An Important Decision

Well, the question has been popped, the ring has been donned, the planning has begun. We secured a place and date for the wedding ceremony. We have some possible reception sites and will begin checking those out this week. (Well Mom will, anyway.) We have the wedding party figured out, and have a good idea of what we want as far as the music goes. The next big question is, what in the heck am I going to wear to this little shindig?

I have somewhat of an idea of what I want in a wedding gown, but who knows if that's what I will wind up with. After all, I was convinced I wanted a pear-shaped diamond for an engagement ring, but found the "perfect" diamond to be round. Heather and I spent last night looking at dresses on the internet. Some of them were absolutely gorgeous! (A lot of them were, actually.) Some of them we wouldn't be caught dead in. This is one that I found to be really funny:

Now, I realize that we are in Texas, and both of us are native Texans, but I could not wear fringe and a cowboy hat to my wedding! (It wouldn't go with the tiara.) Anywho, there are some bridal shows coming to town, all of which are on my calendar in my handy dandy wedding binder! (Again, thank you, Mom!) Three of the shows are in July, one weekend after another, starting July 18th. One in Arlington, one in Dallas at Market Hall, one in Fort Worth, and one in Plano on Heather's birthday in September. I told her about it, asked her if she wanted to do something else that day, but she said that going to a bridal show with me would be one of the best ways to celebrate her birthday! What a great friend!

That's about all the news at this point. Thank you and good night.

Wedding Updates

Okay, first and foremost, we have a date and a place for the ceremony. The wedding will take place on July 16th at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano. One difficulty with this site is that the date and time will not be confirmed until nine months before the date, just in case members want that date and time. However, she said that July is not that popular a month and I have a good chance of getting the time I want. If a member wants that time, then I would have the option of changing to one of the other two times that they perform weddings. Thus, three members would have to pick that date for me not to have that date. In the unlikely event that three members want that day, then we will have our wedding at Chapel Hill. Basically, no news is good news. I did also find out that we could use the church's floral arrangements, candelabras and unity candles at no extra charge. That'll save a good chunk of change on the floral arrangements!

I have also been looking for reception sites today. Mom agreed to visit these places while we're at work, if I supply her with a list of possibilities. Of course, David and I will have the final say, but I really appreciate Mom taking the time to visit the places. Thanx, Mom!

Finally, here is the list of the bridal attendents:

Heather Martin, maid of honor
Holly Martin, bridesmaid
Becky Tilley, bridesmaid
Samantha Yager, bridesmaid

Things I know

I know I'm not supposed to give everything away on here. I'm sure Dezi wants some things to be a surprise, but I like this story and I came up with the idea so I'm going to post it here.

We have decided that we want many of the flowers to be yellow roses. It started out with a comment by me that I wanted all the guys to be wearing a yellow roses, but it soon became the predominant flower.

On our first date I gave Desiree yellow roses. The reason behind that has everything to do with the symbolism. Red roses are supposed to be for love. Pink roses are for passion. Yellow roses are represent friendship. I didn't think Red or Pink would be appropriate and I liked the idea of building a relationship as friends first.

Something I came to learn later is that yellow roses are what her father gave her mom on their first date. It's a good thing she didn't tell me that for a couple of months. I'm not sure how I would have reacted.

I can also announce the groomsmen. I've asked everyone. I still need to talk to all the ushers and such, but first things first.

Josh Sherman (Best Man)
Jeff Rollins
Jeff Smith
Braden Bohannan

We Found a Place?

.....maybe. I have to talk to the wedding director, she's only there on Mondays. Only then will I announce where it will be.

Vocabulary Builder Time

From a colleague at work:

David, here are some words that may be useful for your new Web Log:

prothalamia (and epithalamium)
nuptial eclogue

It is interesting to note that at least two of the above words weren't in Blogger's spell check dictionary.

The Misadventures Continue

Well, ever since the St. Andrew incident last Friday, we have been on the lookout for other, more affordable churches. David and I discussed the matter some more, and we decided not to get married at St. Andrew. We would rather spend the money on something else, perhaps the honeymoon. Thus, I went to two churches today. The first was Christ United Methodist Church, in Farmers Branch. This is a church that I attempted to vist a couple of weeks ago, but was closed during the time I was there. Anywho, I am pulling up to the church, and I saw the marquee out front, with the pastor's name on it. It turns out that I know the pastor there! Six and a half years ago, my father decided that our family needed to start attending church as a family, so we went to a little Methodist church around the corner called Aldersgate. We would go to the early service, where maybe a dozen of us would sit in a circle and have the service. The pastors would just wear suits and be drinking coffee as they talked. They also would get up during the service and play guitars while we all sang together. It was a great church and a good starting point for a new Christian. I enjoyed going there, the only reason I stopped was because they did not have any people there that were my age, and I felt a little out of place, so that's when I started going to Prince of Peace.

Anywho, back to today. The pastor at Christ UMC is the same pastor that was at Aldersgate when I was there. He was not at the church today, and I doubt he would remember me, but I do remember him. The ladies in the office helped me find the packet of wedding information. Actually, one of them had made copies of the packet the week before, so she knew what she was looking for, the other lady and I were just helping her look. Those ladies at that church were funny (in a good way!) I really liked them. I examined the guidelines and fees. They were less than half of the fees at St. Andrew. I still need to talk to the wedding coordinator there, ask her a few questions. One of the things we want to do is bring in our own minister. We know some ordained ministers who are friends of ours and would like to use one of them. It would be really great if they could do the whole ceremony, instead of just assisting. I don't know for sure what the policy is at Christ UMC, but I think we could have an outside minister officiate over the whole thing.

The other church was Chapel Hill, where I had visited before. This time, the wedding coordinator was there, but I didn't get to visit with her until my lunch break, as she was in a meeting when I came the first time. I did talk with a lady who is a member of that church, who let me look at the sanctuary again, she was really nice. Once I met with the wedding coordinator, we had a nice chat. As it turns out, they will pretty much let us do whatever we want for the service. We can have an outside minister. We can have our own organist. We can do whatever music we want (within reason, obviously). The more I talked to her, the more excited I got about this church. Now, I still have other churches to check out, and David is going to visit a church tomorrow during his lunch break, but Chapel Hill is pretty high on the list of possibilites. Oh! They don't have any particular time when we have to have the ceremony, so we can choose whatever time we would like. I'm thinking about five in the afternoon would be a good time. So, the adventure continues.....

We Found a Place

Well, I thought we had found the perfect church for our wedding. David and I stopped by St. Andrew today to look at the sanctuary together, then we stopped by the church office to talk to the wedding coordinator. She was not there, but we did get the brochure about wedding regulations and prices. The price was quite a bit more than we had anticipated. I have been pretty much moping the rest of the day. I loved that sanctuary! We still might get married there, but most likely it'll be somewhere else. Which is kind of a bummer, but oh well. We'll find the perfect place for us, and it'll be exactly what we want.

On another note, David sent me a link with some fun groom's cake ideas. I thought they were definitely fun, and definitely David!

The Ring

The Proposal

I realized we haven't said anything about the actual events surrounding the question. Here you go.

We got engaged May 8th which is when she graduated with her Master's. She had to be at 2 different graduation ceremonies that day so I spent the day with her parents and her best friend Heather. Her dad works for Zales and had helped to hook me up with a really nice ring. I'd picked up the ring the week before and had worn it on a chain around my neck. After the second graduation ceremony Dezi, Heather, and I drove to FUMC Coppell where the youth were putting on a variety show/coffee house to raise money for mission trip.

The show started at 7:00 and her graduation started at 5:30. Dezi and two of the youth were performing "Gopher Guts" with a Ukulele and props. We were about 10 minutes away from the church when the youth president called me and wanted to know where we were. When I told her she said they would stall and for us to get there as soon as possible. We made it just in time for Dezi to run in and change and then go up on stage.

After the show we went out with the youth and then drove back to her house. It's important to know that I hadn't given her a graduation present. I gave her a copy of The Care Bears Movie, but didn't say anything about it. She assumed that was her graduation present. We had settled on the couch when I asked if she was happy with her graduation present. When she answered "Not really." I pulled out the ring and asked her if that was what she really wanted. She said yes and then had to run off to go call Heather. I had showed Heather the ring during the talent show and she was going to be really unhappy with me if I didn't ask her that night.

Heather's reaction, "Oh my gosh! That's like Heaven and chocolate combined!!!"

Long Time Gone

Dezi and I went home over the holiday weekend. We hadn't been back since we got engaged so it was the first time for my family to see the ring and talk about everything else. Dezi and my mom spent a long time talking about options and what they thought they would do.

One of the things I thought was really funny about the whole trip was that at least three different people brought up the option of running off to Hawaii to get married. My dad pictured getting married in shorts. My thoughts were more along the lines of a tux with flip flops. (There are just some things you can't get out of.)

Overall it was a very good weekend. I've had a chance to ask three of the four people I plan to ask to be groomsmen. I'll post who they are when I get the last person tracked down.

We spent Saturday night with my buddy Braden and his fiancee Heather. They are planning to get married on June 25th in Abilene. I thought it was interesting that they are getting married at the place he asked her to marry him. Dezi thought it would be really funny if we were to do the same thing and try to stuff 300 people into her house.