Shower time!

My second shower with Mr. Tal's family up in Michigan is tomorrow and our engagement shoot is Sunday.  I'm pretty darn excited about both. I can't wait to see everyone and I am looking forward to working more closely with our photographer. Hopefully I will have some pretty snazzy pictures to share come Monday morning. Hope you all have a good weekend and happy Friday!

Stalker

Last night was our engagement shoot, complimentary with our photography package. We decided to have the shoot at a local park where we have had a few dates and like to take our dog Pepper to walk. It was important to us to include Pepper in part of our wedding and unfortunately, she isn't welcome at our ceremony or reception. Not only do they not allow animals, Pepper is also quite skittish around strangers, specifically men. We can't know for sure why this is, but I found her running down the highway and it's possible she was abused at one point. Anyway, we decided that having Pepper come with us to the park would be a nice way to have her take part in some of the wedding stuff.

We arrived at the park 45 minutes early, partly to scope out photography locations, partly to tucker Pepper out a bit. She's a bit high stung and we wanted her to be a little mellow when the photographer arrived. As we were walking around we saw the cutest little yearling buck laying by a creek and eating. We found a foot path to get a little closer to the deer, which peaked Pepper's interest. We were probably 15 to 20 feet from the little guy and he got up once we were that close. I figured he was going to hop into the wooded area, instead in slowly started walking towards us. Slowly but surely he made his way within about 3 feet of us, bobbing his head from side to side at Pepper. He had no interest in Mr. Tal or me, just Pepper. This interaction went on for about 10 minutes, when we figured we should get going. We gently tugged Pepper away from her new found friend and headed down the foot path. Bambi decided he didn't like this and stopped his hoofs at us and followed. We crossed the bridge over the little creek and the path followed the creek. On the opposite bank the little guy followed, then he went down the bank into the creek and crossed to follow us. Seriously, my dog had a stalker. I don't know why, Mr. Tal wondered if the young buck smelled something on Pepper that he liked. Eventually, I got a little scared that the deer would get mad at us for taking his girlfriend away so we picked up the dog and headed out towards the parking lot to meet our photographer.

The shoot itself went well and I think we got some great shots. Our photographer said we should have the disk of images next week to choose ten from, he'll then edit those and send us the digital files of those images. We also will get an eight by ten of our choosing. I'm excited to see the shots, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful setting.

How about you readers, any funny stories from your engagement pictures?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.

For Real

I wish I had a picture of our apartment, actually no, I take that back, no one needs to see this. We've been in this apartment for nearly a month and it still looks like we just moved in yesterday. Like many things (blogging for example), unpacking has taken a backseat to the other things going on in my life. My health was an issue and I was "bed ridden" for a week, still dealing with the doctors with that mess. School wraps up this week and I'm both excited and nervous, student teaching starts in one month. That makes me giggle and want to hurl at the same time. Also our grand vacation last week made be giddy, more so after because I have a great proposal story and beautiful ring.

It's amazing, I never thought that the proposal and ring would make a difference the way it has. It feels so much more official than before, even with our wedding date being set. I catch myself staring down at my hand in amazement, I'm getting married!!! I think it also helps that so many of the people in our life are now taking our impending marriage more seriously since I have a ring on my finger. Ridiculous to me but I understand that it's a hard concept to grasp when you're from a different generation or even just traditional. It's hard to believe in 9 short months I'll be Mrs. Tal...gah, there is so much to do still. I'm glad that Mr. Tal and I decided to get so much done before the official proposal, we have our major vendors booked, but there are still parties to plan, decor to pick out and DIY projects to get done.

I think my next DIY project is going to be our Save the Dates. We originally were going to order some magnets and send them out but I was inspired by a post on Weddingbee the other day to create our own postcards. We have that gorgeous sunset picture and I think with a little help from my latest bridesmaid (YAY!!! FSIL agreed to be a bridesmaid!), we could design a great little postcard.

How about you readers, what made your engagement feel official, a ring like me, setting a date, booking a vendor? Share please!

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.