One year ago

One year ago today, Mr. Bunny and I held hands in front of our family and friends and promised to love, cherish and support each other -- for as long as we both shall live.

Photo by Lian Dziura

I know I've been bad about getting around to my recaps, but oh, this year has been good. We've fought, we've made up, we've shared fears, we've dreamed big. Mr. B encouraged me to quit the job I hated so much and start my own business. And I did. And he's helped me every step of the way.

So today, we celebrated one year! When I woke up this morning, we had tons of facebook messages from family and friends congratulating us. I said, "It's like it's our birthday or something!" and he said, "It IS our birthday! It's the birthday of our family!" Awwww.

Being just as cash-strapped as we were last year when planning our wedding (possibly even more so), we tried to plan a day that wouldn't cost us too much money. We started by going out to lunch at a local Italian restaurant, Marcella's. Then we went across the street to honor our Paper Anniversary buy buying a couple books at Barnes & Noble. Continuing with the paper theme, we headed to order some prints of wedding pictures (which we plan to frame and hang around our house tomorrow).

And of course, we had to eat the top tier of our wedding cake. Here's what we looked like cutting our cake one year ago:

Photo by Lian Dziura

And here's the top tier of our cake today!

A little the worse for the wear after 12 months triple wrapped in cellophane, trapped in a tupperware and stored in my uncle's commercial grade freezer.

So, funny story ... when Mr. Bunny and I were getting ready to cut our cake on the wedding day, I suddenly realized that we hadn't talked about this before. He had no idea how little I wanted cake smashed in my face at that moment. As we were being pushed toward our cake and everyone gathered around to watch, I turned to Mr. B and hissed at him in a witchy tone "Do NOT smash cake in my face!" Then we both smiled like nothing had happened and went through the motions.

Afterward, I apologized to him about the way I said that. As much as I didn't want it to be, our wedding was pretty stressful for me. If we had talked it out ahead of time and planned on smashing just a little cake on each other's faces, I would have been totally fine. But just NOT knowing what he was going to do at that point was too much for me to handle. Mr. B confessed to me that he was bummed out that I wouldn't let him. Poor guy, unable to participate in one of the wedding traditions he was most looking forward to!

So after we fed each other cake today, guess what we did?

He got me good! (Don't worry, Mr. B got a faceful of cake, too.) And here are the cake's remains:

As Mr. B has never been a big fan of cake, I also got us this deliciousness:

A Reese's Cup Blizzard cake from DQ. Yes, it looks like a 10 year old decorated it. I'm pretty sure it will taste good, though.

Mr. Bunny needs me to run to the store to get lighter fluid so we can cook turkey burgers on the grill, so I'll leave you with a question he asked me this morning: What do you (or did you, if you're already married) imagine yourself doing on your one year anniversary?

Bunny Bachelorette, Part II

At the end of Bunny Bachelorette, Part I, I left you all guessing where we headed for the party.

If you guessed bowling, you were right!


Hmm ... which one is mine?

We headed out to a small town outside Columbus, Plain City, for our bowling excursion. The bowling alley there is small and quiet, usually. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere.


Once we got there, we hung up our fancy shoes ...



... and exchanged them for bowling shoes. We looked sooooo good. ;)

Right girls?

Sister Bunny gave me a whole roll of quarters and told me to take over the jukebox just in time for cosmic bowling!



It was a bachelorette party, so of course I kept the pop music rollin'. Britney, Christina, and the Backstreet Boys were all invited.


Being the awesome maid of honor that she is, Sister Bunny also bought me a couple rounds of rum and coke. What? Just cause hardly anyone else was drinking didn't mean I couldn't. I'm a lightweight, so those two drinks made me tipsy. As an unexpected side effect, my bowling drastically improved throughout the night. It was the only time I've ever bowled a turkey!



I rarely dance, but this occasion called for it. The other girls had a good time, too, I think.


My cousin rocks the air guitar. Oh yes.

And a shot of all the girls together!

After we wrapped up our evening of bowling, we headed back to the house that held our ginormous fort, where we built a bonfire outside, ate s'mores, skinny dipped in a private pond, and stayed up past our bedtimes. It was excellent.

Consider this blog post proof that you don't need alcohol or plastic penises to have an awesome bachelorette party (but the booze might just make you a better bowler!).

Wanna tell me about the best bachelorette party you've ever been to? I'd love to hear about it!

Bunny Bachelorette -- Part 1

Now that all the drama is out of the way, it's time for the fun stuff!

Sister Bunny rolled in to town one week before the wedding and managed to get together a kickin' bachelorette party while I was at work that day.

Keep in mind, we had several underage attendees and many others who don't drink, so our fun was (mostly) adrenaline generated.

The Bunny bridesmaids kept me in the dark about the party plans, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I showed up at my cousins house after work that Friday, and this is what I saw:


See those blankets tacked up along the ceiling? Yes, that is one GINORMOUS slumber-party style fort! Of course they focused the decor on blue and pink, the main wedding colors.

After oohing and aahhing at the amazing fort, the first thing on my agenda was to get my fancy duds on. My girls brought me a little something extra to wear, too!

Feather boas are so in this year, dahling.

The girls had some fun activities for us to do while we waited for everyone to show up ...


Coloring pages from princess coloring books. :) SO FUN. And old skool.


You can see how excited I was. And also what excellent color-ers my friends are.



They wrote me goofy and sweet notes on their pictures. I have them all saved and am going to scrapbook these at some point. (Whoever colored this thought it looked like swaddling clothes, I guess? Also note her frankenstein/skunk hair.)

Then it was time for me to surprise my girls right back. I got them all presents ...

Ring Pops! I figured if I got to enjoy my bling, they should get some too, right? Honey Bunny and Erma love a good ring pop.


As does Sister Bunny. Ooh la la!

Once everyone arrived, it was time to roll. Of course, the girls wanted to make sure I didn't know where we were headed, so they put some preventative measures in place.


Don't I look fantastic? Mr. Bunny says this is one of his favorite photos of me ever. Thanks, Mr. B. :P

I have to admit, I have a pretty good sense of direction, so even with the blindfold on, I had a fairly good idea of where we were headed. They had to take some extra turns to throw me off.

P.S. Like my Pretty Pretty Princess crown? I loved that game when I was a kid, so Honey Bunny and I bought a new version a couple years ago just for kicks.

This is getting really long, so you're going to have to wait to find out where we ended up. Any guesses? All I'm going to say is that this party was right up my alley. :)

BBC pause: Anxiety, Fear and the Holy Spirit

I feel the need to explain a little more thoroughly about the role that my religious beliefs played in Runaway Bride, Parts I and II.

You already know that I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder about a year before our wedding. It was a huge step for me to recognize that most of the time, what I was feeling was anxiety based in physiology and not much else.

Many types of modern Christian thinking put a lot of emphasis on "experiencing God" -- letting spirituality touch our emotions. That's not a bad thing. I've had some beautiful sprititual-emotional experiences.

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But too often, even after my diagnosis, I've let my tendency toward anxiety and emotions overtake my more rational side. At times, I've wrongly believed what I was feeling was what some Christians would call "the leading of the Holy Spirit," when in fact, what was going on was nothing more than wishful thinking or just plain old cold feet.

I don't believe that the pastor's message on Father's Day Sunday and Mr. Bunny's absence from church was a sign from God that we weren't meant to be together. It just was an incident that reinforced one of the fears I had about our relationship. I gave that fear too much power -- so much that I believed it was from God.

This quote from the book Julie of the Wolves has stuck with me through the years, and I've given it far too much weight in my life:

"When fear seizes, change what you are doing. You are doing something wrong.”

I disagree. Feeling afraid doesn't necessarily mean you are doing something wrong. Feeling afraid means you are feeling afraid. Running from whatever it is you are afraid of isn't necessarily the answer. Sometimes, the solution instead is to drain fear of its power by acknowledging it, confronting it head on, and analyzing it.

Talking to Mr. Bunny, hearing his response to my concerns, seeing how sensitive he was to me -- these things were all enough to calm my heart and helped me know that Mr. B would be a willing partner as we worked on our relationship with God and with each other in the coming years.

There's not much more I can say on the subject. It all comes down to your personal beliefs about God and psychology. I can only tell you my own experience and let you know that not once since Mr. Bunny and I got married have I questioned whether I made the right choice. I love him more and more every day, and I'm convinced that I'm right in the center of where God wants me to be.

BBC: Runaway Bride, Part II (14 days)

(Read Part I)

This two-part post is called Runaway Bride, but at this point in the story, I looked more like this

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than like this.

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I was standing in Mr. Bunny's living room with tears streaming down my face, ready to break up with him.

I'd practiced my speech, but I was unable to say anything. All I could do was cry and hold out the engagement ring.

He sat up, confused. He was, as I recall, gentle.

"What's wrong, honey? Tell me what's wrong?"

He wouldn't take the ring. He tried to make me put it back on, but I wouldn't. I set it on the coffee table.

Together, we went outside and sat on his front porch. At some point, I wrested control of my emotions enough to explain the story.

Mr. B sat silently and listened to my tale -- how I sat in church waiting and waiting for him as the pastor preached about being a man of God ... and he wasn't there to stand up.

As I spoke, I saw Mr. Bunny's face soften.

"I'm sorry, hon. I can only imagine how that must have felt. To be waiting for me while the pastor said those things. And I was at home asleep."

He said he wanted to be that man standing up at the front of the church. And that he'd gone to bed early so that he would wake up in time to meet me, only he didn't wake up. I could see that he felt awful about what happened

It wasn't enough, of course, for him to say that. I kissed him and told him I loved him, but I wouldn't put that ring back on. Not yet.

I didn't want to face the questions from friends and family, so together we made a plan that we'd say he needed to take my engagement ring to be engraved (that actually was our original plan, since my wedding band is 3/4 open work). Instead, I wore my wedding band while Mr. Bunny and I talked and prayed about whether getting married was the right thing to do. I'm so sorry I lied to you, hive, but at the time, I couldn't live up to what was really going on.

Four days later he got down on one knee (for the first time, by the way ;) ) and asked again. And I said yes ... again.

I'd remembered what it was that drew me to Mr. B in the first place -- not that he was the perfect man that I always thought I would marry, but that he longs to be that man. He's a person who loves me, and who wants to walk through life with me, striving together to be the people that God wants us BOTH to be.

Because in spite of all the tears, all the indecision, all the times he thought I was going to cut off contact with him for good, Mr. Bunny never stopped loving me in all the best ways. He was never mean, never impatient, never once raised his voice at me, or told me I was being ridiculous, or acted angry for keeping him in limbo. I knew he was the right man because of these things, not because he shows up for church on Sundays.

And that's why I married Mr. B. He is the perfect husband for me, and I will kick your booty if you try to tell me otherwise. ;)

photo by Julian Allen

Previously, on the Bunny Bridal Countdown:

The Showers (30+ days)
Dress disaster (28 days)
Dress decision (25 days)
Bunny goes Playboy (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part I (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part II
Hoppin’ to my hairdo
The part where everything went wrong
Runaway Bride, Part I

BBC: Runaway Bride, Part I (14 days)

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This was me, two weeks before my wedding day.

Ok, so remember way back when I was still a new blogger here, before I got married?

I wrote this big, long post about how Mr. Bunny and I were fantastic together, even though I was very doubtful of our relationship at times. And how it was mostly about me and my anxiety disorder, not about Mr. Bunny.

Well, I have a confession.

*ahem*

Two days after I wrote that post -- the one that so many of you thanked me for writing -- I drove over to Mr. B's apartment, stood before him in tears, and handed back my engagement ring.

Here's the story:

We went our separate ways on Saturday night, saying we'd meet up for church the next morning, Father's Day. That morning, I was in church. Mr. Bunny was not. The sermon, it turned out, was about being a man of God, the one quality I most wanted in a husband. At the end, the pastor called for the men in the congregation who wanted to be better husbands and fathers to come forward for prayer.

I sat motionless, refusing to turn my head, praying that my fiance had slipped into the sanctuary a few minutes later than I. I wanted to see him come forward and ask for prayer. I was looking for a confirmation that Mr. B was indeed "Mr. Right" -- the man God had for me.

This might sound stupid to those of you who aren't spiritual or religious, but I firmly believed in that moment that if he didn't come forward, it was a sign that we weren't meant to be together. That we never should have been.

He never came forward.

I cried the whole way to his apartment, steeling myself for what was to come. I prepared myself for his tears, for begging. I readied my explanation for why I was breaking up with him -- for real this time.

And then I was there, standing over him, holding out the ring with tears streaming down my face.

He was asleep on his living room sofa while my heart was breaking. I had to say his name loudly to wake him.

And then he opened his eyes and sat up, and I prepared to launch into the most difficult speech I think I'll ever give in my life.

To be continued ...

Previously, on the Bunny Bridal Countdown:

The Showers (30+ days)
Dress disaster (28 days)
Dress decision (25 days)
Bunny goes Playboy (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part I (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part II
Hoppin' to my hairdo
The part where everything went wrong

BBC: The part where everything went wrong (17 days)

Alright. I've stalled out in telling you the story of the Bunny Bridal Countdown, leaving you in suspense after my hair trial, 18 days away from my wedding. I'm sorry.

But there's a good reason for why I've avoided the next step in my tale for so long. This is the part where everything started to go wrong. *covers face in hands*

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I could blame it on a lot of things. For one, my little brother had a very serious health issue in the months leading up to our wedding and my family was focused, more than anything, on getting him better. A lot of my DIY projects, started with great intentions, fell by the wayside, only to be remembered in the hustle and bustle of the last two weeks.

Second, with so much stress, not even my standard levels of medication were enough to combat the anxiety I was experiencing. I feel so, so bad for what Mr. Bunny had to endure during the last two weeks before our wedding. I was totally irrational, overly weepy and basically a total mess. He was a total gentleman through it all, of course.

What exactly went down? Here's one example:

A routine call to check in with my florist revealed that we had failed to order any centerpieces at all.

WHAT?!

I guess we'd said when we originally talked to her that we'd discuss them later, but apparently we never got around to it. Oops. After a 5 minute panic attack and emergency phone call to my mother, we decided to semi-DIY centerpieces using white roses from Costco. *whew* Problem solved.

There is SO much less drama in that paragraph than there was surrounding that incident in real life. Honestly, it exhausts me just thinking about how worked up I was during those last two weeks.

In my next post, I'll tell you the story about how Mr. Bunny and I almost didn't get married. Yep. Seriously. Just you wait, folks. It's a doozy.

Previously, on the Bunny Bridal Countdown:

The Showers (30+ days)
Dress disaster (28 days)
Dress decision (25 days)
Bunny goes Playboy (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part I (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part II
Hoppin' to my hairdo