Dance with Me?

I haz no dancing skillz. I'm a lefty with two left feet! Dancing is one of the few things that can turn this confident, outgoing bride into a reluctant wallflower. Confession: I've never really gone dancing. That whole part of young adulthood... I missed the memo. Merengue? Tried it while studying abroad in the Dominican Republic; never took, my hips don't move like that.

Do these diagrams confuse anyone else??
This whole "dancing thing" (because it is now a thing for me) was brought to the forefront quite recently as I watched our newly married friends kicking up their well-choreographed heels at their wedding in Mexico. As the night wore on, Mr. PaC joined the fray with some impromptu and hysterical moves. And where was I? Hiding behind the lens of my camera, capturing everyone else cutting loose.

Cinco de Mayo

Mr. PaC and I jetting off to attend our friends' wedding in Mexico... on Cinco de Mayo! All I can think is gonna be one heck of a celebration!

Wedding pavilion at sunset
Initially, I dug my heels deep into the beach sand over the time, expense, and additional stress of traveling less than one month before our wedding. But you know what? I'm glad Mr. PaC convinced me we should go. At 30 days out, an odd sense of calm has come over me and I find myself looking forward to the downtime, shaking loose of all the wedding stress, and most of all, celebrating with our friends and the newlyweds.

The resort shortly after opening in 2008 during our first trip.
See you when we return from our practice honeymoon! (Mr. PaC's name for this trip.)

What sacrifices would you make to attend a friend's destination wedding?

12-30-1979

Happy anniversary Mom & Dad!

Thirty-one years!

Mexico, a go-go

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
Moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right


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The backstory: Mr. P's close friend (and the last roommate before I moved in), got engaged about a month before us in 2009. Due to the timing of our engagements, both couples were fated to the same planning timeline. However, I'm a planner so I pressed fast forward on my to do list. First time on the to do list: venue, and consequently wedding date.

At the same time, the friend and his fiance (N&D) decided on a destination wedding, location and time TBD. We were one of three 2011 weddings and need to pick a date ASAP. A few weeks later, our venue was secured and a date of 6/4/11 was set. Soon after, I heard N&D were considering St. Lucia. I knew we couldn't afford a St. Lucia trip the same year as our wedding (and honeymoon). We'd priced it out in 2007; for the same money, we could do 7 days in a high-end Mexican all-inclusive. (We went. We had a fantastic time.) So this is what I relayed to N&D.

Something in the water

With almost 2 full years of engagements and weddings, our circle of friends and family averages a wedding every 2.3 months. We're in the middle of the celebrations: 6 down, 4 to go. It's a lot of showers, cards, gifts and vacation time. When I bring this up with anyone in outside of my generation, there is no sympathy. Instead, it's a "been there done that" attitude and a variety of explanations:

1. It's cyclical. What does that even mean? We're not cicadas.
2. Everyone is the same age so of course they'll do the same things at the same time. This is so not the case! The age range of these couples runs from 24-50. We have friends that are far older who haven't begun to think of settling down and younger friends with several children. When you get married has little to do with age and more about where you are as a person. Sorry, I just don't like sweeping generalizations...
3. You're just more aware of it since you're getting married. Also crap. Looking back over the last 10 years, it's been one wedding (at most) a year -- not every 2 months.

All together now

Almost famous

Browsing through wedding blogs, I cam across a particularly lovely wedding on Style Me Pretty. The sneak peak of the ceremony showed a yellow stucco church that looked like nearby St. Joseph's on the Brandywine, but I couldn't be sure.

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Then... I saw photos of the reception venue and fell in love. Sure it looked like the Greenville Country Club (our venue), but what's the likelihood of a national blog featuring little, ol' Delaware. It was probably someplace down in the Carolinas.

Tented reception on a brick patio with views of a rolling lawn... Hmmm.
Until I scrolled down to the vendor list, I still wasn't sure.

Doin' it in Dewey

The tropical storm left just in time for the start of the wedding weekend festivities. Friday night kicked it off with a rehearsal welcome dinner. We spent a lazy, chilly, windy Saturday morning relaxing on the beach before the beach ceremony and bayside reception. The rain returned with a vengeance after we walked to Sunday morning breakfast, stranding us until BM R rescued us. It was a fun weekend that we'll two weeks to recover from (coincidentally, the length of their honeymoon).

Teaser pics begin... now!

Relaxing on the beach the morning of the wedding

What irks me

I have a newfound pet peeve: wedding guests posting pictures on Facebook (or some other public site) without running it by the bride or groom. And this new pet peeve runs counter to my previous position. Before we got engaged and I started paying attention to what is/is not polite, I didn't think anything of uploading wedding pics. (In fact, I did it as recently as New Year's Eve 2009.) So what changed my hypocritical mind?

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K + M's Wedding Weekend

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Mr. P and I are off to Dewey Beach for a fantastic beach wedding weekend. We're doing a house share with group of friends -- so the fun won't stop until we go home! Looking forward to being a wedding guest as a newly engaged couple.

Maybe we'll have some teasers to post after we return!

Did you attend any weddings while engaged? What did you take away from it?

Bachelorette at the Beach

Not mine! Don't freak out - we haven't moved up the date or have plans to elope. Friends of ours are getting married in less than a month and this weekend is the low-key bachelorette getaway. Mr. P is skeptical it won't stay low-key for long, given we're headed to Dewey Beach... How much trouble could we conceivably get into? (Don't answer that.)


(personal photo)