Joy

I'm off celebrating four wonderful years with the boy today!
Heading back to Griffith Observatory during the daytime.

Which means the countdown begins, one more year till marriedness!

everybody happy at last

This song by Bruce is so sweet. Very small town America, a little innocent and a little silly.

The Honeymooners
Bruce Springsteen
Two kids get married, same old thing
Folks congratulate you, church bells ring
Who's got the ring, who's gonna pay the priest
Get your mama in the paper, picture or two at least

And at the reception all the old records play
"Where you gonna live, are you gonna take her away?"
In a corner my new nephew's showin' me his knife
You swore that you'd love her for the rest of your life

Went to kiss you at the altar we bumped heads
Honeymoon night we figured we best shake on it instead
Dressed kinda funny, laughin' we hop in bed
You can wear it on your feet, you can wear it on your head

Come mornin' my new family's sitting on the front porch swing
Smilin' kinda funny, nobody says a thing
My new brother-in-law's throwin' a football, he tosses me a pass
We all sit down on the front stoop, everybody happy at last

foodie

Today is one of those days.
Time to look at pretty pictures. of food.

 

(via snippet and ink)

purple artichokes used as bowls? awesome.

  

(via cupcake wedding)

cheese disguised as a cake?!?! I'm all for it.

  

(feather love photography)

cheese. mmm. mercury glass candle holders. more on that to come.

  

(i don't remember?)

fiance LOVES tomato soup. and I love grilled cheese. well any combination of cheese and bread. quesadilla, pizza, etc...

  

(via brides cafe)

pie table. yes please. my grandma is rad at making...like every single pie known to man & woman. She already bakes for an army for every major (and minor) holiday, might as well continue the tradition.

  

(feather love photography)

crackers. olives. cheese.

  

(via oncewed)

self-explanatory.

 

(via ritzy bee)

this is cute. little snack pack for the bridal party (or US). although hopefully it won't be necessary because we will be stuffed from eating AT the wedding. (duh. we paid for all of it, we better enjoy it!)

the culprit

so here's the stationery that caused me to have a minor sanity blackout.

 

  

(by linda & harriett)

 

(found via snippet and ink)

So pretty right? Super clean and simple, but just a little bit of quirky personality with the handwritten names (and for some reason extending it to the very edge just gets me). Linda & Harriett are very talented designers and have beautiful things. but for reals, paper goods just cannot be 20% of our budget. and while I love prettiness, paper goods aren't really my thing. 

I TOTALLY understand graphic designers and the like going all out on this stuff, because it's their line of work, they have a vested interest in this particular aesthetic. But as an engineer, I err on the side of practicality. I'm more about architectural/space aesthetics and food (food+alcohol>>paper). I understand the invite is the first thing that a guest will see "representing your wedding" or whatev but a) they're gonna throw it away after the wedding b) or they'll scrapbook it c)if they're judging my wedding based on a piece of paper with ink then i shouldn't have invited them to the wedding d)we personally know everyone we're inviting and talk to them regularly, therefore they'll know the aesthetics of our wedding e)or they're boys and don't care (about prettiness, boys that we know are ultimate boys' boys, but not the jerk kind) f)they'll throw it away.

so there you go. we're printing them ourselves. fiance's roommate is a movie editor/photographer/adobe pro (/genius/one-of-those-people-who's-good-at-everything, but he's nice so you can't hate him for it). So we can have him tweak the design if needed. target and michael's have some decent letterpressed cardstock that you can print onto. we'll see. but moral of the story, this is not a high priority

cheese and chalk

I haven't posted one of Kathryn's boards in a while. But there's definitely more where that came from. (My mind and ideas are bit hyperactive and overstimulated, I don't think I could ever condense it all into just one little collage).

 

(via snippet and ink)

This board is appropriately named "cheese and chalk" and I think it really embodies the rustic neutrals that I love. A combination of warm and cool with the greys, whites, ivories, and browns/beiges. Lovely.

style

look how cute these bridesmaids are!

 

(via oncewed)

How fun are those tights? Considering it will be february in northern california, aka cold, I'm totally cool with tights! 

I was thinking of wearing tan fishnets under my dress, I can't find the inspiration picture at the moment, but it was very glamorous! 

(p.s. don't type "tan fishnet tights bride" into google, it's horrifying!)

preparation

Fiancee and I have been taking Marriage Prep classes at my church. I was surprised at the reactions I get from people when I tell them. Don't call it pre-marital counseling because people think it means you're having problems.

It's been incredibly amazing actually. We're so glad we joined. It's a large group setting, about 100 couples. On 5 Saturday mornings for 3.5 hours. It's taught by a Ph.D. marriage counselor. It is intended to provide knowledge, skills and tools to effectively deal with the inevitable issues that will come our way. It's taught from a biblical perspective but the leaders really want us to talk about the big topics and things that might not be a problem now but potentially will be down the road. Communication skills, conflict resolution, learning each other's personalities types, budgeting, spirituality of marriage, sexuality and parenting. I can't imagine entering a marriage without this stuff. Just being on the same page is so important.

Today was our last class, and we feel so grateful to have been through these past 5 weeks. We feel that we've grown so much closer and feel so much more equipped to begin to merge our two paths. Even after being together for four year, there's definitely room for improvement and growth! The last part of the class is called the couples checkup, where we each take an inventory survey online separately. Then we discussed the results in class today. Our strengths? Communication, affection and relationship roles. It was so encouraging to see. For other areas (conflict resolution, finances, marriage expectations, etc) where we had some discrepancies it listed out key items to discuss to make sure we can at least get them out in the open to begin discussing them.

I will be highly recommending some kind of preparation to my friends as they start getting engaged. As they told us in class, it's kind of a preventative measure. The $100 fee is a lot cheaper than ignoring the problems now and then having to spend $1000s for marriage counseling later.