Wedding Craziness

I am super excited to be getting married this coming summer. I can't wait to be married and continue the adventure with my fiance. He is fabulous. As you can imagine since getting engaged we have been on the journey to planning a wedding: setting a date (finding one that works with the church and finding a reception site that worked with the date), finding a reception site (harder than I imagined), asking our attendants, and sharing the news with friends and family. Other than those types of things I have begun to do some hoping and dreaming about how we want to decorate and all of those types of things, but it is OVERWHELMING!
The wedding industry is crazy. The other day I was looking online at a few to-do lists of when what needs to be done in terms of months out from the wedding and some of it was ridiculous. Some time lines were yearS in advance. Seriously YEARS! Who plans a wedding for years? I was committed to being engaged for less than a year, too much longer seems crazy. I don't need all the excess stuff, this does not need to be a multimillion dollar event. I can't fathom spending that much money on a wedding. There are lots and lots of things I was looking at and thinking about how over the top it was. My friend Lynneskies sent me a couple bridal magazines, they have been fun to look through and get some ideas and laugh at the over-the-topness of some of it.
There is a piece of me that was seriously disappointed (granted some of this comes from working in a church) but in most of the stuff that I have read or seen it appears that there is little to no emphasis on the actual wedding but rather on the reception and party after. Why does the ceremony get little to know focus and almost seems to come across as a means to an end?!
I am excited for the ceremony, to gather with God, family, and friends and to be showered in prayers and love as we make promises before God. I am excited as well about the reception and celebrating life together. It will be marvelous.
I haven't been doing a ton in terms of wedding stuff. Although I did just finish making our save the dates. I used this idea from pintrest, ours are brown and green. They were fun and not too challenging to make. At some point I know I need to go start looking at wedding dresses for myself, I am overwhelmed even thinking about it. It is crazy to think of all the options and to try to decide where to even begin. It'll happen soon hopefully.
That is my wedding rant of the moment. While this is the first I am certain this will not be the last, thanks for reading, feel free to include your point of view on weddings.

pressure to be epic.

The title of this post is because for some reason once I haven't blogged in a while I feel some strange internal pressure that the next blog must be AWESOME, which really, I am not sure where this pressure comes from but it exists inside of me, so don't expect epicness in this post, rather it will be ramblings.

The last month has been NUTS to say the least, but wonderfully nuts! I just returned from the National Youth Gathering with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - I traveled with the Northeastern Minnesota synod (550 of us), 21 from the congregation I serve. The 11 day trip came with lots of challenges, fun, and ways in which God met us along the path. It was marvelous. At the beginning of the month I got to stand next to my best friend as she got married back in South Dakota. Wonderfullness abounds.

July's Yay God moments:
-Marc got a new job!
-Katie and Andy got married
-The Synod Journey -ELCA National Youth Gathering
-several trips out kayaking
-a fixed sump pump and sewage drain (the broke sump pump and sewage backing up into my basement was less than fun - but now that the problem is remedied it is nice to not have to worry about them)
-sleep - I was long over due for some good sleep
-planning season - now that some things have come to an end it is time to ramp up the planning for next school year and summer - never a dull moment in ministry
-my closet remodel (sounds lame but trust me the closet needed finishing) is done (just need to hang a set of shelves)
-my family and friends who have helped me keep my sanity during this all
-yarn - one can never have enough yarn while going on 26 hour bus trips (one way)


Dear Sarah,
    You now have broke your blogging silence feel free to go crazy and blog away - no pressure now, the lame post is over.
Love, me