62 years

Today my boss; a man I respect and admire, lost his wife of 62 years and his companion of 64 1/2 years. Together they escaped the Holocaust, genocide, wars, and multiple immigrations to finally settle peacefully in America. Together they survived and lived the American dream.

For 64 1/2 years he was devoted in love and admiration to one woman. They lived through things separately and together that fortunately most of us only see or experience in movies. For 64 1/2 years they loved each other. I am sure not every year was perfect, but they worked at their love and they have an amazing family and an amazing marriage to show for it.

We live in a time where marriage is a controversy. Not only marriage equality but also the respect we give marriage and the union itself. If two people who have lived through unimaginable things can last for 64 1/2 years what is stopping all of us? My words can not express to you the emotion and love he had for her. I think we can all appreciate that 62 years is your complete heart and soul.

When planning a wedding we tend to focus on the details of the day itself. Today take a moment to honor the years to come. When they celebrated their 62nd anniversary, just 2 weeks ago, he said to me "think of us when you make it to 62". Today I am thinking about 62 and I am mourning his loss.

I just ate...

2 donuts. I have to run a 10K in 5 weeks this madness has to stop!

Real Smog Shoppe Wedding - Theresa & Ken

Today's real Smog Shoppe Wedding comes from Trista Lerit Photography. Theresa & Ken had their wedding reception at the Smog Shoppe. What can I say? I love this bride's style her belt is epic and as we are 2 months out I am totally gushing over any real Smog Shoppe wedding I can get my hands on.See that huge screen? That is going to be where our dance floor is. I am racking my brain thinking about what to play on it all night. My first thoughts go to movies we love i.e. Casablanca. Ideas?
The stairs in the venue make this shot pretty easy. I have been leaning towards doing a shot like this but we are going to have a tent outside (winter) so it may not work. Also, would this be a pain the but to gather everyone in one space?

Sigh, 2 months to January people, 2 months.

November To-Dos

Also known as my ever growing and expanding list of wedding projects and tasks. I am well aware that this list is self imposed. Tuesday Eric and I had a little bit of a fight closely resembling the Bridezilla moment of The Bowie Bride. So the fight was about how I have something on our list that he doesn't think needs to get done because my list is made up. So I explained to him the reasons for the list and everything is copacetic. I am going to explain the list reasons here now because I think its important to acknowledge why I do this every month.

I am not an organized person, I am the type of person that can be organized when they want to be. I want to be organized for wedding planning. In fact I need to be organized for wedding planning. You all know how much time, consideration and brain cells go into this whole wedding thing so I don't need to say that sometimes it can be overwhelming. Well its reality check time we are nearly 2 months away and coming up on the very hectic holiday season so I am doing things really far in advance for most brides because I don't want to deal with it and the holidays at the same time. This has proved to be a blessing so far. For example I addressed and packaged our invitations 3 weeks before we sent them out. I also bought my bridesmaids gifts 2 months ago so I could expense it now instead of during the cash strapped holiday season.

I have been doing everything in advance and I think its working. I am a zen bride except for the occasional freak outs, everything has been pretty smooth after the initial first days of planning. Because of this I have been having a lot of fun with planning which makes the whole getting married experience pretty fun. This I hope means that the actual week of/day of I will be able to sit back, relax and enjoy myself. So onto the list...

• We still need to get a final quote from our caterer. Things changed with the rental situation and we are over budget so we are changing the game plan and hopefully cutting some fat from the bill. After this we will be able to sign the contract and give the deposit. Rumor has it this will happen by the end of the week!
• Flower/Decor meeting. This month I am having dinner with our family friend who graciously offered to do our centerpieces. Before this meeting I have to actually narrow down my ideas so we can come to a cohesive design plan.
  
• After this meeting I plan on doing some shopping at ikea/target or craft stores to get some supplies for the centerpieces/decor that has yet to be decided.
  
• Eric will decide and buy his suit and probably start to buy his accessories; i.e. shirt, shoes ect.
• We get our disk of edited engagement photos. This means my Mom will put an announcement into our very small town local newspaper. (very big deal for mom)
• We will ask Eric's Aunt to do an additional reading during the ceremony, our other reader will be my brother.
  
• Buy our wedding bands. This is happening Saturday!
• Send Invitations - DONE!
• Decide on pie baker - DONE! This is supposed to be book pie baker but I don't think we even need to do that till right before the wedding
  
• Confirm our personal reservations at the Hotel Erwin and check room availability for remaining guests
  
• Book make-up and hair trial
• Dress fitting
• Dance Lessons
• Confirm production of our Chuppah - my Dad is making it
  
• Review our contracts and map out final payments be sure we are in compliance with rules
  
• Confirm our valet parking contract and send deposit
• Negotiate bridal party transportation from hotel to the venue
• Work on photography day of schedule
• Brainstorm parent gift ideas
• Chalk Boards
• Bachelorette/Bachelor Parties
• Order wine - actually a family friend will be doing this as our wedding present.
  
• Begin writing vows
• Book a babysitter for the reception (mandatory by the venue)
• Brainstorm Out of Town bag items and kids table items start collecting them.
  
• Decide on making a map for directions to the venue from the hotel
• Decide on headpiece - DONE!
• Decide on make-up
• Figure out Ketubah signing logistics and display logistics for ceremony/reception

*these will all be subjects or content of future November posts.

Blog Award!

I have been awarded a blog award by Buhdoop. If you haven't checked out her blog do so now! She is a dedicated Bride Brain reader and an awesome bridal blogger.So the deal is 10 facts about me and 10 other blogs to award. Here are the facts:

1. I am tall, really tall 6'. This makes me 1 inch taller than Eric.
   
2. I have never lived alone, sometimes I wish I had the opportunity to.
   
3. I have no idea what I want to do as a career. I thought that by the time I finished college it would pop out to me but it hasn't. I am learning that life is something you have to constantly figure out.
   
4. I have an older brother who is technically my 1/2 brother, we are 12 years apart. I have a younger sister who is 20 months younger than me, we fought constantly growing up and now we get along.
   
5. I have played volleyball since the 2nd grade. When I was young I would go to camps. In the 5th grade I started playing on club teams. I made varsity my freshman year of high school and was recruited to play in college. I ended up injuring myself in college and never technically played in a game for UCSC. I am still considered an alumni of the volleyball team at UCSC.
6. I am the most indecisive person I know. It takes me so long to order dinner at a restaurant because I can't decide which item I want to eat. I drive Eric nuts on a nightly basis when it comes to figuring out dinner.
   
7. I cry at everything even remotely emotional, even Hallmark commercials.
8. I used to only listen to country music. I still like it but now I listen to every kind of music. My iPod is a mishmash of genres.
9. I have never seen The Phantom of the Opera but I know all of the songs. I used to dance along to the soundtrack in a "ballet" style in my bedroom when I was little.
10. I secretly blog. Only 2 or 3 of my friends know about the blog and only 2 of them read it.
    

So now I am going to give the award to some of my bride followers. I know some of you have already received this award but consider this a thank you and recognition for being my audience and sanity. I truly appreciate your feedback and comments to my daily thoughts. Thanks for reading A Bride's Brain. I enjoy reading all of your blogs and following along in your day to day planning and lives. For those of you who don't blog thanks for reading mine and be sure to read these ladies! Also, come out and say "Hi" every once in a while!

Buhdoop
A Los Angeles Love
The Bowie Bride
Thoughts of the All Consumed Bride
Stylish Giving
Inspiring Brides
Red White Bride
Couture Bowl
Cupcake Wedding
The Thirty Something Bride
Mason Jar Bride
A Chocolate Lover's Confessions

Let's Dance!

I LOVE TO DANCE. I even have a signature move called "just jenn" it is ridiculous. Seriously. I am sure it doesn't count as dancing. It is along the same lines as my other favorite dance moves "the bus driver" and 'the shopping cart", you guys know what I am talking about. The point is I love to move to music I don't care what it looks like because dancing is fun, social and awesome.

Eric on the other hand hates it. He is convinced everyone is looking at him when he dances (this couldn't be further from the truth) so he flat out refuses to do it because he thinks he is no good (also not the truth).

So when it comes to the first dance, in which, everyone will be watching him/us, he had a condition: dance lessons. That's right readers my groom requested lessons. Not only did he request them but he decided that he didn't just want to do a generic dance he wanted to have a dance choreographed for us. He felt that if he had specific steps to take he would be more comfortable. So this is how our Wednesday nights turned into dance lesson nights. Tonight is our 3rd lesson with Danny of Ballroom Madness. It is going pretty good. I wish I could divulge all of the juicy details of our first dance, the moves and mostly the song but Eric has me on lock down. No one but us and Danny know the song or the dance. It is pretty exciting to have this drama at our wedding we aren't really dramatic people but in a way this dance is going to be entertainment for the guests... I hope they like it.

As far as the lessons go we are improving. We could stand to practice more in between but I guess life just gets in the way. It is weird to have this set thing to do with each other on a weekly basis but its pretty fun.

Honored Guest

We are inviting the Obama's to our wedding. I am not delusional about them actually coming, but we are sending them an invitation. If you send a wedding invitation to the sitting president you get a letter back from the President about your wedding. We both thought this would be a great keepsake.

Do you want to send an invitation to the Obama's?:

The Honorable Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama
The White House
Greetings Office Room 39
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Prefer to fax it over? Use: 202-395-1232

You should allow 6 weeks for a reply.

*if they do come... we will make room ; )