Wedding Wednesday ~ 100 days and counting!

Can you believe how quick time has gone? I’ll officially be married in 100 days! Chris is quickly realizing how fast time is going and jokes by saying “Well, we’re getting married tomorrow!” And at times it truly seems time is going at super fast speed, and soon tomorrow will be here!



So much has been done.


We’ve started the search for wedding bands.

I had my hair trial run.

I have majority of the favors done.

Majority of the invites have been addressed.

I’ve purchased all supplies needed for our Guestbook/Table numbers.



We had our official engagement pictures taken.


I went and tried on my dress!


That was quite an experience! I’m being very selective about who see’s my dress prior to the big day, so I was very thankful when my HS friend Sarah agreed to come with me, with her adorable little almost 4 year-old daughter Chloe. Something I will tell you about my dress is that the dress I tried on back in January had silver stitching on it. When I looked at the details of this dress and the options available it read “White/Ivory” for the actual color of the dress and “Silver/Ivory” for the color of the stitching. I immediately had the vision of the ivory dress with ivory stitching. My vision was more classic and romantic compared to more modern, which I feel the silver stitching created. So that’s what was ordered. Needless to say I was extremely anxious and curious to see my dress with the ivory details. I may be biased, but the dress is beautiful! I won’t go to the extreme and say it’s completely different dress compared to the one I tried on in January but the look is just different. My vision of more classic and romantic came true and it’s beautiful!!! Even more surprising is that the dress fits like a glove!!! Back in January when I got measured I was between a size 16 – 18. I ordered a 14. Obviously not a big stretch, but a risk. So it was a huge relief when I was able to get it on! The goal of course is to eventually get it taken in, and alterations won’t start until the middle of August, but there is a weight lifted knowing that if I don’t lose any more weight, the dress will indeed fit!


My dad and I selected our “father/daughter” dance. And we’ve selected the “in-law” dance.


I’ve ordered bridesmaid jewelry, along with vases and our set for the Unity Sand Ceremony.

Chris strudding his stuff in the "fashion show"

 On Thursday we went to a dinner event at the Chateaux, and it was nice to see the space set up for an actual reception, and get to use the space.  We also got to spend some time in their outdoor area.  We hope that our weather will be good enough to have our cocktail hour outside, so it was great to actually go outside and see it, since in the past when we’ve been it’s always been way too cold!    


We had fun in the photobooth!

My biggest headache of the month has been wedding day transportation. Neither Chris or I are from here and we don’t have any family here. So we have a lot of people traveling from out of state for this celebration. With the hotel(s), church, and reception site all in different locations, I really wanted to be able to provide transportation to and from all of the event locations. Unfortunately it just got to be too much. Too many people, too many hours, too much money. Really, why didn’t we just get married in a hotel, and none of this would be an issue?! Thankfully everything is really close to one another and some hotels do provide a shuttle if someone needs a ride back to the hotel after the reception. The other big mess is finding a reputable limo company. I did a ton of research and called a ton of places, then would look at reviews and read horror stories. It was extremely frustrating. But on Monday we booked a limo for the bachelorette party and transportation for Chris and I, our families, and the bridal party for the actual wedding day. I found Denver Limo, a good place with an "A" rating through the BBB and at a good rate. So glad that headache is gone!!!


Another big thing that I kept going back and forth on was the whole videographer thing. I’m super happy that we decided to go with Shutterbliss Cinema. We got a promotional rate on top of a group discount and am really looking forward to working with them! There work is top quality, and it’ll be a great piece to share with friends and family who aren’t able to be there.


The work group that I’m in recently hired someone new and it’s been fabulous because she’s getting married 2 weeks before I am!!! We talk wedding all the time, and it’s been so nice to have someone to talk to who’s going through exactly the same thing! We get to bounce ideas off of each other and cheer each other on with we get to cross something off of our “to do” list! She booked the same videographer, which is how we got a “group discount”! And I hope to do the same with lighting.


There is still lots to be done, but truly we could get married tomorrow and have everything major taken care of to have a fabulous day!


100 days!!!

week 2: no cheating

 Chris and I at Boulder Falls
 You know when you are watching some sporting event and the winner is “best out of 7 games”. It’s game 3 and team A is up 2-0, and all of a sudden team B makes a comeback. I’m pretty sure it’s because team A gets cocky. They think “oh, we’ve got this.” They get a case of “big head syndrome”. The effort and focus wasn’t there like it was in games 1 and 2. Now obviously this is just my theory. But you see instances when the underdog comes and takes the win out of no-where. And usually that’s because it’s the underdog that’s more consistent and more focused. They know they are the underdog and only have a fair chance of winning, so they work that much harder to achieve victory.


I unfortunately got cocky. After my week 0 results, I thought “I got this.” “I can do this.” And now week 1 and 2 have kicked me back to where I belong. I’ve gotten the reminder that this is hard, that this plan has no wiggle room. That I am on a pretty tight schedule.

We’ve been busy the past couple of weeks. My food hasn’t gone to complete crap, but I’ve had slip-ups. Last Saturday 6/16 I met my friend/co-worker Cathy for a run at City Park. Because of that I didn’t make it to the gym for a weigh-in. I did go to the gym this past Saturday though, and stepped on the scale. 183. No gain no loss. I was really hoping to get back in the 170’s. But no luck. It was the kick I need to re-focus and keep up with the consistency of this diet.

The weekend was a hot one. Literally. We were in the triple digits Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And the forecast shows triple digit heat set for today and tomorrow. So to help cool off we went up to Nederland, CO (about 20 miles west of Boulder) on Saturday to go for a hike. The “cool off” was only in the high 80’s, but it was nice with the sometimes breeze that we got.

The summer is definitely in full swing and I know the season is going to fly by! Time to kick the weight loss into high gear!

Hiking Lost Lake Trail (unfortunately we never found the lake)

week 0: going back to what I know

I don’t know about you, but I know that I’ve been wondering what the heck has been going on with my weight loss. I can’t speak for you, but I surely can speak for me when I say I’ve been asking myself “What am I doing?” “I need a good kick in the a$$ because I’m getting married in FOUR months!” “Am I going to lose this weight?” “Will my dress not fit? Will I not be the beautiful bride, that I really really want to be?!”


All of these questions have been floating around in my head for awhile now. Especially as I see the number on the scale stay the same. But once we crossed into that four month mark I knew I had to get serious. Weight Watchers didn’t work for me, although honestly I don’t know if I can say that with a whole lot of credit. I really only did it for two weeks. I had given myself the impression that losing weight was easy. That I lost 90 pounds before, sure I can lose some 20 pounds more and have it be easy?! ***NEW FLASH*** losing weight is NOT easy! That first pound of 90 wasn’t easy, and the 89th pound wasn’t easy. None of it is easy. I felt mentally ready, but Weight Watchers isn’t restrictive enough. Is that weird to say? I suppose when I think back to my Slimgenic days of two years ago I had a specific list of foods I could eat. Everything else, was off limits. On Weight Watchers you can eat whatever you want, and well I let that be my excuse to eat whatever I wanted, and to not really change my habits. Hence, seeing no results. Feeling defeated, and giving up.

So last Monday I kicked myself into high gear. I’ve put myself back on Slimgenics. I’m not paying for it, but rather using Chris as my support and counselor. I don’t need Slimgenics to ask them “Why can’t have this, or that?” Rather, I just need support, someone I can talk to. Voice my victories and hard days too. I don’t need to pay for it again. I know the plan, I know the food, I know that it works. I also know that it works quick, and that I need results fast. Last weekend was emotional. Letting Chris know that this was my plain, was admitting my failure all previous weeks, and when I committed to give Weight Watchers a go. It also brought myself into the reality of remembering and preparing how hard this is going to be. I went back and read majority of my posts from this plan from two years ago, and I had forgotten how much of this journey is emotional. Not just physical. Two years ago when I signed up for this plan I knew it would be hard, I had no idea HOW hard. And now I’m signing myself up for this hardship all over again?! It was hard and emotional, but I’m doing it again, and I know it'll be worth it!

In all of my Slimgenics material I couldn’t find the full details of the prep phase. Which is the first three days to basically cleanse yourself and get your body ready for some fat removal! So I did a Google search of “Slimgenics 3 day prep phase” which got me the information that I needed. The search itself mainly brought me to blogs. And I hate to say it but unsuccessful blogs. Goes to show how hard this plan is. I’ve seen so many people start weight loss blogs, and document feelings and pounds loss for the first couple weeks or months, and then…nothing. Proof, that yet again, this isn’t easy!!! …Just an interesting observation.

Anyways, I started my prep phase last Monday 6/4. The prep phase is 3 days of UNLIMITED raw green vegetables (no peas), UNLIMITED protein (skin on is ok!), 2 eggs in the morning (prepared how you like, but not cooked in oil or butter), a half an orange in the morning, and the remaining half in the afternoon/evening. That’s it. My raw green veggies of choice are green pepper and cucumber. By day two I was sick of green pepper and cucumber. My proteins were cooked up ground turkey, steak, hamburger meat, and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. The chicken is a treat, because you get to have the skin, which you don’t get to have once your done with the first three days. Once Thursday was here I was super ready for my some oatmeal (that counts as one snack) and some bread! I knew from my experience before that the weekends would be my struggle. And that’s still true. I was right on point Thursday and Friday, and we did go out for some sushi Saturday night, but I definitely was cautious of my portions, and I think I did pretty good.

So I bet your curious as to how I did? Like last time, I plan to have my official weekly weight-in’s be documented on Saturday’s. I always workout on Saturdays and if anything this gives me an excuse to go to the gym. I didn’t go to the gym last Saturday 6/2 to get my official “before” weight because the weather was so nice, I just wanted to go for a run outdoors. I pulled out my at home scale but the battery is dead…which is better, because one thing I don’t want compared to last time, is being obsessed with the scale. I want to keep my weight-in’s to once a week on Saturday’s using the scale at the gym. My guess is that I was around 188 – 190. I had high hopes for a 7 pound drop as that was what I lost during my first week last time, but I was pleasantly surprised and happy with the 182 that appeared on the scale! I’m calling that a 5 pound loss! I’m super pleased, and feel focused and motivated to keep moving. While reading all of my past posts, I learned that I lost 23 pounds in the first 9 weeks. And that’s my goal. That’ll put me right at 165 at the beginning of August, which is when I need to start alterations on my dress. The other big goal I’ll reach with that number is 100 pounds lost! I hope to get to 175 by the end of this month, which is where I was a year ago. The big end goal is be 155 by 10/5! These are obviously pretty big goals, but it’s crunch time. I’m getting married in little more than 16 weeks and I want to be a beautiful bride darn-it!!

Wedding Wednesday ~ the rest is just details

The details are slowly coming together. Within the last couple of weeks I’ve done 46 more wedding favors (with the help of my future mother-in-law, Mary!), ordered wedding postage, and put the deposit down for my “girls” hair and makeup. I’ve also secured the restaurant and reservation for our rehearsal dinner.

I think one of the big pro’s of having this planning time is the ability to shop around. I requested quotes from about a half a dozen restaurants in regards to the rehearsal dinner. With the actual wedding festivities taking place up in Broomfield (a northern suburb of Denver) Chris and I knew it would be a fun and different atmosphere to host the rehearsal dinner in downtown Denver.

My original thought was to have the dinner be at Maggiano’s. It’s right downtown, good food, fun restaurant, but I didn’t like that it was a chain. So I did some more searching and looking into places unique to Colorado and located downtown. Wow, I got some outrageous quotes! The rehearsal dinner is obviously more intimate, and ideally I want it to be more fun and laid back. Not too say that the wedding itself won’t be fun or laid back, there will just be a lot more people and the atmosphere itself will be completely different. In total we’ll probably have about 24 adults and 4 kids at our rehearsal dinner, and some of the quotes that I got were for a MINIMUM of $4,000!!! Isn’t that just crazy!? That’s more than $130 a person! Insane if you ask me. Thankfully I do my research and I shop around, and looked into having our dinner at Marco’s Coal Fired Pizza in the heart of the ballpark area! This restaurant is unique to Denver, we’ll be getting our own private dining room, pizza, salad, chicken wings, antipasto, and dessert all for less than $1000! Another major perk with this place is I’ve taken my parents here, and my dad really likes it! It isn’t your normal pizza place. It’s a little bit different and unique, and I’m thrilled to be having our rehearsal dinner here!

I’ve also decided on my Guestbook/Table numbers. These will be another DIY project and hopefully done in July!

The biggest news of the week came Monday night when I got the call from Amanda’s Bridal letting me know that my (yes, MY) wedding dress is here!  I've been waiting for this phone call and I'm so happy that it is here! I’m super anxious to see it…as the dress I tried on had silver stitching and I changed it to ivory. My hope is that the ivory makes it a little bit more classic looking. I have two weeks to go try it on, make sure I still love it, and pay off the balance. Alternations won’t start until the beginning of August.

My big “To Do’s” for the month of June are to finish the wedding favors, decide on videography, and start getting quotes and plan out the details for day of transportation. The idea of transportation just gives me a headache, and honestly I’ve been putting it off. I know that majority of our guests (specifically family)will be traveling to Denver…we’ll have people coming from, NM, NE, RI, CA, just to name a few. I’ve got hotel blocks at 3 different places, with 3 different price points (that what etiquette says to do), and I want to be able to provide transportation. In addition to that the wedding and reception are in two different locations. Luckily everything is within a 5 mile radius, but thinking about the timing and everything, UGH! The ceremony starts at 4pm, what time should people get to the church? I have no clue!?

Another thing I keep going back and forth on is whether or not to get a videographer. When I was in Albuquerque in April for my Bridal Shower I asked my super tech-savvy cousin if he would shoot video of the wedding. He said yes, but then I found out later that there’s a chance he won’t be able to make it to the wedding. I really like the idea of getting a videographer, specifically to shoot our vows, and some details of the reception, but to get something I would really like the cost is more than $1000. And I just can’t decide if it is worth it?! I love the idea of getting a video so I can share it with family and friends who aren’t able to come (from getting quotes, a lot of places will put the video on a website to share a link), and to pull it out in 10+ years to show our kids. I’ve also read lots of reviews that the one big regret lots of brides have is NOT getting a videographer. I just don’t know. What are your thoughts? To video or not to video?

Countdown is 4 months!!!

BolderBoulder 2012

 Last Monday I got up early and headed to Boulder for my second ever 10k race, the BolderBoulder.  Compared to last year I wasn't ready for this ready.  I wasn't really ready in any aspect; emotionally, physically, mentally.  But I did it anyways, and for me that itself was a big accomplishment.  Emotionally I just wasn't ready to run 6.2 miles, physically I'm 13 pounds heavier than last year, and mentally I was not in the state of mind. 
The night before I didn't sleep well, so I got up not wanting to get up and prepared to say good-bye to Marty, Mary, and Alice and head to the bus to get to Boulder for my 8:40am start time.  It was to my big surprise when Chris got up with me, and told me he was going to join me to cheer me on!  Completely unexpected and 100% welcomed.  We said good-bye to his family, and headed out the door.  We got dropped off in Boulder right at around 8:20am and was perfect timing for me to find my wave and have Chris follow me to the start.  Chris got the below picture of me at the start, and it was a great feeling knowing I would see him at the end. 

The first mile wasn't easy, as my music wasn't working on my phone, and I let that irritate me a little bit too much, as I was worried I would have no music at all during the race.  And the thought of no music just messed with my mental state.  So during majority of the first mile I was fiddling with my phone trying to get it to play music.  Once I started mile 2 I had music and felt more prepared.  Although I knew my pace wasn't what it was at compared to last year.  Like last year, they had all of the same entertainers, water slides, marshmallow throwers, Doritos's, and beer along the way.  The other big difference comparing this year to last year was the heat.  I remember last year it sprinkled a couple of times throughout the race and was cool.  This year it was hot.  And I definitely think the heat effected my pace as well.  I had also forgotten how much of this race is through residential areas. 
After crossing the finish line at 87 minutes (7 minutes added from last year) I felt happy that I did it, and happy to find Chris and go home. 

the growing family

 last weekend my growing family was in town.  my future father in law Marty, future mother in law Mary, and future sister in law Alice.  this growing family is literally full of histarics (pretty sure i made that word up?), irony, and sarcasm, so in all seriously i'm so blessed to have my future in laws be ones with such a strong flare for personality!  i don't like to think of them as my new family but an addition. which is why i say "growing" family.  i'm so happy that chris has a sister as i've always wanted a sibling and his parents are truly so welcoming and funny.
they got into town thursday night when we had an easy dinner on the grill of hot dogs and hamburgers.  mary made home made potato salad and alice brought chocolate cake balls. 
friday chris and his dad hit the golf course while mary, alice, and i hit the spa. 
afterwards all of us met up for some shopping where i successfully helped out mary pick out a dress to wear for the wedding! 
that evening chris made and grilled some amazing ribs, i made a orzo pasta salad, and we had a fun dinner out on the patio, chatting and playing games!  it was such a fun night. 

 saturday alice and i went to canvas and cocktails.  i've always wanted to do this, and it's so much fun!  we painted a beach scene, and had a great time.

 saturday evening we took a family trip downtown, and stopped by the clock tower where chris and i got engaged and took some pictures at the actual spot where he proposed.

 on sunday we headed on a beautiful drive through the rocky mountain and rocky mountain national park.  we started off west on I-70, took a stop and tour of idaho falls, headed a little bit further west then north to winter park, and entered rocky mountain national park.

mary and marty swinging  

 mary, marty, alice, chris, and i

 we had packed up a nice picnic and hoped to enjoy lunch outside.  unfortunately at 13,000 feet the weather was too cold, so we had our picnic in the car!

 we saw some beautiful sites and even some wildlife along the way.

we exited the park on the northeastern side and drove down to estes park where we walked around and did some shopping.  we went into a cute little wedding shop where chris and i found our cake topper!  it's perfect and romantic.
monday everyone was up bright and early ...i was up to head to boulder for my second bolderboulder (more on that later) and our house guests were off to head back to kearney, ne. 
it's so interesting getting to know a new family dynamic.  i love my growing family and how they have such an ease for me to be able to show my personality.  it's non-stop giggles and fun times had!