15 days and counting...

Am I supposed to be this calm so close to the wedding? Yes-I'm anxious, yes-I'm struggling to get everything done, no-i'm not freaking out. I kinda want to feel the wedding stress just so I can totally understand why some brides act the way they do. I'm flying pretty right now, but I'm not sure I like it. I'm not sure if it's because our engagment was WAY too long! :) but I can't just acccept that it's coming up. I can't make my brain realize that, I'm getting married to the man I love in just around 2 weeks and I've been planning this day for a LONG TIME!!!! Hopefully soon.
I've been knocking things off my list left and right lately! Let's see if I can come remotely close to explaining everything I've done so far....well in just the passed couple of days.

• Went to the dentist
• Designed, copied, and folded my programs.
• Added Ribbon to my white bird cage that my Mom insisted I had for the cards.
• Started and finished both pomander flower balls for the Flowergirls, since we can't do flower petals at the Church.
• Called to make sure all the guys were fitted at Men's Wearhouse.
• Bought my white zip-up for my "Mrs. Perez est. 7.11.09" but I'm not sure when or how I'm gonna go about finishing that.
• Made Rehearsal Dinner arrangements, only to decide we aren't having one.
• Switched the rehearsal to Friday so all of the bridal party will be able to make it.
• Ordered the flowers(the only real ones) for the centerpieces. Picking them up the day before the wedding because we are doing them ourself! lol
• Bought my wedding shoes.
• Made hair and make up trial-which is today by the way.
• Bought the last of the vases that we are gonna need for the centerpieces.
• Bought another guestbook, it was mentioned that I should have one at the church and one at the reception. We thought this one looked to plain, so we took off the white ribbon and added some green and black ribbon to match the wedding. Looks good!
• Folded and dropped off the boxes at my Sis-in-laws work because her Mom is making the cookies to go inside for the favors.
• Gave Edgar's Dad a check for $300 for the alcohol, he's paying the rest.
• Paid off the hall for the reception!!!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, good thing I've been collecting green things lately, partly because it's my wedding color and I've become attached to it (because it's the color of the lymphoma cancer ribbon and thats the Cancer my sister had before she passed away). I've been missing her like CRAZY lately. It's weird to think of my life now without her, because we had become bestfriends for the last couple of months of her life. I get super sad when I think of my birthday coming up on the 26th and she always always always gave me a card. I remember being like 12 and LOVING *Nsync and she gave me a Justin Timberlake card that said Happy Birthday. That was like the.best.card.ever!! lol Oh well.

I've been enjoying Spring Break. The weather is wonderful! Much better than Friday when it was cold and rainy. Now it's in the high 70's & 80's and it's just GREAT!!! I bought some bermuda shorts from Target yesterday only to realize they weren't "me" and I returned them today. I took my nieces out to lunch instead. It was a good treat for us all. My Mom is adding another room and bathroom to the back of the house so I've been overseeing all the transactions and making sure she isn't getting screwed over. Granted-it's my uncle doing it, but my Mom is such a trusting person I would hate for her to get screwed.

Yesterday was our 1 year anniversary with the Charger. I loved it then and I love it still! I'm surprised it's been a year already!!! This was the day we bought it.

Ha, granted it's my car now! Edgar is in the process of buying my Mom's Honda Civic. I'm happy he let me claim the charger. It's amazing and I love everything about it. Here's one more pic....Yesterday we met with the priest. A couple of months ago we went over to the Church and took a 140 questonnaire that was just basically if we agreed/disagreed/or were uncertain. We went over it yesterady and only "missed" 4 questions. It was good to see how well we knew each other and how much we actually talked about throughout our relationship. The priest was pretty impressed. We then set the rehearsal date and time up. We are doing the rehearsal the Thursday before the wedding at 7 PM. I figured if we did it on Thursday then on Friday we can have a dinner, instead of everyone trying to rush and squeeze everything in one day. Plus-it makes all of FI's family that are in the wedding come an extra day earlier. :)

I need to get motivated and finish the following things:

1. Addresses for invitations.
2. Table Runners. I've completed 1/28!
3. Buy more vases.
4. Buy stamps for invitations.
5. Begin program layout.
6. Bouts for the GM's and the flowers for the ladies and Padrinos for the wedding.

Thursday we have a meeting with the lady at the hall where the reception is going to be held and we will be going over the layout of the tables and chairs. That way I know exactly how many runners/centerpieces/and anything else I need! I will also do a table mock-up of my "vision" as to what my wedding will look like. Hopefully I don't do a re-vision afterwards! :)

Update...

Okay, well I never posted a pic of my Valentines Day present.

<~~~~~~~~~~Here it is! It was such a surprise, I even tripped when he pulled them out of his car! lol This makes my 2nd ever dozen roses from him in 5 1/2 years. They're so beautiful and they are still alive! :)

We have officially booked ALL of our vendors. Now it's just paying for everything and making sure I have all my DIY projects done. Work is making me pretty busy and I'm working every Saturday minus Spring Break until April 4th. Edgar makes his confirmation the Saturday night before Easter at the midnight mass. He's also getting his schedule switched soon, which allows him to be off on the weekends! and he will be off at around the same time as me. Although, if I keep up staying after for tutoring then he will be getting off BEFORE me even! I'm excited, because then we can do soo much more stuff. We promised each other the first weekend he's off we are going to the beach. He hasn't been off in 2 years (February 28th) and so it's going to be our little celebration! We also found out this week some of his family will be coming to Texas for a while week when they come for the wedding! I'm super excited about that because we weren't expecting them to just hang out and we thought it was going to be rush rush rush. Now, we're deciding where we want to take them and what all we want to do. There's so much to do and so little time.

Today I had a little mini wedding day. After work I waited at home for my SIL to come over so we could go shopping for some things I needed. We went to Hobby Lobby to return some wrist straps that I had bout for wrist corsages. I decided we weren't going to do those and make pin on corsages for the women. MUCH Easier, and less time consuming. We went over to Office Max to buy some full paper labels so I could work on my personalized waterbottles. Here is what they look like. After Office Max we went to Wal-Mart and picked up some little square vases for a little idea I had to make my centerpieces better. I really needed 28 but they only had 9, I figured I would keep going back until I got the rest. I think my SIL is going to look to the Wal-Mart closer to her and see if she can find more. I still have a BIG list of To-Do's. Slowly but surely I will get everything done. My plan is to have everything done by June 11th. Will it be reasonable....who knows?!?!? I guess time will tell. Here are some more pics of the water bottles.

Vendor Check!

Okay, well I'm a little late on this entry because I've actually been busy for once!
Wednesday we went and had our tasting with a potential caterer. It went awesome! We found this lady at a flea market here, a place called the Crockett Center. Originally I found her because I was looking for a photographer and she had a photographer/videographer package. Then when we started talking to her she said her husband did catering. Anyway-we went and he had us a dish waiting. We were surprised because we thought we were just going to meet them and talk prices....and try to work out a deal. :) So we looked at their menu-like 11 different types of dishes they do. We picked (and luckily it was what he had made us!) a chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella cheese and ham covered in alfredo sauce, vegetables, fettuchini(SP?) alfredo, a roll, salad, and it came with a fruit bar. The fruit bar comes with, grapes, pinepples, cantoloupe, strawberries, kiwis, and a chocolate fountain. Also, the provide fruit punch (in a fountain also) with the plates for the fruit bar and the cups. They also are providing us utensils for dinner and plates for the food. We opted to rent out 4 servers to pass out food and pick up the eaten plates. Anyway, all of that food before for only $8.50 PER PERSON!!!!! It's amazing. All of my Austin knotties/bloggers-----if you're interested I will give you the contact info. The food was DELICIOUS. I will post a pic later, I'm at work and the picture is on my home computer.
Tonight no big plans. Just working out and trying to find Edgar's Keys!!!! The only key we have to the honda is on there, so the honda is not driveable right now! I know-that's what we get for not having an extra key but it's my mom's old car and my brother had/has the extra set and he can't find them right now. Which means he will NEVER find them. Also, the key to the Charger is on there. Now that one I'm kind of upset about because the dealership told us it would be like over $200 to replace that key! Sooo....unless I want to fork out over $200 for a new key to the Charger, I'm going to rip my room apart.
Tomorrow is Saturday School tutoring. So, work from 7:45-around 12:30. Afterwards I'm going home to work out and then my SIL is supposed to come over. I haven't decided what I wanted to work on for the wedding....but hopefully I decide by tonight so I can make sure I have everything we need.
I'm sleepy...I need 2:45 to come fast!!!!!

A Few Checks & Update

Okay, Well first I love all those hairstyles above! The one in the board of hairstyles is really just supposed to be the Jordan Sparks one...but I didn't cut it out. Anyway, you get the idea. The only thing is...my hair needs to grow another 5 or so inches. I think it will, my hair grows pretty fast.

I talked to the lady that is going to do my hair for my wedding and she told me she would do mine and all my girls hair as her wedding gift! Are you serious!?!?!? There really are good people in this world. I'm really thankful because I wanted to give that to my girls as a gift but Edgar and I have been so strapped for money I didn't think I was going to be able too. I sent them all texts and so far 1 has responded. I asked them to e-mail the pic so I can show her and we can make a timeline of what time each girl will get their hair done and how long she thinks it will take.

I'm getting really excited, and we are about to hit the 6 MONTH MARK!!!! I can't believe it, it realy feels like just last week we were excited about the year mark. When 2009 came, I just couldn't help but think "I'm getting married THIS year..." No more..."no, not this July, next July" or "I know it's kind of far away, but It's July of '09" It's amazing. I'm just kind of like uhhh okay Laura it's time to stop procrastinating and get your ass in gear!

For January I really need to focus on finding a Photographer. Especially one that won't ask for BOTH my arms! lol I realize you get what you pay for....but really. And I shouldn't be really complaining because Edgar's family is paying for ALOT! I really should be thankful the only thing Edgar and I are going to be paying for is the hall $2400-Which includes the tables/chairs/security/chair covers/chair ties/table clothes/arch/full use of kitchen/clean up/8AM-Midnight. The beer/coke(includes all types like dr.pepper, sprite etc.)/water. I'm thinking this is going to be anywhere between $500-$800. The photographer if and when I find one and then also a videographer depending on how much money we have and if we can afford one. So all in all we're probably paying for like $4,000 out of our $10,000-$12,000 wedding. I still can't believe it's so high! I always thought I could get away with having a wedding for like $5,000.....but man this wedding industry told us otherwise!

I also need to decide on our cake maker...which I think I have. I e-mailed her and hopefully her prices didn't jump much higher than what we talked about when we met in like August. She told me her prices were going to jump up in 2009, but hopefully not that much.

I had the rehearsal dinner sight on my list of to do's this month but we already decided. We decided on a place called Duke's BBQ in a town about 30 miles away. The website is www.dukesbbq.com and we will be getting the all you can eat buffet for $15/person. This includes all the food/drink/and 1 hr service from the staff. I'm not sure how many people we are inviting, but I think we are going to probably open it up to anyone that wants to go but only pay for those in the wedding. I'm thinking of making a ticket or something that they can present....which is another thing Edgar and I will be paying for.