And so the madness begins

Bridezilla (a portmanteau of bride and Godzilla) is a generic term used to describe a difficult, unpleasant, perfectionist bride who leaves aggravated family, friends and bridal vendors in her wake.

I hope I do not become one, but I fear that traces of it have already emerged. You have adequately been warned.

Our Story: Brandon and I met during sixth period P.E. when he was a junior and I was a sophomore. His first word to me was "Duh!" It wasn't love at first sight, but it was definitely one of those crazy young crushes where every little smile or glance was intricately taken apart and studied.

I like to say that I made the first move. We started talking over AIM (because that's how we kids do it nowadays), and I found out that he loved dark chocolate. I made my mom drive me to Ralph's so that I could get him a bar of chocolate for his birthday the next day. This was when we exchanged our first hug. Our dates consisted of movies and dinner at the Puente Hills mall. Our first kiss was in front of Johnny Rockets after watching one of the Harry Potter flicks.

Brandon left for West Point in June of 2005. The next two months, we only communicated through letters. No phone calls, emails, webcams, or texts. His sweet written words got me through being 3,000 miles away from him.

Fast forward to four and a half years into our relationship, and suddenly I'm wearing an engagement ring at twenty years old.

For whatever reason, I think Brandon and I always knew we wanted to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. I remember on our first date as we were waiting for our rides home, he asked me where I wanted to go to school. I had no clue at this point, but he told me that he wanted to attend West Point. I ran to my computer when I got home and looked up this remarkable school he wanted to go to. My heart sank when I found out that it was all the way in New York. This is when I knew there was something special going on.

I won't go into too much detail about how Brandon proposed, but it was perfectly simple, beautiful and intimate. I had been itching for a proposal for years since I knew we were going to get married, but I could not start to officially plan until we were engaged. Brandon is not great at keeping surprises so I suspected that he would propose during his Winter Leave. However, I had no idea he would propose at 3am on Christmas Day on my front door step. He even got down on one knee.

Next up:

My gorgeous ring

Introducing my bridesmaids (and bridesman)

Our wedding date and location