I think I may have found the dress ... or two. My mom came into town Friday night and today we went bridal gown shopping. My sister, mom, and girlfriend Tish started off at The Wedding Chapel in Crystal. It was great. I tried on 2-dozen dresses that didn't fit me and had to envision how awesome it would look on me. Lucky for us we have a sense of humor about it. I mean really why would your sample dresses be so small? I was looking forward to trying on the dresses as my coworker had great things to say. Her recommendation, "Great store, lots of selection, friendly staff, but be careful, you get shocked a lot." Great marketing, Come try our beautiful dresses and get a static electricity shock every five minutes! It was great though. Penny our sales associate rocked. She was helpful and let us do our own thing. An hour and a half later it was time for lunch. We headed over to Salut off of 50th and France in Edina since our next stop was Brides of France (thanks Betsy) or, as I like to call it BOF. I had a yummy Knife and Fork Club (chicken, bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato on ciabatta bread) with super good fries. After lunch we walked across the street to Brides of France. I didn't see anything I liked at that location so we decided to check out the Hennepin Avenue location and to my surprise I found the dress. After trying on so many dresses that didn't make me feel great, the first dress I tried on at BOF I loved. Then I looked at the price tag and didn't love it so much. The second dress I tried on, I loved and loved the price a little more than the first. Ryan ... do not look at the pictures below. You need to be surprised.

PICTURES HAVE BEEN REMOVED.

I just love the back, there are those faux buttons from the middle of the back all the way down the train and they aren't just one right after the other, they are in groups of three and it looks really cool. The dress is so light. I love it way better than any of the dresses I tried on at David's Bridal. It just felt right. I know that's super weird to say, but it did. Hopefully after thinking about it, I won't change my mind. I'm excited. I'm going to see if another shop carries the dress and maybe has it in ivory for me to try on to make sure I still like it. There's a shop in Richfield and one in Hopkins that I could check out. At BOF they only had it in white.

I'm getting super excited for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to Ryan's mom and dad and my mom and dad meeting for the first time. I'm a little nervous, but I think most of my nerves come from hosting Thanksgiving with Ryan. We are definitely ambitious. My mom will be here to help to help me, as I am a little stupid when it comes to cooking. Ryan's going to be making something and I'll be making something. Ryan's mom let us borrow the slow cooker which is super cool, can cook up to a 22 lb turkey. We have a turkey and breast. I think we'll be set!

Work was super stressful these past couple of weeks. We had our big annual party last Saturday. I was in charge of it. People don't realize all the work that goes into planning the event and day of event stuff. Ryan as usual is a freaking rock star. I love him so much. I swear I would not be able to put on the events without him. He's my rock. He's my helper. He picks up where I leave off and he just knows what to do to help me. It's great. I'm now working on our next event ... the sales incentive trip to Florida. Joy. I don't think we'll be going this year, which is going to make me a little more stressed in planning it since I won't be there to make sure everything is going well. The skills I'm developing at work have really helped in our personal life with the wedding planning. So that's cool.

Random ... I swore, to myself, that I would never watch The Office. I don't really know why, I just decided that was a bandwagon I didn't want to jump on. After years of internal protest and eye rolling at everyone who ever referenced The Office, I am now in love with The Office. Ryan and I are on season 3 and just finished watching the episode where the Stamford branch merges with the Scranton office. I love Jim. The jokes that he does on Dwight are hilarious. The faxes from the Stamford office to Dwight on Dwight's stationary are genius. I think Pam is super super cute and that they did an excellent job casting her. I wish I could watch more of The Office now, but I'll have to wait until Ryan gets home.

Two more random things ... took mom and Melissa to the Como Park observatory to show them the flowers that I couldn't remember the names of from the Sunken Garden, they changed out the flowers two weeks ago, DOH! It snowed this morning and it was really pretty on the skylights in the bedroom.

My apologies for sounding like an idiot with all the supers. It was a fun day!