Our Vows

I got a lot of feedback about our vows after the wedding and thought I would post them. Originally, Matt and I were going to write our own vows and reveal them on the wedding day during the ceremony. This idea made Matt literally want to break out into hives and after some discussion we worked on our vows together (i.e. he sat with me while I combined vows I found I liked and added in some of my own flair and approved the final copy). So here they are:

I, Alicia Paulette Oliver, promise you, Matthew Donald Leonard, to love and care for you and try in every way to be worthy of your love
I promise to encourage your compassion, because that is what makes you unique and wonderful
I promise to nurture your dreams, because through them your soul shines
I promise to help shoulder our challenges, for there is nothing we cannot face if we stand together
I promise to be your partner in all things, not possessing you, but working with you as a part of the whole
I will always laugh with you in the good times and the bad times and remember every moment I spend with you is precious
I promise to you that love, trust, and honesty will be the basis of our relationship, for one lifetime with you could never be enough.
This is my sacred vow to you, my equal in all things.

Ring Ceremony:

Take this ring as a sign of my love and affection and the vows I have spoken today. Let it be a reminder that I am always by your side, that I will always be a faithful partner to you, and that I will love you now and forever.

I'm So Over March

I don't know about anyone else...but I'm glad March is over. It's been wet and cold and over all yucky. I'm looking forward to days with flip flops, and tank tops, and shorts that say Pink on the back of them (I own copious amounts of these shorts).

I'm hoping to find in the month of April:

1. Motivation to work out (I do need to fit into a wedding dress in October, and it would be nice if I could look at the pictures later without crying about my weight...not to mention it is fun to go swimming in the summer and not cry when wearing a swim suit...do you notice the whole crying aspect of this?)

2. The ability to separate my work life from my home life and find the proper balance. I'm thinking about doing some reading about mediation and relaxation techniques. I need to try and remember I'm working to live, not living to work. Maybe I should start chanting that like a mantra daily...

3. Some new jeans that I can love as much as the two pairs of jeans that I own that I practically live in (one pair I've had since college and the other pair I bought last year from American Eagle)

4. A DJ...I need to do this ASAP, and I keep putting it off. I hate cold calling people and asking for prices...I feel like I have a phobia of the phone when it comes to doing this. But it has to be done and I have to do it...so in April hopefully I will.

5. My tax return...it's nice when I see that the federal and state government give me back a fraction of what I give to them every two weeks from my check.

Bring it on April, Bring it on.

Ever Day Can't Be Easy

I'm having a rough weekend. Matt was supposed to be home this weekend and then on Friday...that changed. He's now supposed to be back sometime next week. I haven't seen him for two weeks already and three weeks seems like a ridiculous amount of time for someone to work without a day off...but I digress. So never fear, dear Facebook and Blogger friends, I'm okay, just not happy. I've seen him a total of six days in seven weeks...I miss him a lot, he's my best friend and he keeps me sane. As pathetic as it sounds I daily feel as if I'm missing my right arm when he's gone, which I guess is why I'm marrying him, I just didn't need this experience to know that I can't live without him...I've been there, done that, and already knew I didn't really want to do it again. To top it off, my old friend insomnia is back and hitting me harder than ever, so Ali minus sleep does not make a happy or rational Ali.

Anyway, I have this new fantasy job I discovered last week when I was getting my nails done. I'd like to name colors of nail polish for OPI. If you don't love the names of the nail polish something is wrong with you...they always make me smile. What's not to love about "I'm not really a waitress", or "It's Greek to me", or even "Sally and the lifeguard". It sounds like a fun and creative job that would be upbeat and never get boring. I think when I grow up, it's what I want to do. Let's call it Ali's personal pipe dream.

I've also gotten a few more things done on the wedding front, I try to do one thing every week...which has worked pretty well thus. I've gotten my bridesmaid dresses, we did that the week before last. The dresses are in two different styles for the four ladies in the wedding. They're in the same color and material so they match but allow a little variation to make it a little less than typical...I think it looks great and I'm really excited about it. Additionally, today my mom and I went to Woodfield and found her a mother of the bride's dress in a pretty brown that makes her look like a model (ok, my mom always looks like a model but this dress looks really wonderful on her). This next week I'm going to try a book a limo, the hotel for the night of the wedding, and make an appointment with the florist to meet with her. Wish me luck, I have high hopes.

Things will get better...I just need to wait it out for a little while.

I Understand Why People Elope

I haven't really blogged about the upcoming wedding planning...let's just say I understand why people elope. I have found in the last month that planning a wedding is an overwhelming effort for those of us that work (that whole 8 to 5 or in my case 8 to whenever I drag myself away from my desk or the jury gets back makes it difficult to meet with people who work from 10 to 5 during the day) and don't have an endless supply of money (I just keep saying it's a day, a great day, but I'd like to be able to walk away from the day with the ability to eat the next one). So I'll tell you a little about my adventure thus far.

1. Finding a reception site for a wedding. This is the very first thing I did. I called about 25 places over two days. Her's a tip for all you future brides, if your looking for a reception site and it isn't at least (emphasis on at least) a year out your going to have people laugh at you when you tell them the date of your wedding. The typical conversation I had with vendors (and I had the same conversation approximately 25 times over two days) was "You're getting married October 10th of 2009?" followed by laughter. Additionally the five places that were open for that date, a mere eight months away at that time, all ranged in price from 60.00 dollars a plate to 20 dollars a plate...and most places that plate price didn't include renting the site. So after a lot of searching, in those two days because I had to get on this if I wanted to get married this year, I was finally able to find a place that suited my budget as well as my tastes...but those two days weren't pretty. I'm very excited for my reception now, but it was touch and go for a little bit there.

2. Finding a place to get married. In Winnebago County, you have two choices on where you get married, a church or outside. And October is also a strange month in the midwest where you never know what kind of day your going to have. So we have opted for the church. We just had to find one that didn't make us do a large amount of pre-marital counseling because frankly Matt and I can't tell you when were both not going to be working...and it seems as if they want us both there when the counseling takes place ;) So we've found a church and a minister who will work with us and we're very happy.

3. Photographers... What can I say, it's kinda been like searching for a needle in a haystack where $3000.00 dollars seems to be the magic number. I'm really into pictures and I wanted someone who would work with my type A self to achieve exactly what I wanted plus I really wanted to be able to make my own wedding book with my pictures on Shutterfly (I have this coffee table book I did that with that I'm in love with over the summer). So lucky for me I found this photographer who does it on the side that's amazing. He did my friend Jessica's wedding and made her gorgeous self look just as gorgeous in the pictures he took. I get rights to my own pictures and I get exactly what I want. He's really easy to contact (he's all about the e-mail like I am) and I couldn't be happier. He's also going to do videography for the wedding as well and I'm really excited about that extra since I didn't know if I was going to do that or not. If you want to check out his site it's: http://www.ramsdenphotography.com/

4. Wedding dress shopping, the best day thus far of planning my wedding. I went with my mom to David's Bridal and we had an awesome time trying on dresses. The previous day we stopped at another local store and tried on a few which made me scared I would never find a dress because nothing looked right. But the staff I great there and after a couple hours I found the dress of my dreams. It's traditional yet really me and if you want the link to look at it e-mail me and I'll send it to you. I decided to go with ivory and got some awesome shoes dyed to match. All I have to buy now is the veil (I'm kinda particular and wasn't sure about the veil so decided to keep looking). My dress should come in during the middle of May, yes May, it can take up to 20 weeks for a dress to come in which seems strange to me but I'm new to this whole bridal business thing.

5. Florists. I think we're going to go with a florist in the town where we're having our ceremony. It's the only place I went where the lady working there was polite and seemed excited about working with me. I know it's a business but it's nice when you get to work with someone who at least acts like they care about your wedding. I'm planning on going back in a few weeks with a swatch from the bridesmaids dresses (and in case your wondering the dresses most likely will be dark purple and our accent color will be orange...very October)

6. The wedding party. We finally have our wedding party cemented down and I'm really excited about getting to spend time with all of them. My maid of honor is already rocking it out. I get e-mails all the time from her about planning and she has already saved the day once in the last four weeks. My bridesmaids and I are going dress shopping Friday night (David's Bridal is no place for the faint of heart on a Saturday or Sunday) and I'm so excited. I've narrowed it down to 7 or 8 dresses and I think we're going to have a whole lot of fun. I'll let you know more about our adventures in bridesmaid dress shopping next week

7. Up ahead. I still need to get a DJ, pick out a cake, rent a limo, figure out my centerpieces for the tables, and pick up the odds and the ends. I try to do at least one large task a week...which can be hard with trials (I've done 4 in two months and will be starting a 5th tommorrow morning). Put I'm moving ahead and I'm starting to enjoy myself more now that I've gotten the reception and wedding site part out of the way. I'll keep you updated.