Literally.

My fiance's last name is Queen. So thus I will be becoming a Queen by marriage in no way associated with royalty :)

I wanted to start this blog to not only record the process of engagement to marriage and beyond, but to have a way to network with other people like-minded and otherwise! What's ironic about the whole marriage/wedding thing I have found is that there is a lot of peer pressure! So if you don't do everything according to tradition (and then even if you do!) you end up feeling kind of alone with these issues, whatever they may be. Which is a little ironic considering it's essentially the merging of families in the creation of a new one. So it would be nice to see feedback from other people.

One common thread in my life seems to be that I do everything out of order. I graduated high school early and went to college late. We moved in together before we got married and are getting married before I finish college. Who meets "the one" when they're a sophomore in high school? That would be me. See? All out of order and never traditional. Which is strange because I have no problems with tradition, I just never seem to fit into it!

A little background about me is that I am 21 and live in Texas. I am currently halfway through school to become a registered nurse. I have two dogs who drive me insane and a cat who thinks he's cooler than all of us. We have only been engaged since this past November and plan on getting married this July! My fiance has his bachelor's degree in biochemistry for premed and went totally left field and became a police officer instead. He is 23 and like I mentioned before we dated in high school, which is by definition nothing serious and grew up to become best friends.

The general plan for our wedding is for it to be small, simple and meaningful. I have a HUGE extended family (divorced & remarried parents and my dad's mother is one of six, whom have all had kids and grandkids), but to invite them all would equal a huge price tag and spending loads of money on a wedding isn't our priority. Right now we're at the point in our lives where we have to decide between either/or. Big wedding and wait or smaller and sooner. Big wedding later = buying a house even later, which is something that is very important to us to do early. The budget limitations really make you think about what's truly important to you on your wedding day and for us, it's just that-us! The honeymoon is what we want to spend most of the budget and time on. Though we did want to have a ceremony which involved our parents, grandparents, siblings, immediate aunts, uncles and cousins and our closest friends. Neither of us (nor our families) are much for dancing so we decided to have the wedding at a local restaurant that's set on some vineyards. The ceremony will take place in an outdoor pavilion overlooking the vineyards and the "reception" aka glorified dinner/dessert will take place inside, where we still have the great view. We will only be inviting 40 people. Then we will take off the next day for a wonderfully tropical 10 day vacation. I am really looking forward to the whole experience and to marry (as cheesy as it sounds) my best friend.

The smaller wedding is kind of liberating! There is wayyyy less pressure because the to-do list is practically cut in half! I chose the restaurant at the vineyards because I wanted a venue with lots of natural beauty, I'm not really into tons of decorating and flowers. And then since it's a restaurant, that takes care of the issue of a caterer. Also I am not bothering with bridesmaids because it's about us and it's not really important for our union to involve a wedding party. So basically the entirety of my to-do list is the venue, officiant, dress, photographer (big maybe), bouquet, boutonniere, invitations, cake and honeymoon. If I had all the money in the world, I would probably do a lavish event like all those fairy-tale weddings, but for the cards I have been dealt and the place we are at in our lives right now I am very happy and excited about our small, non-traditional wedding :) I am looking forward to the rest of our lives together and all the different stages and places that will take us.

So now that I'm actually tired of talking about my life I'll shut up (:

Until tomorrow!