stared to look and had bought all the paper stuff that I would need before we even set a date!

Yeah. I know I am nuts, what's it to you?!?

And I FINALLY printed my STDs tonight! I have had them designed for months and have just been putting it off. I will reveal them soon, promise!

Are your wedding colors your favorite colors, or are they something you and your FH compromised on?

Sorry there are so many "Sept 2". I started a lot of ideas before I forgot them all and it just publishes them under that date.. I will fix it if I remember to from now on!

My David's Bridal Experience

YAY DRESS SHOPPING!!! I really think that when I got engaged I was most excited about picking out my dress. I love trying things on that are obscenely expensive and totally tacky!

I had to wait until MOTHER'S DAY weekend to go dress shopping. And then that weekend we didn't even know if the David's Bridal would be open because there was a massive storm that hit the day before our scheduled trip that took out power in that area of town. Luckily they were ONE BLOCK on the right side of the grid so they had power.

So here is how it all happened. Travel back in time with me to the Wednesday before....I call the shop and set up an appointment like every good bride does. I then begin to search high and low on their website for anything that I remotely like and write down product numbers. This goes on until the night before, then my FH tells me that if I keep looking at dresses, I will end up with more to try on than they have in inventory... I pout, but I know he is right.

Now to the day the shopping trip to place. I am usually on time, or early, but not today! I get to the store LATE!! AHH!!! It was ok though, my consultant had another client at the same time and that gave her the chance to get the other brides dresses rather than one of us waiting. Once I get into my undergarments I got to dive into dresses! It was so much fun! It didn't take long until I found THE dress, but I kept looking just in case. I think the best quote from the day was from my mom:

"When you said you wanted a poofy skirt I didn't know how it would look. Frankly I thought you would look like a cake, but somehow you always pull it off"

What a great thing to hear when you are wearing the dress that you are going to be walking down the isle in. Now the only question is, when and when am I getting married....I had a dress, but no time or place yet...oops!

So here I am in the sample dress. It was just a tiny bit big. Also, ignore my goofy face. I had bartended the night before and it was a LONG night!

Here is a close up of the detail. I love it!

How was your dress shopping experience? Did you get a dress the first day or did it take several trips?

"Will You Marry Me?" "Have You Asked My Dad?"

Yep, that is right everyone, this was actually said. People always ask me how he "popped the question" and when we got engaged. Well I have 2 engagement dates. One is the one where we actually told people we were getting married and the other is when I saw my rings for the first time.

Let's talk about the latter of the 2. I knew that he was going to propose at some time in the near future, but I had no idea when. We decided to trade Christmas gifts with other on Christmas Eve rather than in the hustle and bustle of the next day with family. Currently, I don't even remember what I got him, since it sucked compared to what he gave me! So anyways, I opened my box and saw the rings and was like "SERIOUSLY!?!" and he replied with, "Do you still want to marry me?" and I said, "Did you ask my dad yet?"
Yeah I know, way to ruin the moment.. But I was serious. I am a daddy's girl and if my dad did not approve then I would probably not marry a guy. Well he hadn't yet, but planned to at my family's Christmas get together in the near future and didn't want to hold my ring hostage. My ring was too big anyways so we just took the opportunity to get it sized so I wouldn't be tempted to wear it.

So onto him asking my dad... Like I said, I am a daddy's girl. And he is big on my making a future for myself and all that. So here is what went down when they had their convo:

Boy: I want to ask your daughter to marry me.

Dad: I will kill you

Now my dad is intimidating. And I really think that he was serious about this. He made my boy SWEAR that I would graduate college first and we would not have kids until after I was done with school and we were married.

So after this we waited a couple weeks and then we sent out engagement announcements and we were "officially" engaged. Yay for happy endings. But I mean hey, I wouldn't be doing this blog if my dad had killed him...

Oh and here is an oh so pretty pictures of my ring and the matching band!

Where it all began

My boy and I met though friends. We worked down the street from each other for 3 months and didn't even know the other existed. Luckily for us, we had some pretty amazing people to hang out with and nothing better to do at the time.

I had just started my first semester at a new college when our first meeting took place. Some friends from work had invited me over for a BBQ before the weather snapped to winter. I had some homework, but what the heck, it may be the last chance for some good BBQ. When I walked into the back yard there he was, standing over the grill hard at work. You see folks, my man is some what of a self proclaimed "Grill Master" and elected himself as "Keeper of the Flame" that night. I really had no idea who this guy was that was cooking my food. He was a total stranger to me and could have put poison in my steak for all I know. But hey, he looked good cookin' and my steak was pretty dang good.

After that night we had a few chance encounters. He did work 3 doors down from me after all. And soon we became quite close. Our first 'date' was actually to my sisters wedding and we had a blast. When I saw that he could handle my family all at the same time I knew he was the real deal. And now we are living our happily ever after....

Us at my sisters reception. (HE WORE PINK FOR ME!!!)

And so it begins...

Again... What do I mean by that you ask? Well, this is not my first blog you see. I have started and ended many others previous to this on a variety of different sites. The reason for this is because I have always wanted to blog, get a following, and help others while expressing myself through words, but it never seemed to work that way. The reason I have chosen to start typing again is because I am planning a new chapter in my life. I am getting married, graduating from college, and *possibly* moving all at the same time. I feel this will be my outlet and a way for me to focus during the midst of my crazy life.
I hope that I can be an inspiration to someone out there who chooses to read this. I hope that others will read this and realize that no matter how hard things get when we are busy and don't have enough time, money, or energy we will get through it. One day at a time, one step at a time.