Wedding Week: Day, 3,4, and 5

Wedding rings: check

Microphone pick up: check

OOT bags: check

Wrap attendant gifts: check

Take bud vases to florist: check

Make and print photo sharing cards: check

I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting, but the point is wedding headquarters are bustling with activity. My parents got in town Sunday night and have been amazingly helpful with the last minute preparations. I'm sure most people would complain about having their parents around for the full week before the wedding, but I know we could not have gotten everything done without them. The H's arrive today and we'll be heading out for a nice dinner with both sets of parents, Mr. H and me.

Here are a few of my lessons learned from this week.

OOT bags take way longer than they should. Or maybe that's just because we had to put together 40 OOT bags and anything multiplied by 40 is going to be time consuming. This number could have been much hire, but we have lots of budget-conscious guests who are sharing rooms. Hooray for that! And hooray for saving money!

Not all sunscreen is created equally. Back to lesson #1, plan ahead if you decide to fill tiny bottles with sunscreen to keep your guests sunburn free. We waited until Monday to buy our sunscreen. Most stores are out. Which leads me to another post for another day about why the hell fall clothes hit Austin retailers in August (despite the reading on the calendar, we still have 2 more months of summer). Back to the sunscreen though, we bought some really thick sunscreen that try as we might would not go into the bottle, but rather would sit in a bubble on top of the bottle's mouth teasing us. My ever-resourceful Dad took a trip to Walgreen's and came back with a child's medicine shooter and it worked perfectly.

Relax. There is only so much you can do each day. Don't add new things to the list a week before the wedding. If you didn't think of it in the last 8 months, you don't need to have it. Be productive in the mornings and afternoon and you too an enjoy a mexican martini or half bottle of wine when the day's work is done.

So how am I feeling? First, this doesn't seem real. At all. Yes my parents are in town and guests start arriving today, but it certainly doesn't feel like they are here to celebrate Mr. H and me. I'm excited and happy (obvi). I've known for 3 years that I would marry Mr. H and I've dreamt of what that would feel like. Honestly, it feels pretty great. I can't wait to see what the coming years hold for us. But as far as the actual wedding goes, I just hope that I can step back, take it all in, and enjoy it. Oh, and that I achieve the overarching theme I've been pouring hours upon hours into every week.

I'll probably be back one (or a couple) more time(s) before I become a Mrs. Expect some 3 a.m. blog posts if I can't sleep!

Wedding Week: Day 2

Well Saturday certainly had its highs and lows. I'll start with the lows, because those are no fun. My Georgia Bulldogs lost their season opener. It is very unlike us. BUT it's also unlike us to play a team ranked higher than we are in our season opener. Oklahoma State- I hate you. And I hate orange. The best we can hope for is OSU to continue winning. And yes, in my head that means beating Oklahoma and Texas. (Oh am I going to lose followers this fall...)

This time of year also brings back my yearning to be back in Georgia surrounded by other UGA fans and the pageantry the Southeast brings to football. Tailgates with bourbon, fried chicken, southern-style potato salad. Dressed in the most adorable red and black attire my college student budget can buy. In years past, I feel blue leading up to the start of college football season knowing that I won't be watching games with other fans and knowing that I'm going to have to put up with Big 12 coverage all season. This truly is the one negative about Austin that I can think of. So if listening to UT nonsense is the worst thing I have going for me in Austin, I'm doing pretty well.

So the happy stuff!! Um, next Saturday I'll be married. Which means my focus the past month has shifted from college football to flowers, gowns, and Canon in D. I am so ready for this wedding! Not just for it to finally be here as I've heard many bride-to-bes say. Because Mr. H and I feel like it's already here. On December 14, Mr. H proposed. Almost exactly 9 months later we will be wed. Nine months went by so quickly. The short engagement was stressful at times and I often hoped for more time (oh the number of additional DIY projects I would have done!), but Mr. H reminded me that I'm good about stressing no matter how much time I have. And yes, it probably would have been ridiculous for me to have 138 DIY projects for the wedding. We don't even have that many guests!

We celebrated the 1 week mark by going on our last "single" date night. We saw Extract at the Alamo Ritz. I give it a big fat meh. It wasn't all that funny, the characters were not likable, and the story line wasn't that interesting. I'd wait for the rental. On the other hand, Mr. H liked it, but agreed that we've been to much better comedies lately.

My parents arrive this evening! The only big thing we have left is to put together our out of town bags. It's almost here!!!

Wedding Week: Day 1

Today is my last day of work before the wedding. I'll get to enjoy my Labor Day weekend, and then finish preparations after my parents arrive in Austin on Sunday evening.

Mr. H and I got our marriage license this morning. It was possibly one of the easiest parts of this whole wedding planning process. We got in and out in about 10 minutes.

I'm celebrating my last day of work today by going to Frank for lunch. I've heard loads of good things about Frank. And seriously-- how can you not love a place entirely dedicated to upscale hot dogs and fries? Rumor has it that they have bacon infused Makers Mark. I love bacon. I love bourbon. Will I make a poor decision and drink bourbon in the middle of the work day? Stay tuned!

The First 3 Checks

Update #1 in living for good stories.

Check 1:

Last Thursday, a group of friends trucked up to Round Rock for an Express game. We drank cheap beer in the parking lot, ate some hot dogs, and watched a minimal amount of baseball.

Good story: Apparently yelling "Keep running you dumb ass" at a player who has ample time to run from second to third is inappropriate. Parents covered their childrens ears and loads of people turned to stare.

Check 2:

To celebrate Tuesday's "cooler weather," we went to Tiniest Bar in Texas. Right after we got there trivia began. We won. The prize? 1 pint of beer for the winning team each round... to share. There were 5 of us.

Good story: We noticed a player on another team playing with her iPhone. We asked if she was cheating and she firmly said, "No. I promise I'm not cheating. I'll show you what I'm looking at. I'm looking up how to spell potato!" Hmmm, guess our competition wasn't very stiff.

Check 3:

On the way home from Tiniest Bar, we stopped at La Mexicana Bakery. Melt in your mouth breakfast tacos for $1.30. Did I mention they are 24/7.

Good story: Did I mention $1.30 breakfast tacos that happen to be delicious?

Live for Good Stories

Perhaps it's seeing the 101 in 1001 lists in my reader, perhaps it's wanting to drink in everything that Austin has to offer, perhaps it's the desire to do more than just plan my wedding, go to work, hang out on the couch with Mr. H...

But I'm taking something on. It isn't 101 in 1001. It's simpler and yet perhaps more difficult than that. 50 new Austin-y things by Dec. 31, 2001. That is in almost exactly 4 months. Two weeks of that I"ll be off the radar for trying new things because of the wedding. I also have about 2 weeks of work travel in there too.

Right now the list is 25 items long. My friend KK and I are embarking on this together for similar reasons. And hopefully the result is more than just a smaller bank account and a larger waist line. Hopefully the outcome falls something more like "We tried new things and some were great and others were not, but it doesn't really matter because we got out there and did something, lived some great stories, and maybe made a few friends along the way."

So, do you have any non-food related, inexpensive items you'd like to enter into the running?

Missing Bridesmaid's Dress

I'm not sure if I've fully explained my amazing bridesmaids to you. So amazing, they live all across the country. We keep in touch via email, gchat, phone calls, and the occassional "hey we actually get to see each other!" weekend. Usually, this isn't a problem having friends in great cities. That is, until you need to get a grape satin bridesmaids dress to them.

Last Sunday, J of Chicago informs me that her dress has still not arrived. Since they were shipped 2 weeks prior, I obviously feel the need to "trouble shoot." So I call the boutique we bought the dress from, but they can't do anything until Monday. So I call Alfred Angelo, as that is the designer. The consultant checked the database for all dresses in the warehouse in grape satin in her size. No luck. So I go to David's Bridal because they have dresses in every color imaginable and surely one of those is equivalent to AA Grape. No such luck.

I look on eBay, Craigslist, second hand stores... no luck.

In the meantime, J is calling all AA dealers in the Chicago area, encounters tons of mean people, and finally finds someone willing to help. She also says that they can easily get in dresses that are samples and it just so happens that 2 long satin dresses come in grape as a sample! Hooray!

While deciding on bridesmaids dresses was a difficult decision, I'm so so so happy I decided to have 2 different styles for my 5 ladies to choose from. Now there will be 3! 2 in each of the short styles and J in the long style cut off to cocktail length.

The Kids' Table

Part 1 in trying to make good on my last post's promise. After I get caught up here I need to catch up on the 421 unread posts in my google reader.

Mr. H's coworkers are adults. They own houses, they are married, they do more than hang out with friends and drink beer on the weekend. They also go on shrimping trips, which will come to play shortly.

My coworkers are awesome (not that Mr. H's aren't). They are adults who refuse to believe that being over the age of 23 means you need to act responsibly, cut yourself off after 2 drinks, settle down, etc. Needless to say, most of our social life revolves around my coworkers. Even though we own a house and are getting married.

That was, until the fruits of a shrimping trip were put on the table.

Enter last Saturday (1 week and 1 day ago). Shrimp boil. Mr. H doesn't eat shrimp, but I all but begged him to go to this. After all, we'd been couped up in the house all day working on (you guessed it!) wedding stuff. I drank exactly 3 beers and ate upwards of 20 shrimp. Hallelujah. I also got to know 3 of Mr. H's coworkers. They are mischievous and will be throwing a Summerfest party next weekend with a 16 foot tall inflatable water slide. Again, I begged Mr. H to let us go to this party.

As we walk to the car, we have the following exchange...

Me: That was really fun. I'm glad we went!

Mr. H: Good I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Me: Yeah. I think this was the first real adult party we've ever been to. (thoughtful pause) And somehow I still found myself at the kids' table.

Mr. H: That's what S said. When you walked away, S apologized that you got stuck at the kids' table.

Never ever get too cool for the kids' table. Cheers!