Weddingbee bios

I'm the girl who was NEVER going to get married, NEVER going to have kids, and would not even THINK to get involved in a relationship until I had finished university (I was planning to be a psychiatrist) and garnered myself a successful little career. That is, until I met the love of my life: Camden. This fall I'll be going into my second year of the bachelor's degree (4-year) nursing program at the University of Alberta, and he'll be starting his second year of the 5-year computing science program (with a minor in business).

I'm the bubbly, childish 19-year-old (who looks like a 16-year-old) who loves to colour in Precious Moments and Disney colouring books, as well as sketch and paint; I enjoy my old picture books (Dr. Seuss for the win!) and Twilight just as much as To Kill a Mockingbird; and I appreciate the magic of Disney's Beauty and the Beast and mindless chick-flicks and stupid comedies (Scary Movie, anyone?) alongside Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Crash. I love to write both prose and poetry (although my poetry is ALL free-verse; I cannot rhyme worth a damn), and I write both original- and fan-fiction. I love cooking dinner food -- as long as it's pasta or some other one-pot-wonder (sloppy joes!), because I suck at keeping track of when to start the vegetables when oh my God, my roast is charring! -- and baking, especially cupcakes (yum!). I'm an athiest/humanist, but I love to dabble in traditions from other cultures, and I think that faith looks beautiful on a person -- as long as they're not espousing hatred against others. Then I take issue. I use parenthesis waaaay too much when writing bios, and I love the humble but ever-so-useful dash; why yes, I am a grammar nerd (mm, semi-colon...tasty). 

He's the serious but silly, geeky 18-year-old (who looks like a 21-year-old) who spends all his free time and money either on me (so spoiled!) or video games. He loves his computer, and will always choose PC over Mac. He loves the classics like Charles Dickens and Shakespeare (blah), but I also got him to read and like Twilight, so hah! He thinks I'm silly-crazy, but he's crazy-silly in love with me, so it all works. He's already called the laundry and the dishes, and plans on being a stay-at-home, work-at-home dad/programmer. He's a strongly religious Judeo-Christian who supports gay marriage and detests many aspects of tradition ("obey", psha!). He knows nothing about proper grammar in English, but has impeccable German, and he's written me several songs, poems, AND a novel.

We're a study in opposites, but it's our similarities which keep us together: our mutual love.

I call him a goober; he calls me love-face. He is my Edward Cullen and I am his Bella (I don't care what people say about Edward being unattainable and Twilight being stupid, nyaa). We are very, very excited to be "officially" engaged at long last, and are happily planning our wedding. Which will be happening sin February of 2013, because we're both planning on living with our parents until we finish university and can afford to buy a house/condo of our very own.

Camden and I met the first day of grade eleven. In Biology class. Ha, ha. (No, really, this cracks me up. Every. Time. But for some reason other people don't find it funny...'tis tragical. Sigh.)

Apparently, he liked me right away, and was just gathering the courage to ask me out when I inadvertently crushed his hopes and dreams by mentioning that I was "saving myself for after university". So he, like the selfless man that he is, did not ask me out. We got to be really good friends, and come December, I was crushing like mad on the boy who, when he came up behind me in the hall, would ruffle my hair and exclaim "hola!". A battle of wills and shyness ensued, during which I debated over and over again with my friends about whether or not I should tell him, because oh!, he was oblivious!Cam, and did not seem to notice that I LIKED him liked him. "Alas, woe is me!" I would think to myself "There's no way he'll ever ask me out!". Whilst, "Angst!" thought he; "I can never ask her out!". (Like only us teenagers can!)

But! I finally did tell him. During lunch one day at school. I was very romantic about it. Observe:

J: Hello. Your new nickname is "oblivious!Cam". Do you want to know why?

C: ...Yes?

J: Because you are oblivious! You see, there is this girl named Jennifer, and she has a crush on this boy named Camden, but Camden does not notice, so he does not ask her out. Woe.

C: ...

J: So do I need to stock up on lost-love songs, or are you going to take me out on a date this Friday?

C: Today is Friday.

J: Exactly.

Ta-da!

In any case, he did take me out to a movie, and it was the start of a Good Thing. A week and a half later, on Valentine's Day, I gave him a candy heart that said "one kiss" on it, and we shared our first kiss. I am oh-so subtle. Win!

Since before we were "officially" engaged, we've been using the initials CJN as secret code for our plans (they're his initials, so when I doodled, it seemed innocent enough to others; but "J" is not only his middle initial, but also my first initial, so for us it stood for "Camden & Jennifer N."). Now, I say "officially engaged" because he actually first "proposed" way back in high school, on my 17th birthday -- we'd only been dating for three months, but we knew that it was meant to be. He gave me his favourite ring to wear on a simple necklace he bought for my birthday, and I wore it 24/7 until the day he proposed for real and for true. (It felt really, REALLY weird not wearing it for the first while!) He was shaking and nervous and couldn't undo the clasp on the necklace he was so keyed up! It was a complete surprise, and although I was taken aback at first (three months! 17! gah!) I sealed the deal with a kiss and the knowledge that, when the time was right, the ring around my neck would be replaced by one on my finger.

I did make one stipulation for the actual proposal: I wanted to wait until we were both eighteen...and so for the longest time I knew that he was going to propose on his eighteenth birthday (this period I like to call the Waiting Game).

Enter shot-down proposal #1: About a month before he came of age, though, I confessed that I would appreciate some more time, A) so that he could work some issues out with my family, and B) so that the proposal would be a surprise. He agreed -- for which I am incredibly grateful; this is one of the things that I think of when I think about how much I love him -- and so began the Guessing Game.

Unfortunately, I am a very good guesser. And so, enter shot-down proposal #2: Christmas, 2008. In my family, we alternate years between staying in the city and spending holidays with my dad's parents, or driving down south and visiting with my mom's (Thanksgiving & New Years are spent at one locale, and Christmas & Easter are spent at the other); this particular year, we were spending Christmas and Easter with my mom's family, and so I asked if I could bring Camden up to meet my aunt and uncle and cousins who had yet to meet him (we'd been dating for almost two years at this point). It was met with much hemming and hawing, but the eventual answer was no, and so at the last minute Cam had to alter his plans (apparently he'd been planning on proposing to be on Christmas Day with everyone there). So he gave me a card with a "secret pocket" in it and told me not to open the pocket until Christmas morning. However, I quickly figured out what was in the card, and wrote a sort-of open letter on my blog wheedling about how it was good, because yay! Christmas! but it was bad, because he wouldn't be there. Ultimately, he once again took the graceful way out (So. Amazing. I honestly don't know what I did to deserve such an awesome life partner.) and gave me some illegally downloaded songs and chocolate for Christmas instead.

The Guessing Game continued, and I quickly guessed the next three most-likely dates (having figured out his affinity for holidays): the day we started dating (February 2nd), the day of our first kiss (aka Valentine's Day), or the two-year anniversary of our "unofficial" engagement (aka my birthday, April 25th). However! A wrench was thrown into the works! He decided, ultimately, not to propose until he had succeeded in re-acquiring a job after having quit his part-time job the summer after grade twelve. And so February 2nd came and went without event -- jointly, we decided that because of his lack of a job (and refusal to let me pay for things), we would celebrate both our two-year anniversary and Valentine's Day on the 14th, and we would use the gift certificate that my parents got him for Christmas. Enter V-Day, and with it, the "official" (though decidedly offbeat) proposal. It turns out that he had gotten a job a week earlier, but had kept it hush-hush, so as not to confirm my suspicions that he would pop the question on Valentine's Day. We had a very nice dinner, and throughout most of it I was completely unaware of all of this (the fact that he had a job and was going to propose; I knew that dinner was nice) -- until I asked to borrow his jacket, on account of me wearing a slinky strapless, above-the-knee dress and stilettos (without pantyhose) in the middle of winter in Canada. The first thing I noticed when he lent me the jacket is that he paused (something that my chivalrous Camden would surely never do!) and that the pockets were lopsided and lumpy. Just as we were finishing up dinner, I patted the pockets to investigate the source of the lumps -- and discovered his wallet, and a suspiciously-shaped box. I just gave him a Look and giggled, and poor Cam was one part sad/frustrated that his surprise proposal had been killed (again), and two parts glad because he apparently had no idea how and where to propose to me.

We ended up wandering around for a while longer and finally ended up outside my door. "Goodnight," we said, and kissed. Insert awkward pause. "Well, aren't you going to propose?" I asked. "No," he teased (I think), "you gave it away again, so now you have to wait until it's a surprise, like you want!). And then I punched him. (Lightly!)

He got down on one knee (in the cold snow!) and said those words...and I, legs numb re: mini-dress in winter, could think of nothing better to do than giggle and say the one word required of me: "Yes".

Honestly, deciding who was going to be my maid of honour was the easiest thing ever. I didn't even have to think about it!

My maid of honour (and currently my only bridesmaid) is my best friend of nine/ten years, H. She's absolutely full of awesome, and I'm SO excited that I get to have her supporting me in this -- especially in the DIY department! So far, she's offered to make my wedding dress (and her bridesmaids dress), she's eagerly awaiting the chance to whip up picnic blankets for the reception, and she's taken to my idea of baking my own wedding cupcakes with aplomb (she also suggested self-catering or potluck-ing the entire reception, but most of my guests are from out of town, and I think cupcakes are enough work for me!).

I may ask my sister (K.) to be another bridesmaid, but more likely I'll ask her to play her flute at the ceremony, or do a reading. She'll likely help me with the cupcake baking either way, so I'm happy just having my one bridesmaid.

My fiance isn't sure who he's going to ask to be his best man, but it will probably be either his brother, or his friend D. He doesn't have too many close friends, and up until recently he would have probably had a "best person" -- our mutual friend Holly, who was one of our favouritest, craziest friends in high school, but she's since drifted away. If all else fails, he'll probably ask his brother, R., to stand in.

Camden and I are really looking forward to having a really personal, really "us" wedding. We were hoping to have a personalized secular ceremony performed by a close family member or friend, but the province that we live in has recently scraped the temporary marriage officiant license, plus if you have a secular wedding in Alberta, you have to include two very "un-us" statements that are incredibly legal-ese sounding and not romantic and fluffy at all.

Enter the idea of a "sham wedding" (as my grandmother calls it), or a "unity ceremony" (as I refer to it as). My fiance and I, since we're having an evening wedding, will get "legally" married in the morning, and then have the ceremony later that day. This idea was fostered by my friend, S., and I'll admit, I wasn't sold at first. Call me foolishly sentimental, but I love the idea of actually being "man and wife" at the moment we are pronounced so. However, in the end, I realised that no matter what, we'll have that moment (either at the courthouse beforehand, or at the ceremony), and that the pros far outweighed the cons in this situation.

Therefore, my friend S. is going to be leading our unity ceremony, and I'm incredibly excited about this. She's absolutely wonderful about helping me with my wedding planning (she's just as excited as I am!), and she's always coming up with ideas of how to make our wedding unique. I can just tell that having her as our "officiant" is going to be infinitely better than some random stranger.