Long time no write

Wedding planning is getting much further under way and is a little more intense than I had imagined. We're in the process of finalizing our bridal party's attire. Justin is doing custom made black suits, no color accents. I am working on green strapless dresses with gold strappy heels. Bright and summery for our hot July wedding. Fingers crossed that BM dresses and shoes get ordered smoothly without running out of stock or getting on some crazy back order list!

We're lucky to have 3 other good friends planning weddings in the next 14 months as well. Makes it even more fun when you can bounce ideas off of each other and see what everyone is doing. Can't wait for your weddings Mindy, Tammy and Candace!

This past weekend we finalized our musical offerings, attended pre-marital counseling session #1, made up a list of things to register for and nearly completed our wedding website. The wedding website will be cool- bridal party bios, maps, hotels to stay at, things to do in KC, all that good stuff. We'll be listing the site on our invites. The pre-marital counseling session was productive. We each took 165 question standardized tests on our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and each other regarding communicating, finances, sex, religion, family of origin, families that we want to have, workloads, household chores, and more. Pray that we pass (ha:)).

We're looking forward to our next week which inludes: meeting with caterer, ordering invites, registering, and completing our wedding website. Oh yeah- and ordering bridemaid dresses and shoes, along with the flowergirl dress (hopefully!). Thanks to my girls and Justin's guys for getting us your sizes on such short notice!

All in all we are getting very, VERY excited for the wedding, and we hope you are too! It will be such a blast to have all our friends and family in one spot to celebrate with us on this special occasion. Looking forward to seeing you all in just 4 months! Yikes!!

Valentines

Justin sent BEAUTIFUL flowers to my work Friday. Loved them!! Very unique arrangement with abt 10 different flowers. And they still look and smell amazing. We spent V-Day at our Adult Bible Instruction class - LONG but informative, and rounded out the day at our favorite brew pub for drinks and dinner. Then I bored Justin with Nicholas Sparks' latest movie- which is not that great (Nights at the Rodanthe). Justin's 3rd time watching a rom-com with in our relationship:) Sunday we looked at houses for the 2nd time. Can't wait to have one!! Pending the credit crunch, we hope to have one around July- give or take a few months:)

Lately...

The past month has been pretty crazy. For work, I've traveled to Chicago, NY, LA twice, and now later this week Maryland. Whew! It's been tough to catch my breath. Justin has traveled 3x in the last 4 weeks also. But good news- I bought my wedding dress and veil over the weekend! They're beautiful. Our 'adult bible instruction' classes are going well also. Saturday was our first 6.5 hr segment of learning. Yikes:)

We'll have some pictures to post soon from recent travels. One of our trips to LA was for a MMA fight and we have some pretty funny pictures.

More Wedding Planning~

Wedding Planning has kicked up quite a few notches now that we're in 2009! Saturday was my first day trying on wedding dresses. 20 dresses and an hour and a half later and nada. Nothing I loved and had to have. So... I have 3 more appointments at other bridal salons with the plan to buy a dress by Valentine's Day. Supposedly it takes at least 6 months to order your dress, get it in time for alterations, etc. The dress above is from the trunk show that I went to on Saturday. I tried this dress on and it was amazing. But I think we would have to get married in a ginormous cathedral for me to pull that one off:)

Other wedding preparations:

Today we reserved the bridal party's transportation from the church to the reception and you all are in for a sweet surprise! It's going to be great:) And on Wednesday I meet with our caterer to try out food for the reception. Oh and- I have to take membership classes at our church. So January 31 and February 14 from 9-3 (both Saturdays!) I will be learning. I can't believe the class is on Valentine's Day! But since it is for our wedding... I guess that is somewhat fitting. Of course Justin gets to come along for his fiance-al support. (My first step toward becoming a Lutheran- today I learned what a catechism is - and it is not a fancy name for a workbook! lol)

Engagement Pics

I've been meaning to post some of our engagement pictures from November... here's the link to view them all:

http://www.paulvphotoevents.com/pickpic/gallery/splash.php?gallery_id=355

Password: park
Use the email: rsjones05@hotmail.com to login.

Too bad I wasn't smiling in all on them. Justin mixed it up w/ the smile for most of the shots, but he looks better not smiling than I do:) We were really impressed with his use of lighting and the general lack of cheesy poses. I'm looking forward to seeing how the wedding shots turn out!

Wedding Dress Shopping

I made my first appointment today to try on wedding dresses! There is a trunk show (you view dresses by a certain designer, try on the ones you like, plus a discount if you buy that designer that day) this Saturday at a bridal shop that has come highly recommended. Can't wait!! You can check out the shop at: http://www.idascustomveils.com/

The rest of the trip...

Lonnie's Western Room, on Printer's Alley in Nashville. Printer's Alley is a string of dive bars that was home to Nashville's speakeasies during Prohibition. Western Room is where Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Tonya Tucker and other country greats sang early on in their careers. The guys sang Sweet Caroline and Friends in Low Places. Sounded really great when we were there (Several buckets of beer into the evening!) But once we listened to the video clips... oh well, its karaoke!

Justin and Ross... happy to be in Nashville's dive bars... similar to the bars in their Husker homeland.

Michelle and I... lovin Printer's Alley.

This really great band played at another bar (Fiddler's Steel Guitar?) on Printer's Alley. I thought they were great. Bought them 2 rounds of drinks Whoops!:) Total was under $40... tips included! Nothing beats cheap drinks, great entertainment, and great company. The servers and the rest of the bar were super friendly and down home also. Best thing was a guy serving hot dogs, nachos, and frito pies out of a little window that catered to the inside and outside of the bar, so under 21 could eat too. You ordered from the guy, then told the waitress your total ($9 for 2 hotdogs and a frito pie) and had her add it to your bill. Total honor system... so unheard of these days.

The night of the game... Mr. HuskerFan came out to drink too! This was at a big circle surrounded by entertainment venues pretty close to the stadium. One very, very tipsy girl tried to hit on Justin. He said thanks but no thanks, he had a fiance. She asked him if she (me) was there. Um yeah!! So I was only a teensy bit glad when she fell down a little bit later that night in front of tons of people. (No she wasn't hurt, probably didn't even remember it the next day!)

Ross celebrating the Husker win... (Un)fortunately, it was Michelle and I that drank the entire bottle! Ouch!!

Cheers to Huskers!! One glass down, the rest of the bottle to go!!