We got married!!

Almost 9 months ago!! I have (clearly) been absent from the blogging world for awhile.  Not for lack of exciting things happening, but really just lack of interest in writing.  However, when even Will notices that I have neglected the blog for some time, it's probably time to get it back up and running.  We are heading to a friend's wedding this weekend- the first one we've been to since our own- which has me thinking about our own own big day.  It's OK to just now write about our wedding though, because even though Halloween is almost here, it feels like our wedding was just last month!

January 26, 2013 will go down as one of the best days of our lives, for sure. You would be hard pressed to find a single picture from that day where there wasn't a huge smile on my face. All the time, work, organizing, saving, and stressing that Will and I put into the planning was 150% worth it. (And hiring a day-of wedding coordinator.  That may have been one of our best moves in the planning process.) I love that lots of people picked up on the details that we I worried about having to make our day special, and we love that everyone seemed to have such a great time.  Quite a few guests have told us that it was one of the most fun weddings they have been to, which is exactly what we were going for!

While I know I won't remember every second of the weekend, I want to write a few things down here, in no particular order:

• Will made an amazing groom.  He was very much in his element entertaining people all weekend.  One of my good friends that has known Will and I since the very beginning of our relationship told me afterwards that she had never seen him so happy.  And I agree.  The smile on his face is just as big in all our pictures.  I love that.
• We were legitimately concerned that we weren't going to have a priest for the wedding because we weren't hearing back from our presiding priest. It was touch and go up until, literally, days before the wedding. We were shopping for a back up, but fortunately didn't have to use one!  Fr. Steiner pulled through, and was a great addition to our ceremony!
• I didn't cry walking down the aisle!  I was so, so nervous about losing it while my dad walked me down to Will, but the day of I was calm, happy, and ready to go!  Dad gave a wonderful speech at the rehearsal dinner, and I definitely cried quite a few tears.  After his speech, we hugged, and then I jokingly told everyone, "No more tears this weekend!" and it was true! On the wedding day, Dad and I had a joke that he just needed to get me down the aisle without letting me fall.  Mission accomplished.
• We chose not to see each other before we met at the alter, but did want to take a picture together before the ceremony.  Our photographer arranged for us to pose for a picture at a corner of the church. I admittedly got a bit emotional when I heard Will's voice but couldn't see him, but I held it together! I love that we chose not to see each other beforehand, even if it meant that the day would be more rushed after the ceremony trying to cram photos in! I absolutely love how these pictures turned out.  We only have a couple pictures from the wedding framed so far in the house, and this is one of them.
• I had a wardrobe malfunction that was pretty terrible, and could have ruined the day.  My dress ripped before the ceremony while we were taking pictures.  Probably not a good move on my part to opt for a strapless gown, given my "gifts".  And big chest + ripped dress = no support.  The dress kept falling lower and lower down my chest during the ceremony and subsequent picture-taking around town. I felt really self-conscious, even though everyone kept telling me not to worry about it.  Will took a picture on his phone while we were getting group shots, and I was so horrified by how bad the dress looked that I called off the next stop on the picture route so that we could remedy the situation.  Thank God for several things- we were close to the hospitality suite so we could drop off the wedding party, we were close to our loft so we could go there for a little emergency alteration appointment, Dollar General actually had heavy-duty sewing needles, and I have a couple experienced seamstresses in my family!  20 minutes of literally being sewn into my dress and I felt like a new person. I'm so glad I chose to take care of it- I wouldn't have been able to not worry about it the whole night. And thanks to our photographer Krista for her awesome photoshop skills- she was able to fix the problem in almost all the pictures! Whew! 
• The wardrobe malfunction did give us the opportunity to go to the hospitality suite and visit with folks before we headed to the ceremony.  That was another great addition to the wedding weekend.  I'm glad it worked out that our honeymoon suite could also serve as the getting ready spot for the girls and the gathering spot for in between the ceremony and reception.  The week before when we were purchasing supplies for the hospitality suite, we thought we over-stocked the bar and snacks.  Ha. We must have forgotten how much our friends like to drink!  
• The weather was amazing! We took a risk having a January wedding, but fortunately the weather cooperated and we had blue skies during the day and a fantastic full moon that night.
• I loved the way the Fontanel looked as we first arrived for the reception.  It looked gorgeous when it was all lit up with our mason jars and candles.  
• I'm so happy that Will and I were able to have about 30 minutes to ourselves at the reception.  The night was so perfect that we were able to sit on a balcony and enjoy a private dinner with just the 2 of us.  It was one of the only times we were by ourselves the whole night, and I loved it.  
• I was half amused/half touched that our band played "January Wedding" for our first dance.  It wasn't our original choice for our first dance song (we had wanted "Still the One" by Orleans but were told it wouldn't be a good choice for them) but they did volunteer to learn "January Wedding" on a very short notice. They did the best they could, but I had to laugh when I saw the lead singer Percy reading the lyrics off a sheet of paper.  My dad and I danced to Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" and Will and his mom to "What a Wonderful World".  I had worried that I would fell self-conscious during the dances, but I didn't at all!
• Will and I opted to not go with a traditional wedding cake and instead offered a few dessert selections.  We did choose one cake option, though, so we could still cut a cake.  We didn't have a lot of people around when we did it, though- it was a nice private moment.  And we didn't smear cake all over each other's faces.
• Instead of traditional speeches, Will and I went up and thanked everyone for coming.  We were so happy to have so many family and friends with us, and wanted them to know how much we appreciated them!  And we wanted to introduce our surprise appearance- a special representative from Jack Daniels was on hand to do a whiskey tasting!
• The Jack Daniels tasting was such a success!  The rep went above and beyond what we had hoped for when we originally had the idea.  I'm glad we had an interactive activity that was very "Tennessee". People seemed to enjoy it, too!  I heard that the "tastings" turned into healthy pours by the end of the evening.
• The whole reception went by in a blink.  I felt like the party was just starting when we were called on stage for the final song.  And while I didn't feel like I had been drinking that much, there are pictures (and video) evidence to the contrary.  The last song of the night was "You Shook Me All Night Long" and while it looked staged, Will and I had no clue that the band was going to have us up to sing with them.  And I was apparently more than happy to oblige the crowd, even though I can not sing.  It was so much fun, though! My dad filmed it, and showed it to me the next morning.  I almost died of humiliation when I heard myself yell out, "Thank you Nashville!!!" when the song ended.  Thankfully the video hasn't surfaced online yet!
• The sparkler send off was just as pretty as I had imagined it to be. And riding away in Bing Crosby's Rolls Royce = perfect end to the night.  We were so sad to leave the reception, though!
• I'm glad we rallied and joined everyone at the honky tonks after the reception.  Will and I both changed out of our wedding clothes while most everyone else stayed dressed up! I was happy to be in a comfy hoodie and jeans again, even though my hair and make-up still looked great! We were stoked to see Will's favorite fiddle player, Olivia McPeek, playing at Legend's that night.  
• Will and I actually split up for part of the after party.  He wanted to keep partying with friends at Lonnie's while I went with my family to get late-night pizza.  We didn't rendezvous back at the honeymoon suite until after 5 AM!!

There are plenty more memories that I want to be sure to capture, but I'm glad I got these thoughts down for now!

Thanks to a few talented photographers for capturing some of my favorite wedding day pictures- Krista, our professional photographer, and Leslie and Jess, our amateur-professionals.

January 2, 2013

AKA...we are in the wedding month. 24 days until the wedding! Whoa. Things just got real. (As did my diet and exercise program...which have been severely lacking this holiday season.  I somehow replaced Insanity workouts, weights, and treadmills with butter, cream cheese, and couches.)

Leslie just posed this Question of the Week on her blog (Side note: I'm very happy to see the Question of the Week return!):

If you unexpectedly found out that you had tomorrow off of work to do whatever you wanted, how would you spend your day?
 

Oh, if only this were a reality!  I started writing a long, winded answer, but then thought it might be better to write my long, winded answer on my own blog, and give the Reader's Digest version on hers. 

Short Answer: I would be productive and get lots of last minute wedding projects wrapped up.

Long Answer:  I could SO use an unexpected day off of work! Isn't it funny how the longer you have to plan something, the more you put off until the last minute?  We have been planning this day for 14 months.  It has felt like an eternity away, but now that we are literally only weeks away, I suddenly have a million things on my plate.  My vision for the details of the day is becoming more and more clear, which means more projects are being started (and hopefully finished!).  Perhaps I work best under pressure.  Or maybe I don't get great ideas until the final hour.  Any way you look at it,  the list of things that need to be finished, crafted, arranged, planned, organized, toned, tightened, prettied, etc...is growing as the days leading up to THE day are dwindling.

There are certain things that are out of my control so I have to be patient and trust that they will get done when they get done.  Like trusting that our priest has not, in fact, forgotten about us and is just too busy to meet with us for the time being.  I'm hoping this will change now that the holidays are over.  An MIA priest does not help my anxiety/high blood pressure.  So hopefully he gets in touch with us soon.  Not being able to meet with our priest means we can't finalize readings, ceremony order, etc...which means our wedding programs are on hold for now.  But hey, nothing a last minute trip to Kinko's can't fix, right? They're open for 24 hours for a reason!

And really, it doesn't matter that I may be up late working on projects, because I just don't sleep well anymore, anyway.  My mind races non-stop, all night. What I wouldn't give to have an off switch for my brain.  But then again, some of my best ideas come in the wee hours of the morning, when I should be sound asleep. So maybe that's something.  I feel like a zombie some days.  But even as tired as I am, I haven't had a restful night's sleep in so long. Thank goodness we're taking a honeymoon.  We're going to need some time to unwind and remember what it feels like to have time to relax!!

Then there are the details.  This is where Will and I drastically differ in opinions about being "ready" for our wedding.  He thinks that if we can check off the following items, then we're bound to have fun and we're all set:

• Ceremony venue (check)
• Transportation (check)
• Awesome reception venue (check)
• Open Bar (check)
• Music (check)
• Food (semi-check...still need to finalize the menu.  Again, anxiety/HBP for me.)

And while I agree with him, I have added a few (dozen) more detail-oriented things that I would like to see at the reception.  The difference between having our guests think, "That was a fun reception!" vs. "That was an AWESOME reception! All the details! So thoughtful and clever and cute. How did they find all the time to do all this?!" For the record, I blame Pinterest for this problem.  Suddenly Mason Jar centerpieces just aren't enough.  And the DIY crafts I see on there look so easy and simple to do.  Hahaha.  Foolish, foolish me. 

Perfect example:
Will is sick right now, so he has been cooped up in bed for the past 48 hours.  But with only 20-some days until the wedding, the show must go on, so I ditched him (I know, what a bad wife I'll be to leave my husband when he's dying in bed to go to Hobby Lobby) and enlisted the help of Cari and Curtis to work on a couple projects with me. We started what I thought would be a 2 hour project yesterday afternoon.  Several more hours later, I left Cari's house with zero projects in hand, and a couple homework assignments for them to continue working on in their wedding-confiscated garage.  What a nice sister-in-law I am.  I don't want to give away too much...but if any of these projects turn out and are used at the reception...they look FAR simpler than they actually are to craft! So be impressed!!

Having said (read: complained about) all that, I am getting so excited for the big day that I have difficulty focusing on anything else.  It is going to be such a fun day, and I am so looking forward to having all our family in friends here in Nashville to celebrate!  One of our favorite things to do the past several weeks has been to check the mail for RSVPs.  It's pretty amazing to us to see how many people are coming from literally all over the world to celebrate with us.  Makes you feel pretty special.  And although I am NOT looking forward to being the center of attention (I get sweaty just thinking about people watching me walk down the aisle), I am very much looking forward to becoming Mrs. Mason. 

Happy New Year!!

525,600 minutes

Today officially marks 1 year until our wedding! In honor of this, I bring you Sh*t Brides Say:

Hilarious!  (And sadly, I admit that I've caught myself saying things like this. "Pinning, pinning..." and "Our theme is going to be country chic..." come to mind.)  Oh well, you're only a bride once, right? :)

Start Spreading the News, Part 1

(I'm apparently really enjoying capturing every detail of our engagement weekend.  So much that I have to break this story into a 3-part series. I'll cover how we told Will's family when I have more time to write again!)

The honor of 1^st person to learn we were officially engaged goes to our friend Amy (Will’s friend from college).  She starts every conversation, email, facebook post, etc…with “Are you engaged yet??”.  Will long ago promised her that she would be the first to know should we ever actually become engaged, so we surprised her by sending her a picture of me wearing the ring.  She lives in North Carolina now, but had been in Chicago that week and we had missed her by a day.  Will had encouraged her to extend the trip over the weekend, and our photo evidence proved to her that she should have listened!
 

Will didn’t want the happy news to go public on the internet as he wanted to tell his family in person over Thanksgiving.  We thought it would be best to at least call our families and let them know the news before anyone else did, but he really wanted to surprise his sisters (his Dad also already knew) and tell them in person.  I agreed to keep it quiet on the internet, but I was going to have a hard time keeping it from our friends that we would be seeing shortly!

So we agreed that we would make an exception and tell our Chicago friends that we saw that weekend…after all, we were in the mood to celebrate! But they were sworn to secrecy until we had a chance to tell as many as we could in person. We had hoped to personally call as many good friends as we could on Thanksgiving to share the news with them before it was blasted onto social media. 

 

Unfortunately we weren’t going to see my family over Thanksgiving, so I got to call them to share the news that evening.  Shortly after Will popped the question we headed out to meet up with our friend Kelly for drinks.  As we were walking to the bar, I tried to give my Dad a call.  Will insisted that I tell my dad first, as he was the only one who knew Will’s plans.  I tried calling him at home and didn’t reach him, so I called the bakery next. Mom answered and I tried to talk with her as nonchalantly as possible for a couple minutes before asking if Dad was around.  “No,” she replied.  “He had some dental work done this afternoon, so he’s at home with a mouth full of gauze and can’t talk.” Needless to say, I wasn’t super happy to hear that news.  I talked to Mom for a few more minutes, avoiding her probing questions (as I’m sure she knew something was up), and then tried to call Dad at home again.  I left him a message on the machine, asking him to just pick up the phone and grunt to let me know he was there, because I just had to tell him something really quickly…he didn’t even need to respond.

 

Well, he didn’t pick up, which was a bummer.  By this point we were at the bar, though, so I didn’t dwell on it too much.  We share the news with our good pal Kelly, her fiancé Chris, and Will’s cousin Anna at the bar, and had champagne all around to celebrate (after we swore them to secrecy, of course!) We then headed to dinner with one of Will’s old Four Seasons buddies, Edgar, and his girlfriend Crystal at Café Iberico (Mmmmm, tapas- a girl couldn’t ask for a better celebratory dinner!) We continued the evening at Fado (another one of my favorite establishments in Chicago) where another Four Seasons friend Megan met up with us.  We enjoyed our celebration, for sure! So much so that Will and I didn’t want to be done celebrating when everyone else was, so we headed to the late night bar (and another one of our favorite Chicago haunts) Dublin’s and ended the evening there.  Or should I say morning.  In true Chicago fashion, we got back to the hotel room around 5 AM.

 

Needless to say, we were feeling ROUGH the next morning.  We had to rally, though, as we had friends to see and news to share.  I was finally able to reach Dad that morning at the bakery, and he was happy to hear our news.  And a bit surprised, too, that it happened so quickly after Will had talked to him.  He shared the news with Ella (who fell out of her chair) and my BFF Kelly (who was working there) but let me know that Mom was out running errands.  I made him promise not to tell her as I wanted to be the one to let her know.

 

We were at a bar watching football and celebrating with friends Megan, Abby, Kelly, and Tracy when Dad called me back and let me know that Mom was back at the bakery and that if I wanted to tell her our news myself, that I should call quickly.  She was catching on that something was going down.  So I went outside and called her back.  When she answered, she asked if I had something I needed to tell her, to which I replied, “Yes, I do.”  Then she made a big show of letting me know that Kelly was there, and so was Molly, so she took the phone back to the kitchen area and put me on speaker phone. 

Once the phone was properly set up, she said, “OK- what’s your news?”

This was just too good of an opportunity to not mess with her.  I took a deep breath, and said, “Are you ready to hear the news?
...I’m pregnant.”

"WHAT?!?! THAT WAS NOT THE NEWS I WAS EXPECTING!!!" was her reaction.

I had to laugh at that point.  "Of course I'm not pregnant, Mom! You just saw me last weekend, and I was definitely drinking the whole time.  The real news is, we're engaged!"

It was definitely a memorable and fun way to break the news to Mom.  She was also really surprised that Dad and Kelly already knew. But she did say that she suspected that it was going to happen soon based Will's reaction in Savannah when she had (again) said something to him about us getting married.

We spoke with Andy and Sandy that evening once we were settled back in at the hotel.  Rockstars we are not, so 2 nights in a row of late-night partying were not in the cards for us.  They sneakily asked us what hotel we were staying at, and we thought nothing of letting them know as it is a pretty integral part of the engagement story.  We were pleasantly surprised about 30 minutes after we  hung up the phone with them.  They had called and arranged for champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to be sent to the room!

Engagement Story, Part 1

We’re engaged! Hooray! (Or, as everyone we know put it, it’s about time!) I’ve decided to take a minute to write down the whole story while the details are relatively fresh in my mind.  This is pretty much just for myself (and Jess, of course). :) But, I’m sure it will be fun to go back and read this later…especially on days when I want to strangle him. Kidding…sort of.  Some of these details I’ve learned post-engagement, but I’m going to attempt to keep things in chronological order.

Will actually took his first trip to a jewelry store to look at rings way back in February.  He didn’t really intend to buy one then, but it’s nice to know it’s been on his mind for awhile.  Coincidentally (or perhaps hilariously is the better descriptor here) his first trip to look at rings fell on none other than Valentine’s Day.  He didn’t realize that it was the 14^th until he was already walking into the store.  He later told me he felt pretty stupid, but he braved the V-Day sales rush anyway to get an idea of what he was looking for.

My baby nephew was born in May.  We drove back to Decatur in June to meet Liam, and following that trip, I had a full-blown meltdown on Will…in bed…in the dark…after waking him up to “talk”.  (I’m sure every male has had that happen to them by their lovely lady at least once.)  I loved holding a brand new baby and really felt for the first time in my life that I was totally ready to start a family.  I was freaking out worrying that Will wasn’t in the same place as me and wondering when and if we would ever get married, let alone have kids.  It wasn’t like we were newly dating- we had been together for nearly 5 years!  (Will was probably just rolling his eyes at me in the dark as he already knew he had plans in the works to ask me to marry him.  I can be a drama queen. But I felt pretty justified in my ranting at the time.)

Fast forward a few more months to our most recent Europe trip.  Will had warned me before we left that he was not going to propose, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up for an engagement.  So of course, I got my hopes up for an engagement.  I was pretty convinced that he was trying to reverse-psychology me into thinking he wasn’t going to propose so that he when he did, I would be extra surprised.  Well, the joke was on me. I distinctly remember the moment we walked into the hotel with the a-ma-zing view of the Matterhorn and our own private balcony. I thought to myself, “this is where he’s going to ask me! How romantic!” Well, afternoon turned to evening, which turned to night, which turned to the next morning and I did not become the future Mrs. Mason.  I even said to Will as we left that fantastic hotel, “you know, that would have been a great spot to get engaged.”

Sometime shortly after we returned home from Switzerland Will actually picked up the ring.  He had it hidden in plain sight at our place- in his sweater drawer under the bed.  I never once suspected, nor saw anything. That goes to show how often Will wears sweaters, or how often I put away his clothes- I'll let y'all be the judges on that one.

We had a trip to Vegas planned for 2 weeks after we got back from Europe to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert (Will’s birthday present to me from back in May).  Prior to leaving for Europe though, we failed to buy our flights out there.  So after lots of hemming and hawing, I told Will that we needed to cancel the trip. It was just far too expensive/pointless since we had just gotten back from a big trip, and the flights were ridiculously expensive that close to the trip.  Will grudgingly agreed to cancel the trip…and then I felt really bad because he wasn’t able to sell the concert tickets. So basically he wasted a lot of money on a present that I never got to use.  And here’s the real kicker- I later found out that he had planned to propose in Vegas on the bridge of the Venetian (which happens to be the precise place where he realized how much he cared about me 5+ years ago) (Queue “ahhhhs”- I’ll wait.) So basically, I thwarted my own engagement by being financially conservative.

In early November, we met my family for a long weekend in Savannah.  Will tried several times to get Dad alone so that he could ask him for permission to marry me.  That apparently proved to be a difficult task.  They never did get any time alone, so Will had to call him the following week and ask him over the phone. Dad was really excited to know that he knew something before anyone else in the family did, including Mom.  Will didn’t tell Dad when he was planning on proposing, though- Dad assumed it would be around Christmas.

Anywho, Will kept going on and on about how he needed to get out of town and how much he wanted to go back to Chicago.  We try to go to Chicago every year for a Bears game so I didn’t think that was too weird.  And even though I didn’t think we needed to take another weekend trip away, I felt guilty saying no since I had forced him to cancel the Vegas weekend. I tried to convince him to at least let us stay with friends in Chicago to keep costs down, but he insisted that we stay at the Four Seasons (where he used to work- he still gets hooked up with sweet deals there).  He used the excuse that staying there was an integral part of his Chicago experience because he spent so much timing working there and he still knows so many of the employees.  And he had already made reservations that were not cancellable.  So, he won.  I took the Friday before Thanksgiving off and off to Chicago we went. 

We spent the whole day on Friday wandering around our old neighborhood, eating at one of our favorite lunch spots- Cozy Noodles, having a couple drinks at our old stomping grounds, window shopping on Southport, stopping in to pick up a couple items at Strange Cargo, and walking by our old apartments.  It was so nice. Chicago, how I love you.  We were meeting up with some friends for dinner and drinks downtown that evening so we headed back to the hotel to get ready.  Just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, Will asked if I had seen his wallet… to which I replied no.  Then he asked me to look for his wallet in his inside jacket pocket (which, admittedly, I was annoyed by.  He often asks me to do stuff like that (grab his shoes, his coat, look for his keys or wallet on the counter, etc… as if I am sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I am trying to get ready, too, buddy!))  I bit my tongue, though, and reached into his pocket expecting to find a wallet there. Instead I half pulled out a ring box. And then I quickly tried to shove it back in his pocket, thinking I wasn’t supposed to find it. (He had often joked around that he was going to propose on a jumbotron at a sporting event…and we were going to the Bears game on Sunday) When he asked me if I found something in his pocket, I told him no! Then he asked if I was sure, and as I turned around to look at him, he was on his knee. :)

And then I started jumping up and down and doing that weird half-laughing/half-crying thing. And I kept asking if he was being for real and if he was serious, and then proceeded to repeatedly ask him, “Are you going to ask me? Are you going to ask me? Are you going to ask me?” until he had to tell me to be quiet because he had something important to ask me. And in typical Will fashion, while on one knee, instead of asking me to marry him, he asked, “Are you ready to leave?” Then I think I hit him.  Thankfully, he then popped the real question, and of course I said yes.  It was a wonderful, surreal moment.  I couldn’t stop crying/laughing/smiling/kissing Will.   I love that he surprised me in the way that he did and that he kept it very true to our relationship- we were joking the whole time.

The only kicker is that the ring didn’t fit! Will had sized the ring by putting it on his pinky finger.  I keep an old ring in my car that he always plays with on his pinky, so he assumed that was the proper ring size for me.  Unfortunately, the ring was a size too small, so I didn’t get to wear it that weekend. Talk about torture!! Finally engaged and not even able to wear the ring for proof.

Stay tuned for part 2: how we told our families….