Hmmm

So, theknot.com and my calendar have both confirmed for me that November 6 is rapidly approaching. I'm not quite sure how this happened. Theknot is also helpfully informing me that we have 73 items overdue, but since it will only actually show me 9 of them, I'm going to assume the other 64 are all-important topics like "Select appropriate stiletto shoes, hairstyles, make-up and plastic surgery for your bridesmaids. And don't forget to schedule tanning appointments for all 12 of them." Anyway, I don't see how we could possible be behind: I spend hours reading about weddings on the internet every week day.

What's that you say? Reading about other people's weddings and looking at pictures of $100,000+ California vineyard weddings doesn't actually help plan my wedding? Oh.

Moving on then...first off, I think it might be time for a blog cull--the list of completely irrelevant "bridal inspiration" blogs is only serving to clog up my Google Reader. But in case any random people are reading this blog and looking for suggestions, here are two that I LOVE and that have given me lots of ideas and things to think about:

So You're Engayged: a blog focusing on same-sex couples that also features vendor reviews and a list of same-sex friendly vendors. Gay people are getting married all over the place, but you wouldn't know it from most wedding blogs. And the bloggers on this one are a little more practical and down-to-earth, so there are lots of DIY and budget ideas.

A Practical Wedding: Unlike other wedding blogs, this one doesn't focus just on the flowers or the signature cocktails or whatever other style elements are oh-so-important on some other blogs. This blogger, and the fantastic community of readers, talk about wedding planning from a practical perspective, but more importantly, there's much talk of marriage. Honestly, I'd recommend this blog even to people who aren't planning a wedding--there's a lot of talk about marriage and partnership and what it means to be a family, not just about planning one big day.

Until we got engaged, I hadn't really thought that getting married would change much about our relationship. After all, we've been living together for 5 years now, so we have a pretty good idea of each other's bad habits. ;) But as we've gotten more involved in planning the wedding, and all the decision-making and negotiation that involves, between the two of us and with our families (we love you all and truly are grateful for all of your support and input, I promise!), I think we're becoming a better team. And I'm excited to see where that teamwork takes us in the future.

But for now, back to invitation ideas...

More Photos

In case you're not exhausted with our engagement photos yet, our fantastic photographer (fantastic fotografer? phantastic photographer?), Becca Dilley, posted a few more on her blog today.

Engagement Pictures

This week we finally (impatient much?) got back our engagement pictures from Becca Dilley, our awesome wedding photographer! Yay! Here are a few for your enjoyment:

Catching Up

Well now that it has been exactly six months since I last posted...

Oops.

Anyway, I don't make any promises to post daily, but I'll try to get back on averaging more than twice per year. :P

So, since my last post, there have been a few events in my life. In reverse chronological order, these events include:

Easter
Our 6th (dating) anniversary
Valentine's Day
My Birthday
Carrie's Birthday
Christmas
St. Nicholas Day *
Thanksgiving
Veterans Day *
Halloween

Okay, so I skipped a couple snow days, MLK Day, and Presidents Day. But you get the idea...

Those two starred dates are of particular importance, though they may seem a bit odd to most.

On Veterans Day (November 11), Carrie had the day off work; meanwhile, I had an awful day at work. I came home to find that Carrie had not only made dinner but also made a delicious-looking peanut butter pie. That was pretty much the best ending to a day that I could have asked for. But after dinner, Carrie gave me a book that she had made for me. (Backstory: for our first anniversary, I colored a children's book-style book for Carrie called "The Story of Us", which chronicled our meeting and adventures over the first year.) The book Carrie gave me was called "The Story of Us: Part 2". She had used photos of us to illustrate the important events in our relationship in the nearly 5 years that had passed since I wrote the first book. The book ended with "Carrie realized she needed to ask Becky a very important question..."at which point Carrie pulled out a beautiful diamond and sapphire ring and asked me to marry her. Of course I said yes!

This, of course, left me with the difficult task of trying to "propose" to her in a way that was still a surprise. It's a lot harder to plan a surprise when the other person is expecting it! This did not mean that I didn't have an idea for how to propose...I just had to figure out how to make it a surprise. A couple years ago, I had shown Carrie the pattern for Sheldon, a knit turtle, and she declared him to be the cutest knitted thing she'd ever seen. Over a year ago, I bought the yarn to make him and had been planning to use him in my proposal ever since. The catch? He was definitely the most difficult project I'd ever set out to knit...and despite having purchased the yarn long ago, I hadn't started yet. And of course I couldn't work on him at home (or during my week off at Thanksgiving w/ Carrie's family), because that doesn't do much for surprises.

I ordered Carrie's ring (which I had already picked out) and set off knitting like mad on my lunch breaks, on the bus, before Carrie got home, etc. The ring arrived at the beginning of December, and I finished my turtle on the evening of December 5, just in time for...

St. Nicholas Day!!! What magic--a gift-giving occasion built in right at the time I needed one. Thanks, random eastern Wisconsin tradition! :D (For any of you unfamiliar with the holiday, perhaps Wikipedia can help). So this year, on St. Nicholas Day, Carrie unwrapped her new turtle friend, sporting some nice bling.

Meet Sparkles

And since then, we've kept very busy planning our wedding and trying to keep up with everything else going on in life. But life is good, and I'm very excited for this next chapter in it!