.where oh where has the newlywed been.

Well Blog followers…. It has been a month almost since my last post. In that time, there have been a bunch of new followers! ::Hi, new followers!:: And hopefully it gave long time readers time to catch up on old blogs.

The months of July and August were interesting and flew by. Although, when it was 120 degrees for a week, those days crept on by. Anyway, my friend who got married in June (already THREE MONTHS AGO?!?!?!) told me that the summer flew by in her planning- and she was right. And then the next few months will fly because it’s the holidays and then darn it- it is almost the wedding.

So why haven’t I blogged? Been busy- plain and simple. And uninspired.

The summer started early in May with the birth of the most beautiful girl in the world- my niece. I was lucky enough to spend two weeks on the East Coast getting to know her. I was in a wedding and spent some time with my dear friend, A-Zilla. Then, my sister returned the favor and came to Vegas for a five days and my mother in law was here for just over three weeks. So then we enter into July. I have a break from visitors and then my parents came to visit for 10 short days. In those 10 days, we did a few wedding related things: I picked up my reception dress, we talked about favors, we saw our venues, we looked at a new venue, we gambled and ate at buffets like they were brand new. What is that I wrote?? We looked at new venues? Hmm…what does that mean?

Then, my parents leave and frankly, I am exhausted. Having guests is fun but a ton of work and once they left, it was time to recoup, recover, and rejuvenate. And connect with my hubby-to-be, again. When you have people in your house for such a long time, you start to become roommates instead of fiancés and worry too much about making sure everyone is happy and entertained. If we had no guests until the wedding, I would be a happy wifey-to-be. The months of March and April next year are going to be insane. That is all.

In August, we tasted cakes, met with a florist and some other things…. More details will follow, there needs to be a reason for keeping you reading, right?

Ok- so we passed the nine months to go and the eight months to go. We are just over seven-and-a-half months until “WE DO!” And big things are happening in the wedding of the Nearlyweds.

Now that I am back on and back to blogging…. You will have to stay tuned for the big announcement. Ohhhh….it’s killing you, isn’t it!

The sun rises over Las Vegas. Ahhhh.....

I forgot to post this amazing image. This was taken at the Ritz-Carlton during our August mini get away at Lake Las Vegas.

.checking things off of the list.

Whew! My, oh my…. Where have I been? Yikes! Well, I went on vacation, had my sister come out to visit me and just have not been able to catch up on blogging!

To update, my vacation was very productive, the following were accomplished:

1. My mother found an MOB dress, but just needs to order it. I wanted to go looking for dresses with her just to get an idea of what feels comfortable for her, what style looks good on her shape and what colors she likes. Well we more than accomplished that! Sweet… she lurves it, I lurve it and she is going to be one sassy MOB! No photos of this will post.

2. We found dresses for the Zillaz. Sort of. My sister, my niece and I trekked to several bridal stores in New Jersey. While Ster Zilla fed the lovely baby, I tried on the dresses! In all honesty… I think that I enjoy the dress shopping and trying experience so much that I offered to try them on! For S-Zilla and I to shop, we don’t mess around. In, put dress on, do you like –yes or no, circle one- ok, dress off and next. We fell in lurve with a matte jersey material from both Alfred Angelo and the Dessy Group. The matte jersey is light, flowy and comfy. So no fidgeting, no hugging or squeezing, these dresses should last comfortably all nite long! The Dessy dress is a wrap style that can be worn several ways. I like this idea the most because everyone can wear the dress in a style they like the most. For example, A-Zilla has awesome shoulders and upper body, so I pictured her wrapping to accentuate and I was right- she loves the one shoulder wrap. All we are doing is waiting for a sample to come into one store so that we can actually try that dress on and see how difficult (or easy, I hope) it is to wrap these dresses. I can only imagine us on the morning of trying to get this done and we end up Hollywood Taping everything together. Welcome to my world. The Zillaz lurved the dresses, too! That was most important. Wait, they said they lurved them…. Oh well. They truly can be re worn. The material can be dressed up for the wedding and worn with cute flats or strappy sandals and worn to brunch or church.

**NOTE: Another great wrap is is by twobirds bridesmaid...check it out. A little more expensive than the Dessy, but stunning.**

Dress by Alfred Angelo, Style 6588

Dress by The Dessy Group, Style Twist1

3. I bought a dress!!! YAYYYYYY! This is a HUGE relief. I haven’t quite yet posted all of dress debacle posts because I wasn’t sure how much attention I wanted to call to the negatives of dress shopping. Maybe I will forget all of that and just move forward. The dress is amazing, no, I won’t post photos. But it will knock your socks off! Now… I just have to get into a shape, something other than round. But don’t worry- I already started this process, I have a phone number to a trainer, who I will call while I gorge on Doritos. Ha-ha, take that healthy trainer lady! Just kidding…. My goal is to start a program around August or September. An actual training program, more than just my infrequent visits to the gym.

Here is a photo of a rejected dress... I have to be careful with what I post in case I change my mind! Ha!

4. We tasted our favors…. And sorry guests, there are none left for you! Just kidding. Spoiler Alert: I am going to talk about my wedding favors here. My dad makes wine as a hobby and it was only fitting to ask him to make wine for the wedding favors. He is making two flavors, which I will keep secret, and we were able to try one flavor and it was G-O-O-DDDDDDDD. YUM! I can’t wait for the guests to receive this favor and hopefully drink it. It is meaningful and made with love, for sure. We just need to commish Ellie Hey to do my labels. She has already agreed….so that part is checked off. We just need to come up with a design and a cute saying on the bottles so that everyone knows where they were made, etc. Any ideas? Please email them to me at TheNearlyweds@rocketmail.com

.ohhhh....what can it be hiding under than bag? the next step is to bottle and voila they are done.

.this is called a "wine thief" so that you can taste without contaminating the wine in progress.

.tasting the fruits of my dad's labor. yum is all i can say.

5. Save the Dates. Once again, the truly talented Ellie came through with a design that blew us away! I think that we went through only 3 revisions…but if you ask her, it was probably more like 33. Anyway, she sent us the approved design while we were in PA, sampling our favors. Blame it on the alcohol?? Anyway, they are two-sided, 5”x7” beauties. The personal information is blacked out, but this is what they look like:

They were printed on a glossy stock and we picked matching shadow grey envelopes. I am currently hand addressing them! UGH. My handwriting is mediocre, but I write faster than I think and have messed up three so far. Maybe the recipients of the STDs will become a shorter list and I continue writing. I can’t wait for them to be mailed, which means that I am finished with hand addressing envelopes.

**NOTE: We are only mailing to immediate family and far away friends (and bridal party!) so if you are a local friend…and don’t get one, you don’t necessarily have to be offended. We just speak to you on a regular basis and you know when the wedding will be and you should know if you will be invited or not!**

6. My insane checklist. I created a spreadsheet as my checklist. It is a crazillion tabs. Each tab is dedicated to a subject: Attire, Accessories, catering, Décor, DIY, Transportation, To Do, etc. It is helping to keep me organized, for now….

7. My binder. Is another out of control item. I am creating a secondary one for inspirational ideas since that is what is keeping my binder overflowing. And I guess that I can move the losing choices for a bridal gown and Zillaz dress to the older folder. I don’t want to get rid of anything because I think that in a few years I want to look back and see where my thoughts were and what I would have changed, etc.

So I leave you with this really long blog. We are just under 10 months now and the planning is going into full swing! We meet with our wedding planner today and I will be sure to blog again after that! Cheers!

.vacation recap.

Wow- two whole weeks away from home. I thought it would fly by; thought it was would drag and certainly thought that there would be enough time to blog. My last post was days before I left. Whoops.

Going home to see family is always a bevy of emotions. I am happy and excited to see them yet all I can think about is how dreadful it is to leave them. Even when I had 12 days with them, the thoughts of leaving would not escape my mind. This trip was different- I met my niece for the first time and saw my parents as grandparents and my sister as a mother.

I had a few days to myself at my parents where I visited with the family of now five and also spent time going through my childhood bedroom and cleaning it out to make room for the current grandbaby and any subsequent grandkids that may one day play red light/green light in the back yard just as my sister and I did as kids. This was an interesting trip down memory lane… there were boxes of things from my adolescence, my teens, my college years and post college life. While I wouldn’t change anything because I am happy with the woman I’ve become, the woman I’ve rescued my teen self from, some of the memories were less than pleasant to relive. I was an insecure kid, a teen with low self esteem who seems to have faked it though her years. It bothered me to remember how I felt about myself then but overjoyed me now to see how I’ve distanced myself from that. I made a mental promise to never let any young girls in my life look at themselves in a negative way. Daughters of friends, daughter of my sister, which is now my goal- to make sure that they are loving and strong.

When I began cleaning, I took one large garbage bag with me and when my dad asked if we would need to double bag it, I said no stating that there won’t be that much stuff and one bag is more than enough. Turns out that I had no only two bags full, but they both needed a double bagging! I got rid of every unpleasant memory, every pleasant memory that has no current place in my life. Yes, ex boyfriend, I loved your dog, but have no need to hold onto photos of him. Yes, former classmates, I enjoyed re-reading on your senior class photos, but they are in both the yearbook and now thanks to Facebook, I see you all the time. Gone are those photos. Yes, Europe when I was 17, I loved you more than any trip, but I really no longer need to hold onto the box which housed the Calvin Klein underwear I bought in Switzerland. Gone is the box. Yes, I remember when soda tabs were cool for something, but do not feel that at 31 there is any need for them right now. Gone are the soda tabs. Autograph books were fun, then. Notes were fun to write and read, then. All the stupid stuff that I could not picture taking into my home with my husband are gone. I did keep professional portraits from the dances; my niece will need something to laugh at in the future. I kept a few items to remind me of the good times, the good years and when I really was 22. Putting the bags out in the trash was a relief, even though the items still exist in a landfill somewhere, they no longer exist in my world.

On day #3 of my vacation, my fiancé flew in. And it was time to get our vacation started, we spent quality time with the family, showed him more of the area where I grew up, took him for lunch where it cost $11.75 for three people, took him to a restaurant where I ate as a single digit child, funny how the place hasn’t changed in 15 years! I like showing him this part of my world and life, thinking that he can picture a chubby, unibrowed little girl visiting these places.

On Thursday, we headed to NJ where we prepped for the wedding I was in on Saturday. He met one my BFFs and Zillaz for the first time, along with her now husband. While I knew that they would all get along, it was one of those “we’ve known each other forever” evenings and it was fabu. They were amazing hosts and we can’t wait to return the favor when they come out to Vegas.

Friday- the day before the wedding… we did girlie things like manicures, pedicures, drinking champagne and reminiscing about the years gone by. I was impressed by A-Zillaz ability to remain calm and collected. It was almost as if Saturday was an ordinary day.

And then Saturday it was. The Wedding Day. Up and at it by 6 am. Yup, well rested and ready to start the day. My mental notepad was ready to go! Things to blog about, things to remember for my wedding, things we forgot to remember and things we wish to forget. Luckily, we didn’t forget anything (I had a great e-kit checklist) and we didn’t wish to forget anything.
The morning started off like any other- in hair and makeup! I will admit to being nervous about having strangers work on the beauty aspect for me…. I asked for hair to do a “faux bob” and they looked at me like I said, “Bob Loblaw”. In the end, two painful hours in the chair later, the hair looked good. Make up was a-may-zing! The makeup was stellar and it lasted, all day. The only thing that mattered was how the bride looked. I don’t even know what word to use to describe her. I choose Grace Kelly-esque. She looked like classic royalty. I’m not sure that I have ever seen a woman look so stunning before. I don’t just say this because she is a BFF, I mean it. With her permission, I will one day post a photo!

I’ve never walked down an aisle before in a wedding and was terribly nervous. It showed, one of her other maids picked up on it. Let’s just say that I made it down the aisle without falling or crying like a gassy baby. I did cry. It was emotional to see someone so close to you marry and be so happy. Just a short hour later, it was party time! Woo!!!

But as the late afternoon approached, my body was starting to crash. After almost 12 waking hours, my nerves and anxiety going up and down, eating then not eating for a while, it was making my blood sugar go all over the charts. Being a diabetic is never conducive to all day long activities. I could slowly feel my body craving a break. This was where my mental notepad opened up and I made a note to be better rested and take a break and relax during the next big day.

The nite forged on and I spent most of it seated, enjoying the amazing band, the delectable foods and just all around great company. This wedding was five star, five diamond everything!! My hat is off to the amazing A-Zilla and her impeccable planning!
And in just a brief moment the day was over! It really does fly by and you really do need to savor each and every moment because in the blink of an eye, it will be over. The wedding is already 10 days ago….wow.

Flo and I continued our vacation for a few days longer. It was the perfect blend of R&R, travel, culture and time with my best friend.