Half a year of marriage already!

When Arnie says "I'll be back" he means it.

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, but I had some free time and a few sarcastic thoughts to share so I figured I'd grace the internet with another blog post.

I got married!! Actually, here in a few days, we will have been married for 6 months! Or about 2 years in dog time, so I'm sure our dogter Chiquita is assuming Zach is going to be doing something extra special for me on our anniversary.

Honeybadger's back.

I'm sure everyone in the history of matrimony assumes that they had the best wedding of all time, OF ALL TIME, (with the sad exception of those people who fainted at the alter or whose partner got cold feet) but I have to say that Zach and I had a pretty dang awesome wedding. It was so amazing to see everyone that God had put into our life there on our wedding day and we had a wonderful time. (You can stop gagging now).

Here's a picture of us being happy that we're married and also happy that there was a chocolate fondue fountain at the reception.

We went to Cancun, Mexico for our honeymoon and stayed at the Dreams hotel, it was pretty flippin sweet and we plan on going back there for our year and a half anniversary. (Because 1.5 years is the equivalent of 5 years of marriage in dog years and Chiquita would be upset if we didn't do something elaborate on our half-a-decade of marriage anniversary. Also, it would be summer when we go back and the water will be nicer) Here's a picture of us in Mexico:

Tienes... bigote??

We got to swim with dolphins, snorkel, kayak, explore Isla Mujeres on a golf cart, and eat all the coconut ice cream, steak, fish, and creme brulees that we could.

 Some things that we learned from our wedding:

• Wedding registries are awesome
• No, you do not need a ridiculously priced gown, no matter how pretty it is.
• Stick to your guns
• Make a checklist or have one of those borderline annoyingly organized people make one for you, because you WILL forget things.
• Details shmetails. Ain't nobody got time fo' dat. Do what you want and get outta there.
• Don't spend a ton of money on the detail shmetails. Sadly, I watched as many of the "details" leftover from our wedding sold at a garage sale for almost nothing when we paid a few hundred dollars for them. (That's even considering the fact that we borrowed quite a few things, (Thanks again Lindsey!!))
• Don't be snoody, wal-mart and the dollar store have a few things that you can buy that will save you a ton of money in the scheme of things. Example: we bought our "toasting glasses" or whatever those things are called from the dollar tree, and they were pretty cute. (Also another shmetail that you can choose to overlook, but I thought hey 2 bucks and we get to drink sparkling grape juice?? I'm in!)

BONUS PHOTO: here is a picture of Zach's face when he saw me walking down the aisle at our wedding

Aw he can't contain his emotions, he just looks so happy!

2 days til our wedding!

Wow, I can't believe there are only TWO DAYS til our big day! We have most everything finished, a big thanks to all our friends and family who have helped us out with various parts of our wedding to help it all come together!We truly are blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives who are willing to be there for us. Really the only things we have left to do are to decorate the church and the banquet hall, then finish up packing for Mexico. Then we'll be set!

Wedding planning is really pretty stressful, as those of you who are currently engaged or married know, and although we are really going to enjoy our big day, for the most part I'm sure we'll be kinda glad it's over with. In my own opinion, and according to various comparisons of myself (by myself, mostly) to the ladies on the show Bridezillas, I have so far been a 0.37 on a scale of 0 - 9,374,837 in Bridezilla-ness.

Not me.

In one of my previous blogs I mentioned a few wedding tips, I still think those are probably the main things to remember whenever the stress starts to get to you.

My reaction when someone tried to tell us that what we were doing wasn't the wedding norm.

My internal reaction whenever someone criticized any of our ideas for the wedding.

 I also had a wonderful time at the bachelorette party that my bestie Saxon put together. We went to dinner at Cheddar's and then had a wonderful night out dancing at some clubs. Who said Christian girls can't have some good, clean fun out on the town??

Actual rendition of our dancing.

I guess the next time I leave a blog post, I'll officially be Mrs. Dunn, I can't wait! In the meantime, I will leave you with this profoundly prophetic image:

Saxon and I understand.

A little bit about my other half =)

So with slightly less than 2 months left before the wedding, we have the majority of things done, or in the process of being done. Yaaay! My lovely ladies helped put together some of the decorations here recently, and we have printed the invitations, so those should be getting sent out before too awful long.

I figured I'd take a break from wedding plans to talk about my wonderful fiancé, Zach.

Look at those irresistible toes!

Zach and I have been dating for about 2 years now. And as cheesy as it sounds, these past 2 years have definitely been some of the happiest I've ever had. Zach always keeps me accountable in my walk with God, and has such a strong faith himself. I am truly blessed to be with such a great guy who makes me laugh, smile, feel pretty, and puts up with my Honeybadger of a dog, Chiquita.

My dog when she wakes up in the morning.

We always enjoy each others company, love taking goofy pictures together, and are thrilled to share our "mutual weirdness."

 To show my appreciation and reciprocate Zach's love for me, I vow to be a Proverbs 31 wife, a great cook, and a beast at shooting a 1022 rifle. Now that everyone is rolling their eyes and gagging, I'll just end this post by adding a small tidbit of truth that I always find to be comforting: God knows what He's doing and always knows what's best for you. =)

Chiquita don't care.Chiquita doesn't give a sniff.

Possibly a nugget of useful wedding information

So with about 80ish days left til the wedding, things are starting to get pretty stressful. We have a lot to get done and not a lot of free time to do it all. There's also a ton of things that people do traditionally for weddings that I never thought were that important that most everyone else seems to think are, in fact, life or death decisions. Personally, I hate spending money, especially for things that I don't think are very useful or for things that I deem unnecessary. So, with that in mind, I figured I'd share what little wedding knowledge I have learned so far, rather than posting another incredibly sarcastic and witty post.

1.   It is YOUR wedding! It's supposed to be fun! It's a celebration, NOT a performance! A couple other young couples who recently got married told us "Don't sweat the details!" And I'm beginning to see that they were totally right.

2.   Velociraptors are a no-go at a reception party. Sure, they are great with the kids, but ultimately, somebody's chocolate bar is going to be eaten (along with whatever hand happened to be holding said chocolate bar) and then all heck will break loose.

They are great to watch at bicycle races, however.

3.   Contrary to popular belief, you do NOT need to sell your kidneys and take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for a wedding! Apparently the average wedding cost today is around $26,000 dollars (according to most google articles and those funny pinterest ones) Like #1 said, it's a celebration; you're not trying to impress anyone. You're there to unite with your Love and best friend, and that is the most important part.

4.   If there's something you REALLY just can't do without at your wedding, just do it! (Unless of course it involves velociraptors or kidney selling) You only get married once (well, usually) and you should definitely make it your special day.

5.   Listen to other people's advice!! Even if you don't think you will like other wedding ideas because you already have everything laid out in your head, other people, like family and close friends who know you well, will also have cute ideas and a few of them have had weddings or gone to weddings themselves and will have a lot of great input.

6.   Don't be a bridezilla! Godzilla don't want none of that.

Homie don't play that

T-minus 3 months!

So as of yesterday, we had exactly 3 months until our wedding day! Which means now we have a little less than 3 months, and we still have quite a bit to get done! We mostly have the big things done, and just recently purchased Zach's wedding band.

Zach's actual wedding band. While I tried to convince him to get the red, cherry flavored one, he wanted to be a little more traditional and go for the yellow "gold" approach

We have attended 2 pre-marital counseling sessions so far, with Mike who will be the pastor at our wedding. He's a pretty nice guy, and doesn't mind all of mine and Zach's goofiness. We do a lot of talking about how we would handle issues that may arise in the future, like how to discipline our children. While neither one of us figured selling our children to the circus whenever they don't do the dishes is a good idea, Zach did mention that 'death' may come to any of those young boys who decide to try and date our daughter.

Zach's exact words whenever our daughter is expecting a date.

Also, the honeymoon to Cancun cannot get here fast enough. Apparently summer decided to peace out and "Fall" (or as I'd like to call it "Sadness And The Death Of All Things") has arrived, bringing super cold weather today. Which is why I'm hibernating in the apartment and counting down the days til it's warm again.

How it feels outside currently.

Next up we will be printing out our wedding invitations, and sending them out sometime next month, most likely. Also we will be putting together the centerpieces for the reception tables and getting a couple other things in order. Before we know it, it'll be January! =)

Tip of the day: To avoid the unpleasantness of Fall, I suggest holing up in your houses and apartments with the heater blasting, having plenty of food stocked up, have a few random individual 'dance parties' while jamming out to rad music, and not sticking your tongue on any frozen poles if you do happen to wander outside.

Don't let this be you, kids.

Less than 5 months now!!

So, things get a little hectic and I haven't had time to update everyone in a while on all the wedding planning details, (since I'm so sure there are thousands of you out there sitting on the edge of your seats biting your nails and wondering if I've chosen cream cheese or vanilla frosting for our wedding cake.) so I thought I'd share the few exciting details that have happened recently. We have the tuxes we wanted picked out and an account made for Zach, his groomsmen, and my dad (whom I've never seen in a tux or suit) and I can't wait to see how "prance-some" he looks in one. *((Disclaimer: As a small child I thought "prance-some = "handsome"))* The tuxes are a light grey with a little jazz of navy/yellow going on.

We also have all the flowers for the wedding flower decorations/bouquets, and for waaaay less than I thought they'd cost! Special thanks to Lindsey, Rachel, and Saxon!!! They are my super awesome and helpful wedding planners!! =)

Also, Zach has his new apartment now, which will be our apartment in January, which is pretty exciting. We spent a long time cleaning it, (along with the help of Zach's awesome padres) and we can't wait til we can slide around on the wood floors in our socks.

And we'll look a lot cooler than Tom Cruise in his tidy-whitey's, and a lot less crazy.

Random semi-sad sidenote, one of the prongs on my engagement ring broke for no apparent reason, and is going to take 2 weeks to fix. =( My poor finger feels naked and dejected.

How my finger feels currently.

Next on the list of Important Things To Do: Finalize the wedding guest list, set up marriage counseling sessions, and finalize our invitation blueprints.

Our marriage counseling sessions will only end this way if there isn't any chocolate involved.

Checking things off the wedding list!

So, some exciting news!

1.  We now have a reception place, only a couple miles from the church, and we gonna be shakin' our tail feathers all afternoon!
2. I found my heels I am going to wear for the ceremony, and for only $20! The best thing about them, other than the fact that they're comfy, is that I can wear them afterwards, so definitely a good investment.
3. And the biggest announcement... drum-roll please...  I bought my wedding dress!!!!!!! I should have the first set of alterations done by August 3rd, then any tweaking that needs to be done. It should look super cute, and it was a reeeeally good price. =)

One of the next things that we should probably get done fairly soonish is pick the tuxes out. I've been looking around and came up with one I like, here's a picture of it:

 Although I think the cane is a little too much, the outfit has so much class and just exudes Zach's personality.

Lol jk, it's going to be light grey, not green.

Moving on, in amongst the smaller details of little things that "don't matter a whole lot but usually end up being cute", I have most all the materials for the wedding favors, which I'm keeping classified as top secret information. Another small detail that's randomly come up is the small matter of what to do for our "grand exit" whenever we leave the reception. Most people now throw birdseed, on account of all the poor, innocent birds that choked on rice thrown at weddings for however many years.

 

 Let's all take a moment of silence out of respect for these poor innocent birds.

Another idea I got from the internet was in the form of a chart, which as you all know by now, I am going to share with you. 

I'm still pondering it, but leaning towards the Kraken.