A Year in Review

I work in the TV news business.

The week between Christmas and New Years is filled with "year in review" packages during the news.

"Local Education in 2010"
"2010 Scandals"
"Local Politics in 2010"
"Best Sports Plays of 2010"
"2010 in Health"

... and the list goes on.

So this will be my own little piece of 2010.

I call it: "Kelly's Life in 2010".

January

Ryan and I spent our first New Year's Eve together since we met.


In celebration of Ryan's 24th birthday, I surprised him with a trip to Cleveland exactly 2 years after we met there.

At the Applebee's where we had our first date.

March

Three of my roommates from college came to visit. They met Ryan for the first time, then the girls went out clubbing like old times.


April

Ryan proposed!


Along with our friends and our dogs, we walked around the 2-mile Indianapolis Speedway track in the pouring rain.

It was for charity!

May

Ryan, Maggie, and I moved into our new place.


I successfully ran my first half marathon.


June

I turned 25 years old. Mass amounts of flip cup ensued.


July

I found the dress and immediately purchased it.


August

I ran my first olympic-distance triathlon (and almost died in the 90 degree heat).


September

Ryan and I took a much needed vacation to Florida.


October

We attended our first wedding as an engaged couple.


November

Ryan and I spent our first Thanksgiving together in Philadelphia with his family.


December

We spent our first Christmas together in Illinois with my family.


As for tonight? We're being totally lame and staying in.

But for good reason!

I have to work until 10:30pm, and Ryan is sick. So no going out for us. It will probably be nachos, beer, and a movie to ring in the new year.

What are your plans for tonight? Hopefully more exciting than mine!

Christmas According to Kelly

Welcome to my newest followers, Diana Lee and Sara. I hope everyone had a very merry holiday!

Christmas came and went. It was exciting, overwhelming, fun, and exhausting all rolled up into a little ball of wrapping paper.

Ryan and I started off the holiday with our own personal Christmas. We exchanged fun gifts like beer and space heaters.

Mmmm... spacey warmness...

After all my debating about whether or not to give Ryan his cufflinks, a funny thing happened. Ryan, too, gave me a present that is typical of a wedding day gift.


I was surprised by a gorgeous topaz and silver necklace from Rogers and Hollands. (I don't have photos because I'm dumb. You'll just have to wait!)

I wore it once on Christmas Eve, then left it at my parents house for safe-keeping until the big day.

While we were with my family, we received quite a few items off our registry... two sets of china, an electric griddle, a level, bannanagrams, a saucepan, and some mixing bowls to name a few. Looks like we need to add some more stuff to our registry!

My mom fulfilled a few items on my wedding wish list. She started by gifting me these beautiful hair combs...


We both commented how they were much smaller than we thought. I guess that's what happens when you skim over the description portion on Etsy. Woops!


But I definitely plan on working these into my 'do some how. They're just too adorable to let collect dust!

After that, Ryan and I opened a set of toasting flutes.


They aren't the ones I asked for, but my mom picked them out when she was in Germany... so I'm not complaining.


I'm so grateful for all the amazing presents people gave us. Ryan was welcomed to our family Christmas with open arms and a pile of gifts. Talk about spoiled!


It was the first Christmas Ryan and I have ever spent together... and it will be our last as a dating couple. Exactly 6 months from Christmas Day is our wedding. Let the real countdown begin!

The Gift that Almost Wasn't

I love giving gifts. Seriously. When I think of the joy of Christmas... seeing the looks on peoples' faces as they open their gifts is the best part. The fact that I too will be opening gifts is just a pleasant afterthought.

Christmas may still be two days away, but Ryan and I's personal Christmas was this morning!

I bought Ryan a bunch of things (he had at least 7 wrapped presents under our tree)... but there was one gift in particular that was my favorite.

...and it's wedding related!

The very last gift Ryan opened this morning was a small box with cufflinks inside. I ordered them from seller TomatoMade on Etsy.

Click to enlarge

Inside each cufflink is a vintage map. I ordered one to be Chicago and one to be Philadelphia... signifying our two hometowns and the long-distance hardships we endured for the first year+ of our relationship.

Click to enlarge

The funny thing about this gift is I almost didn't give it to him. When I originally ordered the cufflinks, my intention was to give them to Ryan on the morning of our wedding.

But there's one thing I'm not... and that's patient. Once I had these beautiful little cufflinks in my hand, I just couldn't bear to wait another 6 months to give them to him.

And that's how... just this past Tuesday... I ended up frantically wrapping the box with our very last scrap of wrapping paper and adding one final gift to the pile under the tree.

I don't think Christmas would have been complete without something from the heart. This fit the bill perfectly.

I will be taking a 3-day hiatus from blogging in order to spend un-interupted time with family. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and I'll see you on Monday. Merry Christmas!

She Thinks We're Crazy

We had a phone conversation with our videographer last night. Ryan and I are sort of awkward phone conversationalists, so these "meetings" aren't really our thing.

But our videographer, Kristin, was really easy to talk to. She seemed super interested in us and what we're like as a couple. I would say that it's because it's her job and she has to be interested... but I film people almost every day, and I know from experience that it's really hard to fake genuine interest. Woops. ::blush::

We talked to her for almost an hour. She asked a lot of questions about us and our wedding... including how we met.

Ryan and I instantly laughed.

I carefully constructed for her the tale of Ryan and Kelly's Cleveland rendevouz. She's in for a treat (and so are YOU, dear reader!)...

Ryan and I in front of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

To set the scene... imagine it's late January, 2008. I'm lonely at a new job in a new town in Illinois. Ryan is a bored college student living at home with his parents in Philadelphia. We both see an ad on Facebook for a Christian dating site, and we join.

I saw Ryan as one of my "matches" and thought he was cute (but I insist to this day that he's cuter in person than the photo he used on his profile). Despite our distance, I sent him a "smile" (ughhh dating sites are laaame).

Ryan's dating profile picture in 2008... his hair was really long!

Ryan emailed me listing all the awesome ways in which we were similar... we both majored in tv production, we are both Methodists, and we both love the Simpsons, Weezer, and Green Day. I was instantly impressed and sent him an IM.

My dating profile picture in 2008. Bangs were a (thankfully) fleeting thing.

We spent the next 3 days obsessed with our AIM... checking it morning and night to see if the other person was online.

At 5am on the 4th day, we decided we should meet. Like... immediately (or... as "immediately" as you can get living 13 hours away from eachother). We decided to each leave our respective houses at noon that afternoon, drive 7 hours each, and meet at an Applebee's just outside of Cleveland.

So we did just that.

We had dinner (Ryan ate chicken fingers... winning me over right then and there). After dinner, we attempted to go bowling (but the alley was closed), then decided to watch a movie on his computer. The next day, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and shared an awkward (Kelly-initiated) kiss in a furniture store parking lot before heading home.

Phew!

So there you have it... the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We started officially dating about a month later, and the rest (as they say) is history!

Oh... yes. We were talking about our videographer. Well, I'm pretty sure she thinks we're nuts. She laughed and couldn't believe our story. Nothing could top that...

... until she asked how Ryan proposed.

*All personal photos

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! (That is... except for our Canadian blogger friends.)

I'm spending the long weekend at the future in-laws' house near Philadelphia, so Internet usage will be minimal (I'm posting this from an iPad as we speak).

Take a moment (or two) today to stop and be thankful for family, friends, and fiances today. I know I will!

Ryan's niece playing in a box... my favorite photo I've taken today.

See you all next week!

Marriage and Infidelity

There once was an episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte was engaged, and upset with Carrie because she was the "other woman" in Big's marriage. The only reason Charlotte was upset was because she was preparing to wed the man she loved while her friend was making a mockery of the institution of marriage.

Source

Now that we have the picture, I'd like to say that I'm encountering a similar situation.

A coworker friend of mine (who shall remain nameless and title-less) is having an affair with another of my coworkers (who shall also remain all that stuff). Only a few people at my office know about it, and I happen to be one of them.

Every time he talks about their dates or the time they spend together, I feel awkward. It's not that I don't think they make a good couple (which, let's face it... they don't)... it's just that I can't stop thinking about his poor wife.

Despite the fact that they've been having marital problems for years, I can't help but feel like it's just not right. What if the poor wife thinks things are finally turning around for them... while he's secretly off with another woman?

Source

::shudder::

But it gets better (and more relative to this whole "wedding blog" operation I'm running here). Because I have no idea how to address the invitation!

I assume that if he came to our wedding, he would bring the girlfriend (mostly because we all work together, but also because he isn't too fond of his wife). But I can't possibly address the invitation to the two of them!

I could address it to him only... but then I'd have awkwardly ask him in person who he plans on bringing (so I can properly address the placecard).

Has anyone else run into this dilemma? (I doubt it... it's a unique one!)

Photo Booth Drama

Discussing a photo booth led to Ryan and I's first wedding planning disagreement.

I had made a pretty extensive Excel spreadsheet comparing all the Chicago area photo booth companies... cost, number of hours, travel fees, cost for double prints, etc.

I narrowed it down to my top 3 and requested a picture of each booth from the companies. Once the photos arrived in my inbox, I showed them to Ryan so he could weigh in. But his reaction was not what I expected.

Chicagoland Photobooth

"They're all black. Do they come in any other color? That's going to look so tacky against our white ballroom."

Ummm..... wow.

The black booth vs. white walls thought had not even crossed my mind. And to be honest... now that it had, I still didn't care. I asked Ryan if the black photo booth was really going to bother him.

His answer? "Yes."

So my search began for white photo booths. Let me tell you right now... there are none.

This minor disagreement about the look of the booth was really bothering me. I was beginning to think the photo booth just wasn't going to happen. I had all but crossed it off my list, when I suddenly had an epiphany.

I went to Ryan, sat him down, and said, "This was the first thing I asked for after we got engaged. I have been wanting and obsessing over having this photo booth for months. I'm going to have to say that my dream trumps your weird thing about aesthetics."

What did he say?

"Okay."

Wow, that was easy. I know it's not exactly a compromise, but in a situation like this... that's not really an option. I figure somewhere along the wedding planning way, there will be one thing that Ryan feels really strongly about. And when that day comes, I'll give it to him.

...Then we'll be even.

An Awkward Situation

I was going to send out the packages I made for my bridesmaids today.

But upon waking, I found an email from future-bridesmaid M saying her boyfriend of 4+ years had broken up with her... a guy she had planned on marrying.

Ouch.


So I didn't send the packages.

I wasn't sure what to do in a situation like this. The first thing that came to my mind was how selfish I would be for asking her to be my bridesmaid only days after she got dumped. It would feel like I was trying to downplay her pain... or rub my happy relationship in her face.

So I will wait.

I will probably go ahead and mail the packages for J and C tomorrow, but I will most likely wait a couple weeks to ask M. She needs time to heal. I couldn't possibly ask her to be happy for Ryan and I at a time like this.

This is Weird

My fiance doesn't know I have a wedding blog.

Yeah, go ahead... stone me.

It's not that it's a secret... cause it's not. It's just that he hasn't asked.


Haha, yeah. I know that sounds ridiculous. Well, maybe I just don't want to let him in on the bridal crazy. I told him from the very beginning of this process that he could be as involved or as un-involved in planning as he chose.

I don't want him to feel obligated to keep up with yet another one of my whacky blogging endeavors. I don't want him to realize just how obsessive a girl (any girl... not just me!) can get over one or two teeny tiny wedding details.

So when the day comes when he finally discovers this little gem, all I can do is hope he is as gung-ho about it as he was when he found the maps I had secretly drafted up last week.

"Those are really cool." Awww... thanks, Ryan.