I'm a guest blogger on a Bride's Brain!

So I have totally loved and valued reading Jenn's posts over at A Bride's Brain.  In addition, she has been a wonderful, faithful commenter here on my own blog since almost the beginning.

She got married several months ago but they waited to take their European honeymoon until just this week.  So when she e-mailed me asking if I would write a guest post to share on her blog in her absence, I was completely honored and humbled by the offering and of course jumped on the opportunity.

So head on over to her blog and check out my post from yesterday :)

A post from a long, long time ago...

I was gonna start the recaps today, but I came up with this instead.  I promise the recaps will start on Monday!  :)  But just to give you a little something to peak your interest, here are a few pics I have gotten from friend's and family's cameras from our wedding day:

All my lovely ladies hangin' on the patio just before I walked out to see Mr Fix It for the first time

From left to right:  Cousin E, Bestie L, Daughter Little Miss, 2nd Cousin T (Flower girl), Sister and MOH J, good friend and mentor D, Cousin A.

Me walking out of the bridal cottage onto the patio to see Mr Fix It for the first time.  I love this photo because it shows how gorgeous the venue is with all the landscaping, trees and how the weather was with beautiful shade and sun throughout the day.

Me and my mom, L in the bridal cottage

Getting ready to start all the picture taking.  I had quite the entourage with me with 2 photographers and a 3rd photographer who came with the videographer.  Plus there were 2 or 3 videographers with us as well.  Notice the red shoes!  So fun!

My second cousin, B.  Here she is modeling off the bib favors I gave the little guests who sat in high chairs as well as performing a fun card trick with the magician who was at her table at this time!  :)

That's all for now...more to come, now on to today's post:

I started this blog about 7 or so months ago to track all my wedding progress and planning and to follow along with fellow brides to be and such...but I had started a personal blog about 2 years ago as well.  Though I only posted like 5 times on that one.  It has sat alone with no posts for about 17 months now.  But I recently sent out the link to it to all of my family and friends so that I can share 'censored' wedding and honeymoon recaps on it there for those who attended the wedding or weren't able to make it.  (I still want to keep some things somewhat anonymous over here).

Anyway, when I revisited that blog to send out the link to friends/family, I re-read the last thing I posted on it which was January, 2009 just a week after I had gotten engaged. Thought I would share that post with all of you just because it was one that I really felt good about when I looked at my thoughts and feelings in it.  So here it is:

I guess since it's the beginning of 2009 I should write something. Well, I could start off by saying that I am officially engaged! I get to start off the new year by finally knowing that I will actually be married in this life. That's something I honestly was beginning to wonder about.

It's so funny, I lead a group of girls that are in their early 20's. Girls have come and gone from the group since I first started several years ago, but there is still a core number of 5 girls. One is recently married and the other 4 are all currently single, but men have come and gone. I listen to them sometimes talk about how they want to be married or find the right guy or how the guys they meet end up not being who they hoped they would be...and I remember feeling that so much throughout my own life. And as much as I try to tell them to be patient and trust in God's timing and not their own, I know how hard it is to wonder about what the Lord has in store for those of us yearning for romance and love.

But I also know that God taught that Adam needed a helper...and so came Eve. It was 'not good' for Adam to be alone. God knows it's not good for us to be alone, no man should be an island unto himself. But that doesn't mean you have to have a 'significant other' or spouse in order to have help or feel loved. There are so many family and friends that God brings into our lives for the purpose of relationship. I hope that every young lady (or man) out there who wonders if and when God is going to bring them that special someone will remember that sometimes the most special someones of all are the few people that you know have been in your life at the key moments when you needed someone most.

These girls (and my own daughter) are the reason I try to transform into Christ's likeness every day...because that is what will make them feel whole and complete - experiencing the love of Christ - from ANYONE.

John (the fiance) and I will be having a long engagement for many different reasons. So I still won't officially be a wife for over a year; but my cousin said something to me that really made me think about my own relationships. She told me that she knew I had been waiting for a very long time to find the right man and so she was happy that I was finally engaged. I don't think I was actually waiting a long time to find the right man...because there were other men that I hoped would be my husband or the last relationship in my life. I think that I finally have grown and matured to realize what a real Godly relationship looks like and I just trusted that God would work it out in His time. If it had been up to me, I would have been married years ago and probably divorced by now (or miserable). But instead, because I didn't force the issue, I know that at 36 years old, I have found the one person that truly respects me, communicates with me, loves me as only he can and will be in heaven with me as we will soon become a man and woman united in Christ with His blessing and leading. I will take that at 36 years old any day over being 22 and feeling like I am watching an hour glass counting down to when I will no longer be marketable as wife material.

Update:  Since writing this post about 16 months ago, my group of girls now has 6 members.  3 of us got married this year, 2 were married in the past two and a half years, one is dating a guy and discussing marriage and the other is single.  Funny how we went from a group of mostly single ladies to now being a group of almost all married ladies :)

Do you need a marriage license BEFORE the wedding?

So the big fiasco this past week?  Getting our marriage license!

Em over at Burning River Bride recently posted about getting her marriage license.  I planned on having the same kind of post with a pic of us outside of the courthouse with the license in hand.  I had been wanting to get it for weeks, but Mr Fix It kept putting it off. 

So on Friday April 2nd, I told him, "We have just two weeks before the wedding!  It's time to get the license."

Well, of course on Friday afternoon, he calls me and asks "Babe, can we please get it another day?  I am just so not in the mood today."  Why do you have to be in the mood?  Really?

So I am not happy at all but tell him fine and tell him that since I work full time every day except Friday that he is going to have to meet me down there after work on Tuesday before they close at 5 pm to pick up our license.  He agrees.

Tuesday comes around, I get to the courthouse and call to see where he is.  He's in traffic on the freeway.  I walk up to the courthouse door and they are closed!  GASP!  What?  It's only 4:20 pm!  Don't most government buildings close at 5:00 pm?!?  WTF?!?

So I tell Mr Fix It who then proceeds to scream and cuss at me about all the time he has wasted and how he has 'so much to do.'  Then he yells "With everything you've been obsessed with about this wedding, you didn't think to call and check what the hours were before I drive all the way down here?"

Well, I tried to ask Jesus to keep me patient and calm but it didn't work well.  Because I began yelling at him about how it's all his fault because he kept putting me off and I wanted to do this on Friday when he blew me off!

We hung up and 5 minutes later he calls me back apologizing profusely and asking me to please forgive him, he's just totally stressed.  I told him I was sorry that I didn't call to check first (I thought about it and always do that but for whatever reason just sat with the assumption).  He told me there was no way he was going to let me apologize for anything with all the work I've been doing and he was totally wrong to scream at me like that.

No biggie, we're both over it and we just went to dinner and he helped me finish assembling the escort card favor boxes.  So we're going to go today instead.

Funny thing is - in the course of him yelling, he asks me why we even need to get the marriage license now anyway?  I told him I guess we won't be legally married on the 16th and he responds with "You can just fill it out and sign it later and date it with our wedding date.  It doesn't get mailed in until after anyway."

Now, I don't know much about it, but for some reason I am thinking you need to PICK UP the license BEFORE your actual wedding date!  Am I wrong?

Anxiety vs. Stress in Wedding Planning

Check out this bride to be:

Ever feel like you're going to end up like her?!?

I have been engaged for about 14 months now.  And the wedding is 56 days away!!!  But for 14 months, I have literally been planning, preparing, deciding, organizing, choosing, DIY'ing, ordering, assembling, eating, sleeping and breathing my (our) wedding!  I have had about 2 (maybe 3) wedding nightmares, nothing major...just things going wrong like the reception not being set up correctly or things getting left behind at home.  Nothing unusual or to worry about.

I have actually loved being engaged and planning my wedding.  I wouldn't change the length of my engagement for anything...it has been a relaxing, smooth, easy process.  Now of course in the final stretch, I am getting caught up with all the thoughts of all that must be done still.  Trying to keep my head on straight and stay on top of the to-do lists and such.  However, the past month or two, I have suddenly felt a huge amount of...well, something I can't put my finger on.

When people ask if I am excited about the wedding, I say "Of course."  And I am.  However, when I bring up that it's getting to be a little overwhelming, the first word out of their mouth is that I'm 'stressed.' 

I lovingly inform them that I am truly not stressed out about the wedding or all that is left to do.  I know that a lot of brides feel that way at the very end.  They rush to get things done and feel they've taken on too much.  They start throwing ideas and things out the window that they planned to do or incorporate for lack of time or patience to follow through with their dreams.  But not me, I already have the 200 favor boxes assembled and wrapped in their pretty bow with the tags on them.  I already have just about every purchase for our wedding day done and packed away in my house except for the candy favors.  Alterations are well under way and the RSVP's have been rolling in.  And I left myself plenty of time to call guests who forget to respond so I can still get the caterer the final numbers without feeling...well, stressed!

But what I am feeling...UGH!  I hate it.  As I mentioned way back here I am prone to fainting spells, light headedness, dizziness, and just overall feelings of nausea.  And that's what I've been feeling lately when I start to think about the wedding sometimes.  It's not *THE* wedding I'm worried about.  I think it's more the pressure of impressing everyone attending.  Or the fear of knowing all eyes will be on me.  Funny thing is, I am so *NOT* an introverted type person who doesn't like being in the spotlight.  Granted, I'm not a show off or a center of the stage type of gal either.  But I have always loved teaching people, talking to people, basically being up at the front of a class or on the stage of an auditorium sharing lessons or life experiences, etc.  So you'd think that this wedding thing should be a piece of cake for me.

So why the hell do I get so freaking anxious sometimes?  It's even gotten to the point where I went to my physician two weeks ago and asked him to prescribe me sleeping pills and Xanax 'just in case' I can't sleep the night before our wedding or I start to freak out come wedding day.  I have no intention of using them but knowing they are at my disposal is almost comforting. 

So what is it I am feeling?  Merriam Webster defines stress as:

A physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension.

And MW defines anxiety as:

An abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it.

I definitely don't worry about things like whether we'll run out of food or if the flowers will arrive on time or if anyone will get embarassingly drunk.  I have most of the planning done and though I am a little overwhelmed and concerned that we may not get me and my daughter moved into Mr Fix It's house in the easy timeline we have set for ourselves pre-wedding, that is something we can always do/finish when we get back from the honeymoon if necessary.  I am not feeling fear about getting married or wondering if I am making the right choice...I have no cold feet or doubts about me and Mr Fix It. 

So what is it?  Am I anxious?  Am I stressed?  Or am I just feeling the normal things all brides feel at some point in their wedding process?  What are your thoughts?  Or what feelings have you been struggling with in working up to the big day?

I should mention that I do not feel this way all the time.  It's just brief moments that come up out of nowhere.

How to handle a groom who'd rather have gone to Vegas

Let me preface this by saying, I again, am so sorry for not having been around the blogosphere enough to visit all my fellow bloggers' sites and post comments.  I truly enjoy reading them all but this past month or two has been so crazy at work and things are really gearing up with the wedding just over two months away now!  That said, I have caught back up at work to be able to catch up on all of your lovely sites so thanks for your patience in sticking it out with me and not fully abandoning my place of 'thoughts.'  :)

So it happened again last night:  We were out to dinner with my mom, daughter, her dad, his mom and his sister celebrating Little Miss's birthday.  And then my daughter's Aunt asked Mr Fix It if he is getting excited about the wedding.  And you know what his response was?  "Well, I've already been through this before.  So I'm really only doing this for her.  I would have been totally happy just going to Vegas to get married."

So here is my open letter to Mr Fix It (which I guess doesn't really make it an open letter?)  :D

Dear Mr Fix It:

Can I just start off by saying UGH! ???  I get it...you've been married twice before.  And you would have preferred to have saved the thousands of dollars this wedding is costing us (read: ME) to put towards a house (which would be a second house, since you already have one!).  I get that you think I'm being anal, and obsessive and 'a freak' about all the details and things I would like to have at our wedding to celebrate our love and shower our guests with. 

I get that you think our wedding colors look like the 4th of July theme.  I understand you think it is silly to have things like lighted luminary table numbers with pictures of us in them and you're getting flack from your lame fellow surfer friends and brothers because I put stamps on the invitations that had our picture on them.  I have totally come to terms with the fact that you will never sit down to help me stuff favor boxes, wrap bows, or assemble invitations.  I could barely drag your ass to register for gifts that would benefit you!

I fully understand that you have had a sucky, unexpected year financially, physically and emotionally.  So I have not once made any comments about the fact that you want to 'wing it' on our honeymoon and not book any hotels for our two week stay in Brisbane, Australia and Bali, Indonesia.  And I don't expect to be surprised by any high end five star resort type stay when we get there either.  Not that I am complaining...I am fully amenable to your idea of letting the wind lead us to adventure and trusting that as my new husband, you will definitely find a way to provide a room for me to lay my head down on a pillow that won't be infested with mosquitoes or cockroaches the size of the neighbor's kitten! 

I gave in to the fact that we had to switch our tuxes for the fathers and ring bearers to older versions than the groomsmen will wear to try to cut down on the costs that *your* family and friends were griping about!  Nevermind the fact that I already gave up our house to them so they have somewhere to sleep on *OUR* wedding night. 

I am thrilled to death when you (on rare occasions) make mention of something or some idea you actually *like* that I have come up with for our wedding.  Unlike you, who constantly tells me that your friends or family think I am going overboard on our wedding (which is funny since your sister and sister-in-laws have told me how excited they are for the big day and how amazing they know it'll be), *MY* friends and family consistently send me e-mails, texts, phone messages, etc telling me that they are so excited to share in our big day and know it will be amazing.

So could you please do me a favor the next time someone asks if you are getting excited for the big day and just fake it?!?  Just tell them yes, we can't wait.  Just appease me to show that you have some sense of the joy, love, emotion and memories that I am envisioning will kick off the rest of our amazing lives together.  And that while trivial and unnecessary, the details and ideas and vendors that I am planning and booking all help bring together our family and friends in a once in a lifetime event that I personally have been waiting 37 freaking years to plan and participate in!

So would it kill you to pretend like you don't think this is all a complete waste of time and money?  Thanks so much.  I love you.

Born to be Mrs. Beever

PS  I should say that I really wasn't all that upset when he made the comment last night.  I just said to him and my daughter's Aunt that 'even though he has been through this before, he's never been through it with me nor has he ever done it the amazing way that we are planning on doing it.'  To which he of course agreed and said he knows that the guests are going to totally enjoy it and that it will be a great day.  Now, why couldn't he have led with that?

What do you do when their ex-es don't live in Texas?

April 16th will be the day I marry my best friend...the day I walk down the aisle at our wedding and pledge my love and faithfulness to Mr Fix It in front of 200 of our friends and family.  I will (hopefully) look beautiful in my gown and he will look hot in his tux.  There will be lots of laughter at the cool video that just played before I made my entrance and then lots of hugs and well wishes as we basque in the glory of the cocktail hour with our guests.  We'll make a grand entrance into the reception and eat some yummy food and then dance the night away.  That night, we'll sleep in the nearby hotel room we booked...just the two of us.  And then the next day, I'll move into Mr Fix It's home which will officially be 'our home.'  (I'll have actually already moved all my stuff in during the weeks before the wedding but won't stay there til after the wedding.)

And this new home of ours?  Well, Mr Fix It has lived there for about 13 years now I think.  You see he bought it with his ex-wife.  And up until she cheated on him and then left him, it was 'their' house.  Then it was his house.  Soon it will be our (my) house.  Is that weird?  I will be moving into the house that my husband shared with his ex-wife.  And the neighbors?  They all knew her.  It's a pretty close neighborhood.  Mr Fix It is good friends with all of his neighbors...except the one directly to the left of us.  She was very good friends with Mr Fix It's ex-wife and he thinks she played a big role in pushing her away from him before they divorced.  So he doesn't like her much...she has caused some problems in the neighborhood.  When I see her, I just walk by and don't say anything (out of respect for Mr Fix It)...but all the other neighbors?  They love me and come up and chat with me and they'll all be at our wedding...except for the ones to the left of us.

Bummer is, every once in a great while, we see Mr Fix It's ex-wife's Hummer parked in front of the neighbors house visiting that old friend of hers.  I've never personally seen or met her...never.  Mr Fix It says that his brother's wife (his sister-in-law) apparently even stays in touch with her and catches up every once in a while.   Though Mr Fix It has asked his brother to tell his wife not to ever bring her up to us. 

Even though they do not talk, see each other or have any real common friends or what not anymore, her 'presence' is still sort of around every once in a great while.  So is it weird that I am moving into what used to be her house?  The house my (soon to be) husband once shared with his ex?

Not to me, it's not.  Honestly, I never even think about her.  I don't ever have thoughts creep into my mind about what they did or didn't do in a certain part of the house or whatever.  Mr Fix It has been working on changing up the house before I move in...he's totally remodeled the master bathroom so nothing about that is like it was before.  He's painted most of the rooms and is putting in new flooring.  I'll be moving some of my furniture into the house.  I'll definitely be filling his bare bachelor walls with my pictures, paintings, candles, crosses, etc.  So I will be making it 'our' home.  I never even think about my man's past or the women he left behind in it. 

What about you?  Do you have any fears, doubts, or reminders of your partner's ex-es?  Does it bother you?

PS  Don't forget to check out my first giveaway for 100 Chinese Takeout Boxes...ends tomorrow night!

Being the 3rd wife...

Yes, I am the third wife.  Or at least I will be come April 16th.  Bet you didn't know that?  Though I have a 15 year old daughter (well, turning 15 in February), and am a single mom, I've never been a wife.  My daughter's father and I lived together but never married.  And at 26, I was engaged, planned most of the wedding, and then broke off the relationship right before I dropped the invitations in the mail.  So I've been close...had the 'family,' but never a marriage.

Though wedded bliss will be totally new to me, it is not so new to Mr Fix It.  He has been married before...twice.  The first time he was married I refer to as the 'shotgun marriage' that didn't count.  Mr Fix It moved to Australia in his late 20's and met a woman there.  I think he only lived there for like 3 months before moving back to the states.  But for whatever reason, he married that girl.  I can't even remember what type of wedding they had...I think he said they did a civil type ceremony and then had a 'reception' for the family back home.  Anyway, for whatever reason, she ended up moving back to Australia and they had a long distance marriage for over a year I think.  Mostly phone calls.  Then he met his second wife and eventually got divorced from the Australian.

With his second wife, they dated for three years and then were married for six.  She ended up having an affair - Mr Fix It never confirmed it but there were comments from her co-workers about her spending a lot of time with a man at work.  Mr Fix It asked her to stop spending so much time with him and then while he was away once she told him she was hanging out with friends at his house, got drunk and slept on his couch.  That didn't go over well.  They had a lot of problems regarding communication - she was physically distant which led to him being emotionally distant and the relationship just crumbled.  One day when Mr Fix It was out of the country, he returned to find that she had moved out.  Later, he found out that she ended up marrying the man he assumed she was sleeping with.

As a Christian, Mr Fix It was devastated by the divorce.  He went into a very deep depression for many, many months.  I met him about a year after their separation when a friend encouraged him to start dating again and he signed up on http://www.match.com/.  They were just signing the divorce papers when he and I started dating. 

Needless to say, it's strange to think of myself as a 'third wife.'  It doesn't really mean much to me since I've never been married, but I know that Mr Fix It will probably bring in a lot of doubts and fears from his past experiences.  Though he knows I am a completely different person than his ex-wife, he also struggled to decide whether or not to marry again.  This is why I *never* brought up the subject of marriage during our dating relationship.  He would talk to me about it and say that if we ever got married and something happened to where we divorced, that would be it for him...he'd never marry again.  I would lovingly tell him that I never plan to divorce so he would be stuck with me forever.  :)

He used to tell me that he was secretly 'testing' me to see whether or not I was marriage material.  Though I sometimes felt like I should be offended by that kind of comment, I also knew that this was part of his emotional baggage from two failed marriages.  But finally, when we had been together for almost 5 years, he decided to pop the question.  It was so special to me...it meant he knew that this was it for good.  And I knew it, too. 

On our wedding day, we'll have been together for six years.  I'll be 37 years old and Mr Fix It will be 47.  We have been through a ton of relationship issues, dysfunction and mistakes on both of our parts in our past.  And I think that if we had met 10 years ago, we never would be getting married...for it's the path we've walked and the lessons we've learned that have grown and matured us to become the people we are today.  The people who truly recognize and appreciate the good in each other and also have compassion and grace towards the faults in each other. 

I have no doubt that we will be together forever...we share a lot of the same values, politics, beliefs, faith and we have learned to work at communicating with honesty, respect and love.  We are not perfect, we have our moments of failure and fights.  But we also are humble enough to be willing to change and apologize and to sacrifice and compromise for one another.  I have never known a love like this and though Mr Fix It is nothing like the man I would have expected to end up with, thanks to God, he is everything I never knew I needed in a husband. 

I am so excited to be his third (and final) wife.  I can't wait to have him as my first and only husband.

What about all of you?  Any of you dealing with past marriage or relationship issues or fears that you've had to work through on your way to the altar?