Wedding plans are slow and steady... I feel like I do nothing for a week, then make a dozen decisions in a 15-minute time span. Today I sent an email to confirm the food! I am so excited about this - we will be having paella made in our backyard!! Paella is a beautiful spanish rice dish that is cooked in a huge pan - made with all sorts of meats and veggies - and importantly, turmeric. It's such a good outdoor-party food. I feel celebratory just thinking about it! This is the website of the people who will be doing our paella:

http://www.paellavalenciana.com/index.html


Oh man. The food is going to be so good. We'll have paella, salad, and homemade sangria...and then our almond cake. YUM! I wonder if I can use more than 22 weight watcher points on my wedding day. ;)


I'm really starting to be able to picture our wedding now. Details are coming together. I have my dress - which I want to take to get altered soon - my bridesmaids have their dresses (purple and beautiful). The gentlemen need to go get their tuxes, but we've got food, cake, photographers, and rings. We've started buying some twinkly lights and lanterns, and the backyard is going to be so pretty with all of you pretty people in it!


We've started doing a lot more research about where we want to honeymoon, and I think we  are pretty set on Costa Rica! We're trying to find a good all-inclusive sort of honeymoon package where we get to stay in beautiful places and get to go do tons of fun activities. 


We are taking our engagement photos on Saturday! We'll be going to Griffith Park. Look for those soon!
 
Oh man, much has happened! Let's see - we WERE going to have the ceremony in my parents backyard and the reception in ours...but after 30 years of letting the bushes in the backyard grow tall and beautiful, the neighbor behind my parents chose this summer to cut them all down. It's hideous!!! Awful. We'd be standing there saying our vows and watching their children splashing in their kiddy pool.

So I panicked for a day and a half, and then decided to have the ceremony and reception in our backyard! I think it will work nicely - no parade over, but more simple, and fewer places to fix up. It'll still be good!

I had an exciting hunt for bridesmaid dresses.... sheesh. When Adam proposed to me, all he told me about that dinner was that I should buy a new dress. There were two I wanted - a red one and a purple one. I chose the red, but almost went back three separate times to get the purple one, because I loved it that much. I finally sent my bridesmaids out into the cold cruel world of department stores to find purple dresses - and lo and behold, Jaime sends me a picture message of her wearing THAT dress! I decided it was fate - the dress I was going to wear the night Adam proposed now gets to be the dress my bridesmaids wear!

Of course, I'd waited so long that there was only 1 left at that Macy's, and it was on the clearance rack. I then spent a frenzied 3 days calling every Macy's in the entire United States until I finally got 5 of them shipped to me. It's like the Traveling Pants but dress version - looks good on every one of them, and they ALL can wear the same size. It's bizarre. But fantastic! One thing to check off the list!

Now that they have their dresses, I can get the boys started on their tuxes.... girls can buy shoes and jewelry, and I can think decorations! I got all of the invitations finished, and then corrected (once we had to change the ceremony location) - so those are waiting to go out this week.

I think I found the food! I want to have paella - and there's a wonderful man in San Diego who will come up and cook it for us in our backyard! I'm excited. We have to taste it, but the photos are beautiful.

Adam and I are taking engagement photos on the 29th - things are happening! 

I'm also reading a book called The Conscious Bride - which sounds cheesy (and is) but it's actually really making me think AND feel calmer about everything. My friend and bridesmaid, Marina, sent it to me. It talks about our culture's perseverating on this image of the Perfect Wedding, the Perfect Ring, the Perfect Proposal, the Perfect Marriage - and how that does a lot of damage. There's sadness involved with weddings and getting married, along with the good - separating from the life you had before, changing your identity, and your relationships - and we don't talk about it. So brides have these emotions but stuff them away or transfer them to tangible things ("the linens HAVE TO BE THIS COLOR") instead of acknowledging the dark side of their feelings. It talks about feeling alone as a bride planning a wedding - how many, many people want to know about the details of what you are planning, but very few people if any ask how you are feeling about it.

It makes a lot of sense and I would really recommend it to anyone planning a wedding or getting married. I've go