releasing control

All I need right now is a really great graphic designer who will design a Save the Date announcement for us for a small price, give us the file and then allow us to print it somewhere for 19 cents a card so we can have cute but inexpensive cards. Why is this proving to be so difficult? I don't want to design our own Save the Date because I'm just not able to do it like I envision in my head. I am rarely a perfectionist but when it comes to designs and paper and fonts I just get this idea in my mind that I have to have...I could easily be a graphic designer if I had an ounce of artistic ability in my body...but I don't. I just have the eye for things that look good and those are the things I want!

I truly believe there are certain parts of our wedding we just have to give up for others to take over so that we can save our sanity and focus on the important things. While Save the Dates are a small item, I honestly think it would be best to give up control and allow someone else to make it. So I'm going to. Etsy, one of my favorite websites has tons of designers who will design something for $15-$40. I think that is very reasonable. Even the graphic designer friends I know would charge more than that. Whew.

I'm glad I got that out.

Truthfully being engaged is so much fun and there is a little part of me that would consider extending our wedding date just so we could stay engaged. I love looking at wedding planning blogs and websites and forums. I kind of want to work in the wedding industry. I always have, I loved catering weddings and seeing the details each bride picked. I think being a wedding planner's assistant is my dream job...maybe for the future when I need a break from social work.

On another note, we leave for Montana Friday morning to spend 8 days home for Christmas! I'm so excited. I haven't seen my parents since we got engaged so I am beyond excited for that. My mom scheduled some appointments for me to try on wedding dresses and my maid of honor and I have a standing date for pedicures and wedding discussion. I also completely love Christmas and cannot wait for Christmas Eve brunch, dinner with the family, opening presents, giving presents, lefse and meatballs, snow, skiing...I am so ready. I hope this week goes by quickly. I think it will because I have a ton to do to prepare for being gone and we have my Christmas party and Nathan's this week. I don't want Christmas to end!

This was taken on Nathan's camera phone so the quality is bad but it's our first tree! We still need a topper and tree skirt but I think we might purchase them after Christmas and on sale...shhhh.

Gosh you'd think our life completely revolves around budget-friendly decisions now!

engagement pictures

We had our engagement pictures taken last Friday. The weather was absolutely freezing and we really didn't want to be wearing jackets in our pictures...Needless to say there are some stiff, hands-clenched poses. But all in all I think they're cute. The person who did them specializes in artsy vintage looking pictures which we thought would be fun. I really love her style.

house+wedding

I can't remember if I already wrote this but we are almost positive, if everything works out correctly, we are going to buy a house by April 2010, before our wedding. This is super exciting because we have been wanting this forEVER and should be able to do it if we can find something in our price range (which we have found-we just need to agree that it means not living right in the heart of the city). The bad part is that we are trying to buy a house and plan a wedding at the same time. With little money. Our house down payment will hopefully come from the $8,000 tax credit (used as a loan for the down payment) but we will still need money for closing and probably at least a few new items (we plan to wait until AFTER the wedding to outfit the house more and we expect we will register for a lot of the stuff we might need).

I have heard hiring a wedding planner is the best way to stay within a budget. It sounds almost counterproductive: spending money on someone to tell you how to save money...But part of me is considering it. I also wish I could be in Montana more to try and find things like caterers. No one in Montana has a website so I have no idea if places like Lulu's Catering are legitimate or just some backyard BBQ place. It's hard! My parents are being super helpful but there are some things I just want to do and it takes 10 times the energy to try and do it long distance. Maybe I will go home in February or something to work on it more. I found a great place for food but they are already booked which tells me I can't wait much longer.

website

I started our wedding website:

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/AshleyDawson&NathanJohnson

I think this might become a wedding planning blog...:) I love wedding planning but I think all I am doing is coming up with more and more ideas but nothing that has been put into motion. Oh well. We have the location for the ceremony and reception (my parents cabin on the lake) and the officiant (a long time family friend who is an awesome Lutheran pastor in Minnesota) which I think are big things to cross of the list! Oh and a tentative amazing photographer if she can make it to the U.S.. But major things still hanging include: the other half of my bridesmaids (actually I have only asked one person...and I need 6...I know 2 others for sure, I hope they say yes!), the colors, the food, the favors (although I think we just settled on some truffles after my great Maid of Honor and best friend had some shipped to us from a pastry chef she knows), the layout of the tent, tables, chairs, the vows, the wedding bands, the groom's outfit, my dress, the bridesmaid's dresses, the groomsmens' dresses...yeah...just about everything. But I have a binder full of ideas and price quotes and a few more magazines to go through...so I think we're okay.

My mom is always calling with new ideas and we will be in Boise next week to discuss details with Nathan's mom and sister.

plan plan plan

The craziness has begun! Not even 3 days after our engagement all the questions started coming about flowers and colors and dresses and dates and locations and times and food and music and on and on and on! I wish we could be engaged a little longer so there would be time to just soak it all in. We have almost nine months exactly from our engagement date which isn't THAT bad but summers in Montana = wedding season and already one of the photographers I had considered as a back-up to my number one choice only has 3 dates left for the entire summer!

There are a few things I am not willing to scrimp on-namely an excellent photographer. If everything works out, we will have Mandy Mohler whose work and style I absolutely love. She took pictures of my brothers and me last year and just keeps getting better and better. I think the artsy wedding pictures she does are awesome. Beyond that we also will be having a lot of people (our guest list is at 220 right now) so we need good entertainment in the form of good food and good music. We might end up with just an iPod shuffle to save money but it will still be good! And food may not be gourmet but we will definitely be feeding our guests and showing them a good time-Montana style.

I just got back from a girl's weekend in San Francisco where I tried on a few dresses for fun. They were way out of our budget but I was more just trying to get an idea of what's out there. I want to wait until my mom can be a part of it all before I go crazy but I am getting more and more ideas. That process is kind of crazy in itself, a little bit emotional!

Beyond all the planning though I just feel SO happy. My cousin told me she just was "glowing" after getting engaged and I totally get it. I am still just up in the clouds and head over heels in love with my new fiance'. I can't seem to wipe the smile off my face and I get so excited to see him in the morning and come home to him at the end of the day. He's been a major part of my life for 23 years but now his role is changing and he has become such a huge part of my WORLD...I just love him so much.

One of the things I was most excited for after getting engaged was buying my first bridal magazines. It was something I refused to do until becoming engaged because I wanted to save the excitement. Now I have a few from which I rip pages of ideas and add to a binder. Right now it's just all fun, eventually I'll get serious about the planning.

August 7, 2010 is our date.

engaged!!!

Nathan proposed this weekend!! WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!

So...I kind of had an idea this was going to be happening soon, in fact I knew it would because we have both been so excited about it all that Nathan has not been good about keeping secrets. About 4 weeks ago he told me he bought a ring from a place we had once just casually looked before. Knowing the rings take about 4 weeks to custom make I had a feeling what his timeline would be. BUT I still didn't know for sure. He suggested we go to Victoria B.C. for the weekend of Halloween and booked us a really cute little hotel and tickets for the boat ride over.

Before we left he suggested we share a bag together to pack all of our stuff. At that point I started to think there was no way he had a ring because he could not hide it from me in the same bag. We ended up with separate bags anyway but there was still no sign of anything.

We were having an awesome time in Victoria, it is SO pretty and so fun to try good restaurants and shop and just walk around. There is this one hotel that has a big garden in the yard. Nathan suggested we go over there and walk through. As we walked out the door he started walking faster, getting sweatier and kept his hand in his pocket the whole time. We got there and walked through, just casually talking and walking. At one point I turned around to tell him something and looked to see him down on one knee with tears in his eyes. It was so cute! Of course I jumped up and down and we were just so excited we sat on a bench for like 30 minutes just giggling and hugging like little kids...it was good.

The whole week leading up to the trip he was extra sappy and extra cute with everything he said. I think it was all the things he would have said in a little speech to me if he wasn't so nervous. It's funny he was even nervous because we've known each other 23+ years but I'm sure it's different when you're holding a fancy ring and asking someone to be with you for 23+23+ more years. There's no question in my mind this is going to be great. We've known each other forever (our moms are best friends) and I had the BIGGEST crush on him when we were younger, I always dreamed of marrying him but it just a little girl fantasy that I never thought would come close to true. And it did!

We wanted to call everyone in our phone books right away to tell them but then realized we were in Canada and would be paying extremely high international rates! We called our parents and siblings and best friends but then just had to sit with the excitement until we got back to the states. It was great though, I still feel like I'm walking around on a cloud. I want to just enjoy it for a little while but I already feel the pressure to plan! We felt like we had to pick a date because we already have 4 other weddings to go to this summer/fall so we needed to fit our's in there. August 7 2010 at my parent's cabin on Ashley Lake is the plan. I want to have kind of a Seattle meets Montana style, maybe with more modern looking dresses and decorations but then a lot of just good old Montana charm. Most importantly we just want a big party with good friends, good food and good music.

symphony

One of my new friends invited me to see Ben Folds with the Seattle Symphony tomorrow night. I am so excited! I love hannging out with her and would love to see this combination of artists!

Nathan and I went to a first time homebuyer class last week. The class kind of made us feel like we're really far away from purchasing a home but then on a whim I called mortgage company, just to give us a better idea of where we stand. I just wanted some questions answered but the extremely nice loan officer insisted I let her pull our credit so she could see how things look right now but also could give it to her credit specialist who could tell us what we could work on to make our rate even better. She is still needing to finish everything but so far my credit report was good enough to get a loan. Of course Nathan's will make it better since he's the one with the income. We have a significant amount of debt with my terrible graduate school student loan (thank God I don't have anything from undergrad or there would be no hope), my car loan, Nathan's car loan, the rest of Nathan's old car and his student loan which is much much smaller than mine. And some credit cards. We haven't been so good with saving up a down payment so we're exploring what we can do about that. It sounds like the first time homebuyer credit will be extended which would be awesome. Right now it can be used as a down payment which would be so helpful for us. Unfortunately we're too late to take advantage of it so I'm just praying it will be extended.

The loan officer wanted to get everything started and ready to go so that if it was extended we could jump right on it and have all our paperwork finished. We don't qualify for any down payment assistance programs because our income is too high but there is still a lot to explore...and we could just work like crazy to reach the 3.5% we need for an FHA loan. So we'll see. I'm pretty excited this is much more attainable than we thought. I just wish we had started sooner but we were just so unsure and didn't want to pull credit again. Now it's time to get serious!

I drug myself to the gym today and am hoping this step will push me back into it. I go through spurts of doing really well and then just quit completely. Today I worked hard on the treadmill, did some weights and jump roped. I love jumping rope, I really need to do it more, it's great for getting my heart going. I did jump rope in junior high and loved it. Our school had a huge award winning team. I was a Skip-A-Beat which was not as good as the Skip Elites but it was still so fun! I tried to bring back my can-can and double unders and whatnot...I need to work on them:)