What a lucky girl I am!

When I was spreading the news of Aaron and I's engagement to my extended family, I had to laugh at my Aunt Gloria Isbell calling dibs on throwing me a shower.  Such enthusiasm! :)  And how lucky am I to have such a generous Aunt, she is throwing me a bridal shower at The Guenther House in San Antonio at the end of October! 

Isn't that sooo awesome?  It is this beautiful historical home right on the San Antonio River!  San Antonio was picked so it would be easy for my Granny to come and my aunts and cousins - they are all in the Austin/San Antonio area.  I am really looking forward to it, it is going to be so nice and fun, I just know it! 

Aunt Gloria is the one in the pink (bottom left)

While I love all my Aunts and Uncles dearly, I have a special little nook in my heart for Aunt Gloria.  She is so funny and generous and poised and sassy (but in a good way!(I think you kind of have to be when you are the only girl with four brothers!)).  And I always remember when I was a teenager and bugging my mom to let me dye my hair bright red, or pierce something, Aunt Gloria was always my advocate, lol.  She'd tell my Mom, '...well if that is the worst thing she wants to do, you are doing alright!'  And now as she has just retired from teaching, and has the most adorable new grand daughter on the planet, she has carved out some time to do this for me, to which I am so grateful.  Sometimes I don't think I could ever be derserving enough for all the good and wonderful people in my life who love me. 

I must just be really lucky :)

Moving

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been in the middle of moving out of my apartment.  My lease is up, we are pretty sure our parents (and at very least, grandparents and God) would frown upon us 'shacking up' even though we are engaged, so I am moving back to the west side of town to live with my Mom and brother until the wedding.  It is a pretty easy move though, because lucky for me, Aaron lives in the same building, so we are just throwing out his old stuff, and carting most of mine over to his place!  Let me tell you though, I might be a hoarder of old papers and stuff.  I have boxes and boxes of stuff that were in my closet that I have been going through, the best was receipts from oil changes I got 2 cars ago.  Why do I keep this stuff?! 

So the move is going well, and is just about done, and I will miss Aaron and my old place so so much.  I love that apartment.  Sure the hallway is smelly, and there are only 3 electrical outlets in the entire place, and no central a/c, and I can hear everyone enter and exit the building...but I can walk to some really awesome museums and parks, my commute to work is the opposite way of traffic both ways, and I have lived there for 2 years.  2 years out of nearly 30 doesn't seem like much, but aside from my home growing up, I have never lived anywhere that long.  I was the moving champion in college, I was there 7 years (don't judge) and I went through 9 residences and had 11 different roommates.  I like to think of myself as nomadic.  lol.

I did have a thought, however, that makes me want to savor these last 4 days of my lease.  This will be the last time I live alone.  (or as Aaron so sweetly puts it - 'well, until I die')  Living with roommates has always been fun or advantageous in some form to me, but once I got over the initial feelings of lonesomeness and fear of being murdered by a robber, I have learned that I truly enjoy living by myself.  Living with my family will no doubt be pretty easy, we all get along and are respectful of one another, etc., and I am sure living with Aaron will be fun too, but nothing much can compare to have a whole space with a door and a lock where you don't have to be considerate of anyone else, no one moves your things around, or eats the last pop-tart.

So I am going to miss the old place, I will always remember you fondly.

BHLDN in Houston!

!!!!!!!!

Save the Dates

Look what the UPS man brought today!

Our save the dates from www.peartreegreetings.com!

And check out the super cute postage I got for them!

www.zazzle.com

And here is a better copy of the final draft.

We decided against the original pictures, lol.  I think they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  Now my main to-do list item is to get the addresses I am lacking and then my super talented Mom is going to calligraphy them, and then they will be sent out!  Hurray!

A Letter to Fr John

This is a little late, but...

Two weeks ago, I sent this letter to Fr John, the head priest at our church:

Hi Fr. John, 

I emailed you a while back about reserving January 28th for Aaron Hinkley and I's wedding, and I just had some questions I was hoping you could help me with. 

1. As far as time goes, you had mentioned 4:30 was the latest we could schedule the ceremony?  Just wanted to confirm this.  How long does a ceremony generally last?

2. Are there any certain rules of decorations and things that we should be aware of for decorating the ceremony space?

3. I have never attended an Orthodox wedding, Aaron had told me that we have wedding crowns that we wear for part of the ceremony, is there anything else we need to provide for the ceremony?  And also, I'd like to have a ceremony programs sort of explaining the ceremony (most of our guests will have not been to an Orthodox wedding ceremony) - do you know of a good resource to find this information, or maybe have an example of one?

4. Do we need to provide music?

5. Costs for ceremony?

6. Will the church be available in the afternoon for photos? (we are planning to take them beforehand I think, if we can)

7. Fr. Symeon had mentioned something about meeting for pre-marriage classes, or something along those lines - is that something offered/recommended that couples do?

I think that is all I had for now, sorry there are so many - I am a crazy planner! :) Thank you for all your help!

Natalie Martinez

His response was:

I think we should set up a meeting.

lol

So we did just that, and had a meeting with Fr John last Saturday.

SO helpful!

I got this handy packet of info, all of my questions (for now) answered, AND 2 wedding videos of ceremonies that took place at our church!

In case you ever wondered how to have an Orthodox wedding, here you go! (click the image for a larger view)

Relationship Question

There is a popular segment that airs every Thursday morning on one of the radio stations in Houston called Roula and Ryan's Roses.  The premise of this show is a person in a relationship who suspects their partner of being unfaithful, calls the show and talks to the DJs (Roula and Ryan) about where their suspicions are coming from. (ie: he's acting distant, I found a tube of lipgloss in his car that isn't mine, her phone has all these flirty text messages from someone...etc.)  Well then, Roula calls your probably cheating partner and tells them - "Hi, I am from Plants and Flowers Inc. and you company has entered all the employees into a drawing for a dozen long stem roses and you are this week's winner!  We are sending them free of charge, just to promote our business, so who would you like to send those to?"  9 out of 10 times it is a woman calling about her dude.  And 9 times out of 10 he sends those free roses to his gal on the side.  At that point, Roula says "Well, Steve, you are actually on KRBE radio right now, and we have Jane on the line right now, and boy do you have some explaining to do!"  Then the crazy yelling and cursing goes on between the couple:  I f(*^%$# KNEW IT!  You are a (*^^$%^#$%^&%(*&,  and I hate you, it is over.  To which he responds, I can't believe you called the radio station!!?! &*^&*%(**&^. 
It is like a radio version of that show cheaters.
And I sort of hate the show, because it is so depressing.  It makes you think that every person out there is a real dirtbag.

Well, today's show was quite refreshing.  The gal called in and said her live-in boyfriend of 4 years all of the sudden has been acting sooo quiet and working late all the time.  Just really unusual stuff, and not communicating to her about anything.  So they call him up and he tells them YES, send them to the girlfriend.  Friday is going to be BIG, I am planning on proposing!  This is where is gets weird, since girlfriend is listening in on the call, and there are no flowers.  They say on the show that even if the accused sends the flowers to you, you still have to confront them on what you set them up for.  So I am thinking, yay, thank God, a good guy for once!  Well the guy gets soooo mad.  I mean, his surprise is ruined, and as it turns out he had been working an extra job so that he could afford a nice ring for his lady.  So she feels terrible, and he is now concerned that she thinks this is something he is capable of or that he is going to be put on trial every time he doesn't want to talk about something.  So they now have some stuff to work out, needless to say.

So my question to you guys is - Is it wrong to withhold things from your partner? 

My personal opinion is that I feel bad for the guy since he was being the opposite of a big jerk, but he can't be that surprised that he starts to disappear in the evenings with no word on what he is up to, and his girlfriend wouldn't come to that conclusion.  I mean, communication breakdowns can ruin relationships.  He probably should have said something to appease her until the surprise happens.  But what do you guys think?  When is it okay to keep stuff from your other half?  And not to get all John Quinones on you, but what would you do if you were being accused of cheating and you weren't?

If you click the about link, you should be able to access the actual segment online until midnight tonight!

Side note

I think I fixed the issue with the comments not working, for those of you with comments :)

Honeymoon...

I know I am jumping the gun here, but I just really want to head north right about now.  It is soooo stinkin' hot in Texas right now, and no sight of rain for a while!  


We kind of picked a weird time to get married, us both being students.  We will be a good two weeks or so into the Spring 2012 semester when we tie the knot, plus is will be winter, so jet setting off to the Bahamas makes little sense - as does going anywhere right after the wedding.  Also, we have planned to take a trip to Japan with my little brother Jeff.  And we have to go during the certain windows when sumo wrestling is going on, because if you can't see a sumo wrestling match when you are in Japan, what is the point??!  So that trip will be taking place in May as (hopefully) we are all done with college/masters programs/PhD (we are taking Jeff for his college graduation gift, and ourselves for our graduation gifts)  But first big trip post-nuptials cannot not be your honeymoon.  That being said, little brothers cannot be on your honeymoon with you.  So that leaves us with Spring break week!  Woot, South Padre here we come!!!  Totally joking, we aren't 20 year old frat guys.


Picking a honeymoon locale was not too difficult for Aaron and I because I practically begged him to agree to go to Montreal.  I am not 100% certain why I am obsessed with going to Montreal, but I have heard great things about how cool of a city it is, and about 65% of my my favorite bands come from Montreal.  And they speak French there, which is fun.
I have been to Canada only once and fell head over heals in love - we were in Victoria, the quaintest place I have ever been (though Savannah, GA runs a close second) and Vancouver which happens to be my Granny's hometown!  Plus everything about Canada seems so nice, and clean, and well mannered, lol.  My Granny likes to diss the left side of the country, apparently the West side are not fond of the French, so I hope she isn't too heartbroken that we are going despite her warning.


So we are going to Montreal, and Toronto if we have time, and spending the latter part of the week in Quebec City per Aaron's request.  I don't know where he finds out about stuff like Quebec City, but after some researching, it looks totally awesome!  Maybe even more awesome than Montreal!  


http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/MontrealTV

Quebec City (can it get any more scenic??)

And I sort of hope we can swing by Niagara Falls, as a kitschy side trip.  And we could be just like Jim and Pam from The Office, lol.  


But yeah, I'm ready to be on that trip already.

Bridesmaid Dresses!

For the past 3 weeks, I have been searching far and wide for the perfect bridesmaid dresses.  These dresses were to be elegant.  These dresses were to be reasonably priced.  These dresses were to be figure flattering for multiple body types.  These dresses were to be appropriate to wear in a church.  These dresses were to make my favorite ladies look fierce. 

and I think we've got it! :)

Engagement Photos!

I was somewhat dreading these.  First of all, it is hotter than the surface of the sun in Houston these days.  Second of all, I had been meaning to lose 50 pounds before this photoshoot, and clearly that has yet to happen.  But we took our nice camera, our 3-4 different 'looks' and my little brother Jeff (our discount photographer, he only costs a McDonald's breakfast, lol) and hit the town at 8am on Saturday.  We sure were go getters!  I know a lot of real (no offense, Jeff) photographers have packages that include an engagement photo shoot and all of that, but I just wanted to get them done and over with because it isn't getting any cooler outside, and I wanted to get our Save the Dates ordered so we can get them out during the first part of July.  Plus, bonus, with real photographers you get maybe 2 locations max (or pay extra) but with Natalie in charge, we could have no less than 5.  I just like to be thorough, and we were already dressed up, and I didn't know which photos I was going to like...   But anyway.  We only needed two good photos for the photoshoot, and out of 500 or so we took, only about 30 were 'facebook worthy', lol.  It was kind of awkward at first, but it was pretty fun once we got over that. 
For anyone curious of some good engagement photo locales in Houston, we took pics at:
Discovery Green
Downtown on Preston St.
Bell Street Metro train stop (only because our reception venue is on Bell St.)
The phone booth in front of The Black Labrador on Montrose
Hermann Park

And now for the main event:

If you want to see all the 'facebook worthy' shots, they are on the Bells and Bows facebook page (you might need to 'like' it first) or you can click on the facebook page icon on the left sidebar and it'll get you there!

Cake!

My favorite topic! :)

So we have come to that portion of the program where we need to figure out a cake concept and find a bakery to make it!  I have had a couple referrals of some good places around town that are reasonably priced, so I just need to schedule a time for Aaron and I to go sample some of the goods.  This will no doubt be my favorite part of wedding planning, I can already tell!

As far as cake concept goes, I am still proceeding with caution.  We don't have a humongous cake budget, and we need it to feed 200+ people, so I have no idea what I can afford at this point.  I only know the obvious - the more detailed = more expensive, fondant = $$$, regular icing = $$.  With that being said, here is the picture dump of cakes I like from the internet!  (they are all from http://www.weddingchannel.com/)

I like the interesting texture on this cake.  Aaron is like dead set against fondant because he claims it tastes horrible, so I think something like this could make everyone happy.

I think the details on this cake are just gorgeous!  It is just my style too.  I like simple, with a touch of something to give it some personality. 

I sort of dig the square shape.  And I adore the vibrant colors, and how each tier is a different design.

I like how the middle tier is different, and I like the birds on top :)

I like this cake because it is tall, and I like the criss-cross-ish design.  Very modern looking.

Bows <3

How cool looking is this?

I like all the different shapes, makes a simple cake much more interesting!

Man, I wish I had some cake right now.

First Wedding Gift!

I totally almost forgot, when we were heading back to Houston, Aaron's Mom sent us packing with our very first wedding gift!  And we got permission to open it!  I couldn't have waited 7 months though, I am super impatient with presents, lol.

Fancy!

We got a super cool set of tiered serving dishes in different sizes!  I can wait to have a place suitable for entertaining, because those will definitely get used with how much I bake around here... :)

Groomsmen! (Finally!)

I have been waiting for Aaron to ask his groomsmen for MONTHS now, so at last I said, you have until June 1st, then I am asking them for you.  Sometimes you have to get assertive...

First up we have Aaron's best man, Doug!  Aaron knows Doug from college, and was Doug's best man when Doug got married!  Fun fact: the guest room in Doug's house has officially been named "The Aaron E Hinkley Guest Suite", lol.

Then we have Dylan (left) and Jeremy (middle) who are Aaron's good friends from college.  I will have to add some fun facts later, because it is too early in the morning to call Aaron.

And lastly, Aaron's future brother-in-law, my little brother Jeff.  Here they are on Thanksgiving, about to sample some Fourloko, the trashy caffeinated alcoholic beverage.  We once saw a lady on Intervention who drank it like it was going out of style, so we have always been curious.  It is pretty terrible, just as we suspected.

But anyway, that is the lineup, and I am so excited for everyone to be a part of our day!  Love these guys! :)

April Flowers bring May Showers

Bridal Showers, that is!  So we (Annie and Summer and myself) threw Angela a bridal shower on Sunday before Aaron and I left back to Houston, it was really really fun!  The theme was vintage sassy housewives, because Angela is a PhD student in History, and it was just so her style.  We had the guests wear aprons and pearls, and Summer had the guests send in recipes and compiled a little cookbook for Angela.  We had it at Annie's house, which is like the most perfect party throwing house if I ever saw one - and she made all the food (and so many things from scratch, what?!), and it turned out AWESOME!  Everything turned out so good you guys, I was seriously impressed with us!

Some Decor - Aren't those yarn balls cool?!

I made that!  And I am so not crafty, lol

The spread: Quiches, sherbet punch, bundt cake, mini tea sandwiches, spinach meatballs and little bruschettas 

Everything was soooo yum!

There is the bride! 

Playing games

Toilet Paper wedding gowns!

We had a crasher.  lol

I was in charge of games for the event, and to be honest, I was suuuuper nervous.  I love playing shower games, but some crowds seem not so into it.  And the only ones I knew were my co-hosts and Angela.  Turns out everyone had fun with them, so that was awesome.  We played a 'guess the celebrity couple' game where I just printed off 20 photos of celebrity couples and we guessed who they were (duh).  A 'guess the spice' game, where I passed around a bunch of different unlabeled spices and everyone guessed what they were.  That game was actually a little difficult!  Then we had a toilet paper wedding dress fashion show, which was hilarious.  And lastly we played 'How well does Angela know Erik' where everyone guessed how many questions out of 20 she would get right.  The joke is, the questions are sort of ridiculously hard, and every time she gets one wrong she had to chew a piece of gum.  So by the end, you have a sizable wad of gum in your mouth, lol.  Angela was a good sport about it though! Then we ate cake and opened gifts and all that fun stuff!  It was a great afternoon, and I think Angela really enjoyed it!  And her friends and family are totally cool and it was so great meeting everyone :)  And we get to go back in September for the wedding, SUPER YAY!

Fun in Las Vegas!

We took Aaron's family to Benihanna on Friday night - here is some of the action!

Awww shucks.

Group shot!

Happy B-day Aaron!

We went to the Cheesecake Factory with Angela for lunch :)

Aaron lost some money

Someone else lost money and got pretty mad about it

Aaron came back to win big money!  12000 pennies, to be exact

We met the happy couple for lunch at Mesa Grill, which is so yum to the max

Then we went out to the Yard House Saturday night

Chicken and waffles B-day breakfast of 30 year old champions

And birthday bowling!

Hi Annie

Erik, who is the best bowler in town, we found out

Cupcakes!

Oh yeah!

So fun, can't wait to go back! :)