Tag Archives: wedding planning

The People You Turn Into

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What is it about weddings that can turn a person inside out? What happens in a person that makes them either go to the light or the dark side?

If there’s anything I’ve learned about wedding planning (and there have been many lessons), it’s that people change when it comes to weddings. Weddings can either amplify the good nature within people or it brings out the crazy. The complete bat-shit crazy.

Sound familiar? Here’s some of the people you might meet, the good and the bad, after you get engaged:

  1. Butt-Hurt McGee

This person is sooooooooooooo offended that you didn’t ask them to be in the wedding party/throw a shower/include them in your day somehow. In fact, they’re so butt hurt by not being included that they’ll throw shade every which way they can by turning down invitations to parties, not answering phone calls or texts, and even threatening to not go to your wedding.

This person will basically be absent for you during wedding planning. Even if you were close before, they will vanish anytime you call or try to hang out. There’s nothing you can do to make up for the terrible “rift” your decisions have caused the relationship, mainly because the “rift” is made up and not that serious.

Depending on your level of closeness, you can decide to really put some effort into repairing the relationship and addressing the conflict or just walk away.

2. The Nickle and Dimer

This person is so obsessed with the bottom line that they’d rather you have your wedding in a parking lot and ask people to bring their own chairs, booze, and food than try to pay for anything over the budget. They can’t see the end picture because they’re so bogged down with the small details that nearly every decision ends in a stalemate and uber frustration.

No doubt, this was me at the very beginning of wedding planning. I was so overwhelmed with the high price tags of everything wedding-related that I basically shut down and cried every day. The guilt of a big budget followed by millions of decisions made me the human version of a IED. Want to know when the next explosion is? Just say the price tag and KABOOM.

3. Me, Myself, and I

This person has made it clear that your wedding is all about them. Every question they ask is all about them. “How am I supposed to get around town?” “Who is going to watch my kids?” “How could you NOT want to meet my child?” “Can you do this for me?” “Can you do that for me?” “Your wedding locations are really inconvenient for me.” “Me me me me.”

This is the worst person ever. Not only can they not understand that your wedding is about you and your fiance, they make it a point to let you know any chance they get that if you’re not meeting their every need, they’re not happy for you in the least bit. Not until you switch the focus to them, that is. Then they’re overjoyed at the chance to have a me-party during your big day.

4. The Worrier

This person is worrying about everything and they’re not even the one getting married. They will contact you obsessively about every little detail, even ones that have nothing to do with them or their duties. “Has anyone done this yet?” “Where am I supposed to meet you?” “I emailed/texted/called you 1 hour ago, why haven’t you responded?” “Who is picking this person up?” “Why don’t I know everything that’s going on?”

This person is EXHAUSTING. I mean, 100% completely out of control debilitating. If the incessant calls/emails/texts don’t wear you down, then the million and one ridiculous “What if/then this?” made-up scenarios will stress you out so much you can’t help but lose it.

5. The “I’ve Forgotten How to Adult” adult

Normally, this person has everything in their life together. They have/had a job, pay their bills on time, may have a family, and is someone who typically handles their stuff. Yet, somehow wedding planning makes them question how they accomplish the simplest tasks day to day. “How do I get around a city I already live in?” “How do I get myself dressed and looking presentable on the wedding day?” “When and where am I supposed to feed myself?” “How are others supposed to feed themselves?”

This person will frustrate the crap out of you. No matter how many times you remind them that they normally drive themselves around, or that they can call a cab, or that they can hire someone to do stuff for them, they will continue to insist that they don’t know how to do these things. The easiest thing to do with this person is to ignore them until after the wedding.

6. The Ghost

Where has this person gone? You contacted them at the beginning to ask them to be a part of your wedding in some way, and they subsequently ghost you and never respond to anything again. In fact, you have to contact them 5 or more times before they respond, and who knows if they’re actually going to answer the questions you posed for them.

Sometimes your Ghost is Me, Myself, and I. They disappear until you can somehow make it about them again. And when you do, they’ll respond to you lightning fast as though they never ghosted you in the first place.

This person is different from Butt-Hurt McGee. They’re not offended or hurt, they’re just terrible at staying in contact. Even when they know it’s crucial to be around and accessible, they can’t get it together long enough to respond to emails/texts/calls in a timely manner. They simply, POOF, vanish from communication and you don’t know if they’re alive or dead anymore.

This person isn’t terrible, they’re just annoying as f^*k.

7. The “I’ve Lost My Mind and Will Make Terrible Decisions” friend

This person will out of nowhere and with no warning become your worst enemy at a moment’s notice. They will behave like a crazy person, make really terrible decisions (usually fueled by alcohol and a general unhappiness with their own life), and end up destroying the bond you may have had with them.

This person will generally not apologize. In fact, instead of apologizing, they’ll use any excuse to justify their bad behavior and question you for even bringing it up to them like they did anything wrong. This person is T.O.X.I.C. You may have seen some of the warning signs before but chose to ignore them because they never did anything bad to you in the past, and besides, it’s your wedding! Everyone will be on their best behavior, right? Right??

This person may make you question yourself and what you did to deserve this type of reaction. The person may also fuel the fire of other people’s bad behavior because they think they may be able to get away with acting out. Which will then make you question your relationships with these people in the first place.

This is not really the state of mind you want to find yourself in while you’re planning your own wedding. The best thing you can do is sever the tie and move on.

8. The Human Bra

Without question, this is who you want everyone associated with your wedding to be. These people are the most supportive, the most helpful, the most loving and caring people of all. Never hesitating to ask, “How can I help?” “Where do you need me?” “I’m here for you”, the human bra is the person and persons who will support you through the drama and help out when you’re about to lose your mind from all the stupid little decisions that have to be made.

They’ll text you out of the blue to tell you they love you and they’re excited for not just your wedding but also your marriage. They’ll do their best to keep the drama away from you and your fiance, attend all your functions, and never complain. Even if they can’t bring their children even though they want to (because duh, they love them), they say nothing and handle their lives efficiently so that they can help you out.

I’m happy to report that the human bra is everyone on my side. They have gone out of their way to make me feel special and loved and excited for my wedding and my marriage. They’ve even done the same for Timmy, just to make him feel all the love and support that I’ve received. I just can’t get enough of them!

——–

Obviously, I’m exaggerating a bit and poking fun not just at the people I’ve met during my own wedding planning, but stories I’ve heard from friends who had their own fair share of craziness during their weddings. You can only control what you can control. and although some of these personalities have driven me crazy, I’m choosing to focus on the good. The good being my friends, family, and of course, Timmy.

2 weeks. Let’s do this.

♥, VB

Lessons Learned from Wedding Planning

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The follow-up sentence to this title should read: from someone who is known as a control freak by everyone who knows her and also has mild OCD.

I realized how much time has passed since we got engaged when a co-worker a few days ago asked if I had found my dress yet, and I replied, “Yes, just this past November.”

Pause. Not November 2015. NOVEMBER 2014, OVER A YEAR AGO.

So yeah, we’ve been planning our wedding for quite a while now. And our wedding planner reminded us we only have 18 weeks left until our wedding, which ended up with Timmy and I dry heaving a bit at this news. Things haven’t felt all that stressful the last 6 months or so, simply because we got most everything completed as soon as we set the date.

I know I’m quite different from most people in this world. Organized doesn’t even begin to describe how I operate. I see the world not how it is, but how I can group like things with like and how quickly can I accomplish challenges and to-do lists. So once Timmy and I set the date, off I went like a horse out of the gate.

There are so many lessons I’ve learned over the process of planning a wedding for a date 1.5 years after getting engaged. I tried to give us enough time to do what we needed to do (from a different state) while also giving us a cushion of time to also do the dirty work of getting used to what life would be like as a married couple. So many lessons however were ones that came out of left field for me.

I originally scheduled dress shopping at only two small stores in Atlanta Thanksgiving weekend in 2014 simply to placate my sister and mother, who were quickly starting down the “when are you going to start planning” path. I figured dress shopping would calm them down.

Lesson #1: Expect the Unexpected

…like buying a dress before you thought you would and before you have a budget.

I had ZERO plans to buy a dress. And lo and behold, I found my dress at the last store we went into, La Raine’s Bridal Boutique in Virginia Highlands. Correction: my sister found my dress, which was the last one of the day, and I had already changed back into my clothes when my sister brought me the dress. I immediately said, “Oh. My. God.” when I put it on, and the consultant reminded me that this dress was the only one I had a reaction to.

And then I knew. Done. Check. Dress found.

The whole thing happened faster than I had intended, and all of the sudden, with that decision, wedding planning had begun. I wholeheartedly had planned on waiting MONTHS before starting any type of planning with Timmy.

Expectations mean next to nothing when it comes to wedding planning.

Even though it wasn’t the color I wanted, it wasn’t ever what I had envisioned, it was definitely my dress. Which leads me to my second lesson-

Lesson #2: Compromise Will Save You…and Your Sanity

I tried on maybe 20 dresses at both stores. And once I found my dress, I stopped the search and never looked back. I’m the best decision-maker ever (although some have called me impulsive, including myself). I make decisions quickly, with assertiveness and acceptance. Timmy, well, not so much.

I learned maybe 1 minute into our wedding planning that everything I learned about being with Timmy would have to be applied times 10 to the planning process or else we were going to kill each other. I would make a list of decisions that needed to be made, asked him to honestly decide if he cared about those decisions, and the ones he agreed to, I gave him 2-3 weeks to marinate before re-addressing the issues.

That way, I wasn’t all down his grill about deciding things on my schedule, and I still got a decision made by him in a timely fashion.

Obviously, not all decisions have worked like this, but I would say, once we found our groove, probably 75% of the decisions were solved in this way.

I have compromised on nearly every aspect that I thought I would have very strong opinions about. When it came down to it, if it seemed like Timmy felt stronger about something than I did, I let him have it his way. Now, some of those decisions are biting us in the ass a bit now, and I wish I had fought more for some of the things that are going exactly the way I predicted, but hindsight, blah blah blah.

Lesson #3: You Have to Let It Go

Making decisions between Timmy and I has never been an easy thing. I knew heading into this we would really be testing our relationship in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. At the end of the day however, we both realized that we had to let it go. Resentments? Let it go. Anger? Let it go. Confusion and frustration? Let it go.

And I don’t mean let it go like “never discuss it and get over it.” I mean, talk. Talk. More talking. Talk more than you thought you needed to. And then talk again.

Talking through everything that popped up, no matter how insignificant the emotion or issue, made us get on the same page. There was no other option than to be in sync with each other.

And after talking, we realized the issues or things we were so worked up about, NOW we could just let them go.

Lesson #4: You Have to Be on the Same Team. Period.

There has been some drama pop up here and there, like everyone experiences when you attempt to bring two families and two sets of friendships together. If Timmy and I had been divided on anything, we would probably not be wedding planning at this point anymore.

The first issue that ever popped up, the one that blindsided us completely, and had us scrambling to re-evaluate some friendships and trusted loved ones, FORCED us to be on the same team. He had to have my back and I had to have his. We knew we could NOT have opposing or conflicting statements, emotions, or decisions. Any sign of us not being together on it would have severely affected the emotional state of the other person and could have torn us apart.

Once we realized how strong our teamwork was and how it made our vision complete, we have been on the same team on everything else since then. There are no ifs, ands, or butts on this one.

Lesson #5: Still Date Each Other

This one got much easier once we moved back in together at the beginning of this month. Timmy and I hadn’t lived together in 2 years, so every weekend we spent together, going back and forth between Orlando and St. Pete was always filled with dinners out and about.

But during the week, it was usually a call once or twice a day, and then a quick FaceTime right before going to bed. Love was there, but connecting is quite challenging that way.

Once we moved back in, we promised each other a number of things that we’ll see how well we can stick to them over time. The one thing we HAVE done is cook meals and sit down at the dinner table nearly every night for almost 4 weeks. No t.v., no phones, no distractions. Just us.

It can be easy, after 6.5 years together, to start to take each other for granted. And yes, for the record, I’ve heard 90% of Timmy’s life stories a million times now. But that shouldn’t keep us from spending real time together. Time enjoying meals cooked together or by the other partner. Time looking at each other, time not rushed, time for us.

It’s only been a month of living in my less than 800 square foot, one bedroom, one bath apartment, a place we were CERTAIN would make us kill each other in no time at all, and we have grown so much closer, it’s insane. In our cozy little apartment, it feels more like home than any other place we’ve lived together.

Lesson #6: Use Who You Hire

We made about 93% of the decisions on our own. And yes, one of our first decisions was to hire a wedding planner. But I’ve only used her for her expertise maybe 3 times in almost a year.

Why? Like most things in life, sometimes it’s just easier when you do it yourself. I used the internet, my wise friends and family, and my gut to make decisions and hire vendors that fit our vision. I talked to my most organized friends and they gave me what they had when they were planning their own wedding.

I quite clearly can do this all myself. I involved Timmy on the things he asked to be involved in. But at the end of the day, I struggled with figuring out how to use my wedding planner.

And then, MONTHS after already printing out the invitations and having them sit in my apartment for close to 9 months now, my wedding planner caught the only typo that 6 of us who reviewed the invitation never caught.

And my heart fell through my butt.

Obviously (well not really as she had to explain this to me on the phone yesterday) proofreading every important document is a wedding planner’s duty. [Thankfully, the typo is not a big deal or else I would have to order brand new ones. Most people won’t even catch it when they receive the invite. Whew.]

So that naturally led to discussions of the guest list (which so far, has really been the only point of true contention between Timmy and I). And she reminded me of the million and one things to remember when addressing envelopes (which are stupid and I hate them), so she reminded me that she also can look through the guest list to review everything there.

I mean, these are things that it didn’t even occur to me to use her for. I didn’t need her help in picking out invites. We didn’t want to spend a fortune because everyone just throws them away anyways, and we weren’t going to design some floral, romantic, girly thing from scratch. We didn’t want to spend money on calligraphy since the envelopes are the first to go in the trash. But what she did remind me was that since the invites are technically from my parents, they would want calligraphy on the envelopes since it’s a thoughtful and very beautiful touch.

She helped steer us to some vendors that have been amazing so far, but the band was all us, color choices were me, outfits us, wedding page me, music selection us. Her expertise was so invaluable at the beginning when I didn’t know how to talk to vendors, how to look at proposals, how to not work with some vendors, spatial design and decor for a room the size of ours.

If you hire a wedding planner or day-of-coordinator, USE THEM. Don’t believe for a second, since you’re so organized, you don’t need them until the day of. I could’ve saved SO MUCH TIME just reviewing all my decisions directly with her instead of searching the internet like a mad woman for proper etiquette, yada, yada, yada.

Lesson #7: Poof! There Goes Your Budget

You have set ideas how things will go. I wanted to elope and avoid spending money of any kind. I wanted the whole thing to be about the two of us, that’s it. And Timmy felt very strongly that NO.

All of the sudden, we were planning a wedding that I didn’t really want. My parents gave us a budget (because they are amazing and OMG how incredible are they?!!) and it didn’t work with the amount of people on the list. Then they raised it. And it still didn’t work. And they raised it again. And the whole time Timmy and I kept fighting about the guest list and the amount of money I felt we were spending and at the same time wasting.

And then we had another budget increase from Timmy’s mother, and all of the sudden, our costs went crazy. It was like there was no limit on something I had desperately wanted limits for. And I felt crushed. Crushed by guilt. Crushed by the loss of the way I had wanted things to turn out.

If you don’t put your foot down, your budget will explode in your face. My parents gave us, quite frankly, a VERY healthy budget and it still wasn’t enough to satisfy some people’s desires. Instead of buckling down and saying from the very beginning, oh well, we can’t have everything and everyone we’ve known our whole lives at this wedding, we’re still running into issues around the guest list now.

But because we’re also on the same team, these later challenges have felt much easier to handle since we’re both shouldering the effort.

Lesson #8: Plan for the Marriage, Not the Wedding

Like I said before, we have had a long engagement intentionally. At the very beginning, I had a VERY hard time adjusting to this new course in life. I hated everything that we were doing and everything that we had to keep making decisions on.

And now, I’m loving it. I love planning. I love making decisions. We’re at a really good place where now all I am is excited for our wedding. I’m not dreading it, I’m not sad or guilty or anything else but stoked to party with all our friends. I’m so excited, some days I’m ready for it to be tomorrow.

But we 100% haven’t forgotten that the wedding is one day. The real thing is the marriage. The wedding is temporary, a memory that hopefully we’ll be able to store away as much as we can for as long as we can, but a marriage is forever. Whenever we’re with our married friends, one of my first questions is “What is your advice to us?”

I’m craving time with Timmy, even in our cramped apartment, because soon, he will be my husband (I’m still making gagging noises when I say that, so clearly I’m not 100% ready). I need to know him better, I need to trust him more than ever, I need to feel like we’re both fully committed to this partnership. Not that I haven’t felt any of those things before. I just need them more now.

Because marriage is the hard stuff. Picking out vases and candles and outfits and paper for invitations is not hard. That stuff is NOTHING compared to what kind of life marriage brings two people. And it’s a part of life that Timmy and I have zero context for because we’ve never been married.

It’s the fear and uncertainty of the unknown that is keeping my brain up at night sometimes. Even when my heart is settled and sure and dedicated.

So through all these lessons, this roller coaster of emotions spent on a million plus decisions for this wedding, I still repeat what I said almost one year ago:

“The happy is being with my partner, the happy is spending a life exploring each other and this world, the happy is making him laugh for years to come, the happy is in the celebration of this love.

The happy is Timmy. Which will be my mantra from here until our wedding day.”

♥, VB

Just The Way We Like It

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This past month has been grueling. I’m 100% not ready to write about everything that happened as it’s been a pretty emotional and exhausting time, but I promise I will.

In the meantime, I thought today was as good a day as any to share something Timmy and I have had so much fun with the past few months: planning them, taking them, sharing them. When I say fun, I mean F-U-N. As in tears streaming down our faces because we can’t stop laughing at ourselves and all of our completely brilliant ideas.

I am of course talking about our engagement pictures.

If you know us, you are probably slightly aware of the fact that Timmy and I like to laugh and enjoy making others laugh as well. We’re pretty self-deprecating and will do whatever we can to get that laugh. Even when others think we’re morons, at least we’re laughing first and foremost (and sometimes last).

Clearly, our engagement pictures were the perfect vehicle for this. I originally had some really ambitious ideas for photoshopping and visual imagery that were, in essence, our way of saying “F*&k You Pinterest” for making everyone believe that having the exact same type of engagement picture is somehow a good thing. As if couples should no longer seek to share something that makes them unique or create a little window into their life together for others to see.

Railroad tracks, old bridges, and brick walls are not unique, my friends. Not anymore.

Unfortunately, I had to give that dream up as our original photographer almost died after taking our original shots in February and I didn’t really think it would be appropriate to be like, “Hey James’ family, I know your son is like at death’s door, but can I grab those pictures when you get a chance? Kthanksbye.”

Like many things I wanted for our wedding planning, compromise was the name of the game. And also a pain in the ass, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

So we enlisted our wedding photographer, Raven Shutley from YouAreRaven (I found her on A Practical Wedding who is not only affordable but takes the most breathtaking photos with a very light editing touch), to meet us one weekend morning in Atlanta in May. I loved her work online and couldn’t wait to work with her. I feel very strongly that our photos should look like us; I didn’t want us so retouched that we look like robots. We filled Raven in on what we were looking to do: nothing serious, nothing romantic, nothing lovey-dovey, and certainly nothing Pinterest-like. Not only did she get it, she was 100% down with getting the photos we wanted and never once tried to sway us from our vision.

Why go through so much trouble to get silly photos, you may ask? Honestly, that’s just who we are. If you’ve ever spent time with us as a couple, you know that we poke fun at each other and ourselves, we’re silly, and we genuinely enjoy bringing people into the fun, crazy world we bring to life every time we’re with each other. To showcase any other image through photos that we’ll own forever would not only be inauthentic, it would be a flat-out lie.

Anyone can capture a loving gaze. Anyone can shoot just the bride and ignore the groom entirely. Not everyone can capture the essence of your relationship through a photo. And that’s what Raven was able to accomplish.

Once we finished the session (which included about 30 minutes of searching for the Beltline Trail entrance until we just gave up and went to the park I played in as a child, and afterwards we drove to the restaurant to finish shooting and meet my parents for lunch, we drove right over the Trail not even 2 miles from the park…), we anxiously awaited the return of the photos. Once they were ready, we had a Google Hangout with Raven where, I’m not joking, the 3 of us laughed so hard at the final products that we barely got a word in the entire time we were on the call.

I’d call the entire thing a complete success. Once we chose the photos we wanted to include in our Save the Dates, I got busy designing the cards and spent HOURS staring at my computer, collapsing in never-ending giggles. Timmy and I chose 6 different Save the Dates, so everyone on our list got a different one. Timmy and I spent last weekend going through our guest list, and one by one, decided who should get which card, and laughed the entire time we did it.

Are these Save the Dates completely appropriate? Not so much. Are they romantic? Nope. Are they us? YES. 100 million times YES.

I’m sure our parents would’ve liked something a little more tame and traditional, but I have to admit, we wouldn’t change a single thing about the photos or the cards. I have the feeling that our parents think that I’m 100% responsible for the direction these photos took, but I want to remind them and everyone else that like most everything in this relationship, we make EVERY decision together (which drives me insane the majority of the time). Nothing that represents us as a couple is decided by either of us in isolation, so if you’re a little ticked about the photos, all I ask is that you remember that it wasn’t just me.

Oh, and get over it.

Timmy and I will remember planning the poses, taking these photos, and choosing who gets which card as times of doubled-over laughter and deep bonding, as we were continuously reminded of why we chose each other in the first place and why we choose every day to stay together.

Enjoy a few of the photos we took that day.

Boob Grab. Yes, this made a Save the Date.
“No, you’re funny!” “No you are!”
“Onward!”
OH HEEEEYYYY!! Another Save the Date.
just skipping through the park, like couples in love do
Yep, another Save the Date.
mmmm martini!
GAHROSS
Yet another Save the Date
romance for life, y’all.
1 of maybe 3 cute photos from the session
“Oh BUFFY!!!” “Cheers darling!”
2 of 3 cute photos we took

FYI, I doubt our wedding pictures are going to be much different, so stay tuned. 🙂

To Raven, you made our dreams come true. You can read Raven’s blog about our engagement session here.

♥,

VB

Rough Go

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That’s been me lately. Having a rough go of it. It’s like a switch has been thrown and I’m in the funk.

This whole wedding planning thing is OVERWHELMING. Capital letters all the way.

I don’t say this for pity or to be dramatic. I know there are worse things happening globally, there are things that need attention beyond my little world. I know people would love to be in a position of planning an over-the-top wedding with all the fixins. But I am completely overwhelmed.

I’ve been trying to find the happy medium, the balance, but let me tell you, when your ideal wedding was a courthouse getaway that has now been turned into a full-blown wedding extravaganza, it’s hard to find the healthy grip on life again.

All the compromises, I’ve heard them and pitched them, so no need to offer advice on how to find the middle ground, either. Destination wedding? Timmy vetoed that a LONG time ago. Courthouse wedding then have a big party? No difference in the overall price, so not really worth compromising on. Eloping? I think I would greatly regret it. Split the cost? I. am. poor.

I don’t need any, “Hey girl, you’ll be fine!” and I especially don’t need any, “Just get over it and have fun!” None of those help, and in fact, they make me feel worse.

The budget just keeps climbing and climbing so fast I’m having anxiety and trouble sleeping. I’m feeling such an overwhelming (there’s that word again) amount of guilt mixed with appreciation…I don’t really think there’s a word that fits the feeling that has embedded itself into my veins. My parents have offered to pay for the wedding, which holy shit, is just about the most generous thing they’ve done for me since, oh I don’t know, paid for all of my education and everything I’ve ever needed ever.

How do you accept a gift like that when you expected all the gifts to have ended by now?

I have felt physically ill when I see how much this wedding is already costing, and I think back to all those times (and there were MANY times) I scoffed at the wedding industry and couldn’t believe people spent that much money on one day that goes by likethat.

I guess I am now one of those people. Never say never, I guess.

Don’t get my intentions here wrong. I am not unappreciative. In fact, I’m so appreciative, I can’t stop crying. I seriously have cried nearly every single day for over a week, and we’ve only been wedding planning for like 5 weeks now. First it was the guest list that just about stopped my heart. Then it was the searching for a venue in a city and state we don’t live in, which makes the necessity of finding a place that much greater so we can stop worrying about it and not have to fly back and forth a million times. Then it was the list that our wedding planner handed to us with a never-ending list of things to do that shortens my breath. Then it was the year anniversary of Jake passing, which was just the cherry on top of a guilt-ridden, weepy, anxiety-producing sundae.

I will get to a place where I’m ok with all of this, I know I will. I will feel immensely happy and appreciative without the guilt. I’m not quite there yet, and I have to be ok with that too. We all have a process, and considering this is the first and last time I will ever do this, I need to move through the shock to get to the happy.

The happy is being with my partner, the happy is spending a life exploring each other and this world, the happy is making him laugh for years to come, the happy is in the celebration of this love.

The happy is Timmy. Which will be my mantra from here until our wedding day.

♥, VB