I am so excited to say that I have joined the sisterhood of Bride to Be!!  It truley is something that I have thought and dreamed about since I was a little girl, as so many others have, and somedays it still doesn't seem real!  Though we are only a short time into our engagement, I have very little but wedding on the brain!

My FH and I have been together nearly 4 years, we built a house together and our lives mesh together more and more and more each day.  We had always talked as though one day we would get married, though there were days that I thought it may never come.  Friends and family were always asking when we would tie the knot and FH would some times just shrug his shoulders and give me the look that one day it would, and I would always return the comment that it was all up to him!  I feel to be too traditional to take the bull by the horns and ask him.

The day that it all happened, was a usual day in our lives.  FH was home for the day, my Dad was in town (the family had a wedding to go to that weekend of my lifelong friend) and I was at a course for work.  I spoke with him a couple of times during the day and he said that after doing a few chores around the yard with Dad, then they were going for lunch (nothing out of the ordinary).  He also mentioned that he would wait for me to get home that evening so we could go for a run...again, nothing out of the ordinary.  To make a long story short, after our run we had dinner, enjoyed our evening with our company, I showered then went to climb into bed.  As I jumped into bed, there was something unusual under the covers, so I pulled them back and laying there was a frame with three pictues, all cumulating in asking me to marry him...I turned to look at him and he was on his knee beside the bed!!

I was overjoyed and found out that he had asked my Dad's permission at lunch and that he had the ring for about 3 weeks.  We immediatley called my Mom, who was so excited and couldn't wait to see us that weekend when she was coming for the firend's wedding, as well as his parents.

What makes the event so true to us and the fact that FH is also a Professional Cowboy, is that the next day he was gone for a week at a hand full of rodeos.  Nothing like popping the question, then getting the heck out of dodge ;)

Already I feel that we are faced with a hurdle in this "adventure".  When do we get married?  As I mentioned previously, my FI is a professional cowboy that travels to rodeos throughout western Canada.  Most of these rodeos are on weekends between May and September, and therefore my vision of a summer wedding is out.  Many of our friends have gotten married on a weekday to have the best of both worlds, but I have never seen our day to be like that.  So anticipating what the schedule will look like next year, we have selected 5 or 6 days that would work for us in either August or September.

Now the where... we both decided, that even though our families live about 6-8 hours in East and West of us, that we would look for a venue that is in our area and have everyone meet in the middle.  I had always invisioned my wedding to speak to our western lifestyle, but still have an aire of elegance and charm.  I cringe at some of the cheesy "cowboy weddings" that apeear after an internet search.  We looked at a number of places in the area, though many will not be able to accomodate the numbers that we are expecting...I know we will find something!!

**UPDATE**

The search is over and we have a date!!  We will be getting married August 27, 2011.  What is so special about this day, is that it will be 5 years to the day that we met!!  It is so relieving that this place meets all of our expectations, and I can now put a place to the vision that we have of our special day!

Our colors for the wedding started out as Brown, Chartreuse and Ivory.  We were going along with no objections, until FH mentioned that he hated green (which I knew that he never liked wearing green but not that he had a serious hate on for it) and that he would NOT wear it for the wedding.  He did admit that he liked the color combination as long as he would not have to wear the green.  Since we planned on him and his guys to be in black jackets, I didn't really see brown being a good color for their ties.  So enter in Copper!  We are going to keep the original three colors and add the copper.  Crisis averted!!

My brother has been very excited about our wedding and has offered to pitch in and help in a number of areas.  One recent project that he has asked if he could do is our cake.  I am not too sure if he has ever made a cake in his life, but he has asked our mother, whom is a fantastic baker, for some guidance and assistance.  I have said from the beginning that I didn't want to have a fussy or expensive cake, nor did I want cupckaes.  I found this picture on PW and immediatley knew it was for our day.  We will do three different flavours, chocolate/caramel with a white chocolate buttercream icing (FH's choice), Lemon Raspberry pound cake with lemon buttercream in the middle (my absolute favorite Stabucks treat), and a vanilla to please all others.  I have complete faith in this project and I am looking forward to the tastings :)

I just love how PW Real Wedding Bride, Alicia, did her hair.  I love that it has a bit of casual and elegance all in one.

We had our first round of engagement photos done with a family friend at Denny's family Ranch back in October.  A family friend took the photos and we had such a great time at different spots around their ranch :)