Pictures

All pictures have been posted over on Flickr. There are links in the main menu or you can go to our main page here.

We both had a great time and we hope everyone else had as much fun as we did. We got great weather, had great family and friends around and now have great memories and photos.

Things are pretty much back to normal now. We just got two cats - Ted and Conner - and although they're still hiding under the bed for most of the day we're hoping they'll come out to be petted eventually.

Not sure when we'll all get together again but I'm sure something will come up to merit a party!

I'm bad about this blogging deal...

So, obviously I've been slacking off on this whole "wedding blog" thing. Life just got kind of busy. We closed on our house at the end of May, spent most of June tearing things apart, painting, and putting things back together so we could move out of our apartment and into our house. Woo!

Wedding-wise, we're at the six week mark and I'm still relatively un-freaked-out. Invitations were sent off successfully with only one returned as undeliverable (Hi, Joanie!) which I thought was pretty impressive. We've gotten just over half of them back so, thanks to you who got them back so quickly, and hurry up all you people still sitting on them!

I had my first dress fitting last weekend and it looks as though all the alterations I'll need will be the bustle and perhaps some de-boning of the neckline so it quits bowing out. Not too bad. My maid of honor, Catherine W. (we have to distinguish here since both female attendants are named Catherine) doesn't need any alterations. Lucky! Hopefully my sister (aka, the other Catherine) will be in the same boat since we're already cutting it close time-wise with her fitting.

I spent some time this past week with the reception favors. Sticking hundreds of stickers on the bottom of Hershey kisses and then putting them in itsy bitsy drawstring bags is totally my idea of a good time. And I didn't eat a single kiss, I swear. We're in good shape for all the decorations etc for the ceremony and reception for now.

I continue to waltz around the house in my wedding shoes in an attempt to stretch them out so they don't pinch my toes. I continue to procrastinate about finding shoes for the Catherines.

We met with Father Mike this week and finalized ceremony details. Except I realized after the fact that we never talked about the wording of the vows. Whoops. Kind of an important detail. Oh well, we'll get it all done.

So, in a not so small nutshell, that's what I've been doing for the past three months. The next six weeks should be interesting.

Random Wedding Planning Thoughts by Martha

I had an epiphany in the shower the other morning. All of the sudden a solution to my invitation addressing problems came to me: I’ll address the outer envelope properly with Mr & Mrs whomever etc. and then create a second set of labels that are less formal and can include the "& guest" and additional invitees such as children and put those onto the reply cards. That way people won’t have to write their name in next to the M_______ as is customary and I’ll also have a way to let people know who is invited within their household. Yay for my brilliance! I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me earlier. Now I just have to figure out who some of the people on our list are... I’m thinking it still might get a little tricky if someone who has an “& guest” replies that a guest is coming but doesn’t give me a name. Is it ok to call them and ask who their guest is? Uhgh, nothing is ever as easy as it seems. And as of now there’s a possibility of 6 or 7 kids under the age of 6 being there (3 of them being babies less than 6 months old!) Not likely they’ll all come, but it could happen. That could make things interesting…

 

In other wedding news, I finally made the hair appointments Wednesday night while we were up in Appleton browsing for carpet. I definitely think Heads of Time is much more my kind of place than Salon Aura was. I have a trial run set for about 2 weeks before the wedding and then appointments for all of us girls at 11 am the day of the wedding. The stylist assured me that they use enough hairspray that the up-dos should have no problem staying in place until and through the 3:30 pm wedding. I guess we’ll see. My hair can be kind of stubborn. I’m still undecided about what I want to do with it. I’m growing it out but I don’t know how much longer it will really get before August. I know I want to have it up off my face so it doesn’t bug me and is off my neck since I know it will be hot. Other than that I’m at a loss. I’ve been looking through magazines etc. to see if something inspires me but so far nothing has.

Dresses, Done

Catherine W. came up this morning to try on her dress and see how the bridesmaids dress looks with my dress. While I can't show you the picture of us together :), I can show you the picture of just her:

 

I was a little worried since she never tried this dress on before I ordered it. It appears to have turned out well. This dress is a little shorter than the one from David's it was similar to but since both her and the other Catherine are on the short side, it's all good. She said it was comfortable and will require very little alteration.

Menu Preview

We had our tasting and menu planning session at The Meadows this evening and I figured I'd share what we plan on serving. We'll be having a buffet style dinner to get everyone mingling. Here's what's on the menu:

Cajun Blackened Flank Steak
Norwegian Salmon in Dill Butter Sauce
Baked Lemon Pepper Chicken
Lyonnaise Baked Potatoes
Asparagus & Broccoli with Baconn Mornay
Vegetable Pasta Salad
Crab & Shrimp Salad
Exotic Fruit Salad
Caesar Salad
Rolls & Butter

We had the chance to sample everything on this list except for the fruit salad and we were able to choose the fruits in that (mango, kiwi, some other stuff I don't remember...) Everything was excellent so look forward to some good food.

It's Official

Guest List
Our guest list had kind of gotten out of control during Christmas time when we were sending out cards and letters. We kept adding people we had forgotten and hadn't gotten a total. Today I cleaned the list up to see just how many people we were talking about. Right now the list total is at 124. Not bad... For the reception hall, we need at least 75 for dinner or they add a surcharge. This means we'll need about 61% of the people invited to show up at dinner. I think that's doable, right? Of course I'd love for everyone who is invited to come, but that's not realistic.

Marriage Prep Part III

This weekend is phase three of the Catholic marriage preparation process.

Phase one was meeting with Father Mike a while back to just talk about what we needed to do. It was a pretty casual meeting that had an analogy about a table or something... Father Mike is a nice guy with a great sense of humor.

Phase two was the FOCCUS meetings. Couples from the church volunteer their time to meet with engaged couples and do an "inventory." It's a quiz with about 100 questions about different subjects like money, communication, relationships, etc. Each person takes it separately and then we come back a few weeks later to talk about the results. It was also pretty casual and low stress. I think it went alright. The Williams' were nice people and Barb made great pizza!

Phase three is the Engaged Encounter. It's a day-long retreat at the church. All the couples who want to be married in the church have to participate in this before their wedding. I'm not sure what to expect, but this is also run by a couple from the church. Hopefully it will be fun and educational.

Musical Update

We have secured our vocalist.

The very first time I went to church with Adam, the person up at the front of the church who led the mass had a wonderful voice. I liked it so much that when we got engaged I asked him if it would be weird if we asked this woman (who we don't know) to sing. He got her number from his mother (who works at the church - another benefit of having connections) and gave her a call. She agreed to sing. Now we just need to get together sometime and actually meet her! :)

Organist-wise, Adam called the normal church organist earlier this week and hopefully we'll get together with him soon. His style is a lot like my dad's so I think it should be ok since I have some specific pieces I want played (hello Widor toccata!) I have the music all picked out. It's just a matter of running it by the two musicians and making sure that they have copies of the music.

Things are working out splendidly.

Flowers (Part Deux)

So I guess we were successful in our flower quest this morning. As with most of the parts of the wedding, we'd done a considerable amount of research beforehand and just wanted confimation that what we'd chosen wasn't completely retarded. We sat down with a nice (and totally flaming) guy named Brian. We went through the list of flowers needed and managed to come in under (a revised) budget. The fact that we had a 15% off coupon definitely helped.

The flowers are a mix of yellows and purples. Calla lillies, carnations, hyacinth and hydrangeas make up the majority of the items. I think they'll be throwing some filler greens or smaller flowers in a few of them and the cake flowers will be roses, but overall, that's what it turned out to be.

I don't have pictures of any of them except for the bouquets that the Catherines will be carrying. They'll be in a purple though, not blue like the picture shows. It will also be smaller that that one. Brian said 2 or 3 bunches tied together with a ribbon.