Mamah and me

Maybe it was from my obsession with Jane Austen films. Maybe it was something my nickname-creating littlest sister came up with, and it just stuck. Whatever caused it, at one point I began calling my mother "Ma-MAH" on occasion. Mom and I always had a very close, special relationship. Even when I was a "moody teenager", my mom was one of my favorite people to spend time with, and as I grew older, the facet of friends was added to the Mother/Daughter facet of our relationship.

While there is still a great deal about life that I am still learning, one thing I do know is that it never turns out the way you expect. That's why it isn't completely difficult to believe that my mother and I both had our weddings in the same year.

At my mom's wedding reception - August 2014

With Mamah on my wedding day - September 2014 (photo by livehappystudio.com)

After all, it's the unexpected, unorthodox experiences that tends to make life sweet. And then there are the moments when you're stressed to the max (and you have so many stress hives, your body seems to have turned into one huge hive), feeling anxious and worried, and you wish that things would just be "normal" and "typical" and that you could just step in the footprints of all of those that have tread the same path before you...

..but my path seems to always be off the beaten path...


















Maybe it would be "easier" to have a more "typical" life, but I couldn't help thinking as I talked to my mom on the phone today, how, for lack of a better word, COOL it was that we we're now both in similar periods of our lives. There may be thirty-something years between us, but we're both going through the same kind of transition - as newlywed brides.

If you have ever told the 13-year-old me that LOVED Jane Austen romances, how my life would be two decades later and all of the things I would experience, I probably would find it hard to believe. But I love my story - because it's mine, after all!

And I love my mamah.

Magic Backstage

It is now 132 days that we've been married (says the countdown app on my phone). It's crazy to believe that this time last year we were in the midst of planning our wedding, and now we're already over 4 months in. It's crazy. And wonderful. Life is fabulous.

This morning I received an email from TheKnot.com, asking for our engagement story and ring details. "Cool!" I thought. "Maybe I can use it for a blog post later after I tell TheKnot all about it!" Turns out, they didn't want me to tell them our proposal story in my own words, they just wanted me to fill out a survey...which I did anyway because it entered me in a contest for a $200 gift card. But it totally got me thinking that I should blog about our proposal story because it's just so...us. And I've been meaning for a while to update the ol' blog. So, for all of you out there in the blogosphere, this is the engagement story of Matt and Adele.

For those who unfamiliar with our story, it's very much a chick flick formula: boy and girl meet, boy likes girl, girl's been hurt so she hesitates returning boy's affections, boy and girl are good friends, boy and girl fall in love. Seriously, if Nora Ephron were still alive, I'm sure she'd want the rights to our story (may she rest in peace). Since we were such good friends for so long, both of us knew that the relationship would eventually lead to marriage once we got together. As scary as it was to realize, it was after the first month that we both began thinking about the "M word".

As much as we knew that we were in it for the long haul, we weren't rushing into an engagement. Even with the holidays coming and the questions coming in of "Is he giving you a ring for Christmas??" we both focused on being committed to each other, and doing things when it was right for us.

So imagine my surprise when I had a sparkly ring on my finger that December 31st.

 Both of us were working that New Year's Eve, as was the norm for those in the theme park business. Matt finished up a couple of hours before I did, so he came to hang out with me until my shift was done, then we both planned to head up to my mom's to ring in the new year with my siblings, niece and nephew. I noticed that Matt was quieter than usual as he sat with me that evening. Usually, neither of us can stop laughing or talking with each other when we're together, but he seemed unusually pensive. When I asked if everything was ok, he replied, "Yeah, I'm just thinking..." Little did I know what he was thinking about!

When my shift was finally over, we headed to where our cars were parked backstage at the park. Matt said that he wanted to swing by one of the park's theaters where he was scheduled to work the next day to check something out, so we made a quick detour. He disappeared inside for a moment, while I stayed outside. A few minutes later, he joined me. It was so quiet outside in the backstage area. There were no other performers, no techs, no other workers, just the two of us. "I didn't really need to check anything, I just wanted an excuse to come over here." he said. And with that, he dropped to one knee. "Will you marry me, baby?" he asked quietly.

Actually it was more like, Him: "Will you marry m-"
Me: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!"
He barely got the whole phrase out, when I'd accepted.

I was shaking, giddy, not knowing whether to cry or laugh. He opened up the ring box, and the most perfect, dainty, vintage engagement ring sparkled in the street lamps and the light mist that began to fall. We hugged and kissed and kissed, and then the world just started spinning for both of us as we realized "HOLY--....WE'RE ENGAGED!!!"

As we walked to our cars, passing other workers leaving for the night, I marveled at how Matt and I just had a momentous event occur - yet no one could tell just by looking at us that we'd just had a life-changing fifteen minutes.

Showing the ring to my family and friends, I thought back to the "Wedding notebook" I'd made during my early teen years - full of ideas about dresses, flowers, reception venues, music, and rings - and nothing in it came close to the ring that Matt had given me. The ring he gave me belonged to his grandmother. It's nothing that I ever thought of for myself, but I love it so much - it's PERFECT for me. Just like my guy. It has now been over a year since he gave the ring to me, and not counting the week that it took to get resized, I haven't been without my engagement ring. I still find myself admiring it often, especially in certain lighting or the Florida sunshine. It's not like the ring pictures I cut out for my wedding book when I was fourteen, but really, how crazy is that? To think that at FOURTEEN someone would know the kind of engagement ring they'd want someday. Maybe there are some people that know at a very young age, and more power to them. There's nothing wrong with making plans and having dreams for the future, but for me, clinging rigidly to those plans often got me so far from the dreams that I had and wanted so desperately to come true.

Matt was nothing like I had ever expected the man I would fall in love with to be. Yet he was everything - and more - than I'd ever dreamed of. He's my proof that life has amazing things in store for you, things greater than your dreams. But narrowly focusing on old dreams, or ones that don't quite fit anymore, or dreams that you think you "should" have (because that's what others have told you that you should want) can lead you to overlook or completely miss those amazing things that life has to offer. That nearly happened to me, but I am forever grateful that I didn't miss out on life's greatest gem.

Model Behavior

I was one of those little girls who wanted to be in love since I saw my first movie musical. I couldn't wait for the day my big, strong, romantic love would take me in his arms and profess (hopefully through song) his deep feelings for me.

My mom got married when she was about 22, so I figured that I would follow in her footsteps. Although my parents met in high school, I didn't think I would find my One True Love during my years in public high school. Maybe people matured faster during the years my parents' grew up. Maybe not. In any case, I thought that I would at least have the chance to practice interacting with boys when I became a teenager by going out on dates.

When that didn't really happen (my mom had to find me a date to my Junior Prom, so sparse was the dating pool for me), I figured I'd meet my One True Love when I went to college. Since I was planning on getting married in my early 20s, I'd probably meet him during my first couple of semesters.

Or not.

Don't get me wrong, my life has been a fantastic journey, and I wouldn't trade any of it. But my "goal age" to be married came and went, and that man I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl was no where to be found.

Until about two and a half years ago.

I'm now a big believer in the saying that love comes along when you stop looking for it. Well, I don't know if I would say that I stopped looking for it altogether because there was always the hope that I'd be lucky to find someone to share my life with - hopefully sooner rather than later - I just wasn't looking for it very proactively. Especially not at work. I'd always said that I would never date a co-worker, but there was something about Matt that made me struggle with that statement for a year and a half before finally realizing that I wasn't just dating a co-worker - I was dating a dear friend and one of the best men I'd ever known. From our first interactions together, through the early months of our friendship, I knew that Matt was someone special. He was unlike any other guys I'd met before - he was the first guy I felt that I could be myself with, and he liked and accepted who I was at face value.

When we finally started dating almost a year ago, it wasn't long before I realized that he was The Real Deal - the kind of man I'd been hoping and looking for since I was little. He was even better than the man I'd imagined for myself. He was not just my best friend, my biggest supporter, and most generous partner, but my greatest love. With him, life was just better. 

Now my left hand wears the family heirloom that has been passed down to him. I may have given my heart to him long ago, but now the whole world can see that my heart belongs to him by the sparkler on my finger.

As we prepare for our life together and our wedding, our plans include the unique (Muppets wedding decorations), to the usual. A few weeks ago, we had the expected engagement photo shoot. For days and days I mulled over what to wear, scouring my closet, Google and Pinterest for ideas that would convey the mood I wanted while hiding my physical flaws. I couldn't wait until we got the proofs from the shoot - I hoped they'd look like the gorgeous shots I'd seen online of friends and strangers.

But picture after picture I found something wrong. Ohmigosh, my butt is huge in that one. Why didn't I hide my thunder thighs? Ugh, that shot shows my double chin. Hello, sausage arms. Why didn't I diet for months before? Couldn't I have made time to get a haircut? 

I felt like the pictures were something I'd looked forward to for so long, and I'd ruined most of them by.....well, by being visibly myself.

I was ready to go bed, depressed by the lack of pictures that I deemed "fit for display." And then it dawned on me: I was robbing myself of these photographs that documented the love between me and my fiance. So what if I didn't look like a supermodel? I look at these pictures and I see a couple that loves being together. I see two people who have had their trials and struggles, but have found someone who makes the good times twice as good and the bad times half as bad. I see a man who adores me as I am - "thunder-esque thighs" and all. I see a girl who is deeply in love with her very best friend. The trust and understanding and acceptance that exists between us may not be visible, and they may not be the type of perfect looking pictures that people share online. But they're us. And years from now, maybe I'll still notice my un-supermodel figure, but I hope that what I'll focus on in these pictures is the dream come true of two best friends in love with one another.