Our Wedding Day

Hello friends. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would finally do a post dedicated to our wedding day, which was over six months ago already!!! Everyone said that it would fly by, and it really did…but I can honestly say that we enjoyed every single second!!! We had so much fun!

Leading up to the wedding, all I kept saying to everyone was “I have a vision” and my family thought I was crazy! But I really knew the vibe that I wanted and Rob and I made it happen. When we walked into the reception for the first time we were so incredibly happy because our “vision” came to life. It took my breath away. Even my dad commented and said “now I get why you were being so crazy – I see the vision”.

The best thing is, we really did almost everything ourselves and I would recommend that to anyone getting married. It saved us a ton of money and it really was fun to do these little projects. It’s also so rewarding when the wedding day arrives and everything comes together. So this post, I just figured I’d share some pictures, ala Pinterest, and hopefully maybe inspire some brides out there to DIY!

 

Don’t call it a comeback…

Well friends, it’s been a long, long time. I believe my last post was in April of 2015. It is now January of 2016. A lot has happened in that span of time. I got married. I went to Hawaii. I turned 30. I celebrated the Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. And so on, and so on. So why haven’t I posted you ask? Well, there are two reasons why. Number 1 – I’ve been busy as you can see. But I really don’t think that is a good enough excuse not to write. I should make time. Number 2 – I lost my motivation. This is the biggest reason. I guess I’ve been feeling a little blue these days. That probably sounds crazy because of all the wonderful things that have happened in that span of time but it’s true. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly happy with my life and feel very fortunate for the good things I have. However, I’m the type of person who always has and always will question my life and my choices, particularly when it comes to my career. I guess I had been so preoccupied with planning a wedding that I really didn’t put too much thought into my unhappiness with my job. But now that the wedding is over I’ve been constantly thinking about if teaching is the right career path for me. I also feel like the world that we live in is so incredibly messed up lately that it makes me sad. I just didn’t want to bring that negativity on here. To be honest, I almost deleted the blog but then I figured if I keep it, even if I go away for a while, I can always go back and write.

Basically, I need a positive outlet in my life. I miss working out and singing and dancing and doing things for me but because of time restraints, as well as, exhaustion because of my job and commute, I don’t really do anything for me anymore. I come home; cook, clean, lesson plan and then plop myself on the couch for as long as I can keep my eyes open. It’s not healthy and it makes me even more blue. Anyway, writing always makes me feel better so I want to start it up again. And I don’t want to just come on here and complain. That isn’t why I started this thing.

I have a few ideas for a few blog posts that I want to write soon. I need to do a re-cap of my wedding day because honestly, it was the BEST day of my entire life. I also need to do a tribute to Hawaii because I absolutely fell in love with that place when we went on our honeymoon. And besides that, well…you’ll just have to come back to find out what I’m up to!

Hope to see you soon…unless I don’t write for another year…in that case, have a happy 2016 😉

Italian Wedding Craziness

Hello friends, happy Wednesday! So as most of you know, I am getting married this summer. I had planned on it being a laid back enjoyable experience with little to no stress. I planned on being “the cool bride” who didn’t care too much about small little details that in the end wont matter. Boy, was I wrong. So very wrong! Now let me start by saying, everything started off smooth. My fiance and I decided to take our time planning to avoid the stress you usually associate with planning a wedding. It was going well for a while. Then we hit the one year mark. And things started to get crazy. For one reason and one reason only, my crazy Italian family! What is with Italians and weddings? Why must it be such a crazy experience to plan a wedding in an Italian family? I should tell you that I am the first in my family to get married. I am the oldest cousin on both sides. So yea, I get it, it’s a big deal. But madone everything that I decide on seems to be a problem with these people. The politics of who gets invited…”you can’t invite Cousin Anthony without inviting Cousin Marie”…”how are you not going to invite Jack and Lisa, they’ve been our friends for so many years”…”why are you inviting this guy? I don’t know him! I never met him”. Has the whole idea that the wedding should be about two people who are actually getting married gone totally out the window?

Now look, I’m not trying to be selfish. I want to please everyone but some things that are happening with my family…I feel like these things should have been established from the start. We decided on a smaller place for two reasons 1) we wanted a more intimate/rustic feel and 2) it’s a lot less expensive. Okay great! Everyone was on board…125-150 people max! What the hell happened? We’re at 160 right now and the list keeps on growing. Pretty soon our wedding will feel like a clown car where everyone is stuffed in to a space that is way too small. I wanted to avoid that at all costs!

Italians are crazy!!! They get offended over the silliest things. Who is going to be in the wedding party? Who is doing the readings? Who is walking Nanny down the aisle? If it were up to my family my whole entire family would be in the wedding party. I’m sure everyone else would love to sit through 60 people walking down the aisle at church. I mean by the time I walked down the aisle nobody would even care! I’m told that this is very normal. I’m trying to have patience but it is wearing thin!!!

Part of the problem is me. My fiance knows enough to just yes everyone to death and then we just do what we want. Smart man! Here’s the twist guys…my crazy Italian-ness makes me such a stubborn human being that I literally don’t know how to shut my mouth. So in the end, I’m just as crazy as they are. Isn’t that wonderful?

So I guess the moral of the story is Italians are crazy!!! I love my family but they are beyond NUTS! And so am I! Good luck to my fiance on marrying into this!

It’s too damn soon!

What is with this country’s obsession for everything to be rushed?! Why can’t we live in the moment?! This drives me crazy!

So, unlike what I’m complaining about in this post…I am a little delayed in writing this. Let me explain…the first week of July, THE FIRST WEEK…as in my first week OFF from teaching, I saw a back to school commercial. BACK TO SCHOOL! BACK! I had just gotten OUT of school. So, my whole summer vacation, every time I would sit down and watch TV (which in the summer is pretty rare) I would have to watch “Back to School” commercials. Do you know how God awful that is for a teacher?!

The same thing bothers me every November (and last year OCTOBER which is so ridiculous)…before Thanksgiving even has a chance to be celebrated, Christmas commercials start to bombard our televisions. Every year it gets earlier and earlier…every year I get more and more annoyed. They even start playing Christmas music 24/7 in November…before we are even able to sit down for turkey! I ignore it. My rule is Christmas cannot be celebrated until Santa comes through on his sleigh in the Thanksgiving parade. Then we’re allowed to get excited for Christmas.

And it’s not just the big bad advertisers. It’s everybody. Since I’ve been engaged I’ve noticed it more and more. Rob and I got engaged a year and a half ago, we’re getting married in exactly a year. That means we are going to be an engaged couple for 2 1/2 years. People are always so shocked to hear that we have been (and will be) engaged for that long. Since we got engaged I can’t tell you how many people I know have got engaged and got married, or set their date significantly before ours. What is the rush? You will be married for your whole life. Being engaged is a once in a lifetime thing, why not ENJOY it? I love being engaged. We already had one full year of calling one another fiancé without worrying about the stress of planning a wedding. And now that it’s a year away, we are planning things one thing at a time, without the stress that everyone keeps telling me that I will be feeling. I don’t feel stressed AT ALL about planning our wedding. We gave ourselves time and I think it was the best thing we could possibly do!

So what is the moral of this long rant here? Live in the moment my friends. Stop rushing things and wishing your life away! You know I learned this lesson the hard way this year. In the beginning of the year I was literally counting the days until my next vacation and it made it so hard to go to work every day. Once I came back Spring Break (and a year of countdowns), I said to myself “just stop wishing the days away and maybe you’ll actually enjoy yourself”. And you know what? I did! As soon as I stopped counting down I started to stress less. I started to live in the moment and actually did enjoy myself. Not to say I didn’t have my bad days, I mean let’s be real…it is work…I’m not delusional…but stopping the countdown made it much more bearable.

STOP THE COUNTDOWNS. STOP THE MADNESS. ENJOY YOUR LIFE! LIVE IN THE MOMENT!

Rant over!