Wasn't it perfect???

I'm currently watching the wedding for a second time, this viewing with all the commentary beforehand and (finally) getting to watch the balcony kiss. I know it's been beaten to death, but, seeing as this is a wedding blog, I absolutely must provide a few comments, if only as a mini-time capsule upon which I can later look back.

It was truly perfect. From the Abbey to the gown to the vows, I thought the wedding was breathtaking. Catherine is such a gorgeous bride, and of course William is a total hunk, especially in that uniform. Here are my favorite parts:

William and Kate broke with some traditions. Weddings are traditional affairs, and Terry and I are huge fans of that tradition. I love the ancient vows, giving away the bride, and not seeing each other before the ceremony. But of course, some traditions simply don't fit with the couples. William is not wearing a wedding band, and they chose to arrive via car instead of carriage. The Queen was apparently not thrilled with the latter choice but ultimately lent Kate her 1950 Rolls Royce. I felt a bit relieved to know that even the royals break tradition, because Terry and I are breaking a few as well, much to the chagrin of our mothers. For example, I will not walk down the aisle to "Here Comes the Bride." (Then again, neither did Kate! We could pretend it's a British wedding!)

My favorite part of the wedding today was the Bishop of London's sermon, which included, "Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be." What a beautiful way to summarize the true ideal of marriage - that two people can be joined by God to then grow and become greater than they ever could be independently. I do feel that Terry makes me the best version of myself, and I hope I can help him continue to grow as an amazing man.

I wish the best for William and Kate's future - may the fairy tale end in "happily ever after!"

Royal Wedding Countdown - Six Hours!!!

No, I'm not staying up until 3 am to watch, but I am waking up at five so I can quickly fast forward through and watch the ceremony before work. I imagine this feeling is close to how excited I'll be on my actual wedding day. (I am only exaggerating slightly.) How will I sleep?!

There has been some talk about how crazy people are for being so excited, but I find the whole thing fascinating, romantic, and historical. And of course, there's the cliche - it's a real life fairy tale. But it's more than a fairy tale; it seems as though William and Kate have created a solid foundation for their relationship, and I look forward to watching their wedding. (Okay, let's face it, I'm slightly more excited than that.) That said, I'm off to bed to rest up for the big day!

Cheers to the bride and groom!

A crazy few weeks

The whole crew!

Sharron and I working on the cake.

So glad my mom could come down for the shower!

We thought the week we moved was crazy, but the universe proved us wrong again. Last week illustrated what true chaos means, and we both feel relieved to be on the other side of that insanity. Terry had to write a ten-page introduction (yes, that's just the introduction) to his Master's project, and I had cheer tryouts all week. Somehow, we survived the madness, and Terry even survived his Ragnar Relay race down to Coronado Island with his coworkers. I'm so proud that he finished, and - even more impressive - ran over 13 miles without much sleep. What a champ. Meanwhile, a few wedding updates from the last few weeks:

My mom came down for a fun weekend of girly bonding, shopping, and bridal shower-ing. We even found her dress for the wedding! We went through David's Bridal, which had a dress that looks stunning and elegant on her. I can't wait to see it for the big day! That same weekend, Terry's mom, family friends, and a few others threw a gorgeous bridal shower for me. The outdoor setting felt elegant and super classy, and Terry's dad even tended the bar! I'm so glad my mom was able to be there to celebrate with Terry's side of the family, a few of my coworkers, and even an awesome bridesmaid (thanks for making the drive out, Heidi!). It felt very surreal opening wedding gifts at my own bridal shower - I can't exactly describe the feeling of receiving your first gift that is intended for you and your husband. I have given many a wedding gift before, but receiving one is a completely different experience. I am so grateful to Terry's family and friends for throwing such a beautiful shower. I am truly blessed to get to be a part of such a generous and loving family.

This week (and for the past two months), we have been hard at work on the invitations, and tonight we finally sent them! We estimate that the entire process, from design to construction to licking the envelopes, took around 50 hours total. Some highlights include: trying to mount the cards onto the backings while driving up to Fremont (surprisingly difficult in a car), making at least eight trips to Paper Source to gather the necessary materials, and wanting to write angry letters to Target because they were surprisingly inconsistent with which stores carry scrapbooking tape and which ones don't. Regardless, we got it all done, and we absolutely put every bit of heart and soul into those invites. Pictures to come - hope you'll like them!

William and Kate's wedding is in a week and a half! I'm so excited for the Barbara Walters special about the wedding tonight, and I have every intention of creating a British-style meal on the big day. I also look forward to trying Newcastle's new brew, Kiss Me Kate, named after the new princess herself! Good thing we're doing London for the honeymoon - otherwise it would have been added to the itinerary!

In other wedding news, my big brother and his awesome fiancee have set a date for their nuptials! I seriously doubt they have any intention of blogging about their wedding planning, so I plan to take full responsibility for that project. I'm so proud and happy that Chris found the girl of his dreams (and hey, we all love her!). We are so excited to celebrate their wedding, and I look forward to the ginger children they will likely produce.

Life's certainly getting busy! On top of the wedding, work, school, family visits, and (still) setting up the new apartment, Terry's 25th birthday is this Thursday, and we're taking some time to celebrate that night. Later in May, the real gift is SCUBA diving! We've never done it before, but we're getting certified and then diving in Catalina for a weekend. We can't wait!

New home and fewer than 100 days to go!

Well, we have officially moved in to our new apartment! My parents came down Wednesday to help us clean and pack up our old apartment (man, what a huge help!), and then on Thursday the four of us and a team of movers got us settled into our new place. Pictures to be posted after we make things look a bit more presentable, but here's the rundown: It's newly renovated, in one of our favorite neighborhoods, and has an open floor plan. We now have two pools in our complex, plus a workout room, which are both big steps up from the old place. And our rent is significantly lower! Unfortunately, it's noticeably smaller than our last apartment and in an area with higher traffic. But we're getting settled and already loving the positive aspects of our new home. It will be the first place we'll live as a married couple, so we know it'll be awesome.

As we settle in, we're trying to stay on top of all the wedding planning - a slightly more difficult task when we can't remember which box has the wine corks and which box has the invitations. So tonight we focused on tasks we can complete online, like updating our registry and figuring out our welcome gifts for out of town guests. Terry pointed out that we are 97 days away from the wedding - wow! It's starting to get close, but we think our planning efforts have kept us fairly organized and ready to tick off the last three months without much stress. I'm personally super excited for my first bridal shower next weekend and shopping with my mom to find her dress for the big day.

By the way, is anyone following William and Kate's wedding plans? I'm admittedly in love with this couple. What's not to love? Royalty, British accents, a future princess - it's the fairy tale of our time. I just bought the "Will & Kate: The Royal Wedding" special edition of US Weekly, and I devoured every detail. I can't wait to see the real thing, though I have been told it might not be an awesome idea to watch a wedding at 1:00 am on a work day. Still, I fully intend to read every news story I can, and I also hope to follow through on Terry's cousin's idea for us to go as William and Kate for Halloween! Bloody brilliant!

March ends with a bang

Whoops! It's been quite awhile since my last post. As usual, we've been busy filling our weekends (and, lately, weeknights) with more activities than we can realistically complete, but we love it. We got back yesterday from an awesome engagement party for my big brother and his gorgeous fiancee, Ashley. We must have met half a dozen couples who are either engaged or newly married, so we had a blast exchanging wedding tips and getting marriage advice. It's always great to see my family, but the trips always feel SO short. We only have two more trips to the Bay Area planned before the wedding, so we really need to take advantage of the time we have when we do get up there. Our next trip includes my first dress alterations appointment, meeting with the Palm Event Center to hammer out details for the big day, and hopefully buying our first new car together! Such a grown up thing to do - yikes.

Lately our focus has been split between wedding details and packing for our big move (well, that and entertaining/being entertained by our adorable kitten). I'm about halfway done with my part of the invitations, and hopefully we can get them out in the next few weeks. We finally found an incredible apartment that will be our home during our first years of marriage. I love moving - the process of cleaning out all our stuff, organizing our lives, and starting fresh in a newly remodeled apartment just makes me giddy. I love redecorating and figuring out the puzzle of how to fit everything in the allotted space. Plus, our new place has two pools, a workout room, and a much better location. We look forward to the big move!

The next few weeks may feel a little crazy for us. It's my spring break, so I'm finishing up the packing before my parents come down to help with the move. Then in two weeks I have my first bridal shower with Terry's side of the family! Terry's birthday is coming up in April, and we're each entering busy times for work and school. Thankfully, the craziness is all such great stuff, and we're generally motivated by the fact that our wedding is getting SO close!

Thanks for reading - we're nearing the big day!

Food, Finals, and DIY Fun

Food first (those two words may or may not be a way of life in the Lanier/Heinrich household). I mentioned in a previous post that Terry and I are partaking in a 10-day challenge to eat all real food and no processed food. We started Wednesday, and we love it! So far, we have eaten these new recipes:

• Whole wheat crepes
• Whole wheat French toast with real maple syrup (our favorite so far)
  
• Whole wheat macaroni and cheese
• Spaghetti sauce with whole wheat noodles
• Peanut butter and jelly smoothies
• Caprese salad sandwiches
• And tonight's dinner: whole chicken in a crock pot

Macaroni and Cheese

Crepes

Vegetable Stir-Fry

All recipes are from the 100 Days of Real Food blog - check out the idea behind it and all the other yummy recipes! It's surprisingly easy to eat only real food, and in only a few days we've eaten more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains than we would in two weeks. For bread, the blog recommends buying bread from the Great Harvest Bread Company. I found one in South Pasadena, not too far from my work, so we have been completely spoiled with delicious (and healthy!) bread all week. I highly recommend the honey wheat!

In addition to our food challenge, Terry has had to study for two finals this week, and today he's finishing up the second one. What a stud - almost done with his Master's! He'll graduate in June, and we are both very excited for him to be done. Working full time and doing a graduate program is ridiculously difficult - but he's ridiculously awesome, so it all works out. :-)

This week, between the new recipes and receiving my pink slip (you like how I just slip that in there?), I found some time to relax with some fun projects. We're starting the invitation printing and assembly process tomorrow, so I focused on our guest book for the wedding. We played around with a lot of different ideas that we've seen at various weddings - a framed picture with a large matte that guests can sign, a regular guest book, a giant wine bottle with silver Sharpies, postcards, but ultimately we decided that we want to use our gorgeous engagement pictures from our wedding photographer, Rhee, and our good friend Roxanne. Between the pictures at Point Dume and UCLA and in downtown San Jose, we have over 200 pictures we can use. So we're making a little keepsake book that guests can sign and we can then place on what will hopefully be a new coffee table. :-) We're still in the design process, but if it works out and looks good I'll share all the details and make a recommendation!

Four Months, Baby!

Four months! I can't believe the big day is finally getting close! Today's post will be super quick, but I found this interesting blog post on why hiring a great photographer is so important. Okay, granted, I stole the link from our own wedding photographer, Rhee Bevere, but still, it's great. Terry and I agreed from the start that we would find our photographer first and base the rest of our budget around that one item. I'm so glad we did! Just based on our engagement pictures, we know the wedding photos will be amazing.

Enjoy!
Why you should NEVER skimp on wedding photography from Southall Eden's blog

A sample from Rhee's amazing work!