High School to House Wife...We Make Plans..

FINALLY ENGAGED!!!! WHOO HOO!!!

The morning after the beautiful proposal in the dark we had to head to the Oregon State Fair where I was entering a project.

My sister was the one taking Mr Wonderful and I down to Salem, along with her baby. My sister was really happy for us and excited. We knew my parents would be less than enthusiastic about it so we hadn't told them yet, plus there really hadn't been a chance to tell them anyway. So here I am wearing my beautiful ring for several days and my parents have no idea I am engaged. Anyway I did well at the state fair and we had a great time......except that episode of crying baby for hours in the car......that part wasn't so fun.....maybe my sister was trying to prepare me for kids? I am sure that was it.....

Well we finally got back into town and tracked down my dad on the construction job he was working on to share the "good" news. He was happy for us but secretly I am sure he was terrified. I am his youngest and a daughter at that so I am sure that it was hard to swallow. Then came my mom.....I actually don't even remember telling Mom, it seems she was just not ready to accept it and it took her a long time to even allow me to talk about making plans for the wedding. It was a rough few months for our relationship.

We wanted to set the date for December of 1996 with just a 4 month engagement, but my parents put a veto on that idea. So we decided July would be a good month to be married, we set the date for July 19th, 1997 that would allow for almost a year long engagement. We toyed around with having an outdoor wedding at my parents place, we toyed with having a church wedding, it was fun deciding all the details and Mr Wonderful was right on board with all the details as well. We make a great team! Sometime I regret not having an off season wedding.....July is so hard for him to get time off for our anniversary because it is his busy work season and everything costs more because it is the prime vacation season........we were on to something with a winter wedding BUT I am not sure that December would have been a wise choice either. HAHA

We finally decided on a church wedding, we chose a small country church. Only one problem....it didn't have air conditioning, we didn't really think about the importance of AC when we made arrangements. It wasn't until about January 1997 that my Mom finally decided this wasn't going to crash and burn and she started agreeing to help me plan and get ready. We decided on a pattern for my wedding dress, actually we combined two dress patterns. We ordered the fabric, it just so happened my future MIL worked at a fabric store and was able to get a great discount on all the stuff I needed. I chose a beautiful brocade fabric with some organza to gather around the neckline......I eventually added lace and beaded it all by hand. It was a labor of love and I loved it when it was done. Here is a picture of me sewing away....we also made a bunch of the little angels in the picture by the sewing machine for people who helped out with the wedding. They were really special and a real challenge to make. Forget the wedding dress, that was easy, it was the little angels that were the challenge! HaHaHere is the dress after I put the lace on but before I beaded all the lace.My parents gave us a budget of $1,500 for our wedding. We picked out invitations with a mountain scene because I was raised in a mountain setting and Mr Wonderful loved the mountains as well. We invited about 200 people. We chose a beautiful cake with a little fountain under it, I made the maid of honors' dresses....I chose to have two maids of honor because they were both close friends and I couldn't make one a bridesmaid and one a maid of honor.....Mr Wonderful also had 2 best men. So we paid for the maid of honor dresses since I was making them, then my MIL did the flowers as her gift to us. We managed to pull off our wedding for less than $1,500 somehow! Now I can't even imagine being able to pull that off.Look here, what do you suppose she is thinking? "I just LOVE my bride's maid dress." Not likely, well maybe she was thinking..... "Thank God, I got her married off!" Or how about..... "Oh God I am SO HOT please let this be over soon, I'll just smile and pretend I am fine." Or how about..... "She is so going to pay at my wedding someday!"

I actually chose that dress color because it is my favorite dark thundercloud sky color, our pick-up is also close to that color......I know weird huh? Hey I still like the color so who cares right? I mean people lately are doing brown and pink together or turquoise and brown.....brown dresses? Come on!

Stay tuned for wedding pics the reception and the rest of the story......