Folks, we have a wedding date!

Matthew and I have a wedding date!

 

We are getting married on May 19, 2012 in Galveston,TX:

with the reception to follow here:

I couldn't be more excited to seal the deal with my Mateo, and that we made a decision.

Literally making the decision of where and how to tie the knot was really difficult for me, by far the most stressful part for me, but now I am so ready to get to the planning /creative part of the process.

Time to get to planning - it will be here before we know it!

Love - Tess

It's moving day, save me please!!

Pardon my tardiness, did we just experience a major holiday?

Hmm I think I got kidnapped by Santa, who filled me up on too much eggnog, but I'm back now.. and guess what?? 

It's moving day! Oh. em. gee. I really loathe moving. It makes me feel like this:

I said please!! t doesn't help that its the 5th move between Matthew and I, one which involved me moving from Austin, TX to Houston, TX. Geesh. 

We are moving in with our parental units to save dough for the wedding, but we hope the next move will be into a house and save us from this Gypsy life, because really, I am getting way too old for this shizzz. 

Interestingly enough, well, long story short, we switched storage units. It was my wonderful fiance's idea, and it will save us some monies - so go figure. Lets do it. Well lemmee tell ya. It was some work!! And Matt is SUPPOSED to be in charge of the move, but he's limping his little self around so I think its time for she-woman to intervene. and guess what I'm gonna do?? CALL MOVERS. 

haha.

Oh I made some cool cupcakes for the holiday. See here:

its super simple: one bar of cream cheese, one bar of unsalted butter, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and about 4.5 cups of powdered sugar. Then you use an electric mixer, and voila. I used a simple icing bag tool set (from Target) to make it look fancy.

I'm currently curled up with wedding magazines.  Wedding updates and NYE related posts to come soon!!

And that's all. Good night moon.

-Tessa

My Only Wish This Christmas!!

Pretty much all I really want is a wedding date!! I've been avoiding making a decision like the plague, because I'm pretty much the most indecisive person in America. Yup. But Mom, I"m having much more fun bloggin'! Wahhhhh!

Here are some pics of our work holiday party at Bella Elegante:

Mrs. Peters from Creatively Classy organized the whole party. She's being a lazy blogger but maybe I can encourage her to get on it!!

And Merry Christmas from Matthew and I! I hope you all got your shopping done and are ready for Christmas. We aren't buying too many gifts this year to save for the wedding, but next year will have to make up for it! Next year we will be 'The Cook's' and have to send Christmas cards and the whole nine yards. EEEEEEP. 

And here is a better picture of Mrs. Peters and I running the Jingle Run:

and that's all folks!

Love, MEEE!

A college reunion & Congrats Brit Brit!

Everyone is out at Holiday parties tonight, but I have parked my little tush on the couch for the night. Last night we had a lil’ college reunion and, I guess the nostalgia of seeing college friends made me believe I could consume as much alcohol as I did in college. This is in fact, not true. I spent the better half of the morning with my porcelain friend, the toilet.  Good thing I bleached that shizzz right before everyone came over:

Our friend Sawyer (the redhead) moved away to Denver after college and we got to see her briefly when she stopped in Houston for the Holidays. Good to see ya girl!  

 AND my girl Brit Brit got engaged recently! Congrats from Emily (wifey) and I.  Here is a link to the first pics snapped of her ring and here are some pics of our Britney Adventures :

 

 And, Meet my wifey. We were married on Facebook for some 4 odd years, before some boys of ours busted up our online wedlock.We've been BFF since we 16, and she was my first friend when I switched high schools back in the day. We've pretty much been inseparable since, through drill team, student council, being roommates all through college (HOOK EM') to recently getting engaged just a day apart. Here are some older pictures of adventures of Natasha and Svetlana!

 

It's been a crazy ride. and that's all for now!

Updates Updates people

Last night I had a major confess shesh, and after I have one of those I always feel a bit nervous about putting all my honest emotions out there. So I"m gonna slow my roll on those. They keep me up all night.

So onto the weekend update, on Fri we played Mexican Bingo at Cristinas, she cooked a huge mexican feast and then we played bingo games for .25 cents per round.



She made the most fab crock pot Cali Style refried beans, I will get the recipe for it soon and post it here.  Seriously, they were deliciouso. It was a cool party. I recommend it!

Then, in fitness land.. I ran the jingle run in downtown Houston, TX! I walked/ran 5 miles total. I finished in 1,176th place. Basically, I suck at running. Here are some (lame) pictures.

And that's all folks!

Stopping to smell the roses - A long post

 

 I have been quiet on the wedding front lately. Well on every front really. It's because my head has been reeling with thoughts of what kind of wedding I actually want. Last week Matthew and I almost booked an early summer date at Sacred Heart in Galveston - and something just didn't quit gel. We found ourselves hesitating to finalize the wedding we had spent 5 weeks setting up, and decided to re-evaluate. That's the nice way of putting it. Really, last week I was neurotic hot mess ranting and raving to anyone who would listen lol.

We always said we wanted a destination wedding. As a young girl,  I always said I would have a destination wedding or simply elope, that I wasn't a girl that wanted a bunch of fuss. Well, now that we are engaged, I realize what all the fuss is about, but still feel that I don't want the whole shebang of a traditional wedding.  I'm  really determined to not lose myself in this process, hence the re-evaluation of our traditional Galveston wedding.  I realize our wedding is just one important step in a sucession of important steps throughout our life, but I really want to get it right. For us.

I honestly can't decide at this point, and all I know is we will get married in 2012. I guess I just need some more time to think, OR maybe just some time to simply relax and soak it all in, which I didn't do after we got engaged. After a week I was in full wedding planning mode, racing to get that spring wedding I really believed I wanted. I kind of regret that now, since everything always seems to work out as it should.

Because of this, I am doing an about face, and soaking it all in is exactly what we are going to do this holiday season. We originally decided to not exchange any Christmas gifts, and I was really just trying to avoid Christmas. But we have changed our minds and decided to have a few small ones. What is life if you can't enjoy it?

FORMER BRIDES, I pose this question to you: Am I just having a case of the bride brain? even if, If you have planned or been to a destination wedding, please let me know your thoughts, or advice! 

So, with that being said, I hope to catch up on some much needed retail therapy (I raided the galleria this weekend, post coming soon!) and hopefully will wake up with the zest for wedding planning again around the New Year.

-Tess

Diet tips anyone???

 

So, why did I take a picture of some random girl running? no, I am not a creeper stalker type. but damn, it was 40 degrees and this skinny b*tch is running her itty bitty buns off. I thought to myself, dayum. I'm lazy!!! 

I keep talking about starting a diet / work-out plan but instead I find myself eating this:

 

 

 and this:

 hmmmmm and this:

and Of course this: 

  And playing wth red lipstick while photographing myself for no good reason at all:

 

So really, does anyone have any diet tips? Maybe a subtle supplement that helps kick start you so I can find some motivation?? I think if I can lose a few quick pounds it will help me get in the mood. OR should I just wait for the winter blahs to pass?? help!

Brit Celebrated her 30th in Houston, TX!!

It's Britney Bitch! I Can't believe she was ice skating down the street yesterday!! Holy Moly I'm stanning hard and kicking myself for missing it!!!  Anyhow big Happy Birthday to my favorite pop star EVER, Ms. Britney Spears.  She was recently in Houston, Texas doing a little shoppy shopping see here:

UGHHHH I can't believe I missed my change to see the queen in person. But really, I'm not a stalker fan so moving on.

 This is pretty much when I became a super fan of the Spears, and where she invented the Hair Whip

This is a leaked Demo called "let go" recorded by Britney around her Divorce from K-FAT. I love it to pieces and nobody ever sees the soft side of Ms. Spears.

and some fun pictures of attending her most recent concert Femme Fatale with my girls!!! (Thanks Stan)

 Emily Marci and I

Floor Tix!!

 the only time I will wear a fedora

My fave song

HATERS TO THE LEFT - This B*tch is flawless.

And that's all folks! I had too much tequila last night and am feeling like poo. Have a good weekend!

-Tessy

Our First "Family" Portraits

Matt's sister emailed us about what she wanted to give us for Christmas:

Matthew & Tess,

I had an idea last year for Christmas gifts for everyone but it never came to fruition.  This year, I'm making it happen.  I have dreams of shooting the perfect family portraits and gifting my favorite photo as a framed print or canvas to you as a Christmas gift.  :)

 My first thought was, is this how Matt is going to propose???? LOL. I asked Matt, and he said 'Oh my gosh babe seriously stop prying." It def didn’t turn out that way, you can read my first blog post ever of our engagement story here.

So we planned to take ours in Galveston after Thanksgiving, since we knew we'd want to go fishing for the holiday break. Now, Ann Marie did such amazing job that everyone thinks they are our official engagement photos. But really, we barely have a wedding date, so no we aren't taking our pictures yet! We will most likely take  more engagement photos sometime early next year, when we are a little more prepared lol. Or maybe just use these, hey who knows!

 We started at the beach, where it was terribly windy and sprinkling. We managed to get a few shots I like:

My eyes are tiny in this one. lol. 

Then had to put my hair up for a second:


So we retreated to the house and I changed into Matt's favorite color on me, which I think was much better:

 

This is my absolute favorite. I just love it.

 I really love this one as well. I love the lighting. and how sweet it is.

It’s a really cool feeling that Matthew and I are about to become a family. I am still amazed at the whole concept of being engaged, getting married, and how it’s the first step to starting a family of your own. I tell myself that I will always be Tess, and Matthew will always be Matthew, but marriage is still a mind-boggling concept. I’m going to become an errrr, Mrs.  How strange…and Exciting.  I am feeling like a glass case of Emotiiioooon. Haha. JK. But really, changing your last name (something I have conflicting feelings about) is a bit bizarre, and you can’t help but feel it will change your identity. Which, it literally and figuratively will. See. just mind boggling.  

 

So here are our engagement-inspired first family photos. I hope you enjoyed them, and they will always be very special to us!

THE END!! :)

  Love – Tessa