Two name changes . . .

While I've occasionally played around with my upcoming new name, I have officially used it for the first time. We had to bring Daphne to a vet yesterday and the woman while putting together her file asked "It's Busch, Bu right?" And I said yes but it was going to change in two months as I was getting married so she asked if I just wanted to have it switch now and I said sure. So Daphne's official file is Kr, Krayer and she is now Daphne Krayer not Busch. While filling out the paper work I thought it would be silly to write my name as Larissa Busch as Daphne's file was under Krayer so I wrote my name as Larissa Krayer for the first time officially. I then of course totally blanked and signed my normal signature but that's going to be hard to get use to. I've had a squiggle of a signature for years and sadly Krayer is a lot harder to squiggle than Busch but I'm sure I'll get use to it eventually. So now both Daphne and I have used our new names just a few weeks early :)

In other news, our vista print order arrived today and it was a ton of fun to open. It's just another step towards the big day!!!!

What to Wear?!?!

Women have it EASY.  Pick a white dress off the rack, get the opinion of your 15 closest friends and family members, PLUS the guidance of a professional whose only job it is to put women in white dresses...  Have it fitted to your exact body size and proportions.  Try it on and get more opinions AGAIN...  How can you go wrong?  Not to mention the inborn sense of style ever girl is instilled with at birth.  Guys, on the other hand, are forced to sail into dark, uncharted waters, pretty much on their own.

[editor's note: the previous paragraph is meant for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken seriously on any level.  It does not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of this blog's author.  Furthermore, the blog's author realizes and appreciates the incredible amount of time, effort and thought that goes into a bride's preparation for her wedding day, even if the said bride in question needs no special preparation to be perfectly beautiful in every way.]

Renting a tux?  Most likely, your only previous experience with these monkey suits was for your junior prom 10 years ago.  What are the current styles?  Colors?  Fabrics?  Cuts?  Two buttons or three?  What sort of shoes?  And then... you have to put on the exact same shirt and pants some other dude spent last weekend in sweating in.  Gross.

What if you're not wearing a tux?  Then you're completely on your own.  This is the route I'm taking, admittedly by choice.  A tux would be too formal for our lake-side ceremony, and the last time I wore a rented tux last fall I ended up with an awful rash around my neck for two days after.  Not something I wanted to risk repeating during my honeymoon.  So my wedding attire of choice is a simple suit.  One I already own, in fact.  In an effort to make is special and match our wedding as closely as possible, I needed a few other garments to complete the look.

I had it in my brain pretty early on that I wanted a pair of bright blue Converse.  I've never worn this style shoe before in my life, and have no particular attachment to them or concrete reason for wanting to wear them, beyond the fact that I think they're sort of cool and would work with our casual-ish wedding.  So early on in our preparation I found a pair of "skydiver blue" Converse, and picked them up.

Larissa's dress has a bright blue sash, though not the same shade as my shoes.  It made sense to find a shirt that matched Larissa's sash.  After a bit of searching, we lucked out and found a shirt that matches it EXACTLY.  Score (insert a bit of ordering and returning because the store didn't have my size in stock.  We eventually got it right).

So now I have a blue shirt and a different shade of blue shoes, and a charcoal gray suit.  Next on the list was a tie.  We found a couple different options, and brought them home to try.  The first was black and bright pink (another wedding color) but really didn't work at all.  Next up was a black & blue that matched the shirt great, but left the shoes looking sort of out of place.  Just this weekend I picked up a solid blue tie that matches the shoes, and still looks good with the shirt.  So now we're set.  It was a lot of trial and error, but now I'm confident I'll look at least half as good as Larissa will in her beautiful gown.

~Tim

Sometimes it's hard living so far from family . . .

This week was full of fittings and trials for the wedding. As mentioned previously, I was not looking forward to my dress fitting and as the day approached, I really became anxious because I had no idea what to expect. Luckily like most people said it went perfectly fine. After grabbing a quick bite of dinner with Tim, I headed over to David's Bridal with my full dress assemble in tow. Heading back to the alterations department, I was a bit overwhelmed by a wedding party all getting their alterations done as well with dresses in the Malibu blue of my sash. While I love the color and it's a great in small doses, I'm not sure I would dress multiple people it and have them stand next to each other. My seamstress, Kim, was super friendly and helped me get into my dress since I was there solo. My first nightmare did not occur as she was able to easily zip up the dress. So I walked over to the mirror and Kim asked what my concerns were. I then admitted to her that this was the first time I had tried on my actual dress and she was a bit surprised. I explained that we just moved out here so the only person really around to help me get into it would be my fiance and that wasn't happening. So she gave me a moment to take a look while commenting that it didn't look like it really needed anything done. After a minute of looking it over and noticing it was a bit loose, she suggested we could take it in a bit. So she pinned that up, we grabbed some pictures and that was the end of that. Nice and simple. But while waiting for her to fill out the paperwork and just while talking to her about weddings and other things, it did hit me again that I wish I could be sharing this with my family and friends. There were other brides there with their mothers or sisters and sadly the only way to share this with mine are through pictures. I probably could have invited the woman who came with me dress shopping but as I was already nervous about the whole thing, I didn't feel like having people I don't know very well to join in. So that should be ready in a few weeks and then I'll ship it off to Rochester.

Yesterday was my hair trial. After discussing hair ideas with Tim to get his thoughts and opinions, I had formed a basic idea of what we'd both like. I then began hunting for pictures but was having a hard time finding exactly what I wanted. That was until the Royal Wedding :-P I wasn't a fan of all the hype but sadly Pippa Middleton's hair was exactly what I was looking for and therefore was the picture I brought with to the hairstylist. Apparently it's a very easy to do style that any stylist should be able to do so I don't have to worry much about someone in Geneva being able to do it. I think it turned out really nice and didn't take long at all to do. In order to "use" the hair, Tim took me out for my birthday last night and we got all dressed up. It was a lot of fun.

A friend had questioned that I was going to let Tim see my hair before the big day and again I explained it as I didn't want to waste the hairstyle and this seemed the best way to use it as I didn't have others to really go out with. I don't often think much about the fact that I live so far from friends and family but during this wedding planning stage, I sometimes wish I lived closer. I feel like I missing out sometimes on life experiences. Omaha is a great city and I love my job but I need to find someway to convince all my friends and family to move out here as well. I also of course need to start making better friends out here ;)

Kicks...