Royal Predictions

In my last post I divulged my crush on Kate Middleton...the woman is going to make a stunnnnnning (did I put enough 'n's in there?!) bride. My inbox has been flooding all week with Royal pictures and the blogging Bees have been making their Royal Predictions, so just for fun, I thought I would make some guesses.

The Dress:
Kate is a fashion icon in the making, I am very envious of her style. I think she will not go the extremely poofy a la' Princess Di route, but will pick something very romantic and classic, definitely accentuating her teeny tiny waist. The rumor mill has been filled with potential designers, but I think Kate will surprise everyone and choose an up-and-comer. I imagine something like this:

{image via aliexpress.com}

The Bridesmaid Dress:

As I understand, she will only have one bridesmaid, her sister, but will have some other children in the party, much like Diana did. I'm torn here; I go back and forth between two colors.
Bold royal blue dress:

{image via weddingnuance.com}

Soft romantic blush dress:

{image via weddingbycolor.com}

I think besides the color she picks, I think the style will mimic her own dress. Be it structured, or flowy, or (unlikely) form fitting.

The Groom:
The Prince and his brother, Harry will obviously be wearing his military garbs, cause even she can't resist her man in uniform:

{image via princeharry.co.uk}

The Flowers:
I predict she will go soft and romantic. Not sure how well this goes with my blue BM dress though...

{image via branchesfloral.blogspot.com}

The Accessories:
I don't think Kate will wear a tiara, it's too expected and traditional for her. I believe she will wear her hair half up/half down with a big beautiful bloom, perhaps a peony or rose to match her bouquet. She is a country girl and this could be her nod to that upbringing.

I think she will sport some of the ridiculously gorgeous jewels she has access to, but they won't be over the top. I think she will focus on pieces that blend with her breathtaking ring.

As much as I'd like to think she would rock a funky hat or birdcage veil, tradition will get the better of her and she'll wear a Cathedral length veil that trails a few feet behind her. Nothing quite as dramatic as Princess Di.

She wears a lot of heels, so I'm thinking she will rock a heel. Maybe in color, but I kind of doubt it. I think they will be classic pumps in a champagne color; but to make them interesting they will be sparkly!

The Cake:
It will be grand...I'm guessing 7 layers. Decorated in blooms to match her bouquet. And I don't even know what a fruit cake is, but it will be that. I also read somewhere that Prince William wants a cookie cake, so that will be included.

{image via preparetowed.com}

The Ceremony:
I'm going with 67 minutes.


I can't wait to see how (in)accurate my predictions are. On the countdown to 1 AM!

Royal Thoughts

The Royal Wedding is plastered everywhere, and I for one, could not be more excited. And yes I will be getting up in the middle of the night to watch the celebrations. It is after all, The Super Bowl time 1,000 PLUS CROWNS. To quote my favorite middle-class mom, Frankie, from The Middle.

{Frankie displaying her Royal souvenirs}

I was born exactly a year after Princess Di's wedding and even though I wasn't even alive yet, I can instantly picture her dress, her train, the carriage. I can only imagine the impact the current Royal wedding will have on today's and future brides.





I love that Royal Weddings are not kept a secret and are instead celebrated for the public to see. We know about them well in advance and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people gather to watch as they have their FIRST KISS upon the balcony. I cannot imagine being there, amongst the crowd and feeling the energy, at the exact moment. I get chills watching it on the tube in my home far far away from London. I'm not gonna lie, I wish I was in London right now!



It's only fitting that I'm obsessed with the Royal Wedding since I obviously have something in common with the future princess...what's that? It's not clear what our commonality is? Oh, well we are both brides to be. Meh, it's a far stretch but I'll take it. Wedding brain takes over when you are engaged and the word venue and cake and flowers have never had so much meaning, and I hope that even for a princess-to-be it's the same. So when you can follow someone who is in a similar situation and in such a spotlight, it's like you instantly can relate to her...kind of. I don't have Royal Jewels at my disposal and I'm not marrying an actual prince, but nonetheless, we're both still brides.

I think Kate is gorgeous. She radiates confidence, she's effortlessly beautiful. Her style is to die for. Her smile is contagious. And her hair? I.want.it. I clearly have a girl crush on the woman. Who doesn't:

{Kate Middleton, announcing Engagement}

My mom read somewhere that this Royal Wedding is going to cost sixty million dollars. Obviously Kate knows what she's getting into, she's been dating the prince for years...but I can't help but wonder if she would like more control of her wedding. For her wedding to reflect more of her down-to-earth background. There are certain expectations and rituals you must do, as I understand, when you marry into Royalty and marry in the Westminster Abbey. She won't be showing off her shoulders in the modern sweetheart neckline gown. She will more than likely be wearing a lonnng veil, no birdcage for her. Then I wonder, has she even read wedding blogs? Is she aware of these trends in the wedding world? While she's marrying into Royalty and becoming a princess, is her wedding day about her & Prince William or the Monarchy's traditions? She's a commoner and from the countryside, and while it is easy to say "How lucky for her to have the wedding of her dreams", I wonder if it is really the wedding of her dreams. That's a whole lot of wondering, coming from my realist side.

My envious side? I imagine the team of hair stylists and makeup artists that are going to be tending to her on the morning of her wedding? The dress fit custom to her, with details she specified. The photography is going to incredible. And the food will be nothing short of five-star. And I'd imagine she hasn't stressed much about it, as it's all done by the folks who work for the Royal Family. Or maybe she has, maybe even the Royalist of brides still worries about her wedding day. She is after all, doing this in front of the world to see.

Every bride will be the center of their own wedding, but can you just imagine riding in your carriage down 'The Mall' with all those people yelling you & your new husbands name and waving flags in your honor. So much for a sparkler exit, when you have this, heh?

{The Mall on Princess Diana & Prince Charles' Wedding Day}

I haven't always been up on the Royal history and Monarchy, but thanks to TLC I have gotten my knowledge over this last week and I think that Kate & William have what it takes to brave the Royal world. My expert opinion, ha!

Cheers to the beautifully Royal couple.

{Engagement Picture}

The Colors That Are

I had fallen in love with a funky color palette that was just not going to jive with my charming venue so I had to change it up. I knew I wanted gray as a color...black was too formal and I couldn't convince myself that brown was the neutral for us. Plus our furry groomsman/ring bearer is the prettiest of gray colors:

{personal picture of Zeus}

I needed to find colors that blended with gray, went with the winter season and fit our venue. I started following Weddingbee religiously just as Mrs. Cowboy Boots was writing her final posts. I fell in love with the feeling her wedding portrayed:

Image via Weddingbee/Photo by Tec Pataja

I was convinced that what I was looking for was something soft that portrayed romance and fun. About the same time I stumbled across this amazing picture, which seems to be the most popular picture in favor of mismatched bridesmaid dresses:

Image via Polka Dot Bride/Photo by Sugar Love Weddings

I loved the nude/soft palette of the one directly above, it just oozed romance (it didn't hurt that the bride and her ladies are stunning), but I wanted a little more pop of color so I settled on this new palette:

Soft Peach & Gray:

Color swatches via 100 Layer Cake, edited by me

I began telling my bridal party they would wear a dress in the peachy/blush palette and got less than great reactions. Apparently blush/peach/nude is not the most flattering of color on most skin tones. It would probably be flattering on 2 of my 8 girls. And while I know my ladies would have sucked it up and wore whatever I had requested them to wear, I took their feedback to heart and switched it up one.last.time to finally come to this. Read my lips: my FINAL color palette.

Soft Peach, Navy & Gray:

Color swatches via 100 Layer Cake, edited by me

I think the navy brings a bit of winter feeling and some boldness to the soft hues of peach and gray. When I created the palette in my head before deciding on it, I Googled "navy, peach, gray weddings" just to make sure I wasn't envisioning some hideous palette that would never work. Fortunately I came across oodles amount of inspiration boards and images that concreted my decision.

Inspiration board via Elizabeth Anne Designs

I am in L.O.V.E with the top left picture; gray winter tights, floofy peach dress & navy trench coat. Yes, please.

Inspiration board via Snippet & Ink

Gray Striped Straws? I die. And that Navy bridesmaids dress (minus the chicken)? Perfect.

Speaking of bridesmaid dresses, navy dresses are common, whether we went with traditional BM dresses or the 'leave it up to you' dresses, I was confident finding something in Navy was within my reach and my girls reach...but dresses are a post for next time.
Hive...did you have to turn to any wedding blog experts to make you feel better about your wedding color palette?

The Colors That Were

While I've already introduced you to the Honey venue, it should be known that I obsessed and panicked over this detail of our wedding: the colors.

For some reason out of my control, one of the first things I wanted to determine when we got engaged was the color palette. It was a good three months of being engaged before we found our venue, but that didn't stop me from deciding my color palette, then changing it, and changing it again...and maybe still having color envy of other delicious palettes. It's a problem, fo sho. I love color and it really sets the tone of the wedding.

When I first began searching 'winter weddings' two color palettes were very prominent:

Red, Black & Gold

Who Wants To Be My Venue? Part Three.

After we had narrowed the list down, decided that a cafe with restrictions, and a venue with alcohol limitations but an abundance of dead animals didn't quite meet our vision...we drove to Vallecito Lake to check out the Community Center. I'm going to go ahead and say, at the risk of sounding snobby, that I'm not too fond of the generic Community Center name. From here on out, the venue will be referred to as simply Vallecito Lake or Vallecito Lake Events Center. Don't judge.

While I'm being honest with you, Hive, I'm also going to show you the picture that I came across in our venue search that quickly deterred me from considering it:

 Image via Vallecito Lake Chamber

The decoration, in my opinion, doesn't do the room justice. However, being taught not to judge a book by it's cover, I wanted to check it out myself. The only other picture the website offers is the one below of the outside of the building, and while it still isn't the most flattering picture of a wedding venue, we saw potential. 

Image via Vallecito Lake Chamber

Vallecito Lake should sound familiar because it is where we got engaged on our sail boat. The lake is positioned 18 miles northeast from Durango and sits at 8,000 feet above sea level. Vallecito, meaning "little valley" in Spanish has a small community surrounding the shoreline, which has only about 400 to 500 residents year round (this number jumps to around 2,000 in the summer months). The lake and community represent Colorado to a perfect 'T', just what we were looking for.

We visited in early fall, so the colors were vibrant and the air was crisp but things were starting to hibernate for the winter. We were okay with that because we know that Aspens are bare in winter, so we had a better idea of what it would look like without the foilage. The outside of the building is really great in person...it fits the little rustic community of Vallecito. When we entered the space, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. Without the clustered tables, it is a blank slate. The most decoration they had was antler shaped chandeliers, which we can totally handle. This building is fairly new, being constructed after a devastating fire destroyed 70,000+ acres in 2002, much of it in the Vallecito Lake area.


Image via Colorado.gov/Photo by Shaun Stanley with the Denver Post

There is a fully covered wrap-around deck, an industrial self serve kitchen, plenty of parking, a couple potential OUTDOOR ceremony locations. It comes with tables (round or rectangle) and chairs. Plus, since we are getting married in the very-much off season, they are totally relaxed. And the price? Ridiculously affordable. Score, score and score.

The one downfall catch is that Vallecito is a good 30 minutes from Durango. And the roads are curvy mountain roads. And in January there is a good chance for blizzards. We want everyone to be safe heading to and from our wedding so we had to make sure we could offer some places to stay. In the summertime, the lake is speckled with RVers from all over the country...in the wintertime majority of the population close up shop and winterize their buildings.

While we were at Vallecito, we drove around the lake and stopped in many of the little 'resorts' they have. Most of them are a combo RV/Resort, with the resort portion offering charming mountain cabins. We confirmed that there would be about ten 1,2 & 3 bedroom cabins available in the winter months along with a few larger homes. We knew that not all 150ish guests would be staying the night at Vallecito so we felt that what was offered seemed to be plenty.

 Image via Lone Wolf Lodge

We were set on booking this venue. It has sentimental meaning. It fits our charming/rustic/whimsical vision. There's so much potential to make it our own. We signed on the dotted line and handed over the deposit check.


We drove back up to Vallecito Lake in early December to cut down our Christmas tree and so we made a pit stop at the venue and I snapped a few pictures:

Rustic Little Building

Showcasing the Covered Porch

Happy Honeys!

So hive, tell me, did you have to look past the first picture you saw of your venue to see potential?

Who Wants To Be My Venue? Part Two.

When I left off, I had narrowed down my list of potential venues to three, yes 3. I was very eager to take the next step and actually look at them. I will admit I was a tad jealous of other brides who had a lot longer list and I was a bit nervous that my venue list only included three, what would we do if those three weren't what we wanted...or too expensive...or ended up not wanting to accommodate our requests. The venues have a lot of power over the direction of a wedding.

My mom and I scheduled the first meeting and went together because Mr. H was unable to get off work at that time. My mom had spoke with the lady and outlined our thoughts: winter wedding, outside, 150ish guests, doggy in attendance. On the phone she said "Not a problem, we can work with this".

We drove 10 miles west of Durango to Kennebec Cafe, a charming cafe nestled at the base of the La Plata mountain range. I adore this cafe, their food and atmosphere. She had just added on and finished a full wrap-around patio outside: bonus. The inside was open and modern, with fireplaces scattered throughout.

Image via Kennebec Cafe's website

We arrived and sat in the entry area for 15 minutes waiting for the lady, apparently she forgot and went on a quick walk: strike one. We did a walk through of the building and she proceeded to ask us the exact same questions my mom had gone over with her on the phone: strike two. She then told us that only half of the restaurant would be available at the time of our wedding, making it only able to hold 50 people: strike three. You'd think after three strikes we'd be out like trout, but we stayed and filled out an 'application'. That's when strike four occurred, her menu prices. Being that this is a restaurant, she obviously does the catering herself, which was fine so we discussed our desire to have a casual dinner. And the casual menu cost per head? $20 to $30. I don't think we could have gotten out of there fast enough. On to venue number two.

We scheduled our next two visits the same day because they were in the same area. The first was a recommendation from a family member who had been to a birthday bash at this private home mansion, called the Retreat at Thunder Ridge. The couple was in the beginning process of offering their home as a wedding venue, but we would be the first to get married in the winter. This home is spectacular:

 Image via Thunder Ridge website

The couple actually provides this home as a retreat for ministries. Because of this I was actually a little hesitant; we are not a religious couple at all, and we didn't want someone else to have expectations of how we should be married. The couple was incredibly nice and accommodating and shared pure joy with our vision. They were okay with the pooch and were on board for the outdoor winter ceremony. Their home in winter? To die for:

Image via Thunder Ridge website

Then we started talking logistics. This is going to be a party, and we have friends (including us!) who like to celebrate with plenty of libations. We like loud, booty shaking music. They weren't really on board for Jager shots or hard alcohol period. Mr. H really enjoys Jager. They also wanted all of our guests to take their shoes off when in the mansion. I understand their concern, it being winter and potentially muddy out and they had beautiful wood floors from some far off land. It just wasn't going to fly because we like liquor and we would prefer our wedding photo album to not include our guests socks. The other kicker for me? This guy was a world traveling big game hunter and he liked to proudly display his 'kill's' on every.inch.of.wall space. Me in my prettiest on my wedding day, with a dead zebra/bear/big horn sheep in the background is not what I picture. Although it works for some couples who can rock the look of stuffed animals:

 

Image via Offbeat Bride/Photo by Donald Norris

Even though this mansion was incredibly beautiful and the couple were delightful, logistically it just wasn't going to work for us. Next up, we crossed our fingers hoping that the third venue would be a charm!

Was anyone else deterred from a venue because of the potential for off the wall photos, like guest's socks?

Who Wants To Be My Venue? Part One.

Somewhere in my bridal haze, I had imagined finding a venue to not be too difficult. Go ahead, you can laugh at me, I would laugh at me too. I did really assume that it would be like asking "Will You Be My Venue?", I mean you are paying to have a large event there, what could be so hard?

I think I assumed it would be fairly painless because we live in a small town. There isn't a large selection of venues. In fact the embarrassing truth is that according to Colorado Wedding Magazine, there are....drum roll please, NINE venues available in the Durango area. Granted these are the structures/locations that advertise themselves as a wedding venue. With a bit of creativity the options expand a tiny bit...unless you are like the Honeys and getting married with snow on the ground.

Sure a few of those nine venues are still available in the winter months, but we have to be a little more extreme because we want to have our wedding ceremony outside. You read that correctly, outside in January, in Colorado. I have always dreamed & envisioned myself getting married outside. There was no other way, even in winter. And luckily Mr. H was fully on board. Majority of the weddings in our area do take place outside, I've only been to one over the years that took place indoors and that's because Colorado scenery is just breathtaking:

Image via Custom Weddings of Colorado/Photo by Greg Harring

This was request number one: is there a way for us to say I Do outside. We had a second request for our potential venues because we want photo op's like this:

Image via Luster Studios/Photo by Luster Studios

That's right, Hive, our 100 pound handsome puppy dog will be rockin' a tie for our big day. Here's a refresher of our handsome dog:

Zeus likes to wear things; here is wearing beads and his back pack.

Before I even started contacting venues directly I spent time researching who was even open all year round, since we do get hefty amounts of snow here, many places are only open May through October. This narrowed down my list substantially, but it took even more work to try and uncover some hidden gems that may or may not be willing to get business in the oh-so-dead season. Armed with a contact list and my wedding requests requirements, I started at the top...and by the top I mean the venues that were most intriguing to us.

The list was narrowed down very quickly. Here is a short list of the No-Goers.

- Cascade Lodge was beautiful, but no winter access to their outdoor ceremony site.
- Purgatory/DMR was not available since, ahem, people are using the mountain for skiing
- Blue Lake Ranch was open in the winter, but only for a wedding with 40-50 guests
- Silverpick Lodge was willing to work with us on the outside request but NO dogs allowed
- Abbey Theatre didn't return any of our FOUR phone calls so we were not interested
- Avalon Acres did not allow pets whatsoever
- The Glacier Club also never returned emails or phone calls

On a side note, what gives with venues just straight up ignoring requests for information?!

After contacting the more obvious choices and having NO luck, we did start think more creatively. Private mansions via VRBO. Ranches in the countryside. I got frustrated after one email from a coordinator questioned my ability to comprehend winters in Durango. Yes, LADY, I do know it SNOWS here. I LIVE HERE. Sense my frustration?

After all but giving up, finally finally I had three venues who would meet with us and were willing to accommodate our two requests.

Who else has (or had) special requests that made it a little more difficult to find the venue? Was anyone else's venue list as teeny tiny as mine? Let's here it hive!

Meeting my New Obsession

I went to bed the night we got engaged and I only slept a few hours...my mind was literally running around in circles. I would close my eyes and wedding visions would fill my brain, I can't even tell you what it was I was envisioning, the thoughts were so intertwined and vague. I mean sure reality had *kind of* set in that we were engaged, but it hadn't even been 24 hours and I had wedding on the brain. You all know the feeling, right?

I got to work Monday morning, which would end up being a very unproductive day for me (sorry, boss!). I did what any newly engaged girl would do: I googled it...and by 'it' I mean wedding...and every combination of the word. Wedding Planning. Wedding Ideas. Wedding Pictures. Winter Weddings. Wedding Blogs.

It was that last one that got me: Wedding Blogs. I was instantly hooked...line, sinker and all. The prettiness, the creativity, the uniqueness. I always knew I would not want a traditional wedding. No church for me. No formal dining for me. But these blogs introduced me to the loveliness of everything wedding. Ruffled. 100 Layer Cake. Style Me Pretty. Snippet & Ink. (And of course the 'Bee!) The names of the blogs alone are to die for!

In that first day I caught on to trends like the cupcake tower, chiavari chairs, the dessert buffet, bunting, colored shoes, amazing photography, mismatched bridesmaid's dresses..and so the list goes on. I spent so much time swooning (which is also a new vocab word, thanks to wedding blogs) over prettiness like these:

Dessert Buffet and Bunting:

Image via Ruffled Blog/Photo by Aaron Shintaku

Different Dresses and Funky Colored Boots:

Image via 100 Layer Cake/Photo by One Love Photography

Spectacular Lighting and Chiavari Chairs:

Incredible Photography:

Image via We Heart It/Photo by Mary Dougherty

I have certainly thought about my wedding and as a little girl I definitely dreamed of wearing the big white dress, so being a 21st century bride and having oodles of inspiration to drool over does wonders for the imagination of a bride. I was simultaneously obsessed and inspired...and was ready to dive head first into creating our own wedding.

Who else was instantly inspired by the images they found on wedding blogs? It's addicting right?!

Decision One: Made

I'm hoping I was like all some newly engaged gals when I say that, even though I had only been engaged for a mere couple hours, my mind was instantly in wedding mode.

For me, setting the date the night we got engaged was priority one two three. I called my parents (priority one), and called my best friend (priority two), MOH Honey. After asking how Mr. H proposed, and then of course congratulating us, the first question my parents and MOH Honey asked us, was when...When will we get married?! The date is so important and everything revolves around the date. I know that is the first question I ask newly engaged peeps. I guess it's in attempt to know how soon (or far away) the date is. Are we talking next month or next year? The date is a pretty big deal.

So, we sat down after drinking our celebratory champagne and discussed the date, very very lightheartedly. I knew this: we already had four friends getting married in summer 2011.These four ladies were engaged before me and I did not feel comfortable tromping in and squeezing our wedding in between ones that had already been set. We wanted to be different, provide something different. And that's when decision one was made: we will have a winter wedding!

Lets indulge in some winter and snowy wedding goodness.

Our own Mrs. Champagne! Image via Weddingbee.com/Photo by  Design MB Fotografie

Another snowy bride, Mrs. Knitting! Image via Weddingbee.com/Photo by Josh Levinson

Photo by Elizabeth Vanderbij

Photo by Ian Johnson

Image via Wedding Splendor/Photo by Shandro Photo

Image via Snippet & Ink/Photo by Kristopher Orr

We instantly had our hearts set on the winter wedding in the Colorado mountains. Being that we got engaged in August we decided to take the long engagement route and rather than push ourselves to plan a wedding in 5 months, we would take 17 months. Picking the date in January 2011 involved nothing more than looking at what the dates were on Saturday's and picking my favorite. Super technical and special, heh? Since we didn't have our hearts set on any particular date, this worked the best for us, and even though there wasn't a lot of though process behind the decision, I love the way the dates look together. Easy peasy, on to the next step...

Did you just pick a date because the numbers looked good together or were you lucky enough to have sentiment behind the big date?! Who else is loving the off-beat season of winter weddings?

She Said Yes: The Second Part

When I left off, we successfully took the sailboat down and kept my bling hidden from my best friend. The drive home was surreal as I sat there and stared at my left hand ring finger. My parents and I are very close and it was always important to me that my parents knew of the impending proposal. Mr. Honey did good and spoke to them before popping the question, so when I called to tell them they were giddy with anticipation. Of course were thrilled...and cried tears of happiness.

Celebration was in clearly in order. We rode our cruisers downtown to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We splurged and got seafood and Prickly Pear Margaritas. I positioned my hand each time the waiter would come to our table to attempt to blind him with my new sparkly:

Mr. Honey picked out my ring by himself, the only thing that ever came up was that I adored a 'cushion cut'. I don't even know if that's a technical term, but I saw a ring on Tiffany's once and I knew that's what I wanted. I love the shape of the ring and that it has an antique flare.

After dinner, we stopped at the liquor store and got the finest yummiest sounding Champagne we could find...we got home to our backyard, popped the cork, and watched the sunset with our four fur babies.

{Our first picture of an engaged couple!}

Sailboats, actually watercraft in general, tend to be named. You know the creative names you see plastered all over the sides of fancy schmancy boats. We have had many conversations about what to name ours and finally it came to us: She Said Yes. Our engagement will be forever memorialized on the side of our boat. Perfect.

How did you celebrate your engagement? More importantly, who else celebrated with the finest bottle of $18 champagne?!

Fail.

I interupt my lovely engagement story posts to note a fail I had this weekend. Remember how I stated I was going to document our sweet life? Who am I kidding, I haven't even told anyone I'm a blogger yet...so I'm documenting this fail for my own accountability. Of couse we had another awesome weekend. We do so many things, big and small, and besides using this blog as a writing source for me, I want to document the big and small stuff...journal and photo album style. I envision looking back on this sweet blog next year, five years, even ten years from now and remembering every single thing we did. They all deserve pictures, no? This weekend included a reggae show by A Dub Rockband...who is an amazing local reggae band with members from Durango & Jamaica. Saturday included a wedding crafting session with girlfriends and a bike polo tournament that lasted through the night. Sunday started with a birthday party for a 2 year old and finished with Blue Moon beers on a patio. So, why a fail? I didn't take a.single.picture. BUT I do have an excuse, the batteries in my camera were dead when I went to take pictures and then charged all weekend to get them ready for the events this weekend. It's already Monday and my three day weeekend is packed full of sweet activities. Can I get a Woop Woop.

She Said Yes: The First Part

I apologize for the spoiler alert in the title...

Last summer, Mr. Honey purchased a sailboat, to round out his collection of skateboards, kayaks and snowboards. I frequently tell him we need a garage so that he can sit in all his manly glory and admire his toys. Side note: don't google images of man and his toys; weird things come up.

I had never been sailing before, and envisioned calm, relaxing afternoons in the high mountain lakes. Mr. Honey, of course saw the new hobby as an addition to his extreme sports. You know, the kind of sailing that involves harnesses, high winds and sail boats sailing sideways:

Photo by John Harvey Photo

While I understand his desire to be extreme, I made it very clear that if I'm on the sailboat, both pontoons need to be in the water...a little bit of this is out of my control as you are at the mercy of the wind on the lake, which is why I don't have pictures of Honey sailing, because the wind can take him far, far away.

Finally one weekend in August I accompanied him to the lake for a sailing trip. He swore to me he would be mellow and promised a calm relaxing afternoon. I believed him and we made our way to Vallecito Lake, a beautiful mountain lake at 8,000 feet surrounded by mountain peaks. We set up the sailboat, carefully looped all the ropes and put the pins in the proper places. (I'm such an expert, heh?) and finally got our lil' sailboat on the lake:

{Our boat at Vallecito, with the doggy}

And hive, it was amazing...so peaceful and calm, but exciting at the same time. I was honestly loving every minute of it and I could tell Mr. H was pretty happy to have me on his newest toy with him.

The clouds were rolling in over the mountain peaks and we decided to drop the sails and have lunch. A very sophisticated lunch of PB&J sandwiches. We were laying on the trampoline deck soaking in the sunshine and all of a sudden he just blurted out "I love you. Will you marry me?" I laughed and said, "Yes, I will marry you." He must have known I wasn't taking him serious because the next thing I know a pretty, sparkly ring was being dangled in front of me. I can't remember exactly what was said in the seconds following the presentation of the ring, but I guarantee it was sweet. I do remember asking him if he was 'for real' and even 'is the diamond ring real?'. Of course I managed to get my response out, which was "Hell yes!!!!". Or maybe it was "Absolutely!!". I can't remember. But we were engaged!

And then we laid there in our newly engaged bliss while I stared at the sparkler on my left, ring finger. In. Love.

{The Honey's on our sail boat}

It just so happened that my BFF, who is now my MOH, and her entire family were at the lake wake boarding. Not five minutes after Mr. H popped the question, they pulled up to us to get us to wake boarding. We declined the offer since we were still in such a state of bliss. I decided I wanted to tell my parents first, before telling anyone else and so I tucked my purty lil ring inside her safe case in the dry bag and we made our way back to shore. We began the tedious task of taking down the sail boat and if you've ever put together/taken apart a sailboat, you will know it is no easy task. It involves heavy pieces of very large metal, excessive amounts of rope, and p.a.t.i.e.n.c.e.

This trait ceases to exist just moments after you have gotten engaged and are trying to keep it hidden from your best friend.. So I kept my left hand hidden the entire time. I got so distracted at one point I failed to do something with the sailboat which resulted in the mast being dropped and good chunk of skin being removed from Mr. Honey's shin. Oops. That's when MOH Honey casually said "Well you know what they say...if you can put a sailboat together without fighting, you can have a successful marriage". While I don't know if that's what they actually say, us Honey's found it amusing and gave each other a wink.

How we celebrated our engagement is next!

How about you engaged bees, did you have to keep your newly engaged status a little secret before you made the big reveal to friends or family? Did anyone else have to manage patience with the excitement of being engaged?

*All personal pictures unless otherwise noted.