And So it Begins...

So...

Coming back to work after you've been off for 10 days on vacation is very tough. It's even tougher when you've got a shiny new ring on your finger. :)

But... My coworkers rock. They are so cute. They decorated my cube with Cinderella Wedding wrapping paper and gave me a very sweet engagement card signed by the entire office. I was so excited! There are curly ribbons all over my cube and cut out hearts and Cinderellas with her Prince Charming all over my monitor, my cube walls - everywhere I look. :) It's all very exciting. :) Here are some pics:











My cube is so cute! I'm kind of upset, though, that we'll be moving around in the office soon and I'll have a new cube... I'm going to feel weird putting the decorations back up in my cube, but I want to! They're so cute and I love the little "wedding celebration" theme... ;)

Monday and Tuesday were pretty tough at work... It was so hard to concentrate when all I could think about was how I needed to start working on Wedding Planning. Alex IM'd me on Monday and said that his coworker, Christina, who just got engaged last week to his friend, Joe, was going nuts calling places. I asked him when they were planning on getting married and he said next Sept or Oct. I freaked out.

First of all, ew, how dare she get married around the same time as us? ;) (Just kidding on that one, in case anyone out there really believes I'm that psycho.) Secondly, ohmigod, I felt inadequate. I hadn't even seriously considered calling anywhere yet and apparently this girl was calling a ton of places and being told they didn't have openings. Crap!! And what if she scoops a place that I totally wanted?! I spent the rest of Monday trying to tell myself to calm down and not start freaking out yet. Geez.

I started calling places on Tuesday. So far, I'm visiting The Appel Inn tonight with Amy and the Wham. I've been in Carrie's wedding there and to Amy K's wedding there and I really like it. It's a big, octogonal red building and the inside is white washed wood with a lot of windows, a high ceiling, and a huge rustic looking chandelier over the dance floor. It's really kind of unique and simple and pretty. And the woman who runs the place is awesome. We'd need to get a caterer if we went there, but that's not really a bad thing - I want to have great food and not necessarily be stuck with whatever package a site has.

Tomorrow, Alex and I are visiting Franklin Plaza. That place looks gorgeous and the packages were pretty reasonable, but I don't think they'll have any dates available. Beck went to a wedding there last year and she really seemed impressed by the venue, so I'm kind of excited for going to see it and I hope that there are dates available if we like it...

Saturday, I'll be meeting with the woman at The Glen Sanders Mansion at 1pm. I've heard that they do a great job there and I know that they also handle the weddings at The Hall of Springs in Saratoga - so it's like a twofer meeting. :) I don't know what dates they'll have available, though... They're very popular and I bet they're all booked up.

Saturday afternoon I'm going to check out The State Room as it's all gussied up for a wedding that night. The ballroom looks absolutely beautiful and we've been there before for a Comedy Works night... I remember thinking that I loved the space, but I don't remember the food being all that fabulous. Maybe the food is better for weddings... We'll see... :)

I'm going to try and call some venues in Saratoga today, I think. Alex and I really love the Saratoga area - it's just so pretty. It'd be nice to have our out of town guests be able to see it...

Engaged!!

My intuition was right - Alex proposed to me while we were on vacation in Disney World last week! He actually had me all screwed up... I was confident for about a year that it would happen there, but during the week before we left he started to take me ring shopping again to throw me off. He kept telling me that he had no idea what kind of ring he should get me and that even if he bought one, it wouldn't be ready in time to take along on vacation. He was driving me absolutely crazy!!! He even sat me down on the couch and hugged me and told me that he was sorry that it wasn't going to happen in Disney World. What I didn't know was that he'd had the ring for about two or three weeks at that point! He totally knows how to play me. He even took it along to Tara's wedding and showed it off to his entire family and I was clueless. Beck told me that she actually had it in her hand at one point when I was talking to her. I had no clue.

So, the proposal was awesome - very much "us". We went to dinner our first night at Disney World at the California Grill - the restaurant that sits on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort and has amazing views of the Magic Kingdom. We had a great dinner and went out to the observation deck to watch the fireworks go off over the castle. After dinner, Alex suggested that we go to the Polynesian Resort and go to the beach and find the hammock that we'd found the last time we were at Disney World. When we got to the resort, we grabbed drinks at the bar and went down to the beach and found the hammock - but this time there were people nearby and it didn't seem quite as awesome as the first time we were there. We walked down the beach until we came to the opposite end, which was more secluded and also had a hammock... This hammock was even better because we could see Cinderella's Castle across the lake as we were laying in it. After the fireworks, they put different color lights on the castle so we lounged in the hammock and watched the castle change colors and chatted. Then, Alex said to me, "So..." and I looked over at him and sitting on his chest was an open ring box with the most sparkly ring I'd ever seen in my life in it. I couldn't believe it - he had me so convinced that it wasn't going to happen that I was having a hard time believing that it actually was happening. The ring was so sparkly in the moonlight, it almost looked fake. "...Will you be my wife?" I don't think that I said yes right away because I was so shocked and too busy staring at the ring. I finally did say yes and he helped me put the ring on my finger and I spent the rest of the trip staring at it and trying to get it in every picture anyone took of me or us. ;) It’s actually quite obnoxious to look at my photo album from the trip and see my obsessivness. Also, my fatness. Ew, I’m so freaking huge. Gotta get back on that…

Of course, we don’t have a date yet. I’m thinking it’ll be next October, though. Depends on where there are still openings… I’m super nervous that everywhere I want is going to be booked already – I checked the availability calendar on the Appel Inn website and their first Saturday opening in the fall isn’t until October 27th!

Anyway, I'm just so happy that we're getting married! I'm so excited!!