August 8

For some odd reason, the time stamp is off on my Yahoo account. Since it's not my main account, I am not really concerned about it. Last night, I got a message around 9:30 that was dated 08/08/09. I knew that today was the 8th-I have known today was the 8th for a while now and I didn't think anything of it until I saw the date actually written out: 08/08/09. And I felt like I had been hit with a ton of bricks.

Shortly after we started dating, James told me he never intended on getting married. Basically, he hooked me in and then dropped that bombshell. Over time, I accepted it but secretly hoped he would one day change his mind. Still, no one was more surprised than I was when he proposed after 7 years and 1 week of dating.

I was not one of those girls who had her entire wedding planned out and was just waiting for the groom to enter the picture. Since I wasn't planning on getting married, I had never really given it a lot of thought. So, when James proposed, I had no idea where to begin but I knew that we needed a date and place. And I knew that I wanted it to be outside, which did kind of limit our options.

We both really liked the idea of getting married on 12/31/09-what better way to celebrate our 10th dating anniversary than with our wedding? We also liked the idea of having it in Vegas-with the stipulation that Elvis was NOT invited. However, our guests all would have had to fly to Vegas and on a holiday, that just was not feasible. Plus, we got engaged in January 2007 and I didn't want to wait almost 3 years to get married so we were back to square one.

A couple of months later, James called me at work. He was having lunch with our best friends at a Chinese restaurant and called to confirm I was born in 1974. When I verified that yes, I was indeed born in 1974, he told me that according to the Chinese horoscope on his menu we were compatible. I told him I was glad we had the blessing of the Chinese to get married because I had been worried about that. We laughed and hung up.

Then, I found out that the number 8 is considered very lucky to the Chinese and I wanted to get married on 08-08-08. Eight has been my favorite number since I was 8. August 8th would be the 8th day of the 8th month in our 8th year together. That was a lot of good luck on our side. (I should probably point out that neither of us is remotely Chinese, but one of my dearest friends is so I decided that was close enough). But, 08-08-08 was a Friday and that was just too inconvenient for too many people and I was trying way too hard to plan everyone else's version of my wedding. So, we decided on 08-08-09. Today. Ironically, right now, "Still the One" by Orleans is playing. It is the song that was going to play after our first dance when everyone joined in.

The wedding was going to be at the Heceta Head lighthouse over on the coast, overlooking the water. But the more we looked into it, the more we realized how expensive it was going to be for our guests to travel to the coast during the height of tourist season and I couldn't do that to our loved ones. Plus, the lighthouse had a minimum guest requirement and with the travel costs, I was not sure we could meet it. So, after many conversations about it, we decided to move the wedding to the Sacramento area, which ironically, was the first place I vetoed. But, his whole family lives in that area and my family and most of our friends had to travel no matter where the wedding was. It made more sense for us to go to his family than for all of them to come to us. Plus, they were not nit-picking my every decision and making me miserable like a lot of other people were doing. But, it is really hot in Sacramento in August-too hot for an outdoor wedding, which was the only thing I never waivered on. That and purple and white as the colors.

We had also found out that his brother was being deployed to Iraq and we weren't sure if he would be back in time for an August wedding. We felt September was still cutting it close and I didn't like the dates of any of the Saturdays in 2008-we had also decided on 2008 by this point. So, by process of elimination, we ultimately chose 10/11/08 as our wedding date, with the wedding to be held at the Lake Natoma Inn in Folsom, which of course never happened. August wouldn't have either, but for some reason it is still hitting me hard that if things had turned out differently, in a number of ways, I could be at the coast right now getting ready for my wedding.