365 and Counting

Today is our negative one year anniversary. That is if everything works out for our hopeful wedding date of December 19, 2009. That makes the big day 365 days away and counting. I am sure the time will fly by.

So if you give paper on a first anniversary, cotton on the second and leather on the third, what do give your love on the negative first? Hhhmmm. I will have to think about this one. Hopefully I will have an answer by the end of the day so Matt can have the appropriate present. Not sure I will be able to figuer out an answer to that one though.

Luckily we looked at a wedding book last night and we seem to be ahead of the 12 month engagement schedule already. Who knew we were so organized. I think for 12 months ahead it said
1) to have a meeting of the families... Done! and
2) to start cutting out examples of things you like from magazines... Done, done, done.

Like I said, we are so organized. Lets hope we can keep that up for the next 365.

Happy -1, Matt. I love you!

Thanksgiving Galore

I have so much to be thankful for... My wonderful fiance, my fantastic family, great friends, an ability to work and a job to work at, my health, the list goes on and on. This past weekend I was thankful for Matt's Mum, Tanya, coming out from Michigan with Barry to meet my family. I am sure they were a little overwhelmed because us Kennedys can get a little crazy, but everyone got a long wonderfully. Even if they didn't Matt and I didn't care because they aren't the ones getting married and they live 2,000 miles from each other, but it is a total bonus to have them get along.

I loved having Matt in California for a week. He left this morning and starts his exams at the end of the week. I hate missing him, but he will be back in less than two weeks. Then we will be together for almost a full month so I just have to be productive in the mean time.

We had a little engagement party on November 28th, which was super fun. With the holiday weekend people were either in town or not. We missed having everyone around, but we were happy that Tanya and Barry got to meet a few of our California friends. Of course, my camera gave up just in time for the party, but our friends were nice enough to send us some photos.

Don't worry. I have everything under control.

This is how I have felt lately. I have the largest To Do List you could ever imagine. I don't feel like doing any of it. Actually, amazingly enough somehow I am managing to avoid doing a lot of it.

Granted most of the stuff I have to do falls into the "non-emergency" "not important" quadrant, for right now anyway. Soon it will explode into the emergency quadrant and teach me a lesson, but until then I am happy putting it of.

I spent most of my weekend sewing a dress for the Friend's of St. Jude Blues Ball we are going to next weekend in DC. The dress calls for Blue Creative Cocktail. Not sure what that is exactly, but I am making it an excuse to sew myself a vintage Vogue dress. I like it so far, but I really need a bigger petticoat than I have. Hopefully I can enroll some help on this.

We have planned to have our engagement party the Friday right after Thanksgiving. Matt and his family are in town so it seemed like a good opportunity. I have to organize the storage unit I am currently sleeping in before Matt gets here. I don't think it is too bad, but my parents can't believe I sleep in here. (FYI it is my old bedroom at my parents' place that I sleep in while I am in LA. It isn't really a storage unit. I just resembles one with piles of boxes everywhere.)

I am thinking I am going to have to start sewing my wedding dress soon. I saw some Peau de soie the other day that I think may be a winner. I guess I just need to finalize what I want and wait for a sale. Like I said "Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Here comes the Dress Requirements

For those of you who don't know already, I am planning on making my wedding dress. I know, I know, I must be crazy or a total glutton for punishment. Who has time to shop for a dress with all the other planning going on... let alone make one?

Well, I guess, I have always thought I would make my dress. I realize life is busy, but I would hate to regret it if I didn't make it, after all I only get one shot at this. An added bonus from this is that Matt is delighted I won't be purchasing the $30,000 Vera Wang Wedding Gown that he has read lawsuits about in school.

Anyway, I have been thinking of some requirements in order to drive my design. I think the following will all have to be taken into account during the design phase: ( if you can think of any more, let me know)

• a pocket
• the ability to cut it off just below the knee so I can dye it a different color and wear it every year on our anniversary (I will have to sew in stretchy side panels when I am pregnant in the future)
• an embroidery pattern on the train that will be able to be cut and sewn into a pillow
• covered buttons
  

I am also thinking since it may be a December wedding that I can make a little fur coat to match. Matt likes to remind me we are getting married in California... like that has ever stopped me from wearing little fur coats before... Hello!

Who'd have thunk it?

Well, here I am starting Suzy's BrideZilla Blog. I never thought I would ever see those three words in a sentence together. Actually, I never thought of "Suzy" going with either of those other words, but here we are anyway.

This is intended to be a diary of my engagement to the wonderful Mr. Matthew Keller. A man who inspires me everyday to be a better person, woman, friend, girlfriend, fiance, and soon to be wife. I am so lucky to have met him. He is a dream come true.

The lovely Miss Carly Lima encouraged me to put this together as we both joke about being sooo far behind in our photo albums. What an easier way to record this time in my life than to write about it while it is happening.

So, here goes!

Carly - Thank you for always leading by example. I love that we always exchange our latest and greatest tidbits with each other.