The dam wedding

I'm going to vent here because at this point in time with so much going on, I haven't had very much time to catch up with friends and well, Dustin is tired of hearing all of my complaints regarding this topic and Shell, well this is too long to type in a Telegram message, so here we go...
I have never gotten married before, nor do I plan to do this more than once in my life and with that being said, I think of August 15, 2015 as our day and that people should be catering to us that day.  It is the only day out of my 32 years of life, that I expect to be top priority, along with my soon to be new husband.  I don't feel like my request puts me into a "Bridezilla" category because my requests are not extreme.  I'm a fairly simple girl.  I've taken necessary measures to plan this wedding and have included most of our families and some of our friends throughout the process.

But as we're nearly 2 and a half weeks away from the big day, family members seem to feel like I have nothing going on but to cater to their every whim.  They would be wrong.

Now is not the time to present requests to me regarding such outlandish items like bringing a food processor to the wedding and making sure they have gravy and A-1 sauce because you just had bariatric surgery.  I'm sorry, if that's such a big deal, then maybe you should take responsibility for this beforehand.

It is also not the time for me to make sure that my hairstylist can do your up-do with extensions and match your hair color exactly with products they have on hand.  Maybe you should contact the salon with the phone number, email address or website that I have provided to you when I asked everyone if they wanted to set up appointments.

When I formally sent out invitations with pre-addressed stamped return envelopes, I wanted all RSVP cards returned by the July 18th deadline.  Whether you figured you would be attending because you are immediate family and you didn't need to return the card because "we would just know" you'd be there, you'd be wrong.  I wouldn't have wasted so much money on stamps for you not to return it.

I also do not appreciate you deciding at the last minute (ie, today) that you are changing the number of guests now coming to the wedding.  There is a reason I put a deadline on the RSVP card a week before the actual due date because I had to pay the venue for our final headcount.  Did you know I paid $50 a plate for you and your guests and now that you decided to decrease your family count, I'm out at least $50?  If not more, if your entire family decides to not show up.

It would be one thing if all of these shenanigans were happening and members of our families were actually paying for our wedding and then made these special requests but all of this is coming from immediate family members who haven't pitched in a dime nor have they offered to help us with anything.

Besides my parents who have done more than anything to help us with our house maintenance along with giving us some money to buy essential household items and the decorations handled by both my mom and step-mom, we've handled everything.
It's pretty sad that we're hosting our rehearsal dinner at our home the night before our wedding and the family that has offered to help is D's sister and cousin, both who have had babies in the past year.  Two people who have their hands full with small children but are going to make the drive and come early to help us with the last minute preparations.  And the other person offering to help is my childhood friend Shell who's flying all the way in from New Zealand for our wedding.  That's a huge sacrifice and undertaking in itself!

It's just astonishing to me that others can not make any sort of effort to lessen the stress but then comment, "you two have experienced 3 of the most stressful life changes in just a few months time."  Yes we have and yes it's been more than we could handle at times but somehow we've gotten through it, just D and me.
So, pardon me if I'm not always chipper and I don't answer every phone call or text sent within 30 seconds or I seem like I am not being helpful to your every whim, I would like to think that August 15th is my day and I'm allowed to be just a bit more self-centered for at least a few hours.

At least D has been able to make me laugh in spite of all of the stress.  I threatened to cancel the STL festivities and hop a plane to Vegas to get married after receiving one of the numerous requests.
His response, "It's not too late to go to Vegas again! But if we do can we go to the Hoover Dam again? It would then be our dam proposal and dam wedding. lol I just want you to be my dam wife and us to be so dam happy together!  Love you (so dam much)!!"

The Hoover Dam might just be our dam honeymoon after all is said and done!

Exhausted!

The last 8 weeks have been nothing short of exhausting and while we have a few more weeks of insanity, hopefully after this weekend, we can actually breathe for 5 minutes. 

I've never made so many trips to Home Depot in my life and yet over the past week and a half, I think I've spent more time there than just about anywhere else.  Paint, fire alarms, a new faucet, a washer and dryer, patio furniture, parts for this and that, you name it, we've checked it out and spent hours visiting multiple stores in multiple municipalities around the STL.  We've spent ALOT of time driving as well.  While our new home is only a 15 minute drive for each of us to work, it's a 45 minute drive from our loft. Driving 45 minutes, with a carload of our belongings gets tiring when you do it multiple times a week let alone multiple times a day.

It's funny that we weren't going to do much in the way of maintenance and repairs before moving in and now we've just about redone every room in one way or another.  The kitchen and living room both needed a new coat of paint and while we thought there was enough extra paint to touch them up, we found it was just easier to repaint everything in similar colors.  This past weekend, we got all of the carpets cleaned, built our new patio furniture, had the washer and dryer installed and pulled weeds from the partially overgrown landscaping.  And now, the big furniture is ready to be moved in.  I think we're both ready for it after all of this hard work!

It has become a bittersweet move for me though.  I didn't think I'd have any sad feelings towards moving from downtown, but over the last day, I've had a few moments where I know I'll miss being in the loft.  D and I have a lot of special memories together in the loft.  It's where I hung out with him before we started dating.  Memories like our first work Christmas party where he held the "pre-party" and "post-party" at his loft; the "pre-party" before the pre-season Rams game a few years back; our first actual date on New Years Eve 2012 where he cooked me dinner and we rang in 2013; our walks to work in the bitter cold and extreme heat; our first few dinner dates where we had to sneak out through the alley to avoid running into our former coworkers who frequented the bars below so they wouldn't find out we were dating just yet; and bringing Kinny home after we adopted her.  I know we'll have a lot more great memories in our new house but it does make me a bit emotional leaving the loft.

I will be happy to be settled into our house and I'm excited to show off our place to our family and friends.  We've worked extremely hard to be able to afford such an awesome home!

A house update

We officially closed on our new house last Thursday afternoon.  Now the real fun begins.
Thankfully we knew we would be doing a deep clean of the entire house, repairing the few items listed on the home inspection, getting the carpets cleaned and touching up the paint before moving in. We set our move in date as August 1st and figured we'd keep the apartment until the end of the month and hopefully get out of our lease here with little to no hassle.
We've little by little started moving stuff into the new house over the past week and Monday night my dear friends Mimi and MaryAnn helped me clean the entire house.  We purchased our washer and dryer with the help of my Mom and Step-dad (the washer was a wedding present) and those will be delivered next weekend.  We also got a patio set from my Dad and Step-mom as a wedding gift.

Today, we received word from our property manager at the loft that he's begun showing our loft and he's got a potential renter who would like to move in sooner rather than later.  So we're trying to bump up our last day downtown to August 8th.  So much going on in such a short amount of time and as my luck would have it, D will be out of town the next two weekends for his bachelor party and the annual Ribfest in Chicago.  Leaving me on my own to continue to pack and slowly move totes and boxes to the new house.

We're hosting our Rehearsal Dinner at our new house on August 14th so I'm hoping the move and all of the fun that comes with it isn't too crazy.

On the wedding front, with only a month to go, I've got most of the planning complete and we just have to finalize the guest count (RSVPs are due Saturday), get our marriage license and finish putting together the schedule of events.  We bought our wedding rings finally and started paying off the balances for our vendors.  We've spent more money in the last two weeks than I think I've spent in my entire 32 years alive but we're heading in the right direction.

Hopefully I'll find a second to breathe throughout all of this!