Introducing Jessica

Our second bride-to-be shares her journey to the altar with WEtv.com.

By Jessica Solloway

I don't quite have 27 dresses, but my bridesmaid collection is pretty impressive (and taking up way too much room in my already overstuffed closet). Navy and mermaid style, black and sparkly, champagne and ruffled, something that could pass as a spandex toga ... and there are a few that no words can describe. But my "always a bridesmaid" syndrome has a new twist. While I'm still working the wedding circuit, (I'm in three more this year!) I can now add my own to the mix.

Hi, my name is Jess and I'll be sharing my journey to the altar with all of you.

This past year has been full of changes ... good, bad, and in between. The hardest part occurred at the beginning of 2008 when I learned my parents were getting divorced. It was a tough year for my family, but it ended on a sweet note ... I got engaged to my boyfriend of four years, Seth. I also picked up and moved from New York to DC ... a city where I know about three people, and manage to get lost at every corner. (But I'm making progress, thank you very much, Google maps).

Seth and I met in 2002 through a mutual friend. He was away at law school, but had come home to New Jersey for a holiday break. He went out with some friends in the city one night (one of which happened to be my roommate's boyfriend). We all hung out as a group, and then he went back to school. I didn't give him a second thought until I bumped into him a year later at another mutual friend's party. After a quick hello, we both went our separate ways.

One more year later, we ended up at yet another party. And finally fate stepped in. Instead of just saying hello like we did every other time, we started talking. Seth recently graduated from law school and was living in Princeton, NJ, doing a federal clerkship. We exchanged numbers.

Since I had moved to New York after college, I hadn't had the best luck with guys. I was convinced I was destined for a few more years of bad blind dates and total jerks. But when Seth called me a few days later, there was something different in the air. And when we started dating, there were no games and no drama (hallelujah!). Could it be too good to be true? Actually, it was.

After a few months, Seth told me he was looking for a job on Capitol Hill. Even though I only knew him for a short time, I was really sad at the thought of him moving. But, how could I stop him? I wanted to just live in the moment and cross that bridge when we came to it.

Unfortunately for Seth, he had no luck in DC at that time and got a new job in New Jersey politics. But fortunately for me, he was here indefinitely. We spent the next year visiting each other in New York and Princeton. We probably spent thousands of dollars on NJ Transit. But it was worth it.

But then politics threw us another curveball. Seth decided to take a job on the congressional campaign of an up and coming politician. After a grueling 6 months where we saw each other just one night a week if we were lucky, they won the campaign by just 1,000 votes. Seth was offered a great job on in DC ... and in a whirlwind ... he moved. For the next two years, we visited each other at least twice a month and spent hours traveling on Amtrak.

This past November, Seth proposed in Princeton ... a city that is very close to our hearts since we spent so much time there during our first two years of dating. It was the best night of my life and couldn't have been more perfect. I moved to Washington, DC the first week of January.

We are now finally living together (after years of long distance) and planning our wedding. We've had a bunch of challenges along the way so far, but I know we'll be able to plan something special, unique and on a realistic budget. With the economy in bad shape (to say the least), I know it's not going to be easy to create the wedding of our dreams, but we're up for the challenge! And I'm lucky enough to get some extra help from the current bride-to-be-blogger Sara (love that she registered for a Wii ... mental note taken).  

I hope you enjoy the wild ride with me!