If vows are green, theirs were absolutely verdant.

What an amazing weekend.  What an amazing couple.  What a joy to have been included.

Mankind, sit up and take note.

With one seamless effort, I have – once again – proved myself the best parallel parker in the universe.  Gold medal, AP.

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Here are Julie and Mel, my former roommates who were bridesmaids in a friend’s wedding last weekend.  They are stunners.  I miss them so much I can hardly breathe.

(Also, check out Mel’s ring – bow chicka WOW.  Guess who’ll be a bridesmaid in Nashville come New Years Eve?)

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Speaking of weddings and photos, my brother and sister-in-law are blowing the house up (is that a term? Can we make it a term?).  I was at back-to-back weddings with them in September, and I think you should check out the pictures from Josh & Meg’s and Kyle & Emily’s weddings.

I spent the weekend in Southern Colorado, just a stone’s throw away from New Mexico, at a cabin with family and friends and dogs and sangria.  The aspens were turning, giving the mountains blond patches in their otherwise dark beards.  We celebrated the wedding of Kyle and Emily amid golden leaves and vivid blue sky, and the entire event was magical.

This was Kyle and Emily skipping down the aisle while we (the band and the bridal party) played this song on guitars, banjos, tambourines, and kazoos.

Are they not the cutest?  I love them.  They are playful and joyful and uninhibited, full of love and life.  I am lucky to count Emily and her sister Hannah as the closest thing I have to sisters – you know, besides my own sisters.

The entire weekend was a joy.  I can’t wait to point you toward the official pictures, courtesy of (who else?) The Parsons Photographers… coming soon.

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Speaking of joy and magic and love, this was a conversation I had with my 6-year old nephew at the campfire on Friday night.

Annie: What are some animals that lay eggs?
Micah: Crocodiles, fish, turtles, stars…
Annie: Stars?
Micah: Yeah, stars.  All of the stars we see are star eggs – and when they hatch, it’s daylight.

I love this little boy more than life itself.

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After a long, long, many-months-long stretch of vagrant, vagabond living, I will now experience an unprecedented 27 nights in my own bed before it’s time to leave town again.

No one invite me anywhere.  No one get married.  This chicky needs to nest.

I forgot to mention that I am now outfitted for Colorado.

This is called the Lodge Parka, which is most appropriate for me, since I’m not really a “winter sporter” (not that I’m really a “summer sporter” either).  But a lodge?  That I can do.

Has anyone read “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen?  I loved it so much.  It’s about the circus, which reminds me of what I think is my favorite song ever, “Circus Girl” by Gretchen Peters.  I’m not positive that it’s my most favoritest of the entire world of life, but I THINK that it is.

And in the past few weeks, some of my most-loved people have gotten engaged… to each other!

Mark and Erin!

Brook and Cara!

Josh and Meg!

Already having made travel plans for a wedding in Seattle in February and another in Austin in March, my 2010 matrimonial calendar is swiftly filling up.

Life is changing all around me.

The weather is changing – yellow leaves swirling around in little cyclones on the streets, the clouds hanging heavy and low, no trace of humidity. The colors are dimmer, the smell, different. Fall has chased out the summer, and taken up residence in Nashville.

My focus is changing – not my heart (definitely not my heart), but what I am accepting, and moving forward with. This shift feels equal parts defeat and relief – defeat to think that nothing I have tried has worked, and relief to finally just stop with the trying. I just am these days – and that’s okay.

People are changing – growing older and falling in love and moving on from the way things were. Some of their dreams are coming into focus, and taking them in different directions. I feel alone – which is not necessarily the same as “lonely” – but nothing could or should be done to change that. It’s just this season, and the shape of current life.

In the midst of all of this change, this past weekend, I reconnected with a “sameness” in myself – that familiar old me that has been missing for awhile.

I met some friends who were new, and yet knew me. It was so strange – hugging complete strangers and feeling totally at home. We celebrated Todd and Juliette’s wedding, and shared stories from junior high, and explored Nashville, and laughed – honest and genuine and immodest laughter.

I fell in love with these people.

Todd and Julie were gorgeous – if you just imagine me out of each of these pictures, and splice them together, you will see.

Now it is Monday, and they are gone, and the merriment is over. But I have a ticket to an Alison Krauss show tonight, and a trip to Boston on Thursday, and a new 2010 calendar to write my plans in. Thankfully, those plans now include a trip to Austin in March for Joey and Sam’s wedding.

I keep scoring the invites!

How can someone’s story be simultaneously so simple AND so romantic?

This is Vadym and Sheryl Romaniuk.  Are they not darling?

I’ve been friends with Sheryl even longer than I’ve known my own sisters – we met when we were 18 months old in San Jose, CA, and when I was 6 and my family moved to Colorado, we started to write letters (yes, the kind that were signed “LYLAS”).  Our families vacationed together every summer, and when we both decided to attend the same college in Seattle, we were roommates for the first year.

Post-college, Sheryl made the gutsy decision to join the Peace Core, and was assigned to Ukraine.  Two years is a long time to dedicate oneself to anything, let alone to a country in which vodka is a vital tool in cat neutering.  But Sheryl dedicated herself to the Ukrainian language – which, I should add, uses the Cyrillic alphabet, so it’s even MORE impossible – became fluent, and in the process, fell in love with Vadym.

Long story short, and many twists and turns later, Vadym left his family, his home, his language, and moved to the United States.  In the same way that Sheryl had been so bold, Vadym left behind all that he knew – in order to be with the woman that he loved.

(Imagine me blogging in a low, dramatic voice, because I feel like this should be a plot synopsis on a movie preview.)

This weekend, I had the honor of standing next to Vadym and Sheryl in San Jose, CA, as they said their wedding vows.  Vadym speaks very little English, but spoke his English promises clearly and sincerely.  Sheryl looked like a goddess.

And I?  With all of the traditional Ukrainian toasting, I drank too much vodka and accidentally found myself in the middle of the dance floor during “Chattahoochee.”

But that is neither here nor there.

Vadym has decided that Sheryl is worth anything and everything that it takes to be with her.  And Sheryl has become a haven for Vadym – a safe place in the middle of the chaos that his life surely holds, far from all that he has ever known.

I am so grateful for this beautiful picture of what love and romance are in their most simple and true form.

As Christians, we are called to mourn with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice.  But often times, it feels like the mourning part actually comes more easily; the whole rejoicing thing often strikes a very sensitive spot in our hearts, surfacing the ugly things that we don’t like to admit we struggle with, like jealousy, and bitterness, and loneliness, and disappointment.

I will be honest: these can be my ugly truths.  Not my ALWAYS truths, but my occasional old faithfuls.  They are comforting like bourbon, burning on the way down – but hot damn, it feels good.

I have been a bridesmaid more times than I can count.  In a few weeks, I will aisle-walk for the 4th time in just 9 months – not to mention the many, many times over the past 8 years.

And here is the very honest truth: sometimes, behind the hair and the smile and the makeup and the $80 shoes, it can sting.  Even in the midst of believing wholeheartedly in the couple, and seeing her girlfriend so deliriously happy it’s infectious, and wanting nothing less than the entire world for her friends, even the most confident and unhurried woman can question if it will ever happen for her.

By the way – and I’m pretty confident that every woman reading this could back me up – this is not “desperation.”  This is “design.”  So shush – I don’t want to hear it.

Yesterday, I stood in Seattle beside one of my very best friends, Miranda, as she married the man of her dreams, Will.  Their story is so outlandish, so romantic, so heart-stopping, it’s preposterous.  It’s the kind of story that has the potential to kill the hope in a single girl’s heart, because whoa – that is so not fair.

But standing as witness to their vows, I saw truth, and beauty, and intensity, and love.  I heard them make promises to each other that will not be easy to keep – but voiced my agreement that I will do everything in my power to encourage and uphold them.  And I found myself so moved by the event, by their pledges, by the small group of people who literally circled them in support and love, that hardened shell around my very sensitive heart cracked, and out flowed pure joy.

If the ability to simply rejoice isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.

Miranda and Will’s story reminds me to believe that impossible stuff can happen, that some things are worth holding out for, and most of all, that God is faithful.  It’s a story so important that it prompts me to write about it here, no matter how vulnerable it feels to admit “It’s hard to watch my friends get married” or “I struggle with hope.”

So what if I do.  So what if YOU do.

God’s faithfulness doesn’t change.

And the story that is being told through Miranda and Will, and me, and you, is better than any romantic comedy.

Congratulations, my sweet friends.  I am elated with you, and was so honored to be a part of your day.  I love you both!

I have this friend named Juliette.

We met through the internet.

I’ve met some of my favorite friends through the internet.  Here is a sampling.

Whoa.  If it’s possible to meet such attractive women through the internet, could I meet attractive guys?  Why have I not signed up for eHarmony?

Anyway, this story is not about them.

It’s about her.

Juliette lives here in Nashville – well, Franklin, to be exact.

Franklin is where I did this.

(I know, it always has to be about me.)

BACK to her.

She’s wonderful.  In my year and a half in Nashville, we’ve only hung out a handful of times, but she’s one of those people that you kind of wish you could hate but you can’t help but love – because she’s all these fabulous things like beautiful and creative and hilarious and talented and kind and really smart.

She makes this look cool.

The week that I lost my job, she treated me to wine & cheese at Rumours.

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, that is the way to my heart.  That, and foot rubs.  And men with good scruff.  (Clarification: Juliette did not give me a foot rub, nor does she have scruff.)

But guess who does?

HER NEW FIANCE, TODD!!!!!!!

The girl is engaged.

And I am so, so excited for her.  She deserves the best guy ever.  And it sounds like Todd is.

I hope that through the various activities that surround weddings, I will be meeting Val and Dani and Joey soon.

(If you’re wondering what Joey looks like, well.  He no longer believes in Facebook.  Probably because internet strangers like me would go in and steal his pictures and post them on their blog.

But I have it on good authority that he looks exactly like this guy.)

I know Val, Dani, and Joey through the internet, too – although I’ve never met them.  They’re some of Juliette’s best friends.  I hope they will adopt me.

Sometimes, against all odds, people find each other.  WE find each other.  Congratulations, Julie-girl and Todd – and thanks to all of you internet people who have turned out to be awesome in real life, too.

One month from yesterday, I will be leaving here…

… and flying here.

One month from today, I will be on my way here…

… onboard this.

One month from tomorrow, I will be watching these…

… with wonderful family members, including them.

We will welcome her back from Haiti.

I will buy her one of these.

And upon re-porting in Seattle, I’ll be a bridesmaid for them.

Who might as well be them.

All of these things make me feel like this.

As a bridesmaid in San Diego this weekend, I was treated to a pre-wedding hair/makeup extravaganza. When first presented with the opportunity to have my hair and makeup done for me, I was hesitant – to say that Annie Parsons is a control freak is like saying that Courtney Love is a train wreck. I understand my hair and my face, thankyouverymuch – no need for any help.

Until I sat in the chair, and the stylist said, “Your hair teases like a champ.”

And I was like, “All of my dreams are coming true.”

Have I ever told you about my since-junior-high dream? My dream of looking like Faye in “That Thing You Do!”? I want to be alive in 1964. I love Liv Tyler so much. Someday, I hope to once again have a ponytail of her glory. And a boyfriend like Guy Patterson.

After my stint in the makeover chair, I was completely ritzy glitzy. My hair was big and bouffant. I had fake eyelashes – which, can I just say, are AMAZING. I was wearing a floor-length gown. Bibbity-bobbity-boo. For a girl who rarely feels pretty, it did my heart a world of good. Never again will I turn down a chance to be glamorous.

P is also for PS, which is for “Pretty in pink…” … which is the first line of my newest song! If you’re in need of some Monday morning sass, go check it out.