Aurora Wedding

If you have my dream dress and are willing to part with it I would be in heaven! I love this dress, I know it is my dress, but I cannot afford it full price. Willing to buy immediately from someone who has the Amsale Aurora gown in pink size 10 or up.

Thank you!

I'm bored at work lol

Have you and your FI picked out baby names? 

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FI and I were discussing Greek tradition, in that babies are named after the grandparents. We haven't decided if we're going to go with tradition for all the children, but my FI really wants our first son to be named after his father. That's fine with me!

Boys: Nicholas (FI's father), James, Evan, Lucas

Girls: Ariana, Ava, Eliana, Melina/Melania, Juliet, Isabel/Isabella, Gabriella

When consulting with potential photographers, what do you look for? Are you concerned about the personality fit of the photographer(s) with you as a couple? Are you more interesting in the product? What are your deal breakers? Trying to choose our company and conflicted since they all seem great for different reasons.

I thought I would "change up" all the princess talk a little :)  So who is your favorite?

I thought I would "change up" all the princess talk a little :)  So who is your favorite?

I thought I would "change up" all the princess talk a little :)  So who is your favorite?

So, I picked this A-Line design by Aurora D'Paradisso. It fits so well and has a true lace up bodice. I didn't need any alterations, except to create a bustle. It has intricate embroidered detail and can be found throughout the gown. It also has delicate flower accents in the front that are really light, but are perfect for my garden themed wedding. I love it!
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Thanksgiving 2009

Matt proposed on November 21, 2009 while I was visiting Colorado over my Thanksgiving break. After a midday hike near his family's home in Littleton, CO. We returned to his car to return home and he opened the trunk of his car. In the trunk was a jewelry box he made for me with the beautiful ring inside!

We are planning a December 31, 2010 wedding in Aurora, CO.

Kate and Colin, St. Louis, Missouri, March 13, 2010

GETTING READY: 

I woke up around seven and to be honest, it felt like any other day. I wasn't nervous, no butterflies, no angst. My sister and I climbed into bed with my mom and dad and talked for a while. We ordered a huge breakfast and my god brothers and sister came up to our room for a while and we horsed around. It was all very normal, except for the wedding dress hanging in the corner to remind us all of what day it was :) 

At ten the hair dresser arrived and started hair styles. He was awesome! He's my mom's hairdresser and we had him come up from Springfield (Missouri). He stayed in the hotel and that was VERY useful as we ended up calling him back several times after the hairdos were finished to fix little imperfections. I would recommend this (hiring someone for the whole day) for parties with a lot of girls because you have to start hair and makeup EARLY. Naturally, things will start to fall apart later in the day :) 

As some of you may know, I was VERY indecisive about my hair, all the way up until the moment I sat in the chair on my wedding day. And then? I was still very indecisive. I had a million ideas, a million pictures printed out and absolutely no idea how to articulate what I wanted. This led to what we're calling Hair Crisis 2010. The stylist did what was actually a very beautiful style, but not what I had envisioned and I seriously just CRACKED. 

To my credit, I hadn't had ONE meltdown in the whole planning process, which is amazing for me. I'm usually very tightly wound and very type A, so people were expecting a few blowouts. But, they never came until HC2010 haha, and they didn't come once after HC2010 either! My disappointment about the hair (which was really nice...really...it just wasnt what I had in my head) and my angst over hurting the guys feelings all wound up with how overwhelming the day was = sobbing like a baby on my mom and grandparent's shoulders. 

Finally, I wiped the tears away and sat back down in the chair. I picked the EXACT SAME STYLE that I had originally wanted, two years earlier when I started planning the wedding. Just goes to show you...DONT over think it, haha! 

Then my makeup was done, by the absolutely amazing, fabulous Holly Speaks of Procoulour salon (see my vendor list below for a link). It was so beautiful and I am telling you, it didn't go ANYWHERE, the whole day...even when I sobbed through my vows. 

Then the photographer arrived and it was time to get dressed! I know a lot of girls feel like their whole day goes by in a flash, but I didn't feel that way. I took my time, relaxed and took it all in and I feel like I have very clear memories of the whole day. 

So, without further ado, here's the rest of the recap, ILLUSTRATED VERSION! :)

The men's boutonnières and the letter that colin wrote me and had delivered with a really beautiful bouquet of flowers :) Awwww...I LOVE him for doing this.   

Stepping into my dress!! I was SO EXCITED, my heart was pounding a mile a minute. And look how pretty my sister is. Sigh...

My pretty shoes...that BROKE about three seconds before I walked down the aisle. More about that later :) 

Look at those lashes! Woo! haha. 

Everyone is asking about this pin. This is the pint hat all the women in my family have worn on their wedding day...about 50 or 60 of us!! 

My cousin and sister in law looking on. All the girls watched me get dressed...it was sweet :) 

Mom putting my shoes on :) My mom and sister insisted on being the ones to help me get dressed. I recommend picking someone who is near and dear to you to help you with this. It's a very special moment! I've seen too many girls who have someone random help, and somehow I feel like that diminishes how special the moment can be. 

Buttoning things up! This is my "excited" face, apparently. 

"Don't cry! Don't cry!" My mom and I surveying the finished product. 

We have a very close family friend (considered a sister) who pulled me aside right before we left the room to give me this beautiful ring. 

The veil!!

Almost forgot perfume! My bridesmaid jessica, right before she spritzed me in the eyeball. It's cool, my face smelled soooooo good! 

I love these two, mostly because they just embody how crazy and wonderful this whole process is. Annnnd...I love the light on the veil. 

My mom and dad's reactions to the finished product. I love them so much...they worked so hard to throw us this beautiful wedding, and I couldn't ask for more wonderful parents :) 

"Smell my bouquet!" It smelled soooo good! Here we are in the glass elevator in the hotel...people were clapping and yelling as we went down! 

My reaction to all the clapping and yelling below, and my mother in law's (in the green) reaction to  seeing me for the first time :) 

GETTING MARRIED: 

We were married in the Jewel Box in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri. It was BEAUTIFUL. 

My handsome groom before the ceremony.

Our little ringbearers :) 

Seeing his bride for the first time :) I know everyone loves a first look, but I'm convinced that these pictures are the product of NOT having a first look. The only way he has been able to describe how he felt when these were taken is "awestruck". :) 

Seeing him for the first time: 

Our beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL venue: 

My Auntie Mary read our Neruda poem and it was BEAUTIFUL. As you can see, very moving :) 

Mother in law during our vows :) 

LOST IT during the vows...taking a hankie break to sob for a while before I finish things up. 

My sister on the right, perpetually about to burst into tears the entire ceremony. And Colin's dad on the left. 

We're a family! 

The moment we noticed that my mom had hired a trombone quartet to sneak in while we were getting married, set up in total silence, and burst into "All You Need Is Love" the moment we were pronounced. Awesome Mom Award 2010.

Here are our posed shots! 

Colin was obsessed with twirling me around in my dress the whole day. 

My handsome groom :) Can I also just say how much I loved my bouquet? It was another total surprise and the florist totally outdid himself :) 

Ummm...yep. This one is on our bedside table. 

This was my "serious" face. It was really hard to be serious, I was smiling like a fool the whole day! 

Yes, we went there. The Nose Kiss. 

THE RECEPTION AND DETAILS: 

Our reception was BEAUTIFUL. Contrary to what a lot of brides are comfortable with, in the end I let my mom totally take over the plans for the reception and it was TOTALLY worth it. I was so surprised when I came in, I had no concerns over whether everything was perfect or not, and not least of all...she did an absolutely amazing job. It was perfection. 

Can you see the candles glowing in the big windows on the left? 

A little blurry but...whatever :) The surprise trombones were playing the Budweiser theme in honor of our St. Louis roots and our love for the Cardinals...and beer. lol. 

Our first dance was actually both of our least favorite part, although you wouldn't know it from these pictures. We were like "Why did we choose such a LONG SONG?!" lol. 

My dad's absolutely mindblowing speech. He quoted Yeats. He compared me to the Aurora Borealis. And that's just the beginning. 

This is the across the board response to his speech: 

Our father daughter dance. We have a VERY special relationship. He's also very very stoic, so to see this kind of emotion on film is really rare. He says during this picture he was "saying goodbye to the little girl Katie". *sobbbbb*

Love this picture for the little moment with my mom in the background. 

Colin and his mom dancing to "Somewhere out there" from Fivel Goes West. Colin was a big Fivel fan when he was little. 

My quasi-sister dancing with our sweet flower girl. 

Best friends beckoning me to the dance floor haha. 

One of the things I liked best about our wedding was seeing all of our friends and family, new and old, interact. This is my best friend from highschool and college (the boy) and one of my newer best friends from St. Louis. Dancing! Together! Precious. 

If ever there were a picture that sums my sister in law up...this would be it. lol! 

Colin's mom LOVES latino beats so I arranged to have a Gipsy Kings tune played for her. Success! 

The electric slide was on the "MUST PLAY" list, lol. 

Cutting our AMAZING cake. 

This picture cracks me up. Colin looks like hes most certainly up to no good and I am none the wiser. 

He behaved :) 

After determining that our arms are too short to link while we toast. 

My sister's toast. She "winged it" and it was BEAUTIFUL. 

All weddings involving people from Wisconsin have to have the Polka played. I dont know if you've ever danced the Polka in a ballgown, but it is exhausting. 

DETAILS: 

Our beautiful flowers. 

Our rings in the bowl my wonderful friend Brit gave me before the wedding :) 

The inside panel of our program and the Robert Frost poem that my BFF picked out. 

The handkerchief that I carried. My grandmother gave it to me right before she died because we both liked blue. 

The room was lined with windows and there were candles on every windowsill! 

Hanging votives over the buffet. 

Buffet centerpieces. 

Regular centerpieces. 

The whole buffet. We really stressed that we wanted the buffet to be a centerpiece, and not this ugly thing that you try to hide off to the side of the room. No chafing dishes, no plastic, everything at different heights. Our florist designed these amazing centerpieces (which were HUGE...I know, because I came home with one) with hanging votives that spread over the whole table. 

The food was even pretty. 

These were on all of the cocktail tables. My mom purchased these antique hobnail glasses a while back. 

The room. Highly recommend draping, if your venue offers it. It made a huge huge difference.

Another surprise, the grooms cake. That's colin in the baseball uniform and me behind him reading a book with our two dogs :) It was ADORABLE. 

We added teh candy table at the last minute and it was a gigantic hit. My mom bought some candies and my grandmother and great aunt MADE the chocolates. We used the bridesmaids bouquets to decorate. 

THE END. :)  Please let me know if you use anything and...CREDIT my photographer, SJMacky Photography. 

I'm engaged! :D

Was I expecting it? No.

Was I super surprised? Yes.

Did I tear up/cry? Yes.

In other words...it was awesome :)

First of all, one of my friends that I've known for a long time decided to drive down from San Jose with her husband to go to Disneyland for her birthday. Her birthday is on February 13. Ben and I tend to usually do a Valentine's weekend trip, but this time we decided to spend it at Disneyland. Ben made reservations for us at the Grand California Hotel and I made reservations for all of us to eat at the Blue Bayou on the 13th and then at Steakhouse 55 (sooo need to eat there again!! :) ) on the 14th. On the 13th we all went running amok through the parks and had a nice time.

On the fourteenth, Ben announced that he had created a scavenger hunt that would take us around Disneyland to the different rides/attractions. The object of the scavenger hunt was for each one of us to choose a clue/riddle at random and then work together (all three of us, he became "The Riddler") to put our heads together to figure out these riddles. Once we figured them out, we would go to the ride/attraction and go on the ride, but since it was super crowded that day, we decided to take pictures in front of each ride/attraction while holding the riddle. Afterwards we would continue to the next clue. Pretty simple and it was super fun. Ben had made each riddle be interesting and you had to really know the rides/attractions in order to be able to answer them. I'm pretty sure they were super time consuming since he had about 30 of them (if not more) created for us.

Eventually the clues led us through Sleeping Beauty's Castle, where we read Aurora's story (one of my favorite Disney movies) and to the wishing well were, as a couple, we made a wish together. The next clue took us up through Main Street and to the Railroad Station were we could look at Main Street and all the way to the brightly lit castle. Ben then gave me another clue in which I had to decipher the ambigram (it said, "I Love You") and once I figured out I was supposed to open up the ambigram he had given me I realized that there was a poem there for me to read. Ben proceeded to read the poem he had written for me. The poem took us from how we met, through our monumental moments. The words were so sweet and moving that I started to cry. It didn't dawn on me that this was a proposal until he got to the third line down...then I really started to shake and cry. By the time he finished proposing and I looked at him, he was down on one knee holding a little black pillow that held a beautiful ring that was lit from above by flowers. Needless to say I said yes :)

So that's the story of our engagement :) and now the planning for the wedding has begun. :)

Well, I was part of a random forum and website chat. I had a good friend that I had known for a year or two on, and told her I was bored. She told me to check out this place called GAIAOnline.

Gaia is an avatar and gaming site, you play games to win money to dress up your character, and they have a chatting system too. I randomly looked at games and in different chatting rooms. I had a basic avatar, but I really like to do different things with the page, not many people pay attention to their profile. So even though I had been there a day, I looked like I had been on a few weeks at least.

I decided to initiate a chat room to see what kind of people were on and drawn to my room. Among them, MaSuAnime. We talked a tiny bit, more like a hello, and he was generous and asked if I would like a tiger for my avatar. The tigers were a ton of points, most people got them by paying real money. I did not understand why, but said sure and accepted the gift. He left my room and more people came in, it was just a passing person. Later that night, he went searching for my name again, and this time it was pretty much just us, it was about 2 in the morning. We got to talking and the way these chats work you can move your avatars around and "act". We "sat" on a cliff side over looking a beach and ocean, watching beautiful aurora borealis (northern lights) and talking. He was really intelligent and we talked about anything that came to mind. When 6 am came and I had to go, it felt like it had been 15 minutes, his character gave mine a "kiss on the cheek" and hoped we could have an "intelligent talk again soon, not many are so on this site." We talked a few days later, and he asked if we could be online bf/gf, there is no harm in that. I refused because at the time I actually had a boyfriend, but we were going through some hard times. His name was Nathan and we decided to give it a break for a few months, because he was going out of town and wouldn't have a phone or computer to talk to me. I said okay and that I would wait, but he said I didn't have to, he wanted me to find someone better.

It Crushed me. This was in December of 07. MaSu was a good friend and helped talk me through it. After a few weeks he asked again if we could try an online relationship, and I refused because I said we didn't know each other well enough.

So, MaSu started spending more time talking to me, telling me about his life, and his genetic disease, osteogenisis imperfecta, his family and asking questions about mine. Eventually, we traded real life pictures, where he was floored by how tall and young I looked. (he was 19 at the time, me 16). He asked me again if we could try an online relationship December 19th. This time, I said what harm could it do?

Through this, I was going through "family troubles" at the same time. I got in such a bad fight, and I wrote Logan crying asking what I should do? He was talking about having me come down to Missouri by bus (I was in Minnesota) and he was sure his mom would take me in and help me out. Now I knew this guy not nearly long enough! I ran away to my grandfather's in northern Minnesota first. I told him I might not ever talk to him again because I didnt know if I would have internet access, so he gave me his phone number. The night I got to my grandfathers was December 21st, and I asked his fiancee, Joy, if I could borrow her phone. Now normally, I can't memorize numbers, I am a bit dyslexic. I think I have 5-8 memorized, including his.

From that night on, we talked EVERY DAY. For at least 30 minutes or more.

I went up to alaska like I usually did to spend the summer with my mother. We started talking about saving some money for a trip that I could go to Missouri for a week or two. Just about everyone around me told me that I shouldn't, but I was comforted by him and his mom, I would have a bed on the couch, and if I felt unsafe they would send me back to Alaska early. I went for two weeks in August 08, and got to meet all his friends and have fun at his birthday. Laughed a lot! Especially when Josh made the comment "its weird actually seeing your girlfriend. Its really a person, not just your phone attached to your ear!" So I licked his ear. XP

I went back to Alaska to work the state fair, October went back to MN, November went back to his house for a month. December left for Las Vegas to live with my friend/boss for two months, spent a month in Cali and got back on good terms with my mother to go to Mexico for a week. Day after getting back left again for MO. Stayed 3 months, went for a month to Minnesota to graduate (had been finishing high school online during travels).

When I went back to Missouri April 09, I started paying rent to his parents. Now I am not a good one for depending on people, but I did live with them with mostly no slips, Logan and I got along great. I was living in his room with him by now. We adopted an adorable chinchilla, and two roborovski hamsters. I started getting restless, living with 8 people in one house. (His two brothers still live at home too, and the oldest has a girlfriend with a baby now).We started making plans to move out together. He asked me to marry him, of course I said yes! We decided to wait a bit to tell people, and we finally picked out a ring this past June, Sunday 6 6 10 actually, at the awesome renascence festival. We made plans for me to continue my education in Alaska, for I could get discounted tuition, and I got a surprise ticket from my mother on July 1st to Alaska.

He will be following in September. We want to get married June 21st, 2011! The Summer Solstice. Yay! We have the rest of our lives together, and we are so happy!