Monday, February 25, 2008

Color motif

We've decided to go with the color blue for our wedding motif. Not a sky blue or navy blue but similar to the color on this cake:


We don't have a complimentary color to go with it yet... maybe white or silver or both?

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Church confirmed!

We didn't waste any time and started planning the wedding the day after our engagement. Well, actually we started planning a while ago but this time it was "official." We agreed that we didn't want to wait to have the wedding until 2009 but we also didn't want to schedule it too early in 2008 and not have enough time to plan. Besides, the Catholic church requires that you notify them at least 6 months before the wedding date. That left the months of September-December. November and December were out b/c i hate cold weather and October wasn't an option b/c of our work schedules... this left September!

On Monday (02/11), I called the church and asked about their availability in September. The two available Saturday dates/times were sept. 6 at 11am and sept. 13 at 11am or 2pm. There was no way i was gonna do an 11am ceremony! An 11am ceremony meant that we and the entire bridal party would have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get ready and I didn't want to put anyone through that misery, so we chose the 2pm time slot. But before we could book the date/time, I had to speak to the priest and confirm his availbility.

We chose Father Wilson to officiate our ceremony. He's not the Parish priest of my church but I've heard him at other churches and I've always enjoyed his sermons. He speaks with a clear, strong voice, and his sermons are brief and straight to the point. He tries to relate it to everyday life which is great because it actually makes you want to listen, you know?! He works as a Child Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins during the week so I was just going to leave him a voicemail at his home base church. As luck would have it, he was taking a "mental health day" and was at the church when I called. He was more than happy to accept our invitation. We scheduled a meeting for April and he asked us to bring our baptismal certificates and the date/place of our confirmation written on a piece of paper. He wanted to give us enough time to get the certificates since they had to be obtained directly from the church we were baptized in (which meant photocopying Mom's copy wasn't an option). I couldn't believe that it only took us two days to confirm the church AND the priest! The entire process was easier than I thought!


Thursday, February 21, 2008

My new ring =)

I had a general idea of what kind of ring I wanted. I'd cut out pics i'd see in magazines and visit websites like adiamondisforever.com (admit it, you've probably done it, too). On adiamondisforever.com you get to design your own ring, but nevertheless, I still couldn't find the exact ring I wanted anywhere until I stumbled across a picture of it in a... wedding blog!! The person had posted this picture of a platinum, split shank, brilliant cut ring by Tiffany & Co. I thought it was sooo beautiful. I tried not to fall in love with it but I did... Hey! A girl can dream!!! I wanted to find out more about it but online searches didn't return any results. Even the person who posted the picture didn't know where to find it! Cory and I went to their Vegas store during our August trip, but the saleslady wasn't familiar with the design either. She persuaded me to try on their other rings. Even though they were all gorgeous, and much to Cory's surprise, nothing sparked my interest. I had given up on it and thought it didn't exist until...

Cory proposed and pulled out the ring from his pocket! He had gone to the Vienna store, explained the situation to the sales associate and decided to have it made at their NYC location. The process took a while, however, he managed to find a way to get it ~ what an amazing guy! See why I love him so much?!?!?!
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"YES!"

Below is my version and then his version of the proposal:


MY VERSION:
It was Sunday, February 10 and I had just finished working a 3-day meeting at the Sheraton hotel in DC. I was really looking forward to starting off the week because the next day was Cory’s bday and we both had the day off, and we also planned a Valentine's trip to NYC later on in the week. I suggested that we go to the National Gallery of Art after my meeting since we were already in DC, and he suggested stopping by the Botanic Garden after the art gallery. Last summer, we went to the garden and walked around the outside but we ran out of time and didn't get to go inside the Conservatory.

I asked him to pick me up at noon from the hotel. He got there on time (of course) and waited patiently in the car because (surprise) I got held up doing something and didn't get out until 12:30pm. We got to the art gallery and had a good time walking around both the east and west buildings. Little did I know that while we were he was also already looking for possible backdrops for our engagement pictures! As we were leaving, he offered to get the car, which was parked several blocks away, and pick me up. Normally, I would've said 'no' but it was cold and windy that day so I couldn't refuse the offer.

It didn’t take long to get to the Botanic Garden. When we arrived, I was so happy because it turned out they were having an orchid exhibit in the Garden Court!!! The place was packed!!! It was so beautiful inside!! We walked around the different themed rooms (i.e. desert, Hawaii, endangered species, etc.), but my favorite was the Jungle, which was a huge room located in the center of the building (http://www.usbg.gov/virtual-tour/upload/Conservatory-1.mov). It was filled with 'jungle-like' things like trees, plants, mini ponds and waterfalls, and the sounds of nature (mostly frogs). It was sooo relaxing!

We also went up the catwalk twice to view the room from 24 feet up in the air (http://www.usbg.gov/virtual-tour/upload/Conservatory-Catwalk-1.mov). The first time we went up there we just sat on a bench and people-watched. The second time around was a totally different story. We just finished climbing the stairs and we were looking down at the Jungle room again. He started saying, "You know… there's another reason why I wanted to bring you here today." At first I was confused as to what he was talking about but after a few seconds and by the look he had on his face, it clicked. I remember looking at him with my widening eyes and saying, "Oh my gosh!" over and over again. I needed a place to sit down but the only thing behind me was a plant. He got down on one knee and took out a beautiful ring from his jacket pocket.

The rest was a blur. I had to take off my jacket because it suddenly felt like someone had cranked up the heater! I also had to keep wiping my face because the tears had smeared my eyeliner. I wanted to scream and dance around but was afraid of falling off the catwalk. When I got the feeling back in my legs, we walked to the opposite side where it was less crowded. Then, as we were leaving and getting in the car, he presented me with a dozen tulips (one of my favorite flowers). He already made reservations at Domaso, the new restaurant at the Hotel Palomar in Arlington, so we had dinner there that night. My parents were away on a three-week vacation so I was worried that he hadn’t “talked” to them before they left for their trip. So one of the first questions I asked him was, “Did you ask my parents?!” His reply was, “Pssshhh… is Big Bird yellow?” (which is one of my dad's popular sayings). Hahahaha!!! Good answer SmileyCentral.comUp until now, I still can’t believe that he managed to surprise me. The beginning of the week turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined!

HIS VERSION:
It all started out many months ago with a little weekend “stroll” through the jewelry store and with a “quick stop” by the engagement ring sections. With an intense stare Cathryn quickly scanned each detail of every ring, and to my surprise had no interest in any of them. Little did I know she already had a perfectly clear picture of the ring she wanted in her head. With a few quick key strokes on Google, the little piece of beauty was before my eyes. However, without the ability to find it at the store, Cathryn was convinced that it had been discontinued and was no longer available for sale. My mission now: FIND THIS RING!

After numerous calls to different stores, intensive searching on the Internet and going to multiple jewelry stores in my free time I finally hit the jackpot. The only catch, the ring actually didn’t exist… it had to be special ordered and built from scratch. Of course, this was going to take at least three months, causing my original plan of proposing over the Christmas holiday (that was just a month away) to be thrown out the window. Without any other option I quickly signed myself up and began counting the days.

Sure enough, three months went by and the ring had arrived. Now the question was how to do it? I had originally wanted to take her back to San Diego and propose in the church where I first saw her, but I knew this would just be too obvious. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, and knowing we already had a trip planned to New York, I was afraid that she’d think it would happen while we were there. Determined to make it a surprise I decided to do it the weekend before just to catch her off guard.

Cathryn had to work that Sunday morning, so the plan was to pick her up and begin by taking her to the National Gallery of Art. This would be followed by some food, then a romantic walk across the mall in DC over to the Botanic Garden. I had looked it up online and found that the place closed at 5:00pm, so I figured if we get there by 4:00pm things would be winding down and we were sure to find a quiet corner where I could get down on one knee and ask those famous four words.

The day began without a hitch. I picked her up and we were off to the Art Gallery. After a few hours of looking at some masterpieces and taking her out to lunch in the Museum it was time for our romantic walk. Who would have thought there would be wind gusts of 50 miles per hour with a wind chill of about zero in the middle of February? A slight oversight on my part. This became a romantic me running to the car to pick her up and drive us over to the Botanic Garden. As we walked into the greenhouse to catch the last, quiet closing hour, I was surprised to find that they were having some special orchid exhibit that people from all over the world had come to see! Yay! As we moved through the exhibit with people from shoulder to shoulder, I considered aborting the mission altogether on many occasions. My only chance at this point was to delay it as long as I could. I walked as slow as humanly possible around the entire place. Finally, as we were walking through parts of the gardens for the second and third time, I took Cathryn up to the catwalk overlooking the main garden. After strategically spacing us out between other visitors, I finally had my chance.

With a small stream flowing in the background and overlooking our own little indoor tropical paradise, I looked into her eyes and told her that there was a reason I had brought her there. With a look like a deer in headlights, Cathryn didn’t know what to say. As I got down on one knee and pulled the ring out of my pocket, she almost began to scream and I asked her if she would marry me. She immediately said yes and began to cry. I slipped the ring over her petite finger and gave her a long hug and kiss. Just about that time people came walking by to look at flowers but we just kept right on hugging. I knew then, like I knew since the first time I laid eyes on Cathryn, that I was the luckiest man in the entire world for getting to spend the rest of my life with such an amazing woman!


National Gallery of Art








Botanic Garden






Domaso




Preface

The first five months of our relationship were long distance. I was here in VA and he was in CA starting his 4th and final year of medical school. After a couple of months, he was off to AZ and then NY to do more rotations. He came to visit almost every weekend and he scheduled his last semester of rotations in NoVA. Imagine our excitement when we found out he got accepted at Georgetown for his 4-year residency program! It definitely made planning for the future easier on us. A little after a year of being in a relationship, we started talking more seriously about marriage. We knew we wanted it to be in 2008. We started watching a lot of wedding-related shows like "Who's Wedding Is It Anyway?" and even attended a bridal show before our engagement! Talk about pre-planning! The only question that remained was... how was he going to pop the question?

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I gave in...

Yes, I finally gave in and decided to start a blog. I didn't think i'd ever start one for several reasons. First, what would I write about? Second, it's so time consuming. The normal length of my emails are equivalent to a novel. Imagine, the length of my blogs!!!... and, who'd actually read it? Then, Cory and I got engaged!! (YAAAY!!!!) =)

I knew that there would be a million things involved with planning the wedding. Everyone says that the entire planning process gets very stressful and that the big day arrives before you know it. I decided to start this blog so we could look back one day and ask, "How da heck did we pull this off?!" J/K SmileyCentral.com It's gonna be a challenge b/c when I was younger, I was one of those people that got excited about getting a new diary... then, in the first entry would write, "I'm gonna write in you every day," but then find it a year later with all the pages still blank. It'll be time consuming to keep up with this thing but I think it'll also be therapeutic.

If you're reading this and just recently got engaged (congratulations!!!), I'm sure you've been asked the following questions at least once:
"How's the wedding planning going?"
"How'd he propose?"
"When's the wedding?"
"Where's the wedding?"
"What's your color motif?"
"Did you buy your dress, yet?"
(the list goes on and on...)

My advice is start a blog and send them the link. Don't get me wrong, I think it's nice of them to ask (and I do the same thing)... it just gets tiring answering the same questions over and over.

Wedding fever seems to be in the air so who knows, these blogs might also be helpful for other brides and could serve as a forum for suggestions and ideas. There's also baby fever going around but we're not catching that bug for several years so someone else can start that blog SmileyCentral.com

ENJOY!

Oh btw, I know a lot of wedding sites use acronyms like FH (future husband) and MOH (matron or maid of honor), but I'm not very familiar with what a lot of the others stand for so you probably won't see that on my posts.