WE HAVE A CHURCH!!!

Everything is happening so quickly...

We also have our reception venue booked, but I'll save pictures of that for tomorrow on our two week-aversary!

So here are some quick pictures of our church!!

And the inside...

Unfortunately, that's about it :(. There are not many pictures of our church online, but that's ok because as of December 31st next year there'll be more than you can count! I'm SO excited!

Ironically, this is not the church I was originally planning for. I always thought we'd get married in the church in my home town, but this just goes to show you how fluid your concepts of your weddings need to be sometimes. Even if it may not be the backdrop I always dreamed of for my ceremony, it's still a beautiful church I know well. And it's actually smaller than they my original choice, so it should be a bit more intimate for our guests :).

Sometime soon I'll have to let you guys in on our schedule for the day... I warn you... things are going to be interesting ;).

Where Does Family Fit In...

There are two contrasting storylines going on in my family right now. One full of happiness: my upcoming wedding. One not so happy: my cousin's life is falling apart. I'm not putting more details then that on the internet, just understand that it is a very unfortunate situation which he is only making worse by alienating the people who are trying to help him.

Yesterday, my parents had dinner with one of my uncles. He is the most recent victim of my cousin's mistakes and my parents said that he looked so beaten down when he came in the door they were absolutely shocked. But when they started talking about my wedding, he perked up a bit. A New Years Eve wedding has always been his dream wedding so he is particularly excited. He even convinced my grandmother that she must wear a formal gown and he plans to take her out shopping for one.

Unfortunately, my cousin's issues are not the first dark periods my family has faced in the past few years. We lost a very young member of our family to cancer, several others have been diagnosed with various illnesses, and my cousin was deployed to Afghanistan (we're very proud of him, but we do worry about him all the time).

Last Thanksgiving, before Mishka and I were engaged but when it was clear we were very serious about each other, my sisters overheard a few of my aunts and uncles talking in the living room about how they hoped Mishka and I did get engaged soon. They said "the family could really use a wedding."

This of course got back to me and it really made me think. As much as I want to personalize my wedding day, this is not just a day for me or for Mishka. It is a celebration we can't wait to host and is of course centered around our upcoming marriage, but it isn't just about us. It is a happy celebration that my family sorely needs. It is my uncle's dream wedding. It is my father's first daughter's wedding. They are all excited in their own ways and have suggestions they would love to see incorporated. And I begin to feel that I want to make this day for them as well as for myself. I will have a blast at my wedding no matter what, but I want this to be a good day for them too.

Maybe these are lofty expectations... or maybe this doesn't make sense, heh.

Anyway, back to school work!

Life Foreshadowed

When I was a lowly freshman in an Anthropology class, there was a senior girl who sat in front of me. She was taking the class as an elective. Sometime after Thanksgiving break, I noticed there was now a diamond ring sitting on her left ring finger.

One day, I asked her about it. She said that she was engaged and told me the story of how her and her fiance had met freshman year and had been together ever since. She also told me the story of how he proposed to her over Thanksgiving Break as they were sitting on a park bench nearby to her parents house. It was a beautiful ring and she was glowing with happiness as she related her tale.

Today, almost 4 years later exactly, I was asked by a freshman girl in my Education lab if the ring on my finger was an Engagement ring. It's not a diamond ring, but a gemstone ring so it's not surprising that she wouldn't have been able to tell right away. I answered in the affirmative and glowingly told her my own tale of how I had met my fiance freshman year and how he had proposed to me just before Thanksgiving Break.

Obviously, I'm highlighting the parallels between our two stories. (I'm not going into our proposal story just yet so you'll have to wait ;) ). But wouldn't it be quite a coincidence if my classmate happened to meet her future husband this year.

I'm such a romantic :-P.

WE HAVE A DATE!!!

It's official! We're getting married on New Year's Eve 2011!


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We're going to have a lovely evening wedding starting at 6 or 7 and going until 1am or 1:30am so that everyone has a chance to dance and celebrate sufficiently. We know our venue already and they will be providing a ton of alcohol (2 bars, martini bar, champagne on arrival, wine with dinner, champagne toast during dinner, champagne toast at midnight, dessert liquers on the coffee and cordial bar). There will also be essentially 2 dinners served (plus separate appetizers) so that there will be something there for everyone to eat and there will be plenty of it. I am actually very excited to share the food, but I won't until we've made all our delicious decisions.

I can tell you though, that there will be an ice sculpture! And, and I am SO excited!


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A Wedding as a Bridesmaid part 3 - What I Learned

Wow, those recaps were long right? Especially considering it wasn't even my wedding ;). But then, I did have a great time, and this is a good way to chronicle that.

Anyway...
1). Give yourself plenty of time for everything you want to do. Katerina and S had a very reasonable and timely schedule planned out for us, but we were always running behind. Everything worked out since they built cushion time into the schedule, but if they hadn't things would have been a lot more stressful. And stress is not something we need more of at a wedding.

2). Have your wedding over a holiday break. This is DEFINITELY particular to me since all my sisters and most of my cousins are all in school or in college and will be when Mishka and I get married. Katerina and S did end up having their wedding over a long weekend, but for two college students with homework it was still pushing it time-wise. Particularly since we were both in the bridal party and had more functions to attend then just the ceremony and reception. Don't get me wrong, I regret nothing and I had an amazing weekend. But I just don't think it would be fair to my sisters to have my wedding over a weekend, even a long weekend, where they'd have to fly out on Friday and fly back on Sunday with non-stop events in between. Sure everyone says they'll work in transit... but do we really? I know I don't. So Thanksgiving Break, Summer Break, and Winter Break became my most viable options (I don't include spring break because many schools have their spring breaks at different times).

I'm still waiting to hear back on our proposed date though so you just have my blog layout as your hint for which holiday break we chose ;).

3). Something will not go as planned. Whether it be your minister forgets his lines, you (the couple) don't get to eat all the yummy food you planned on (what happened to Katerina and S at their wedding), someone breaks something, the DJ plays from your "do not play" list. You just have to let it go.

4). Book things and get a handle on projects sooner rather than later. Later = stressful, which, as I've said before, is not something you need more of. Also: do lots and lots of research.

5). You can't make everyone happy. As much as you want everyone to be just as excited for your dream wedding as you are, someone is going to have a criticism. You just have to decide how much that person's happiness about a certain detail matters to you in the long-run. You can't fight every battle and expect to win. You have to pick and choose and you have to be willing to compromise. Maybe this won't be true for everyone's wedding, but it will definitely bet true of mine.

And that's all the wedding advice I have for you today folks! Hopefully I'll have an ecstatic post for you later about how our dream date is going to work out! Then I'll introduce you to our venue!

Keep your fingers crossed!!!

A Wedding as a Bridesmaid part 2

Now where did I leave off...


The bridal attendants at the venue explained to us how we were to walk from the mansion up to the aisle for the ceremony and then.. before I knew it... the procession started. I won't go into the particulars of the procession except for two details: 1. Mishka (looking very dashing in his tux <3) walked his mom down the aisle) and 2. Katerina's father looked so proud as he walked his daughter down the aisle.

And then the ceremony began.

Their ceremony was very personal and was hand-crafted to represent their unique heritages so that there was a mix of both Jewish and Ukrainian Catholic traditions. There was the breaking of the glass, a hand binding during the vows, a ceremonial cloth which they stood on to symbolize the shared path they take in marriage, and wreath crowns placed on their heads during the ring exchange. I very much hope to include these traditions as well as others in my own ceremony one day.

In the blink of an eye, it was over. They kissed and were announced husband and wife.

Mishka was my groomsman escort and the first thing I said to him as he walked me out was "Congratulations, you're a brother-in-law".

Then it was time for the post-ceremony private couple pics. I had been elected sometime before the wedding to reprise my role as "train wrangler" for these pictures and so I made my way out with the happy couple to the gorgeous outdoor grounds of the mansion. Once again, there were some beautiful shots taken in some wonderfully romantic poses which I will likely be looking to encore during my own couple shoot some day :).

Then it was on to the reception and I was whisked away upstairs for the Introductions. The bridal party was announced and then we moved into the drawing room for Katerina & S's first dance. They chose a waltz and had actually taken dancing lessons in order to perform it. I think they did a great job and they certainly looked like they were having fun!

Finally, it was time for dinner. And I was STARVING! You'll notice I haven't mentioned food since the breakfast Katerina treated us too before getting our hair done. That's because there wasn't any! The groomsmen went out for a huge lunch of cheeseburgers and fries while the bride/bridesmaids had scones from starbucks at 8 o'clock in the morning. Fair? No. But I did look gorgeous..

The food was great. It was a stations sort of thing so you got as much as you wanted to eat. My favorite was pot roast with a chipotle bbq sauce (I'm a huge chipotle fan). Mishka and I sat with the Bride & Groom, the best man, the maid of honor, another bridesmaid and her boyfriend, though we saw only a little of the Bride & Groom since they were making their rounds to be good hosts.

After dinner it was on to the dancing! I won't tell you too much about the dancing except that I ROCKED IT! on the dance floor. I didn't realize how much fun I would have dancing. I actually wished we could have been dancing longer. Katerina actually voted me 2nd best dancer at the wedding after one of S's cousins (but personally, I think I danced better ;) ).

At the end of the night was the bouquet toss and... yes I caught it. And when I caught it Mishka's grandmother said "It is as God wished." SO SWEET!!!

Shortly after the wedding came to an end. The next morning I helped Mishka's family pack up their car before they gave Mishka and I a ride back to college. We didn't arrive back at my apartment until 9:30 at night and let me tell you.. once again... we were starving. We picked up some burgers and ate while watching a movie until it was time for bed.

A Wedding as a Bridesmaid

I am a lucky bride. Not only because I'll be marrying my soul mate when I walk down the aisle some undetermined time from now, but also because I've had an inside view into wedding planning quite recently. You see, I was a bridesmaid in my future sister-in-law's (we'll call her Katerina) wedding which took place in September. Because I volunteered to help her with her planning projects, I was really able to get a sense of what planning a wedding is like. It actually helped me figure out some of what I wanted for my own wedding, even though this was before Mishka had "put a ring on it" ;). Therefore, I will give you a brief recap and finish with a description of how her wedding will influence mine.

It was quite a weekend. Literally, it was go-go-go since Mishka and I got off the bus the day before the wedding. Katerina and S (her then-fiance, and current hubby), who had rented a car (something slightly bigger than a mini cooper) and already had themselves and 3 other bridesmaids in the car came to pick Mishka and I up at the bus terminal. And did I mention we had luggage? Needless to say it was a tight fit. Mishka sat in the front seat with S and my large orange suitcase at his feet. Katerina, myself and three other bridesmaids squished together in the back seat with my backpack, Katerina's rehearsal dinner dress, her mom's wedding outfit and the wedding dress. I was praying we didn't get pulled over, but it was a really good bonding experience, and I think Katie enjoyed the silliness of it.

We dropped off our things, showered, and changed into our rehearsal/rehearsal dinner outfits. Katerina wore a very pretty ivory pleated dress with lots of beaded embellishments. I wore a pretty white and black patterened dress from Anthropolgie. Mishka wore a pink button down shirt with a pink and white striped tie (you know, only real men wear pink : ) ).>

On a side note, this was also my first time meeting Mishka's grandparents. They don't speak any English, so there was a lot of translating going on. But I think his grandmother really liked me. It seemed like everytime she saw me throughout the whole weekend, she would hug me, or grab my arm, and say something along the lines of soon it'll be my turn. In fact, there was one very sweet moment the morning of the wedding where Mishka wasn't there to translate since all the girls were in the bridal suite while Katerina took some bridal portrait photos. His grandmother walked up to me, linked her arm with mine, pointed to Katerina, pointed back to me, smiled, and said something in Russian which I'm absolutely certain meant "That's going to be you soon". It really touched my heart.

Anyway, back to the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal run through was pretty quick.Their officiant was an interfaith minister Elinor who seemed very nice, though she did struggle a little with pronunciation. But after the rehearsal came the rehearsal dinner! Katerina and S had me sitting at the "family" table with them :). The food was served, but before we could eat there were some speeches that needed to be made. There were a lot of wonderful things said, but the most moving was, perhaps, the poem which Katerina and Mishka's grandmother wrote especially for the occasion. I can't help but hope she writes one for mine too :).

The food was delicious, as was dessert. Katerina got a globe shaped cake to surprise S with that said "come travel with me" because of their deep love of traveling and the role it has played in their relationship. He seemed to really like it. Then we went back up to the room and went immediately to sleep.

The next morning the girls had to get up bright and early to drive 45 minutes to the place we were getting our hair done. But Katerina treated us to breakfast at Starbucks which definitely perked us all up :-D. Only 3 of us could be "prettified" at a time including Katerina and her mom (who had a special bridal stylist) so the going was slow. In fact, it went so slow that we started to really get behind schedule and they had to have a 4th stylist come in just to do me (I was supposed to go to the bridal stylist after she finished with Katerina and the MOB. Can I just say that I wasn't going to make it to the wedding if that happened ;) ).

Afterwards, it was time for make-up and since the Mother-of-the-Bride is a make-up professional she offered to make the bridal party as well as herself and her daughter look gorgeous. And she did an AMAZING job. I thought I looked GORGEOUS. I would include a picture, but if I can convince her to do my make-up for my wedding as well I may be doing the same thing so I'll keep it as a surprise :). However, it was slightly stressful having one person do make-up for seven women, so I would understand if she decided she didn't want to do wedding make-up a second time around.

When the bridesmaids were beautified we packed up the car and headed for Mansion where the wedding was to take place. The bridesmaids were all dressed up at this point, but Katerina still didn't have her dress on and didn't have her make-up done yet. We were saving that to do in the bridal suite of the Mansion. If possible, while her photographer was taking pictures for the ever-popular "getting ready" shots.

Once Katie's make-up was done it was time to fit her into her dress. She really did look beautiful. It was right then that her photographer arrived and got to take some photos of the bridesmaids helping Katerina into her dress. It was actually a pretty simple process but we made it look meticulous and time-consuming for the camera. Then Katerina started taking some bridal portraits in the bridal suite before it was time for their "first-look" to begin.

In a few minutes, Katie was called down for the first look. She had lied to the photographer and told her I was already Mishka's fiancee (not too much of a lie though ;) ) so that I could reasonably be included in the family pics. So 5 minutes after Katerina went down, her mother, grandmother, Mishka, and I headed downstairs and outside to the front lawn for the family pictures. I was designated "train wrangler" (my name for it) so I set up Katerina's train for every shot. I was included in about 2 family pictures before the photographer took the bridal party off to another area of the mansion grounds for some bridal party shots. We took some really fun ones with some creative poses that I loved.

Then it was time to go inside for the "pre-ceremony" Ketubah signing. From what I understand, they are often designed in some way so that it is like a work of art that the family would hang in their home. Katerina and S's was very beautiful. It looked like stained glass.

Afterwards, we had only to wait until the ceremony began!