Stressville...

A few pretty pictures to start us off;

I love this image. The birdcage veil, the flower.. beautiful. This is what I want for my veil.

How adorable (and functional) is this! We will be doing cupcakes as well and this would be such a good idea to let everyone know which one they are choosing.

I want a shot like this, too bad my dress doesn't really have a train.

(I don't remember where I pulled these images from. If you want credit just let me know and I will add it!)

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been.  As many of you know, I applied to grad school a while back and was accepted into the Academy of Art and will be working toward my Masters of Architecture degree.  As happy as I am that I got in, I am now a sitting duck waiting to hear back about student aid. It isn't a huge deal, if I don't hear back in time for this spring semester I will just enroll for the summer semester and hopefully find a new job (or at least a part time or intern position) until then. It is the waiting that is killing me!

In the mean time I have been trying to finish up a couple of sewing projects and have started to make a dent (if only a small one). I finished up the p.j. pants for my dad and am now working on finishing up a purse for my mom. I am excited to see how the pattern turns out! The pants were hard; definitely harder than I thought! There is so much more stress that comes along with clothing. Worrying that they will actually fit and wont be too short or too small at the bottoms, or too big at the top. I just hope they fit ok.

Add to all of that the pressure of planning a wedding and you can see why I have been working out 6 days a week lately.... Having both sides of the family in other states is just as hard for D and I as it is for them. I hope they understand that. I have been putting in a lot of time doing research for different vendors and ideas, figuring out what ideas are too expensive and shouldn't even be pitched, which ideas will represent D and I coming together to form our new family the best and represent who we are the best, trying to figure out what guests would like the most and what things are worth the cost and which are not. I'm trying here, please remember that. Strong opinions + lots of miles between everyone doesn't always = the best situation.

Also with the wedding has come a lot of searching for a new church for D and I. I was raised Christian Reformed and D went to an Episcopalian, private high school and found his faith through that experience. In high school I was able to find a church where I truly felt that I belonged, Mars Hill. We knew we wanted our officiate to be someone we knew and felt close to. My parents switched churches while I was in college and I never got to know their new priest, the priest at mars hill was also someone I never got to know on a personal level so we didn't think either would be the right person. D had a priest at school who he really enjoyed and who guided him through his process of faith so we decided on him. One of his requirements to perform the ceremony was that we attend marital counseling (which I am sure many of you had to do). Usually we would have done it with him but being across the country made that nearly impossible. So here we are trying to find a church that we both feel comfortable in, in a city that actually has very few churches for the amount of people (I guess everything is pretty small in comparison with my home town, which has the most churches per capita). We went to an Episcopalian service first and found it wasn't want D was used to from school and something I wasn't completely comfortable with (even though the cathedral was beautiful!). Yesterday we ventured out to a Presbyterian church and were able to find something much closer to what we were looking for. It was a small service and you could tell everyone there knew each other. Upon entering the priest came and welcomed us and talked with us for a while. He knew everyone in the Church and was extremely warm and open. The service reminded me of the church I had grown up at, only smaller. We are planning on trying one more but I think we were both happy with what we found.

 We also now need to sit down and go over the "typical" wedding ceremony to see what we want to include, what we would like to change, and anything we would like to add to it. I am looking forward to it.