Well... a lot has changed since August!

The wedding experience was AMAZING... planning it was fun, having it was perfect, and the honeymoon was Magical! I also finished grad school on December 18, therefor I did not have any time last semester to reflect on what was going on... if I miss anything that happened... oh well :)

Javier proposed late July with a date in mind. December 18 - because it was the last possible weekend in 2010 so it gave us an even year, even day, even month, and about 5 months to plan. He also said that 12/18 = 1+2+1+8=12 and that would make me happy (which it does).

August brought dress shopping and location pickin!! I went shopping with Momma, Jessica, Dawn and Samantha... we went to 3 stores and were exhausted! The last dress ended up being THE dress... The funny part of it is that 3 or 4 years ago a great friend of mine got married and I went with her dress shopping. She made me try on dresses with her and I put this one on then and she said "that is perfect"... I forgot all about that day until she reminded me at the wedding! How funny! -- here is my favorite picture of the dress (so far, we don't have all the pictures in so whatever pictures I post are from other people's cameras)

The next weekend, Momma, Christine (DJ's girlfriend), Martha (Javier's mom) and I went hunting for a place... -- sounds fast, but remember school was to start the following week, so I knew I had to get this stuff done -- Mom and I looked online a lot and narrowed our choices down to 3. Los Patios ~ where my parents got married, Rio Cibilo Ranch ~ a beautiful place off I-10, and Texas Old Town ~ way in Kyle. LP was the closest to San Antonio, which was our goal, but the lady was rude and the place would barely hold the 300 predicted guests, and was expensive! Rio Cibilo Ranch was so fun! It wasn't too far from SA, had horseshoe pit, pool tables and lots of room... it was outside under a pavilion and had some beautiful wood worked bars. I knew we'd have a fantastic time & the lady that worked there would do all of the work! Sounded perfect... We had an appointment in Kyle at T.O.T. to get to, and the pictures of TOT were beautiful, but it was in Kyle and I really liked RCR. That was until I got to TOT... I fell in love the moment I walked in and smelled that fresh lumber. The way home from TOT the four of us debated on RCR and TOT... There were tons of conns on TOT's side, but I loved it & that is what Mom liked too, so we picked it. I can't find a picture that does it justice, so we'll hope you went and saw it :)

Next thing I know, work started back up again and I was not able to focus on the wedding much. Javier had a friend that was set to do the ceremony, I wanted the caterer that did my friend Kristina's wedding - as well as the cake lady... My friend Mo had a flower contact for me, but mom got impatient so we went with someone else... all of which turned out great! Javier designed the cakes... so Him, Mo Sheryl and I went to Marion to give the lady our design. The whole wedding was planned by September.

September: Grad school picked up, still had to wait to start my internship - which made me mad... but wedding stuff was moving along nicely. We decided to use horseshoes as our theme and went lookin for candles to go with the horseshoes and we found these adorable, perfect candle holders with three horseshoes!!! Clifton then welded some mini shoes together to go around a mason jar... Decorations - done!

October brought Showers in the plenty. The first weekend in October Susie threw me a beautiful shower in San Antonio at Amy Behlen's house! It was so wonderful! All the girls from TLU were there, Mary O, Liz and Jess from Sea World, Rachel... I had so much fun! Sarah Wink hasn't sent me those pictures yet, but they have to be wonderful!!! Two weeks later I had a shower in San Antonio with Martha and all of the Lopez side of the families! It was a blast too! I was nervous for that one, but it showed me how welcoming his family is!

November started pre-marriage counseling.. we drove to San Antonio on the 6th and 21st for that + December 12... Pastor Derek was so wonderful, his wife and son welcomed us and I loved having the conversations we had with him. Thanksgiving was spent with my whole family... it was one of the best Thanksgivings yet!! Javier left for his bachelor party and I stayed to get all the last minute stuff finished up with my Grandma and Mom. It was fun too!

December jumped up on us quickly! Grad school kicked my butt those first few weeks of December... but I was so glad to be done with it! The first weekend Dobby threw me a bachelorette party! AK, Dobby, Amy Woodall, Jessica, Amanda Slater, and Lori came to it! Oh we had a great time (well, I did at least)

Then came the big day! I took the 17th off work, and Samantha joined me on my travels to get the decorations, hotel room and everything else ready! Susie and Brent came in and helped decorate as well as Dobby, Suki and all the Shepards! After we left TOT, the girls all went to get our toes done (minus jess and Amy since they had to work Friday - which is why we didn't have rehearsal till Saturday morning). After toes, we ordered some pizza and went to the hotel! There we drank some champagne and reminisced! It was so fun!!! Then it was Saturday morning!! 8:00 was set up for the chairs... I can't thank the Shepard's enough for all their help through the whole thing! Rehearsal was so fun! We all - girls and boys - hung out in the hall till about 11 and just had fun. Then the boys went and did boy things while the rest of us finished the set up and got our hair done! Oh I had so much fun with my friends!

3:00 was start time & I believe we started on time! I saw tons of guests and could not bring myself to looking at Javier until my dad handed me to him... he was crying - i knew he would... the ceremony is a bit of a blur, but I remember the pastor telling me that Javier wrote the vows - and i said "shit" because I thought I had to make some up! Turns out he just made the ones we both said and they were beautiful... The rest of the night was so fast! Pictures, reception, people ate, people drank, we danced and ate the wonderful cake (it wasn't very pretty I admit, but it tasted soooo good)

Before I knew it 9:00 hit and we were off... I tried so hard to stay awake at the bar, like planned before, but i couldn't do it... so I left everyone down stairs and passed out. The day was so wonderful!!!

This was the toast - well, on the way to it...

Here was the wonderful speeches given

The sand ceremony - that we almost forgot to get set up! My favorite part!!

Here is my daddy walking me down the isle! My favorite picture that I've seen yet!

If you have any pictures, let me know... This is long - but it was such a perfect day!!! Below is a smilebox of some pictures - not perfect, but I love those smile boxes!

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