Day 207: Did I hit "Pause"?

207 days my friends..... it's been 50 days since Jeramy proposed. WOW. I can say I sit here this evening so ready to be married to my best friend! If the wedding were tomorrow, that'd be just fine with me (and easier!)

It's been a crazy week for me, and I feel like I hit "Pause" in the wedding planning. I came down last Monday feeling horrible, went to the Doc on Tuesday, was so much worse by Thursday that they put me on 2 antibiotics and I had to leave work due to fever... was down with fever Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, literally turned off to the world. Today (Sunday) has been awesome- finally feeling alive again and ready to get back in the hang of things! :-)

I must just say my dear handsome man totally spoiled me in taking care of me. He constantly sought out my needs and was so quick to meet them- soup, a hug, back scratch, medicine, you name it, he found it! Thank you, baby, for doing a much better job caring for me while I was sick than I did for you a couple weeks ago when YOU were sick....... sigh.

Tomorrow is yet another *insert drumroll here* Wedding Monday! On most Mondays, I focus on wedding planning. This gives me a set day each week when I know I'll have time to work on it, and can save everything throughout the week to get to on that day. Tomorrow I'm going to head back up to Michael's (we're all best friends by now!) and look in tuxedos and bridesmaids dresses.... I'll also visit a flower store, and possibly tour the Ponte Vedra Lodge and Club to see a room I found online for the wedding night. OMG. GORGEOUS! I was SET on staying at One Ocean Resort that night, but man oh man when I saw this beautiful huge room, two balconies, fire place, massive bathroom with jacuzzi tub, king size 4-post bed, vaulted ceilings..... I have yet to find any other room that even begins to compare! (especially for the price!!) I'm definitely leaning more towards this one. It's literally like from a dream!

I get to spend some time with my incredible friend Maggie tomorrow too (flower girl's mommy). I look forward all week to our times together. I can say every single time I'm around her I feel like I'm growing spiritually, literally. Her wisdom and passion are contagious. Awesome! Can't wait for our time. :-)

Oh, lastly, thanks for joining us for the journey. I love blogging about it, and hope you like reading it. :-) We love our friends and family so much.... you have NO idea just how much!!!!

Have a wonderful Monday! If something exciting happens, I'll write again tomorrow. Be blessed, and remember above everything else, Jesus loves you and wants to be best friends with YOU!

Day 212: Just For Us

One of the coolest things about wedding planning for your own special day...... when packages start to arrive with special things just for you..... they even have your name on them! As I stood in the kitchen yesterday with my mom, staring at the beautiful engraved toasting glasses and personalized unity candle, I was speechless. 


The toasting glasses are simply flawless. In cursive it says 


Jeramy and Kathleen
October 22, 2010


The unity candle has our "relationship scripture" (the passage of scripture of which we've made every effort to build our relationship on from the very beginning). It is ivory, and in silver engraving it says




Love is patient, love is kind. 
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-7


*** picture of cross with two rings around it ***


Jeramy and Kathleen
October 22, 2010


I absolutely LOVE IT! Such an awesome find. I get more excited about marriage every day. Even when we have disagreements, they're totally different now. We know what the future of our relationship looks like. God has spoken, and has made his will very clear to both of us. It has given us a new momentum to invest in each other and build each other up! So awesome!


Just a short blurb about the cool things that arrived yesterday :-) Oh, and I have a new decorating idea I'm pretty sold on for the church Epicenter/reception..... I'm not gonna spill the beans yet though ;-) I need to decide for sure. But, I will tell you, it's unbelievably incredible!!!


Love you all,
Kathleen


QUESTION OF THE POST:
What flavor was your wedding cake???

Day 218: Random Acts of Wedding Planning

FRIENDS!
It's been too long since I've updated... at least in my opinion :-) I really enjoy journaling on here, and I hope you're all enjoying it too. For those of you who read on here, but can't comment (due to dumb technical issues), I just wanted to let you know that if you set up a blogger.com account or a gmail account (www.gmail.com), it's totally free, and you don't even have to use it- then you can comment as much as you'd like. :-) Just a tip that may help some of you who have been asking. 
SOOOO..... the wedding planning journey. WELL, Monday we knocked out a lot. (We=Me and Mom, for this entry) I booked my cake with Metro Custom Cakes... MmmMmmMmm.... that place smells SO good. I could never work there!
I also found a ringbearer (or ring boy as we're calling it) pillow online, that matches the flower girl basket I bought last week at the party shop. So, of course I bought it as soon as I found it oline! I just love them. I also got the unity candle, which has the scripture we have based our relationship on from the very beginning, and have constantly quoted to one another, 1 Corinthians 13. Here it is, in case you want to hear it to make your day awesome!!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Cor. 13:4-8

So yeah, Our candle has the whole scripture on it, and our names and wedding date underneath it. It's beautiful- and totally us!

I also found these cool "clings" to put on glass vases that have your names and wedding date on them. I bought them in our colors, to add to our centerpieces. I'm excited about those. Thanks to Maggie, who's helping me envision and create a very unique, beautiful, elegant center piece that screams who we are!!! I want some things in my wedding to be totally different. I don't want the WHOLE thing to be, because that's a little extreme to me, but I definitely want unique touches that people have never seen at a wedding before. So far, we're doing good in that department.

Jeramy and I officially started our pre-marital counseling with Sean and Barb Yost yesterday evening. I'm doing this post in burnt orange, in honor of the Longhorns (his favorite sports team), because he made it through the first session! :-) It was fun, challenging already, and cool- all at the same time. I've seen couples walk in and out of Sean's office for YEARS and years, receiving their Pre-M Counseling..... now that it's ME, it's almost an overwhelming thought! Crazy! We love Sean and Barb and they are dear friends of mine already, so to go through this with them and know we'll grow even closer together as friends, and potential-double-date-couples, is awesome!!! I loved sitting on their couch with my best friend next to me ;-)

I think that's about it for now. I have a busy Thursday ahead. UGH! Thursdays are always the longest day of the week for me. Good thing I love my job! (and I'm not just saying that... I really do!) 

QUESTION OF THE POST:
What song played for your FIRST DANCE with your spouse?????

The Author of our Story

As you can see, we received our photos from our engagement session... the session was less than a week ago! Talk about FAST work! I just haven't said THANK YOU enough to Adam Szarmack for capturing so much of who we are in these pictures. I am overwhelmed every time I look at them..... and trust me, that's A LOT!! I hope you can enjoy them almost as much as I do. :-)

Seeing the pictures and reading everyone's sweet comments (especially on facebook) makes this journey even more real than it already was. For some of you that may not know my background, there's a couple things you should know that might help explain why there will be many emotional moments along the way, as I get closer to marrying my best friend.

All through middle school and high school, I was a total Disney junkie. I believed so strongly in the message of amazing love that was offered by movies such as Beauty and the Beast (my fave!), The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Cinderella. I believed in it, but I never experienced it. As my mom can attest, throughout high school I spent many afternoons with my head buried in my pillow, sobbing, because everyone around me and every girl I knew had a guy to sweep them off their feet.... every girl except me. To get really honest, it created a very negative complex in my life. I never had a prom date, never had a movie-partner, and didn't go to most dances and school functions because I didn't want to have to play off another solo appearance. In fact, for prom my Senior Year, my DAD bought me a corsage to wear. (which was totally bittersweet... I was so surprised and it made me love my dad even more!) Looking back, it seems totally ridiculous that I would ever carry so much doubt on my shoulders, but reality is I did, and most days I'd leave school hating myself because there wasn't even a guy that wanted to sit by me- let alone invest long-term in me. I share all this not for pity, but to provide better understanding for you of who I am and what this union means to me.

I spent many conversations throughout those years arguing with people that the Disney movies really could happen in a girl's life. I re-call a specific friend that I would argue with time and time again. My argument was that it WAS in fact possible to find the PERFECT guy. Of course, the main reason I argued it is to try to convince myself that all I was saying was true... 

After being freed from the torment of walking halls everyday filled with dramatic romances (high school graduation!), I finally discovered what mattered more than anything Disney could ever portray. I discovered the complete joy of being obsessed with Jesus Christ. I knew Him, but never like this! I discovered what it means in His Word when it says to TASTE that the Lord is good.... I was actually tasting it!!! The few years right out of high school were intimate, and full of new discoveries in my spiritual walk. 

THEN, it HAPPENED. My tears, my arguments, my doubt, and my fear of having no future were all washed away... For the first time ever, on September 28, 2008, a guy told me I was beautiful! But, he didn't just say it, and he wasn't just talking about my looks. He was looking deep inside and saying it about my life. No boyfriend, no prom date, no "experience", and he still wanted ME. My first dating relationship was my last! As I share this with you, I sit here in the puddle of a melted heart. I remember when I was 16 years old, on another tough day of feeling worthless and ugly, I prayed a prayer that I never truly believed would be answered. It went something like this,

"Jesus, I know this is really unusual, but I have a special request. If there's any way for me to only date one guy, and that be my husband, please make it so. I only want to give my heart away once, to someone who can keep it."

Well my friends, this prayer was answered. The latter part of the verse I mentioned above says to SEE that the Lord is good. "Oh taste, and see, that the Lord is good!" Here is the evidence, if for some reason I needed to see it again. He wrote an incredible love story for me, and all those days when I thought He'd forgotten about me, He hadn't. He was just still writing.

Day 226: Little Details

226 days to go 'til we're hitched.... just amazing! We're learning a lot each day as we journey through this season of engagement, and enjoying each lesson. We've definitely fallen more in love- it's so awesome!

Some of the smaller details have been nailed down, which is very exciting for me. A few that I've checked off the list are:

- Marriage Counseling: IT'S ON THE CALENDAR! Yay! We'll be spending 13 weeks in pre-marital counseling with Sean and Barbara Yost. We start next Wednesday. It'll be challenging, fun, and so much more.... Excited to grow and learn during this time.

- Flower Girl Basket: I found a flower girl basket at a local party shop.... it was out of my price range for such a small detail, but oh goodness it was MADE FOR MY WEDDING! Absolutely perfect. I've never seen another like it, which draws me to it even more. Well, now it's mine (and LoLo's!!!) Yippee!

- "First Dance" Song: Since the beginning of our dating relationship there's been a song that Jeramy has always called "our song"... it's an upbeat, totally adorable song that melts me heart every time I hear it. BUT, since it was upbeat I didn't want to use it for our first dance. Just last week, I was scanning this artist on iTunes, and he JUST came out with a SLOW version of OUR SONG, as he plays the piano. It is so beautiful. The other day I listened to it and just cried, picturing that "us" time on the dance floor, in each others arms, married!....... "First Dance" Song, Check!

- Cake Appointment: This Friday afternoon Jeramy and I were able to get an appointment scheduled with a local baker we've heard so much about- Metro Custom Cakes. We'll meet with them to taste their cakes, hear their prices, and see if they are the ones meant to make our wedding cake. :-)

- Engagement Photos: Our engagement photo session on Sunday went UH-MAZING! Thanks to Adam Szarmack (www.szarmackphotography.com) !!! He captured some precious moments, and funny times.... as I'm sure you can imagine if you know anything about Jeramy and his humor! I can't wait to see all of the pics. Jesus gave us a flawless purple, orange, red, and blue sunset that created a mind-boggling backdrop for the evening shots in the field. Just wait........... ;-)

- Bridesmaid Dress: After seeing the dress on 3 of the bridesmaids, I decided on it! We found a GORGEOUS, flowy, elegant bridesmaid gown that will add a touch of class to the evening. I'm so excited to see all of the girls in it- they will look so beautiful! 


I'm thankful to the Lord for some extended time to plan and knock things off the list this past week... I didn't know if extra time would ever come. But, He made a way and I'm so grateful! It's all so surreal- my best friend is going to be mine forever. What an incredible reality!!!

Love you all,
Kat

Day 229: Loop, Laughter, and Love!

From the moment church let out today, the wedding fun began! The afternoon started with lunch at The Loop with our incredible wedding party (we're not calling it Bridal party, because the guys think that excludes them! lol).... Anyways, how fun. The only negative side is that I don't like events like that because you can have long, quality conversations with everyone who comes. It's just impossible. I know the reception will be like that too, but a hundred times worse.... I'm preparing myself ;-) It was an awesome lunch..... so cool to spend time with all those who will be involved in the big day!!!!

Then, Jer and I got our engagement pictures takes by Adam Szarmack. Check out his amazing work at www.SzarmackPhotography.com We spent 3 1/2 hours using lots of props, a million different faces, a wardrobe change, and an absolutely beautiful sunset created by Jesus.... it made for one perfect photo shoot. :-) It was SO much fun too!!! I'm stoked to see the many shots he captured, to help tell the story of our love.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy my wedding gown. WOOO!!!! I'm so excited. It's an absolutely dreamy dress that makes me even MORE excited to get to the big day..... if that's even possible. I'm so excited as is.

Finally, special thanks to Jeramy, the love of my life and my partner in this journey... he's put up with a lot from me- from picking matching outfits, to wearing the right shoes, and doing the right pose. If I learned anything the past few days, it was how flexible he is and how annoyingly bossy I can be sometimes. (please, no testimonies. Thanks.) I hope he realizes how grateful I am that he endured such a long photo shoot, for some amazing pictures, and continues to put up with me in the times I'm stressed out. I love you baby so much! I owe you more than I could ever repay, but I'll definitely attempt to!

Love you all. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is what life is all about.

Day 232: "Princess OF THE UNIVERSE dress"

The title goes to Danielle..... as I said my dress it such a princess dress, she said "You should restate that as Princess OF THE UNIVERSE dress!!" LOL. Love you Dannis!

OH OH OH...... That's right. YES, I FOUND MY DRESS!!!!!! Ah, It just absolutely brings me to tears when I realize this is all really happening. And the next 232 days are going to speed by so fast. :-) But, that part is totally okay with me, because I am MORE THAN READY to belong to my best friend forever and ever!

On Monday, when we planned on going cake-tasting, we ended up finding my dress..... long story. Needless to say, a tip I've learned is that 99% of cake, dress, and wedding shops in general have Tuesday through Saturday hours. They are closed Mondays. Which of course is like sitting on a cactus for me because Mondays are my only day off. (At least I have lots of padding on the back end!! LOL)

Anyways, so I found my gown (that's the fancy word, and it really is more of a gown than a dress). I ended up deciding on the one I loved at Michael's Formalwear. It's a Casablanca gown, which that designer and Maggie Sottero were my favorites to begin with! I'm just floating on the clouds as I write this ;-)

Now, I need to find a cake, flowers, and music for the ceremony. Those are my next 3 tasks to dominate. I'm doing well, in my opinion. Have both venues, rehearsal dinner, DJ, dress, caterer, wedding coordinator, decor team, colors, bridal party, pastors, and a few other little details all nailed down!!

Enjoying the Journey!

Day 235: I think this will be one of my favorite parts of the journey!!!

  

       

Today is the day...

for Cake Tasting!!!!!

In case your wondering which ones of the above I like (I don't like all of them, just wanted to throw a bunch of pictures up for the enjoyment of your eyes! :-) 

My FAVORITE is the middle one, with the bunches of roses in between every layer... Ah, I just love roses. And, the more the merrier. I would love a cake like that, but with the pearls on it from cake #6. I think those make any cake more elegant!

 I definitely like the designs on the cake above the one (picture #4). It's modern, yet formal and would be beautiful for an evening cake. Not sure I want so much black on it though.... kinda funeral-ish. And this DEFINITELY ain't a sad occassion!!!!!!!!!

I'm getting more excited every day. :-)

Here's to a trip a Metro Custom Cakes with my partner-in-crime, the mother!