Update!

We're tying the knot, getting hitched, getting married, and so on and so forth! But wait, you say, that's not a surprise at all! That's old news!

Well, I got a call back from my pastor today (left him a message yesterday). And our date is officially on the books. It's concrete! It's our day! No on else can take it! We have a day!

This is all very exciting and starting to feel realllll!

I know we're a year & a halfish out, but in my area things book up real real fast! In fact, our reception venue (hopefully, we love it) said that for a May 2011 wedding, we can't book in later than December 2009. I think it's because we're so close to Chicago where people pay big bucks for some big places. A lot of folks look outside Chi Town to save money.

In fact, I've been researching photographers and basing them around our list of wants and $1500 budget. I found a really nice affordable photographer and emailed them, saying our wedding is May 2011, but we're not looking to book until this May 2010, and asking if I could see a price list anyway. They were very nice, but turns out they're all ready booked through March 2011. Better get on it!

Either way! I'm excited! TB keeps getting on me to book the place we want for the reception, but I'm super hesitant. This place is absolutely perfect, and I know we'd never change out minds, but it's a scary thought to put so much money down when I'm unemployed. Granted, their rates aren't too bad by industry standards, but I'm worried about the idea if I don't get a full time job soon?

Regardless, our date is concrete at the church. Life is good!

Jim + Pam = Wedding!

So as an avid Office fan & bride to be, I was ridiculously excited about the Jim & Pam Wedding episode last night. The whole 'Jim and Pam saga' has been one of my favorite story lines to follow throughout the series! Ever since that kiss on casino night, I swear I've been waiting for them to tie the knot!

Not only was it super cute (hello Jim's tie moment), but it was also hilarious! I think it reminds us not to take everything too seriously, even if it feels like your wedding is taking over your whole life.

And to make it even funnier, feel free to check out their wedding website at www.halpertbeesly.com.
Oh, and if you can't help yourself, feel free to download wallpapers from the wedding here.

A Big Weekend on the horizon... And a new outfit!

Hello Blog!
It's been a little bit - it's all ready the middle of September! In the last 2 weeks, we celebrated a birthday for Mr.TB! It was pretty exciting. My parents got him Wii Fit. He was pretty excited, but, naturally, I 'helped' (aka told) my mom what to get him. Either way - fun all around! Also, I got a job recently. It's not a full time job and it doesn't use my new shiny degree at all. But! It's about 20 hours a week and its more money than I've been making in the last few months. I even make $.25 more than minimum wage. Sweet, right? Not really. . . I need to get a real job and make real money so I can save for my real wedding :)!

Anyway! Back to business! Mr.TB and I went up and stayed at his house for his birthday weekend/dinner. Sitting down for dinner was exciting. It's sooo funny though. I am one of two children and my big sis doesn't even live at home anymore so at dinner it's me, my mom, and my dad.

Who all sits down for TB's meal? Myself, TB, his little sister, his older sister, his little brother, his older sister, his mom, his dad, his older brother, older brother's girlfriend, his oldest brother, and oldest brother's fiance. Talk about a circus! It's so weird for me to adjust to being around so many people (especially for something as regular as dinner, it wasn't like Christmas or anything). It's finally getting easier! I always had some reservations about his family (dad in particular), but in the last few months, his dad is really opening up to me and showing an interest in what I have to say. This has never happened before. I finally feel like I fit in with my family to be. I always got along great with his mom, but now I'm coming around to the rest (or vise versa).

Anyway! Where is this going you ask? Well, TB's oldest brother (we'll call him IB or FBIL IB) is getting married this weekend! It's crazy and sometimes I can't believe it. IB and M got engaged after TB and I but are getting married before us. I don't really mind though, especially because the are older and I hope to learn from their wedding. Regardless, the talk at dinner was all about the wedding. I'm actually super super excited about the wedding, and to attend my first B Family event where everyone will be there. It'll be great. I couldn't help feeling a little jealous, though. Everyone was gushing about their wedding and getting excited about it. Part of me would just love to be talking about my wedding and have people talk about me (oops - I mean us).

Selfish? You bet it is! But I can't help it. I'm so excited about getting married, but it's hard to get other people excited because we're not getting married for forever (or 605 days, exactly. I have a countdown on my dashboard).

Either way, I know I should just look forward to a year from now when people are talking about my day, and helping to decorate 150 cupcakes for my day (okay so I don't want cupcakes, but I will be decorating this weekend!).

So the wedding is super casual and is taking place in an outdoor park. Naturally, I decided I had nothing to wear. Well, long story short, I got a new [adorable] dress and purse from Kohls. They were both on clearence. And then, we got one of those peel of coupons in the mail, so I got another 30% off of both! The dress was $17 and the purse came to $6.90. (And the purse is hot). I then went to Payless and got a $7 pair of shoes. Not bad, eh? I think it might be fate! Another upside to my dress? It's black and white so Mr.TB can easily match with black pants and a white shirt. This is super good for him, because his 'dress clothes' wardrobe is definitely limited. He does have a nice black and white paisley tie, but he 1) hates ties and 2) I think that would be a little 'over dressing.' Either way, it's all working out.

Definitely, all working out. And as it gets closer to the weekend, I getting less and less jealous and just more and more excited.

Either way, hopefully there are pictures to come! It'll be great!

And, as if you could stand a post without pictures, here's a lovely shot from polka dot bride that will make you drool.

Kendra Married!

So I caught a repeat of E's Kendra tonight (I don't watch it that much, I swear), and it just happened to be the episode featuring her wedding. It was weird to see her get married, I'm surprised to see her settle down, it seems like she was just a Girl Next Door. It seems like she's really grown up since then!

Anyway, the wedding was nothing short of stunning. It took place at the playboy mansion (naturaly), but it was a very pretty location. The bajiilion person bridal party realy took my breath away. The girls had on lilac colored dresses and white and purple bouquets. The whole party really looked stunning. The guys though, they were really something else! The wore white tuxes with matching lilac ties, and they sure looked sharp! I never even pictured white tuxes as an option for someone other than the groom, but those guys sure pulled it off! I mean, really really sharp! Kendra's Hubby to Be had on a white tux, but with a white tie. And even though the tie was the only difference, it definitely made him look good and set him apart for the other guys!

Oh, and Kendra's dress was gorgeous too! She was also pregnant at the time, but I heard she just had a baby boy recently so super congratulations to her!

And if you were curious, she did have her first dance with Hank and then a second dance with Hugh Hefner. haha!

Pictures were taken from vaious celeb gossip blogs (which I swear I don't read... really).

H & D's Wedding and What We Learned

Bridesmaid LS [Mr.TB's freshman year of college RA & a high school friend of mine - small world], myself with a ridiculous headband/flower, and a beautiful bride HH [my freshman yr RA, a floor above LS & Mr.TB]

So, on May 24th, good friends of Mr.TB & myself got married! DD and HH (how weird is it that they both have double initials) tied the knot in their home town (only 15 minutes away!) and it was gorgeous! It was super exiting because HH & DD were the first in any of our group of friends to get married! A day after they got engaged, they came down to visit TB & I down at our University for a weekend (and cooked us dinner, DD is talented). Awesome. Either way, I feel like I'd been waiting for them to get married FORever! They're so in love and its always great to see people have happily ever afters!

They even let me design their invites! Which was very fun and exciting! It was nice to hear complements from guests :).

Not HH & DD's invites, but a runner up. See [more] for yourself at www.colorcoated.etsy.com. Don't worry, HH's design isn't for sale :). They're super custom, eh?

Believe it or not, Mr. TB had never been to a wedding before! In the [almost] four years together I'd never seen him dance. It's true! He has even said that "he doesn't dance", but everyone dances at their friend's wedding! Long story short: he dances, we danced, we're in love, other weddings make us think about our wedding and it's the best feeling ever.

But, more importantly, (especially now that TB has wedding experience) we did "work" too. We made sure to make notes about their [amazing] day to remember for our big day.

1) Tea - Many weddings have a coffee station available, especially during dessert. HH & DD had the coffee and they had a thing of hot water along with a small basket of all kinds of different tea bags. It was great! Especially for people like TB & I who don't drink coffee, the tea was a nice treat!

2) Music - HH was orginally not happy with her DJ because he didn't play the songs off of her 'do play' list. Although, he did play good music, he seemed to play it by 'decade.' There was 40/50s, followed by 80s, the 90s, and followed by the super current music (hello lady gaga). The older folks at the wedding were really into the early music, and the 'younger' crowd (such as myself) were very excited about the music towards the end of the reception. TB & I learned that we want to mix up our types of music. That way, it may keep more people on the dance floor because all the songs will be mixed up and they'll be excited to hear their songs in between other songs.

3) [No] Buffet - The Buffet was nice especially because Mr.TB got to go up and get more food :), but ultimately, we learned, it's not for us. HH & DD had a lot of kids at their wedding so I think it was nice that food wasn't wasted because the young ones could just take how much they wanted to eat. The youngest people at our wedding (at wedding time) will be TB's lil sister (13) and my cousin S (20) so needless to say, no kids. We decided not to do a buffet because we had been seated at the last table (14) and it seemed like everyone else got to eat before we even got our food.

4) [Cut the] Cake - First off, I love cake and their chocolate cake was AUH-MAZE-ING! Anyway, immediately after entering the reception (to heartily applause, I might add), HH & DD walked to the center off the dance floor where the cake was so they could cut it. I know that the servers want to get the cake cut & ready to go, but I definitely want to cut ours after dinner. I don't know why, I just do. This might not fly with our venue though - we'll see. We might just have to cut it early.

5) Appetizers - I used to be totally against appetizers, but Dad[zilla] kept saying that we had to have them. Also we couldn't have 2 appetizers, we have to have 3. This would mean adding an additional $6.00 per person for one cocktail hour of appetizers (that I would be busy taking pictures during so I wouldn't even get to eat them). Regardless, HH & DD had appetizers (bacon wrapped apricots & cheese stuffed artichokes - YUM), and we loved them. Spending an hour with people we didn't know (and while we were hungry), the appetizers really helped! They were so yummy and the fantastic waiters just kept bringing more and more trays of them around. Definitely awesome and definitely fun . . . so we're definitely having appetizers (and happy to pay the $6).

That's we learned from our great friends, but it's definitely exciting to start look for our own wedding.

Oh, and DD even asked me & TB when our day was going to be at his weddng. So sweet, right? Love it.

A Possible Pearcock Party Part One!

Sidebar: You know, as cliche as it is, the feeling of being in love, and knowing that you're just going to be together is one of the best feelings ever. It just feels good inside.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I was curious about a peacock themed wedding. Lisabrueck assured me there was such a thing so I did a little investigating! As a paper lover myself, I started with invitations (which, also logically, seems like a good place to start).

Believe it or not, I was actually surprised with the amount of peacock/peacock themed invitations I found. I just thought that maybe there was not a large niche for a peacock theme, but perhaps I was wrong! There were actually a whole whole lot, but I just picked out some faves to share.

Enjoy :).
(I will link the original source to the image, so just click the image for the link.)