She said YES!

So I told you yesterday that today is a very important anniversary for Joey and me.  A year ago today (and around this time) he got down on one knee in our apartment after driving up to Pennsylvania and back and asked me to be his wife.  Obviously I said YES!  From there we entered into a year of complete insanity.... our winter, spring, summer, and fall went ridiculously fast and here we are back on the brink of winter again.

I wanted to commemorate our engagement by sharing some photos that were taken right around that time.  We were by ourselves in our apartment when the engagement actually happened, but this is one of the first photos of the ring, taken at 8:21pm on November 29, 2009.  You can see the only witness to our engagement, Bandit, in the background.  The picture isn't great quality, but it commemorates the initial shock and excitement of our engagement!

Getting engaged is such an exciting time.  The first several months are so much fun, as you get to see friends and family, tell everyone the story over and over again, and celebrate with many glasses of champagne.  Below, is a photo of Joey and I in the back of a limousine sipping champagne and toasting our engagement about 5 days after the fact.

Some other fun things that happen right after you get engaged are:

1. Engagement Photos!
Our friend Amanda took some beautiful engagement photos of us in 2+ feet of snow in old town Occoquan.  We took these just a few weeks after our engagement so we'd always remember the time of year and  to celebrate the beginning of the holiday season!

2. Have an engagement party! 
We were lucky enough to have friends that wanted to host this event for us.  All we had to do was show up!

From there, it was full ahead full into wedding planning! 

Thanks for joining me on a quick trip down memory lane of the days following my and Joey's engagement!

Love,
SG

Giving Thanks

Yes, I know this is late.  I was away from a computer all weekend and I REALLY don't think you wanted to see the aftermath of me trying to blog from a blackberry...

I hope everyone had a safe, happy, and delicious day.  I can’t believe it is already this time of year! Of course I sort of expected it with the wedding and honeymoon bringing us straight up to Halloween.  So here we are, on the weekend of our firstThanksgiving!

Doc is really excited to eat all the turkey and other leftover treats from our dishes.  I REALLY wanted to get this turkey costume for him, but it would have been too last minute and I would have had to overnight it… $80 for Doc to be looking like a turkey? Not quite priceless…

We spent Thanksgiving at Joey’s Grandma’s house.  We thought about doing our own Thanksgiving but let’s get real.  I’m a sucky cook anyway, and there is no way I’d attempt an entire Thanksgiving meal (including a turkey) for just the two (three? Does Doc count?) of us to eat. So we packed up and headed a few miles south for the big meal.  I missed my family.  It is hard living so far away from them.  I know they had a delicious day too and that we will see them soon.

Now comes the time where I say what I am thankful for.  It’s really hard to encompass everything, but here’s a shot.  I’m thankful for my new husband, for BOTH of my families, my best friend-Doc, our ability/opportunity to work for our money and the apartment in which we live, all of my friends, sushi, football, Discovery Channel, and Disney World.

OK that’s enough for now, it was starting to sound like Kevin’s prayer in “Home Alone”…
I hope each of you had a very happy Thanksgiving, ate lots of turkey, watched lots of football, and enjoyed your day(s) off. 

I'll be back tomorrow, because it is a very special anniversary for us Gishes!! ;)

Love,
SG

Ring Lady

Does a wedding ring really make me look older?  Ever since we’ve been married, trips to the liquor store, bars, or restaurants where I’ve ordered a drink of the adult variety have not resulted in my being asked to present my ID.  My feelings are hurt. 

I always get asked for an ID!  I was even told by our hotel’s wedding coordinator that if I wasn’t the bride, I’d be ID’d all night long because I “look so young”.  So how can this be?  Is it like the episode in “Scrubs” where JD can no longer see a woman once she is married?  Am I automatically “old” because I’m wearing two rings on my left ring finger? 

The argument could be that when a woman gets married she is usually over 21.  But the key word there is usually.  If anyone has been watching “16 and Pregnant” lately you would know that many marriages in the US take place long before a girl is 21, although maybe not in my neck of the woods… 

Well, whatever the reason may be, the fact still stands that I have not been asked for my ID since I’ve been a married woman.  So please, if you are a bartender, waiter, or work at a liquor store, ask me for my ID so I can show you that I am 26!!!!!

SG

Wedding Do-Over

So my Mom told me a while back that after the wedding she wanted to throw a little party for some of our neighbors, her collegues, and various other friends because weddings are expensive these days and we really couldn't afford to invite everyone.  I already had expressed my worry about this exact issue in a post on my wedding blog, so I guess my Mom and I have the same problem where we have too many friends.  Not really a problem though... Anyway, shortly after we got back from the honeymoon we got an adorable invitation in the mail (hand made by Mom of course) for a little champagne toast soiree for 20 November.  "No gifts please, we just want to share our joy!"  So Joey grudgingly took off work ("I thought the wedding was over?") and I made plans to drop off the monster with his granddogparents for the weekend. 

We headed up to PA on Friday afternoon, and got there just in time for dinner, wine and a totally random Harry Potter marathon with my sister where nothing was watched in order and we didn't even get to #6 and therefore didn't make it out to #7 the next day... the wine may or may not have had something to do with that.  Saturday we helped clean up the house and get ready for the "little" party.  Well, I guess I should have known something was up when my Mom texted me urgently last week asking for the number to the bakery that did our wedding cake... Or maybe when she mentioned that Peicha (our amazing florist) was going to be "stopping by" on Saturday to drop off some flowers. 

When I got the invitation to this little soiree, I did not realize that my Mom was going to completely re-create our wedding!! It was actually very impressive.  We even used the pomanders that hung off shephard's crooks to line the front walkway, like they had lined the aisle at the wedding ceremony.  We handed out the favors, matchbooks, goody bags, etc.  My Dad put together a slideshow of all the wedding pictures we have so far that played on the TV in the family room.  My Dad also gave a lovely toast and Joey and I cut our (re-created) wedding cake.  This time we did not smash it in each other's faces.  OH and for the record, we didn't MEAN to smash it in each other's faces at the wedding. It wasn't originally planned that way... the pieces of cake were too big soooo that's that.   Anyhoo. On to the best part of the night!

The PEOPLE.  We got to celebrate with so many lovely friends.  Christy and Josh, who you might remember from my wedding blog, got married a week before us and were on their honeymoon during our wedding weekend.  They were so excited to come over and share pictures and compare notes!  Then there were two of my best girl friends from high school, Lindsey and Emily, who I remembered I had my first beer with, and we sat and chatted and caught up with each others lives.  My Mom's friend, Renee, came over with her husband, and it was great to meet him since usually us girls sit around scrap tables and talk about our S.O.'s but never actually meet them!  Some of our neighbors from back in the day were there, as well as some close family friends who were at the wedding but are so awesome that they decided they wanted to celebrate again too! Or maybe it was the free food...

The party was wonderful, and as usual, my Mom did a great job coordinating the whole thing (where do you think I get it from?!).  The worst part of the weekend was this morning, at 4:45am when our alarm clock went off.  Joey had to go in to work today, and so we were off to VA at 5am.  It was a straight shot (no traffic!) but it was horrible.  I drove about 2/3 of the way and let me tell you, it sucked.  But it was well worth it to get to see my entire family (rare to get us all in one place!) and to introduce Joey to some blasts from the past!

I wish I could say that I had pictures to share, but none have been posted as of yet.  I do promise to update with photos as soon as I can get my hands on some.  Until then, I hope you enjoyed this insanely long post about my weekend!

Have a GREAT Thanksgiving week everyone! Wahoooo short work week :)

~SG

Thread Killer

OMG it’s my first non-wedding blog!! Get over it. There will be more.  So I’m a dork and I belong to some Disney message boards where me and other Disney-crazed people count down to our vacations and talk about what color crocs we are going to buy and what rides we are going to ride and in what order and at what exact time (9:36am) we are going to be in line for Pirates of the Caribbean… anyway, I don’t know if any of you have ever been involved with something like this, but it’s seriously just like high school.  There is an “in crowd” and losers, like me, who DON’T spend all day every day on this website.  So when I DO decide to chime in on a certain subject, or –gasp- post my own thread, it’s always the same reaction.  The thread dies EVERY SINGLE TIME.  It’s so annoying… just because I’m not “one of them” I guess means that they feel they don’t have to respond to my questions or comments.  Whatever, I don’t want this to turn into a rant (too late) so now we will focus on more exciting things.

Like our upcoming Disney trip!! Joey is in severe Disney denial.  It’s been OVER A YEAR since he’s been, and he is very upset about this.  It also doesn’t help that I went in March, without him, on his birthday… So we booked a trip (with the help of my Grandmother) for this January!  I’m also excited, since we are still technically newlyweds for an entire year, that we get to boast this fact and wear our bride and groom mouse ears all over the world and not get stared at like we did at the wedding reception…

I also made a really bomb diggety scrapbook for our trip.  Joey and my favorite Disney pastime is called “Around the World”.   At EPCOT, we traverse the World Showcase having an adult beverage in each “country”.  I believe there are something like 13 countries.  And with the smorgasbord of drinks ranging from beer to plumwine to ???, it often turns into a debacle.  And it always ends with us watching the fireworks, or in Joey’s case the time he went alone, him meeting an Irish family and struggling to stop talking in an irish accent to them…  So here are a few pictures of my masterpiece.  There is a page for each country with a place to write what each of us drinks there. 

We’re so looking forward to our trip, but first we must endure the holidays!! This would work out better if Joey wasn’t in retail.  But alas we will make it through.  He even convinced me to start putting up the Christmas decorations already.  I guess I will be in the spirit whether I like it or not!

Stay tuned for more exciting Gish adventures, like this weekend’s Post-Wedding champagne toast thrown by my parents for our neighbors and other friends!!
Love,
SG

Same Sarah, New Blog!

Just wanted to officially christen this page as my NEW blog!! Keeping the Wedding Blog was the best thing I could have done.  It was so much fun to look back and reminisce about all the crazy things that happened to me over those 10 months we were engaged and wedding planning.  Now that we're married, I decided to graduate from the HTML blog and move into a "big girl" blog.  So here we are.  And lucky for you, I already wrote the first entry!  I hope you enjoy reading about our lives and our adventures together!

Love,
Sarah

Transition to New Blog

The blog posts between the dates of January 1, 2010 and November 16, 2010 were orginally posted on our wedding website, www.thegishwedding.com.  The site has since been taken down, but I wanted to share my journey along the way.  You will notice posts about the wedding website and you will also notice missing pictures and links. I am working hard to restore them, but please be patient!

Thanks for checking out OhMyGish!

~SG

Graduation

Well folks, I have officially graduated from HTML blogs and into BLOGGER.COM!  Feel free to follow my NEW blog at http://ohmygish.blogspot.com.

Love,
Sarah

Identity Crisis

Hello, Mrs. Gish here! Today’s blog is to tell you, oh loyal followers, about my current identity crisis. If you’ve ever changed your name, you’ll know that there is an awkward , middle stage. And that is where I am right now. I am not legally a Davis anymore. Yes, I may have gotten a little emotional when I turned over my social security card that I’ve had since birth. But I am legally a Gish now. My driver’s license says Gish, my credit cards say Gish, and all my mail says Gish. But then there’s my work ID badges. They say Davis. And so do my checks. And some of my mail. So that leaves me feeling kind of weird. Yes, I am a Gish. But I’ve only been a Gish for a few weeks and it’s definitely weird! I REALLY need to practice my cursive G’s. Seriously. It’s that bad.

But anyway, I don’t FEEL any different, I am still the same person I was, just with a different name. It’s really weird to say my new name (recording my new voicemail took 8 tries because every time I said my new name I was so surprised by it that I would flub the rest of the message. Yes, I was still surprised after 8 tries…). It’s weird to see it in writing, to hear other people call me Mrs. Gish, and to introduce myself to strangers as Sarah Gish. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s TRES exciting!! It’s just taking a little getting used to!

Now, for those brides out there that may or may not check my blog from time to time. If you are lazy like me, and even if you aren’t, I highly recommend www.missnowmrs.com. You’ve probably heard about it on the radio and thought it’s a waste of money, but seriously, it’s not. I paid 30 bucks and filled in a questionnaire, and BAM! All the forms I needed to submit were magically populated for me. Yes, it took FOREVER to print them all out, sign them, make copies of my marriage certificate, and send them. But it would have taken even longer than forever if the list hadn’t been put in front of me like an easy check list!!

Anyway, aside from the identity crisis, I am LOVING being married. Many people ask me how married life is, and how it feels to be married. Honestly? It doesn’t feel any different than it did before we were married… But it’s so exciting to be husband and wife, to know that we are together forever, that we get to spend the rest of our lives going to Disney World (oh, we planned a trip for January by the way), and we get to buy a house and take care of Doc and have children SOME DAY. (That is for a totally different post. Just remember not to ask newly married people when they are having kids because it’s ALL ANYBODY EVER SAYS TO THEM!!) Not bitter, just sayin’! Be creative! Ask us what color house we are going to buy or something…

Well, I think that’s quite enough on this subject. I am off to watch some Football and contemplate what to do with the huge pile of gifts in the middle of our living room!! (We need a house!!)

Hoping somebody out there still reads this,
Sarah G

SG's Wedding Planning Advice

As I was planning my wedding, I made sure to keep a running list of advice that I would give to another bride who was planning her own wedding.  I know this is not all of it, but here are some selectively hilarious tid bits of what it was like to plan a wedding a la Sarah Davis...

-Don’t stalk your registry too much. Limit yourself to once or twice a week.  Otherwise you’ll ruin all the surprises/embarrass yourself when you open a gift and say “OH! It’s my “Clam shell ‘Giselle’ ¾ inch dessert plates set of 6!”

-TRY not to make any rash decisions.  Take the time to consider if you really need to drive to Baltimore to pick up $20 bubbles.

-Be patient with your photographers.  Don’t be upset when their Facebook status says “family time” instead of “editing sarah and joey’s love session”.

-Bored at work should NOT equal online shopping for cute little extras.

-Do keep a blog. It will be fun to look back on later!

-Don’t register at big department stores that are going to discontinue your registry items faster than you can say “presents!”

-Everyone stalks theknot.com these days so make sure to at least create a “theknot” page with a link to your actual site so people like me can look at your wedding webpage. Thanks.

-If you live in an apartment, make sure to check with your front office from time to time. Sometimes the UPS or FedEx man might forget to leave a note that there is a package for you in the main office, and Aunt Mildred might be upset that you didn’t send her a thank you note.

-Don’t try to explain to your fiancé why you need a new dress for every shower, rehearsal, etc.  It is futile and will only cause arguments.

-Write your thank you notes IMMEDIATELY. Your hand will hurt. Take frequent breaks.  Don’t attempt this with a dog on your lap.

-Take lots of advice from friends and family members. That way, if something sucks you can blame it on someone else…

-Do not expect anybody to remember that you already sent out the information  about xyz in an email.  Expect them to ask you the same questions over and over.  Nobody searches through their email, because it’s easier to bother you with the question.  Kindly direct them to their email or your website, which you created FOR THIS REASON.

-Don’t EVER call anybody a Bridezilla without having ever planned your own wedding.  It’s impossible to understand MANY aspects of wedding planning without being involved in it yourself.  It can turn even the nicest, most mild mannered lady into a frothing, angry, monster.  Wedding stress is very unique.  Even though you’ve got it all under control, it’s such a huge day and it’s hard to keep everything in check.  Really listen to people that say “they’ll understand when they plan their own weddings”.  Because it’s true.

Hope this has been enjoyable and maybe you learned a thing or two!  Til next time,

Sarah G