welcome to my planning bio!  if i've jacked some of your stuff without credit, please let me know <3 you can find me on the OC & LA boards, as well as weddingbee, projectwedding, and indiebride.

we're just trying to plan the best damn party EVER.

feel free to email me at briannie09@gmail.com ;)

12/17/08... ENGAGEMENT PICS ARE HERE!

our wonderful photog, brian khang, just blogged our e-pic session from this past weekend (only 3 days later! boy works FAST!). I. LOVE. THEM. so much. we went to 3 places that meant a lot to us (angels stadium, where i really started to become a baseball fan... thanks to our friend/officiant brian for getting us in; GGHS, where it all began TEN YEARS AGOOOOOOO; and old towne orange, where we celebrated our engagement and have had a lot of fun times).  i'll quit yammering and let the pictures do the talking...

we got to go to so many "authorized personnel only" spots in angels stadium (the rocks where the fireworks are shot off, the promotional corona beach chairs (where NO ONE!! get to sit), in the bullpen, so many more...), reminisced at good ol' GGHS (tried to get to the E building but the damn place was on lock down!), and wandered through old towne orange for a more urban feel.  our photog and his fiance were troopers-- 3 locations in 3 hours is not an easy task!

you can see the original blog post here: Brian Khang | BLOG

how we met:

 FH + i circa 1999

FH and i go back... WAY back (1998, to be exact).  it was the night of our high school's homecoming game. some of my friends convinced me to ditch the dance and go with them to their church rock'n'bowl youth group, which was followed by a lock-in. i'm not religious at all, but decided to come with. after doing our pep band performance during the football game (yes, i was a band nerd, and YES, i am very proud of it!), we changed into our street clothes and headed to the church.

FH had a similar tale... his best friend was a member of the church and convinced FH + some other friends to go to rock'n'bowl, as well. when we arrived at the church, i noticed a group of grumpy-looking older boys (FH was a senior + i was a sophomore). i didn't pay much attention to them.

once we got to the bowling alley, i went on my merry way, bowling (and completely sucking at it), laughing, bowling some more... finally, it was getting late (about 1am) and i decided to sit down.

so you know how the seats at the lanes are back to back? well, FH (who was bowling in the lane next to mine) decided to make his big move... by sitting behind me. didn't say a word, didn't do a thing... just sat there. as i moved my arm up to lean against the back of the chair, i noticed something fuzzy against my arm. it was FH's hair. so i started to play with/pet it (i have no idea why), but we didn't really talk.

after the bowling ended, i thought i could get to know him at the lock-in. unfortunately, he didn't come because he had to get up early the next morning for a COMPUTER SHOW (nerds, we both are).  FH's best friend (now, one of his groomsmen) eventually got my number from my friend who brought me to the church event (who is his sister... confused yet?) and gave it to FH. a few days later, we had our first date (mini-golf followed by dinner at subway) and then started "going steady" about a month later (november 20, 1998). we've been pretty much inseperable ever since. 

-------------------------

the proposal:

december 15, 2007: i had a feeling that this would be "the night" because of the little things... well, there were a couple of big things that let me know it was coming:

    (a) we had gone ring shopping about 2 months prior

    (b) we had been together for over NINE FRIGGIN YEARS

and here's the little thing:

    (c) he asked me if i wanted to grab dinner that night... but on tuesday!

you see, we rarely plan things in advance (if ever). so by asking me on a tuesday afternoon, "what do you want to do on saturday? i know, let's go to dinner!" it made me think something was up.

except, dinner never came. we had a hugeeee lunch at the counter and felt no need to eat dinner, so i thought that i was getting excited over nothing. as a "test," i asked if he wanted to have some friends over (because there was no way he was going to propose in front of his buddies, right?!). but he said, "sure!" so i just kinda did my own thing, wrapping presents on his living room floor (it was 10 days before xmas).

here i am... wrapping presents and not suspecting a thing

he was sitting on the couch, doing some work stuff on his laptop. before he shut down, he asked if i needed to check my email, and i told him i did (this is all normal stuff, so i wasn't suspecting anything at all). little did i know, he was sending ME an email while he was pretending to do "work stuff." so when i checked my email, i saw one from him that said: "hey! check out this site really quick!" 

the link directed me to this page that was set up kinda like a slideshow/flash presentation. some words appeared on the screen: "they say a picture is worth 1000 words." i thought i would start seeing pictures of fuzzy bunnies, cute puppies, adorable kittens, and then BAM! one of those scary monsters would pop up on the screen and i would freak out and FH would have a good laugh.  instead... pictures of US through the years started to appear. us at his senior year winter formal... us at his senior prom... us at big bear... i just kept looking at him, then looking at the screen, then looking at him, then looking back at the screen. finally, the last picture was of him, on one knee, holding the ring.  i turned to look at him and HE WAS DOING THE SAME EXACT THING. it was perfect. i was in tears at this point, trembling, shaking, crying, smiling... then he asked me to marry him. of course i said yes!

Watch the post-proposal on YouTube.

we then called our parents (who didn't pick up, so we drove out and told them in person) and texted our friends the good news. we ended up at our old watering hole (paul's cocktails at the orange circle, woot woot) for a quick celebration (and i celebrated a little too much).

very puffy-eyed after saying yes!

oh, and i can't forget to show off THEEEE RIIIIIIINGGGG:

so that's our story... horray!