Less Than A Year

So it is finally less than a year until the big day, and I am stressed. Planning a wedding is hard - especially planning a wedding while finishing my internship, taking classes, working on a thesis, and finding a job. It is stressful trying to make everyone else happy as well as yourself.

We have had our first few wedding hiccups, but we have gotten through them. It looks like we now have a photographer and are starting to look at caterers. I even ordered the save the dates. So although it is stressful, things are starting to come together.  Hopefully things in life will slow down soon, but you never know.

- Lauren

I'm personally not that stressed. I mean, sure, there are some things I'm stressed about, such as the photographer thing. However, I think I'm handling everything ok. I'm excited about starting to do more planning actually. I feel like plans have been in limbo for a couple of months since the wedding was so far away. I can't wait to send out the save-the-dates since that signifies to me even more that the wedding's getting closer.

Everyone I talk to about it seems surprised that I'm working on wedding stuff, too. I don't see it as being that weird. I don't really care that much about the design decisions or the color scheme or things like that, but it's our wedding so we should both be invested in it. I think Lauren's a lot better at doing research than I am, so I feel like my part of the whole process is to call folks to make arrangements and to make sure everyone stays calm, cool, and collected.

- Ryan

Busy Month

It has been a very busy few months for us. I am trying to get through my clinicals and Ryan has been working hard at work bringing in new clients. We have been learning how to budget and work with our finances together, and while we have had some problems we are growing stronger as a couple due to it.

This month I found my dream wedding dress that I can not wait for you all to see. It won't be in till September or October 2010.  My mom spent the day calling every bridal salon in Missouri and Kansas looking for this dress but no place had it. However, one store, Mia's Bridal, called the Designer and asked to get a loan sample. So my dress came in for 48 hours, which was enough time for me to try it on and fall in love. 

Ryan and I also started our marriage prep classes at St. Peters. They have an intense process but we are ready to take it on.

KC Wedding Expo (There were like 5 guys there.)

On Saturday, Lauren and I went to the KC Wedding Expo. It was at the Overland Park Convention Center, and it was basically a bunch of area vendors advertising their services. There was everything from caterers to reception venues to travel agencies. We got to try quite a few bakeries' wedding cakes. Some of them were pretty good (Caren's Cakes was probably my favorite) and some were not so good (*cough*Piropos*cough*). I also got some one-on-one time talking with a guy from Men's Warehouse as there weren't exactly a lot of guys attending. I think I'll be having the groomsmen and myself (possibly all the fathers, too) get their tuxes from there.

We also got to talk with a few wedding photographers. I think it was good that both Lauren and I were looking together because we would both notice things the other wouldn't notice about each photographer that we didn't like. Finally, we found one we think we're gonna go with: Beau Vaughn Photography.
 
We also saw this really neat new trend that I guess a lot of weddings are doing now: photo booths. We don't need it, and it doesn't really fit into our budget... But I still think it would be amusing to end up with a couple hundred pictures of your drunk friends/family trying to figure out where they're supposed to look.

Overall, the expo was fun - albeit a little overwhelming towards the end and more and more women kept pouring in. I'm glad we went, but I don't know if I'll go back next year like some of the women in the elevator who talked about going every year!

* Note: We ended up not going with Beau Vaughn Photography.

The Little Theater

We got the reception venue we wanted! We didn't think we would know until June, but we found out we can go ahead and reserve it. Yay. We are both very happy that we get to have the reception where we wanted it. Lauren had wanted it there for many years and is happy her wedding dreams are coming true.