3 months down

I know, I know, I know. I've officially become the slackest blogger on the face of the planet. Give me a break. Being married is enough work, but when you add onto that a new semester of school... well, let's just say that blogging hasn't been at the forefront of my mind lately.

And I can't believe how much has been happening since I've been away! There have been weddings left and right, and babies are showing up everywhere. (Well, technically, they haven't quite shown up yet, but we've seen photos of them floating around in there.)

Amidst all this blog-o-sphere wedding bliss, Mr. FP and I have have been adjusting to married life for the past 3 months. Yep, it was 3 months from this past Sunday that we had our wedding. And some days it feels like it's been way longer. Some days it feels as though we've been married for years. Key words being "some days".

Other days, it feels brand new. Other days I can't believe that it's been 3 months since everyone got together at my grandparents' cottage to celebrate with us because it feels like it just happened. (Which is probably yet another reason why it took us so long to get the Thank You cards sent out.)

And more often than not, I find myself wondering whether or not I feel differently about our relationship and life together than I did back before we signed that little piece of paper in front of our friends and family. Meg told me it would be different. She, and almost everyone who wrote pieces for her site, insisted we'd feel differently somehow.

But just between you and I, I didn't believe her. I thought that Meg was a liar.
Okay, not really.

But I couldn't imagine how it could possibly feel different. We'd been living together for almost 2 years already and I thought we'd linked our lives together as securely as we ever would be able to.

Pft, what the hell did I know?

Let me tell you, here and now, it's different. Well, it is for us anyway. Tons of ladies and gents still insist that it's no different, and that's cool; to each his own. But it feels different for us.

Maybe if I were better with words or if I somehow invented a machine that could express in writing how I feel, then I could translate it better. Alas, I'm no writer and I'm certainly not an inventor. But there are at least a couple of things that I can express about how and why it feels different to be married:

First of all, finger bling. Our wedding rings have become my most prized possession in the world. Seriously. Can't live without them. I take mine off to shower or do dishes, but other than that, it's stuck on good. His.... well, his is a different story. He's still adjusting to finger bling for the moment. He forgets to wear it sometimes. But even those days have a silver lining because he always feels insanely guilty about forgetting it. And he's admitted to secretly hoping that I don't notice. The best part is that the guilt he feels is self-inflicted. So cute.

Second, we finally got around to adding me to his banking account and once my student credit line is paid off, we'll be able to close mine which means we are financially linked. In fact, if Mr. FP ever wants to take me off his account, he'll have to close it entirely and get a brand new one. The lady at the bank helped to reinforce the commitment we made. Who knew.

Third, and here's a big one, it feels different because it feels more secure. People get engaged all the time, and people call off engagements all the time. And I'd like to say that when you enter the institution of marriage, you instantly become more committed than you were during the engagement, but let's face it, people get divorced as often as people call off engagements.

When it comes to our marriage, we take a page out of the book of Will & Jada. Yeah, I said it. Because it's true. I sounds stupid, but when I saw them on Ellen a few years ago, they were talking about how divorce isn't an option for them:

"What I found is divorce just can't be an option," the actor explained. "It's really that simple. And I think that's the problem with L.A. – there are so many options. So a huge part of the success for [Jada] and I is that we just removed the other options."

The secret to their success? "We're like listen, we're going to be together one way or the other so we might as well try to be happy," he said. (source)

For me, this was a necessity. I spent the better part of my childhood in mortal fear that my parents were going to be getting a divorce. Why? Well, because they told us, on more than one occasion when I was growing up, that they might be either getting a divorce or separating. And although they never did, the insecurity caused by the fact that divorce was an option for them haunted me for years.

So, for us, it's not an option.

Now, I'll be honest, I do think the theory behind this is slightly flawed. There are always deal-breakers; everyone has them. When we say that divorce is not an option, it's a bit of a white lie because our deal-breakers are infidelity and abuse.

And I don't think the Smith/Pinkett effect works for everyone; I think you really have to know that your relationship boils down to something good in the end because you can't maintain a relationship that is flawed from the beginning.

But every time we think that things might not work out, the "divorce is not an option" helps to remind us that our relationship, at it's core, is good and that the crap we're going through in the moment will eventually go away naturally or because we work through it.

And with family drama, trying to pay for my school and the possibility of a new job for Mr. FP, we definitely have plenty of the temporary crap to deal with. The first 3 months have been a doozy. And I know it's uphill from here. That sounds bad, but honestly, I'm not worried.

Somehow a few choice words and a piece of paper managed to powerfully remind us once again that we're a team.

$100 Nordstrom Giveaway: We Have a Winner

.... Lyndsay M!

Congratulations, Lyndsay. Either myself or Miss Chin from DesignerApparel.com will be in contact with you shortly to let you know how you can claim your prize.

I also want to give a big thanks to everyone else who entered! For those of you who didn't win, there's still tons of chances to cure your Mother of the Bride (or Groom) outfit woes, so check out some similar giveaways at Lucky In Love, A Mountain Bride, and Souris Mariage for more chances to win!

Giveaway Reminder: Win $100 Gift Card from Nordstrom

Since you all have incredibly busy lives, I thought it might be a good idea to remind you that the giveaway I'm hosting for $100 gift card from Nordstrom will be closed for business Monday morning!

So go enter if you haven't already or you'll regret it when someone else is toting around the $100 gift card they won and the bragging rights that go along with it.

You've been warned.

Giveaway: $100 Gift Card from Nordstrom

Most people who have planned a wedding know about the complicated search for wedding attire. From the bridal gown to the groom's threads to the wedding party's clothing and finally to the parents and close relatives of the couple, attire isn't exactly a simple thing to figure out when it comes to weddings. It's way too many people, trying to coordinate way too many different outfits. It's complicated. It's annoying. It's exhausting.

For Mr. FP and I, the issue of attire arose early in the wedding planning process. The first time his mom asked me about it, I was dumbfounded. I had no idea that the attire of our loved ones fell on our to-do list. And when I realized that both our mothers were excessively concerned about what they were wearing and how they didn't want to clash with one another or with the wedding party, well, gosh, it was a lot to deal with.

And as if the situation wasn't complicated enough, we also wanted to keep things casual because we'd be outdoors and it was the end of June, which could easily translate into excessive heat on the wedding day. Those factors alone pretty much negate many of the traditional mother of the bride outfits. There would be no ballgowns, no pant suits.

Needless to say, it was a little messy for us. But thankfully (after a few months), we settled on outfits that pleased everyone involved and they all came to our wedding clothed. Thank God.

But if someone had come to me 10 months ago and told me they could make the whole attire situation a little easier on us, I would have kissed them.

Well, folks, you can kiss me and the folks from DesignerApparel.com because we're here to make your lives a little easier.

They have an awesome page on their website dedicated exclusively to Mother of the Bride dresses and with popular MOTB brands like Adrianna Papell, Tadashi, and Eileen Fisher, they may be able to save you some heartache in your hunt for the perfect outfit for yo mommas.

A resource like this would have been a godsend to us a few months ago, so for those of you still immersed in the world of wedding attire, I would highly encourage that you check them out.

And to make this even easier on you, I'm hosting a giveaway for a $100 gift card for Nordstrom since they have an extensive selection of dresses that would work great for weddings. Or, if you're done with the outfit selection, you can check out their main wedding page for other wedding details like accessories, shoes, and makeup.

(And don't worry, all you married ladies and gentlemen out there, you can still enter and use the gift card toward something pretty while you bask in the happiness of being done with the mess that is wedding attire.)


How to enter:

1) Leave your name/nickname/e-mail or some sort of identifying feature in the comments below (I need to be able to contact you via e-mail for you to claim your prize).

2) Become a follower of my blog to enter a second time.

3) Enter a third time by re-posting this giveaway on your own blog and leaving a comment with a link to your post.

4) Enter a forth time by Tweeting/Facebook-ing/social networking the contest and leaving a comment with a link.


Make sure to leave a comment for each entry (ie. one when you leave your name, another if you become a follower etc.).

Entries good until 7 a.m. Monday (September 6th) morning.

Happy entering and good luck!