Pre-wedding Pow Wows (part 3): Awesome Advance Activities

Thursday dawned with three big events on the horizon. First, Mom, Curby, and I, along with my matrons of honor and Jr. Bridesmaid were going to the Flower Mart in downtown LA to buy the flowers for the wedding, and then in the evening Curby had a bachelor party and I had a lingerie party.

Going to the Flower Mart in the morning was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I went there a year ago with my faculty advisor, to do the flowers for her daughter's Bat Mitzvah, and was in awe of all the flowers and their great prices. Once Curby and I got engaged, I knew that I wanted to us to do our own flowers and that we would be getting them at the flower mart. :) Kathryn went with me to the market in July, to get some practice flowers and figure out how much we'd have to budget for flowers.  That trip was super fun, on its own.

On the Thursday before the wedding, we all got up early and caravanned to the flower market. It was a special time for me, since I got to have Candice, Karen and Andi there. We didn't have many other times to really visit during the weekend, and Candice got to have some car time getting to know Curby which was really nice, too.

We wandered the market, picking up flowers that mom and I had identified earlier in the week and finding the very best roses, etc, for the bouquets. All in all, we ended up with about 10 dozen or so roses, some Lisanthiams (i think?), Picasso Calla Lilies, Misty Blue Heather, and some Boxwood to use as greenery. It was a lot of fun and we were all in awe of the beauty of the market. A couple collages of pictures are below.

some flower market memories - including some of the very few pics of Candice and I together! 

My handsome (future) husband!

Can you believe what a grown up Andi has become!? I loved having her at the market with us!

While there are no pictures from Curby's Bachelor Party (that I know of, LOL), there are a few photos from the Lingerie Party the girls had later that night. We are super indebted to Mark C (one of Curby's Best Men) for crafting a really fun and special evening for Curby, and to Jessica R, Barb V-M, and Sarah M-W for crafting an entertaining and fun evening for me. The girls and I enjoyed cocktails, sweet and salty snacks, while opening lingerie presents. It was really fun to share this evening with some of my closest friends in LA and from around the country. My bachelorette party was really fun (we did Accomplice: Hollywood - blog post to come!) but this was a really fun way to spend time with the friends and family who were out of town for that event.

(had to show at least one piece of lingerie, right?)

Friday Video Fun: When Curby Met Tiffani

I really do want to get back into more regular blogging. But having two blogs is difficult. For now I've decided to keep both blogs, but sometimes I'll either post the same thing on both - or more likely refer people from this blog to that one when I have posted something there I think you'll like. And then you can click and go there. (Alternatively, you could bookmark the tiff and curby blog or add it to your RSS reader)

This is one of those days.

Go to this link immediately: http://tiffandcurby.blogspot.com/2011/12/friday-video-fun-when-curby-met-tiffani.html to see the most awesome video, made by our friends Ryan and Bethany over at Effulgence Photo and Cinema, that we played at our wedding. The video was designed to be a documentary style video - and our inspiration was "When Harry Met Sally" - but I'll be honest.... the Speiers blew our idea out of the water. The video is really amazing and I cry every time I watch it. It will be a great memento for us and for our family over the years.

Enjoy!

Curby asked..... I said, "Yes!"

Background: Two years ago, Curby decided to buy two tickets to the upcoming U2 concert. He was planning to go with his best friend, Mark, and Mark's wife Mandy. He bought two tickets hoping that by the time the concert came around, he'd have someone to take with him. Mandy, hearing this, began to pray that the person he would take to the concert would be his future wife (she mentioned this to Curby, I think, but never mentioned it to me until the day of the concert). As the concert approached, Curby was single and Mandy was disappointed. Shortly after that, Bono broke his back and the concert was postponed for a year.

Flash forward to March 26th, 2011. Curby and I were on our first date, and we both knew that something special and different was happening than had happened to either of us before. As we were walking back to the car, Curby mentioned the concert and how he had an extra ticket and maybe I'd like to go with him. I sort of laughed to myself and thought, "Wow, that is three months from now - I mean this is going well, but I'm not getting my hopes up!" and so I said, "yeah, maybe, that would be fun." and left it at that.

Soon after that first date, we were virtually inseparable. We met each other's families, Curby met my best friend and her family in Texas and some of my local friends, and I started getting to know his friends and church community.

As the weeks moved on, Curby and I continued to find that we were like-minded in almost everything. Our relationship blossomed and moved quickly. Well, to us it seemed not so quick - each week we were together it seemed like we had been together for months. We began to talk about marriage, about what kind of marriage we wanted to have, about our family, and about when we would like to get married. We started to plan our wedding and I knew that Curby was saving up for a ring and planning to propose sometime in the summer.

The U2 concert loomed in the near future, and it was now a given that I was going to attend with Curby, Mark, and Mandy.

June 17th, 2011: The Friday of the concert arrived, and it happened to coincide with three months to the day of when I first emailed Curby from the OKCupid website. We all met at Mark and Mandy's house, with Curby arriving straight from work and in a rush to get there in time. We arrived at Angel's stadium after a brief drive and train ride, and walked around the stadium to find an entrance. Slowly we made our way up to the top level, where we were pleasantly surprised to find that the stadium was serving Irish beer (we presumed in honor of U2). This was especially sentimental to Curby and I, since I first emailed him on St. Patrick's day and had been drinking Smithwicks (an Irish beer made by Guinness) that evening. Curby bought us each a Smithwicks and we headed to our seats.

Lenny Kravitz was the opening act, and we enjoyed getting settled. The weather was great and the music was good. As it started to get dark, U2 took the stage. Most of the songs were familiar and we were enjoying standing up and singing along to the show.

Soon the song "All I want is You" came on. We sat down and were just singing along when Curby turned to me and whispered some sweet words above the din of the music, then said "All I want is you - and they are singing about diamonds on a ring of gold, and I have this ring right here..... will you marry me?"

I, of course, said "Yes" and we spent the rest of the concert in a haze of lovey-dovey-ness, listening to the concert, and texting our friends and family.

Meeting Curby

Here is the (long) story of how "Tiff met Curby"

My friend Jessica told me I needed more dates. And then she said, "Just sign up for this site - OKCupid.com."  We were gchatting on St. Patrick's day. I was disappointed because this guy I had gone out with a couple times had turned out to be a dud and I had no plans that night nor for the weekend ahead. I had also had two beers.

So I did it. While she and I gchatted, I filled out my profile, answered 200 questions and then let the math algorithm of the site do its work.

And it found me a few matches. There were a few highly matched men, many in the mid-to high 90's. Then there was this one guy who was a 99.4% match.

He looked pretty cute, and as I read his profile, I thought, "Hmmmm, he seems pretty cool and thoughtful. He seems to love Jesus and have a good sense of humor, and I think he's pretty smart." So I emailed him.

This is what I said that evening (Thursday):
Hey there Cap, 
I enjoyed your profile for the following reasons: 
1) your overuse of the letter I to the point of your keyboard failing. 
2) your affection for HP7 - though I'll be honest that 5 was my favorite because I felt like the spiritual idea of fighting for something good was so clear. 
3) you made me smile while simultaneously made me think that my (newly created) profile was not nearly cool or thoughtful or funny enough. 
So check out my profile - and consider that in reality I am much more um, cool, thoughtful, and funny than that... Unlike most recent movies, I am much better in 3d than in 2. :) 
Lets talk. Tiffani


I emailed some other men, too. And then I waited.

I heard back from Curby early Saturday morning:

If you are more cool, thoughtful, and funny than your profile, I'm going to have to stockpile more electronics ... I almost launched coffee onto my keyboard when I read about your gchat studying! 
I like you, let's talk indeedy :) 
Curby

So I wrote him back a long email with some random conversation starters and stuff, later that day. And he wrote me back a long email on Sunday and totally "got" my sense of humor. He sent me his phone number in case I wanted to call him. I wrote him back that night and included my phone number, saying "I appreciate you giving me yours though, so now I'll know its you if you call/text."


He called me on Monday night. We talked for an hour and it was so fun and easy. Before the end of the conversation, he asked me out for the following Saturday. I had made tentative plans for that Saturday, though, so had to say "maybe." My friend, Jenn, and I had talked about going to this Salsa dancing thing some friends were putting on, but when I talked to her the next morning, she said she was unable to go.

Curby had asked me for a movie, but when I mentioned what Jenn and I had planned to do, he said, "That sounds fun, even though I'll be really bad at it, and would be a much better first-date story than a movie!" So we decided on dinner and salsa. Right then, I knew that he was going to be a pretty cool guy - how many guys WILLINGLY go dancing on a first date?

We texted some, and talked on the phone the next few days, and it was just fun and easy. Even talking to him on the phone was something I looked forward to and felt like we were really learning about each other, not just making conversation. His texts made me laugh and I learned he had a great, goofy sense of humor and was really thoughtful and intentional about his life.

Saturday arrived and I was nervous. I had woken up that morning and remembered the tail end of a dream I had where I was an old lady telling the story of my life and I said, "From then on we were Tiff and Curby." I scolded myself, "Tiffani, settle down! You are putting way too much pressure on this first date!"  The thing was, I liked him A LOT on "paper" - what if one of us didn't like the other when we met in person?!?! So I asked some of my friends to pray that our feelings - whether for or against - were mutual.

He arrived to pick me up, with flowers, and after about 15 seconds of akwardness, it was clear that he was great and that we were going to have a terrific time. It was like peas and carrots. Like we had known each other forever.

We had dinner and danced and we had a great time. Curby asked me out for a second date for the following weekend, while we were dancing, and I said, yes. Afterward, we walked all around Santa Monica and ended up down on the pier. It was beautiful and we talked about our lives and family until it was almost 1am. At that point we decided, "wouldn't it be fun if we just stayed up all night and kept talking? that would be a great story!" So we did. While we were hanging out at my apartment, Curby said, "Saturday is too long to wait to see you again, I would like to take you out sooner."  (I swooned and said, "Well, I'm only free on Monday." and so Monday it was.)

We had breakfast at Marie Callendars' (next to my apartment) and he left for his church, and I got ready for mine.

And that was that. From then on we've been together, like chocolate chips and cookies, like shoes and socks.

More to come on this, I'm sure. But now you know one of the reasons why I've been so absent on the blog lately!

In the meantime, please join me in my rejoicing and in praising the Lord for this good thing. We have both been so grateful and thankful for God's goodness in bringing us together. He has done more than either of us could ask or imagine. I am learning a lot about myself, about God, about my assumptions and my heart, and about what things I knew before this relationship and what things I realize now I didn't know. I'll have a post on my transition from adult-singleness to adult-coupleness soon. But other posts will likely come before that.

Thanks for reading, friends. :)

Curby and I on our first date.

I'm a romantic.

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a romantic. I'm a sucker for romance - not always in the traditional bring me roses and fawn all over me way (but that is nice) but I'm a romantic about little things, like when you text me a picture of something you made because you want to share it with me, or like when you smile while patiently teaching me something. I'm a romantic for when you say I'm tired, but I want to see you, so lets find a way to sit on a couch together and not talk but just enjoy each other's space.

My mom would say that all this romantic-ness is perfect for me because I'm kind of dramatic.

She's right, I'm a dramatic romantic. I both love and hate the emotional roller coaster that exists within all relationships (not just love ones). I go high and low and want to hit the panic button and eject one minute and want to suggest we get married (or live next door to each other if we are just friends) in the next.

I chalk it up to the amount of books I read. I do read some romance novels, sometimes. If the characters are good. But I also read lots of other fiction: mystery, legal thrillers, suspense. Lots of drama in those (and also sometimes romance and friendship).

Anyway, recently my friend Kristen reposted this word of "advice" over on her blog. And I found myself loving it - in a romantic, idyllic, "yes love me this way!" kind of way. I've now reposted it below. Enjoy.

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. 

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”  (Reposted from: — Rosemary Urquico (via themonicabird))