The Qwest for the Dress....Part Two

Before I get into the goodness of this post, I love you very dearly Mr. Farmer but you shall NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200!  LOOK AWAY! SKIP THIS POST, FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO LOOK AT!

Finally after 3 weeks of agonizing waiting (ok it really wasn't that bad) I got to have a girl's day with my mother in law, sister in law, niece to be, bestie and step daughter. We started right away in the morning, thankfully we had a coffee stop because I might of died without some caffeine. Hi I'm Miss. Barn and I have a serious caffeine addiction.

I wanted to get to our first stop right when they opened so it wouldn't be quite as crowded and we would be able to get better service. Which I would recommend to any bride out there. If you can get an early appointment, do it. I shouldn't of been worried though because when we arrived at The Bridal Gallery in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, our consultant Katie was amazing. Since I had called ahead they had already pulled the Martina Liana dress and it was already waiting for me.

Here she is again in all her stunning beauty: 

Photo via Essense Designs

 Oh what a pretty dress.

To keep things interesting I told each girl that they got to pick out 1 dress each and that I would try it on, no questions asked. So while everyone went to go find a dress I had a chance to speak to Katie one on one and she asked me questions on what I liked and didn't like. Since this was my first shopping trip I hadn't tried on much so I was a little worried I wouldn't find anything I liked. Well I had the exact opposite problem. I loved everything!

I knew that I needed to try on the Martina first to see what it looked like on my body. Often times something looks completely different on the hanger than it does on your body. Same goes for the picture. Some times it looks great in the picture but awful when you put it on. Thankfully I didn't have that problem. 

 

 (awful photo personal)

We took off the blush belt and added a floral one because I am getting married in a garden peeps, it's just too perfect and because the consultants were having fun "jacking me up". I loved this dress. I felt beautiful in it but it didn't have quite the sparkle I was hoping for. In my picture you can hardly tell there is any sparkle to it. I promise there was though. This was my dream dress but I needed to be sure so I tried some other options to compare. 

I tried on the dresses that both Katie and my girls picked. There were a lot that I liked but then I got to my 4 year flower girl's choice. Which I will have you know she picked out all on her own (Did you picture a little blondie with her hands on her hips, stomping her foot? Good, you should have). I kind of giggled when I saw it because it had little flower appliques on it. Of course she picked this one. I am getting married in a garden how cliché right, but I gave it a whirl.

Mori Lee 1953 via Mori Lee

I put this dress on and was pretty amazed. I actually liked this dress and so did everyone else. WWHHHAA?? How could my 4 year old soon to be niece pick out such a beauty? Trust me we were just as shocked. I enjoyed trying on a few other dresses and decided it was time to head to lunch as I was exhausted. Dress shopping, serious business folks. 

After lunch we got to the second store, The French Door and they were very welcoming. I was seated with my consultant right away and filled out some paperwork asking what styles I liked and my budget. I don't remember my consultants name, nor do I care to. After we had been checked in their attitude seemed to change and they were a little put off by the fact that I wanted my girls to pick the choices, not my consultant. They had no problem letting us know their dissatisfaction with my choice. I tried on the Mori Lee gown again as they had it in stock and why not I liked it. I tried on a few other gowns but none that made my heart sing like the Mori Lee and that Martina.

Well, there happened to be a dress that was on a mannequin right next to the mirrors that I was looking at myself in. K my lovely step daughter pointed to that one and said I want to see you put THAT one on. I agreed and I put it on, I am not going to tell my step daughter no. Now folks, I had said that I never wanted to wear something poofy, and Mr. Farmer told me he didn't want me in anything poofy either. But I loved this dress. I give you:

 Maggie Sottero's Esme (photo personal - we had to sneak this photo as they didn't allow pictures so I apologize that it's such an awful photo)

After we tried this dress on I was exhausted and I knew it was time to call it a day. I loved this beauty, and the more I look at it the more I love it. However I had to get K home and my head was spinning with beautiful dresses. I narrowed down my search to 3 I was in love with.

The Martina Liana, the Mori Lee and the Maggie Sottero.

Did anyone else have the problem that I did where you loved everything you put on?

The Quest for the Dress Begins

One of the very exciting parts of getting engaged and married is wearing "the dress". It is typically the first things brides think about and typically one of the first things people ask about, "Oh did you get your dress?", "What are you wearing?", "I can't wait to see the dress!" I'll be perfectly honest with you, I was NOT super excited about going dress shopping.

Image from Home Alone via IMDB 

SHOCKER, I know!!

For whatever reason I kind of just forgot about it. I was so busy enjoying being engaged and securing all of our major vendors that it was Mr. Farmer who urged me to go dress shopping. It was a pretty interesting conversation.

Mr. Farmer: Hey babe, don't you think you should start dress shopping?

Me: Oh yeah I suppose I better get on that huh?

Mr. Farmer: Umm ya think?!

I seriously love this man. So after a little urging from Mr. Farmer I started looking online at dresses. I hadn't the slightest clue what I wanted or what I was looking for. Between magazines and the good 'ol internet I found a bunch of beautiful gowns but none that made my heart sing with glee, that is until I came across this beauty...........

Martina Liana 411 via Essense Designs

This was the most stunning dress I had ever laid eyes on. I don't know why I even wasted another 2 weeks looking online and in magazines because this was the only dress I loved.

Oh yeah, because it was way out of my price range. Like triple what I wanted to spend!  I love everything about this dress though and Mr. Farmer told me that if I had to have this dress that he would make it happen. So I looked up the bridal shops that carried this dress and there was 1 place in the entire state of Minnesota. Crap! I decided to check South Dakota as I am right near the border. EUREEKA! I found a shop that had this beauty and not so quickly scheduled an appointment. Why did I drag my feet?

Two reasons. First I was sad that I wouldn't be able to take my first dress shopping trip with my mom. Since I wasn't going to be able to take my mom with me for my trip I decided that I wanted my new family to come with me. Problem solved. Second reason, I wanted a very special little girl to be able to come.

Who is this special little girl you ask? That would be my beautiful, intelligent and amazing step-daughter K. 

Gorgeous I am telling you! (photo personal)

I don't get to see K very often (sad bride) as she is a very busy 11 year old (seriously this girl tires me out just listening to her schedule), we needed to arrange a time that fit her schedule and everyone else's. In order to do that we needed to go out a few weeks, 3 to be exact.

So needless to say, it was a very eager 3 weeks for us because we were super excited to go. Every other day Mr. Farmer would ask me, "So are you getting excited to go dress shopping?"  to which I would reply "Of course I am!"

Did anyone else struggle to get their butt in gear with dress shopping?

 

Lights, Camera, Action

Mr. Farmer and I are very lucky that we know so many talented people in our lives. Because of this it was an easy decision to have friendors help in our wedding. For those of you who are not familiar with the term a friendor is just as it sounds, a friend who is a vendor.

I graduated high school with an incredible photographer who I knew was starting off his photography business. Thankfully, I secured his talents before he took off and his schedule started to fill up. Score for me! Who is this amazing photographer?! Check him out:

Photo: Kyle Zempel Photography

Photos by: Kyle Zempel Photography
 

 He does some of the most amazing work I have seen in quite a while. His outdoor shots are seriously breathtaking!! Like deserve to be in a showroom amazing. A well known fact about me is that I used to be a model and Mr. Farmer still books shoots, so needless to say we know a good photographer when we see one and who would be a good fit for us. As an added bonus Kyle comes with a photo booth!
 

 Besides any guy who has this little cutie?

How can you say no! (I have a deep love for dogs, and his Flussa is ADORBS!)

Photo: Kyle Zempel

 

I e-mailed him immediately and he agreed to be our photographer for the day. His style is very much journalistic and that was the type of photography Mr. Farmer and I were looking for on our big day. We didn't want to be overly posed nor did we want any photos that were overly processed in post-production. We wanted someone who would be able to capture the emotion of the day as it was happening and Kyle was the best fit. I encourage you to check out his website, I am telling you AH-MAZ-ING!

Since Kyle is a one-man team my godmother, who is amazing in her own right, has also agreed to bring along her camera and assist in taking some shots for us so that nothing goes undocumented. At the end of the day after all the decorations, glitter, panic attacks and wedded craziness all you have left are the images and memories of the best day of your life. Since it goes by so fast I want to have as many pictures as possible to look back upon and reminisce with my new husband. (Plus I have a horrible memory)

Our next friendor was a no-brainer for us. I have a VERY dear friend Greg who runs his own entertainment company (Mr. Farmer and I actually helped plan his proposal to his lovely fiancé who will actually be standing up in our wedding!)

Ladies/Gents NIHL Entertainment:

NIHL Entertainment

Brian VanDellen Photography via Jack3d via Facebook
 

 I knew that I wanted to use his company but I also wanted to make sure he was up for the challenge. I didn't know if he would want to attend as a guest or be willing to work our wedding. Since his lovely fiancé was part of the bridal party I worried it was too much to ask of him. However Greg obviously loves what he does and wouldn't allow me to use anyone else. His exact words were, "How can I let you use some punk DJ you don't even know, not on the most important day of your life!"

I am also extra excited because not only does he have amazing sound but he has more lights than anyone I know. Up-lighting is like the thing to do now-a-days so of course I just HAD TO HAVE IT and thankfully Greg includes that as part of his entertainment package.

Photo via Bhangrajunction - Beautiful No?!

It's just so danged pretty. SWOON! Mr. Farmer and I are very lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives who are willing to lend a hand and are so good at what they do. It worked out well for everyone, we saved a little cash and our friends able to generate the business and publicity they so deserve.

Did anyone else have any friendors at their wedding?

My Worst Nightmare

Ok I fell victim to "Bride Brain" as so many beautiful ladies before me have called it. I suggest you grab a glass of wine or a cocktail and buckle up for this one. This is one heck of a ride.  I woke up in a cold sweat one morning because I realized we were about to get married and we didn't have bridesmaids dresses yet and I didn't have my dress. Oh the humanity! This dream clearly occurred before my dress shopping trip. We'll touch on that just a little later however there is a very different reason for this posting. I should have known after this nightmare what was going to happen.
 

I truly have experienced my first wedding related problem. The morning after I had my literal nightmare I received a message on FB from my mother that I needed to call my grandmother. Umm that doesn't sound very good. So naturally I started panicking thinking my g-ma was ill or in the hospital. I may have overreacted because when I got to the next line it said, there's some national event going on during the weekend of your wedding and your Aunt T say hotels are booking up.

HOLD UP!?!?!? SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, SAY WHAT?!?!!

gif via Pandawhale

 

I died. Ladies/Gents I seriously died. I panicked. I received this message in September.,10 months before my wedding and there are hotels being booked up? Eau Claire is NOT that large. How could this happen?! I picked my wedding date first and as far as I had known NOTHING major was happening on that weekend. Oh silly me.
 

So what was happening the weekend of my wedding? Oh let me tell you. If you are not from the Midwest you may not know about this little (ok not little like MAJOR) Country festival called Country Jam USA. Allow me to introduce you to my nemesis:

 

-photos via Country Jam USA

 

Oh Country Jam USA how I hate you and your good looking Country stars. Ok hate is a very strong word but highly irritated.

Well I started looking online for hotels during my wedding weekend and lo and behold my Aunt T was correct. Some hotels were already sold out for that weekend! I looked at our venue's preferred properties and already 2 out of the 5 were sold out for that weekend. I panicked. Mr. Farmer panicked. MOH B panicked. MIL S panicked. Momma D panicked. We had a panic party!

Photo via Mind Disorders by Luis Louro

 

After our panic attack I took a deep breath and realized that the only solution for this was to reserve my block of rooms early, like way early. At this point we had over 300 people on our guest list, and yes, granted we don't expect EVERYONE to attend, we had a large group of people. So I called the hotel right next door to the venue thinking they would be able to give us the rooms we needed, I mean it was one of the reasons I picked our venue, the hotel right next door.
 

Oh silly me, I was wrong again. They would only be able to give us 10 rooms on Friday night and 20 rooms on Saturday night. WHAT?! That wasn't even enough for our bridal party and VIPS. We panicked again.

Photo via Chicagonow

After another panic party we decided we needed another hotel, so I called The Holiday Inn Eau Claire South I-94 and they were fantastic. They were able to give us 12 rooms to start out and once those get filled they will give us more and keep going until they run out of room. She assured me that they had plenty of rooms to give. Plus it was only a 3 mile drive away from the venue and if we had enough occupancy we could arrange a shuttle. Phew! Crisis averted, or so I thought.

Well that still didn't solve the problem with lack of rooms at the first hotel, The Hotel Metropolis. I contacted my parents and Mr. Farmer's parents and we started reserving some rooms. Well the karma Gods must of been smiling down on us because 2 days later I received an email from the hotel saying they could give us an additional 10 rooms each night. 20 rooms for Friday and 30 for Saturday. (I imagine it was because they realized we were serious about reserving that many rooms) Thank goodness!
 

In order to alert all of our friends and family we have decided to include an explanation in our Save The Dates that they must reserve their rooms way in advance in order to get a room. However this was certainly not something I would have expected to have to tell them in our Save the Dates.

Normally this is something you put in the invitation right!?

Did anyone else have a panic attack at some point in your planning?!

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

Ok I promised a post about my ring. I know we are all over the place in our wedding blog but I promise we will get back on track soon. Who doesn't love to look at beautiful sparkly objects!? In case you have forgotten this is my ring:

Photo by: Jayne Salentiny

However, this beauty was not the ring Mr. Farmer proposed with. WHAT?! Let's start at the beginning shall we. We went ring shopping in July, so a good 2 months before he proposed. We only went shopping at one store and out of the rings we saw I feel in love with this little beauty:

Photo via Helzberg

Well sadly this little beauty only came in platinum and I wanted white gold, as I don't like the patina look that platinum gets after a while. It was the only one I had picked out so I thought this was the one he would pop the question with. I didn't know that it only came in platinum. The only difference would be that I would have a cushion cut diamond instead of a round brilliant.

Well since that was the only one I picked and he couldn't get it, he panicked and just got something he thought was similar. So he actually popped the question with this lovely ring.

Photo via Helzberg

photo personal

It really is a pretty ring but Mr. Farmer knew that it wasn't exactly what I wanted. He bought it anyway just so he would have something to propose with. He wanted me to pick out a new one after the proposal so we looked online and found one we both really liked. We went back to the store and picked out this baby:

Photo via Helzberg

Stunner huh!? So that's how I only had my engagement ring for a week before I had to send it in for another week. It was a sad week in my life as I eagerly awaited my new ring. I think Mr. Farmer was almost as anxious as I was. We finally got it in and now we are very happy with what I have. I still catch myself starring at my left hand every once in a while and it still takes my breath away with how beautiful it is.

Even though Mr. Farmer panicked and purchased just "a ring" I should of given him more direction. If your fiance is asking for your opinion, don't be afraid to lay it out there for him. Mr. Farmer had no idea that it was the twisted sides that I was in love with. He isn't a mind reader and if your fiance is asking you for advice, give it to him.

Did anyone else end up exchanging their ring for a different one?

We have a Venue!

So what direction did we go with in our search? I'll be totally honest, we're all friends here. I started to get extremely frustrated in our search for a venue. Everything I came across needed too much decorating, too expensive, unappetizing food, too many restrictions, didn't feel like us, wasn't available and so forth.

Mr. Farmer started to feel horrible for me and he suggested I take a break from planning. You're probably going, "You guys just started planning and you're taking a break?" I got so frustrated that I just didn't want to do anything wedding related anymore. Mr. Farmer wanted to help but he didn't know how, other than to give me lots of wine and be a good shoulder to cry on.

Let me tell you brides out there, sometimes you just need to step back and take a breather. This was one of my first reality checks that planning is hard work. You're not going to find the option that works best for you without a lot of hard work and shopping around.

Pinkie Pansy (one of my favs)

I am going to throw you lovelies a complete curve ball and let you in on a little secret. We are NOT getting married in Minnesota like we thought. We are NOT getting married at a golf course like we had anticipated. Heck we are NOT having it in a hotel ballroom and we are NOT getting married in a barn. Well what does that leave?!
 

A garden of course!!

In a totally random Google search I found this place, The Florian Gardens in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Eau Claire happens to be on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. After looking into this place more and more we realized this has exactly what we were looking for.

1. Beautiful, interesting

2. Good food

3. Good reviews

4. Very accommodating

5. Amazing wedding coordinator
6. Outside ceremony

It's important to research various options so you can eliminate them; it was something I had to learn throughout the process. Nobody told me that I was going to drop the F-bomb a lot or I should of stocked up on my favorite Riesling. I didn't realize that you're not going to find something perfect on the first try. Planning from a distance takes a lot of digging. Some are totally lucky and nail it on the first go around but for most brides, don't feel bad if you don't find it on the first try.

I encourage you NOT to get discouraged like I did or if you do, break out your favorite cocktail, regroup, recharge and take another look. They call it shopping for a reason. I wish I would have realized that not everything is going to work out perfectly the first time around.

Shall we look at a few pictures of my beautiful venue? Oh lets!

(all photos courtesy of Florian Gardens)

We are so excited that we found a place to have not only our ceremony but reception as well. The best part? There's a hotel right next door. So it has been decided that we will have a semi-destination wedding. Not at all what we thought we would be doing but it works for us and we are a-ok with that. Everyone will have to come from out of town but this is doable. The hotel is within walking distance so we should be able to get a block of rooms with no problems.

We are extremely relieved to have such a major decision out of the way, or at least I should say I am. With our location pinned down we can start planning some of the other major things.

Did anyone else have a difficult time deciding where to have your ceremony and/or reception?

Our Search for the Venue

Last I left off we had just started the wedding planning process. I'll tell you this, it's a totally different experience dreaming about your wedding than actually starting to make decisions about it. Do I want a traditional wedding? Trendy? Modern? Vintage? Garden? Barn? Afternoon? Morning? Brunch? Sunday? Saturday? Destination? Home? (lions and bears, oh my)

We decided to start wedding planning with the biggest choice, the venue. Mr. Farmer and I figured this might help shape what we wanted our wedding to be and would be a big decision out of the way. After we discovered that the first place we looked, didn't work for us we realized we needed to move on. First and foremost we needed to decide the location.

I am no artist but I tried my best - drawn by yours truly

You see majority of my family lives in Wausau, Wisconsin and majority of Mr. Farmer's family lives around the Pipestone, Minnesota area so logistically this created a nightmare. Mr. Farmer was against having the wedding around Pipestone and we didn't want to have all of his friends and family drive over 6 hours to have the wedding in my hometown. Since we knew a wedding in the Twin Cities was out of our budget we started to look into the Rochester area. It was close to the middle but not quite as metropolitan and hopefully cheaper.

We love to be outside. Come summer time we are barely inside so we knew we wanted an outdoor ceremony. When I thought of an outdoor ceremony I immediately thought of a country club. I mean seriously they have some of the most beautiful picturesque opportunities because of all that green.

photo via The Rochester Country Club

We liked what they had to offer and the food looked amazing. I still wanted to see what else I could find before committing to this location. I mean you have to shop around, right?! And to be honest it was on the higher side of our budget. 

After a Google search I stumbled upon this place and loved the pictures they had.

  

The Mayowood Stone Barn Photo by: Janelle Elise

Seriously, this place is gorgeous. We requested some additional information on it and were super bummed to find out that they were totally booked for the month of July 2014. We also discovered that they were out of our budget. Bummer!

Guys this next place I am about to tell you about breaks my heart. It is by far the coolest most amazing venue I have ever seen in my entire life. We even considered raising our budget just so that we could have our wedding here.  I am NOT kidding you this is worth checking out. I give you, A'bulae in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Photo by: Bellagala found via A'bulae

 I know I said we were looking in the Rochester area but I found this baby one day and couldn't resist mentioning it. It is the tech savvy venue of the future. Not only is it stunningly beautiful (this photo doesn't do it justice) the ceremony is on the rooftop of this building overlooking the city. Oh my heart be still. The problem with this venue?

Oh silly me of course this place is so awesome, it's booked solid for 2 whole years! And I mean booked solid. There were hardly any Friday/Sunday weddings left and certainly no Saturdays.  I still dream about this beautiful venue. If you are in the area and looking for an event space check this out. I promise it won't disappoint. It's epic!

photo via The Doubletree in Rochester, MN

This place too was beautiful. It was the traditional ballroom setting but again logistically it made the most sense. All of our guests would be coming from out of town so accommodations would be taken care of. PLUS Mr. Farmer is a Hilton Honors member which meant we could rack up some much needed points.  The response time was wonderful but alas they didn't have our date available. Grrrr!!

It appeared that I had pretty high expectations. All of these places were beautiful and each had something that we loved about them but alas they were either too expensive or not available.

 Did anyone else have such a difficult time deciding your venue?

He did what!!?

Truth be told, Mr. Farmer and I had already begun some of the wedding planning before he officially "put a ring on it".

(photo personal)

(I have been waiting to say that since I got engaged)
 

Back when Mr. Farmer and I moved in with each other it was very clear to both of us that we were going to get married. We had begun saying things like "When we get married", "our wedding", and "at the wedding".  Our very first thought was, what about doing a beach wedding? Very much like this:

DESTINATION WEDDING!

Photo by Maco Caribbean

We quickly realized that a beach wedding wouldn't be a good idea as we wanted as many of our friends and family to be able to attend. After doing some more talking we realized that financially this wasn't the greatest idea either. We had certain people that HAD to be at the wedding even if that meant us paying for them to get there and so the travel costs were astronomical. So that idea went out the window (bye bye sand in my toes).

Mr. Farmer was the one who took our ideas and turned them into a reality though (bonus points for him). I came home one evening from work to find that he had contacted a venue in Bloomington, MN to get additional information on their wedding packages. Wait up, hold the front door!? Mr. Farmer initiated contact?

 I was pretty shocked to say the least. It was actually becoming a reality that Mr. Farmer and I were going to get married. We weren't just talking about our imaginary wedding anymore we were about to start planning it, without actually being engaged. So our wedding planning started just months after we began dating and a month before Mr. Farmer formally proposed.

So where did he request information from?

 Introducing The Embassy Suites Airport!

They had a beautiful ballroom, wonderful food, and customizable packages. Mr. Farmer had a cousin who had gotten married here and was very impressed with what he saw. He figured a ballroom would be the best option as everyone would have to travel. After I got over my initial shock we discussed where we wanted to get married and realized that the Twin Cities area would work the best for us. It was halfway for his family and halfway for mine.

 Easy solution right?

The problem? The price. Since we just started planning we hadn't discussed a budget. We will be paying for this shindig ourselves and when we finally got the quote we were pretty shocked to say the least. It was a great starting point for us though and it got us talking about the things we wanted for our special day. I still smile to myself knowing that the Mr. was the one who actually started the whole wedding planning process.

Did anyone else start planning before you actually got engaged?

Will You Marry Me?

In reality I knew what was going to happen September 6, 2013 . Even though I knew it was coming, I had NO idea how or where he was going to pop the question and wow did he surprise me.

I came home after work to find that there was a path leading to the kitchen table where I found this note:

"Miss. Barn - Can you believe that 5 months ago we became a couple. That moment you became my girl friend changed my life. You are my dream girl the one I have been waiting for my whole life. I love you with my whole heart, to the moon + 2. Now take the 4-wheeler and drive to the place I took you 2 weeks ago, heres a hint it's down the water way. Don't worry there are markers along the way so you don't get lost. When you get to the end you will get a prize and another letter. Make sure you drive to the end and make sure you give yourself enough room to turn around. P.S. Leave the 4-wheeler running. Love Mr. Farmer"

I took the 4-wheeler to the end of our property just as he said to do and when I got to the end I found this:

"You made it, I hope you know how much I do love you and as it says I Love You More, now drive to another spot we stopped at that day, it was where I said I wanted to put the deer cam. P.S. Leave the 4-wheeler running"

I drove the 4-Wheeler to the other end of our property. It also had balloons and ribbon along the way. Although I distinctly remember that they were NOT there when I pulled into the driveway, when I got home from work, so it was certainly making me extra excited. I got to the spot he mentioned and found this:

"As I have said, I will take care of your heart cause I have the key, now go back into the house and you will have one more note so you can come get the key, but you must put on your heart necklace 1st. P.S. Turn the 4-Wheeler off when you park it by the house." **

By now my heart was beating like crazy. I was so incredibly excited but it was also an odd feeling knowing that he was watching me complete these tasks. I parked the 4-Wheeler and headed inside to find this on the kitchen table:

The letter and the small card:

"By now I'm sure you know what is going on. I love you with my whole heart, now come out to the shop"....."Today marks the start of forever, I love you"

I took a deep breath and I walked into the shop. There were pictures of Mr. Farmer and me everywhere. There was a path of flower petals leading to him standing under a canopy of streamers in a suit! There was a table next to him with a beautiful framed picture of us and a bottle of champagne. 

He proceeded to tell me that he had waited 37 years to find the love of his life and he didn't want to wait any longer to spend his life with me. He got down on one knee and asked me "Miss. Barn**, will you marry me?" I obviously said yes and leapt into his arms for lots of kisses and hugs. We left for a dinner reservation and came home to find that Mr. Farmer arranged a surprise engagement party.

It was truly one of the best days of my life.

I can't wait to marry this man.

 How did you get engaged?

**There was a heart necklace hanging from the post - not pictured

** He was so nervous when he said my full name that he got tongue tied and mispronounced my name

How I Met Your.....Girlfriend?!

Before we can get into any of the goodness that is wedding planning lets go all the way back to the start, 11 months ago (shocking I know). Mr. Farmer (still working on it) and I are unique in that our relationship moved very quickly, like super quickly. Since Mr. Farmer has been married before he knew what he was looking for and didn't see the point in waiting years to get engaged and married. I agreed as I knew without a doubt that Mr. Farmer is Mr. Perfect for me. Some people questioned our relationship in the beginning because we moved fast but we didn't care what anyone had to say.

I will say this, when you know, you know. It's very difficult trying to explain that to someone who hasn't yet experienced that feeling themselves. As time went on and the more people saw us together they quickly realized that we were meant to be together. We really are perfect for each other. So how did we meet?
 

I happened to be on a girl's weekend in Minneapolis and Mr. Farmer was spending the weekend with friends. My girl friends and I decided to head to Seven Steak and Sushi in downtown Minneapolis, however when we got there our table was nowhere near ready. Bummer so what's a girl to do? Head to the bar of course. There was only 1 chair open and it just so happened to be next to Mr. Farmer. I walked right up to him and asked, "Hey is anyone sitting here?" He turned his head, looked at me and with the nicest voice said, "Yeah, my girlfriend...........Sit down!" Umm say what?!

Clearly I was shocked and Mr. Farmer could tell because almost instantly (after slapping his hand to his forehead and doing the Simpson "Doohh") said "Oh no that came out so wrong, I am so sorry!" He was very embarrassed about his comment but it was a great start to one of the best conversations I have ever had. We had hoped to meet up again later that weekend however it didn't work out for us.

(photo personal - sorry for the awful quality)

Our very first picture together at his best friends b-day party

We had our first date a month later and knew that we had to be together almost instantly. The only problem? The 6 hour drive that separated us. I would come visit him any time I could but it still wasn't enough for us. I would leave on Sunday and cry on my drive home. It was a pretty miserable experience so we knew that something needed to change. Since the Mr. is a crop farmer and father to 2 amazing children he couldn't move so we knew that I would be the one moving.

Mr. Farmer found a job opportunity for me and after 2 interviews I landed it. A mere 3 months after our first date and I was moving in with him. Some people again questioned our choices but we kept reassuring everyone that this was the right choice for us and our relationship. Once they saw us together they knew we were meant to be with each other.

 

Moving day!

 

We couldn't have been happier thanks to my new job. Emotionally we were a lot better off and my bank account was a lot happier. That's a lot of gas folks! Little did I know what was about to happen a mere 3 months later.

When you met your significant other, was it love at first sight or did it take you a while to know he/she was the one for you?



Welcome to the Borman Wedding Blog!

Welcome to the Borman Wedding Blog! Let me introduce myself, my name is Brianna, Bri for short, and I am engaged to the most amazing man, the love of my life. On July 19, 2014 I will marry Chad. He is the most amazing person I have ever met. I can't wait to marry him and share this special day with all my friends and family. I hear so often that this time of your life is going to fly by so incredibly fast and that you will have a hard time remembering it. I want to be able to remember as many of the details as possible hence why I am blogging about it. Please enjoy our blog and join us for the adventure!

Welcome to the Borman Wedding Blog!
Meet the Bormans!

Photo copyright: Jayne Salentiny