We've been busy....

Oh yes, it's been a long time. But it's been a busy time too. The wedding is officially less than a year away, and things are definitely getting real.

The first real thing that Boy and I did was take engagement pictures! Nicole of the fantastic NKA studios came over to shoot family pictures for my Nana and Pop-pop's 50th wedding anniversary, and Boy and I stole the spotlight for a few minutes to snag these adorable shots. We were lucky enough to get not only a beautiful day, but also some great behavior out of our doggie, Jack-Jack. You can see more of Nicole's beautiful work over on her blog!

We also had our long-awaited gathering of our bridesmaids, groomsmen, and ushers. It was awesome. I had some girls really step up and I felt like everyone got to know one another much better, which is what I was going for in the first place! Score!

We worked the event as a competition, so we split into two teams and worked to earn points by completing tasks. It was soooo meticulously planned, down to hand made "achievements" ala XBox 360 (did I mention that Boy and I are gamers?) and color coded just about everything. We even had a schedule of what events were going to happen when. This was a fantastic idea which was missing one key element: execution.

See, some of the achievements were earned by drinking, and each team attacked those first. So all of the carefully planned events were attempted by people who were... well... not in full mental shape. And we couldn't do it. Boy, who turns on his XBox daily and plays for hours, couldn't get a single game started. I lost interest in everything except our adorable kitten, Olive.

After some very minor drama, a unity pyramid was attempted and all was well. Next day tabulating of the points revealed that Boy's team won, but only by one point. And by all accounts everyone had a smashing good time, which is the real win for us!

My parents threw us a relaxed and delicious barbecue engagement lunch, much to the relief of several hung-over wedding party members. The highest point of this (other than a home run derby) was that my Pop-pop and Boy's Grandpa talked for almost the entire time. They had met on only one previous occasion, and everyone was too busy to really get to know each other. The laid back setting of that Sunday gave our families a much better chance to meet, and the wedding party a chance to see who our VIPs are. Now, when I ask one of my bridesmaids to hand my bouquet to my nana, she will know who I'm talking about without having to awkwardly ask around. Score!

Last week we celebrated our only nega-versary by preparing for our annual vacation down the shore. For those of you not from the Philly area, "down the shore" means on the New Jersey coastline, usually in Wildwood, Avalon, or for us: Ocean City. For the last few years, it also meant an influx of our friends along with our family. This year, however, we had just seen everyone so there was no vacation time left for people to come down. While I was a bit bummed about that at first, it ended up being awesome!

Boy and I had several long conversations about our wedding and the style we want for the day, the budget we think we need, and how to handle well-meaning people who may not see it our way. It's hard. I really want to please everyone, but I also want a wedding with a cohesive style. Through the rest of this year, I will have to learn how to listen to everyone, match those ideas with our own, and pull together what should be a fantastic night.

Should be.