7 Days Until Our Wedding: A week! Where has the time gone??

I seriously can't believe that in one week I will be Mrs. Devon Lee Drake.  I will be a wife.  That is so intense I can barely handle it...


I have a weird secret about Devon and I.  I still feel the same way about him as I did when I first had feelings for him....let me explain.

When people fall for each other they always get that crazy, butterfly, mad about you, can't breathe when you walk in the room feeling.  Soooo, even though we have been dating for three years, and I fell for him years before that, when we were sophomores in college, I still feel that way. When I see him I get butterflies.  When he kisses me he takes my breath away.  When I see his name on my phone I always get a huge smile.


I am so lucky that I get to marry him.


On another note, I did have a funny thing happen to me yesterday. I was telling my best friend and maid of honor how I hadn't really had a crying moment yet and I was really surprised since the wedding is so soon.  Later that day I was catching up on a few shows that I had missed and this little nugget happened...

I lost it.  I started crying uncontrollably .... it just wrecked me. I am so glad I was home alone because I seriously watched it nearly 15 times in a row (and several times today) and couldn't stop crying.
I have watched this show for a while, with Devon, and seeing them get engaged just really hit home....

16 Days Until Our Wedding: I'm feeling the pressure :/

I don't feel so good.  Every night this week I've been up and down all night trying to calm down about the wedding.   I feel terrible all the time.  I'm so nervous...I just feel itchy. I don't know if this is normal or what.....


I'm (and let me make sure that this point is made) not scared to get married.  That is the best part!  Devon is going to be my husband.

I'm just tired of spending our savings (or should I say Devon's)  I'm tired of worrying if everything will be okay.  I'm just tired.  I need to stop feeling stressed.

It's almost painful.  I just want this to be over.  Two weeks and I can start the rest of my life :)

37 Days Until Our Wedding: Starting to Feel Nervous

I'm truly starting to get wedding jitters.  Well I guess they are wedding jitters...I'm not sure what else they could be....

Now, I am not nervous about becoming Devon's wife.  I am fully prepared to spend my life with him.  He is an amazing, wonderful man.

I'm more just nervous about the whole of it.  Being a bride.  Walking down the aisle without falling or something. Having people fuss over me and him.  Taking a ton of pictures.  Wondering if my hair is silly or my makeup to dark.  Wondering if my dress looks good. Trying not to drink to much because I tend to do that when I am nervous.  Not biting my nails because that makes me look like a child.  Not getting lipstick on my teeth. Messing up my vows. Spilling wine on my dress. Snapping at someone for asking me the same question 800 times. Not letting my sweet Devon push cake in my face. Not crying.  Not forgetting to breathe. Thanking all the right people. Making sure all the right people are paid. Making sure no one gets their feelings hurt or something.  Hoping all the things I made and worked so hard on aren't ridiculous looking or people think they are stupid.  Wondering if I should cover up my tattoo on my shoulder or just let it be. Worrying someone will forget to turn off their cell phone and I'll throw my bouquet at them. That someone in my family will show up and make me miserable.  Anyone showing up who shouldn't be there.



....sigh.... I feel so nervous that something will go wrong and that's all I will be able to thing about...grr.

44 Days Until Our Wedding: I'm About to be a Bride

This weekend I am having my bridal portraits taken and it's a really weird feeling. I feel a bit overwhelmed that it is getting so close to our wedding. I'm not scared, it's just a lot to take in.

 I am going to be a bride

I am going to be wear a wedding gown

I am going to have everyone looking at me as I walk down the aisle

I am going to pledge my love, my trust, and my life to the man I adore

I am going to put a ring on Devon's finger 

I am going to become his wife

HIS WIFE

Wow.

I don't really think I can articulate what that feels likes knowing that I get to spend the rest of my life with Devon.  He is my perfect match, my complete companion and the absolute best person for me to spend all of our days together.  I love him so much.  I just hope everyday I can make him as happy as he makes me.  Because he deserves nothing less than all of me.  I am so, so blessed.

66 Days Until our Wedding: Important Announcement :)

Today I picked up our invitations from the print shop.

Whoa.

That's right, you heard me...invitations to my own wedding.

72 Days Until Our Wedding: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you read the title of this post????


Do you know what that means????


I AM GETTING MARRIED IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS.


whoa. *deep breaths*

So basically, I am now...

And I feel like I am going to fall apart at any moment.



So many of my nights are spent like this...

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Sorry, that was really needed.  Ugh.  I just feel so stressed and overwhelmed and like nothing will get done and it will all fall apart.

:(

However, I did find this little picture today and it made me feel better...

So maybe I'll just use all this anxiety to my advantage.

Meh.

The end.

86 Days Until Our Wedding: Dreams Come True :)

This is the story of a girl....

who had a rather large appetite for pretty things :)

so pretty :)

One of the most important things to me when I began to plan this wedding was my wedding dress and how I would look on our wedding day. Silly, I know, but if all of our friends and family are going to be looking at me all day, I better look and feel good about myself.  And I knew I wanted a couture gown that would wow everyone and I wanted to wear something fantastic in my hair. When I began to shop for my wedding dress, my wonderful fiance offered to pay for it...and told me I could get whatever I wanted.  Oh my, what wonderful words those are.  And I even decided to be good.  I wasn't going to even look at dresses that cost over $1500.  And when I found my beautiful dress I was even more pleased that it only cost $1400 dollars.  But somehow my silly wedding addled brain forgot about taxes and it ended up costing $1700 dollars.  Quite a shock to me. (and probably a bit of a shock to my poor sweetheart) I was even fortunate that the bridal shop threw in a veil.  I decided from then I would just make my hair piece and not spend anymore money.

Enter Emici Bridal.

Oh My Goodness.  From the minute I found Emici Bridal accessories from one of the wedding blogs I follow, I knew I had to have one.  Her pieces are so amazing.  Beautiful, delicate, and far lovelier than anything I have created.  And oh so expensive (not saying they aren't worth it, considering the amazing materials she uses)  I simply couldn't afford to purchase one of them to wear on my wedding day.  Alas but a girl can dream....

And lucky for me, Marie, the designer of Emici Bridals likes to give away her work!

I couldn't believe my luck, six months ago, when I entered the first Emici giveaway on Style Me Pretty.  I was sooo desperate to win.  Unfortunately, I did not. :(  But this wasn't my last chance.  I followed Emici on Facebook, on Twitter, hoping for any contest that I could enter to win something, anything, knowing that her lovely hairpieces were what I needed to complete my wedding day look.  And finally...

Lucky me...I finally won!!!

My diligence paid off a few weeks ago, when I couldn't sleep and wound up on Twitter.  Emici was giving away another one of her beautiful pieces!!

And I won!

I seriously couldn't feel any more thrilled or blessed.  I am so excited that I get to wear this on my wedding day: (Sorry for the yucky pictures, my camera is dead so I had to use my phone!)

The packaging was so lovely I didn't want to open it!

So pretty!

The Swarovski Topaz crystals are so pretty!

I am so happy :)

It's silly to want to feel like a princess, or something like that, but this is my wedding day.  And I am very glad that it's coming true.

89 Days Until Our Wedding: My Brooch Bouquet!

A while back I posted about making a brooch bouquet...and it's finished!!!  It's by far my longest, most difficult wedding project to date.  I am so grateful to all the people who bought, gave and located all the wonderful brooches.  I am forever in your debt for my wonderful wedding keepsake!  Now on to pictures!

all of my supplies gathered up

Twisted up and ready to wrap up

about halfway done at this point

I had so many brooches...I'm so grateful to everyone!

I actually broke a few of them in the beginning...it was very upsetting 

Last steps...flowers, ribbon and putting them together!

The finished product!

I still want to tweak it, but overall I'm pretty happy!

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It has a very vintage feel to it.  I'm so glad I chose to do this over a traditional bouquet!

91 Days Until Our Wedding: My Wonderful Wedding Shower

My wedding shower was two weeks ago...I know I promised to write sooner, but as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm a bit of a lazy blogger.

Now before I continue, did you notice that we only have 91 days until my wedding?? In fact, it is actually three months to the day until I walk down the aisle to my sweetheart. I am so excited/nervous/giddy/happy/sweaty/scared/thrilled.  I still have so much left to do and so very little time.  But I know in the end, it'll be the best day of my life.

Now my shower.  It was so wonderful.  My future Mother-in-Law Nokie, her Sister Sissy (who let us have it at her wonderful home), my best friends Sharee and Misty, and Sharee's mom Debbie were all responsible for throwing me such a great shower. Several members of Devon's family showed up and even though it was a small party, we still had such a good time.

All the wonderful food.  The ladies did such a great job.

Devon's adorable Aunt Madeline.  She's such a sweetheart.

My bridal shower guestbook doggy :)

Mrs. Debbie and Misty.

From Left to right: Aunt Sissy, Aunt Madeline, Aunt Norma and Aunt Carolyn

  

Misty took care of writing down all the gifts for me.

They are so sweet.

So many gifts...our friends and family over blessed us :)

My Mother in Law Nokie, Myself and Devon in the kitchen

In pretty much all the pictures I am making crazy faces. I'm not really sure why :)

Devon's mom brought this chocolate fountain and it was so, so good.  I wish we could have it at the wedding.

Can you believe I have been friends with both of these girls for over a decade?

I am so excited you can't even tell those are salt and pepper shakers I am holding...I'm telling you, I make crazy faces.

This quilt is so neat. Devon's Aunt Madeline had our names and wedding date embroidered on it.  So cute

My wonderful in-laws to be :)

The shower was such a blast and so was the bachelorette party.  We (Sharee, Misty and I) went to Galveston and went out dancing.  We met up with another bachelorette party who, I kid you not, was having a "Harry Potter Raveclaw" themed bachelorette party.  It was so cute that her friends threw her a nerd party and that they adopted us as part of their group. We danced all night, did to many shots and ended up in the hotel pool around four a.m.  I got so cold that when we got back to the room, I got in the bathtub to warm up and wouldn't get out.  Misty and Sharee thought I was going to sleep in there.  I know, not the craziest bachelorette party, but at this point I am way past my super crazy days.

All in all it was a really wonderful weekend!

101 Days Until Our Wedding: When It Rains It Showers?

(There is a pretty big reason I haven't posted much in the last month or so. And I finally felt like I needed to put it into words. Part of me doesn't want to put this on here, but in full honesty I no longer care what people think.  This is my journal of my journey to my wedding.  And I need to tell the whole truth. So disclaimer, this contains family drama...sorry)


When I was in college I was part of the Spirit of Northwestern. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a college marching band.  A three hundred man strong college marching band.  It's big. It's loud. And it's good.  Well because I went to school four hours away I hardly expected my parents to come to every game despite their constant promises that they would attend one. Want to know how many they came to? None. It only really got to me once.  The last game of my sophomore year. We played our arch rivals Stephen F. Austin.  It was cold...one of those beautiful nights for football.  I knew they wouldn't, couldn't let me down this time.  They would be there.  I practically sprained my neck looking for them in the home stands.  But they weren't there.  When I got done with the game, I called them.  My mother told me that they just couldn't make it.  No excuses, no real reasons and certainly no apologies. Somehow, even though they had broken so many promises, so many times....it still surprised me.

Now you must be wondering what the hell this has to do with anything involving my wedding.  I mean, I promised my next post would be about my wedding shower right? Well I am getting to that.

In the middle of June I went to visit my parents.  I was going to be picking up my wedding dress and taking my mom to do a few wedding type things that needed done.  Plus we were going to be finalizing all the shower plans.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here but in early February my nineteen year old brother and his girlfriend found out they would be having a baby.  And it would be due the week of my wedding.  Needless to say I was shocked, angry and honestly betrayed by my parents allowing something like this to happen (my brother still lives at home with them.) I have never had the best relationship with my parents and an even worse one with my younger brother. I made it clear from the beginning that I was not happy that they had been so irresponsible and potentially made it to where my parents would miss my wedding. I was discussing pregnancy with my mother as pertaining to my future career as a midwife and in one of his fits of uncontrolled anger he decided to go off on me and my mother joined him.  In the end they both decided to call me everything under the sun, make up lies about me and my mother even decided to hit me.  Well I left their house at midnight.

Despite all of this, I decided to invite her to my shower, which had to be thrown together by my friend's and Devon's family last minute (not that it wasn't completely and absolutely wonderful.)  All I asked for was a simple apology. However, instead of wanting to patch things up with me, I find out the day before my shower that she has been lying to our entire family and making up things that are certainly not true (which finally made sense to why none of them had r.s.v.p.'d to my shower)  In fact, one of my Aunt's went as far as to put things on facebook that were lies.

No one from my family showed up.  No one called or texted.  No one even sent me a facbook message.  My mother has always been manipulative but this time she took it to a new level. I don't even know how to explain the things she said and accused me of...and my friends and in-laws, who have never done anything but be nice to her, even when she is doing insane things.

At this point, I am three months away from getting married and I don't think that I should invite them or any of my "family" to our wedding.  I feel so betrayed and perplexed everyone's behavior. Maybe some of them forgot or had other plans.  But I can't help feeling that my mother had her hand in this.

It's funny...after 25 years of abuse, belittlement, and general mistreatment...I still get surprised.


(I will post about my shower tomorrow.  It was absolutely wonderful. And my bachelorette party was a blast.  But I just had to get this off of my chest.)

106 Days Until Our Wedding: Bridal Shower This Weekend!!!

My bridal shower is this weekend and I could not be more excited!!! Despite the fact that quite a few people can't make it, I still feel like it is going to be a really good time.

Plus, I get to go bachelorette party it up with (at least) two of my oldest and best friends.


If for some reason, you got invited and are going to show up, I put the wrong address on the invitation.  The shower will be held at Devon's Aunt Sheryls house.  The address is as follows:


1408 23rd avenue north
Texas City, Texas 77592


I'll post another update next week!  

114 Days Until Our Wedding: A Real Catch-up

First of all....HOLY SHIT I'M GETTING MARRIED IN THREE AND A HALF MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the language but considering what's about to happen in my life, I feel the situation warrants a little excitement :)


So in all of the craziness that is my life, I have been unable (and somewhat unwilling) to blog lately.  However, I have had a lot of wonderful things happen in my continuing life as an engaged woman nearly about to get married.

Well, I got my wedding dress.  Yes, finally all of the waiting is over and all that lace, chiffon and silk belong to me.  Yes, I cried a bit when I put it on.  Yes, it's still to long even though I ordered it in petite.  Yes I still need to lose weight in order to feel better about the way I will look in it.  But to be honest, there has never been a more lovely dress in the history of weddings.  But then again, shouldn't all brides feel that way?

A few weeks ago our lovely friend and photographer, Miss Lilly Hare, drove all the way from Louisiana and took our engagement pictures.  She is simply wonderful.  Even though it was hot, we were all a bit tired from staying up to late and the fact that Devon and I are sooooo awkward in any kind of photograph situation, she in all her amazing abilities molded us into some pretty amazing pictures. Like these:

I don't know if you can tell, but I simply adore this man.  He's my reason for getting up and each day I spend with him gets better and better.

Next weekend is my bridal shower and my bachelorette party.  My wonderful best friend is throwing both of them.  I'm hoping that certain things happen and don't happen but we will see how that goes.  I will definitely post again before and of course after it. 

Until then, I will be busy working on favors and picking out hairstyles :)

114 Days Until Our Wedding: I Should Apologize

Let me start by saying that when I began this blog, I fully intended to update once or twice a week at least.  I was so overjoyed by getting married and sharing this with all of my friends and family.  What bride is not happy about the prospect of her wedding day.

However, this journey has not been an easy one for me.

There is a lot I don't want to go into detail about but know that I have not abandoned this little venture.  In fact, I have a few updates planned.  So to all the people who have followed me, I apologize.

But please, keep me in mind...I am under more stress than any normal bride. :(

168 Days Until Our Wedding: Yowza! Where has the time gone??

Wow.  Five and a half months until our wedding. 168 days until I walk down the aisle.  How insane is that?

When I started this blog, I really wanted to use it to document all the amazing, wonderful experiences of being engaged and planning a wedding.  As much fun as that is, taking time to document it seems to take me out of it. I am so much happier living in the moment. For example...

Last weekend Devon and I spent time with my parents.  It was really wonderful.  I often have a strained relationship with my family, so to have a good time is a refreshing change to some of the times we have spent together.  It's especially important now because my grandmother was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and well, that sort of thing really tends to make you think.

While visiting them, we spent some time in Old Town Spring.  We browsed vintage shops and picked up a few brooches. (I have roughly thirty now)

In one particular shop, I came across some really lovely vintage china.  I don't normally think about that sort of thing but since the wedding, I have become really interested in it.  It was a little pricey, but since it was Mother's day weekend, the shop owner was giving a discount.  Long story short, my parents decided to get it for Devon and I as a wedding gift.  It's so lovely.

 I have been researching it and unfortunately since the company is out of business, it's hard to get information about it.  But what I have garnered is that it is from between 1925 to 1940.  I have around 50 pieces and I hope to collect the few missing ones as time goes on.  I know that one day when I pass it down to our children, I can tell them the story of spending the day with my parents and what a wonderful time we had finding the china and the wonderful memory of it all.


I am really excited to get married in a few months...but I am also excited to be growing into the kind of family that I always wanted ...