Anniversary Numero Dos

Happy 2nd Anniversary to this guy. 

Damn, you're cute. 

I think I'll keep you forever.

What a magical and beautiful day (freezing, but picture-perfect) it was.

One of the best days of my life.

Not many people get to say they married the one they fell in love with when they were 14.

I got lucky.

Love you, Jason!

One Year Ago Today

One year ago, I married the love of my life. I love you, Jason!

Favorite Wedding Moments

Writing this entry is a little intimidating because I feel like I can't quite capture the awesomeness that was our wedding day. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. The love that surrounded us was like nothing I've ever experienced before.

Some of my favorite moments were the most unexpected moments that were full of such emotion and love:

Waking up in the dark before the sun came up and walking out of my hotel room to see Allison and my dad had just left their room and were coming down the hall toward me. My parents, the ones that have supported me all my life, they were right there the second I began my day to support me again. The closeness I felt to my parents that whole weekend and since then has been incredible and I couldn't be more thankful for it.

Allison putting my earrings in my ears to relive memories of her wedding. Reading the note that Jason wrote to me to read before the ceremony. Knowing that he was reading mine and learning of my last gift to him before marriage - that I had decided to take his last name. The stories and jokes that my bridesmaids and parents told me to calm my nerves right before the ceremony. Laughing while walking down the aisle with my parents. Seeing Jason waiting at the end of the aisle, beaming. Freezing during the ceremony but feeling warmth from holding Jason's hands - enough warmth to keep me from shivering. Listening to Mr. Paul speak and seeing only Jason. The wall my uncle, dad, and grandpa made around me and Jason as we lit the unity candle so that the wind would be less of an issue. My dad's toast. The Corays gathering around me to sing "K-K-K-Kaity" - a song they sang to me while growing up. The bottom of my dress at the end of the day - brown and ripped - the only way it should have been. Anything other than that and I wouldn't have felt I lived the day to the fullest.

Seeing everyone out and being the absolute last ones to leave the venue after the wedding. Getting in the car and hearing the quiet of just the two of us together, alone. Recalling the day, our wedding day, in awe. Watching the sunset together as we drove away to the bed and breakfast we stayed at that night.

Laughing and smiling instead of crying the entire day.

Thank you to all of our friends and family. The love and support that surrounded us made our day so special to us. It means the world to us.

P.S. Jason and I (well, let's be serious, mostly me) will continue to write in this blog. I'm not letting it die now that the wedding is over! Next up: a honeymoon entry!

3 days and counting!

Hello, people! We are 3 days out! I kept meaning to write again but things have been CRAZY!

Some highlights:

Jason and I celebrated our five year anniversary on October 14. Because it's our anniversary of dating, it's really the last year we can celebrate it! Next year we'll have a whole new anniversary date and a new milestone to celebrate!

We went to the lake and were all by ourselves over Columbus Day weekend - just like when we got engaged. We even ate some smores! It was a great time to get a little relaxation because the craziness started right when we got back. I'm so glad we had that weekend to ourselves!

We both had parties that our offices threw for us - and we both got to attend both of them which was really nice. It was so sweet.

I saw Hanson twice this week. One of the times I was 4 feet in front of them with nothing but air between us for an hour and a half. Talk about a really great week - it started with Hanson and it'll end with marriage!

We got our ketubah yesterday. It's beautiful... but they spelled my middle name wrong. Go figure! Apparently another one should be here tomorrow! Fingers crossed!

The guys are getting their tuxes fitted today - hopefully that'll all go well because the tux place has been a little... unreliable. Hopefully they'll wow us and everything will be perfect today!

Things are pretty darn crazy. There is still a lot to do but slowly my list is getting smaller. Maitha came into town on Monday. She was a huge help yesterday driving me all around while Jason was at work for his last day. Erin is coming in today and the rest will follow tomorrow!

Just a reminder to everyone to use the directions listed in the email below. You can use MapQuest and GPS's to get you to the major highways, but once you turn off you'll need the directions in the links below. Please use them!

See you all at 12 noon on Sunday! We can't wait!

It's beginning to feel real

The past week has been really productive – it's crack-down time now! We'll be pretty crazy-busy until Labor Day and then we'll have a little bit of breathing time again. I'll try to write again before then but if you don't hear from me it's because we're going crazy!

We got our rings! They're really pretty and engraved. I love them. I love them so much that I kept taking them out of their box enough that Jason informed me we would have to shine them again before the wedding. My bad! I'll try not to touch them again until October. Operative word: try.

We went tux hunting again and decided on one. Hopefully it looks good. They could dress the manikins to show us what the tuxes looked like but not the real man. What? Does that even make sense? The tie/vest colors still weren't matching the bridesmaids' dress color so we went tie shopping this weekend and came home with ties for the groomsmen and a few different options for Jason.

Speaking of apparel, tonight Allison is taking me to get my second wedding dress fitting. I'm excited because it should actually fit me now!

Our Aruba honeymoon is all booked. I can't wait! I’m very much looking forward to pina coladas on the beach and of course spending time with my new hubby.

We also got paint for our new bedroom which Eddie and I will be painting on Friday night after work. And then Jason and I are moving on the 15th!

All that and we still had time to see the musical Spring Awakening at the Kennedy Center thanks to my parents who gave us a gift certificate for Christmas last year (thank you!). It was really good… and was fun to get dressed up! I particularly enjoyed it because Duncan Sheik wrote all of the music for it. It was very much his style – I could tell without a doubt that he composed the pieces.

I can't believe how close the wedding is now… it makes me both nervous and excited. Nervous because I still have a lot of decisions to make and excited because I'm ready to marry my man!

Mr. Paul

Mr. Paul is the man that will be marrying us!

Here is a picture of him that I took from my dad's Facebook. Mr. Paul is on the far left, with my dad and a couple of other neighborhood guys - Mr. Foley and Mr. Burman.

Mr. Paul is a dear family friend and is part of one of the families that I considered my second family as a kid growing up. I have a lot of memories of him growing up. One of the coolest memories I have of him is that he was the first person I told after I found out that Allison and my dad were pregnant with Jakob. I was soooo excited to tell everyone that I was going to be a sister, and he's the first person I told. And I still remember that he guessed what was going on before we even told him (we all walked up and said, "guess what?" and he said, "you're pregnant!") and he was SO thrilled about it. Then, before Jake was born, he banded with me and agreed that if the baby was a boy he should be named Zachary. We made a pact that we would call the baby Zeke no matter what. That lasted for about a month... but it still meant a lot to me when I was 13 that he stuck with me!

He's also the guy that got me into hockey and the Caps. He took me and his daughter, Kelsey, out to a practice one time and I was instantly hooked. After that, he often drove Kelsey and I to the rink so that we could watch games together with his season tickets. If it wasn't for him I probably never would have learned about hockey and how awesome it is!

So fast forward to Memorial Day of this year. He asked me how the wedding planning was going and I told him pretty much everything was planned but that we still had a major hole: someone to marry us. I told him of our dilemma: we want someone we know to marry us. Our first idea was Jason's sister-in-law, Emily, and she was really flattered about it... but then we realized that if both Matt (Jason's brother and best man) and Emily were in the wedding, their daughter Esme who (will only be a year old at the time of the wedding) wouldn't have her mommy or daddy around during the ceremony and that might cause issues. Well, we certainly didn't want an unhappy little niece. So I explained to Mr. Paul that we were stuck. He jabbed me in the arm and said, "Well, I'll marry you!!!" Now, I think he was half-joking... but I as soon as he said it I said, "OKAY!"

So there you have it! Mr. Paul is marrying us! And we're both THRILLED!!!!!!

"Because... you know... we're getting married."

Recently it came to our attention that we should be looking for wedding bands because... you know... we're getting married. Well, we were lucky enough to do some one-stop shopping this weekend and we now have wedding bands in the making! And we even stuck to our (very) low budget that I made for them! Woo hoo! And, because we find it funny, it also needs to be said that Jason was the high maintenance one (and his ring cost 4x as much as mine). When he explained what he wanted, he had three rings to do it - he wanted the width of one, the milgrain (miligrain?) of another, and the finish of yet another. I found what I wanted and said, "I want this EXACT ring. Same size, same everything."

We also looked at tuxes. The vest colors kind of matched the bridesmaids dresses... I say kind of but they really didn't match at all. Can we say color clash? I'm not quite sure what we're going to do about that. So we're not done with tuxes yet. Here's my scruffy groom modeling the not-so-matching vest and dress:



We also hit up an Ikea sale this weekend to get real wood living room furniture for half price. We're replacing nearly everything we have to get matching and better quality stuff. We're in the process of selling our old stuff on craigslist which is great because we'll have less to move in August! We wound up getting 3 of the 6 things we wanted (a TV stand and two small bookcase to go next to it) because people had rushed and bought things before us. But then the strangest thing happened... while I sat there moping about how we shouldn't have eaten free breakfast before we shopped, people started returning the pieces they had just bought. So we wound up getting the desk and the bigger bookcase we wanted as well! People are crazy. Absolutely crazy. I don't get it. The only thing we didn't walk away with that we wanted was a china-like cabinet - which we'll eventually buy anyway (at full price - boo-hiss) because my aunt is giving me my grandmother's beautiful china when we get married. Next to re-do: our bedroom furniture. But that will wait until after we're married.

I also got my first fitting for my dress last weekend and will have my second fitting in 2 weeks!

Did I mention we're under the 100 day mark now? 97 days and counting!

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Annual Gala

Last night, Jason and I went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's annual gala where they announce the Man and Woman of the Year. It was so great to go - Allison is amazing and it is so great to see her doing such good and making such a difference in the world. I'm sad I wasn't around when she ran for Woman of the Year (I was in Australia), but I'm glad she's still involved in such a great cause and that I can still support her now. She did a lot of announcing last night and she did a great job! She looked super pretty too. The candidates this year raised over $900,000!!! That is INCREDIBLE considering the economy this year. It made my heart swell to know that no matter the economy, amazing people still dedicate time, energy, and money into good causes. The world isn't so bad after all.

It was fun to go because it was a fancy event and we got to get all dressed up - I love getting dressed up every once in a while! Here we are before leaving our apartment.



And then again at my parents' house before cabbing it to DC.  Now you can see what we're wearing!



Here we are with my parents at the gala.



Here we are with our friends who joined us, Jessica and Joel.



In other news, we saw my little cousin Emma's ballet recital this morning (she's one of the flower girls) and it was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. She did so great! Unfortunately, it went a little longer than expected so we couldn't go out and celebrate with the ballerina herself, but she sure was amazing!

Jason and I looked at a different apartment this morning and decided to apply for it and get rid of the deposit on the other place. We can save a lot of money if we get this place so our fingers are crossed! Plus it's really close to my work which is nice - I'll have a nice bike path to get to it which will be really great!

This coming weekend we're trekking it out to Frederick to do more wedding-related planning - we're meeting with a DJ and a hair stylist. We'll see if they can tame my mane! It takes lots and lots of bobbypins to get my hair all up... enough to make airport metal detectors go off! That literally happened to me once... can you imagine? Craziness.

Visiting ThorpeWood #2

We have been pretty busy with wedding planning the past couple of weeks! Things are finally coming together and getting finalized and the list of things to do is getting smaller. I'm finally beginning to stress out less and enjoy the excitement of being engaged more!

Last weekend Jason, Allison, my dad, and I went to visit ThorpeWood for our tasting with the caterers. This time I promised myself I would capture the place better than I did the first time. Here are a few pictures of the inside - it's a little dark, but you can still see how pretty it is!





We tasted a lot of delicious food and nailed down our menu for the wedding - along with the cake! I'm going to keep the menu and the flavor of the cake a secret but I'll fill you in on two little festive details: there will be hot apple cider and the top tier of the cake is pumpkin! Originally I wanted the entire cake to be pumpkin since it's festive for October and also because I love it, but ended up nixing that because Jason doesn't like pumpkin cake and also because the love of pumpkin cake is not quite as wide-spread as say... a white butter cake. But, at the last second, I decided to have the top tier be pumpkin! I'm pretty excited.

I told my bridesmaids that I was done searching for orange dresses, and thus the search for burgundy dresses begun. Soon after that, Erin found a cute dress that all of the other girls approved of so I ordered them! That was a few weeks ago. When they came in they were a little lighter in color than I anticipated so I was sitting on them for a while unsure about whether they were what I wanted or not. I had Mai try hers on and she loved it... and so now I'm sold. I'll be sending the other girls their dresses soon!

We also nailed the flower girl dresses down! They will be the same ivory color as my dress and the same silk chiffon as the bridesmaids dresses. They are darling little dresses. Emma is particularly excited and wants to know what shoes she'll be wearing!

Speaking of shoes, I think I found mine. Unless I cross another pair that I like better, these are going to be the ones!



My grandma thinks I'm CRAZY and no doubt my other grandmother will think the same thing. I think they're cute! Plus they're comfy and you can see my toes! I'll get them painted prettily!

This morning we interviewed a second photographer and decided between her and the other lady we had interviewed the other week. The decision was easy. We really liked the first lady we met with a lot. Our check to book her for the day will go out in the mail tomorrow! Another box checked off of the list! We've also blocked hotel rooms, booked a rehearsal dinner location, and have ordered invitation samples.

Now all that we have left to book is someone to marry us, music, and a florist. Eddie's grandma might do the bouquets and I'm thinking about asking a close family friend to marry us but I want to make sure that it is not going to be time-consuming for them to get ordained to do so beforehand. We also need to buy our rings and I need to think about hair and makeup. And then of course I'll have to start thinking about decorations and the littler details but I think I'll relax for a while and think about that later on! But until then, I am ALL EARS for ideas about all of these things!

Things are really (finally) coming together! YAY! I'll leave you with one last picture of ThorpeWood - this is right inside the door :)



Kait