A Life Full of Laughter: Love Letters

Mr. Hyena and I had decided that we didn't want to give gifts to each other before the wedding. Instead we decided to write each other love letters, to be read the morning of the wedding. 

We wrote our first love letters to each other in high school; one of our senior class projects was to put together scrapbooks commemorating the year, and we were required to include things like essays about what we had learned about life during the year, as well as letters from others. Mr. Hyena and I wrote to each other, and we both kept those letters.

I had Bridesmaid J hand-deliver my letter to Mr. Hyena that morning.

Mr. Hyena had put a vase of pink and burgundy flowers in the bridal area along with his letter the night before, and I didn't notice it until about half-way through the morning!

This was one of the few moments during the day where I got completely teary-eyed. Writing letters to each other was a wonderful idea, and I'm looking forward to keeping his letter and reading it for years to come.

all photos by Danny Boyle Photography

Are you and your fiancé/e giving each other gifts for your wedding day?

Previously on A Life Full of Laughter:

• "The One Where We Get Practice Married"

• "The One Where The Girls Put On Their Faces"

Don't Have Time? Do It Anyway

In the weeks before our wedding, I was a blubbering mess. I felt so stressed out, and EVERYTHING set me off. I felt like I didn't have time to take care of myself. More than anything, I wanted to go to the gym, and veg out and watch my DVRed shows, and make dinner at home instead of picking up McDonald's for the umpteenth time.

At the same time, I felt like those needs took a backseat to the greater need of making-this-wedding-happen-dammit. So I rushed around and didn't allow myself downtime and I continued to sob at least once a day over the poor freaked-out guy marrying me.

Then, on the Tuesday before the wedding, I had planned to meet up with a few girls from church. I stopped by Mr. Hyena's house to go over a few things before going to meet the girls, cried on him some more and made us both miserable, then blew my nose and headed off to the coffee shop where we were meeting.

And I still wanted to cry for the first 20 minutes or so, but then something miraculous happened. I didn't want to cry anymore. I was laughing. The wedding suddenly seemed much smaller. I started looking forward to things that are coming up after the wedding. I stopped stress eating.

Spending time with other women consistently is one of the things that I've missed the most since I moved to be with Mr. Hyena. I feel like it seriously calms my soul. Hanging out with those ladies was exactly what I needed.

So whatever it is that calms YOUR soul, do it. I don't care if you think you have too many other, more important, more pressing wedding things to do. You'll be more productive if you stop freaking out and spend a little time taking care of yourself. Go for a run. Take a nap. Watch The Office. Make dinner. Get coffee with a friend and don't talk about the wedding. Read for a while. Hug your partner and let them kiss you deeply.

You'll feel better. I promise.

And you know what? Even though I took a little "me" time, I got everything done by the Wednesday before the wedding. So there.

What calms your soul?

White and Ivory in Perfect Catastrophe

Like the hilarious Miss Biscuit, what the men wore was of little consequence to me. Mr. Hyena wanted to wear a tuxedo to the wedding, and I agreed that sounded like a good idea (he looks real gooood in a tux). :) So I put him in charge of what he, the dads and the dudes were going to wear.

This is the look we were going for. I'm not sure if this is actually what Mr. Hyena picked, because I have little to no knowledge on dude-wear, but it looks close to me.

image via Men's Wearhouse

With a vest and Euro tie (the patterned one) in this color:

image via Men's Wearhouse

Now, we had planned to just go with a white shirt for under the vest and jacket, and we told our Men's Wearhouse consultant this. The consultant asked if my dress was white or ivory, and when I said ivory, he told us we should go with an ivory shirt instead because if we went with white, my dress would look dingy beside the groom.

Uh huh...

Left and right shirts, via Men's Wearhouse

I'm calling B.S. on this one. Yes, for the all of four inches you can see of his shirt under his jacket and vest and tie, I'm sure those minute inches of white fabric are going to making me look dingy.

Luckily, my dress came with this fabric shawl-thingiemabobber that I wasn't going to use for anything, so I brought it with me down to the store. I held it up to the white shirt — HA, my dress is white! I held it up to the ivory shirt — HA, my dress is ivory! Either one would look fine. You seriously could not tell the color difference next to my (gigantic) fabric swatch.

I get that they want to make sure the groom looks as good as possible on his wedding day. That's their job, but I think it's terrible to tell a bride she's going to look dingy in the dress that she likely obsessed over for months, spent hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on, and that she was so excited to wear for her friends and family and new husband. Isn't there a nicer way to convince a bride that an ivory shirt is a better choice for an ivory dress? "An ivory shirt will complement your dress better than a white shirt," perhaps?

Did you have to deal with the white vs. ivory issue?

Nightmare Before Wedmas

Remember when we talked a long time ago about bridesmaid dresses? I recently found out that the dress we chose had been discontinued.

Affairs 732 by Mori Lee

Want to know how I found out? Three of my bridesmaids had received their dresses, while the fourth was told that the dress could not be shipped to her. Two months after she had placed her order. Less than four weeks before the wedding. I swear I stopped breathing.

So what is a girl to do in this situation? (Besides freaking out, of course.) We knew it was too late to order a new dress, even if one was available, since it was way too close to the wedding. It seemed our only options were to look in classifieds and eBay for used dresses, or to call bridal stores to see if any of them happened to have the dress in the correct color and size already in stock. After the online option proved fruitless, we called all the bridal stores that carry the Mori Lee line in the Houston, Austin and Dallas areas, while Bridesmaids L and A tried the stores near them in California and Kansas. None of the stores had the dress.

In a last-ditch attempt, I drove across town to Bea's Bridal (where Hyena Sis bought her dress) to see if there was anything they could do. The guy who runs Bea's called the Mori Lee warehouse to see if they happened to have any of the dress in stock. No such luck, but I wasn't ready to give up hope. I asked if the warehouse had ANY other Mori Lee dresses in stock in "Wine." They happened to have a different halter dress, in the correct color and size. It is pretty similar, and looked like our best option with so little time left.

Affairs 836 by Mori Lee

After conversing with my bridesmaids, we decided to go for it. They said the dress could be delivered to Bea's Bridal in 10 days — WAY less time than it takes to ship a new dress. I placed the order, and started breathing again. Bridal store guy, you're my hero. Four days after I placed the order, Bea's called to tell me the dress had arrived. I can't say enough good things about this store.

We didn't want it to be so obvious that three of the dresses were the same and only one was different, so the girls and I decided we could make some minor tweaks to the original dresses to make them all look slightly different from each other. We're adjusting the straps on Hyena Sis' dress to include some rhinestone work on the back. Bridesmaid A said she would tuck the straps into the top of the dress so it looks strapless. We also discussed removing the bow belt on one of the dresses and replacing it with some kind of sparkly brooch. If we're going the mismatched bridesmaid route, we're going big. Going home is not an option.

Here's what it might look like:

Dresses by Mori Lee / Brooch image from Melbourne Blogger / images altered by me

What do you think? Do you have any ideas for other minor changes to make the original dresses look different than each other?

It's GROUNDHOG DAY!

This has to be déja vu. I briefly touched on trash cans being unacceptable wedding décor, but here we are, back at trash cans again. ("What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.")

Earlier this evening, Matt and I were at Sam's Club looking for cups for the bar. They had a perfect size for wine, but we thought they might be a little small for beer cups, which is not the point at all. The point was, people were going to be drinking beverages and noshing on hors d'oeuvres all night, and we do not have wait staff to clean up the trash. The tables will just accumulate more and more refuse until each one could be its own landfill.

Matt says, no problem, just put some trash cans in the corner and people can throw away their own plates and cups. Allie has an aneurism in the middle of the store. Trash cans are unacceptable wedding décor. You can't ask your guests to be the cleanup crew at your wedding.

Sure, trash cans would obviously be the easiest choice, and I am just so tired of trying to think about little details. But a much bigger part of me, the part that has been planning this wedding for sixteen months, says no way buddy, you aren't ruining MY wedding aesthetic with trash cans. Hell, I'll figure out how many plasma donations it would take me to hire someone to wait tables, so long as there's someone to do it. (Well, not literally. But you know what I mean.)

Am I justified in thinking this is a big problem? As a guest, would you have a problem with trash cans tucked away in corners at the venue? Would it offend you? Or do you think Matt's right and I just need to calm down? Do you have any clever ideas for "disguising" trash cans?*
("Am I right or am I right or am I right?")


*Matt's best idea was to get a homeless guy to sit outside the venue, with a bonfire in a trash can. This way, throwing your trash away becomes an awesome activity. It at least made me smile.

Joy Pouring From My Eye Sockets

I finally bought all the songs on our playlists, and I'm slowly "finalizing" them all by listening to them and making sure I like the order.

First things first, I listened to our pre-ceremony playlist. This music makes me so, so happy. Next came the processional. I imagined our families walking to their seats in the church ... I imagined my walk ... and then I imagined Matt's face as I walked down the aisle. And then I started crying.

image via The Purse Forum

Hold yourself together, woman! You're not there yet!

Did you/will you cry when you walk down the aisle?

"You seem much calmer lately"

... said the older gentleman who leads our Bible study, when our group went out to dinner last night and wedding talk came up.

And he's right. I am calm, now, for the most part. I've gotten all the "heavy" items off my to-do list, and now I'm mainly down to just details. Aside from a few things like booking the bartender and hiring a cop (required by the county, because alcohol will make our guests super rowdy at two o'clock in the afternoon, right?), I can pretty much choose what I want to do and forget the rest as the wedding looms closer.

Ohhhhmmmmm.

But I have been a complete head case up to this point, I'll admit. I have enjoyed being engaged, I have enjoyed talking about wedding details, but I have not enjoyed planning. I'm not much of a procrastinator, so I crammed the bulk of planning into the first eight months in order to "not stress myself out." I have gone into a panic over things I have never cared about before and will never care about again. There was one point in which I showed up at aforementioned Bible study, freaking out about how we would keep the keg cold without having to put it in a trash can. Because obviously, I want the wedding to be beautiful and trash cans do not fit in with the decor.

(Duhhhh: there's a bar and the trash can will go behind it so no one will see it. Hence the bartender.)

I'm glad that I have people around me who help me to realize that yes, I am calm. I'm dense enough that I probably wouldn't have noticed it on my own. I am calm, I am ready, and what you mean I still have to wait five and a half months? Dang it!

So how are you doing?

One Thing I'll Miss

I mentioned ages ago that we're going to be rocking an iPod reception. I've been working on playlists, and am having a lot of fun doing it. But I had totally forgotten about something that I'd always really, really loved about weddings: the anniversary dance.

I don't know if this is a regional thing or not, but in case anyone doesn't know, the DJ will call all married couples out to the dance floor, and they usually play a song like this:

Then, the DJ starts eliminating people from the dance floor. First, people who have been married less than a day (bye, bride and groom!), then less than a year, less than five years, less than 10 ... up until there's only one couple left on the floor, the one that has been married for the longest. At the end of the dance, that couple gives the newlyweds their advice for a happy and lasting marriage.

I love love love this tradition. It's so cute and I love to hear the different advice given.

What I didn't put much thought into was that this may be difficult with an iPod wedding. Sure, we could play "Remember When" (even though everyone uses it, Mr. H and I danced to it at our senior prom so I have some attachment to it), but without an emcee I wasn't sure how it would work. Bridesmaid A is manning the music, but she is also married, and I didn't want her to miss out on the anniversary dance just so she could emcee it.

Thank goodness for FSIL Hyena, though, who volunteered to emcee for this song. I would have been really sad if we didn't get to take part in this.

Are you having an anniversary dance? How about any other special dances?

My Chandler Bing Moment

"If you're calling before Saturday, you've reached Monica and Chandler, but if you're calling after Saturday, you've reached Mr. and Mrs. Bing! Please leave a message for the Bings!"

~Friends, "The One With Monica and Chandler's Wedding"

(From that same episode. I took a picture of my TV since I couldn't find it anywhere. ^_^)

I was not expecting this. No sirree. In fact, I've talked about changing my name on here before. It's cool.

But we are not married yet. So when I saw that someone from the church had e-mailed out a contact list with "Firstname Newlast" instead of "Firstname Currentlast," I had my own loosen-the-tie moment. (You know. If I'd been wearing one.)

Look, I don't think my name defines me. I know eventually I'll change my name. It's important to Mr. Hyena, so it's important to me. Maybe it is the fact that all these huge life changes will be happening at the same time. Maybe it was seeing someone else acknowledge the change. But it was too much. So I curled up next to my soon-to-be hubby, and let him hold me and reassure me that it will be all right. And it will be.

I love that man.

Have you had any "Chandler Bing moments"? Isn't it crazy how a show that ended 10 years ago is still so relevant?! :)

The Hands Around the Corner

I like the idea of the first look for getting photos out of the way, but it was a pretty easy decision to nix it. Mr. Hyena wanted to see me for the first time as I walked down the aisle, and I'd always imagined that moment too, with an uncontrollable grin on each of our faces. I don't want to lose that moment.

The downside of not having a first look is that I have some slight anxiety problems. It would be wonderful to be able to see Mr. Hyena and hug him and talk to him prior to the ceremony, because I am calmed when I am with him. I thought there was no alternative: either you did a first look or you didn't have any contact prior to the ceremony.

Then a friend of mine got married. She didn't see her now-husband before the ceremony either. And I freaking LOVE these pictures.

Photos by Visuality Photography, via my friend's Facebook page. Used with her permission.

Mr. H and I discussed this idea, and he was totally on board. When friends ask us if we're doing a first look, he replies, "No, but we're holding hands around the corner!" I'm glad he's as excited as I am, and we'll still get some cute pictures out of it!

via Offbeat Bride / Photo by Gina Keiffer, A Truth Be Shown Photography

Are you forgoing the first look in lieu of something else? Or am I the only one? :)

Anxiety

I've hinted around about this a bit, but I'd like to delve in deeper today. I've been sitting on an article I read on A Practical Wedding, called "Weddings, Marriage, Love & Anxiety." It's beautiful, and you should read it.

I've been a worrier all my life. Not about realistic things that actually have a possibility of happening, but about things that are very unlikely and illogical. I've lived with it a long time, and it's just a part of myself that I am always working to control. Most of the time it isn't a big deal.

Sometime in college, though, I started developing a deeper general anxiety. Where I used to love being the center of attention (I was in all the middle school plays, I sang at retirement homes for my school community service, I participated in dance competitions and recitals), I developed a crippling fear of not having an "escape route" from any situation I found myself in. I rarely needed these escape routes, but I was comforted knowing that I had a way out if I needed it.

Before you think I'm totally crazypants, I knew this was not a healthy obsession, so I started going to therapy during my senior year of college. Matt has always been so supportive of whatever I've needed to do to get over some of my fears. I'm finding my anxious episodes are fewer and further between, but I've been told they may never go away entirely. In most situations, I no longer feel the need to have an escape route, but I have one point of anxiety that I haven't been able to allay:

I'm nervous about our wedding ceremony, because there's no escape route up on the altar.

Now, when I linked the article above, I wanted it to be very clear that anxiety does not prevent us from loving, and marrying, and living happily ever after. I have no anxiety regarding marrying Matt. I have 110% faith. If we could get married tomorrow, I would be all over that (and then I wouldn't have time to think about getting anxious). It's simply the location: a ridiculous worry!

(And because I know my future family reads this: No, I am not going to dash back up the aisle. I will be fine. I'm usually more nervous thinking about possibly being anxious than I actually am when I'm in a situation I worried about! And also, Matt and I have discussed this, and we have figured out a pre-ceremony somethin' that I think will be helpful. But that's another post.)

Were you nervous before your ceremony? How do you distract yourself when you start worrying?

Defining Moments

A while back, Mr. Hyena was working on booking the cruise for our honeymoon. We're going to be cruisin' around Key West, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, mon!

Woohoo!

But this post isn't about that. He was on his computer, and I was on mine, and I glanced over at his screen right as he was typing my name into the site. He clicked on the "Title" box - scrolled past Mr., Dr., Miss, Ms. ... and clicked on Mrs.

"Mrs.!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah ... we'll be married by the time we go on this trip, remember?" he said.

"But ... MRS.!" I'm very eloquent.

He started to scroll back to Miss, but I stopped him.

I get that I'll be a Mrs. No problemo. It was just that, in all these months of planning, it's easy to forget that there's a destination in mind. It was one of those moments where I remembered what we were doing all this for, and in the end he'll be my husband.

When I remember this, I'm really happy. :)

It still feels like the wedding is really far away, but I like these moments that remind me that it's real. What moments make you insanely happy (or make your fiancé think you're insane)?

The Important Stuff

I've been thinking a lot about priorities when it comes to wedding planning. Most planning sites tell you to decide what's important to you when it comes to budgeting so you don't blow your whole budget on cake or something (unless your priority is cake!).

I'll be the first to admit, Mr. Hyena and I did not think about what our budget priorities are. I knew I wanted fabulous pictures, but I wasn't willing to spend several thousands of dollars on them. I knew I wanted fabulous food, but with a limited budget, we couldn't afford to pay for four-course meals for everyone we wanted to celebrate with us. Actually, I want fabulous everything, but I am a prime example of champagne taste but too-cheap-for-anything-including-sometimes-beer budget. (Seriously. I order water at restaurants 99% of the time, because it's free. Hyena Sis thinks I'm nuts.)

The things that ARE important to me don't seem to come with price tags. It's important to me to personalize when at all possible, and come up with creative ways to execute the traditional wedding "stuff." I really, REALLY wanted to design our invitation suite, instead of hiring someone to design them, even if it meant they weren't going to be letter-pressed or fancy. It's really important that I spend time with my friends and family leading up to the wedding. It was really important that we get married in a church, and that whoever marries us actually KNOWS us as a couple. It was important to me to not spend a ridiculous amount of money on one day, because even though this is a very important day (and one that I'm sure will be one of the best days ever because I get to marry such a hottie ^_^), it IS only one day in the end. I feel wasteful and spoiled having the opportunity to spend so much money at one time.

So what does this mean for all the "stuff"?

We're having artificial flowers. I'm 100 percent okay with that. In fact, I'm excited about it, because it will provide an opportunity for me to spend time with the women in my family as we work on putting together the bouquets and boutonnieres.

We'll be throwing an iPod reception, because music is something Mr. H and I are both decently good at working with, and we didn't want to skimp on a DJ and be disappointed. I worked the iPod at Bridesmaid A's wedding, and she offered to do the same for mine.

We're going to have an hors d'oeuvres buffet at our afternoon reception and invite everyone to stick around and eat dinner at the local restaurants around our venue so we can spend more time with them (if they aren't totally stuffed from the hors d'oeuvres ... our caterer is FABULOUS. More on that later!).

Our wedding will be beautiful.

Really?!

It's not that unusual for Mr. Hyena and I to go on nice dates; we try to go out somewhere nice every few months or so. In January 2010, we had planned to go to a nice dinner. I had my suspicions about a proposal coming, but I wasn't getting my hopes up since I tended to overanalyze every single event we went to or hosted for proposal potential. Better to not get my hopes up so I wouldn't be disappointed. :) This time was different though. We'd been ring shopping recently, and talking about marriage A LOT.

So Friday afternoon I came home after a bad day at work to find red roses on my front porch. That was when I got really suspicious, but I was still determined to not get my hopes up! I debated whether to get pretty or get REALLY pretty while I tried to keep my cat from eating the roses. I got all dolled up, and Mr. Hyena came to pick me up. I told him thank you for the flowers, but said I wasn't going to kiss him since I had lipstick on, and I didn't want to get it on him. He said, "Well then this is going to be difficult for you," then got down on one knee in the middle of my living room and asked, "Will you marry me?"

My exact reaction was, "REALLY?!" I wasn't expecting it that soon in the evening! I quickly followed that with a "Yes!" Believe me, I got some teasing for my response! :)

(personal photo)

Did your fiancé manage to surprise you even if you knew it was coming?

Whozzat?

This is the story of how I met Mr. Hyena, way back when we were young'ns.

Mr. H and I went to the same school since fifth grade, and never knew each other. In high school, most of my friends were in the marching band, so I spent a lot of time hanging out in the band hall in the mornings before class started, because that's where they all hung out. Mr. H was a percussionist. We had a lot of mutual friends.

We had several classes together senior year of high school, and we started talking more often. I thought he was cute, but we only really hung out at school. But Homecoming was coming! And neither of us had dates! One of my best friends told him that he should ask me to go with him as a friend, so one day as we walked down to the lunch line, he did.

Aww, look how cute he is. He was the Drum Captain! (October 2004)

After that night, for the rest of senior year we stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning instant messaging/flirting with each other every night. He stayed after class and helped me with my calculus homework (I am math stupid). I started getting to the band hall earlier and earlier every morning to hang out with him before school started.

Then, in March, he asked me to go to prom with him, as his date. Soon after, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

It's official! (April 2005)

So, here we were, a month before high school graduation, together at last. I had applied and been accepted to go to the University of Oklahoma, and he was going to Texas A&M. Schools that were six hours apart.

It's interesting to look back at these photos, because this is the last picture I think I have of us where he's not wearing glasses.

We wanted to make a long-distance relationship work, so at the end of the summer, we packed up and went to our separate colleges. We tried to meet up every five or six weeks, either back in our hometown or in one of our college towns.

Mr. Hyena visiting me in Oklahoma, January 2006

My first midnight yell in College Station, November 2006

We never could justify transferring. His school didn't have a journalism/advertising program at the time, and A&M's aerospace engineering program was better than OU's. We remained long distance for the entirety of college.

Oh, did I mention that his family moved, so we weren't even in the same town over summers and holidays?

So after four years ...

Our four-year anniversary, March 2009

... we both graduated college, and I moved to College Station. Finally together again!

How long did you date your fiancé before you got engaged?

(all personal photos)