Well my friends...

It's been a long year. I'd like to think I willed time to go faster :) Today I finally marry the man of my dreams and I've got to say...it's about FREAKIN TIME!!!! I mean seriously? I'm getting married. AAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Seriously, it's the day of and I still feel like it hasn't sunken in yet. We haven't left yet to go up to the property, but the sun is shining and I can tell this is going to be a glorious day :) I can't wait to get all dolled up :) put on my dress :) and dance the night away with my HUSBAND!!!!! :) I'm gonna haves me a husband :B (buck teeth.)

So anyway, short. sweet. to the point.

This is Shannon Pedersen signing off for the last time :)

.....as Shannon Pedersen.

Just clarifying.

Prayin for Sunny Days

to return to me. Take in the warmth of the solar rays. I'm not just seeing the gray skies in front of me. Prayin for sunny days!!!


That's exactly what Mike's and my friends, family and coworkers have been doing and will continue doing until Saturday. If there's any doubt in the power of prayer, take a look at this.






Just the other day both these sites were saying rainy with a high of 66 degrees. Now that, my friends, is a miracle if I've ever seen one :)

And so, just THREE DAYS LEFT BEFORE THE WEDDING!!!!

I'm at the point where sleep doesn't even come into consideration at night anymore :P I don't think I slept for more than an hour last night.

There's just so much to think about!! Not to mention that today was my last day at work until October!!!

I can't even begin to explain how I'm feeling right now. I'm so extremely excited even just for tomorrow because that is when we will really be kicking things into high gear. We are making homemade pizzas for our rehearsal dinner and those need to be made tomorrow (all ten of them!). I'm so excited. Even though I know a lot has gotten done, I don't feel like I've done anything. That and the fact that it all still feels so surreal to me. I don't think any of this will actually sink in until Friday when we're setting everything up. AAAAHHH!!!!!! this weekend couldn't be any more perfect :)

Peace out!!

3 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honey Sunny Money Moon

Lucy refference :)

Anyway, so even though I already posted a blog like ten minutes ago, this is my blog so I make the rules.......so there.

I thought I'd let you all know all about our awesome honeymoon we'll be on for the week after the wedding.

(This post will be riddled with pictures)

I'll start from the beginning.

Saturday, we will be leaving the reception around 930 or 10 and driving to our first stop, a Holiday Inn in Vancouver, WA. We didn't want to be driving for a long time, as car rides tend to make me super drowsy. This way we aren't as totally exhausted when we wake up early the next morning to head for Lebec, CA (or somewhere around there) where we will be staying Sunday night. The next morning we will continue our travels until we reach the beautiful SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA!!! And our most fabulous hotel....



The Hard Rock Hotel :) Not only will our hotel be absolutely incredible...

I mean look at this...


lobby


Hall of Fame


Lobby Bar


MaryJane's Coffee House


Pool Bar


Rock Spa


Rooftop pool


Hard Rock GIFT SHOP!!!

And best of all....OUR SWEET SUITE!!!

BEHOLD!


The Hard Rock Suite





I am so excited. Never in my life have I stayed at a luxery hotel in a luxurious suite. Of course I've also never been married. So this week will be a week of just relaxation and enjoying my shiny new husband :)

Anyway, during our stay at the amazing Hard Rock Hotel, we will be enjoying a few of the many wonders that make up San Diego. Including...



YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW SO COMPLETELY EXCITED I AM TO GO HERE!!!!!!!!!


Mike also wants to try this



I've been surfing once. But that was in the calm not so shark infested waters of Indian Beach. And when I went, I couldn't get any father up than my knees cuz I have little toothpick arms and I'm not strong enough to push myself all the way up.

Then on Thursday, we will be leaving the beautiful Hard Rock Hotel (sad) and heading to...



HAPPY AGAIN!!!!!

That night, we will be sleeping the jeep, which will be fully equipped with tons of blankets in the back (seats down), a portable dvd player and the first three seasons of Good Eats :)

Friday we will start our journey back home, drive through the night and get home sometime Saturday. A day filled with prolly lots and lots of sleeping.

And that, my friends, will complete our pretty awesome honeymoon :)

I Don't Know What to Believe!!!

One of the things a bride worries most about in the somewhat unpredictable month of September is, obviously, the weather. Especially if she's having an outside wedding. Well, my friends, I'm at that point.

Obviously, I figure, no matter what, rain or shine, I'm marrying my wild man. No matter if there's a tornado, a flash flood, or a giant pimple on my nose, I'm marrying my wild man. Though...it would be nice if...it was nice. Therefore, I've been checking a couple weather sites periodically.

Well, my friends, I sit here, at this computer, a very confused bride.

Why am I so confused? Look for yourself.



weather.com



Accuweather.com

I'm really hoping accuweather is right. I mean, it would be so absolutely perfect weather. Sunny during the day and then during the reception would be a beautiful sunset, the few clouds there are turn pink and orange...*sigh*

We're praying. That's for sure.

Let There Be Light part II

So you all know we want light to be our theme for the reception.

Yesterday, Mike and I finished two big projects.

A little back story.

A while ago, Mike and I were up at the property lying in the grass in the reception sight, and Mike just kinda looked at me and said "You know what would look awesome?"

"Iono."

"A giant heart made of lights!"

......I said sure, if you can figure out how to do it. And guess what everyone, my wonderful wild man did just that.

BEHOLD!!!!!

and in case you can't tell, that's Mike and I standing behind the heart, in front of my two story house :P

It's pretty ginormous. And we're both so excited to put it up at the wedding :)

The second project we did....well you'll just have to see it :)

This is our wedding christmas tree :)

We made those balls by blowing up little water balloons and wrapping glue soaked string around them, then when they dried, we popped the balloons and the string stayed in place. Then we just gathered a bunch of branches left over from the arch and arranged them in this little square planter, added lights and TADA!!!!!!!

:)

In the words of my mother when she saw both of our creations, "This wedding is going to be magical"

And I couldn't agree more.

18 days!

Happy Birthday my Wonderful Wild man!

Today is a significant and special day in history. Today 24 years ago my wonderful wild man was brought into this world by his amazing parents! MY FUTURE IN LAWS!!! This is also a special and significant day because exactly three weeks from today will be OUR WEDDING DAY!!!!!!!

I can't believe how fast it is coming. I suppose I have something to do with that. There's no way this year has gone by in the same amount of time as the years before. I'm sure I somehow mentally sped up time. If I wasn't getting married in three weeks it would prolly still be like July or something :P

Anyway, a little update for you guys.

We FINALLY (almost) have the arch done. As in, we have it wired together. But I can't add the flowers to it till a few days before the wedding. I don't want them to get dirty or anything. We also added and finished more DIY decorations to our list. Decorations now include our tea light lanters, christmas lights, and now these strings of paper hearts, which are absolutely adorable and that my amazing best friend/MOH helped me with.

And we got the programs done! They are rather fantastic, if I do say so myself.

I'm so excited to see this all come together on the big day :)

Here's some pictures so you guys can see first hand just how awesome this wedding is going to be :)

Our almost finished arch and my dad :)



Our rad paper hearts sans string


Bella trying to help Jenny and I string the hearts together





And my bestest best girlfriend!

I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself...

Here is an excerpt from one of the many wedding blogs I read. Weddingbee. This is a post from the lovely Miss Earrings (Alias)

Even though I didn't write it, it is EXACTLY the way I feel. So pretend.

When we first got engaged, or even started talking about getting married, we were unprepared for the backlash from certain relatives and even friends. We got (and still get) comments like: “Aren’t you rushing it?” “Why settle down now, what about study and travel?” “But are you sure (s)he is the right one when you have only been with one person?” “What about having fun while you’re young?”

And my all time favourite: “Men don’t grow up until they are 25, until then they are just big children and you should wait until he is 25.” (This was courtesy of my aunt who married at 19 to a man 10 years older than she was.)

The problem with these comments is that a) they show that the speakers don’t know Mr E and me as well as they think they do and b) they reveal some very misguided (in my opinion) assumptions about what marriage is about and what it means for those who make that commitment.

Firstly, “aren’t you rushing it?”

Well, no I don’t think we are. By the time we marry we will have been dating for over four years, which isn’t eons of time of course, but it is a decent amount of time and certainly much longer than my grandmother even knew my step-grandfather before she married him (6 weeks!). And, by the way, they are still happily married all these years later. These years Mr E and I have been together haven’t been all roses and fluffy ducks either. We had to be long-distance for a long time, and, to me, the sheer effort we both put in to making that work is a testament to the fact that we can make do this. We’re in it for the long haul, and there has never been any question about that.

“But are you sure (s)he is the right person?”

It is actually true what they say: When you know, you know (if you know what I mean :)). Seriously, though. What right has someone to ask you that unless they are very close to you and can see something that you can’t? Say, if my mother or father asked that question then I would sit up and listen because I trust their judgments. But they have been fully supportive of us, as have his parents (who incidentally got married at 18 and 19). So I’m inclined to throw this question out the window. Especially as the person who asked it followed it up with, “I’m not the settling down type yet, I wanna get laid as much as I can before I do that.” *sigh*

And the comments about study, traveling, and having fun? Hello… I’m marrying my best friend here. To me that means I’m getting the ultimate package: instead of having to do all those things by my lonesome I get to do them with my best friend! That sounds like a good deal to me.

The assumption under those comments seems to be that, once you are married, life (especially for the woman in the relationship) is essentially reduced to home and eventual babies. Why can’t you study after marriage? I know plenty of people who do. Mr E and I have plans for travel as well; it isn’t like we are strangers to the concept! Because of our background, we are very comfortable with the idea that the world is open to us and we can explore it. We have no idea which country we will eventually “settle down” in (it makes life difficult when the in laws/parents are in different hemispheres) but we aren’t pulling out hairs over it either. Getting married doesn’t stop any of our plans, it just makes them bigger.

When Mr E moved countries to be with me he didn’t do it so that one day. A few years down the track, someone could say, “oh look! You’re in the average-age-to-get-married bracket now, I guess you can have that wedding!” Emotionally, practically, and even financially it makes sense for us to get married now. But it is more than all that—it is a heart and soul thing and we won’t go into this marriage without taking all that into account. A societal “norm” won’t dictate our decisions, and if a decision to get married is based on a little number then the whole point of marriage is being missed. When it is right, it is right.

And in case you really are dying for some input from me, here's my answers.

Firstly, “aren’t you rushing it?”

As said by my older, wiser brother and his wonderful wife, "when you know, you know, you know?"

“But are you sure (s)he is the right person?”

Let me just say that I have dated a fair amount of jerks in my lifetime. Almost none of which my parents, or brother approved of. Ever since I started dating Mike I have been wondering if this is all a dream, it's too good to be true. No guy is actually as wonderful as he is, therefore he must be an angel. And yet, here he is, flesh and blood, and completely perfect for me. I am positive he is the right person.

And the comments about study, traveling, and having fun?

I will tell you this, I will prolly be doing more traveling now that I'm with Mike. Other than that, I could just copy and paste what Miss Earrings said, but why repeat it when you could just reread it :)

Thank you and goodnight.

oh...it's 1:30 in the morning...

Then I guess it would be good morning :)

:P

That face just about sums up how I'm feeling right now :P No one was kidding when they said that planning a wedding/getting married takes a lot of you.

Just in the last two months I've gotten sick a couple times and have probably gotten about 6 hours of sleep each night. It's exhausting :P Mentally and physically.

And it really sucks because I can't afford to be taking time off work, which leaves me irritable, tired and going to the back room every ten minutes to blow my nose.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast planning this wedding, day dreaming about it. That's what has been keeping me up at night. Thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm getting married in X amount of days." And that gets my heart racing (not even kidding) and my mind racing, and before I know it, it's three in the morning and I have to get up 6 hours later to go to work :P

I also have trouble sleeping whenever there's a big event coming up. Christmas, Easter, Birthday, first day of school. You can bet I didn't get any sleep the night before. And I can already tell that my wedding will be no different. Especially knowing that will be my last night sleeping alone for the rest of my life. AAAHHH!!! I don't know what I'm going to do. I might just have to pop a few sleeping pills, drink some tea and fall asleep watching a movie. I don't know. All I do know is that this needs to be the last time I get sick before the wedding. It's getting too close for my body to be doing this to me!

32 DAYS!!!

Here Come the Men in Black

So I've written a post about my dress, about the girls' dresses, and the flower girl's dress, but I haven't told you about the guys yet!!!

Ever since we decided on having the wedding outside, I suddenly felt like this was going to be a pretty laid back wedding. Which is more than fine with me! I knew Mike isn't one to wear a penguin suit. I'd take him in jeans and t-shirt over a stiff suit any day :) And so, we found a happy medium.

Mike and all his merry men will be wearing the following:


black button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up


black pants and converse (black and white converse)

and then the groomsmen will be wearing purple ties (to go with the girls' dresses)



and Mike will be wearing this sunny little guy here :)



And of course Mike will be wearing his beloved beanie. He has barely taken that thing off since I met him. It's become a part of him (in a sense). It's part of his personality. And though some more conservative people think it's silly that he is going to wear the beanie, I wouldn't have it any other way :)


The adventures of Mike's hat:


Wearing his hat at the beach where he took me on my 18th birthday


While celebrating my sister's birthday at Big Al's


Being goofballs on our friend's couch


Playing guitar AMAZINGLY I might add :) (isn't he the hottest man alive?)


While leaping over buildings in a single bound


In Portland for my Christmas present


Making our epically awesome pizza


Whilst getting eaten alive by the waves


During our engagement shoot :)


While biting his fiances apparently delicious and nutritious face


While attempting to ride a wave runner BOTH OF OUR FIRST TIMES I MIGHT ADD!!!
He almost lost it there :P that would have been tragic :(

And that is why he is wearing his beanie. The end.

You Are Cordially Invited

YAY OUR INVITATIONS ARE FINALLY IN THE MAIL!! :)

So they are about three weeks late....but they're out and that's all that matters.

And you know what that means :)

I can finally reveal to you the whole AWESOME package!! If you remember the last post about the invites, I had stuff blurred out and pictures cropped. We didn't want you all to get any sneak peeks. But now, I'm here to expose all!

BEHOLD!!!



The complete package :)

With invitation, cute little rsvp card, cute little directions card and cute (even littler) registry card.

Here's a close up of our invitations :)


you can click on it to get a larger view. It's still hard to read the way small stuff...but you're just going to have to wait to get your invite, now aren't you?

I'm so excited to start getting the rsvps back :)

Flower Power

I'm sure that's never been used before.

I'm not going to lie, when I first started planning the wedding, flowers were prolly the last things on my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love flowers, I think they are beautiful, I was just more focused on other things. The dress, the decorations, THE GROOM!! :) Plus, flowers are so temporary. Most cost a lot of money, then within a couple days they are wilted, dried out or just plain dead.

My sister had us bridesmaids carry fake flowers and I liked that idea. The calla lilies looked great, didn't even look fake. So, I went to the website my sister went to (bloomedtolast.com) and emailed the woman with a picture of the bouquet I wanted. She emailed back quickly and gave me a quote. For my bouquet and my five bridesmaids bouquets it would be around 220 dollars. Hmm...okay. I also checked out another website Afloral.com. They sold wholesale silk flowers so we bought a bunch for centerpieces. They just got here the other day and I was pleasantly pleased with what I saw. I even made a few mock ups for you to see :)





I also used afloral for the flowers for the boutonnieres and corsages. I spent about four hours making them last night :P


(I don't know why it uploaded sideways)
Anyway, the mini sunflowers are for the parents and grandparents, the regular sunflowers for the groomsmen and the anemone for mike.

Even though they looked a little fake, I didn't mind. As long as my bouquets didn't look bad.

Then I got the sample kit from bloomedtolast...





hmm don't those look familiar. Bloomedtolast get their flowers from afloral......yikes.

And so I've decided that I'm not going to go with bloomedtolast, but rather have real flowers for the bouquets. I'm hoping to find a local florist that can recreate my bouquet.

In case you were wondering, here's what I want..



I'm not sure what will be in season and if we can maybe substitute some flowers for others that are in season. If not, I'll just have to think of something else.

:P