I Got Married. Did You Know?

Well, it has been almost 4 weeks to the day since Drew and I were wed. One of these days I will do a post and tell you all about our windy, wandering path to marriage. But on this day I will tell you all about the actual wedding day. Some of you were there so you know all about it already, but some of you weren't for a variety of reasons so read on and be enlightened. There are many pictures, partly for the benefit of you non-Facebookers. Speaking of which, if any of you would like to see the pictures on Facebook but can't, let me know and I can send you the link. Anyhoo, let's get going.

August 15th. It started early, at 7:00 and it was cloudy and very rainy and wet outside. Our poor tent went right down on the ground.
Drew went for a run because he is crazy, and I camped out in the downstairs bathroom to get my hair done. There were no windows around so I had no idea what was happening in the rest of the house or out in nature. So I spent the early morning chatting with Kami with a K (ie, not Drew's Sister Cami) while she did my hair. I was getting pretty antsy by the end of it, since the breakfast was getting started at 10:30 while she was still wrestling with some hair that absolutely refused to curl. The hair, in the end, did refuse to curl for longer than the next twenty minutes, but I didn't care and look at the end result! It's fantastic and has lots of bobby pins in it.
So, as I was heading towards the stairs D-Rew met me at the bottom and said "Guess who's here?" And then I said "Annnnnnnn????" and he nodded and I fairly squealed my head off running for the stairs. It was a glorious reunion! Seriously, it was one of my favorite things that day. And her nice manfriend, JM, came along with her so I didn't have to worry about her being bored since she didn't really know anyone besides my sister.
So the breakfast was great and there was tons of food and friends and family. In the meanwhile our poor tent sat forlornly on the front lawn. Finally, midway through the breakfast, the wind died down and the rain had stopped so all the menfolk went outside and put the poor thing back up (where it stayed the rest of the day). We were a little anxious about the weather, but we had a few backup plans so we didn't fret too much.
A few hours later and off we went to the temple, each with a parent in tow. By this time we were seeing some blue sky among the clouds but it was still mostly cloudy. Unfortunately Drew had forgotten something at home so after a few attempts to have it found via the telephone, he ran back himself (ran=drove). What was it? This little number, made especially to coordinate with the rest of my jewelry:
And then we got married. It was nice to look around and see a bunch of friends and family, some that traveled a ways to be there. I don't know what else to say about this part except we got married and no, I didn't cry.

So then we were all married and stuff and we headed out to greet everyone. Doesn't he look so good in his tux? I wish he owned it so I could make him put it on periodically so I could give him googly eyes. I guess I do that anyway.
So, we took lots of pictures and everyone was really good about getting in their spots when their group was up. Oh, and the weather--it was perfect! Just a few clouds hither and thither and a nice cool temperature. Everything was dry and my heels only sunk into the ground a few times. The only really sad thing was that my poor hydrangeas in my bouquet were very unhappy and they started to wilt almost immediately.
After we had a lot of pictures taken we headed back to the house where things were coming together for the reception. The cake arrived and we were happy to not worry about it melting in the unseasonably cool August weather. Isn't it pretty? It's just what I wanted and it tasted great too.
I stuck my bouquet in some water during the meantime, but alas, they just couldn't pull it together. But that's okay, they still look pretty in pictures and the ones on the tables lasted just fine. I finished packing and walked about barefoot with the lace of my dress wrapped over my shoulder like a sari.
So then we had a reception, and it was great. People had a good time and we got all manner of compliments. I don't remember the name of a single new person I met. Luckily there were lots of familiar faces too.
The only reception tradition we did was cutting the cake. I never got around to ordering a bouquet for throwing, I vetoed any dancing and we both vetoed a garter toss. In the end the line lasted so long there wasn't much time for doing other things besides taking some more pictures with friends and family and eating a single creme puff.

So, at long last, we decided it was time to head off to Salt Lake City. I changed out of my dress (*sigh*), threw around a few last directions ("Don't forget my shoes!" "Please dry my flowers!") and headed to the car, dispensing last hugs along the way. Did I mention the car? It was delightful.
And that, my friends, was the wedding day. It went off with nary a hitch and the biggest potential problem was resolved halfway through the day. And now, in bulleted fashion, here are my favorite things from the day:

• Wearing my wedding dress. Going along with this, finally revealing it to D-Rew, who had just right reaction of jaw dropping and gasping and plentiful compliments.
• Delicious foods. I always like good food.
  
• The family! Of course. It's always fun when a bunch of the family is together at once, and not just a few. This always makes me wish we lived closer.
  
• The friends! They came from near and far and made everything that much more special.
  
• Not to be predictable or anything, but marrying Mr. Graham was my very favorite and best.
  

So, the events are all over now although of course the Graham household is just beginning. Four weeks in and everything just gets better and better.

And thus concludes my wedding post. If you'd like to read about the wedding and the honeymoon from the Mister's perspective, you can check out his posts. Also, in case you were wondering, we have no plans to combine our blogs or start a new one or anything. Business continues as normal in the blog world.

This Love: It's New

So several months ago the Husband and I decided that after the wedding we would start a Disney marathon in which we would watch all the animated movies in order, approximately one per day. We started it off last week and last night we arrived at Dumbo. I think the last time I saw any part of this movie was when I was about 14 and it was Youth Conference. The John Bytheway video didn't work so why not show a bit of Dumbo for restless teenagers, hm? Apparently that was my only chance to get acquainted with J. Bytheway because I still have no idea what he looks or sounds like.

Anyway, Dumbo.

So we start the movie last night. And then Dumbo appeared. And my brain exploded into rainbows and butterflies. Just look:

He. Is. So. Cute. I can't even stand it. I wish I could find more screencaps from when he is even cuter, but that picture is enough to make me wring my hands. Seriously, I have never really cared about this movie, and now I am watching it again as I type this. If we weren't going out of town I would probably watch it again tomorrow (this is not normal behavior for me, just for the record).

So yes, Dumbo. So cute. Brain. Explodes. I wish I could find the clip of him having a bath where he makes the cutest squeaking noises ever in the world, but this is only good clip I found. It's still plenty cute.

PS

I realized that I forgot one of my favorite points on the list in my last post (I wrote it in my head while I fell asleep). Then I thought of a few more things to add so this is just a quick note of a few more things I have learned recently in the school of married life.

• Gnocchi and small shells are not the same size. When substituting the larger (gnocchi) for the smaller (shells), I need not put in the same amount of poundage. 1 pound of small shells=kind of overwhelming in my skillet.
• Listening to a sleep talker is entertaining. "I'm going to show you these two pictures and then I'm going to tell you why this one is better by a trillion points."*
  
• Marriage > dating
• My husband > all boys ever. Here is the latest evidence:
  

It's a rotten picture, but Red Camera is still out of commission. Luckily I happen to have a webcam. Oh, and just FYI, wedding pictures are up on Facebook now.

*This is the one I forgot, in case you were wondering.

Learning: It Happens

Well, I have been married now for two weeks and two days. In these two weeks I have learned a number of significant things and I'm going to tell you about them now, in bulleted fashion. Some of them are directly related to marriage, others are just things that have come up in my new domestic experiences.

• It's a bad idea to set bananas on top of the stove when the oven is on. We have black bananas. Luckily Drew will eat anything (and even say it's good).
  
• Boys are good at killing bugs. Technically I already knew this, because of my Pops, but for the first time I am not living at home and there's still a man around to kill the uglies. So I'm counting it. It goes something like this: "Bug!" *squash*
  
• Not all boys are messy and smell like, you know, boys.
  
• It is, in fact, quite satisfying to do all the housely things while Drew does the income getting things. Soon I will take to wearing dresses and heels everyday, along with my apron.
  
• Living with The Roommate didn't prepare me for sharing bedspace but she did prepare me for Drew having the worst alarm in history, leaving candles burning while we're gone and turning the light on when I'm sleeping. Oh wait, he does none of those things.
  
• A king-size bed makes sharing bedspace easy as pie. I can just roll over and have my own continent. But why would I roll over in the first place?
  

So yes, there you have it. A lifetime of learning in two weeks. I mean, surely this is all there is to it, right? I've got this marriage thing down.

A Substitute

Before I get into the meat of this post, let me just say that in the process of making muffins this morning, I burned three of my fingertips when I grabbed the muffin pan out of the drawer below the oven. Apparently it had been helpfully preheating along with the oven. It was hot. I have five blisters and at this moment I am clutching a frozen pack of ham and typing one handed. I just wanted you all to know how hardcore I am. Also, don't try to get things out of the drawer below the oven when the oven is on. That is my bit of wisdom for today. Anyway.

Now, let me tell you something about that wonderful place called D'CALC. For those of you who don't know, D'CALC was my apartment in Indiana that I shared with Ferskner and Marcue. It was glorious for many reasons and D'CALC was unique in many ways, but here is one of those reasons:


Furry pumpkin! It's exactly what you think it is: a real pumpkin stem with a pumpkin-like body made of (fake) fur and stuffing. Neato and bizarre, yes? It was a Christmas present for Ferskner from her brother. Ah, the love. Anyway, we weren't quite sure what to do with it, and it kind of moved around the apartment for a while before settling down on top of the television. It was a great conversation piece, and sometimes I find myself thinking fondly of its weird, soft pumpkin body.

(Thanks to Marcue for the furry pumpkin picture I pilfered from her blog.)

Now, let me tell you another story. One of our wedding presents was a tall pillar candle from Yankee Candle with an apricot honey scent. We've been moving lots of stuff from Maison Graham to Appartement Graham and one of them was the candle and holder. A few days later I headed out to Wal-Mart in my car, which smelled unusually delicious. Later in the parking lot, I was putting things in the trunk when I noticed the candle holder sitting in the back, on the shelf between the seats and the back window. "Oh ho," I said to myself, "I forgot all about that back there. I wonder where the candle is..."

Yes. The candle was there. Not looking quite like a pillar anymore.

Rather more like a sea cucumber yes?* A waxy sea cucumber. What does this have to do with the furry pumpkin? Maybe not much, really, but I've started calling the waxy sea cucumber furry pumpkin. It's odd, unexpected and I keep putting it different places around the apartment. It's not a furry pumpkin but it is a nice, indirect reminder of D'CALC. Like the glow in the dark bat in my car.

*Sorry for the lame picture, but I took it with my webcam. The screen on my trusty camera broke the other day, alas.

A Bit of a Tease

Well, I am married now. It is quite nice. I don't really care for gushing about things on blogs or the internet in general--real life things, that is. So I'm not going to go on about the infinite blessings of marriage or the bliss that comes from having such a hot delightful husband. I am happy and loved and that is all. Consider that my official endorsement for marriage.

So anyway, as much as I would love to tell all about The Day we're still waiting for our pictures, and what kind of post would that be without pictures? But luckily all the honeymoon pictures are right here on Vera. I'll post a lot more pictures on Facebook, after I can post wedding ones, but I thought I would give a little rundown. For you OCD people, sorry to do things out of order. It's good for you!

The day after the wedding we headed off to sunny southern California. We spent the first day at the aquarium on the pier. We touched sharks! Little sharks, but sharks nonetheless. We also saw sarcastic fringeheads and humbugs. Oh, and also Julie & Julia, though not at the aquarium but rather the nearby theater.

Oh dear, my husband is a shark.

We went to Huntington Beach the next day. I decided that I like the beach after all and could spend a lot of time there. The sand! The water! The waves! Delightful. That opinion would probably change depending on the crowds at the beach, but there weren't a lot of people there that day.

The next two days we spent at Disneyland. We saw the fireworks shows, ate delicious foods at the Blue Bayou and Club 33 (jealous?) and recreated a few pictures. Yay, Drew has his own bling now that needs to be resized.

The next day some fellow out-of-towners backed into our rental car (with us in it) in the Target parking lot just as we were leaving. So much for those fancy cameras to help you back out of your parking spaces, huh?

We spent our last California evening at another beach, Sunset or Surfside, depending on your source. Either way it was pretty much deserted (save for a dead pelican), the sunset was lovely and the waves were big. It was also windy, as you can probably tell from this picture, which is one of my favorites.

So there, in brief, is our honeymoon. Soon enough Facebook will have many pictures and you can see such delights as: an Ingres portrait that looks like Rufus Sewell, the Queen from Snow White in the flesh, me being washed away by waves and the infamous dead pelican.

A Place in Which to Live

In honor of today being our pick-up-the-keys-and-start-moving-in day for our little abode, I will now tell you all which place we signed for. Or rather I will show you.


Yes, we are moving into Place #2, which clearly none of you were fans of judging by the poll. So now I will explain why we picked this place over those others. Firstly, it has lots of space, both headspace and er, body space? Anyway, yes, space. It's true the kitchen is small, but we decided the rest of the space made up for it, and since neither of us are cooking aficionados, we figured it was enough room for our two person needs. Maybe we'll kick ourselves later, but it's all part of the learning process right?

Second, we really liked all the light. It's on the main floor and there are big windows in every room (save the bathroom, which is okay with me). We're fans of windows, as demonstrated by my self.


Third, there are bunch of miscellaneous reasons: off-street parking, a cool, shady street (as in tree shade, not hoodlums), distance from undergrads and, of course, it was a good monetary deal. Plus, we liked it.

Now you're probably wondering about places 1 and 3. Well, here's the scoop on place #1 that you couldn't tell from the pictures. It was actually a studio apartment with a bonus room. And while we could have had everyone hanging out on our bed to watch movies, we weren't super keen on the idea. The bonus room wasn't really big enough to do anything with and there wasn't really any closet space either. We did like the floors, the big windows, the nice-ish kitchen and the cool shower. But we wanted a living room.

We did really like place #3 too. It was a nice size, the kitchen had new cabinets and utilities were fixed. We probably would have applied for it if the lady had given us the application soon enough, but despite our multiple requests she took her sweet time and we didn't get it until we were getting ready to sign for place #2. It didn't really bode well for good management. Plus it was in the basement, something we were ready to overlook, but were also hoping to avoid.

Oh, and all the bathrooms were all pretty comparable, in case you were wondering. (Besides the cool shower [It was elevated. Elevated!])

So. That's the story. Place #2 is now officially ours. We just started moving in the essentials. Art books and DVDs.

A Dress for the Viewing

Many moons ago when this whole wedding planning thing started, it was agreed that the Mister wasn't going to see so much as a thread of my dress before the actual wedding day. It was a great plan and it's been fun to have this big, white, sequined secret from him. But, truth be told, I'm kind of tired of keeping it secret so today I'm going to show you all my dress.

Yes yes, I know there's that whole secret thing. Drew never ever checks this blog though, and if any of you happen to see him start typing the URL, just distract him (this is best done by saying the phrase "frilly things").

So, here it is! It's everything I ever hoped and dreamed possible in a dress. I wanted to look like a princess and this goes above and beyond my expectations. It's going to look even better after I get my perm on Friday.

My favorite parts are the puffiness and how the sleeves look like seashells. Plus, all the fabric will shield me from the August sunshine. Ah, sweet dress bliss. If you're looking for a wedding dress and want something special, you can go to the website where I found this one.

Also, don't forget to vote in the apartment poll. And don't forget to come to my wedding.

Stuff: It's Happening

How funny is it that I'm getting married in about 2.5 weeks? Pretty funny. Anyway, after spending many an hour on craigslist for the past month or so, we finally found a place to live! And better yet, we got a contract and we signed it and we're moving into it in a few weeks. (As opposed to finding a place and wanting a contract but not getting it until weeks later because why would a manager want people to fill out contracts and rent their properties? Right?)

We looked at a lot of places, and we took pictures of quite a few of them (sadly there are no pictures of the Tiniest Studio Ever). So, here are some pictures of three places. Can you guess which one we got?

Place #1:

Place #2:

Place #3:

Things: We Do Them

I know, I know, I'm really going to write a post about the Titanic exhibit but first I want to do this one, since I've been plotting it for weeks now. Onward.

So, as you are all probably aware, much of the dating period for me and Drew consisted of webcams, phonecalls and heaps o' pining. And while long distance does allow for plenty of conversation and games of Solitaire Showdown, there are a lot of things that are impossible or not the same (watching the same movie at the same time is not the same as watching it together, this we learned three times over). Now that I've been here for a few months we've had some time to fill in some gaps. I like to think we're balancing out all the unconventional aspects of our relationship with a bunch of normal, everyday activities. For example:

We go to the dentist.

We read books.

We shop at the local Walmart.

We exercise and get really sweaty.

We work in our home office.*

We agonize over what to get from the blue Red Box.

We celebrate memorable occasions at memorable locations. (And drink too much root beer)

We enjoy cheap Chinese food while dressed in our finest (mmm,chow mein).
(I know, it's the same one. I just like the pictures. Look at that boy in argyle! So dreamy.)

Of course, we do a lot of other things together too like make pies (technically "pie"), patronize the local theater, go to movies, take walks, have thumb wars, play card games, flail over Half-Blood Prince and, as always, argue about who's prettier.

Not to mention things like buy lanterns for centerpieces, look at fancy cakes, discuss the necessity of guestbook pens, injure digits for love's sake and the like. My, what a busy summer it's been.

*All right, so technically we borrowed IKEA's home office. What else are we supposed to do when we have no home and no office?