Two years, six months and twenty four days

I saw this on Amy's blog and I thought it'd be fun to copy cat..mainly because I have nothing original to talk about other than my leg needing to be removed from my body... SO..here goes :)

1) When was your wedding day?

Well...there's actually two dates... July 27th, 2007 and August 5th, 2007.  I have a reasonable explanation for the two; my Mom was supposed to attend the August ceremony, but her chemo was making her far too weak to travel (that ceremony was located in Las Vegas), so, we have a private ceremony held in Monterey, California which was only 15 minutes from where she was staying.

2) What day of the week was it?

July 27th was on a Friday, then August 5th was on a Sunday

3) Did you get married in a church?

Nope! Neither Eric or I are religious and we didn't want to be in a church for our ceremony. So, the ceremony in Monterey was done outside in a garden gazebo while the Vegas ceremony was within Mandalay Bay.

4) How many in your wedding party?

My best friend, Dara, was my Maid of Honor and my lil' cousin, Alexandra, was my Brides Maid. Then for Eric, my other cousin, Kendall (Alexandra's brother), was his Groomsman and Eric's best friend, Frank, was his Best Man. People were telling me that I should have more brides maids and that Eric should have more Groomsmen..but in all honesty, those were the only people that we wanted IN the wedding, aside from the actual guests we had. Besides, it made it more special to have it narrowed down to family and the people we love just like family :)

Dara, Alexandra, myself & Eric, Kendall and Frank

5) How many guests were invited to your wedding?

We kept it down to 30 people because I didn't wanna invite everyone under the sun. I know that sounds horrible, but weddings aren't exactly cheap. Not to mention, it think it's kinda funny to invite people for the sake of having a loaded wedding ceremony. The people we cared about were invited and we even arrainged to have our ceremony broadcasted over the internet. I must say, that was a pretty cool option to have since there were 100 people we wanted to invite, but between traveling, military schedules and such, they couldnt make it.. so they got to watch the whole thing from their computer / laptop :) Strangely enough, we had over 500 views, lmao.

6) How long were you together before the engagement?

We met back in September 2006 and he proposed May 2007. Our wedding was planned for March 18th, 2008, but when my Mom was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, the doctor HIGHLY suggested that if we were wanting my Mom to attend.. that we should push the wedding up. Significantly.

Sept 2006

November 11th, 2006 ...we took John to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for his bday :)

As part of Eric's wedding present, I bought him tickets to see the Mets vs the Dodgers :)

7) How long did you wait to tie the knot after your proposal?

Due to my Moms failing health, we had a fairly short engagement. Since we were being told that the wedding needed to be moved up, it was moved from March 2008 to December 2007, then October..then again to August. We settled on August, but we still ended up getting married in July because between July 27th and August 5th, my mom became so incredibly weak that she couldn't even stand on her own anymore.. so having it in Monterey was critical or else she wouldn't have been able to see me get married at all if I stuck with just a Las Vegas venue.

8) How did he propose??

For Valentines Day, Eric bought me my lil weenie dog..Izzy. She's the best present I've EVER received cause she's my lil shadow and I love her to pieces, even though she's rather spastic. Well, when he decided to propose to me, he tied a massive pink bow around her (he was in another room when he did it) and tied a lil pouch with the ring in it onto the bow. When he let her go, she hauled ass around the living room first....all I saw was a brown blur with a dash of pink. She finally settled down and hopped up on me and I saw the lil baggy on the bow. Once she stopped squirming, I finally got it off of her and opened up the bag..I saw the ring and Eric was peering around the corner to watch everything, lol. I was SO excited!

9) Did you register for gifts? If yes, where?

Yup, we did. We registered at the ususal suspects: Macys & Target although we weren't expecting any gifts considering our wedding was considered a "destination". We were thrilled that our friends were able to SHOW UP ( people flew from Montana, New York, even Japan!) so that meant WAY more to us than gifts.

10) Who did you hire as your photographer & videographer?

We actually got really lucky with Mandalay Bay because they had a professional photographer on hand for the ceremony. She did a GREAT job with our pics, very personable and professional and was worth the money :) The "videographer" was pre-installed camera's that were positioned throughout the ceremony room, so we didn't have to worry about jiggly camera work, hahaa. Before we headed home from the whole Vegas experience, we got our pictures back as well as our ceremony on DVD.

11) Did you have a DJ or a band?

Nope! Seeing how we were in Las Vegas, we pretty much used that to our advantage and people disbursed on their own to party up once we were done hanging out at the "reception", which was Claime Jumpers, lol

12) What was your first dance to?

We didn't have one...well.. we went out and partied later that night and we hit the dance floor when "I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie" came on..it was amazing, hahaahahaaaa

13) Did your father walk you down the aisle?

Yes! I was really freaking out about it because there was a MASSIVE chance he wasn't going to be able to attend the wedding since he wanted to stay in California to take care of my Mom. My Grandma wasn't able to attend the wedding either due to the temp in Vegas hitting around 115* (can't blame her for that), but her and my Mom INSISTED that he go considering it was EXTREMELY important to me. Basically, I found out the day before the wedding that he was going to be able to make it...no stress or anything, lol

14) What color were the bridesmaids' dresses and groomsmen's vests?

I kept it really simple considering I liked the classic "Black & White" look for the wedding. The gals wore black halter dresses and the guys had simple tux's with black vests. Since Dara was the Maid of Honor, I had her flower bouquet a lil larger than Alexandra's with more Star Gazers.The only guys with colored vests were Eric and my Dad. Eric's was a smooth satin while my Dads was a textured in a criss-cross pattern, both had a silvery / charchol look :)

15) Did you have a bridal shower?

We got to Vegas two days prior to the wedding, so I had a blast with my girl-friends that were there :) Had a spa day, pampering, had lots of drinks.. all around, I loved it! Dara was..by far..the BEST Maid of Honor anyone could've ever asked for! I hope one day I can totally return the favor :D

Dara & I in the spa lobby

16) What type of limo did you get?

No limo, lol. We happened to stay at Mandalay Bay so when it was time to boogie for the ceremony.. I took an elevator and huffed it through the Casino. Got TONS of compliments! HA!

17) What were your flowers?

White Stargazers! I absolutely LOVED my bouquet! LOVED LOVED LOVED it! In the pic the other flowers look purple-ish, but they were actually a really pretty pink.

18) What flavor was your cake?

We didn't have a cake because most of the styles I liked were ridiculously expensive. I have an issue with paying  $2k for something that's going to get eaten.. to be blunt, my body is only "renting" it for several hours. Sure, wedding cakes are pretty and all, but not pretty enough to hurt my wallet. We actually went to Claime Jumpers (all of us bombarded them at once, hahaha!!) and Eric ordered an "I-DECLAIRE" or something like that. I got..MAYBE.. a lil sliver of it while he enhaled the rest. He was in some serious pain afterwards, lol

19) What type of wedding gown?

 I originally went to Campus Bridal in my hometown, but the service we got absolutely SUCKED. The gal was very rude and totally not helpful when it came to ordering status's and such. Not to mention, when my Mom asked for a chair for her to sit in (all were currently taken), and she needed to sit since she had chemo the day before and was still kinda weak, the gal that was "helping" us got pissy and acted put out. After that, I was mentally "done" with the place since her attitude was just horrible..sorry..you're not getting any commission off of me. Luckily, I found my dream dress there, which was by Alfred Angelo. Only thing is, they didn't have it in my size or the color I wanted. She told me it would be a 4 month wait for the dress to come in..which wasn't going to work since my wedding was in 2ish months. SO, I went rip roaring through the phone book and found several different Bridal stores that carried that specific dress maker. I went through 7 different places till I found one in Capitola called "Bridal Veil". I'll tell you what.. that place is AMAZING. All family owned and operated, the owner (the mother of 4 daughters) was absolutely unbelievable. Thinking back on it now makes me teary eyed cause of how understanding she was with the situation at hand (my mom, cancer, panic) and the need of getting the dress rushed. Nothing phased this woman and she handled EVERYTHING that you could think of with sheer grace. My dress showed up 2 weeks before the wedding and I drove up (from Vandenberg) to Capitola (almost 4 hours drive) twice within a week to get all the alterations done and taken care of. She hooked me up with the dress, the alterations, the veil and even my tiara and ballerina shoes.  Absolutely amazing service and I'll always be grateful for everything she did.

My dress when it was bustled

20) What was the weather like that day?

In Monterey, it was around 70*..totally perfect. In Vegas, it was 115*..made me wanna die, lol

21) Did you have an open bar?

For Monterey, it was just immediate family, so we drank on our own, hahaa. As for Vegas...Vegas IS an open bar, so it was up to the guests if they were wanting to go get blasted.

22) Where did you go on your Honeymoon?

Even though we got married in Las Vegas and had some extra fun there, we were saving up to take a trip to Europe for our 5 year anniversry. Go figure, now we live in Europe, hahahaaa

Canal in Amsterdam

Brussels for Christmas Eve

Brugge for Christmas Markets

23) What was your favorite thing about your wedding day?

Even though the whole planning process for the wedding was very stressful, it all melted away when I saw Eric when I was walking down the aisle. Everything felt perfect.  Everything was perfect. I wouldn't change a single thing :)

24) Did anything go wrong?

Actually, no! The only bad thing that happened was I got a migraine cause of the smog, lol

25) How long have you been married?

Two years, six months and twenty four days :) Go Team Hall!