DJ, Photos, Flowers Oh MY!

The thing about Jerod is that he is a VERY involved Groom. This is difficult because he is leaving for 13 months on his activation. He wants to be involved in every aspect of wedding planning so we have been meeting with vendors and honestly, I feel like I am putting together MY DREAM TEAM! I don’t want to jinx it so I am not going to say who they are yet! Until I have time to go back to Dallas to sign the contracts. Jerod has been super amazing and has great ideas. Nevertheless, it was really awesome the florist just whipped together some examples of centerpieces from pictures I sent her, I forgot to take pictures of the large ones, but they were beautiful. I am starting to get pumped about planning, but as you know I am taking it slow!

Here are some of the low pieces! (These arent the colors, but these are in season.)

GRADUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My sister and I both graduated the same weekend, I figured since I have already had one and will have one more I should go and support my sister. The morning of her graduation we woke up in her apartment with all her friends and they were blaring Good Morning by Kanye getting ready for their big day. They all were emotional and it was so cute! I loved being there for that moment. It was the first time the realized that everything is different after this day and they were all going in different directions. It was very sweet and it was fun getting ready with them.

USC has a different kind of graduation its GRANDIOSE! First off, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Commencement speaker over the large group and he was good I was surprised, but it was really good. Then her satellite graduation for the school of communication was the President of E! Entertainment and THEN they even fed us after! This is where all her tuition dollars are spent, my dad made us eat as much as possible as if he was trying to get his monies worth! Haha! My sister is phenomenal and I am so proud of her! Now she is off saving the world in Uganda and I will miss her during the month she is gone. But YAY for graduating!

Engagement Pictures (Photographers Faves)

Jerod and I just got our engagement pictures done and the photographer got them up super fast! These are her favorite pictures. We flew to Lubbock Texas because we really liked this photographers pictures and she was so worth it! We wanted pictures with a Texas feel and that is exactly what we got. I am so excited that they turned out wonderful because we were super tired!! The day before we met with four vendors and the day before that I was in LA at Nicolette’s Graduation and Jerod was working our 3 day garage sale and going to Drill all weekend. So, it was a long 5 days. Anyway, these are some of the pictures…

Sneak Peek!

So WE have been SLACKERS! With graduation, traveling and a three day garage sale we have had little time! Anywho, we took our engagment pictures yesterday and here is a sneak peek of more to come...this is Jerod in his Dress Blues!

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

A couple months ago, we booked this trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, because we knew with all the stuff coming up this year we just wanted to RELAX! Well I think it was the first time ever in either of our lives that we followed threw. On our vacation to the Dominican, WE DID NOTHING! Our schedule was, wake up, get breakfast, get chairs, sit by the pool, eat lunch, sit by the pool, go shower, eat dinner, maybe watch a show and GO TO SLEEP! It was truly amazing, we did nothing, and I could not believe it. We were there for SEVEN NIGHTS, and we did not get bored doing nothing. Jerods sister, and parents went a long with us and it was so much fun. It was the most relaxing vacation that we have ever been on and we are excited for the next one.

Something we realized early in our trip is that the Dominican Republic was not an American attraction. We went to a show one night and were the only Americans in the room! Most of the English speaking people were from Canada, and they even spoke Spanish (America is so behind on the bilingual thing). There were many people from all over South America and Western Europe. It was a different experience and has made me extremely determined to learn Spanish fluently, even more than before. Melissa (Jerods Sister) is getting married in Costa Rica in December so we are going to enroll in classes together. Her fiancé is bilingual and we want to be able to communicate with his family. Therefore, that is our challenge for the next couple of months.

So the story behind the “Unofficial engagement photos.” At our hotel there was a place you could sign up for free photo sessions, and Jerod and I took complete advantage of that. It was free, we just had to pay for the pics we wanted, and they turn out great! We love them, well I love most of them. The photographer was really into making you pose all sexy, and I do not have a sexy face at all!! So I mostly laughed when it came to the sexy ones, but my sis in law took beautiful ones! Here are a couple of pics from the trip!
Side note: Melissa and I hated the food, but we are picky!

Fam on the dock Girls before dinner

One of Melissas' "professional" pics

The photographer made us ROLL on the sand, I was acutally in pain!

One of our favorites!

Hand Painted Easter

This is a bunny given to me by my future sister in law. She is getting married in Decemeber and went to New York to find her wedding dress this past weekend. I had to take a picture of this bunny before I ate it! Its hand painted!

Not the woman I expected to be

I have been engaged for a month now, and I have found it to be a very interesting experience. Since Jerod has a 13-month deployment to Iraq, we are waiting to get married until he returns, I have not had to do anything other than set our date. Well, I did look up Spas to treat my wedding party to a Spa day, and I did look up cigar rollers, and lounge furniture because that is what is important. I did ask some fellow St. Ann parishioners that have gotten married there before me for some advice on what to do. I guess because it is still so far away I do not feel so much pressure to book everything, but I have picked out a couple of FAVS that I have had my eye on from past weddings to contact. Anyway, my point is that I have realized that I am not an “OH MY GOSH” girl, even though growing up we are socialized to dream of our PEEERRRFECT wedding. My extremely generous partner did put a nice ring on my finger. So when people I have no seen in a while notice it, they say, Are you engaged? In a pitch so high, that I think dogs could hear it. I respond very nonchalantly, “yeah.” I have realized people do not like that response, because they usually say back, are you not excited? Well yeah, I am excited I am marrying my partner and best friend I just don’t feel the need to be like “OH MY GOSH IM ENGAGED! WOO-HOO” every time I see someone. I also realize that I am not as Type A as I thought, sure I want things to go well on for our wedding, but I am not a bridezilla, nor plan on turning into one. I appreciate the girls who are really excited and wedding is always on their mind, it is a very exciting time and over joy is to be expected, so I don’t want to knock them. Nevertheless, Marriage is a privilege that Jerod and I are lucky enough to be able to participate in. I love Jerod and he is everything I have ever wanted in someone, he’s my rock and best friend, and even though he is my political, social and religious opposite, (but he’s starting to see the light in many issues), we work together, additionally we will raise our kids to be flaming liberal Catholics (Side note: our priest looks like SANTA! How cool will it before our kids to see Santa every Sunday…haha!) Anyway, I decided that this picture would be my big WOO-HOO I am engaged and display my internal excitement! Therefore, if I forget to tell you that I am engaged, I apologize in advance, but at the end of the day, our commitment of a lifetime together means more to me than planning a wedding.

See I am SO EXCITIED!