May I present to you The President of The United States!

Dear Diary,
 I received the coolest thing in the mail yesterday. I had totally forgot about it until yesterday. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I'm a wealth of useless and ridiculous knowledge! haha This ranks right up there.

By sending an invitation, rules of etiquette require that a letter of congratulations be sent to you. I decided to test this rule and send an invitation to the President and First Lady of the United States. And sure as the sky is blue this is what we received yesterday in the mail:

For those who may have trouble reading it this is what it says:
Congratulations to you on your wedding day. We hope this special time is blessed with love, laughter and happiness. As you embark on your journey together, may your bond grow stronger with each passing year. Sincerely, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama

I was floored when I received this. It was the most amazing thing! So for future brides everywhere make sure to send your wedding invitation a few months in advance and just wait. You will receive a signed card from the President and First Lady! SO cool!

I'm going to frame it and display it at our reception. So exciting. J thinks I'm nuts but how many people do you know that have a congratulations card from the President!

I hope to have some more fun stories to share down the road. It's getting so close now:)

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

Showers of Happiness for the Bride and Groom

Dear Diary,
I had the best birthday on Sunday!It was not only my birthday but my bridal shower! My mom and the girls did an awesome job! It was so overwhelming walking in and seeing all 90 faces staring up at me! Yes, I said 90! I was so happy to see everyone there and still couldn't believe they were all there for me.

I immediately started to make my rounds as I knew I wanted to make sure I got to thank everyone and spend a little bit of time with each of them. Then it was time to eat course one so I went to sit at my table where I was greeted with the standard Italian sign for good luck at these events: Jordan Almonds or confetti as we call it:)

J's Mom Mom filled two tea cups with these almonds for me and then made little favors for everyone else. My mom also got these adorable manicure sets for everyone too:

They were awesome and I was so excited they matched and I knew all the ladies would appreciate a gift I knew I could use.

J's mom had candy bars made as well and of course we had way more cake and cookies then any human being could eat. haha


Then I looked up at the tables of gifts. There were so many presents. Thank God I didn't have to sit and open them all. My mom wrapped hers for me to open but we asked all the other ladies to not wrap them so I could spend time with everyone and we could have fun. My mom made me this awesome towel cake that looked so real. It was beautiful:

It worked out great. The girls had plenty of games to play for everyone and everyone seemed to really have fun with them, especially the toilet paper bride game! My personal favorite!

I'm still waiting for pics from the actual shower so as soon as I have some i'll post a few:) But I just want to say how lucky I am to have such a great family, great group of friends and wonderful in laws. I'm truly blessed.

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be

Tan Goddess Time or should I say Red Lobster Time

Dear Diary,

 I have been contemplating the whole going tanning thing. I use the word "tanning" lightly as I rarely tan. I usually get red like a lobster, peel and fade back to my normal pasty white. haha I'm the worst Italian ever! My younger brother got all the dark Italian genes. I got the English, Scottish, Dutch ones. Lucky me! Here is a pic of me and and my fam so you can fully understand where i'm coming from. Everyone always thinks he is my boyfriend! EEWWW GROSS!

As you can see my mom is darker and my dad is very fair skinned. I am very fair skinned as well. Even after 30 years I still have that glimmer of hope I'll tan! haha

So I knew I couldn't get married being the same color as my dress. That would be very flattering. I figure some color (even if it is red) is better then pasty white. So I gave in and joined Hollywood Tans again in hopes to get some good color before the big day.

I know, I know I shouldn't be going to those tanning places because of the risk of skin cancer. I totally agree. I'm just doing this for a month for my wedding and then back to pasty white it is! Also, I bought the JWOW tanning lotion so that should definitely help me with my GTL routine! hahaha

Seriously here is a pic:

So after only one five minute session the lobster red color is well on it's way! Here's to hoping i'll actually tan this time! hahaa

My Dearest Diary,

 The Blushing Bride To Be

Scumbag Alert!

Dear Diary,
 There has been this ongoing situation that I did not tell you about. I wanted to wait until it was rectified until reporting my findings. So let me start from the beginning.

I met this guy one night while I was working at the bar. He was very outgoing, dressed nice, was chatting me up for a quit a while. Then he realized I was engaged and asked me if I needed a limo for my wedding. I had just booked one the week before but he gave me the whole "I'll take good care of you and beat their price" speech so he gave me his card. I went online the next day to investigate his company and see what they were all about. The company is called "Society International" and they are supposed to be a concierge service. The website was very professional and it looks like they publish a magazine as well.

I did the next logical thing and I went on Google and tried to find reviews for them. I couldn't find anything bad about them so I decided to contact this Christian Dougherty to see what kind of deal he was willing to give me. He was going to give me an extra hour for free, red carpet service, free champagne on the limo and a $200 discount on what I was going to pay the other company. I spoke with J about it and he told me if I felt comfortable with it to do it. We were trying to save money where we could so it was very logical to do this.

He was going to charge me $800 total. He told me he needed a $500 deposit and we would the pay the rest the week before the wedding. He sends this one page (homemade contract) that he said I didn't have to sign and should just keep for my records. This should have been my first tip-off. He also said he was going to send me pics of the actual vehicle we would be getting so I wouldn't have to drive all the way down to Delaware just to see it. I thought this was very considerate until I saw what he sent me:

This is obviously a stock image of a limo he took from the Internet. I'm not an idiot. I asked him for a receipt as well for the deposit charge and he said he would get it to me. I went online a week a later to my credit card account and saw he not only took the $500 deposit but took the $300 balance as well! I was furious!

I called him several times with no return call and also emailed. It started with "It's a misunderstanding. I;ll get your refund back on your card ASAP!" His version of ASAP nad my version of ASAP must mean two totally different things then.
This all started on March 7th and went back and forth until late April when I went back on the website to locate the address and it was gone! Then J finally took all three addresses we had for this place and personally drove to them. One was an open lot and the others we apartment complexes. This is when I immediately called the credit card company and J contacted the police!

This guy thought he was just going to screw over a dumb bartender he met one night. Little did he know my father, J and his father are all in law enforcement! He had another thing coming. I also said that i would get all of my money back if i had to pry it from his cold, dead hands! There is nothing like a bride scorned!

Once the authorities were contacted that's when we were told he had done this before and was arrested before! I made this my personal mission to get my money back and now make sure other brides know about him and his stupid little scheme. It's not like i have an extra $800 just laying around. Anyone knows how expensive it is to plan a wedding and you try to save money where can so this made me even more mad that he was screwing over brides and grooms on the happiest day of their lives!

So once he was contact by the police he magically returned $200 to my account and a month later I got another $100 but was still waiting on the the remaining $500. That's when the credit card company did their magic and realized he was a scam artist and today I received the remaining $500 back in my account!

Thank you Pay Pal!

So it has been a painful six month process but the good guy prevailed! So I ask all of my other friends and family to spread the word about this aweful, so-called "company" and what he's up to. We can't let him do this to any more unsuspecting people.

In the mean time the original limo company never canceled my reservatino so we do still have a limo for our big day. It all worked out in the end.

Go Team Justice!

My Dearest Diary,

 The Blushing Bride To Be

U can't see me!

Dear Diary,
 J is away for work so I miss him. Usually when people go away they bring back presents or gifts. They usually are a little more inclined to say I miss you or I love you. J's way of doing this was to send me the following picture in a text that read: U Can't See me!

To some of you you would probably be like who the heck is this and what was he thinking? But to me this is better then any stupid t-shirt or postcard from the airport. This is a wax figure of my favorite WWE Wrestler John Cena. I call him my husband but he just doesn't know it yet:) hahaha So J saw this and thought of me and sent it to me to make me laugh. It was great to know even though we are far apart i'm still on his mind.

So I returned the favor with a picture of his grandmom's meatballs! hahahaha

I thought you would enjoy this little story today:)

My Dearest diary,

 The Blushing Bride To Be



And The WInner is...

Dear Diary,
 The dress fitting went very well last night. Still a bit snug but it zipped! A few more lbs before my August 31st second fitting and I should be good to go! Just need to make sure the rack stays locked and loaded! haha

So after all my shoe deliberation we finally have a winner. Drum Roll Please..................................................

These looked the most classy and matched the best so they won. I am of course keeping the other ones because I do love them so much. I'll just have to wear them to something else:) I'm sure J will love the fact of me having yet another pair of shoes in the house. hahaha

We tried on the veil and added my hair accessories and jewelry and i'm even more excited to wear my dress and walk down that isle to J:) Only 53 more days to go!

My Dearest Diary,
The Blushing Bride To Be

Will it or Won't it Zip?

Dear Diary,

Today is the day of the big dress fitting! I'm very hopeful for tonight's adventure. I have been working very hard over the past two months to lose some weight and just recover from my last disaster of trying on my dress. I'm down almost 10lbs. since the last fitting and really want this time to feel like the first time I tried it on.
I had a great time with two of my besties this weekend and did very well staying on track even after going out to eat three times, going to Atlantic City for the day and even a concert. So I plan for the lady to be able to zip that dress up with ease tonight.

I'm also excited to see the whole thing put together with my accessories and also to be able to pick the final pair of shoes. So as much as I would have loved to have that big, juicy burger this weekend i'll be so glad I picked the grilled chicken and shrimp instead:)

I'll let you know how everything goes tonight and let you know which shoes were the winner:)

My Dearest Diary,
 The Blushing Bride To Be