I popped my head up from the very back of the room to try and catch a glimpse of the stage. I was wondering if I heard that right, and I was surprised I did. Why on Earth would Anthony be on stage, let alone the first person to go up there? What secret is he going to have? For a split second I was embarrassed for him, wondering what would motivate him to do such a thing because it seemed so out of character.

And then, I heard the question. I sat there engulfed in a feeling of who-knows-what and started getting butterflies in my stomach. Apparently, my reaction was too slow since Sara and Jonathan were urging me to get up and walk. My walk was even slower than my reaction. Mind you, I was in the back of a large room whose length could be compared, at the time, to that of a football stadium. The walk seemed forever and towards the end, I started speed walking. It didn’t help that I was hauling around a huge purse that equated to the size of carry-on luggage.

I walked up to the stage with a big smirk on my face and whispered “yes, of course honey…” only to find out that I didn’t say that loud enough nor did I lean in towards the mic to say it. Repeating myself, I forced a monotone “yes” into the microphone which ended up sounding lifeless and emotionless. Trust me when I say I was anything but emotionless. I was ecstatic!

A lot of people say that the dress is one of the most important things of your wedding. It’s what you’ve been waiting for since you were a little girl, sitting on the porch day dreaming about Prince Charming sweeping you off of your feet and getting married in a beautiful Princess ballgown.

In reality, I never daydreamed of my Prince Charming or getting married. I was too busy fiddling around with AOL chatrooms and learning how to breakdance.

When it comes to a wedding dress, I want it to reflect my everyday style. I don’t need that extra poof, lace or bustle. I want something simple and elegant. I am not sure I fall for the “perfect dress” stories that I hear or read about. As simple as I want the dress to be, I want the process of finding one to be even more simple.

I love Jim Hjelm, Monique Lhuillier, Lara Helene and several other designers I’ve seen in the, oh..about 50 magazines that I’ve bought in the last few months. I also know I want a sweetheart neckline with a chapel/cathedral train.

J Crew “Lucinda” Dress

Lara Hélène “Jessica” Dress

Mary, my sister-in-law, and brother are coming to New York from Dallas on Thursday. We plan on taking the better half of Friday to visit bridal ateliers so I can find a style that suits me. Pessimistically, I doubt I will find anything I will fall in love with but you never know what can happen!

I remember starting out looking at wedding dresses and being completely overwhelmed by all of the wedding dress terminology. Now, as warned by Jessica, I have learned it all due to overexposure to wedding dress pictures and endless researching.

Because I have dubbed myself a creative and crafty person, I have decided to take a stab at designing (with help from the fiance, of course) and wedding planning our wedding.

I have decided that I will be making each and every invitation by hand. All 200 to 250 of them. It seems like a big task but hopefully I can enlist the help of Anthony and his best man. I found a machine that is only manufactured in Japan called a RISO Gocco. It is similar to screen printing, but a lot more efficient and not as messy or time consuming to set up.

The results look beautiful and I hope that once I try my hands at it, I’ll be as successful as everyone else. How hard can it be, right?

Image from uglykitty on flickr

Image from uglykitty on flickr

This machine will help us create our invitations, envelopes, RSVP cards, menu cards, thank you notes and whatever else we want to do. The savings just for doing the invitations ourselves is massive and I’m really excited about it so it should make the labor half as bad as it would be if I were to dread it.

On top of that, Anthony’s aunt owns a bakery in El Paso and she will be making our cake. We’re not sure how much she will be charging us, if anything at all, but that will also save us a lot of money.

For flowers, we are in conversations about doing trade work with Nathan, owner of Gro in Dallas, and we’ll be exchanging a website for flowers. Again, a lot of money saved.

That’s the general overview of where our wedding planning is going.

We’ve been engaged for five months now and will finally be finishing up our website. I am very much ready to get started on everything else that wedding planning entails. Hell, I haven’t even gone dress shopping yet!