West Coast Bridal Shower, Wedding Photo Shoot, and 21 Days To Go!

Yesterday, I casually asked Josh if he wanted to postpone the wedding another year or two. He asked why I would want that, and the truth is, I'm running out of time to be excited about it. In a short amount of time, the whole experience that I've waited my whole life for will be over!

Here are some updates:

July 1st, West Coast Bridal Shower!

My cousin, Nadia, and my sister, Julie, came together to throw me a beautiful bridal shower! It was held at the house of my third grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, or as I am now transitioning to calling her, Vickie. :) It was so much fun! It was a beautiful shower and people really came together to make it special for me. I even had a few out of state friends in attendance! 

I was asked to wait in the room, while they set up the shower as a surprise. :) I got some time to read my autographed wedding present from one of my favorite authors, Meg Cabot! :) <3 

Mr. Turtle is an enormous tortoise who really stole the show at my shower! Everyone loved him! He was also the teeny tiny turtle who was my third grade class pet! Crazy world! 

Julie and I before the shower. Sister pic! 

Michael, Arlene, Nadia, Styles, and Lynessa.

Lyndrea, Lynae, Joy, Brianna, Cynthia, and Joanna

Dianna, Me, Susanna, and Aunt Amy

Julie and Nadia, the two shower hosts! 

Nadia hosted a bridal shower game that was a huge hit--Toilet Paper Bridal Gowns! Here, Lynae and Joanna make Michael into a beautiful bride! 

Everyone making up their bride!

Lyndrea and Lynessa dress up Susanna

Cynthia strutting her stuff for the judge!

The Brides! 

Here are the contestants walking the runway for our judge, Grandma! She had something fun to say about each one. :) 

Presents time! Emily gave us beautiful wine glasses that said "Prince Josh" and "Princess Tina"! 

Most of the people who came to the shower! :)
L-R, Back Row: Nadia, Arlene, Emily, Jennifer, Grandma, Joanna, Lynae, Lyndrea, Lynessa, Julie, Michael, Vickie
Front Row: Dianna, Linda, Me, Susanna, Brianna, Diana, Aunt Amy, and Cynthia

Nadine and I at the shower!

Diana and I went swimming--it was a Bridal Shower Pool Party!

My third grade teacher and I. <3 Though it's been years, we have remained friends. She hosted the bridal shower at her house! 

Wedding Photo Shoot

The day after the bridal shower, my amazing step-mom, Nga, paid for Josh and I to have a wedding photo shoot! Julie came along to help out and she took a few behind the scenes photos. It was a crazy day! These are just a few pics Julie took from the beach shoot, we also did a park shoot. 

It says: "Live Stream Josh and Tina's Disney Musical Wedding Extravaganza Saturday, July 29th, 2017, 6 pm PST on Tina's Instagram or Facebook:
Instagram: musicalgirl89
Facebook: Tina Elise
#RadDisneyWedding2017

Fun story about this shoot, as we were heading down to the beach, the lifeguard said that the tide is still pretty high and that we may want to wait another hour. We had paid a parking meter for two hours and we did not have a ton of time to wait left, so the photographer went down to investigate. He came back and told us that it would be ok, and we could get some great pictures, but that my dress would get wet. He seemed to be find with that. He worked for L'amai Bridal, the place that was renting us the outfits and put together the whole shoot. I expressed concern for the dress and he told me not to worry about it, that they would have the dress cleaned, and that it's not a big deal, so down we went. 

We started and got some really great shots up on some rocks. The bottom of the dress got a little wet, but I controlled my freak out and we carried on. Eventually, he asked Josh and I to go out and stand on a rock a bit out in the water, not too far, but enough that there was still water around the rock, especially when the waves came in. Out we went, and we took a few pictures, but then a fairly big wave came and hit us! I tried so hard to stay upright, but with the water lapping against us, it pulled me back and I fell. The dress was completely soaked and covered in sand. The lifeguard saw what was happening and came out to help rescue me, as did the photographer and Josh. Josh could not figure out why I wasn't standing up, "Another wave is coming..." he warned me. Well, that dress had so many layers, when I tried to stand, the layers were under my feet and I just couldn't. Eventually, they got me up and to shore. No more in the waves pictures, I guess. 

He took a few more pictures (he said he could edit out the sand on my dress), and we headed back. 

All this time, there were people around watching us, even taking pictures of us. One guy even asked if he could take pictures of us while we did our shoot. I thought it was flattering. Didn't know him, but sure, take my picture! It made me feel beautiful. :) Later when I fell in the water, he got a picture too and Snap Chatted it. I kind of wish someone had gotten that on tape, I would have loved to have a copy! 

Things I am Still Working On

Cynthia and I finished an amazing card box for the bridal shower and wedding! I may have told you about the beautiful Cinderella carriage card holder I got off of Etsy--paid a good amount for it and discovered after it arrived that it would hold a few, very small, cards. No where near the size and volume it would need to hold for a wedding! So I decided to make a back up box, which is looking like will be our main box, it turned out so well! It has Disney couples all around the sides and Josh and I on the top! Cynthia and I drew it and painted it, and it looks really great! I can't wait for everyone to see it! 

I am in the process of making the wedding favors--I don't want to say what they are, but the process takes a long time. I hope everyone loves them! 

I still need to buy a few things before the wedding! I am worried if I get them online, that they won't arrive in time! I still need to get a few cake supplies, the main things that we will be using for our unity ceremony, the Disney Wedding Music CD for the opening songs. 

I also need to choreograph a few things--this is a MUSICAL wedding, after all. I feel like I am running out of time to do all these things! I could use more than 21 days, or an assistant, or a choreographer... 

I'm sure we will figure it out. 

The Worst Wedding Nightmare Yet!

I must have been the most hysterical in this one. In the ones in the past, when I'm about to get married and something is not right, I just calmly walk out into the audience and tell them to scrap it and go home and await a future invitation when everything is right. In this one, the wedding had already happened, I couldn't remember it, and it was during the reception.

So it's during the reception and I realize I can't remember if I performed or not during the ceremony like I'm supposed to. I start to freak out and I leave to see if I can go find the wedding coordinator. I can't find her, and I'm upset and freaking out. My guests start to freak out because I've left, and some of them leave. I start to ask my guests if I performed during the ceremony and no one will tell me. I try to find my mom to see if she will tell me, and she won't tell me either. I'm crying hysterically freaking out that I didn't perform during the ceremony. I tell everyone to get in the positions they would be for the start of the ceremony so we can do it again so I can perform, so what's left of the guests get in starting positions.

As I start to walk down the aisle, they're playing regular music, not what I'm supposed to be performing to, so exasperated, I tell them all to forget it.

Trying to salvage the wedding, my mom and aunts arrange for me to do the bouquet toss, and there's several girls who I don't know line up right under a very low awning (the wedding somehow got transferred to taking place at a church...). I'm worried that the bouquet is going to hit the awning. I do several fake out tosses, then throw my hand back and someone just takes it out of my hand before it can be thrown. I was very not happy.

Waking up, I felt very exhausted and panicked. Up until this moment, I had 100% confidence that I would have no trouble performing at my wedding. When performing on stage, I normally get some nervous excitement, but not since I was 14 and first starting out have I struggled with being worried that I can't perform when I go onstage. Even at 14, I still said my lines, although not in character and with a big, excited smile on my face that "I'm actually onstage!" I've always performed correctly, and now, I'm suddenly scared that I might not--what if I forget or flub the lines? What if I freak out? What if I can't even remember the ceremony and no one will tell me if I actually performed or not?

As you can see, it has been a traumatizing night.

Our Big Wedding Prep Vegas Adventure!

Thursday, June 1st, Josh and I headed down to Vegas to start to get things ready for the wedding! I can't believe we're less than two months out! I still feel like there's so much left to do!

We started the day picking up our marriage license--it was surprisingly easy. We had just filled out a form the day before online, and when we got down there, we showed our ID's, paid, signed a paper and there we have it! Our marriage license.

Hard to believe I've waited my whole life to get married and it's right around the corner! 

After the marriage license, we went and checked out the tuxedos for the guys! 

We got set up for our guys to get some nice tux's, so that was exciting! 

We then spent some time running around before we got to our ultimate destination--our venue! 

We got to try some potential dishes for dinner and do some cake tasting. :) 

I've always dreamed about the moment I would finally get to taste test for a wedding cake! It always seemed so exciting--and it was! It was really cool, and I think we chose some good cakes. I'm excited for our guests to try them! 

We finally met with the wedding coordinator and went over some of the finer details! 

It was an exciting day! 

We're getting so close! I still have so many things to get! So exciting! :) 

Graduation, Now What?

Graduation

Two weekends ago, I graduated from NAU with my Bachelors Degree in Education. It was a very exciting day--my family all came out for it, for which I am very grateful! The part where the people on stage tell you to turn and look at the people who helped you make it this far and acknowledge them, I looked at Josh and cried. I also cried later when I hugged him--he supported me these past four years and I never would have made it without him. He's amazing.

And What About A Job? 

Everyone keeps asking me if I've gotten a job yet, or where I'm going to be teaching next semester. I'm not exactly a fan of interviews, in fact, I find them quite stressful, although I have been going to a fair share of them. 

I went to a job fair at NAU over a month ago and got three job offers from rural school districts--pretty far places. I've had to turn them down due to the distance unfortunately.

I finally got a job offer at the school I did my service learning at last semester--a really nice charter school I would have LOVED to work at. 

Here's the catch though--when we planned my wedding, I thought I was doing good getting married at the end of July. In CA, schools start towards the middle/end of August to mid September. With this, I would have been set, but apparently, schools start as early as mid/late July out here. I only found this out after we had booked our wedding venue and set up everything.

When I explained this to the school, I also explained that I still believed it could work--I could write lesson plans for a sub, and just have my salary pro-rated. Still, I believe this kind of killed it. 

I keep being told by friends and family to just postpone my honeymoon till December or something. 

This is something I have been waiting my whole life for--my wedding and honeymoon. There are so many reasons why I don't want to do that: 

• It's already paid for and would cost money to postpone.
• Josh already has time off. Employers are more understanding when you're actually getting married and need time off than when you want to take a random vacation and call it a honeymoon. 
• It won't feel like a honeymoon if we don't do it right after the wedding. I'm only doing this once and I want to do it right. 
• It might not happen if we postpone it. It won't feel as special anyway, so why bother? 

I've already accepted that I might be a sub next year, which is fine! I've talked to multiple subs, and they seem to love it: no lesson planning, no grading papers. I'll still be teaching, so that's fine. Also, this would allow me to have the wedding and honeymoon I've always wanted, which is exceedingly important to me. 

So Now What?

I was debating several job ideas during the summer--babysitting, waitressing, and working at a call center. The prospect of people yelling at me is exceedingly daunting though. I signed up for Care.com, which wants you to get a background check and First Aid & CPR certification for a fee, which I don't presently have, so I wasn't getting any jobs on there--only scam offers. 

Then, amazingly, a really great, part time babysitting job kind of fell into my lap, watching the two children of a friend. I get to pick them up from school and do fun stuff with them; it's great! It also allows me to continue to sew and work on my other two business ventures. 

Business Venture #1: Etsy

Not only do I enjoy making costumes, but as you may have seen, this wedding has allowed me many opportunities to DIY: bouquets/corsages/boutonnieres, flower girl basket, ring bearer pillow... probably more things I haven't even thought of yet! I've been told I should sell this stuff on Etsy, so I've started an Etsy selling shop. I know I shouldn't be showing you this, but check out this amazing flower girl basket I made--I could make more of these in other colors and sell them! 

I went to Goodwill the other day and bought eight more eligible baskets for bedazzeling. You can check out my Etsy site here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/PrincessWeddingLove 

Not much there yet, but I plan to add more. 

Business Venture #2: Princessing

I have so many princess dresses anyway, I figured why not start my own princess party business? I've tried to get in on some local princess party businesses, but that hasn't worked out. I finally just figured why not do it on my own? I already have two friends who are interested in princessing with me! Sure, I need to make a few more dresses, buy a few wigs and some face paint, but I've seen several of my friends create businesses like this, so why can't I? 

I just need to get some parties! I have a plan for this: I'll get my friends to go with me to several promotional events dressed up as princesses, and we'll hand out business cards there! (Of course, first I need to get some business cards...) We'll do some free promotional events and spread the word, then hopefully get more business. 

Here's the facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/TinasPrincesses/?notif_t=page_fan&notif_id=1495673471326472 

In any case, we'll see where it all goes. I'm excited for what this summer holds! Josh took me out for a really nice date for my graduation and told me he would support me, whatever I wanted to do, whether that's teach, or just stay home and sew princess dresses. I love him--he's amazing. <3 

Flowers and Invites

Student teaching has been so busy! The good news is, I'm finally done with my one long paper I have to write for student teaching! I'm actually on the downhill part now, but I still have some classroom management skills I need to work on. At the end of the month, I'm going to a job fair at Flagstaff and the TARIAT (There's A Reason I'm A Teacher) conference, so we will see if that yields any jobs. I would really love to get a job at a middle school close to where we live, but we will see. :) 

Flowers

Last Saturday, Gage (one of our amazing groomsmen), Josh, and I finally sat down and put together the remaining bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages. It was a lot of work, but I did enjoy doing it! I watched a YouTube video on how to create a cascading bouquet, but that used real flowers, and their technique didn't really work for me, so I tried something different, and I must say, it was pretty successful! My bouquet is HUGE and beautiful. I asked our friend Ben how much he thought it weighed and he said 50 lbs, so that's pretty awesome! I'm excited about that. I looked up pictures of Princess Diana's bouquet, and mine is even bigger than hers! Crazy. 

Here are some pictures of us putting together bouquets on flower day! It seriously took all day to do this, and this wasn't even the first time we worked on it! It was when we got it done though, so I'm excited for you guys to see the results! 

I swear, I am getting so much experience with everything regarding weddings! It makes me want to be a wedding planner/bridal gown designer/wedding bouquet-corsage-boutonniere maker/wedding cake maker/calligrapher/anything and everything to do with weddings doing person! I seriously think I could do all of these things, and would love doing it. 

Invites

We deliberated on which invites to get to best save money. We ultimately decided on purchasing several designs from an Etsy artist, then printing them ourselves. In the end, we didn't actually save money, but I am still exceedingly happy with the results, and Josh is too! Our invitations are BEAUTIFUL!!!! There are three different designs. I would have done all the Disney couples, but Josh was not a huge fan of some of them, and I let him pick his three favorites. They are very nice, and guests will all be receiving one of three different Disney couple themed invitations! 

Last night, we had an invite packing party--which was actually a lot more involved and a lot more work than I had imagined it would be... You have to stamp our return address on the back, then take an invite and RSVP card and put them in an addressed envelope, then put a stamp on it, then use the hot wax and press the seal in, then rub the silver on the seal. This activity took four people all evening (Daniel and Cynthia were helping!) 

I thought it was fun though, and today, I FINALLY MAILED THEM!!! It took us so long to actually get them out, I was worried we weren't going to give our guests enough time to RSVP! We are asking for RSVP's by mid April (that's what Josh wanted.) Ultimately, most of our guests should have a little over a month to RSVP, so I hope they do so! :) 

Here are a few pictures of the invite packing party! Things are really starting to move faster. It's a little scary! 

My sister, Julie, says that we should consider having a bouncer at our wedding because she says everyone she speaks to says they really want to go, and she can imagine people trying to come who weren't invited! That is a little nerve wracking. We are considering doing this to keep people from coming who weren't invited, because that's not cool. We are paying for this ourselves and weddings are expensive! Imagine if someone did that to you! It is causing us a bit of worry, but we will handle it. I'm sure it will be fine. :) 

It's Spring Break, so hoping to accomplish more wedding stuff this week! :) So much excitement, but I'll sign off for now.

Another Wedding NIghtmare

This time, I think the setting was actually the venue that we got. The woman who manages the place was there.

The last time that we talked to her in real life, we asked about a dress rehearsal. She said that we didn't need one because she would be there and would tell everyone when it was their turn to walk down the aisle. I told her that since our wedding was a musical, with singing and dancing, it would be good if we had a dress rehearsal and she saw my point. She said that we could have one for an hour the day before, which is great and exactly what we needed.

In the dream, she was there telling the bridal party to "Go! Go! Go!" as if she were telling them to parachute off an airplane--like in the movies. It wasn't relaxing, it was very stressful.

So the bridal party is pretty much racing down the aisle.

Finally, I come out, and am crying because no only did no one do all the singing and dancing I had planned, but also, there was no photographer or videographer. No one was documenting our wedding--so it was going to be like it never happened. The whole thing was not at all what I had planned and wanted. I was so upset, I (again--I always do this in these dreams) tell everyone to go home, and we will try this again, another time. A THIRD TIME. In this dream, this was the second attempt at a wedding--probably a sequel to one of my other many wedding nightmares.

This dream is obviously playing off my insecurities. No, we haven't booked a photographer or videographer yet, but that's ok! We have time. The wedding is 11 months away now (as Nadine pointed out to me yesterday). We don't want to jump into hiring someone super expensive. We want to be as reasonable as we can, but still get what we want.

In regards to the singing and dancing, I've been thinking about that lately. I found karaoke versions of the songs, and I've been choreographing it in my mind (not on paper, but I have ideas!) I need to do that though, because the sooner I can, the sooner they all can start practicing, so that they can be ready when the time comes. It's hard since we are all in different places, so far away. :(

I am definitely going to try to get the guys to do a little singing and dancing too. It's not a ton--none of it is unmanageable for any of them! About one and a half songs is all I'm really asking. Josh says that he won't make his guys do anything they don't want to do, but I'm the bride. I feel like they will naturally just want to make me happy--or at least I hope that is the case.

Speaking of the guys--Josh is finally doing that! I am so glad. He really needed to get on that; it's only taken him over a year... he's doing it now though. And we are going to get all their headshots and bios for the wedding site! And we are going to have two more photo shoots! And by the end of September, our goal is to have all our Save the Date's out. :)

I also never told you about the dance classes! Josh and I have started taking dance classes at Fred Astaire Dance Studios. We have an instructor, Bo, who is super fun to work with! He has been teaching us waltz, swing, fox trot, and rumba, and we are getting pretty good! We just had our third lesson last Monday! I can't wait to go to my cousin Teresa, and my friend Nadine's weddings in November and show off our amazing dance moves!

So exciting that things are finally moving along!