So we still have 2 or 3 more weeks until our wedding pictures are ready, but we got a little bit of excitement this morning. I was checking our photographer’s blog, and we came across a post about us! He said that he used a picture from our wedding for a magazine ad in At Home magazine, and he posted a picture of the ad! It’s amazing! Seriously, I highly recommend Lance Johnston photographers. Lance was awesome, and I can tell the pictures are going to be awesome. He has an office in both Conway and LIttle Rock. Check him out. You won’t be disappointed. Here’s a link to the amazing Lance Johnston and his new magazine ad:

What’s New Lance Johnston

I sure am. I’m married. And for all the worry about the weather that day, it sure turned out fabulous. I literally could not have asked for more perfect weather. It wasn’t hot, and it wasn’t windy. The sun was shining, and the ceremony ended just as the sun was headed toward the horizon. Lance Johnston got some great pictures of Dallas and I walking down a row of the orchard, into the sunset. He showed us some of the pictures he took, and they looked absolutely amazing. I can’t wait until they’re all ready to go, and I get a big ol’ wedding album.

The honeymoon in Forks, Washington was just great. The weather was cool and misty, and it was beautiful up there. Of course, one morning I had to take the time to go around the town and take pictures of Bella’s house, Edward’s house, Dr. Cullen’s parking spot at the hospital, and head to the chamber of commerce and take a picture with the “Vampires Thrive in Forks” banner. Dallas was a good sport about it. He kept asking me about Twilight, and by the end of the honeymoon, I had told him pretty much the whole thing.

So now we’re back, and I’m really happy because I no longer have to plan a wedding. Now I get to hang out with my husband and my puppy all the time.

Oh, I also have a new twitter account. You can find it here: www.twitter.com/shannajones

Let me tell you one thing. Banking on good weather is pretty stressful. The weather this whole week has been perfect. I mean, I don’t think you could get any more perfect. Sunny, cool, non-humid, wonderful. All I can think everyday is “Man, if the weather is just like this on Friday, the wedding will be perfect.”

But here I am, checking weather.com every hour to see if there are any changes. Right now it says there is a 40% chance of PM Thunderstorms! Not cool! Effin’ A! Normally, on any other day, I would dismiss 40% as too low, and assume that it would not rain. But now, 40% seems like the biggest percentage I can imagine right now. If you convert 40% into years, that’s kind of old to me. Not good.

Please, if anyone reads this, and I don’t know if anyone does, pray for the weather to be good. PRAY FOR NO RAIN!!. It can pour down at 8:00 pm if it wants to, but pray that it holds off!

*crosses fingers*

I get married next Friday.

Did you catch that?

I get married next Friday.

No longer will I be Shanna Michelle Wooten, the person I’ve been for 22 years. Starting next Friday, I’ll be Shanna Michelle Jones, the person I’ll be for the rest of my life.

I must admit, planning this wedding almost entirely by myself was not something I enjoyed. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I just plain disliked planning this thing. I’m a perfectionist, and I stess out about the smallest things, and those two personality charactistics, when combined, do not make for a fun experience in wedding planning. I mean, I got shingles in 3rd grade because I was stressing out so much about my grades. Who gets shingles in 3rd grade? Shingles is for old people, right?

Anyway, from the moment I began planning this wedding, I have been worrying and stressing out over it, trying to make sure everything is taken care of, and everything goes perfectly. But right now, I’m to the point that I don’t care if it goes perfectly or not. I just want it to go. What if it rains on the wedding day, and it’s an outdoor wedding? I don’t care. We’re getting married that day, one way or another. What if some little detail doesn’t go according to plan? I don’t care. I’m emotionally, physically, and metally exhausted at this point. I’m just trying to get through the next few days.

I don’t even know where I’m going with all of this. It’s just a bunch of jumbled up, random thoughts. That’s what my brain has been like for the past month or so. I’ll be thinking about one thing, and something about that spark another thing, and before I know it, my mind is going in 10 different directions.

All I can say, is I’m ready to be sitting in the window seat of United Airlines flight to Seattle Washington, on Saturday, September 20. Maybe then I can relax and ENJOY the wonder of marriage.

Today marks the beginning of the 5 week countdown to our wedding. 5 weeks! Does that seem insane to anyone else but me? It’s kind of scary, but it’s more exciting. I had Misty (Misty Anderson from Studio M Salon in Conway. She’s great) practice my “wedding do” and she did a perfect job, just like I knew she would. She did things to my hair that I didn’t know was possible. But yeah, I have my hair appointment scheduled for the wedding day, woo hoo. Now I have to think about the make-up situation. Now I’m not the most…artistic…when it comes to make-up stuff. I mean, do brides do it themselves? Do they have their friends do it? Do they TRUST their friends to do it? Do they go to Merle Norman and have them practice on their face and then buy the make-up and do it themselves? What gives? If you’ve already had a wedding, please let me know what the deal is on this situation.

I met with our DJ, and I’m SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED about our reception. Yes, the wedding will be simple and outdoors-y and cute and great, but man, the reception is going to be wonderful. I already have the cake-cutting song picked out, and the song for the wedding party introductions, and our first dance song. Any suggestions for the garter toss/bouquet toss songs? I have some ideas, but I want some more input!

And now for something completely different (wink, wink, nudge nudge)…

Little ol’ Sparky finally has this crate training thing figured out. He can stay in his crate ALL DAY LONG (almost 10 hours) and he won’t use the bathroom in it. He also sleeps through the night now, so no more 4:00 a.m. whinings and cryings to make me get up and take him outside. Now I’m the one who has to wake him up, and man I love that. As a reward for how good he’s been doing, I bought him a carseat so he can look outside when I’m driving, and so he’s not constantly trying to get in my lap (it has a hook that you latch onto his harness so he can’t get out of the seat). Check this thing out:

I know. You don’t even have to say it. It’s a little ridiculous. But when you have to drive almost 3 hours to get home, you’d want one, too. It’s annoying hauling Sparky’s big crate in and out of my car, and it’s much easier to just collapse it and throw it in the trunk. Besides, he looks so cute riding in his seat. Oh, and as an added bonus, Sparky is now the proud owner of a 2008 blue Democrat Donkey squeak toy. Cairn Terriers for Obama. BARK Obama 2008!

While we’re on the subject of Sparky/Cairn Terriers, let me rant for a second. I have grown used to the fact that no matter where I go, and no matter where I take Sparky for a walk, there will ALWAYS be multiple people to stop me and ask me what kind of a dog he is. The conversation goes something likes this:

Stranger: “Oooh, he’s so cute! What kind of dog is he?”
Me: “He’s a Cairn Terrier.”
Stranger: *puzzled look*
Me: “Like Toto.”
Stranger: “Oooooooh!! Cool!”

Ok, I don’t mind that conversation. Not many people know what breed of dog Toto was (that’s not even my favorite example. My favorite is that in I Love Lucy, Little Ricky’s dog named Fred was a Cairn Terrier). But the kind of conversation that just chaps my hide is this one:

Stranger: “Oooh, he’s so cute! What kind of dog is he?”
Me: “He’s a Cairn Terrier.”
Stranger: “Oh, like a Yorkie or a Yorkie mix? My sister has a couple of Yorkies and I love them!”
Me: *gives ignorant stranger a blank stare* “No, not like a Yorkie. Like a Cairn Terrier. They are a completely different breed.”
Stranger: “Oh ok” *proceeds to ignore my lesson on the difference between the yappy Yorkshires and the spunky/awesome/adorable/better-in-every-way Cairns*

*sigh* Man. It’s annoying. Cairn Terriers are so much better than those little rats.

ANYWAY

Speaking of going home, that’s where I’m heading tonght. I’ll make my last voyage in the Oldsmobile, thank goodness, because tomorrow morning I have to go sign for my brand new 2008 copper red Mazda 3. The only thing I wanted when I realized I had to get a new car (because of the JA who caused that 4 car pile-up) was an iPod jack, and man, I’m so excited to plug that thing in. Getting a new car is great and all, but ever since the wreck I can’t shake that overwhelming fear that I’m going to get hit again. I look in my rear view mirror just as much as I look out my windshield, and it’s so stressful. If I can make until the 23rd I’ll be OK, because that’s when I move to Little Rock. No more hour-long commutes twice a day. And maybe when I move I’ll find my phone charger for my car, my wall charger for my camera battery, my USB cable for my camera, and my iPod USB cable. There’s not telling where it is now. Somewhere in the Jones’ garage, probably.

Alright, time to do some work here at work, I guess.

Yesterday Dallas and I had our first wedding shower. Well, actually, it was the second. The first was a surprise shower my former coworkers at the bank threw for me. But this was the first big one, and man was it big. We got a lot of cool stuff, including 4 griddles and 4 toaster ovens. Dusty, Dallas’s brother, also called their mom last night to tell her how proud he was of the gift he bought for us: a really awesome pancake griddle. Charlotte just laughed and laughed and had to tell Dusty that we already got 4 of them. All in all, we have to take back a lot of stuff, and we are going to get things we really really wanted, like silverware, towels, a vacuum, an iron/ironing board, etc. I’m hoping at the next shower we get plates and some pots and pans, because we have none of that.  I’m pretty pumped that we got the Magic Bullet blender system thingy, though. And a really nice new comforter with sheets. And little ol’ Sam Story got me some wine glasses! I really didn’t expect to get something like that at the church. This whole wedding thing is pretty fun, apart from the fact that Kathleen made me get blindfolded and feel up other guys’ legs. That was embarrassing.

In addition to the wedding shower, we got to go watch Stepbrothers this weekend. It was out of control and filled with very vulgar hilarity. I mean, it was really out of control. It was great, though. Now I’m back at work. Boo. But I did find out today that if I wanted to take my Arkansas history class, I don’t have to take it online or at night. I can take it during the day here, and I can just leave work, walk across campus to the class, and then come back when it’s done. We’re allowed to leave for one class a day. Plus, I only pay 10% tuition. That’s an extremely sweet deal. I applied today and I’m hoping I can get into the MWF class that starts in about…oh…3 weeks. That’ll be one task under control in my goal of getting certified to teach so I can go to grad school for Library Media and Information Technologies. Woot!

Sparky is making progress. Instead of pooping in his crate and stepping all in it, now he poops in his crate and then covers it up with his puppy pad or whatever else is in there with him. It’s a start. At least that shows me that he doesn’t like laying in his own filth. I think we’ve reached a great milestone. In addition to that, we rarely have any accidents in the house anymore. The bell system is working, and at least now when he needs to go to the bathroom, he’ll go stand in front of the door. This isn’t foolproof yet, but I can at least let him wander into the kitchen without worrying about whether or not he’s going to leave me a surprise.

But seriously, Sparky is just the best thing. Everyone who sees him thinks he’s the cutest thing in the world, but he gets to go home with me. Getting a puppy was a good decision. I love that little guy.

On a different note, wedding planning is coming along nicely. I think. I mean, I thought I was almost finished, so I was just taking it easy and not really worrying about anything. That is, until I wrote a list of every little thing I had left to do, and the number was close to 40. 40 Things! It’s almost overwhelming. But it feels really good to cross a Thing off of my list when I finish it. Like when I ordered my wedding invitations (simple seal-n-sends), and when I ordered my bridesmaids gifts (which are super cute). Never mind the fact that while I ordered their gifts, I also added a brown, quilted tote bag with my new monogram embroidered into it in orange thread (SMJ, woo hoo!). But I deserve a little reward for being so responsible and efficient, right?

Weddings are very deceiving. I say this because they trick the ordinary guest into believing that the bride and groom showed up and everything needed to have said wedding just magically appeared. Or maybe little elves came in the night before and decorated the venue and kidnapped caterers, DJs, bakers, photographers, etc. I mean, that’s how I thought things happened. 

Boy was I wrong.

I can honestly say that I never imagined how expensive a wedding is, and I’ve really been trying to do things the inexpensive way. Case in point: renting tablecloths for the reception cost about $250. That’s definitely an expense that I did not figure into my wedding budget. But alas, it’s something that had to be purchased, so I didn’t really have a choice. Chairs for the ceremony were also about $260. Man. Every little detail that goes into a wedding is expensive. Every detail. 

So that’s how I find myself with $98 in our wedding account, and I still have to pay for flowers, invitations, programs, and any other unforeseen expenses. Here’s to weddings, especially my own.