I, for one, love my husband.

I resisted Pinterest ALL day. I made my bloggy reading-and-commenting rounds and continued working today instead of logging on... until 5 minutes ago!

What a mistake that was.

All I get from Pinterest is pissed off anymore. There is a slew of people making light of talking bad about their partners, and specifically husbands, on there in the form of repins of stupid quotes.





I can't take more than citing just 2 Pins I disagree with here. It's not that I don't have a sense of humor because trust me, I DO. But to me, it is the equivalent of men reducing women to their appearance to reduce a man to his faults.
I, for one, love my husband. So. Damn. Much.
To make light of his emotions and to not take into account how much he does for us would be a crying shame. Partners need to raise up each other with love and kindness and appreciation.
My husband is a man of character and that is why I wanted to marry him. I didn't want to get married before I knew him, but after I met him I only wanted to be married to him.
If we disagree, we argue with respect for each other and work through our differences. That doesn't mean one bends to the ideas of the other; it means we respect each other enough to let the other own their own thoughts.
My husband cannot be nagged. No one likes it, so why would he? If he was going to do something around the house and he has not done it yet, I simply (READ:)Let. It. Go. 10 times out of 10 the next time I think about it, he has already done it.
My husband is my best friend and he teaches me so many things by sharing what he learns about the world. He reads everyday. He researches for the sake of knowing something for himself. He is truly intelligent for seeking information for no other purpose than his own curiosity. He has taught me so much, and I hope what I'm sharing with him teaches him, too.
My husband is cool. He has style; he never wears jeans, just Dickies pants. I really love how he dresses as an individual. He likes good music that we both enjoy and has introduced me to bands I love who I'd never heard of before. He is open minded and open hearted and this just allows all kinds of cool things to rush in.
My husband encourages me by always believing in me. He sees how determined I get about so many things, and he never undermines it with reality. He's just there for me when I fall short to remind me of how far I got when I started with nothing.
My husband loves me. He shows and tells me everyday. Do you know what he told me this morning? That he keeps thinking about how I look when I smile and how precious I am to him. Yes, he is real.

So join me in my challenge to you, dear readers: RISE UP AND LOVE YOUR PARTNER. Be a true partner to your spouse, fiance/e, boyfriend, girlfriend, and show the world that "They are More."

Memorial Day Weekend

Happy Memorial Day Monday to everyone, including those who are serving or whose familes are!!!
Over the weekend we did something for sheer delight that will shock all my readers: We went to WWE Monday Night Raw in Omaha!!!
The picture above was us outside of Omaha's Qwest Center before we went in. The stripe of flourescent orange and yellow are our signs we made. Mine said "HI GRANDPA & JAZZY!" on one side and "Shawn + Hillary Get Married in 11 DAYS!!!" We weren't on TV, but we still represented. We are huge WWE fans! This is a new development that Shawn's Grandpa is almost entirely responsible for. Shawn and his dad were into it when Shawn was younger, but now we don't miss it! Since we started renting Grandpa's basement to save up wedding money we have had dinner and watched wrestling every night that it is on. At first I was opposed, but now I'm the first one on the couch Mondays and Fridays!
We had a really nice, fun time and escaped from the wedding even though we're thisclose!

Sock Bunny Rabbits

I make sock monkeys and Shawn and I both have one, but for the wedding guestbook table we wanted something that tied into our bunny theme. Sock bunnies seemed a pretty natural choice. They're also a nod to the homemade bunny dolls Shawn's Grandma used to make when she was still here. The faces/profiles were made in the same way and shape.
Shawn's bunny with full details is here.
Here are ours so far together sans eyeballs!

Check out the spectacular button I found that matches my engagement ring. Square with a round stone! More on these soon!

50 Days

I can't believe time is going so fast that it's already the 50-Day mark.

It seems like we just mailed out the invites.

Now we're already starting to get RSVPS's back!

Be sure to check for new Weddzilla later!!!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!!! ENDS 4/30/11 at 11:59 CST!!!

Bridal Luncheon Favors

Over the weekend a few of the ladies I work with and my mom, Shawn's mom and sister and I all went to a local eatery/bakery to enjoy a little Bridal Luncheon.

They thought they'd have all the suprises (they did have a bunch!) but I had a couple up my sleeve as well.
The ladies and I are event planners for a novelty company so we take our jobs very seriously and plan all of our events to a T. We even include hostess gifts in our planning, so this was no exception. The hostess and I share the same favorite wine so that was easy, but you can't just shove a bottle of wine at someone! It has to be pretty. So thanks to the Bistro at Bellenza, I furoshiki'd the wine for her in one of my favorite scarves from my collection and voila.

Prettiness.

Since it is Easter time I decided to capitalize on what's available: peeps bunnies! Our wedding is bunny themed so I figured this idea from Celebrations at Home via Babble would be highly appropriate. I added a bride bunny to the tuxedo-clad bunnies in the tutorial and I had a bunny-themed bridal shower favor for everyone!

Me, Shawn and his groomsman Chris each bagged a bride and a groom bunny in a cellophane bag together and tied them closed with yarn until they were all paired off.

I had to keep a pair, too!!!



Shawn + Hillary Jo

I just wanted the gals to know I really felt special and I thought about doing something for them as well!

While planning, life still is moving on...

Shawn

+

Hillary

3 1/2 years today. Wow.

Beautiful Wedding Shoes

I wish to share with you why these shoes are the most beautiful wedding shoes (to me) ever. When Shawn & I picked out our shoes, we were going for barefoot. I'm not wearing mine until after the wedding, but the reception will be at a restaurant and you hafta wear shoes there!!! Sandals was the next best thing to barefoot. Especially hippie sandals.
We saw Shawn's sandals at a store called Euphoria in Lincoln, NE when we went to Lincoln on our first ring shopping trip... I'll have to write about that also. Shawn has EcoDragon sandals which are made of sustainably harvested hemp fiber. They last FOREVAR and you can recycle them at the end of their use.
He liked them but it wasn't until the week after when he divulged to me "I want to wear those sandals at our wedding. But they're so expensive." I told him, "Shawn. If you want those sandals for your wedding, you're getting them! I can have a hundreds-of-dollars wedding dress, you can have those damn sandals! ... I'll buy them myself!!!"
So we planned a trip back to Lincoln to try on dresses at the BEST SALON EVAR called Ellyne's and we also went back to Euphoria and bought those sandals! I was more excited about that than my dress experience in Lincoln. Let's not write about that, by the way...

We found my sandals when we went to Kansas City, MO to ask Shawn's friend Sprague (who is tattoo/graffitti artist Manic!) to be in our wedding. We were in West Port near downtown and the Plaza when we went into a little store called Beautiful Day. It looked happy from the outside so we had to  go in. I found my shoes and got that gut feeling of "That's IT!" until I looked in my wallet. I only had like half the money for my shoes. I told Shawn and Sprague heard, too, so we all pitched in. We all 3 bought my wedding shoes. So the way they were acquired is beautiful.
Last Wednesday I took them out to look at them with Shawn's sandals to swoon over how perfect they are together and I examined mine particularly well. On the bag they come in, it says "UTOPIAN Rope Sandals. Handmade by Tom." I wanted to know who Tom was to tell him how wonderful the shoes are and that I love them so much they're going to be my wedding shoes. I looked up UTOPIAN rope sandles on 'teh googles' and found out from Wiki that these shoes are beautiful how they're made, too.
Tom and his community, East Wind, make these sandles along with nut butters and tahini. All the income is pooled for the community to cover medical expenses and each member is given food, clothing, shelter, education and personal money. They believe in equality, social democracy and nonviolence. Each member contributes man hours and lives together, voting on every decision made by the community. So East Wind in Tecumseh, MO is responsible for the creation of my wedding shoes.

Can you say Beautiful?

Marriage Certificate - UPDATE

There's the whole layout with the corner!

This will be made into 4 more copies before the original is done! Stay tuned...

Cute Shot Glasses

We spent some time with some family this weekend and one of the trips we took was to my parents'. We haven't seen them for a couple weeks so she gave us our Valentine gift today.

SO CUTE! We collect shot glasses so this is highly appropriate.

We enjoy these.

Wedding Planning / Life Lessons

Our wedding is teaching me a lot. Wedding Magazines won't tell you that you should learn at least one thing about life while you're planning. I say at least one to account for short-engagement brides!
What I've learned so far:
1. Follow your heart. This is your wedding and you won't have a chance to pull a re-do. On ANYTHING.
2. Be receptive to help that is offered and accept it. I'm a DIAY(Do it all yourself) queen and like to be self-sufficient. There is no way you can be self-sufficient planning a wedding; you will need help and the sooner you realize that if you're like me, the better a time you'll have planning.
And the latest...
3. Sometimes the problem is the solution! If you have an idea for something and it's not working out, it may not be meant-to-be. My headpiece has been driving me up the wall for going on 3 weeks now. I have been patient, I have bought more materials and I have tried several versions. I accept that it's not working.

So what's the solution hidden in this problem?
Since I've met Shawn, on my BEST days when I'm really happy and it's Spring or Summer, I wear a sunflower in my hair. I've had everyone from my mother to our friend Chuck, the Juggalo, say it's awesome. So on our Wedding Day, an early summer day that will be the happiest of our lives together so far, why would I wear anything different? It's my HiLLjO-flavored personal celebration of the best day of my life until Shawn and I make children.

Lastnight I did a makeup trial and came to this realization after trying my makeup on with my flower. What do you think? More eyes, less eyes, more color...?

Did you know? Hawaiian tradition states that a single woman wears flowers in her hair on her right side, while a woman who is taken wears them on the left! Who knew?!

Reason I'm Marrying Shawn - #5,404,286,001

One of my many Valentines' Gifts:

3 lbs. of Haribo Golden goodness. This is love.

Valentine Weekend

This weekend was a BLAST!

• It started an hour early. Shawn surprised me by getting home from work at 5!
• We took a mini-break from wedding planning after Saturday was over
• Sunday Brunch was nuts, courtesy moi.
• Downtown Omaha was the only date plan we outlined for our amazing Sunday!
• Surprise Presents are yet to be exchanged.

Saturday we went to my mom's house and officially asked all our girls from Nebraska if they would like to be in our wedding. We also planned a shopping trip for the dresses next month, wrote down flip flop sizes and took stock of headpiece style preference (I'm going to make all the little girls a hair clippie or headband to wear at the wedding).
I tried to finish my headpiece, everyone...
Not so good. I think the headband part has got to go buh-bye. It dents my bangs and the right side of my hair and looks perpetually unfinished. I also tried putting the flower cluster on a french barrette but it's much too heavy. So I set it down again, along with all things wedding after 2 PM.

The headpiece design must be something that's just going to take a little longer. I've also considered if nothing works, just wearing my hair down with a flower behind my ear. Whatever!!!

Sunday. Brunch. Was. So. Good.

I made heart-shaped cinnamarolls for everyone, omlettes requested by the guys, and I had this baby:

Frying cheese cubes, walnuts and sugar-sprinkled red raspberries.
I've heard of people getting the urge to finish a package of oreos before and I don't share that urge, but this dish gave me the same kind of urge to eatitallNOW! I think it was the cheese...

Sunday we went downtown Omaha and didn't really know what we were going to do, we just knew food would be a part of the plans. We were thinking sushi and then I saw Spaghetti Works.
And I also thought "wine."
Neither of us wanted to ruin the night for the other so we proceeded to volley "I'll go wherever you want, bunny," back and forth as sickiningly sweet as a game of "No, you hang up first!"

Spaghetti Works won because we got sushi last Valentine's Day. Dinner and wine was great. When we went back outside it had gotten a bit colder so we looked for anything open to get a shield from the wind.

We went to the Tobacconist to get a couple stogies and ended up talking with a drifter for an hour and then headed home.

Our cats greeted us upon arrival home as expected. We all proceeded to snuggle and watched adult swim until we fell asleep and so did the TV.

Love and Comfort

120 Days Left!!!

Today is the 4 month point! Only half the engagement is left! 2 months ago I said it would go fast and it really is. All we have to do is go price flowers and find clothes for the bridal party. I've started my DIY stuff so I'll be sharing that soon with lots and lots of pictures!

 
I have one thing we can talk about today that you won't find in wedding magazines. Now I'm not going all mushy-gushy I love Shawnie on everyone, we're just going to stay general.

You know that feeling when you first fall in love? It's like the best thing in the world to some. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it fades, and less often it stays.
Sometimes the feeling gets replaced by something better: comfort based in trust. There's a difference between I-don't-give-a-crap-anymore comfort and I-trust-you-so-much-I-feel-comfortable-with-us-just-Being.
When you have a boyfriend you wonder "Is he mad? Will he break up with me?"
When you have a husband or future husband you think "Is he mad? We'll work it out, there's nothing that can be that bad!"
The trust is present like a physical entity at all times and screams "IDIOT" at you when you have doubt in your mind about anything.
It's true there's nothing like that feeling of new love, but I'll tell you, the feeling the presence of honesty and truth I have found with a relationship based in Love is so much more grand.

Boudoir Sessions

I don't understand the whole Boudoir wedding photos. Rather, I do not like it. I know the premise of it, but what I don't understand is WHY this way?! Okay, you buy underwear that only your future husband should see you in, then you go to your photographer (who will see you just for engagement & wedding day sessions) and take it all off for them? This just doesn't sound right to me and usually when I get that feeling I'm right. I get that same feeling seeing how much information is shared on our FaceSpaces or Mybook or whatever it's called. Then people get robbed.


Think about if the tables were turned around here, ladies. Say your fiance gives you a present on your wedding day in the form of a photo book. You open it and it's him losing more and more clothes until he's in his underoos. My first reaction would not be MEee-Ow! It would be, "Who took these. Seriously." So when your hubby gets his boudoir photos of you, beware the "whosawyoulikethisotherthanme?!" reaction because honestly, he's right.
Just because you're getting married doesn't make it okay for some photographer to see you in lingerie that should be a surprise reserved for your Love., Just because it's someone's job doesn't mean they wouldn't latently enjoy you prancing around while you're in denial because "they're a professional." People are people, lingerie is lingerie, and wearing it alone with someone you're not supposed to is wrong. This is my opinion, my blog and this is what we're wearing over here.

PS: My Shawn would be especially miffed as he takes photos and would feel very hurt if someone else took photos of me, especially photos like that.

PPS: I'm especially inspired to write this post because I have been seeing some gals that will post their boudoir sessions or submit them to other blogs to post up for everyone to see. That is especially disgusting.

Flowers, flowers, flowers!

That's almost the last thing to do for our wedding. It's one of the easiest things we have left to do also. I think I'm going to just go to a grocery store floral department with my floral order. I don't need but a few different kinds of flowers so I think that may keep cost down. My bouquet will be all sunflower with lots of greens around it like anise, ferns and the wider leaves. Something like this:

I just want big, irregular sized sunflowers in a big bunch with the middle of the stems covered with ribbon and a butterfly brooch my fiancee and I got on our first engagement ring shopping trip. For his boutonniere, I imagine something to match like this:

But I may just have it backed with a fern to look masculine and minimalist.

First Post

    On December 10, 2010 I will be hosting my very own Wedding Blog here. It will be a combonation of inspiration and ideas with pictures. It will also be my personal 6 month countdown relaying what is not in the wedding magazines to any readers. Not just the fluff-talk about dresses and centerpieces, but also what you feel like when you're getting married; The kinds of thoughts you have; and the new feelings you get in light of one of the biggest changes of your life. It will hopefully give soon-to-be-engaged's and new fiancees the feeling that they have someone who is there with them.
    This is not an advice blog unless someone asks specifically for some. The experiences and thoughts I share are not offered as advice but if they help someone who finds the blog, that is great. This is simply a mixed media, real-time synopsis of my metaphorical change from young, daisy-loving girl to a mature, Sunflower-loving Wife.