Flashback Friday: We Actually Talk

I think this is my favorite part of the story because I get to mock Nathan a little bit. (Don't worry, he deserves it—and I mock myself a little too.) Turns out, Nathan finally got the courage up to text me (after stalking my Facebook to find my number). That text?

"You told my roommate I bit you on the head? Lol"

So romantic. He's lucky I already had a huge crush on him and it didn't matter what he said! That text was at about 8:30 at night and we were still texting each other at 2:00 the next morning. Pretty sure by midnight I told him my greatest fears and by 1:00am I was asking him about future plans. Yeah. I'm not subtle.

Maybe not my brightest moment, but it worked! We've either seen each other or texted each other every single day since then. But for a long, long time (it seemed) it was just texting. As in—he wouldn't ask me to do anything! Not to eat a meal with him, or to hang out, or even to just study together. So I not-so-subtly told him I was studying up at the field house and "if he wanted to" he could come join me.

Well he did, and we had fun—but the next move was his. And finally, two weeks later (was it only two weeks?), Nathan just happened to be outside my door after class. Which brought on the following conversation:

Nathan: "So... there's some orchestra here next week."
Me: "Yes there is!"
*walks in silence*
Nathan: "From Poland, I think. It's Poland, right?"
Me: "Yep, the Polish Orchestra!"
*more walking in silence*
Nathan: "So..."
Me: "Yes?"
Nathan: "You going with anybody?"

Once again, he is SO lucky I was just waiting for him to ask so I could say yes. And here's the first picture of Nathan and me together—look at how precious and young we were!

Personal photo from the good old days.

Crossword Progress Report

So instead just of coming up with really cool projects... I decided to actually work on one. Namely, the crossword puzzle. It took me a lot longer than I expected to come up with the words & clues! Here's a sneak peek...

Personal photo.

You'll have to wait on the rest! When I was working on the crossword puzzle though, I got a grand idea. Have you seen the "I Spy" cards all over Pinterest/wedding blogs? They look like this:

Photo credit one and two.

Well, I can make one of those! Except personalized, of course. Oh, and I had this idea for a cute layered set-up for everyone's place at the table... here's what I'm thinking. Apart they would look like this (ignore the rough mock-up...):

And then I would layer them together, add a pencil, and tie with a piece of ribbon (in the wedding colors!). It would look like this:

Photos courtesy of my awesome PowerPoint skills.

What do you think? Will it work?

On not being a Pinterest addict...

Actually, I had to google "Pinterest" to make sure I spelled it correctly—that's how infrequently I use it! I do have a Pinterest, but I haven't experienced the seductive pull others of my friends apparently have... maybe it is yet to come? When Nathan and I first started talking about getting engaged, I got super excited and joined Pinterest and created a wedding board. Yay! Pin all the things!

Photo credit.

But wait...

1. We weren't engaged yet. I knew I was committed to Nathan and had no doubt he felt the same way, but I didn't want my friends to think I was pressuring him (or he was pressuring me). I also didn't want to feel foolish if something happened and we didn't end up together.

2. If and when we did get engaged, I didn't want everyone to see the details of my wedding before we actually got married (this was before secret boards—on that note, how did it take Pinterest so long to create the feature of secret boards?). I do love input, but there can be "too many cooks in the kitchen." And to be honest, I really do want some parts of my wedding to be a surprise!

What I ended up doing was creating a Pinterest profile using only my first name and not following anyone I know—so essentially I have a Pinterest for myself but don't use it socially. Instead, it's a collection of pictures from around the Internet for me to reference, which I do... once in awhile.

Tangent Tuesday: Running

My sister and I ran our first 5k when I was in eighth grade, I think. We "trained" by running a few times a week and our goal was just under 30 minutes. We ran almost the whole way and walked just once or twice. I remember being so excited that we had run it in between 28 and 29 minutes. Other than that, running before I went to college was limited to me running track for one season in high school—less than one season, actually, since I broke my toe midway through the season.

Fast forward to my sophomore year of college when I ran the Turkey Trot on campus—again somewhere in the 28 minute range. Throughout these years I would run sporadically. Then I met Nathan and we started dating... and I continued to run sporadically. When I ran the Detroit Turkey Trot in 2011, I had run just a handful of times leading up to the race. And shocker, my time was in the 27 minute range.

As horrible as this picture is, it kinda sums up the race—cold, foggy, and slow.

Personal photo showing the extent of my photography skills—now do you see why I wanted engagement pictures?

This is where the story gets (a little) better. I started running "for real," even following a training plan and committing to running several times a week. I had a goal of under 25 minutes and a race in mind—the Reedy River 5k. Race day came and it was cloudy and cool—and I was rested and ready to race.

Personal photo.

Shockingly, I somehow finished in 22:50—good enough for first in my age group! I immediately signed up for my next race. Now that I felt like I was speedy and awesome, I set overly ambitious goals for a hilly course in 90 degree weather. Spoiler: I didn't achieve them. Oops.

After that race (not telling you the name or date out of embarrassment...), I wasn't sure I wanted to run another 5k. I ran easily all summer. No speedwork. No pressure. Fall came and I knew I wanted to run the campus 5k again. Because I'm an idiot, I set the exact same goals for myself, even though I kept telling myself it would be "ok" just to go out there and do my best.

"C" Goal (minimum I wanted to achieve): get a personal best time under 22:50
"B" Goal: run under 22:00
"A" Goal (what I really wanted...): run under 22:00 and place overall

The rest of the story will have to wait for next time, but the good news is that I didn't cry at the end of this 5k like I did the last one...

Scrabble, Crosswords, & Books

I alluded to our book themed wedding in a previous post. After discarding the math theme (somewhat sadly—although I was only ever semi-serious), we moved onto books, words, and just a general literary themes. We (and by we, let's just be honest, I usually mean I...) are planning on including several ideas besides the book centerpieces—which to recap look something like this:

Photo credit.

I'd like to have a mix of books from family members and books that we buy ourselves. Some of my family members have already mentioned that they have copies of several classics I absolutely love—but the idea of having books to take from the wedding to start our own personal library is also a huge draw for me. In ten or twenty years I want to be able to look at the books we bought and know that they have been with us since the beginning. So Nathan and I plan to start looking at old bookstores and thrift shops and buying just a handful of our favorite books at a time.

But besides the book centerpieces, I love these inspiration pictures of crossword puzzle programs:

Photo credit one and two.

My idea is to use all the information you would normally have on a program—names of bridesmaids, groomsmen, etc.—plus some information about ourselves as the clues. We could also include a message of thanks at the bottom. I think I would have these sitting at each place for the reception—I don't know how I would feel about guests working on them during the ceremony?

I have one more big "inspiration" to tie in our literary theme...

Photo credit one, two, three, & four.

So I may have gone a little crazy on the Scrabble inspiration... but how could I say no? I think my favorite is the label for the cake—it's just perfect! Although I do love the ring shot with the Scrabble letters as well.

I think with these three ideas we've cemented the theme—I'd like to add more, but I don't want to go overboard!

Flashback Friday: The Story Continues

When we left off, Nathan and I had just met for the "first" time. From here on out, we worked together every Friday, and every Friday I would try to get him to pay attention to me. In retrospect, it was completely ridiculous for me to spend so much time on my outfit each week, because he never noticed me and doesn't remember any of that now. Oh well—it's the happy ending that counts, right?

Throughout the semester we did talk some. Nathan later confessed to me he would bring more than enough workers over from concessions to help clean up so he could drop the registers off in the office and then stand there and chat for a few minutes.

On the night of the intramural soccer championship in late November, the whole concessions crew and extra help came back to the snack shop after the game for a massive amount of cleanup and organization. It was getting fairly late and the snack shop office door locks automatically at 10:00. Right about at 10:01 I realized I had left my ID card—which opens the snack shop office door—in the office. I asked another manager to throw me his ID card, and he did, literally. Obviously with my coordination skills I didn't catch the card—in fact, it ended up top of one of the vans that were parked in the dock area for unloading. I stepped up onto the side of the van to reach for the card, and as soon as I grabbed it I felt someone really close behind me. My immediate reaction was to jerk back to try to get away, and in doing so I slammed the back of my head into the front of Nathan's face—who had jumped up behind me to reach for the card before I could get it.

I'm not even sure what my first reaction was except to stand there with my hand on my head and say "You just bit me on the head!" It didn't hurt badly, but it was hilarious, and would turn out to be one of the things that finally brought us together.

We talked several more times throughout the semester and the beginning of the next semester. We casually sat together for the opening meeting for the snack shop second semester—actually, I spent the entire time before the meeting scheming on how to sit next to him, while he was doing the exact same thing, but neither of us knew this. I was convinced he had walked in with another girl, while he says he was there by himself. Either way, I was pleased with myself for my "success," yet he still hadn't asked for my number or invited me out...

We're Nerds...

... or I am, anyway. My undergraduate degree was in math and I'm finishing my graduate degree in business at 22 years old—does it get much nerdier than that? So somehow these really nerdy centerpieces really appeal to me...

Photo credit.

I'm not actually planning on doing assigned seating and escort cards, but if I were, I would totally annoy my guests by doing something like this:

Photo credit.

Nathan's not so much of a math nerd—I won't mention how he did in math in high school! Plus, I'm not sure how well having a math themed wedding and requiring guests to solve problems to get their seat assignments would go over. But we do both love to read—and we have lofty ambitions of a library in our house someday. Plus, books are just classically romantic and elegant. So inspiration pictures like this one really spark my imagination.

Photo credit.

So maybe we won't be having a math-inspired wedding... but book themed? Yes please!

The One Where We Find a Venue

(Friends reference)

When we left off, we had found three venues that we loved, but none of them worked out...

So, we started over and narrowed it down to two potential venues—not our first choices but maybe better.

I'm going to spoil this post and just let you know that this story has a happy ending!

Announcing... Luttrell Lodge at the Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center, the location for our May 4th, 2013 wedding.

Photo credit.

We toured the lodge this morning, and I took pictures—unfortunately, the quality is so, so awful I won't post them and ruin your impression! Instead here's a few more pictures from the website:

Photo credit. The inside of the lodge all set up for a wedding. I love that there is a fireplace with a mantel!

Photo credit. Another shot of the inside of the lodge. This one is taken from the kitchen and serving area looking out onto the entire seating area. The lodge technically seats 200 people—there's plenty of space!

Photo credit. This is the outside deck area of the lodge. The glass doors open into the lodge so guests can enjoy being outside if it's a nice day, plus it gives us even more room.

Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center is also the home of Camp Spearhead and Camp Courage—two really great ministries for kids with special needs and illnesses. We're super excited about holding our wedding at the Luttrell Lodge!

Tangent Tuesday: Becoming a Police Officer

Let's just be honest, before I met Nathan, I knew nothing about becoming a police officer. When I was younger, I wanted to be a librarian. Or a teacher. When I got to college and majored in math, I realized teaching probably wasn't what I wanted to do for my entire life—although I loved and still love public speaking, explaining, and learning. I ended up going to graduate school for business and there (I think) I found something I truly love and can be passionate about.

I had this somewhat misguided perception that you went to school to be a police officer (just like you would go to school to be a librarian)—and then you graduated and just like that you were assigned a position. Well turns out it's more like you graduate, fill out twenty page applications, undergo physical and psychological testing, have your entire background examined, go through more testing, wait three to six months, and then maybe get a conditional offer employment... dependent on the results of more tests.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. But in reality the process is significantly more complicated than I ever could have imagined. Even after getting a job, you prepare to go to 12-22 more weeks of police academy, which is in some cases more rigorous both academically and physically than anything you've done so far.

Then you get to wear a hat like this...

Photo Credit.

So attractive.

Nathan has always wanted to be in law enforcement, and obviously I'll support him 100% no matter what he chooses to do. But there's a certain weight attached to a career in law enforcement—just like there is in the military—that you don't necessarily see in job as a librarian or in business, or even as a teacher.

Consider the the Michigan State Police Trooper Pledge:

"I am a Michigan State Trooper, entrusted to keep sacred the traditions of my department. I will always serve honestly and faithfully, surrendering my life for others if necessary. When I am called upon to act, I will not shy from conflict or deviate from my call to duty, serving anyone who may be in peril or distress. I will obey the laws of Michigan, the United States of America and the directives of my department. I will not consider race, color, or creed when enforcing the law. I will perform my duties with excellence, integrity and courtesy, and conduct myself in a manner that honors those who served before me. I am a Michigan State Trooper."

Engagement Shoot Dilemma!

I knew from the beginning I wanted an engagement shoot. Nathan and I aren't good about taking pictures, and when we do—let's be honest, they're just quick shots with my iPhone. I wanted good quality photos, nothing fancy or expensive, but some nice pictures of us that we could frame and have for the future.

The "nothing fancy or expensive" part is where it gets tricky. We're both students, and although we work multiple jobs, we're also very careful with our money and didn't want to spend several hundred dollars on an engagement shoot and then more money on prints.

Enter Niki Marie Photography. Niki is a college student with a ton of talent who went to school with Nathan and his brother. She uses natural light and simple settings—and her pictures are relaxed and beautiful, exactly what I was looking for! A quick Facebook message later and we had booked a slot with her. Here are a few shots of hers I love, all from her Facebook page.

Yes, I know the last picture isn't an engagement shoot, but how cute is that family? The first two and the fifth pictures show the backgrounds I'm interested in—these were all taken in downtown Detroit. Although I love the field and tree pictures, it's not really the look we're going for in our wedding, plus I feel like it limits the variety of the pictures.

So if we have our engagement shoot photographer, and we have a time slot for the shoot, and we have the setting for the pictures... then what's the dilemma?

What to wear, obviously! I'm a "wear black with one color" type of girl, and Nathan couldn't care less. The colors in these pictures are incredible—I love that coral dress! I would love to incorporate some brighter colors, but I'm not sure how...

Time to go shopping?

Flashback Friday: How We Met

I guess technically you could say we "met" in September of 2009 in Computer Science 110... but that would be assuming that each of us actually knew who the other was. Nathan knew who I was and I suppose technically I knew Nathan existed—does that count?

Our teacher, Mr. Schaub, decided that everyone needed to know who everyone else was. He passed out sheets of paper with everyone's name and picture on them, and we were instructed to study the sheet because we would be taking a quiz on it the next week. Being the overachiever that I am, I studied that sheet for real and memorized the names and pictures of everyone in the class. I then aced the quiz the next week, so I had to have known who Nathan was!

Nathan, on the other hand, had a distinct advantage since there were only three girls in the class, and all three of us sat in the first two rows—alphabetically.

We were both interested in other people at the time, and at pretty different places in life. I was a junior in college and still super motivated to do well in my classes to get into graduate school. Nathan was a freshman and... significantly less motivated.

A year later, in September of 2010, we met again. For real this time! I was working as the snack shop student bookkeeper and Nathan was the weekend concessions manager. Every Friday night, he would bring the registers full of money and receipts to me and I would count them down and get them ready for another day of concessions.

I remember on the first concessions Friday of the year I was working in the back office when the new concessions manager walked in with the registers for the night with a cocky half-laughing look on his face. The thought that ran through my mind was "Wow, I get to work with a cute concessions manager for once!" I had absolutely no idea he knew who I was and 100% thought we were meeting for the first time when I took the drawers out of his hands and thanked him for bringing them over...

Coral & Seafoam!

So far, the decision on "wedding colors" has been the easiest—but even then, that doesn't mean everyone agrees! I was positive I wanted to include the color coral in the wedding colors. Sure, it's trendy, but it's also at least a somewhat flattering color on me and the tones are good for a spring wedding.

Coral it was, then. 

The slight problem came in deciding on secondary colors. I was fairly set on seafoam—I mean look at these inspiration photos! How could you say no?

Photo credit.

Photo credit.

I was torn on deciding on a third color. Coral, seafoam, and... ? Gold? Lavender? Just coral and seafoam?

Moving On!

Hopefully yesterday's depressing post about what didn't work out is about as gloomy as it will get. Because it isn't all bad. And when you move on, sometimes you find something better than you had before.

After starting the search over—from scratch, really—there was a very short list of venues that fit what we were looking for at all. Five or six emails later, there were two that fit what we were looking for, had availability on our date, and were within our price range. So here they are:

Photo credit. The Lodge at Table Rock State Park in Pickens, South Carolina.

Photo credit. The Pleasant Ridge Camp & Conference Center in Marietta, South Carolina.

Now it's time to tour these venues and make a decision!

Where to Start?

Wedding planning, that is.

The logical way to start would be simply picking a date and place, but it seems that when you begin planning your wedding less than seven months before you get married, you actually have to tentatively decide on a date... and then try to find a venue that works.

For example, the venue I truly thought would be ours:



Photo credit. The Cleveland Park Event Center of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

It's beautiful, yes, but it's also in a park with a ton of meaning to Nathan and I. We first stumbled across this park while geocaching after a Christmas shopping trip. We returned less than three months later for our one-year "dating anniversary." We came back again several times before ending up here the day we got engaged.

Almost fortunately, we didn't get engaged in this park. Otherwise the email telling me the park was booked for all five—yes five, including two Fridays and a Sunday—dates I was interested in would have been more devastating (drama alert) than it already was. I didn't love the venue so much that I was willing to completely reschedule our wedding plans. Not available for our first or second choice? Ok, I can work with that. Not available for our fourth and fifth choices? Let's take a look at the other options.

Photo credit. The City of Greer Events Center in Greer, South Carolina.

Photo credit. The Davenport in Greer, South Carolina.

These two? Both booked for our top choice. Not only that, there is apparently a Family Festival in Greer the weekend I want to get married... no thanks, I'm not going to battle for limited parking spots and event space on the day of my wedding.

Time to move on.