I’m so lucky to have been chosen to become an ironbride. I was so excited to play, compete, and be on television. I didn’t realize how much we would all be learning, and the people we would be meeting. The staff on this show really do care for us, and they want it to be a positive experience. I believe they really want us to learn and grow before taking this huge step in our lives. This show isn’t just about planning your wedding, but it’s about educating us all to be more knowledgable about life.

It has been so wonderful to have had a life coach. I think everyone needs one in their life. I think of helen, our life coach, as a counselor and also a good friend.  It’s like the answer is already in our head, but we all need someone to pull the idea out. Whenever I have talked to her I instantly feel calm and focused. Sometimes it’s hard not to get so overwhelmed, and at that moment you might not be thinking clearly on what you should do. So, it’s good to have someone there to open up and talk to, because just hearing yourself speak out loud, helps to figure things out.

Being an ironbride has given me insight on wedding planning ideas. There is so many different and affordable ways to have a wedding. It’s been great to meet with sponsors and to talk with the other brides about different options for a wedding. I would always get stressed out just thinking about planning my wedding, but I think I was just ignorant in figuring out where and who to start with. Being a part of this show has showed me that I won’t get overwhelmed if I just break it all down and go step by step.

I was a little nervous at first when I heard about possibly having some cooking competitions. I have always thought of myself as a bad cook, but I realized that I just haven’t had the confidence. I feel like if I’m not good at something that I should just except it and move on. So, for that reason I always insisted on my fiance to do the cooking. I guess I was too embarressed to make a meal that would come out bad or disgusting. Well, now since we have had some cooking lessons, I’m starting to feel a little more confident to try new things in the kitchen.

I feel like so far this has a been a wonderful experience, and that I’ve learned a lot. I’m a little sad about leaving my babies for eight days, but I’m excited to have this chance with the other ironbrides to experience whatever the staff have planned for us. We never know what’s up their sleeve. It should be an enjoyable eight days, and it will probably fly by. I know I will miss all the girls and hopefully we’ll all be able to keep in touch with each other.

Thankyou Joann, George, Jeff, Dave, and everyone else who is a part of the ironbrides team. I really appreciate everything you all have done for us.

We both have it in our minds, that it’s going to be an incredible day. We want everyone to enjoy themselves, and most of all we want to enjoy ourselves. When we were talking about this assignment for my blog, we both said that were most excited about the two of us actually getting married, to be standing there looking into each others eyes, saying our vows, and thinking this is really it!

My best wedding memories are the ones that made me so happy, that I couldn’t help myself but cry. I went to my cousin’s wedding, it was at a church in hampton before she had her real wedding in aruba. I was fine until the music started and she came walking down the aisle. She looked so beautiful, and so happy, all of our childhood memories came flying into my head. I was thinking of all the times as kids we would talk about our weddings when we got older, what our wedding would be like, what kind of dress we would wear. I just couldn’t help myself, I kept trying to catch my breath and stop crying, but I was just so happy for her. I think it was a mixture of feeling so proud to see her that happy, and also the realization that we weren’t kids anymore. I’ll always remember that day, it was bittersweet.

My most romantic memories of joe and I are the days that weren’t planned. The days we wouldn’t know what to do, and we would just jump in the car and go. We would always end up having so much fun. Whether it would be camping in the mountains, discovering and exploring a new town we had never been to, or traveling a few hours to go to a restaurant we had only heard about. We always have a good time together. I love that there are some nights that we go out, and we decide we would rather go back home so we can cuddle on the couch together.

We both like the same music. We like rock or rock alternative the best to listen to. I also love music that I can dance to. Our close friends have a band, and we love to go hear them play, they all usually come over to practice. They play cover songs and have their own songs as well. They’re really good. We like to try to always have music playing in our house.

Our favorite food is pretty much everything and anything. Joe could probably eat pork everyday or anything with barbeque sauce on it, and I could eat chinese food everyday. We’re not picky eaters at all, but both kind of lazy cooks. If we had the money to eat out or have someone cook for us every night, we would be in big trouble, we would be huge. Joe is a great cook and I’m all right, it’s just the process of preparing, cooking, and cleaning that gets to us.

My favorite color is blue and joe’s favorite color is green. It’s true too, I just read the question on what our favorite colors are,  and I’m sitting here in all blue and joe has on a green shirt  with his white and green hat. My son gavin would also like everyone to know that his favorite color is yellow, but we already knew this because he likes to remind us everyday. He’s such a cutie!

We don’t really get to travel that far, but we look forward to going camping every summer at Franconia Notch and swimming at echo lake. We had talked about getting married around there, but decided on being by the beach. When it has come to wedding planning, joe has put it all in my hands. At first I got annoyed, because I would ask something, and he would just say ” what ever you want ” and it made me feel like he didn’t care. Then he finally explained that we have the same ideas when it comes to things, and he knows that what I want for the wedding is what he wants for the wedding. I’m glad that he trusts me in planning our wedding, because I know what we truly want out of this wedding. A celebration!

I think everyone has some sort of problem that they deal with in their life. That’s life. My problem is that I was diagnosed with major depression. It’s a type of depression, but without the crazy highs and lows. It’s not something I usually let people know about me, just because some people might judge me before they get to know me. I found out when I was seventeen that I had this chemical disorder. People usually find out that they have depression after going through a traumatic experience, it seems to trigger it.

I remember one day when I was seventeen waking up and not knowing who I was. I had been dating my first love for about two years. He had taken over my life and I didn’t even realize it. I stopped going to school, moved in with him, stopped speaking to everyone I knew, and was being mentally and physically abused. I don’t even knew how it had happened, but it all happened so fast. I don’t have much memories from that time , because my therapist told me that I had pushed it out of my head and those memories might never come back. That day I woke up not knowing who I was, was about a month after my boyfriend had gone to jail for a sentence of five to ten years. I had been visiting him everyday until that point when I woke up and decided to get some help.

I hate that I have to be on antidepressants for the rest of my life. I tried to stop when I was pregnant with my daughter, I thought I was better seeing that I had been on it for ten years. It was awful, my anxiety, the thoughts that were going through my head, I couldn’t stop crying. My fiance finally begged me to go back on the medication. I try and stay positive and happy at all times. So, my children will do the same. No one wants to be around the downer, so I always try to keep a smile on my face. As my fiance had said to me ” Wouldn’t you rather take a pill and stay happy, than not and suffer everyday?” Which is true in my case. I’m lucky to have such a great family and support team.

What a great concept, wouldn’t it be great to have a complaint free world. I was so excited to find out about the bracelets and the idea behind them. I instantly felt better that this would be something all of us girls would be doing together. I think everyone complains more then they think they do. I know I do. I really thought this would be easy for me, because I never complain. Ya okay. I can’t believe how much I complain, good thing complaining in your head doesn’t count. So, the challenge is to go 21 days complaint free. Everytime you make a complaint, you need to switch the bracelet from one wrist to the other. It’s a good way to keep track of how much you complain. Do you think you can go a whole 21 days with out complaining? No cheating, you have to be truthful with this. If anyone is interested in taking this challenge, then you need to go the website and order a free bracelet to get you started.

I found out about the bracelets just the other day, and as soon as I got home I looked up the website. The website is acomplaintfreeworld.org and the founder is Will Bowen. Will Bowen is a minister of  the One Community Spiritual Center in Kansas city, Mo. In 2006 he suggested his congregation use bracelets to monitor their success at eradicating complaining from their lives. His idea exploded around the world and now nearly six million purple complaint free bracelets have been sent to people in more than 105 countries. Will Bowen has been featured on “The Oprah Show” and “The Today Show” in the movement that he has created. He published his first book “A Complaint Free World” in 2007 and has a second book “Complaint Free Relationships” that is coming out this year.

Will Bowen has created a great movement. We all love to complain at times, in a way it gives us something to talk about.  All complaining does just makes everyone negative. We shouldn’t be looking at the negatives in our life, but try to always keep positive. If everyone can stay positive, this world would be such a nicer place to live. What is the point of being upset, or negative? You’re just bringing yourself and others down, that’s so depressing. I hope everyone can take the 21 day challenge and stay positive, I think we would all get a whole lot more out of life. 

Good luck to you all and have fun with it!

I love listening to christmas music, but only at christmas time. If I had to listen to it all year long, then I would probably go nuts. When it’s christmas, the songs get me into the christmas spirit. Especially the ones you grew up listening to. I always love watching “White Christmas” and “Holiday Inn”, they both have such beautiful christmas songs. I have so many favorite christmas songs, it’s hard to just pick one.

I remember as a kid running and dancing around my house to the “Jingle Bells” song by Barbara Striesand. She sang the song twice as fast, I would spin in a circle until I got dizzy listening to it. I would listen to it over and over again. I also loved listening to “The Chipmunks Christmas” songs. That was my favorite christmas tape to listen to when I was young. My son has really gotten into the chipmunks and it’s funny because he sings the songs and he sounds exactly like them. He now likes to put on shows to everyone by singing the chipmunk songs. It’s so cute. I’m glad to look forward to listening to christmas music just one month a year.

What will my life be like in 2014? Wow, well I’ll be Mrs. Riccioli and my son gavin will be a riccioli as well. My son gavin will be twelve and my daughter elise will be six years old. Ugh… I’ll be thirty-four. Well, joe will always be younger then me, he’ll keep me young. I can’t believe that’s only five years away. So much can happen in five years. It’s exciting and scary to think about. I hope the time doesn’t go by too fast.

Hopefully in five years we will have bought our house in hampton. I definetly would like to stay in hampton to be close to the beach, and so the kids can stay in the hampton school district. If we have our own house then we could get a couple of dogs, but I would have them trained this time. We had two puppies in our old place and they were crazy, they tore up our place and we couldn’t afford to have them trained.   So we had to give them away, and I think we will always miss them. That will be our number one priority when we get a house. Also, our house will be great to decorate. I love to decorate at christmas and I would love to have a tradition every year in adding more and more christmas decorations and lights to the outside of the house. I would like our house to be the house that goes a little overboard every year. I think it would be fun, and why not, it’s only once a year.

I would love to start a new traditon and have our families come to our house every year on christmas eve. Our families don’t really get together much anymore. It would be nice to have all of our family in one place together for a holiday. I want the children to have a close relationship with their family, I think that’s important. We have family all over, it would be great to have everyone fly up and stay with us. Joe and I are homebodies, we don’t want to leave our place, but we always want to have people over. So, that’s why we would want to host, it would work out great for us.

Our tradition that we have started and will keep on going, is to have the four of us go pick out our tree together. We get a few new tree ornaments every year, ones that are special and usually with the year on it. Then we go home, put up our tree and decorate it together. My daughter elise wasn’t able to help this year, but she was smiling watching us decorate and she was dancing while listening to us sing christmas songs. My son always gets so excited and my fiance joe has really gotten into it. This is something I will always look forward to doing each year with my family.

So, my question that I choose for my blog tonight was ” What would my fiance and I do with an extra $6500.00 towards the wedding”? I needed some time to think about that one. I asked my fiance joe what he would do with the extra cash for the wedding. I really thought he would have just said an open bar, but instead he said he would want to take care of everyone and pay for the hotel rooms for them to stay after the wedding. I thought that was very thoughtful of him, and what a great idea if we could be able to do that. I mean the whole idea of our wedding is to celebrate, and that is exactly what joe and I want everyone to do. We want everyone to eat, drink, dance, and party without any worries.

I don’t think I would change anything in my wedding. I would keep it all the same, but I would use the money to pay everything right away, and offer all my friends who are helping joe and I a payment for their services. A lot of our friends are helping us just because they want to. My friend and soon to be sister in law is going to cater the wedding. A friend of ours is going to have his brother dj for us. Our closest friends have a band and they’re going to play when the dj takes breaks. My friend, who is also one of my bridesmaids is going to make our wedding cake. And my mom’s friend is a justice of the peace and is going to marry us. They have all said that we don’t need to pay them, but I would like to be able to give them a little something.

I would use any extra money that I could get towards the photography, the transportation, and the tents with tables and chairs. I think that’s it. We don’t need fancy and expensive things. That’s not the kind of people we are and it’s not what were going for. We just want it to be  by the beach with our family and friends. I think it’ll just be a celebration to get all our family and friends together, in one place for the day. Just thinking about it right now get’s me so excited! I can’t wait for our wedding! So, I guess it doesn’t matter that we’re not really going to get the extra cash, because I still want my wedding the same way.

I was really excited about being picked to be on the “ironbrides”. I was not only excited about being on a reality game show, but also getting a kick in the butt to get going on my wedding. I wasn’t even thinking or expecting to meet some new friends. The girls on the show are great. I feel like we have become like family, and not only the other brides but also the staff and hosts. All the girls are so different, but I can see why each one was picked. I am the quiet one on the show, I just watch and listen to everyone. They are all so funny, cute, and very dramatic. I guess you need a little drama to make a show worth watching.

We are all so close now, but I’m not sure if it will stay that way. I hope so, but when it comes down to it, we are all going for the same prize. When you get a bunch of women together, things tend to get dramatic and caddy. Some of the younger women can get easily persuaded by the older ones. We all need to stick together and not point fingers. We need to remember that 2009 is our year, and we should all be excited for each other and help each other. This is a great experience for all of us and I hope that in the end we all remain friends.

To the future ironbride contestants, remember to be yourself and have fun with this because it is a wonderful experience. Enjoy every minute of it!

I think everyone has heard of this phrase, but does anyone really know what it means or where it came from? I think it’s so interesting and exciting to find out where sayings and traditions stem from. I never knew that there was one more line in this phrase. It really goes “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe”.

A sixpence is a coin that was made in britian from 1551 to 1967. It was made of silver and it was worth six pennies. So this wedding tradition is english and it began in the victorian era. Each item in this phrase represents a good luck token for the bride. If the bride carries all of them on her wedding day, her marriage will be happy. “Something old” symbolizes continuity with her family and the past. “Something new” means optimism and hope for her life ahead. “Something borrowed” is an item from a happily married friend or family member, whose good fortune in marriage will carry over to the new bride. “Something blue” has been connected to weddings for centuries. In ancient Rome brides wore blue to symbolize love, modesty and fidelity. A silver sixpence in the brides shoe represents wealth and financial security for the couple in their life together.

I will definetly follow this tradition for my wedding. I believe in traditions and anything that could bring me some good luck. Also, I love that you will have something special with you on your day that is sentimental to your family. Is there a way to get one item with all these qualities?  Something that is old, borrowed, new to you, blue, and could fit in your shoe. hmmmm… probably not.

Society puts a lot of pressure on women to be a supermom. You are supposed to be able to juggle a successful career, run a spotless household smoothly, voulenteer at your childs school and your community, attend church at least once a week, bake and cook homemade meals for your family, be a fantastic lover to your husband, and do all this with a brilliant smile while wearing a size two.( Ya, okay!)  Women were raised to be good little girls, accomodating, helpful and well- behaved. Somehow throughout the years women decided to take on both worlds, and try to do it perfectly. However, now it seemed like everyone was lining up waiting to be taken care of; husband, children, parents and the boss. As a result, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression has escalated. Being a supermom can be hazardous to your health.

If you are a supermom then you know what I mean. If you feel stressed, overwhelmed, tired, and sometimes unappreciated then you need to make some changes. Moms need to realize that they don’t have super powers and that being super doesn’t mean doing everything for everyone except for your self. Here are some tips that could help you. I know they will help me.

#1 Write down all your responsibilities and tasks. Figure out if these are things you can do alone or if you can get others to help. DO NOT be afriad to ask for help! ( That’s something I need to work on myself)

#2 Make a “to do” list for everyone in your family. Even your chidren can start to help when they’re old enough. ( My son is six and he likes to sweep, vaccuum, dry dishes, and help with the laundry) Don’t make excuses for them, they will feel good about themselves for helping.

#3 Take time for yourself, learn to pamper yourself. Whether it’s taking a relaxing bath, listening to music, taking a walk, reading a book, having a girls night, having a date night with your hubby, or going to a spa. ( Come see me at Elizabeth Grady :] ) DO NOT let yourself feel guilty, remember, you deserve it!

#4 Don’t be angry with yourself that your house isn’t perfectly clean, or that you haven’t made it to everyone of your childs school activity or event. You need to remind yourself that being a wonderful mom isn’t about being perfect, it’s about showing your child love and teaching them how to become responsible adults.

#5 Figure out what is important and get those things done by keeping an organized schedule. If small things don’t get done, don’t worry about. Basically, just let it go.

We do it to ourselves girls. I used to feel guilty all the time. I would feel guilty if I was just sitting and not cleaning my house, or if I cleaned my house and didn’t take time for myself, or if I was on the computer too long then I would feel like I’m neglecting my family, or if I was on the phone I would feel guilty but then I would feel guilty not calling my friends and family enough. AHHHHHHHHHHH !  I just try to constantly remind myself that it’s all about balance, and how you can balance everything in your life. Remember, to take care of yourself, let others help, and take time to relax your body and your mind.