Good Life (frances dunnery)

So, I will admit that I have been more wedding-centric than usual lately. If you ask me, the fact that it's two months before the wedding and I'm just now starting to get a tad obsessed with things, well, that's just plain impressive. In my humble opinion, anyway. Others might disagree. I can say however, that up until this point I have made a pretty concerted effort not to be that annoying bride who can only talk about the wedding (unless people ask. Then I feel that's kind of a free pass to talk about boring things like dresses and centerpieces. So, the moral of the story is, if you're not really interested in wedding details, don't ask the bride about them, not even to be polite). On the other hand, with all of the pre-wedding things going on, it's kind of hard not to be focused on the wedding.

#1. My first dress fitting last week was nothing short of awesome. It's been a good 4 or 5 months since I'd seen the dress and I'll admit that I've had a few "oh my god, did I really buy the right one?" moments. Any doubts I had faded as soon as I put that sucker on. I was giddy as a girl with a high school crush. Actually, it reminded me of a Friday afternoon not long after the fiance and I started dating, when I was considerably distracted from my actual work. I was so ridiculously happy that it was Friday and that as soon as the final bell rang I was bolting out to the parking lot to drive an hour down the beltway to spend the weekend with the fiance, I had some of my students wondering what the hell was wrong with me. In fact, one student asked me what in the world I was doing that weekend that had me so happy and all I could do was grin that silly grin people get when they're newly in love. That's how I looked standing in my dress while the seamstress pinned and fussed around with the hem. Seriously, I cannot wait to wear that thing.

#2. The invitations will be printed next weekend. And then hopefully, they'll be mailed the next Monday. Yay.

#3. This weekend the finace's family threw me a shower. I've been a little nervous about joining the fiance's family. Not because they're not great people; they are. But because he is the youngest of five. And he was born a good six years after his next-oldest sibling, so he's really the baby. And he's one of only two boys. So it's a little intimidating (the fiance will tell me, and he's probably right, that this is more a product of my own imagination more than anything else). But they've always been more than welcoming and really, I know that I am really just doing my normal thing of slowly adjusting to new people. It's always taken me a while to get comfortable with people, and it's still true now, whether it's future family or not.

The pictures are of one of my favorite presents so far--his and hers coffee mugs. So cute! It's a little hard to read, but the inside of the mug says, "...and they loved happily ever after." Two of the really fun things about joining the fiance's family is that a.) I get three big sisters and a big brother. As the oldest in my family, I have always harbored a secret wish that I could have big brothers and sisters. And b.) I get 10 nieces and nephews! This weekend one of the fiance's nephews gave me a big hug, asked if he could start calling me 'aunt Catherine' and then told me he just knew I was going to be his favorite aunt. I don't care how petty it is, I will admsit without guilt that that just made me so happy. Ok, ok, so I'm 95% sure he has a little bit of a crush on me, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get to get in good with this family.