Playing Bride: A Hot Mess on Wheels

Well, it's been a few months. My bad. I've learned very, very quickly, that as soon as a ring gets slapped on one's finger, one IMMEDIATELY becomes consumed with all things wedding. What started as picking up three bridal magazines turned into a crazy organizational nightmare. I now have a (green) wedding binder, a complete wedding workbook and book book, multiple Excel spreadsheets chronicling all sorts of budgets and listings, a monthly planner that I attempt to use religiously but have failed for the past two weeks, random scraps of paper, two Pinterest boards, a few checklists detailing my life for the next 10 months, and a slowly growing pile of receipts in a drawer.

Wedding planning, my friend, is daunting.

Apparently, regular human girls dream up their wedding and plan it a million different ways as they progress through puberty and, well, life. I never got past the dress. What can I say; I just like dresses. And now it's like the nuptial version of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." If you give a Kim a pretty ring, she's going to want to get married somewhere cool. If Kim chooses somewhere cool to get married, she's going to want a wedding dress that makes her butt look awesome. If she finds that dress, she'll first ask the consultant if she can walk around the entire store to check out said butt, and then she'll realize she actually wants to wear the veil with glitter trim. Do you see what my life has turned into? Can you see what I've become?

 Here's what I've we've done so far:


We set a date!

September 26, 2015, to be exact.

Let me tell you, that makes this ordeal a whole heck of a lot more real.


We found a venue!

So I crashed a wedding and took pictures of the setup. Sue me.

Story time: For three summers during my high school/college career, my dad's side of the family took family vacations to Camdenton, Missouri. Everyone stayed in condos on the lake, and we spent a week lounging on boats, water skiing, and genuinely enjoying each other's company. Afterward, we'd gather at someone's condo to eat and play Phase 10 with the cousins late into the night. Those vacations were, hands down, the best (and most relaxing) of my life. Seriously. I would cry off and on the whole way home. I'm pretty sure those days were little pieces of Missouri Heaven.

While vacationing, we stopped by this winery, Casa de Loco, which sits on a cliff and used to be an insane asylum. It wasn't officially open yet, but the owner took us on a tour of all the rooms and renovations. I loved it. And I wasn't of legal drinking age yet, so you know it must have been something special. Or it could've been the space-age showers. Who knows.

So I returned, with Leslie, fiveish years later to see if I still loved it. And, surprise, I did.

D'aw. We're so cute! Minus my half lazy eye.

Hey girl heyyyy! Guys. They have wine on tap. I want to go to there. Tomorrow.

I was being an artist (aka buzzing), so here's an artsy shot of Leslie looking off into the mosquito-filled distance.

That view. Worth it.

And then we won a grape-stomping contest, so we came back with our men and wore fancy hats to the wine tasting. And, much like those vacations, we spent the evening relaxing (drinking) and playing cards (Cards Against Humanity). It was a grand ol' time.

These are the people I choose to hang out with.

I don't have any real ties to Arkansas, my dad's side of the family still is in Illinois, my mom's side is all over the place, and let's not even get started on Jason's family. No one lives in the same spot, so we made up our own -- and it's kind of, sort of, in the middle. Ish.

We took this before we went to Casa. At a castle. Because 'Murica has castles, too.

I found a dress!

I can't say much about it because, contrary to popular belief, Jason can read. So just know that I have it, it makes my assets (lolololol butt) look great, and everyone cried. Even Caroline. Lindsey was in town, so we also went kind of bridesmaid dress shopping. I was eh about the selection at David's, but I was on a dress high so I took pictures.

Using my powers for evil. Womp womp.

We chose our wedding party!

I'm actually going to write another post about this later (with embarrassing pictures), so I'm not going to give a lot away. The important thing to take away from this is that I have a bridesman and Jason has a groomslady. Take that, social norms!


We took engagement photos!

I think I really, really like this one. Winner!

Remember all those mushy photos on Facebook that looked really well planned? That was not me. That was Leslie's saint of a friend, Heather, who owns and operates Roeh Photography. She was absolutely wonderful. She was in "go" mode the minute we met her at the first location, and I felt like I was a model. Seriously. You never know what constant interjections like "awesome" or "you look amazing" can do. You also don't know how weird it is to hear someone you've met only twice before this shout, "Okay kiss him!" or "No, really, kiss him," while pointing a really expensive lens at your face and hitting a tiny button all rapid-fire style.

When the photographer says kiss, you kiss. You don't ask questions.

I think it went well.
  

So now what?

Well, I just got these photos from Heather, so you better believe I'm looking at save-the-date postcards on Zazzle. I'm also looking for cat cake toppers. Priorities.

In conclusion...

In an attempt to hold onto my sanity, I'm going to chronicle the roller coaster of emotion that is wedding planning here. Because...why not? It's not like I have anything else to do.

Well, I'm off. It's about time to have a meltdown over color scheme. Again.