Let it be said that this post will contain too much information. More than most anybody wants to know about anybody. So why am I posting it? Because I want to, and I’m not embarrassed too. So there. But, if you don’t want to know a lot of information about me, don’t read this. (That means you, dad.)








Okay. Seriously.








You’ve been warned.








My period is sporadic. It’s been this way for the past 2 years or so and that’s because of the hormonal birth control that I was on for 3 years. I eventually got an IUD, which I highly recommend, but my hormones were basically screwed from hell and back. I mean, I was like clockwork regular until I went on that birth control. Down to the hour regular. Ugh.

So, why am I writing about this?

Because I have been so nervous that I would get my period while we were at the wedding/honeymoon. I”m sure y’all who are reading this can imagine why this would be disappointing…. but you have no idea.

See, Chet and I live together. Shocker, right?

What I bet you didn’t know is that we gave up sex in May.

That’s even more of a shocker huh?  Yeah well, it started as joke, and then it became a challenge becuase no one thought we could do it.

Well, my friends, we have. We are 5 weeks out from the wedding, and we are still celibate.

Take that bitches.

So, this bring us to my period. I have been paranoid. I want to have sex. No, I mean really. Really, really, really, really.

Recently, though, my period has become a bit more regular, as in the past two months, I have gotten my period on the 7th. Which, hopefully, means I will have it on the 7th of November.

Which, for those who are dense, means aunt flo will not be chillin’ with us over the wedding and honeymoon.

**DOES THE HAPPY DANCE**

Phew. Who thought one could be so paranoid?

via: xkcd

Us minus an elliptical dish. (We won’t need it)

We’ve picked a DJ and set a menu.
All paper is cut.
I’ve got about half of the invitations printed out and need to order envelopes.
I think my bridal party is all set pending any mishaps.
My bridal shower is next week.
My bachlorette party is the week after that.
And we’re almost 4 months out from the wedding.

These, are all things I need to write. And I will. Promise!!

First topic of the post: Flowers.
These are still a bit up in the air. I’m not really into flowers. They make me sneeze and cost  a LOT of money. And, like everything else, we’re planning on DIYing the flowers, just because it helps cut the cost down some. Since we were going to handle it ourselves, I had considered scrounging the craft stores for pretty silk flowers that look would good in the center of the table(s). And then, like with everything, I started thinking about having to cut the wire stems and shape them and… my head began to hurt.

But, eureka!  Sometime this week, I found this post by A Backyard Wedding. I can’t remember how I found it, and I don’t really care, at all. I’m just stoked I did.

“Nicole, why on earth are you ‘stoked’ you found that post?”, you may be wondering. Because, dear friend, I get all of my inspiration from blogs. And her wedding = uh-mazing! It was a backyard shin-dig (which you might have guessed), the kind that I would love to have if we had a house, or knew someone who had a house big enough.

But! Within this little treasure of a post, she provides links to The Flower Exchange and to a video on how to create bouquets. Now, the flower exchange seems pretty awesome, and legit. Both of which are good things. She said her experience was good with them and the flowers lasted forever. Yay!!

Centerpiece inspiration:

So, I began browsing. And they have these wedding combos. For example, the one I think we may go with is this:

-100 Roses (your choice)
- 60 stems gerberas (any color choice)
- 10 stems of hydrangeas (only blue or white available)
- 5 Salal Tips
- 5 Bear grass
30 bunches per box
$253.00

We’re still trying to figure out the “bunches per box thing”. I’ve sent them an e-mail and am waiting for a reply. But! I think this is awesome.

They also sell Baby’s Breath for $10.00 for a bunch of 6 or sixty stems. For this, of course:

via: Once Wed

Next up: Catering
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. That’s about all I can say about that. Actually, it’s not.

Since we’re going through the university, we have to use the university catering. No problem. When they want to, they’re food is delicious. Absolutely delicious. We’re not talking about any kind of cafeteria-food-that-I-have-to-eat-as-a-freshman-which-makes-me-gain-45lbs*. No, this is good stuff.

If you could ever meet with them. No joke, we’ve been trying to meet with the catering director since March. She canceled our date in March because she was too busy. She said she would call in a week, and never called. So we called her in April. Set up an appointment, she was too busy, canceled. Said she would call. Never called. (See a pattern evolving?)

So, I called her yesterday and said look, “I’m graduating, we’re leaving, we can’t be back before July, and then on August 10th, we’re leaving the state and won’t be back until November… for the wedding.” Her response? Oh, well, let’s meet at 10. Great! Perfect.

Not even an hour later, she calls us back, and guess what?! She’s too busy. But, she can squeeze us in between 4:30 and 5 but closer to 5 because she has another meeting. Are you effing kidding me?

She then asks us if we’ve looked at their menu online. Online?! (Side note: they have a fantastic option to order your food online and then they verify it and whatever, it’s great, when you’re planning student organization stuff. Or minor events.) My response, which was a bit curt, was along the lines of: this is a wedding, we need to discuss what we want, alcohol service, set up, our cake service, etc. I cannot do that online, we have to talk to you, in person; is there anyone else we could meet with? She said that it had to be her because she didn’t know who would be there in November.

So then she gets all nosy and asks why we can’t be back in Huntsville before July, don’t we live here. And I explained that we do, but we’re graduating and moving, so it’s not possible. And then she said well, you’re moving back in August? NO!!!!!!!! WE’RE MOVING OUT OF STATE! Oh, well why are you having your wedding here.

I was speechless. But, I persevered. However, we’re not meeting with her until July I guess. Whatever. Chet suggested calling someone we know who is higher up and having her tell us what to do. Despite how annoyed I am with the catering director, I don’t want to get her into trouble, which that very well may. Any suggestions?

Edit: she called us back and said that we could meet Friday or Saturday. Really? She made it sound like it was so difficult for her to meet with us, and she’s such a martyr for doing it with commencement. Yeah, well lady, I’m graduating with family coming in. I can’t meet with you. Perhaps we should have done this in April, no?

Finally: Life as it it.
Y’all can skip this part. It’s just me being sentimental, a bit. No really, just go comment and don’t worry about this part.

I’m officially done with my undergraduate work…. and I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been waiting for this moment for about 4 years, but now that it’s here, I’m nervous! I don’t know what’s coming up next or what to expect. I am going to miss my friend severely. It’s going to be so strange to have to write a new script for my life, and I don’t know how ready I am to do it. I try not to get all sentimental, but still… oi vey.

And besides that, I’m packing, and dealing with moving and everything. We’ve just about sold all that we wanted to sell, which I am so happy about. Now we have to put our lives from the past three years into carefully marked boxes so they can being their journey to my parent’s home and then Lincoln. It’s all just very, very weird. How do y’all cope with big life changes?

*Yes, it really did. Bastards.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.”
–C.S. Lewis

So! Chet and I now have someone to marry us — which is really good, obviously. But, as with everything there is a great story behind this. However, we’re not going to make it privy to the internet world. But, if you ask us, we’ll tell you!!

Instead, I am going to tell you a bit about our history with Sam, the wonderful man who will be presiding over our ceremony.

Chet and I first found Sam over the internet. It was summer 2007… this is sounding terribly cheesy already. Anyway, we were trying to find a church, and I happened upon one that also did podcasts of their sermons. Thus, we found Sam. When we finally made our way to the church in person, we hit it off with him. He and Chet share a common love of music, even if I have no idea what’s going on.

We met with him yesterday, and the meeting was golden. He is totally what we want in an officiant. We walked into his office, sat down, and he says, “So, any ideas on how you want to do this ceremony?”

Chet and I just looked at each other and smiled. We showed him the ceremony we have created. Sam looked at it and said that he loved it. He told us that the most important thing about a wedding is that it represents us.

We asked him if we needed to add scriptures or if there was anything that he wanted to see from it. He said that it was all up to us. He did say he would like to say a prayer over our life, but ultimately what matters is us.

We were also concerned about premarital counseling. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to do it, we just didn’t know where we would make the time. We have a lot going on this summer and our officiant being based 3 hours from us did not make it convenient for us to go through counseling with him. But, we knew we would do what we had to. Toward the end of the meeting, we asked if there was anything that we needed to do, specifically imagining the counseling. You know what he said?

“I’m not a marriage counselor, and I don’t pretend to be”.

Love it! He preceeded to give us some advice from his own life, and that was it. The meeting last about 30 minutes and it was wonderful.

I’m so glad we have decided to go with Sam. His spirit is much like mine and Chet’s, and I think that it is going to be marvelous.

207 days.

Seems early, right?

Well, we’re stamping them, and putting them together, and we’re busy people. So no, it’s not too early.

So, here it is!

It says:

On this day, I marry my best friend. From here on out we will always have someone to lean on, cry with, laugh with and share the rest of our lives with.

Together with their parents
Nicole Marie Lozano
and
Kyle Chet Gassett
Invite you to share in the joy when they exchange vows & begin their new life together

Saturday, the twenty-first of November
two thousand and nine
at four thirty in the afternoon

Austin Hall
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, Texas

Food, Wine and Merry-making to follow!

Cute eh? And if you don’t think so, well, I don’t really care. There may be some changes happening to them, but I really like them.

The little birds are the stamps. Everything else will be printed.

We actually stole part of the idea from Budget Savvy Bride. We didn’t like the folded look. But, we weren’t sure what exactly we wanted. And then I saw her’s. And I died.

See, she does this super cute thing with the three layers. I like it a lot. And it’s not folded.

Next, we have our RSVP cards.

Quick story: We were originally going to just do when to RSVP by as well as directions on how to do it online. Again, much like Budget Savvy’s over there. However, after our experiment with the Save the Dates, we found that nobody really went to our website. It’s actually pretty sad, because Chet has done an incredible job with it. Beucase of this situation, we opted to do postcard mailbacks. I’m a little nervous about this, but, what can you do?

Now, we have two choices: Cake or Death.

___Cake*
___Death**
___Other _______________

*will gladly attend
**regretfully decline

Or…

Cheeky choices. What to do, what to do?

__ Gladly attend
__ Regretfully decline
__ Regretfully attend
__ Enthusiastically decline
__ Will decline to respond but ultimately attend
__ Think you are just trying to wrest a gift out of me
__ Other__________________________

The votes from our friends are Cake or Death. {Please refer to this video for clarification} I like cake or death, but I’m afraid no one is going to get it. Now, there are little asterisk to inform people what each option means, I just don’t think people will get it. Maybe we’ll just send the video with it. I hope somebody writes in “I’ll have the chicken, please”. I’m betting it will be Eddie.

However, with the cheeky choices, I think that it’s too much for people to handle. And it kind of makes it look crazy busy. Jury’s still out. However we must act fast as these need to be stamped too. See those leaves? And the cute birds again? Yup, all stamps.

– Set up one of our registries
– Designed invitations
– Picked a bridal shower date
– Picked a lingerie/bachelorette party date

More details later…

Happy Easter!

Anyway, there is a blog I read (go figure) called A Practical Wedding. She did a couple of posts on her Wedding Blackout Stage and Lists. Now, Meg is pretty close to her wedding. I think there is some genuine reason to freak-out.

We are T minus 232 days away from ours — should I be freaking out? No.

Do I? Yes.

So, to my list. Which eventually just became damn questions about this, that and the other.

• Invitation ideas : should we do sparrows? ampersands? argh! And then who should design it, because I am not about to drop $3400 on invitations, thank you.
• Wedding dress fabric? Coat fabric? Did anyone know there were so many options? We’re making my dress *I hope* and it’s super cute, but now I have to make these decisions…
• pillbox hat with veil. love it. Does my grandmother have one hidden somewhere? Will I need to buy one? How much will that cost? Is it difficult to attach a veil/netting?
• name change? don’t even get me started.
• find Chet’s perfect gift. No easy task, mind you
• Get in touch with our catering people. Yeah right.
• Bridesmaids? Maid of Honor? What the hell am I going to do? {Please note, there is a back story here, but one that I feel is not appropriate for the Internet as I don’t want to seem rude, hateful, fill in the blank. I also don’t want to hurt the person involved, so I am moving on thankyouverymuch. }
• are we doing favors? are we doing a send off? This might have been solved though thanks to this blog.
• should i get a second pair of shoes? you know, i love the heels I bought, but they are awfully high, and I am awfully clumsy. And I am a bad dancer. This seems to be a bad combo.
• How about someone to you know, actually marry us?
• Twogether? Are we gonna do it?
• What about premarital counseling?
• honeymoon?!!?
• Rooms? for, you know, the guests.

Ah. Take a deep breath.

It doesn’t help that I am waiting to make my final decision on UNL. They accepted me {squeal!!} but I need to find out about funding, which is so nerve racking…

However, I am going to do a dance, because Iowa just legalized same-sex marriage. We are on our way to equality for all. Can I get an amen?!

But, Chet is a much better storyteller, and as such, I told him to write up our adventure. So, being the amazing man that he is, he did it.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Take the time. Read them. It’ll be worth a few good laughs.

Next up will be about our final, choosen place!!

Back in December, my mom and I set off on journey to find sales at Micheal’s. While we were there we came across these lovelies:

They were on sale for $5 a piece. We bought 10. And, suddenly, my centerpiece journey began. We played with some ideas of what we wanted to do with them. We talked about lights with leaves spread around them (keep in my mind: November wedding).

And then, my world changed when I saw these:

via: Little Black Book Blog
Uh, yeah. These are perfect! One hundred percent perfect! So, I set out on my venture to make it work, because by golly it will.

I bought keys:

And crystals:

And, just for extra measure, we decided to make cranes:
*side story: we’re {and by we’re I mean my good friend} is making 1000 cranes for the wedding. they range in size from 6×6 paper to 3×3.

And then we did a test run:

This one, I’m not so sure about. Since the vases are kind of short and dumpy, making the flowers tall doesn’t seem aesthetically pleasing.

So, I cut them:
I like this much better. However, I’m afraid of where they will sit on the table. You know the old rule “better high or low than in eyesight”? Yeah. This is where I worry.

But, I do like the hanging stuff. And I love the crane in the flower. And I love the hanging cranes. It’s all adorable. Really, it is. My pictures just don’t do it justice.

Luckily, I have another, you know, 8 months to play. I told Chet that it’s such a shame he’ll have to start buying me flowers {with all the sarcasm in the world}.