Weddingbee bios

I graduated from high school in 2006 and I'm currently attending the University of Illinois in Champaign, majoring in Animal Sciences.  I'm graduating this coming December!  I'm not quite sure yet what I'm doing when I'm done but I know that it will be in an animal-related field.  I would love to work in an animal clinic or shelter where I would be dealing hands-on with animals on a daily basis.  I am also very interested in humane education and I think the animal control aspect is very interesting.  I have one semester left to figure it out!!

I like to be outdoors as much as possible and have spent every summer growing up camping in Wisconsin.  I've always been a very crafty, do it yourself kind of person.  I think it's the perfectionist in me, but I would rather do something myself and know it's going to be exactly how I like it that to have someone else do it and have to worry the whole time what it will turn out like

Mr. T went to the same highschool and college I did he just did it 4 years earlier.  He accepted a full ride scholarship to play football as an Illini.  Until now he had been teaching driver's ed at a highschool near home.  Now he is coaching football at Concordia St. Paul in Minnesota as a graduate assistant.  They will be paying for his master's while he does something he loves!  I think he's pretty excited to finally be in MN where all his family lives.  Especially with all the lakes and his new boat =]

We're renting a house right now in St. Paul and just tried out living together for the first time this summer.  But now I'm back in IL finishing up my last semester while he is in MN coaching and doing grad school.  We just said our goodbyes for the next four months since the 10.5 hour drive isn't very likely to happen and he will be one busy guy during football season.

My Version of How We Met

I saw Mr. T for the first time at a mutual friend's house in November of 2008.  I had to ask who he was after he left because I had never seen him before.

Side Note*  He likes to say that these are HIS friends, but really I was friends with them before I ever met him.  I reconnected with an old friend whose fiance is the same age as Mr. T.  I started hanging out with all these guys AKA "The Superfriends."  They took me in and things were great for about 5 months.  During all of this time I never once saw or heard of Mr. T.  (You see he had a girlfriend and lived in another town at the time and didn't come around ever).  Then one night he finally came back around, and I'd like to think he kept coming around because we started dating.  So you see, they are just as much my friends! *End Side Note*

Then a week later we were both at the same wedding for friends of ours and shared a couple dances.  The following weekend was the Superfriends Thanksgiving Dinner and I made him be my beer pong partner for the night and we started hitting it off from there.  At the end of the night he gave me his number because his phone was dead and couldn't get mine.  The next day we both showed up at a friends house to watch a movie and afterwards he told me to call him.  I texted him my number (in case he wanted it) and planned on calling him the next day after work, but he beat me to it!  We went out for ice cream and drove around talking and we've been pretty inseperable ever since then.

 

Mr. T's Version of How We Met

I don't remember the very first time I saw Miss T, but I do remember the first time I wanted to know more about her.  She always seemed to be where ever I went, but she fit in so well with my friends that maybe it just seemed like she was there all the time.  We eventually started talking at our friends wedding.  The next week we really got down to the important stuff.  We were at a friends party and she kept stealing my hat.  I resisted her flirtation for as long as I could.  But eventually my interest in her won over my will to stay single because of my career change.  I told her that I wanted to move to Minnesota, coach college football, fish a lot, hunt when I could, and raise a family.  She said, "that sounds good."  I had never met anyone that thought my plan was a good idea before.  The more we talked the more we agreed on, and eventually she agreed to marry me. 

The Date

4/4/2009

How he popped the question

We had been talking about the future and our plans for awhile leading up to this.  We both figured that we would know when it was right, even if it was all happening pretty quickly.  For the month leading up to this we had been talking about getting engaged and when we would like to get married, and we both knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when.  We even went as far as looking at rings one time in the mall.  But we both decided he should use his Great-Grandma's 80+ year old ring his Grandma had given him.  He was going to be in MN for a week figuring out housing and I was flying up to meet him for the weekend and then driving home with him.  I hinted that it would be the perfect time to pop the question =] (it didn't take much convincing on my part to get him to agree)  I even knew the day that he took my dad to lunch to ask his permission.  So I knew, or hoped anyways, that it would be happening, I just didn't know how or exactly when.

I got into Minnesota on a Thursday night and we spent the weekend looking at places to live and figuring out work situations.  It wasn't until we were driving home Saturday afternoon that it happened.  He pulled off the highway and I figured he was going to a gas station or stopping for food.  Then he proceeded to keep drivign and nearly get us lost while looking for a little side road he had been to before. He finally found the road that led down to the St. Croix River beach.  He told me this river was significant because it is the borderline between WI (where I spent a lot of time growing up) and MN (where he spent many vacations).  By this point I had a pretty good idea of what was happening.  So we got out of the truck on a cold windy day and we walked down onto the beach.  We were standing in the sand staring out at the water wishing it was warmer out =]  Then he got down on one knee and proceeded to tell me many things, most of which I don't remember  because I was so excited =]  He finished with how much he loved me and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, and then asked me to marry him. It only took me about a half a second to say yes!

I have the greatest friends.  Really that's all there is to it.  And everyone knows you have to have your best friends there for you on your wedding day.  Asking these girls to be in my wedding party was a no brainer for me.  In fact, after getting engaged and calling everyone to tell them the good news, I blurted out to each of them that they just had to be my bridesmaid.

So, let me introduce to you the ladies that will be standing up for me at my wedding.

MAID OF HONOR "S"

S and I at our cousin's wedding this May

S is my sister.  Has been my whole life.  Well her whole life anyways.  She is 2 years younger than me and goes to school in Chicago.  Growing up my mom always told me "You better start getting along with your sister, she is the only one you have!"  We were the kind of sisters who fought, CONSTANTLY.  Usually it was about silly stuff like her taking my clothes without asking, or simply the fact that she bugged me often.  But now that we've both moved away to school we get along great! Imagaine that =]

BRIDESMAID "BH"

BH and I celebrating "Unofficial" at U of I this March

BH has been my best friend for pretty much my whole life.  I met her the day she was born, although I don't really remember since I was only 4 months old.  Her parents introduced my parents and they live right down the road from us.  They're great family friends, emphasis on the family part.  So needless to say, she has been a huge part of my entire life.  (An interesting side note: BH and S are roommates in Chicago.  I always find it funny because BH is "my friend" and BH's sister is S's friend)

BRIDESMAID "BW"

BW and I camping in WI in 2006

BH lives in Wisconsin and got engaged the same day I did!!  Her and her Mr. are getting married a month after me (yay!).  There are pictures of us in diapers together, that's how long I've known this girl.  BH is also a cousin.  But she's not mine.  BH and BW are cousins.  You see we have kind of adopted BHs entire 50+ extended family.  (They're all coming to the wedding too!!)

BRIDESMAID "A"

A and I at my highschool graduation in 2006

A and I met my sophomore year of highschool when she transferred in as a freshman and joined the soccer team.  It took only a matter of weeks for us to become inseparable.  I hardly ever get to see A anymore because she goes to school in Iowa and is super busy!!! But when we do manage to catch up it's like we haven't missed a beat.

BRIDESMAID "K"

K and I at a Jackhammers game in 2007

K and I went to the same highschool too, but didn't really become friends until the summer after I graduated.  And by becoming friends, I really mean we became family.  She has always been more like a sister than a friend.  We fight sometimes, but always get over it and move on!  I credit my freshman year of college survival to her very regular visits on the weekends.

 

These girls have all played such major roles in my life and I couldn't imagine them not being there for the biggest day so far!

 

p.s. This post was much better the first time I wrote it but somehow it managed to disappear and I had to redo it all over again!!!

Chartreuse [shar-trooz] -noun.  1.  a clear light green, with a yellowish tinge.

Chartreuse is the name of the green I want.  To explain to most people I tell them I don't want mint, or grass green, or kelly green, or clover or whatever other color greens exist.  I tell them to think lime green but subdued, a not so bright, fluorescent jump at you lime, but kinda. 

And so began the longest search of this whole wedding process.  I was hoping to find semi-cheap dresses somewhere all my girls could go.  Two are in Chicago during the school year, one in western IL, one in WI, and one in IA.  So first I looked at David's Bridal.  They definitely didn't have it.  Then came the online searching and searching,  and searching....  Bridal stores didn't turn up anything either.

Then one day I was looking on the website of the photographer I was hoping to have for my wedding.  There they were!!  My dream dresses were sitting there on the very first picture of her wedding section.  Even better... it was the daughter of a woman my mom knows well through work.  So she called her up and asked for the style and who made it.

Jim Hjelm Style JH5520 in "Kiwi"

And there was the color I had been searching for.

Only downside...it was going to cost them...big time!

I just couldn't do that to my girls.  So we did the next best thing.  We called up the mom again and asked if she could find out from her daughter if her girls would like to sell us the dresses.  And guess what.....

They did!!  We are in the process of collecting the dresses.  We currently have 4 of the 6 available.  All but one has been dry cleaned and are in excellent condition!!  They all said if we pay them around $50 they'd be happy. 

Then all the girls will need is some alterations which my mom's best friend is going to do for us!!

I'm so, so excited that I was able to find the color I wanted, and to imagine they were sitting in my own hometown =]