Bridesmaid To Be

Dear Diary,

There comes a time in one's life when you really have to ask yourself who your true friends are. You may have a ton of acquaintances, a bunch of girlfriends but when it comes down to it you really only have a handful of real friends. Those people you can call at 3am because you had a panic attack about getting fat and old or those who will sit beside you in jail and still make you laugh about peeing your pants and let's face it, you wouldn't want it any other way. We were at that juncture of choosing our bridal party.

This can be a tricky subject. How do you tell someone, " No, you aren't in the wedding,"  Where do you begin to choose? You may have been in someone elses wedding a month ago or even years ago but things change and relationships change and you may not be as close as you once were. It doesn't mean they aren't special to you but this is what i had to reevaluate when it came time to choose. I sat down and thought to myself who were the first people i would call when i had good news, bad news or just plain gossip? haha Who would be and who was there for me in my time of need? Who have I had the most fun and have shared some very special moments with over the years? This list was very short for me.

I think a little background is needed here. All of my close friends are from college. We moved when I was eight and didn't really get close to girls in my new neighborhood as much. I was a Tom Boy so most of my friends were guys. They didn't deal with drama. They just slugged you in the arm and moved on. I liked that. Girls were catty and mean. It was much easier for me to relate to the boys. So once I hit college that all changed. I met my closest group of friends at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

I met my maid of honor and partner in crime at freshman orientation day. We were paired together with another girl for the day to walk around and see the school. We all had some version of the name Anne in our names so everyone called us the Tri-Annes. By the end of the day we figured since they were going to pair us with strangers anyway why not just live together. But after Freshman year we lost one of the Tri-Annes and she moved home but we signed up to be roomies and have been friends ever since! We have been through a lot of ups and downs including cancer:( So i'm very blessed to still have her in my life. Plus, after four years of college she has way toooo much dirt on me:) (Which really scares me when speech time arrives)

My second bridesmaid is my other college roomie and pledge sister (yes, i was in a sorority). After getting to know one another through many sleepless nights in the lounge, making beer pong tables and running from the TKE boys, we knew we had a lot in common. I know to always have an icepack on hand for her:) Today she has two beautiful girls who call me Aunt and i'm honored to be a part of their lives.

My third bridesmaid is my big sister from my sorority. When you pledge you get assigned a big sister to help guide you and educate you on the ways of the sorority. My BIG decided she liked to party lots and showed me the ways of appreciating a good bottle of Boone's wine! haha After college we became very good friends and she is always there for me like a real sister and I truly appreciate it. We have loads of fun together.

My fourth bridesmaid is my cousin. We didn't have the luxury of growing up together since i moved but once we were both in college we got to reconnect and get to know each other. We have sooooo much fun together. I know if I ever want to go and do something rediculous, i immediately call her because i know she will say yes! She is my concert buddy. We have seen soooo many shows together from NKOTB, Jessica Simpson (her fav) to my favorite, being in the pit for Eminem ( i can feel him sweating on me now!) I need a cold shower. Ok back to my cousin. We share that family bond but our friendship bond is the one that means so much to me.

My fifth and sixth bridesmaids are J's sisters. I don't have any real sisters so it's really exciting for me to get not one but two new sisters!  They are both great to me and I look forward to growing our relationship as times goes on.

It was a bit hard choosing a flower girl because we don't have any little girls in my family. But J has a bunch on his side so we talked about it and chose his cousin's daughter. They were sooo excited when we asked them if little E would be our flower girl. She was sooo excited too. She just had one request, that her dress touch the ground like the big girls. My four year old diva in training. I love her!

So the magic number is six and one flower girl. I feel great about my choices and have asked each of them in person (except for my maid of honor because she lives out of state) to be a part of our special day. They all accepted with pleasure. I'm truly looking forward to sharing my day with my Special six.

I do just hope that those I didn't ask know they are very special to me and will be there on that day to share with us. We are very excited to celebrate with everyone.

Now if we can just get J to decide on his guys we will be in business.

My Dearest Diary,
The Blushing Bride To Be

Little E trying on dresses:)

What to wear? What to wear???

Dear Diary,

J was going away on a work trip so I figured what better time to start to look for dresses. I spoke to my mom and asked if she would mind if we took J's Mom Mom along with us. She of course loved the idea and thought it was very sweet of me to ask her. My grandmom passed away when I was 13 and I really miss her and J's Mom Mom treats me like her own so I couldn't imagine not sharing this experience with her.

I asked Mom Mom to go with us and she started crying and saying thank you for asking. She was soooo excited since she only has one son and never got to go look for wedding gowns before with anyone.
It was nice to have two of the very most special people in my life be there for this fun and exciting day.

We decided to go to a local dress shop that happened to be right down the street from where Mom Mom lived. It's called L and H Bridal. I honestly had no idea of what I wanted and figured this was going to be an interesting process. I brought a few pictures with me to help. As soon as we walked in the owner of the shop walked right up to Mom Mom and kissed and said she missed her. My mom and I were staring at each other trying to figure out who she was. It turns out that the owner of the dress shop worked with Mom Mom's husband in the factory as a seamstress! What a small Italian world.hahaha

After we did all proper introductions (lots of hugging and kissing) she took us upstairs to see all the different gowns and get a feel of what I wanted. She started pulling gowns and  lining them up for me to try. Once the process started it was a bit of a blurr. I tried two dresses on and can't for the life of me remember what they looked like. It started going very fast and when i get overwhelmed I start sweating like a pig and get all red. My mom saw I was getting a bit overwhelmed and told me to relax and take my time. I told the owner that. I needed to slow down and wanted to enjoy this process as you only get to do this once in your lifetime.

So I took a short break and then she put me in this beautiful lace gown. It was gorgeous but I felt like something was missing. There wasn't anything inparticular i could say i didn't like, it just didn't feel right. Then there was the final gown, which I kept saying i wanted to try on but the owner wanted me to try others on first (because she knew it was my gown). She puts me in the final gown and i come out of the dressing room and felt beautiful! I looked in the mirror as she fluffed the train and i couldn't stop smiling. I kept imagining walking down the isle and J seeing me for the first time in it. My mom knew too and said "you really like this one don't you?" The owner whispered in my ear in her broken Italain accent, " This is your gown. Now let's make them see it too." She went and got a gorgeous veil covered in crystals and put it on. That was it! My mom and Mom Mom , instant tears. I knew it was it and I didn't want to look any more. My mom asked if i still wanted to keep looking but i know how I am and i found my perfect dress and did not need any other distractions or options.

I found my perfect gown on the first try! Which i never expected to do because i can be very indecisive. After we all stopped crying we actually asked the price of gown and it fit perfectly into our budget. As an added bonus the wonderful owner of shop gave me my veil as a wedding present because I was marrying Mom Mom 's grandson! I was shocked and humbled by the generosity.

So now i just can't wait for my first fitting in July and to see the gown again and try it on. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

I have the dress but i guess I need people to help me with all the details. Who do I give this honor to?

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

Picture of the inside of the salon.

Church in State

Dear Diary,

I would like to say that I'm a good catholic woman. I could probably go to church more then i do but I pray all the time and try to live my life the right way. I treat people as i would like to be treated and such.

However, when it came to our wedding I really wanted to get married outside at the hall and this is where our first marriage compromise happened. I understand that marriage is a sacrament and should take place in a church but it would still be that way outside. When i brought my idea to J he almost fell off his chair. Don't get me wrong, J is a good catholic as well but could also go to church a bit more too.
His exact words were, "You tell Mom Mom we aren't getting married in church!" Then i understood.

J is very lucky to have one grand parent that is still alive. His 82 year-old grandmom who we all call Mom Mom. She is straight off the boat from Italy so being Italian Catholic is like needing water to survive. haha Not only that, Mom Mom's sister is nun for The Pope! How do i tell her we aren't going to get married in church???

1) I would never be able to break her heart like that. I love her so much!
2) I'm Italian and couldn't live with the grandmom guilt trips. haha

So I figured if J can bend and get married in Jersey i can bend and get married in church. So i started calling around and turns out you can really only get married in your parish or the Groom's parish, which was news to me. But thankfully my parent's parish welcomed us with open arms (it doesn't hurt that my dad makes his weekly contributions either) Don't get me started on that. But it turns out that my parent's Pastor ended up being related to Mom Mom! Small world and it does always work out in the end.

So Saint Matthew's Church is where we will be exchanging our vows in a few months and honestly i couldn't be happier with our decision.

Now what to wear??? Holy Moly! It never ends.

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

Band of our Dreams, Maybe?

Dear Diary,

Now that we thought we had our date we needed to see if we could get the band we both wanted. We had already decided that a DJ is definietly fun but a live band is sooo much more exciting. We love the aspect of a live show and the interaction with the guests is priceless. We already had a band in mind and honestly this was the easiest decision we had to make so far. There were no sit downs, no yelling, just smiles. We both looked at each other and said, "Sid Miller!" The Sid Miller Dance Band was a 12 piece live party band we had experienced at J's cousin's wedding and his sister's wedding and we knew they were exactly what we wanted for our day. But could we get them? So as soon as we figured out a day we called them right away.

Here is where the fun really started.

They weren't available on Oct 1st. So now we were back to square one with the date. They were available on October 8th but the hall wasn't avaialble. So i took this into my own hands and went to the hall and sat there on the phone with the rep from the band so we could decide on a date that worked for both.
J and i figured if we couldn't have our original date of October 8th then it really didn't matter what date it was.  So that is how we ended up with our official date of Saturday, September 17, 2011. The band was available and the hall was available so we booked it!

Now that that was taken care of we could book the church. Iknow a lot of people say that you shold book the church first but we knew we wanted the band and we weren't sure if we were going to get married in Philly or jersey so we had to wait and do it last.

Would the church be available on September 17th? You will have to wait and see!

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

The Date Dilemma

Dear Diary,

Now that we know we are having an "event", we need to figure out where and when to host said event. Since we got engaged in June we wanted to wait about a year to get married so we could save some more money and have plenty of time to plan. We both like fall and we both hate to be hot so we talked about October. It just so happens that my parent's anniversary is October 8th and October 8th falls on a Saturday this year. I figured since I already share my birthday with my mom, why not our anniversary.  We asked my parent's and they couldn't be more excited about it. So we chose October 8th to exchange our vows. Now we needed to see if we could get a place on that day since October is one of the biggest wedding months of the year.

We began our search in Northeast Philadelphia but one of the only places that could fit our huge number was the place J's sister had her wedding. It was very nice but not really my kinda thing. Not to mention his sister had her wedding there and I wanted my own, unique place. I had to help J expand his horizons into the horrifying world of New Jersey, DUN DUN DUN!

We found this one place inparticular that my parent's mentioned and as soon as we walked onto the grounds I knew this was it. I just needed to help J see it too. They had plenty of room for everyone, beautiful outside ponds, gardens and even Peacocks!!! We cold do all of our picturs there and wouldn't have to miss any of cocktail hour. It was amazing. Then we walked into the wine cellar and that was it. No further pushing needed from me. After the grand tour and of course the price talk we knew this is where we wanted to host our event. But as fast as we got excited, that's how fast we were dissapointed when we found out another bride had October 8th on hold:( 

So we put October 1st on hold as our back-up if the 8th wouldn't work. We went home hopeful that it would work out. But the very next day the rep from hall called to tell me the other bride booked the 8th:( I was crushed and even more crushed when i had to tell my parents that we wouldn't be sharing their date with them.

SO we said let's just do the 1st, but that wouldn't be so easy either and this is where the Band vs. DJ discussion begins.

Stay tuned!

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

Family vs. Friends

Dear Diary,

Now that we were officially engaged, we ( I mean I) could start planning the wedding of our dreams! It had only been two weeks of engaged bliss before I was ready to start all of the planning. (Let's face it. I had been ready my enitre life and was just waiting for the go signal!) hahaha But where to start?

J and I sat down and had "The Talk". Who do we invite and where do we draw the line? Both of us come from big Italian families so we knew it was going to be a large wedding. When we finished counting just family we were at the ripe, round number of oh say 240! This was without children, stopping at second cousins and no friends! We went back and forth for what seemed like the millionth time putting people on and taking people off the list when we, at the same time, just smiled to each other and both had the same thought. We said that we get one day to make into anything we want and we couldn't imagine that day without everyone we love and care about there to share it with us.

After we had this talk my parents had invited us over for dinner to discuss what they had planned to contribute to our day. I am their only daughter so I knew they wanted to make sure we had a special and unforgettable wedding. I just wasn't expecting the amount. They were very generous to us and J couldn't believe it either. We then had the same discussion with his parents and we had the same reaction.
We said to each other that we are truly blessed to have such caring, wonderful and loving families and hope that one day we can do the same for our children.

Once we finally had a better picture of what our budget was going to be between what my parents gave us, his parents gave us and what we had saved, things came into a new and concrete light. We decided that we wanted everyone, including our friends there to share our special day. I'm big on inclusion and so is J. I know what's it like to be left out and we both agreed that we would include as much as we possibly could and that's how we ended up with the grand total of 340 people!  God help us!

But like J says, "It's not a wedding, it's an event!" He is right. It's the biggest event of our lives. So now where do we hold this gigantic event?

Stay tuned!

~The Blushing Bride To Be

Our Engagement

Dear Diary,
 I know you were probably up all night wondering what happend next. Here we go:)

We went up the Poconos to celebrate our three year anniversary. Before i left my mom says, " You better call me if anything good happens!" She would say that before any trip we would take so I just brushed it off.
J was mean to me all day. He had me doing work around the house while he did stuff out back and was torturing me. I thought we were just going to relax but i should have known better.
We finally made it down to the beach and as I was trying to clear some rocks from the sand so I could lay my towel down he says," They are the only rocks you are going to get!" I didn't think it was as funny as he did.
He also packed some beers, which he normally wouldn't do and when we got back to the house he kept bugging me to open gifts but i was tired and sweaty so i fell asleep while he had a few beers and watched the Philllies.
After we showered and were getting ready to leave for dinner. He wanted to open gifts again so I said ok.
We started exchanging gifts and I truly wasn't expecting a ring because of the way he was all day and the gifts weren't ring shaped. hahaha
I open my final present and it's a jigsaw puzzle with penguins on it. I looked at him like he was nuts! He had given me a puzzle for Christmas one year and it's been our running joke ever since. So I was so confused. He told me we could do it together this time and it would be nice. He told me to open the box to see the pieces with the little penguins on them because I love penguins. At this point i just wanted to go to dinner but he was pretty adimate about me opening this box. So i did and there in the middle of the box was a small redish box. He smiled and told me to open that. Still not getting it i thought maybe he bought me earrings or something.
Once i opened the box and saw this shiny, sparkly, gorgeous ring staring back at me, I was floored! I kept asking him if it was joke. He of course said no and then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I was still in shock and told him if this was joke it wasn't funny. He assured me it wasn't and asked me again since i didn't answer him and then it hit me. I said YES like a 100 times, started to cry and couldn't stop smiling. He says to me, " Now you know why I was drinking and kept asking you to open gifts!"
He put the ring on my finger and we immediately called my parents to tell them the news.

This is the day that sent me off to the races so to speak. And the craziness beings! Below is a pic of the imfamous puzzle!

I look forward to filling you in more later.
My Dearest Diary,

The Blushing Bride to be

Let the fun begin!

Dear Diary,
This is my first official entry! A very positive and creative co-worker has inspired me to do this. I hope i'm able to convey to you what has been happening over the past year and leading up to our special day. It's so hard to decide where to begin.

I guess a little background is needed. How can I expect you to understand if you don't know who I'm talking about:) I met my fiance`, we will call him J, sophmore year of high school. He sat in front of me in math class. We became friends and a crush was born. It came time for our Annual Winter Formal and everyone kept telling me I should ask J to go with me instead of waiting for him to ask me. I mustered up all my guts and put my big girl panties on and as soon as he sat down I asked, "Hey, are you going to the Formal?" He replied, "Yes, I just asked Amy last period to go with me!" Inside I was crushed but mananged a smile and said "oh, ok cool." He then replied with, "maybe we can all go together!"
Exactly what i wanted to hear, right. So i ended up going with one of his friends who i hated and then we ended up dating on and off for five years!

J dated another girl for the same amount of time and we remained friends over the years. We went to the same college. Took turns giving rides to and from school, called each other whenever our significant others were getting on our nerves but always managed to have a great time together.
One thing my mom always said to me was, if it's meant to be it will be. Which i never wanted to hear but like every other time in my life, mom is always right! God, that was hard to write. haha

It only took us 14 years to realize what we were looking for all along was right in front of our faces the entire time. J and i went to dinner one night, like we had done hundreds of times before butt his time was different for some reason. We both realized there were real feelings there and thats when it happened. The kiss i had been waiting for since i was 14! It must have been pretty good because this June will be four years since that night and i couldn't imagine my life without him. 

I think this gives a good foundation for the rest of the story. I don't want to ruin all the fun on the first entry:) You will have to wait and see what unfolds.

Until next time my Dearest Diary.
All my love,
 The Blushing Bride To Be