Busy

In March, when I told some of my professors that I had gotten engaged over Spring Break and was planning a fall wedding, they told me I was crazy to get married during my student teaching experience. Even at the time, I knew they were probably right, but Michael did not want a long engagement, and I didn't want to wait until the summer of 2010 to get married either, so we set the date in November and started planning.

Last Friday was my last day at my first student teaching placement. I love teaching middle school!



In less than two weeks, all of the wedding craziness will be over (except writing thank-you cards). I am excited about being married, I can't wait to see our as-of-yet-untaken wedding pictures, and I'm really looking forward to having an entire weekend without doing wedding planning!

Last weekend Michael and I went to Madison early Saturday morning to meet with Ubaldo, our fabulous cake decorator. I can't wait until everyone can see the amazing works of art he is going to make. After the cake, my mom and I met up with Jenny and we headed to Vera's for our final dress fittings. The seamstresses at Vera's worked wonders with Jenny's dress, so she's not drowning in excess fabric anymore. My dress is great too - it's amazing how much easier it is to move with the dress hemmed to an appropriate length! Jenny knows exactly how to get me into my dress (though the seamstress said Michael is on his own for getting me back out . . .) and after Jenny bustled the skirt I exclaimed something like, "Wow, I'll even be able to dance in this dress!" which is exciting considering how much we're paying the DJ.

Michael and I had brought a carload of food to my parents' house, because the other teachers surprised him with a wedding shower at school on Friday and sent him home with leftover cake and veggies that would have fed a small crowd. My dad was having a party to celebrate the completion of his new patio (see marksretirementblog.blogspot.com) so we through there was a good chance some hard workers would help us eat the leftovers - but my mom had made a pie and a pan of brownies, so we ended up bringing a lot of food back home. (Don't people know I'm trying not to gain weight before my wedding???)

After the feast, my mom took me to the hair salon, where I met Teresa, my wedding day stylist. I flipped through some books of hairstyles which were much more helpful than my stack of bridal magazines (the models in bridal magazines all have slicked back hair and very few of them wear veils) and Teresa helped me create a wedding day hairstyle. I may try to go with more curls on the big day, but that kind of depends on what my hair looks like Saturday morning.

When she was finished with my hair, Teresa did my makeup, which was almost as odd of an experience as my first (and only) pedicure, but I felt like she did a pretty good job of listening to what I wanted. I also learned that the brown tones that I like so much when I buy makeup tend to turn orange on my face (which I noticed in my engagment pictures) so Teresa stuck with pinker colors. I'm trying to get used to the pink . . .

The salon doesn't sell makeup anymore (they did 4 years ago) so Teresa explained I'd have to go out and buy more lipstick if I wanted to keep my lips looking great all day . . . which was kind of annoying. About 75% of the reason I decided to pay $60 to get my makeup done was to save the trouble of picking out the colors myself! My mom, Jenny, and I were too wiped out to go lipstick shopping that evening, although we did head over to Macy's where I picked out new wedding jewelery for my bridal party. The first set of jewelery I bought does not match their dresses, which should have been obvious to me when I got it in May or June.

We met my dad at the Great Dane for dinner and I came home to Michael many dollars poorer, but excited to look at the pictures my dad had taken of my hair and makeup.

On Monday I started my second student teaching placement. I have 120 new students, whose names I need to learn! I began teaching two sections of a World Literature class on Wednesday, which was a little bit sooner than I hoped to begin, as I'm still trying to figure out who everybody is, but it's actually easier to learn names when you're teaching than when you're observing. In addition to learning their names, I'm also trying to learn my own. My cooperating teacher thought it would be best if I didn't change my name three weeks into my student teaching placement, so on Monday I was introduced to the students as Ms. David. (I was introduced to faculty and staff as Katie-going-to-be-David-in-three-weeks-Buechner.) After the wedding I'll make the switch to Mrs. David. (When I decided to go as Ms. David my cooperating teacher asked, "you're pretty confident he's not going to leave you at the altar?" I have to admit, I'm a little bit superstitious, but at the same time, I'm pretty confident Michael's not going to have a change of heart in the next two weeks . . .)

Today I got up fairly early and made some additions to one of our wedding websites (you can find a link at the bottom of this page). Then Michael and I headed to Madison to meet with our minister and to figure out where to put the piano during our wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, although it had not been listed on the church calendar, there was a service going on in the church at our meeting time, so we were not able to move furniture around in the church to try to get the piano in the front rather than in the back. We're sure it will all work out, but I'm a little bit nervous because our original photographer, who was going to come to the rehearsal, and would have been able to tell us how our pictures would turn out with the piano in various locations, cancelled our contract because she has a medical condition that makes it difficult to see whether her camera is in focus. I guess that's the bad side of going with an individual instead of a photography company that has many photographers. We hired a new photographer on Tuesday (and are excited about the package we're getting, as this company's prices were discounted for the remainder of the year, so we're getting more bang for our buck this way) and we're excited to get to know these photographers, but they won't be able to be at the rehearsal, so we'll meet them for the first time on Saturday morning.

After our somewhat less productive than planned meeting with the minister, Michael and I went to La Brioche (where we're getting our wedding cake) for breakfast, and then he headed home, to rest up before his bachelor party, about which I know almost nothing, although there was a rumor of sushi. I went to my parents' house to figure out how much the wedding reception is going to cost. Then my mom and I went lipstick and shoe shopping, where I successfully found lipstick I think I like, and my mom was disappointed because she found a great, comfortable pair of shoes that were not available in her size.

After shopping, we went out for orange lattes at Steep and Brew, and made a plan for wedding day transportation (whoo-hoo, another item to cross off of my To Do list on The Knot). My parents were the excited recipients of a somewhat frantic phone call from my sister asking if they can come and visit for a week, since Adele's babysitter is sick. They took me out for dinner, and I came home, where I've spent an hour and a half on the computer, typing student teaching reflections from my first week at my new placement and finally catching up on my blog!

I'm sorry there aren't more pictures. Soon enough there will be plenty of pictures for everyone. I think the part of my wedding I'm looking forward to the most is looking through pictures for the next 50 years, which is strange since I hate having my picture taken.

I'll try to blog again before the big day . . . but I have a lot of reading and a lot of wedding stuff to do before then!