Where in the world?...

Without a doubt the thing my fiance and I have collectively enjoyed planning the most, has been the honeymoon. I am pretty sure listening to me describe the centerpieces was a close second for him though. No? Ok, maybe not.

So we have this big huge party with everyone we love, and then we get to go on a big trip. How cool is that? We started talking honeymoon pretty early in our engagement, although unless you're planning a trip to Long Island, you can't really do it that far in advance. That's ok though, because it gave us plenty of times to research and change our minds (a lot).

So where to go? Whenever we take a trip, I always take it as a personal challenge to go somewhere that Ryan has never been. Anyone that knows him will understand how tough of a challenge this is. He has been everywhere! Seriously, how many people's fiances have lived in Korea for a year and stopped in China and Thailand for fun? So yeah, it is always my personal mission for him to not have "been there, done that".

The first step was to figure out what kind of honeymoon we wanted to take, to narrow it down.

One of the first things that narrowed it down were our free flights! I am marrying the king of credit card rewards, and so most flights for us, with the points, would be free. This has helped us exponentially, we would not be taking as nice of a trip as we are if not for these flights. So we had to pick somewhere that had flights with our carrier. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Can we talk about Europe for a second? Of course we can, I'm writing this. I felt very pressured to "want" to go to Europe for our honeymoon because Europe is so pretty and great and "European". We threw around the idea of going country hopping in Europe, or just spending a week in one country. But we were both very iffy about it. But still I felt as if, if I didn't get to Europe, I would be lacking some kind of experience that I should have.

It wasn't until we went to Florida, and visited my Godmother, who has worked in the travel industry for years and has been even more places than Ryan, figured it out for me in 3 words:

"Europe is overrated"

And all of a sudden I exhaled. She hit it on the nose for us. I'm sure many people love to go see tourist attractions and speak to people who think we're stupid, but we do not. We have actually not gone places because we thought they'd be too "touristy".  When I think of all the places Ryan and I have traveled, it basically boils down to warm weather, beaches, gambling and drinks.

So we decided, we want to be doing what we love to do on our honeymoon.

We love love love relaxing somewhere tropical. What better way to unwind from the most overwhelming 17 months of our lives?


Apparently there are a ton of countries with beautiful beaches, so we had our work cut out for us. I'd review the places we considered and the place we chose, but I want to go to bed, to be honest. Come back for part 2!

What was your favorite vacation spot and why???

Saying Yes to the Dress...Again

Here we are with just about 10 months to the wedding- yikes- time is going fast!

Two things I've come to learn is that everything takes longer when you say the word "wedding" and everything takes longer on Long Island. Combine the two and I still have no idea why my dress takes 10 months to get from ordering to the fitting room.

That being said, the time to order bridesmaid dresses for my wedding is quickly approaching. I knew I wanted my girls to have a huge say in the dress we picked, so I started trying to get the troops together. Getting 6 busy ladies together at one time, in one place is a hard task, but we were lucky enough to have 4 out of 6 of us available for round one.

Round one *almost* didn't happen. Apparently luck was not on my side this morning. On my way to get changed before dress shopping, with my Maid of Honor in my passenger seat, my car literally stopped going.

I know nothing about cars, but eventually AAA was called, and my fiance came on his white horse (which was actually a black Altima) to rescue us. Knowing how badly I was looking forward to the day ahead, he insisted I take his car and that he would make sure my car got to the mechanic (major points there).

So we were on our way, again. And this time, the car didn't break, go us!

One thing you always have to worry about with a group of females is chemistry. I can't say I was too worried, but it's always a concern. Has anyone out there seen Say Yes to the Dress, Bridesmaids?

Holy catfight. From the bride who didn't even stop to think before she decided that her bridesmaids had a $500 budget, to the bridesmaid who announced that if they didn't pick a dress that looked good on her-she was out of the bridal party, I can't even believe some of the stuff that happens!

Fortunately, our experience would have made for terrible television. Everyone got along, everyone has great taste, and everyone is willing to rule out dresses that any of the other girls don't like.

I knew the dresses had to be a certain color, and the girls want shorter dresses, which goes perfect with our summer wedding.

 First, we hit the racks and pulled anything that we thought might possibly be a contender. The girls then took turns trying a few on, and we would either reject or save them for the next round.

I was having a blast not having to try anything on! We narrowed it down to about 10 dresses, and then picked our favorites from those. We made sure the ones we liked came in the perfect color, and then magically (or not) we had it down to just 3 dresses!

Currently we are all in discussion about which one we like the best. I am confident that after "Round 2" we will have our dress!

Here is one that didn't make the cut! Sorry, for the winner, you'll have to wait until they come down the aisle!

The ever present peanut gallery...

When you first get engaged, you think "Wow this is going to be great. My fiance and I are going to plan this amazing celebration and we are going to have a blast picking out everything we like..."

And wedding planning has been great. Anyone who knows me can vouch that I am loving (almost) every minute of this. But one thing that has been incredibly overwhelming for me, and I'm sure every other bride-to-be, is the constant flow of opinions.

You all know the saying....

Whatever they are cooking is not going to turn out right. Way too many cooks in the kitchen. And while I do value the opinions of others, sometimes it feels as if the only ones who haven't given our opinions, are me and my fiance.

For example, I fell in love with something that I planned on using for the wedding. I thought it up in my mind, customized it, and used a vendor that brought it to life. Elated, I showed my closest family members. It might sound stupid, but when you work to create something so personal, you get very attached to it.

Now I don't want people to lie to me, but there is a difference between lying and being brutally honest. One person, whose identity will not be revealed, blurted out "Don't you think its gaudy?"

No. I didn't think it was gaudy. I wouldn't have worked on it perfecting every detail, and payed a nice chunk of change if I had thought it was gaudy. This was a bridezilla meltdown waiting to happen, and I threw my hands up and shouted "Then you know what? Maybe I'm gaudy!"


There are two lessons here. Lesson one: If a bride shows you something she is planning on using on the most important day of her life, you probably shouldn't trash talk it. Haven't you ever seen the Ugly Baby episode of Seinfeld?

Lesson two: Brides, including myself, should remember to take people's opinions with a grain of salt. Before I had shown everyone, my fiance and I both decided that we loved it, and that it was perfect for us. Those are the only two opinions that I should care about. But what can I say, sometimes it is (extremely) difficult to believe that not everyone is as in love with my wedding as I am.

Which brings me to another point. Maybe somewhere out there, there is a groom who wants to be involved with everything. I am not marrying one of those. At the beginning of wedding planning, I would show Ryan everything, asking him what he thought. He would give me a generic answer like "That's great" and I would get frustrated.

It took me awhile to realize that Ryan hasn't been dreaming of pocketfold invitations for his entire life, and unless it was terrible, he was probably going to like it. So now, whenever I have a planning decision to make, whether it be a style of something or a vendor to use, I give him my top two, and tell him to pick. This has worked out beautifully. It's actually made him more involved in the planning, because instead of just yessing me to death so he won't have to see another freaking rhinestone, he only has to look at two things, and pick the one he likes better.

Even if you haven't planned a wedding, surely everyone has felt overwhelmed by opinions at one time or another. Let me know how you dealt with it!