And the planning begins....

 

So it has been a while since I last posted something, and I swore to this site I wouldn't ignore it. Tough start. It has been a month now since Nick and I have gotten engaged and I swear Tacori has had my ring longer than I have (hence the overload of pics, I miss it). I took it in almost 4 weeks ago to get it re-sized a second time, this time its a different size so I am hoping it comes back fitting perfectly. Apparently my finger shrunk from a 5 something to a 4 something, hmmmm. It was really neat though, when I brought in my ring the sales woman showed me how I would be able to identify MY diamond among the many others which was rather interesting. She said that my diamond had a very unique character to it so many rare details. I found myself glued to the magnify eyeglass thing, just to be told shortly after "Welcome back to being single!" by the sales woman. Today I received a phone call that it has made its return and is officially ready to be worn and shown off to the world:) Since Nick was never shown nor explained to about all my rings details, we are going in together to pick it up tomorrow. Should be a fun little field trip!!! 

Soooo planning, thanks to Nick's Christmas present to me (Wedding Planner Binder), its been guiding us through an easy and organized start. Aside from that, since the day we got engaged I never knew how many times I would actually be questioned about "The Date". My goodness people!!! Where was the warning for that in my new in depth planner? HAHA!!! But I do think we might have found our date, unfortunately I will not share it yet since its not official...shucks, I know;) Nick and I have been starting on the few things that we can right now:

Guest/Address List

Getting my ring insured

Color Palettes/Themes 

Scoping out Wedding Dresses (W/O him of course)

Contacting Venues/Caterers

Agreeing on a season/date

Etc...

Its a start to a long process, and its going to take a lot of work since I am not your average traditional bride. We do not want a cookie-cutter wedding, period. Thanks to my addictions with Pinterest and Etsy, I have managed to start and prepare for my non-cookie-cutter wedding, which you can scope out my ideas on Pinterest. Our thoughts on a venue so far is keeping away from banquets, we like the idea of a loft wedding in Chicago, which I have managed to find some rather affordable venues, shockingly, its Chicago affordable and Chicago don't typically belong in the same sentence. I couldn't think of a better place to have it than either in or near my most favorite city and home. Why a loft wedding you might ask? I want somewhere with a blank canvas, somewhere I can personalize that represents Nick and I, no funky carpets, wallpaper, clashy colors, etc. (of course sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, I know I know). PLUS I have been watching episodes of Wedded to Perfection and Bridezilla's which Nick claims its a bad influence to early in the game, my defense: Inspiration. Both shows have such great ideas!! And yes Bridezilla's too, these obnoxious nightmare brides actually had some cute ideas for decorating. I'm not ashamed of watching trash tv, I will take all and any inspiration tips I can get. I have even gone through old Crate & Barrel magazines for visual ideas, so that's where we stand right now. 

Lastly, this weekend will be my first bridal expo, should be fun according to some of my girlfriends who have already gone through this so I am rather excited to see what its all about. One of my girlfriends is tagging along so I know it will be a good time either way. And in addition to that this week I have started receiving information about my graduation in May at Columbia College Chicago for my Bachelors (its about time whewww!!), just found out it will be held at the Chicago Theatre, one of my favorite spots in Chicago, so its been nothing but bit by bit of excitement in the Weber Benzo household. I'm excited to see what this next year brings us!!!

We're Engaged!!!

As of December 17th, 2011 Nicholas Benzo and I got engaged, and I thought it was only right to start a Blog pertaining to the exciting new chapter in our lives!!! I am sure you are all wondering how it all went down so I will share our little story that lead all the way up to the moment of popping the question.

First off, I had known that something was up for a while, Nick gets slightly moody like PMS style when huge things are about to happen in his life such as the first time he said "I love you" to me, so I have experience with his mood trends. But for the past couple months something was off about him and I couldn't put my finger on it. Over the summer last year Nick and I were talking and joking around over a few glasses of wine on our deck about him having to propose before 2012 came, nothing serious, right? ;) So as it got closer to the end of the year I started guessing if and when he was going to pop the question and each time I was way wrong. As we entered December I found out I had to work on my Birthday so Nick and I decided to postpone the celebration to the following Saturday. Now each year since we have been together we have gone to Chicago or DC to see the huge Christmas trees, so that Saturday we had a whole evening planned out from dinner to ice skating and later seeing the tree. 

So now the real story starts...

Saturday began rather early, I had a hair appointment for my evening date with Nick, I wanted to look my best since it had been a while since our last date together. As I was getting my hair cut the hair stylist was asking me all about Nick and our families (typical salon gossip) and went on saying how she thought that tonight would be the night he is popping the question, and she went on explaining why she thought so and I kept thinking no way this is our typical tree outing. Afterwards I went straight home just to head out with Nick to purchase our new phones which caused us to run a tiny bit off schedule to heading into DC. Two hours later we arrived back home and quickly got ready for our evening together. Nick threw on a different coat right away and I instantly thought its not happening tonight he didn't grab anything extra and he wasn't acting any different than he normally does. 

That evening was colder than usual and super windy, and since Nick and I were taking the Metro into DC it felt ten times worse. Now normally when I am cold I will stick my hands in Nicks coat pockets because he is like your own personal space heater, but that evening his pockets were off limits. Then we boarded the train and there was no seating to be found, it was jam packed with people heading out to holiday parties so we had to stand. Now normally when we have to stand Nick will let me use him for stability, that evening, NO, and I was miffed. So after a hour on the train due to track closings, we finally made it into DC and thought we would do dinner first. Now Nick and I discovered this great Irish Bar The Elephant & Castle the previous year so we decided to go back there for drinks and dinner this time. Through out dinner nothing seemed different everything was as it always was between us when we went out. After dinner came and a few beers later to prepare us for the cold, we bundled up and found ourselves speed walking to the National Tree. 

When we arrived to the tree there were hundreds of people everywhere getting pictures and oooing and ahhing over the lights, train set, and state trees surrounding it. As we got closer making our way around the circle Nick and I were taking picture after picture. Finally reaching the front Nick had asked a couple to take a picture of us then whispering to the guy that he was going to be taking more than one picture. As I was waiting for Nick to hop into the picture next to me he ended up quickly falling down to one knee and asked me to marry him! I was in utter shock mode which lead to BALLING my eyes out (which I did not expect to cry, I thought I was too much of a tough girl for that stuff, but I did), plus it didn't help that we were surrounded by tons of people watching and clapping and I still hadn't said YES. Moments went by which felt like time had actually stopped and Nick got up and asked if that was a yes because I hadn't said anything (I was speechless...and in shock)(lol), all I could do at the moment was hug him tightly and cry and I finally answered "YES YES YES!!!" and continued on with hugging him. Then he asked me if I wanted my ring because I had handed it back to him haha, and I said yes so he helped me put it on and we finally got our tree picture together:) Afterwards we probably had over a 100 people coming up to us congratulating us people shaking Nicks hand and hugging us, people we didn't even know but had shared our moment with us. 

 After we stepped aside from the tree we both were in such awe that we completely blew off our plans for the evening, we both had a hard time concentrating on anything but spending our lives together! Our smiles were locked! We ended up that evening going back to the The Elephant & Castle talking over beers and still getting congratulated by people at the bar who saw us at the tree. It was an amazing evening and very laid back.

The next day after we talked to our families all morning, we took a little trip out to Bethesda. All week Nick had said he made plans for us that followed Saturday, those plans were an appointment at the jewelers to learn about my ring and get it sized, and the woman wanted to meet me after having dealt with Nick for over 6 months:). Afterwards we went out to lunch still giddy and attempted Christmas shopping which we still couldn't focus on reality so we failed terribly at it.

We have been engaged for a couple weeks now, and I have just been the happiest girl on earth. People say getting engaged doesn't change how you feel, but I disagree, I can't even begin to explain what I am feeling! I have never been so emotional in my life, I get bursts of happiness, nervousness, excitement etc randomly where I have to try and collect myself so I don't tear up in public haha! Although we don't have a date set, we are having a blast looking into all sorts wedding ideas together, Nick has been so interested in helping which makes it even more enjoyable doing this together! Although I think he is mainly excited to use the Seinfeld quote "Wheres my Fianceeee?" (As I posted it)... :)

Maybe the Dingo Ate Your Baby