Let’s take a moment to recap the last year, just to get everyone up to speed. Ready? Buckle up.

Last May (2006), to the protest of a loving boyfriend, I accepted an MBA internship with Dell, packed up my car, and headed to Austin, TX for 12 weeks (well.. more like 14 if you count travel time/prep weeks). On our 3 year anniversary (also know as Memorial Day weekend), the boyfriend (hence to be known as the engineer) came to visit me in Austin for some fun in the sun. It was at the Omni hotel in Downtown Austin (where we happened to be ‘residing’ for the weekend) that He popped the question (on the day of our 3 year anniversary, on one knee, very traditional). Of course, I said yes and thus began the adventure I call wedding planning.

Fast forward a few months. August 2006, I’m back in Knoxville, both the engineer and I are back in school (I’m finishing up my last semester of my MBA degree, he’s working on his second to last semester of a Masters in Engineering). I really thought that I could do the whole school-job hunt-wedding planning things. Turns out, I’m not that good. I had been given an offer to return to Dell, but Boy really didn’t want to move to Austin. I can’t blame him. He had a career already started and I wasn’t working, plus I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my “life”, so moving for a company, not a career, didn’t make much sense. However, with graduation approaching, I knew that I had to get a job. The savings account was looking pretty sad. And to top it all off.. we had to plan a wedding.

Fast forward 4 months to December 2006. I finally graduated with my MBA in Logistics. I would love to say that I’m done with school forever, but we all know that forever is a LONG time. I accepted a job with a Fortune 500 company here in Knoxville as a Logistics Business Analyst. It was at that time that I realized, “Holy ‘beep’, I’ve got a full time real job…. How on earth am I going to plan this wedding AND work!?!?!?” Enter wedding planner Sonya Scott from “A Perfect Day”. Yes, you’re reading it here. I, one of the most picky-precise-hard-to-please-perfectionists, hired a wedding planner. At first I thought it was going to be hard letting someone else do some of the major planning, but it’s actually been a huge relief. Sonya has been a lifesaver and we’ve only been working together for around 6 months now. She’s been great at keeping us on schedule and anticipating our questions and needs. Who knows where I’d be without her right now. (Actually, you probably don’t want to know where I’d be)

Fast forward another 5 months to May 2007. The Engineer took the PE (Professional Engineers) test in April and should get the results back in late July. He also managed (I say that with a laugh, since his GPA was 3.95, but it took him three years) to finally graduate with his Masters in Civil Engineering. This is the first time since we started dating in 2003 that we’ve both been working full time and neither one of us is in school. It’s nice because we come home, cook dinner, watch some TV, do some house work, and then get ready to do it all again. We don’t, however, have to write papers, study for tests, or prepare presentations. It’s GLAMOROUS!

That pretty much catches us up on the past year. I can’t believe that we’ve been engaged for a year and in 11 months, we’ll FINALLY be married. Who would have thought? It will be here before we know it (we have been invited to five weddings this year, and besides ours, we know of two others next year!).

S