I wrote a post summarizing general life updates, which included marrying my husband earlier in October. I wanted to include everything wedding-related in this post, versus writing multiple posts. If you’re more of a fan of my geeky content, this might be the post to skip since it’s more of a life update. However, I was able to incorporate some geeky aspects into our wedding.

Saturday was a partly cloudy day with 70-degree weather. Our party arrived at Four Daughters’ Vineyard & Winery at 10 AM. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t on edge for most of the morning. Being a bride, I had gone through in my head what could go wrong. A vendor doesn’t show, a guest arrives who forgot to RSVP, or I forgot to bring something to Four Daughters. As the morning continued, I started to feel at ease. The hair and makeup artists I picked did a great job. I went with PrimpedMN, who specializes in on-site hair and makeup services. All my bridesmaids looked stunning. As we were getting ready, we played music in the getting-ready area while the hair and makeup team worked. The hair and makeup artist was dancing along and talking with us, which helped create the fun getting-ready environment.

Besides the hair and makeup team, our floral arrangements were fantastic. Fox and Fern Floral made all of our floral arrangements. All the flowers were locally grown. My husband and I aren’t huge flower people, so we didn’t have strong opinions as to what floral arrangements we wanted. There was a floral arrangement on our arch that was so beautiful and helped create the wedding I was dreaming of. All the wedding bouquets were beautifully arranged. My bouquet was huge! It got heavy carrying it after a while. Our florist did a great job.

As the morning ticked by, it was time to get ready for the ceremony! I put on my dress and it fit perfectly. Our ceremony began at 3 PM and because the weather was nice, we set up in the middle of the vineyard. As I reminisce on this part of the day, I think about how it was a blur. I remember lining up with my brother as he was the one to walk me down the aisle. We waited for our special song and then we started to walk.

Our ceremony was about fifteen minutes long. As my husband and I planned our script, we knew we didn’t want to stand in front of everyone for a long time. I have been a guest at weddings where the ceremony was thirty minutes or longer. I remember feeling impatient. I didn’t want my guests to feel this way, plus short and to the point can be just as special as a longer ceremony. There was a brief hiccup in the ceremony regarding poem readings, but once we got through that, everything was smooth. My husband and I kissed, signed the paperwork, and walked down the aisle hand in hand, ready to begin our lives together.

After the ceremony, we hosted a cocktail hour for our guests while we took pictures. It’s nice because Four Daughters has these garage doors that open out, which allowed us to set up yard games, and guests could wander the vineyard during cocktail hour. Once we finished the pictures, it was time for the grand entrance. My husband and I were adamant about doing the grand entrance. With some convincing, I was able to get my husband to agree to march into the dining hall with the Doctor Who theme song. When my husband and I first started dating, Doctor Who was the first show we watched together, so it has a special place in my heart. Once we sat down, dinner began.

The other highlight of our meal choices was the dessert! We went with Nothing Bundt Cakes. I wanted cupcakes versus a wedding cake because I thought they were small and cute. We had several flavors, including pumpkin, red velvet, vanilla, and chocolate. They were a hit. Everyone I talked to said the cupcakes were decadent. Cupcakes were the perfect choice in my book because we ordered enough that our guests could try multiple flavors. Plus, we had a few kids at our wedding who would probably eat more than one.

Dancing began at 7 – 7:30 PM-ish after my husband and I had our first dance. We danced to Everything I Need by Skylar Grey. My husband picked this song from the Aquaman movie with Jason Momoa, which I felt was fitting for us since we are big DC fans. The song was beautiful, and our DJ did a great job at setting the tone. We went with Ever After Entertainment for our wedding. Brent was our DJ, and he did a great job. Once our first dance was done, Brent continued the energy all night long. He made our night extra special and took us into account when picking songs.

Throughout the night, we had a photo booth for guests to take pictures. We even had late-night pizza prepared for the guests who stayed with us all night. Finally, the garage doors stayed open into the night, so guests could cool off in between dancing. Once midnight hit, it was time to pack up and end the night. I remember going to sleep at 1:30 AM and having the best night of sleep in a long time.

My wedding was everything I wanted it to be. It was special for us, and I’m glad our most important guests were able to attend. My husband and I have been together for seven years, and now we have started to celebrate our forever. I became a Bodmer on October 2nd, 2021, and I’m so glad I did.

It’s been a hot minute since I last wrote a post. I’m glad to be back, as I don’t foresee any barriers to writing regularly again. I enjoyed my break and not feeling bound to pre-writing posts every week. I wanted to share a couple of life updates now that I have had time to unwind.

Wedding Bliss

On Saturday, October 2nd, 2021, I married the love of my life at Four Daughters Winery in Spring Valley, MN. My now husband proposed on May 4th, 2019, which was both Star Wars Day & Free Comic Book Day. During the wedding planning process, we decided to get married in 2021, which allowed us to be stress-free during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I couldn’t have asked for a better wedding. It was partly cloudy, Fall colors were showing, and we were able to get married outside in the middle of the vineyard. My husband is my life partner, and I’m thrilled to make it official.

Visiting Disneyland

My husband and I are planning a huge honeymoon trip to Europe next year. We wanted to wait to ensure that we wouldn’t have to quarantine for two weeks. I still wanted to go on a trip to celebrate our marriage. We planned to fly into LA, stay a few days in San Francisco, and I wanted to spend at least one day in Disneyland. This will be my first trip to Disneyland; however, my husband has been to Disney World before. I’m planning to spend extra time at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, along with visiting the newly opened Avengers Campus. I have also heard Disneyland during Halloween is all decked out with pumpkins this time of year. As someone who is a big fan of Halloween, I’m looking forward to seeing a Spooky version of Disneyland.

Back to Reality

I’m relieved to be done with wedding planning. Both my husband and I have spent long hours crafting the perfect wedding, so it’s a nice feeling to be done. I have been spending my time catching up on Critical Role, reading spooky books, and playing video games. I’m looking forward to Critical Role‘s third campaign premiering towards the end of October, although I’m not halfway through their first campaign. I’m currently reading The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I’m into it. It’s been nice to focus on my interests and happiness versus the wedding.

I’m excited to be back writing regular posts again! I have missed spending the time writing posts, and I look forward to catching up on what I have missed.

Last weekend, my fiancé and I drove to Green Bay, WI, for a wedding. Green Bay is in the Northeast part of Wisconsin, and it’s somewhere I had never been to before. With my fiancé’s family living in Wisconsin, they are all big Green Bay Packers fans. The Green Bay Packers play at Lambeau Field, which is a pretty historic Football stadium. My fiancé and I decided to schedule a tour of Lambeau before attending the wedding. For someone who isn’t a major Football fan, the tour was pretty interesting.

The stadium was HUGE. Our tour guide said Lambeau was the fifth-largest Football field. Before stepping on the field, there were several pieces of artwork displayed. This included a piece of art depicting the “Ice Bowl.” The Ice Bowl was a Packers game in which the wind chill was low, and players were freezing as they watched the game. Lambeau is an outdoor field that has its benefits and drawbacks, including the potential for snow. Another piece of artwork featured bicycle wheels. It’s a tradition that Packer players, when starting training camp, ride on children’s bicycles. This has been a famous tradition due to kids biking to see the Packer players train during the off-season. There’s a lot of history tied to the Packers that I wasn’t aware of. It made touring Lambeau feel more like a museum than a sports stadium.

During the tour, we could walk around the field to at least see what it looks like from the player’s perspective. I think this was my favorite part of the tour. My fiancé and I lucked out because we had great weather on the day we toured. It led to some cute pictures of us that the tour guide took.

I wouldn’t classify myself as a Football fan, yet I thoroughly enjoyed the Lambeau Field tour. It was something fun to do while we waited for the wedding to start, and it was great exercise walking around the stadium. I may never be a fully devoted Packers fan, but I can at least respect the history of the team.

For Planet Comicon, I set a budget. I knew if I didn’t set a budget for myself, I would overspend. Before the convention, I pulled out $100 in cash and told myself that I would only spend this much unless I saw anything I had to have. While roaming around the con, I made notes on anything I wanted to revisit. This allowed me to stick to my budget and purchase merch I was satisfied with. I wanted to share my haul from the con.

Plume by K. Lynn Smith Volume #1

This was my first purchase of the con. I’m a big fan of K. Lynn Smith and her work in comics. I helped back For Goodness Sake on Kickstarter, which is a series I adored. Smith is mostly recognized for her webcomic, Plume, which exploded in popularity. At Smith’s booth, she had the omnibus of Plume along with each printed volume. I decided to purchase the first volume to see if Plume is a series I would be interested in.

Unstable Unicorns & Llamas Unleashed

My final purchase was at TeeTurtle’s booth. I had been eyeing purchasing my copy of Unstable Unicorns after playing it at a game night with friends. Unstable Unicorns is a game that’s perfect to bring to a brewery because it doesn’t take up much space and it’s easy to teach to friends. I bought the NSFW edition. Along with Unstable Unicorns, I also bought Llamas Unleashed. I have no idea what the game is about. I saw it and wanted it because who doesn’t want a game featuring Llamas?

Attending Planet Comicon meant a lot to me. In addition to being able to go to a con post-2020, it was nice to be able to support smaller businesses and creators.

Last weekend, I drove to Kansas City, MO, to attend Planet Comicon. This was my first convention since COVID. Before the pandemic, I attended C2E2 in February, right before lockdown began. This trip was spontaneous as I only planned it a couple of weeks prior. While I understand the pandemic isn’t over, I felt this was worth the risk. I was vaccinated, wore a mask the entire time, and tried to limit the time I was near people. I felt Planet Comicon did the best they could, and I was grateful that this con was able to run. If there’s anything I missed in 2020, it was conventions.

Planet Comicon required masks. I didn’t see anyone take off their mask or wear it down to their chin. It seemed everyone took the mask requirement seriously. The only other improvement I could see was that Planet Comicon could have required vaccinations. I brought my vaccination card in case someone wanted to see it. Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect everyone, including the immunocompromised. I know Lollapalooza required vaccinations or a negative COVID-19 test, and I wish PlanetComicon did this too.

My favorite part of Planet Comicon was the photo ops! There was a display of Predator, a LEGO Baby Yoda, and the Ghostbusters were there with the Ecto-1. There were cars from Supernatural; however, I had to pay extra for that, and I’m not a big fan of the show. I had a fun time running around and taking endless masked selfies. I will say, I found myself taking fewer pictures of cosplayers. I think the pandemic had something to do with that. With the masks, it’s more difficult to go to someone or get their attention. I had more than enough fun hanging out by myself and doing what I wanted to do.

I would say the only disappointment was the lack of panels. I like attending panels because they allow me to sit down and relax. I walked 17,500 steps on Friday! I did sit in on the Star Wars Costuming panel about putting together Star Wars cosplays, but nothing else in the programming caught my eye. After spending my cash, I ended up leaving early because I didn’t see anything else worth staying for.

Reflecting on Planet Comicon, I’m thrilled that this was able to happen. I felt hopeful for the future of conventions. I felt so happy waiting in line and walking around the show floor. Conventions are my happy place, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

This past weekend, I had no plans. This was the first weekend when I could do what I wanted whenever I wanted. Planning a wedding has made my weekends more unavailable, much to the surprise of no one. It’s gotten to the point where I started to feel mentally drained. I would get out of work, eat dinner, work out, and then spend an hour or two browsing Instagram. It felt like I didn’t have the energy to read, play Animal Crossing, or watch Critical Role. This weekend helped lift my spirits emotionally, mentally, and physically.

One thing I did this weekend was finish a book I was reading. I read The Shadow Mission by Shamim Sarif. This is the second book in the Athena Protocol series. It was amazing to spend my day reading without interruption. It allowed me to fully commit and become enamored with the characters, the setting, and the action scenes. I went through a reading slump recently, but now this weekend has allowed me to get back into my books. My TBR pile is slowly shrinking.

Besides reading, I watched a couple of movies. On Friday, I saw The Suicide Squad, which rocked. It was the first movie I saw in theaters after the pandemic. I’m going to write my review shortly. I also watched a recently released documentary on Netflix called Pray Away. Pray Away is about gay conversion therapy and the history behind it. It also features a couple of stories from the survivors. One of the stories brought me to tears. It’s an emotional documentary, and I would highly recommend it.

Finally, I installed some new video games to play. On my PS4, I bought Far Cry 5. For PC, I installed Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water’s Edge and Death and Taxes. I wanted something else to play besides Animal Crossing.

This is a reminder to check in with yourself. I needed a break from all the plans I have upcoming. I feel so much better and more equipped to launch into my plans. From now until our wedding on October 2nd, I don’t have any more free weekends. Wish me luck!

In any personality quiz, it always asks if I’m an introvert or an extrovert. This is always tough to answer. I like being social and hanging out with my friends. However, I need to recharge. If I’m too social or have too many jam-packed social weekends, I find myself mentally exhausted. Neither introvert nor extrovert seems to fit my personality. After reading Donovan’s blog post “It’s Time to Get Rid of Introverted and Extroverted” I wanted to talk about my experience with labeling myself as either an introvert or an extrovert.

In high school, I was shy. I was insecure about every single part of myself. I wasn’t sure who I was, and I didn’t feel confident in how I looked. I still needed a social recharge now and then. I would often stay home on Fridays and watch movies with my mom because I needed a break from socializing at school. When I reminisce about this part of my life, I would have labeled myself as a shy introvert. I always thought that someone’s personality can’t change throughout their life, but this isn’t something I still believe in.

Once I graduated from high school, I went to college. Going off to college is where I was able to shine. I was able to fully explore hobbies, meet new friends, and confront some of my insecurities. I dated someone who wasn’t right for me, and after realizing this, I ended things with that person. It was empowering for me to take control of my life and recognize what I fully wanted from a partner. I started meeting friends with similar interests to me, and this led me to become more social in college. While in high school, I labeled myself as a shy introvert; now I would rank myself as an outgoing introvert.

Some find the use of labels comforting, but I’m the opposite. Trying to fit introvert, extrovert, shy, outgoing, etc., into my personality feels a bit overwhelming. I’m a unique person where I feel opposite terms apply to me. I wish we would get rid of introvert and extrovert because I think they aren’t full-encompassing personality terms. I feel very similar to Donovan and how they describe these terms. I would highly recommend reading their post I have linked, because it resonated with me enough to write my post.

Do you think introvert or extrovert are labels you use, or do you think that these are wholly unnecessary?

My fiancé has been getting back into golf. He used to golf when he was younger, and he realized how much he missed it. This led to my fiancé planning a bridal party/groomsman social at Top Golf. Top Golf is an outdoor driving range with a restaurant and bar. This social was a blast! I was happy to mix our friends and have us all hang out. If there’s anything I have learned from planning my wedding, it’s that I’m so fortunate to have my friends.

At Top Golf, we reserved two bays. Each bay can host up to six people. Top Golf is a driving range, not a full course. To help keep golfing interesting, there are various game options to help keep things competitive. Additionally, Top Golf has left-handed clubs! I’m left-handed, and I have tried playing right-handed, but it’s too awkward for me. As a beer drinker, I ordered a couple of pitchers and took turns golfing and drinking all day.

Overall, the day was a blast! It was a fun summer activity. It was perfect for mixing everyone, especially since it was two completely separate friend groups.

My dad loved Baseball. He was always watching the Minnesota Twins from his comfy recliner with our family cat, Jasmine, on his lap. I went to two Twins games with my dad before he died in 2006. Baseball will always have a special place in my heart because of the passion my dad had for the game. Most critics of Baseball say the game is boring to watch, and I get it. It’s a lot of watching for nothing to happen. It’s exactly why I love it. It’s a game to sit down, have a beer, and socialize with friends.

For those who aren’t from Minnesota, our baseball team is named after our two cities. In most states, there are at least two major cities. Our major cities in Minnesota are right next to each other, so they are often named “The Twin Cities,” hence the Minnesota Twins. Our baseball stadium when I was growing up was the Metrodome, which was a big stadium for both the Vikings and the Twins. The Metrodome collapsed one year after enough snow piled onto it. Without getting into the specifics, this led to the creation of Target Field, which is an outdoor stadium in Minneapolis.

For my friend’s birthday, we went to a Twins game. The Twins played the Houston Astros, the same team accused of cheating after winning the World Series in 2017. I find that’s important to mention because while they still kept their World Series title, they still cheated. Anyway, my friends and I went to a brewery and a cidery before the game. The Twins ended up winning the game 5-2 over the Astros.

While driving home from the game, I thought about how much my dad would have loved to see the new stadium. My dad has been gone for 15 years now, and I’m at a point in my life where I can fondly recall memories from my childhood and feel blessed that my dad was in my life. Baseball will forever be a sport that reminds me of my dad and his devotion to the Minnesota Twins.

I took a bit of a break from writing weekly posts. Writing new posts every Sunday felt like a chore, so I knew it was time to take a step back. I figured a nice way to dive back into weekly posts would be to talk about the Harry Potter bridal-themed shower I went to a couple of weeks ago.

My friend and I met in college and were roommates for a year. We bonded over our shared love of Harry Potter and other nerdy interests. She has always stayed in my life, no matter the distance, as we are a couple of states away. It was such a blast to attend.

I’m excited to get back into writing for Bizarre Brunette! I knew this break was needed, but I’m happy to be back.