Entries tagged with “wedding” from Prom to Altar

Since I won't be updating Prom to Altar much anymore, here are some links to past posts and websites that might be of interest to someone at some point:

• Professional photos of our wedding day by Paul Grupp and Brenda Topkins, as well as our engagement photos, are here. These aren't the final versions of the photos (we received the final high res versions of these as well as additional photos on DVD), but the majority of our proofs are there. Paul and Brenda also blogged our wedding here.
  

• Photos from our wonderful guests are here and here and here (photo to the right by Rich).

• You can also go to this set on Flickr to see my photos from the planning process as well as some video snippets from the wedding.
  

And here are some other wedding planning and marriage prep posts, as well as some wedding day posts:

• Our proposal story
• A little about my antique engagement ring
  
• Our save the dates
• Our invitations
• Some of my favorite wedding blogs
  
• Getting ready photos
  
• Pre-ceremony photos
• Riding around in the trolley
• Our Catholic Ceremony photos, and a bit about our decision to have a full Catholic mass
  
• The ins and outs of our homemade photo booth (a few more details here)
  
• Little things Part 1: Things we wore, things we carried
  
• Little things Part 2: Details at the ceremony and a bit at the reception
  
• Little things Part 3 -- our Craigslist centerpieces, our favors, etc
• The rundown of our ceremony and reception music selections
  

I never quite got to recapping the reception, so maybe I'll do that at some point. But for now, that's that-- we planned a wedding and prepared for a marriage, our wedding was fun and lovely, and married life is swell! Thanks for following along, I've met some great people through this blog. I hope to see you (well, hear from you) over at It's Loverly!

Happy new year!

As I've said, whenever I feel the urge to blog these days I'm doing it over at my other blog, It's Loverly. I did want to write about a couple of wedding-related things though and answer a few questions that have popped up in the comments of this blog. So here I am.

The post on our homemade photo booth generated some questions I wanted to answer.
First, our photo printer. We did some research and ended up buy the HP Photosmart A612. For about $150, this is a really nice printer. The print quality is great, it's very compact, it prints up to 5x7 photos, and the supplies aren't ridiculously expensive. The printer did great as the photo booth printer, although a lot of people didn't print their photos (no big deal, as we had all the photos on the camera and printed them at home).  We've used it quite a bit since the wedding, and it's fared very well. It even survived a rather violent fall from the table to the floor, almost entirely unscathed save for one slightly loose part. I highly recommend this printer if you're looking for an inexpensive and compact photo printer (a bonus: Staples sells a generic and budget-friendly version of the photo paper it uses).

As for the construction of the photo booth backdrop, this was all Patrick's ingenuity. He built the frame out of PVC piping. Here's the only photo we have of the frame without the fabric over it--

Patrick's mom sewed the fabric backdrop for us. We originally thought about using some fun pattern for the background of the booth, but ended up going with black when we couldn't find anything else we liked. It worked very well. (Again, full set of photo booth photos can be seen here.)

Over the next month or so we're wrapping up the remaining wedding stuff. Just before the holidays we received the DVDs of our final high res wedding photos (and some bonus video clips) from our photographers, Paul Grupp and Brenda Tompkins. This week they sent us the link to the digital proofs for the layout of our coffee table book. We have some changes, but overall we're very happy with it. (You can see the proofs here.) The books are printed in Japan, so once we finalize the layout it will be four to six weeks before we have the books in hand. Once the book layout is done, we'll also be getting a slide show of our photos from Paul and Brenda.  And once we have that, our wedding photo process will be complete. There are a few other things floating around out there-- the video our friend did for us, some guest photos we haven't seen yet, but for the most part all the loose ends are being tied up.

Last week I saw my friend Kerry, who got engaged to our friend Dave in November. I passed along my slew of wedding magazines and books (many of which I inherited from someone else). It felt good to pass them along for someone else to enjoy, and great to get them out of our home! It's amazing how much I don't miss wedding planning, not one little bit. I was recently going through a stack of papers and found wedding to-do lists from early in the summer. I just felt a tremendous sense of relief that we are done with wedding planning forever. This "post-nuptial depression" thing? I never felt it. I've been too busy loving married life.

I realized that I never posted any photos of our completed invitations. Our friend Meg (who also happens to be Pat's cousin's wife-- my cousin-in-law?) designed our invitations and helped us assemble them. We are forever indebted to her for this sweet and rather huge gift. The design she came up with was perfect, and we could never have executed such a project without her!

To be honest, the invitations were a huge project and caused quite a bit of stress. I love how they came out, but the process was rather trying! Paper that was discontinued, printer issues, printing issues (and more printing issues), it just went on and on. Thank goodness for Meg's guiding hand.

Here they are:

Envelopes, with calligraphy by a family friend-


Front-


back-Inside-

The colors are a little tough to see-- the swirl, our names, and the large fonts on the right are all a deep purple. The smaller font is light brown.



Inserts-

(One of my favorite parts-- the bottom of the response card said: "The back of this card may be used to draw a picture, compose a haiku, or write a note." You can see photos of some of the results at the end of this post.)

We used the swirl design in a bunch of other wedding stuff-- programs, table numbers, and the wedding website.

Due to a family emergency, we ended up back in Albany the same day our invitations were ready to go in the mail. They went out a few days late, but the way it worked out, we were able to have our invitations hand-canceled-- not only that, but they were hand-canceled by Pat's aunt. See, every little bit of these invitations had love poured in to it. I wasn't in a very good frame of mind at the time, but I wish we'd taken pictures at the post office. Oh well, the memory is a nice one.

Materials:
To make the invitations we used:
-Kraft Pocketfolds from Cards & Pockets
-Kraft flourish paper from Paper Source. When we bought it it was printed on Kraft paper. Now they print it on their Eco White paper, which is much flimsier and far more lightweight.
-Cardstock for the invitation and inserts was Classic Crest -- really nice paper. The envelopes were also Classic Crest, ordered from EnvelopeMall.

And here's Pat in Meg's studio, hard at work (this was definitely a team effort on behalf of the two of us, Meg, and her husband Steve.)

 

Because we are obsessed with photos, we ordered photo sharing cards to have at our reception. We were crushed when they didn't arrive in time (despite the guarantee from overnightprints.com that they would).

Since our guests weren't able to see them, I thought I'd at least share them here. I loved the design Pat came up with. These were postcards, and our plan was to have a few at each table, on the bar, and by the photo booth. Oh well...

The front-

Back:

The last of the little details and the last post about "stuff": our centerpieces, favors, and a few other bits from around the reception.

Our centerpieces were one of my favorite details, and one of the best budget finds. Someone who had used them in her wedding a year earlier was selling them on Craigslist, and we bought 15 of these trees from her for $15 each. We had 17 tables, so I bought two more similar centerpieces off Ebay for under $5 a piece. We sold 12 centerpieces the day after the wedding (we kept one and each set of parents kept one).

Our wedding was the third wedding these centerpieces were used at, they'll be used at another wedding next fall, and probably more after that. It's the ultimate in reusing!

We had big plans for our table numbers when we started planning-- we were going to use photos of places that were important to us and name the tables after those significant places in our relationship. We were going to make escort cards using photos that matched the table names... yeah, nice idea, didn't happen. This is one of those projects that kept getting pushed back until the very last minute, and we ended up going simple. We used the swirl design from our invitations (I still haven't shared those here, eh?) and put each number in a different gold-toned frame. Not as cutesy as we'd originally planned, but they did the job.

Our "Head Table" was a family table consisting of us, our parents, Pat's grandmother, and our siblings.
Our wedding party sat with their guests and our friends at tables on either side of us.

Our favors were photo coasters. We've been using coasters like these on our own coffee table since we moved in together. The favor tags are Moo cards that we had made from our favorite engagement photos, with our names and wedding date on the back. We found these coasters at Christmas Tree Shops-- cheaper and better quality than the specific "wedding favor" coasters on The Knot Shop and the like.

The photo inside was one of the four "photo booth" photos that we used on our save the date postcards. The overall design was a reference to our save the dates.

My Italian mom wouldn't let me get away with not having jordan almonds (although I can't say I like them). These were entirely her project, and they came out very cute. The back of the tag explained the tradition of the five almonds.


We framed some of our engagement photos and put them around the reception room. Yeah, we used these photos in a few places, but that's the thing with engagement photos-- you end up with a whole bunch of great photos of the two of you and you really only have use for a couple. We figured we may as well display a handful of them while we could, because we certainly aren't going to plaster the walls of our apartment with pictures of us.
 We also put out the book we made of our engagement photos. I don't know if anyone noticed it or looked at it, but it was there. The flower arrangement is the same one from the memorial area at the church- we reused both church arrangements at the reception. That card box was the emergency back up when the cage we were going to use didn't work out. Wouldn't be my top pick, but no one seemed to judge us for it.

Here we are trying to figure out how to cut that infamous cake without causing a confectionery disaster... 

If you've found your way here via A Practical Wedding, welcome! The design of this blog is lacking, but you can read more about our wedding (and see the photos) by following these links:

• Professional photos of our wedding day, as well as our engagement photos, are here.
  
• Our photographers blogged our wedding here.
• Photos from our wonderful guests are here and here.
  

I've slowly begun to recap our wedding day-- if you're interested in that, you can see those posts by following these links:

• Getting ready
• Pre-ceremony photos
• Ceremony
• Our homemade photo booth
• Little things Part 1 and Part 2
• A bit about our music selections.

Thanks for coming by!

Alright, here are some more photos of a few more details and budget friendly ideas.

Church
The church is beautiful, so we didn't worry about too many additional decorations. My mom made the pew wreathes, which we hung on every other pew up the center aisle. There were two flower arrangements at the church, and that was it.

We created a memorial area in the baptistery of the church-- each guest passed through here on the way in. We had a candle for each of our grandparents who have passed away, and a flower arrangement. We weren't originally planning on having flowers here, but rather than cancel entirely the two corsages that we had already ordered for our grandmothers, we had the flowers made into a small arrangement of roses and hydrangea.

Our wedding day was not all about the little details-- it was about the big picture: our commitment to each other, the presence of our family and friends, the emotions of the day. I've said that before, right?

That said, there were of course plenty of details that we put thought into.  Here's a bit about the ones that got photographed and the thought behind them.

My jewelry. The blue pin on the left belonged to my grandmother Helen. I was going to pin it inside my dress, but I chickened out-- I was afraid it would fall out, or get snagged on the dress, or befall some unknown disaster. The amethyst ring belonged to my grandmother Mary. Amethyst was our shared birthstone, and she gave the ring to me on my 16th birthday. I was going to tie it to my bouquet, but I chickened out on that too-- I would be devastated if I somehow lost that ring, so I left it at home.

The bracelet and earrings were made by Etsy seller Handwired- they matched my dress perfectly. (I also had hairpins that matched the earrings and bracelet, which I forgot at home in Massachusetts. Bummer, but no big deal.) My friend Jen wore the earrings on her wedding day a few weeks later. I've put them away in a box with a note listing my name and Jen's, and our wedding dates. Hopefully we'll continue to add names of family and friends to the list of ladies who wore those earrings on their wedding day.
 

I bought these typewriter key cuff links from Etsy seller The Empty Nest for Patrick last Valentine's Day. He bought a set of links for each of his groomsmen. Apparently they enjoyed them:


My bouquet was wrapped in lace taken from my mom's wedding dress.
 
The photos tied to the bouquet are wedding photos of my grandmother and Pat's grandmother. When we started planning, we expected to have our grandmothers with us at our wedding. As most of you know, we each lost a grandmother over the summer. Dear sweet Jen had these pendants made for me, and it was so special to have a symbol of their presence that day.

I bought each bridesmaid a pendant with her initial on it from Etsy seller Funky Time Art. The back of each one had a different word and definition: Love, thoughtful, joyful, sweet, friend. Each pendant came with a chain so that they could wear it later as a necklace if they wanted.  (The flowers were pinker and more green than I thought they'd be-- I was expecting more ivory and very pale pink. Another example of not being able to control every little thing. Even with the pink and green, the flowers were very pretty-- the big open ivory roses were my favorite.)

There were some things about our "traditional church wedding" that weren't all that traditional.

Rather than having another family member escort his mom into the church, Patrick and his dad walked her down the aisle and she and his father were seated. (My mom was escorted by my uncle--her oldest brother, who walked her down the aisle on her wedding day.)

Patrick then returned to the back of the church to meet his brother/Best Man and they walked in together, down the center aisle (I was hiding in another room until he was at the front of the church). I really liked this-- it made clear the fact that this was our day-- not just mine. He wasn't standing on the sidelines waiting while I was at the center, he was at the center, too. This way of doing things is more common in other religions, but I was really happy to learn that our parish has started doing things this way, too.

Our bridesmaids and groomsmen walked in together. This isn't all that uncommon, but up until recently it hasn't been done very often in Catholic weddings.

I walked in with my dad-- we stuck with tradition there. I know he's always wanted to walk me down the aisle, and it was a really special moment for us. We both thought we'd be a teary mess, but we were enjoying it all so much-- we were both all smiles. I'm really glad I got to spend those few minutes before going down the aisle (and those moments walking down the aisle, of course) with my Daddy-o.

It turns out both the groom and the best man were the criers! I love this photo.

I'll leave out the commentary on the rest of the ceremony photos-- they tell the story themselves.

We had a bit of a situation involving our wedding cake-- something you'll hear more about this week. Something that would have been a minor hassle a few weeks ago has turned into a big ole pain in the butt.

I must say, WeddingWire, TheKnot, and any/all places that accept vendor reviews have made me feel a little better about things. I've left honest reviews of this baker anywhere I can-- hopefully they'll save someone else from this mess.

I'm also very happily leaving glowing reviews of our other vendors. The poor service we've received from the cake baker has made the superior service we received from everyone else stand out even more.

Just in case this is useful to someone out there, here are the lists of carefully-selected music we used for our Catholic wedding ceremony and the reception.

Ceremony music:
We had an organist and a trumpeter for the ceremony, in addition to our cantor.
Processional- La Grâce, Georg Philipp Telemann
Responsorial Psalm- Psalm 128: Blest Are Those Who Love You, Marty Haugen
Preparation of the gifts- Covenant Hymn, Gary Daigle
Communion- As Grains of Wheat, Laurence Rosania
Communion meditation- Ave Maria (sung in Italian), Franz Schubert
Recessional-  Trumpet Tune, Jeremiah Clarke

Reception music:
Bridal Party entrance- Praise You, Fatboy Slim ("We've come a long, long way together/through the good times and the bad.")
Our entrance- ABC, The Jackson Five (tons of fun, and a little tribute to our "high school sweethearts" status!)
First dance- Have a Little Faith in Me, John Hiatt (This song has been meaningful to us since those very hard long-distance relationship days: "You see time, time is our friend/ cause for us there is no end/And all you gotta do is have a little faith in me/I said I will hold you up, I will hold you up/Your love gives me strength enough/So have a little faith in me")
Cake cutting- First Day of My Life, Bright Eyes ("Remember that time you drove all night?/Just to meet me in the morning?" That basically defines our relationship while I was in college. ")
Father/daughter- You are My Sunshine, Sara Gazarek and My Girl, The Temptations (this was a surprise to me- my dad and sister put together a little medley of these two songs. You are My Sunshine was the first song my dad sang to me, hours after I was born.)
Mother/son- Godspeed, Dixie Chicks (whoa, tearjerker! Lovely song.)
Last dance- Heavenly Day, Patty Griffin (Sigh, I just love this one. It was just right for the final moments of the night. "The smile on your face I live only to see/ It's enough for me, baby, it's enough for me.")

Guest photos from Rich and Jen's wedding are being collected here. So far it's great stuff and captures the weekend well.

It was a gorgeous setting, a beautiful wedding, and a joyful affair. A ton of fun, too. Patrick and I were honored to be a part of it.

(This photo by me, although Patrick had custody of the camera most of the weekend. I need to spend more time getting to know it in a setting that is not so much once-in-a-lifetime!)

They both looked fabulous and glowed all day long.

Before the ceremony, we snuck in a few minutes of group shots. I can't say enough how much I love our photographers for minimizing the amount of time spent on actual photo "sessions"-- this isn't what everyone is looking for in a photographer, but it was exactly what we wanted. Mostly, Paul and Brenda focused on capturing things as they happened, and we hardly thought about photos-- we enjoyed the moment and knew they were on the job. However, they also managed to shoot great stuff in the brief and painless blocks of time set aside for group shots and portraits.

Here are a few from our pre-ceremony sessions:

I gave the girls the color and company for their dresses (Aria, aubergine). They chose their own dress style, jewelry, shoes-- everything else. It was fun to see what they all came up with.




I have a silly Dad.

Tomorrow we are driving to the Catskill Mountains, where we will spend the weekend at a lovely resort celebrating the wedding and marriage of Rich and Jen.

Patrick and I have each known Rich for 13 years-- before we were even together. Rich is among my truest friends in life. While we drifted in college, returning to Albany after graduation was the beginning of a new phase of our friendship. Always, since those high school days, Rich has been an incredible friend to me- always there in just the right way.

I remember distinctly the time before and after Rich met Jen-- he, Pat and I were spending a lot of time together meeting up in Albany, playing frisbee in Washington Park, going out. I knew he was lonely before he met her, but I didn't realize just how happy he could be. Since Jen has been in Rich's life, he exudes happiness and excitement. Their happiness together is inspiring-- the kind of happiness that draws people to them. Their joy never excludes others, but encompasses them.

When Rich met Jen, I knew she was a cool girl, and I knew she was cool enough for Rich. I knew she'd be good to him, but what I didn't know back then was just how good she'd be to me. I am so lucky that Jen has become such a good friend to me, and that the four of us, even when many miles apart, have become like family.

It is a wonderful thing to see your friends find true love, and Rich and Jen's is true blue. This weekend will be a celebration of what these two have together.

There are friends that you just know will be there for life. These are some of mine. Here's to celebrating another beautiful life moment together, and here's to all the moments to come.

Patrick designed some great cards to be handed out at our reception encouraging photo booth use, directing people to our pro photos site, and instructing guests on how to share their photos with us. The cards are gorgeous, seriously. They feature vintage cameras!

Unfortunately, they arrived five days after the wedding-- despite promises by OvernightPrints.com that they'd arrive by the Thursday before the wedding. If anyone wants one or 50, let us know-- we have 250 cards that only make us sad to look at.

In lieu of the cards, we sent out a series of emails to our guests in the days after the wedding with instructions on uploading to our wedding Flickr account and sharing to our Flickr group.

I can't say whether the cards would have been more or less successful than the emails at getting people to share, but we have received hundreds of our guests' photos from our wedding, the rehearsal, and the day-after brunch. So all in all, it worked out pretty well.

You can see the collection of photos from our guests here.

Ok, so here's how we'll do. I'm going to go in order, but not minute by minute--more by broad chunk of the day, with lots of pictures.  I'll start tonight with getting ready. And maybe later I'll go back to write a bit about the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

(I didn't want to put giant photos in--I hate when blog posts take forever to load-- but you can click on each photo to see a larger version.)

We each got ready at our respective parents' homes (our childhood homes), surrounded by our parents and our wedding party. It was a really nice way to start such a big day. I woke up early-- my mom was already up and puttering around the house. We shared the first moments of the day together. I was happy and excited from the moment I woke up-- nerves crept in for a minute or two here and there, but mostly I just felt a kind of happiness I've never felt before.

We girls (my mom and Pat's mom included) began by getting dolled up at a salon just a couple minutes from the house. Everyone had their hair done, and some of us had our make up done. The salon had mimosas, coffee, bagels, and pastries out for us-- I actually managed to have a few bites (and a few sips). It was calm and laid back- a good way to begin.

From the salon, we went back to Mom and Dad's, where we had time to get ready at a relaxed pace. There was a lot of laughter and activity, but we managed to avoid much frenzy.

The mirrored vanity in the photo below was my grandmother's-- my mom and both of her sisters all had their photos taken in front of it on their wedding days.

Once it was time for my buds to put their dresses on things started feeling more and more real (as if walking around in a veil and jeans wasn't enough).

And then, of course, it was time for me to put my dress on. It was so fun--I mean, I really only needed one person to help me into it, but I felt so supported having 6 of the most important women in my life surrounding me.

My mom was a little disappointed that we didn't get a posed photo of just the two of us, but I think the moment Brenda captured here trumps any posed photo we could have taken. I love everything about this-- the look on her face, the look on my face, the reflection- everything:

Of course, while all this was going on, Patrick was getting ready with the guys a couple miles down the road at his parents' house. The scene there was basically the same as the scene at my parents' house, obviously.

Oh my my, what a fabulous honeymoon. The beach, wine tasting, Disneyland, museums, parks, the zoo, the pool, historical sites, delicious food, the purchase of our dream camera, exploring San Diego-- and plenty of time to relax and enjoy each other. The weather was amazing, and it was the perfect vacation. Oh how we needed it. It's been awfully hard to return to the grind...

I'd like to do some wedding day recap, but I'm trying to figure out the least boring way to do it. I know that I'm bored to tears by the minute to minute recaps, and I usually focus most of my attention on the photos, regardless of format. I'll start a bit of recapping later this week, but I think I'll keep it brief in words and focus mostly on photos, lessons learned, and what really mattered. I'll also do a bit about details that I didn't talk about before the wedding. Sound ok? Suggestions regarding what you'd like to read about/see photos of? Or what you'd rather not hear about, for that matter?

Speaking of photos, here are a few honeymoon photos from our new camera-- these are all from our day trip to La Jolla, on the southern California coast:

Our guests have been posting photos for the past few days, and we've been attempting to collect them. Here are some of my favorites:

In 4 days I'm marrying the boy I've been in love with since I was 17.

The weather forecast looks perfect (low 70s and sunny... but I'm still knocking on wood, and the rosary beads will still be hung on the clothesline, and I'll still be packing my rain boots).

We are packing up tonight (I'm so nervous about forgetting something...), driving to Albany tomorrow morning, madly working to finish everything that needs to be at the reception venue by Wednesday evening, and family starts rolling into town on Thursday. I can't wait to see everyone-- I was writing out place cards last night, and every name I wrote made me more and more excited about all the people that will be with us on Saturday.

It's going to fly by, and I'm going to do my best to savor every minute of it.

We are back in Massachusetts for our last few days of living in sin. Two more days of work (during which my sweet co-workers are throwing a little party in honor of my "upcoming nuptials"-- this nice gesture despite the fact that I was unable to invite anyone from work to the wedding). Bright and early Wednesday we are headed back to Albany for final wedding preparations and plenty of celebrations. (Wheee!)

I went to church with my parents this morning and had butterflies in my stomach for the entire hour. After mass, we chatted with the organist who is playing our wedding, and who has the music thing totally under control. The gardens look lovely. Our wedding banns was listed in the church bulletin (modern banns are so boring compared to ye olde time banns. No three weeks of proclamations for us, just a listing in italics).

Today we met with our photographers to go over our wedding day time line and various other details. The meeting left us feeling so certain of our choice-- Paul and Brenda "get it"-- they aren't going to try to turn our wedding into a magazine spread, they're going to capture the day as it unfolds, and they're going to capture it beautifully. Also? The meeting ended with hugs. We left even more excited about our wedding and about our decision to hire them.

After we left that meeting, we went to our florist's house to drop off some items for the bouquets. She greeted us with hugs, I chatted with her adorable 3-year-old Oliver ("Where is your house?") and met her new baby Elijah. She ooo-ed and ah-ed over the items I brought her. Again, I left feeling elated that Jolene is in charge of our flowers.

Last night, my parents, Pat's mom, my aunt and uncle, Patrick, and I prepped the centerpieces and did some work on the favors (we would have done more had we not forgotten 2 essential pieces in Massachusetts... oops). These things are so much easier and so much more fun with the help of family and friends. Last Thursday, instead of our usual trivia night, Julia and Seth came over to help with wedding projects and provide us with lots of laughs (also, election-themed beer). All weekend we've been hearing via phone, email, and in person how excited our guests are about our wedding (did I mention that we are, too?). We are so lucky to have so many good people in our lives.

This weekend could have been really stressful and crazy, but instead it was reassuring and fun. Patrick and I were both giddy with excitement, our family and friends were so willing to help, and our vendors are just so nice!

And you know what? We're getting married on SATURDAY!

(Excuse me, I need to go squeal and kiss my fiance and twirl him around the room and give him a big squeeze because I just can't wait to be married to him! I warned you that I just can't hide it.)

I am changing my name.

Reactions to this have ranged from surprised to pleased to disapproving. In most cases, it seems that people assumed I wouldn't be changing my name.

Believe me, I gave it a lot of thought. Hyphenating would probably be my top choice, however hyphenating our last names would leave me with a six syllable last name. I spend enough of my time working on pronunciation with people now-- I can only imagine what the hyphenation of two tricky last names would do. And can you imagine just answering the phone at work? "Hello, this is Nicole Longlastname-longlastname." Whew-- it's a double mouthful!

I really like the idea of sharing a last name with Patrick-- like we're a team, operating under the same team name. I like that we'll both share a last name with our children. While I know many small changes are in store, after 10 years I'm not sure marriage will bring about any huge changes. I like the symbolism of this change and starting a new phase of our life together (in one week!) with a shared last name.

I'm not letting go of my last name entirely. I'm going to keep it as a second middle name (oh boy, filling out forms is going to be fun...) and it will remain (along with my new name) on my business cards and work-related materials. It's getting bumped back in line, but it's not disappearing.

I respect every decision about whether to keep one's last name, move it to the middle, hyphenate it, or ditch it altogether. Some of the strongest women I know took their partner's last name. It's a personal decision, and it's about what feels right to you. I don't think it says anything about one's independence as a woman or one's commitment to the marriage. It's a name.

(And really, I'm already known by quite a few names: Nicole, Nikki, Nic, Splash, to name a few. By taking Pat's last name I'm just adding one more to the list!)

Sometimes in the wedding planning world it feels like there is this dichotomy: your ceremony is either personal and meaningful, or it's a church wedding. For some reason, there is this belief out there that a church wedding is cookie cutter, impersonal, and only differs from wedding to wedding because of the names inserted in the vows.

Our wedding ceremony will be a Catholic mass celebrating the sacrament of holy matrimony. While the mass has to follow a certain format, we were able to choose readings, songs, participants, and there are sections that we are writing. It is far from impersonal: it is a representation of our faith and what it means to us. It is a ceremony that is about love.

The readings we've chosen are not about man owning woman, they are not fire and brimstone and an angry God: Our readings are about loving one another, about living with kindness, and about love's strength.

We chose our officiant based on his approach to Catholicism that is about love and inclusiveness. I have known our priest since I was 12, and his role in our wedding celebration is important to both Patrick and I.

The music for our ceremony will be sung by a family friend with a beautiful voice. We chose each song based on how the melody moved us, whether the lyrics spoke to us, and how it fit in with the rest of the ceremony.


We will be getting married at the same church where my parents were married, in the parish that my family has been a member of since I was born. My sister and I were baptized there, made our first communions there, and were confirmed there. The building itself is new, but it's a community I've known all my life.



True, the Catholic church isn't up for a bridal processional set to the music of Modest Mouse or readings from The Giving Tree-- but we will be taking part in a ceremony that mirrors the wedding ceremonies of our parents and grandparents and great grandparents-- on back to the roots of our family trees. That link is as important as all the rest.

We never had specific ideas about what we wanted for our cake topper-- I'd been keeping an eye out for a vintage bride and groom, and saw some adorable ones that were just way out of our price range. I even found a little bride and groom on a tandem bicycle, which I loved-- but not enough to justify the price tag.

We had left this detail unfinished and figured we'd come up with something-- if not, no biggie. Early this summer, Pat's cousin Steve, his wife Meg (yep, our invitation designer), and Steve's mom Norma stopped in to visit Pat's grandmother, Voa and check out her newly remodeled kitchen. When we saw them later that week, they mentioned that she had the cake topper from her wedding on display in her newly remodeled kitchen, and that she was talking about it and telling them stories of her wedding (if you know Voa, you know that of course she was telling stories!). The minute we heard that it was still around, Patrick and I both had the same thought: how great would it be if we were able to use his grandmother's cake topper?

When we went to visit Voa later in the summer, she gave us the tour of the latest additions to her kitchen, and sure enough pointed out the cake topper on display in one of her cabinets. We told her that actually, we had heard about the cake topper, and we were wondering what she thought about us using it on our wedding cake. She may have started crying right there. She couldn't believe we'd want to use it-- the flowers were coming apart she said, and it was only plastic. Were we sure about this?

We explained that those things weren't a big deal-- it was special because it was used on the day she married Patrick's grandfather. She was definitely crying then (of course, she cries just about every time our wedding is mentioned-- she is such a cutie). We were so excited that she was going to let us use it-- it means so much to have a cake topper that stood atop Voo and Voa's cake, over 50 years ago.

Voa is the only grandmother we have with us now, and she means the world to us. She has always been supportive and loving and sweet-- I am honored that the same plastic bride that represented Voa will represent me (even if it does look a little more like her than it does me!).

Here it is, Voa's cake topper, our cake topper:

We're sitting here working on music stuff for our meeting with DJ Chris tomorrow. Patrick is putting together a play list of ideas for dinner music and I'm putting together the cocktail hour play list (which probably will be a CD made by us, as cocktails will be outside on the other side of the club from where Chris will be set up).

"So, I just put together a song list for dinner hour which has 28 songs and is an hour and 37 minutes long. Oops." Says Pat.

I took a look at my cocktail hour playlist. It's got 28 songs on it and it's an hour and 37 minutes long.

Freaky! We both think one hour means an hour and 37 minutes!

But really, weird, right?

Choosing our wedding date was a process of elimination, really.

• It couldn't be during any month when there was a chance of snow, since we'll have many people flying and driving in, including relatives coming from Western and Northern NY-- areas often snowed in. In upstate New York, ruling out the snowy season eliminates November through April.
• Neither of us do well in super hot weather, so we ruled out July or August
• Rich and Jen had already set their date for mid-October, and we didn't want to get too close to that for fear of cramping honeymoon schedules.
• Early September was ruled out due to a plethora of family Birthdays that fall around Labor Day.
• In addition to the fact that June is crazy busy for me at work, we swore our engagement wouldn't be much longer than a year. A May or June wedding would mean a 21 month engagement-- something we were not at all interested in. Just over a year has been the perfect length of time for us to prepare without second guessing things over and over.
  
• I love September light.
  

We never could have predicted the way things went this summer, but in the end the timing of our wedding is just right-- good timing for a happy occasion.

I feel better about all our wedding chores after this weekend. So many checks off so many lists! Is there anything more satisfying?

Things that got done:

*We successfully made it to Guilderland before 4:30 on Friday and acquired the application for our marriage license. Among the hardest questions: Is the place we live a city or a town? Having lived here for just a few weeks, we had no idea. Luckily, they accepted our guess. The application was filled out by the clerk of our hometown, and while she entered our information we chatted about her son whom Patrick graduated with. It was very small town, warm and fuzzy (and everyone found our giddiness adorable rather than obnoxious).

*We finally had a chance to ask my cousin Lisa to do a reading during the mass. We really wanted to ask her in person, and we were finally able to schedule a visit (added bonus: fresh oatmeal cookies from the best baker in the family).

*We set up a pre-wedding meeting with our photographers, who continue to be extremely helpful, available, and fantastic to work with.

*We met with the cook and general manager of the restaurant where our rehearsal dinner is going to be and decided on the menu. Oh my is it going to be delicious!

*Mom and I worked on some more pew decorations for the church. The craft therapy was so relaxing.

*Place card and favor plans are in place, materials are (mostly) in place, and the plans are ready to be executed this week.

*And we assessed the RSVP situation... we are allowing a couple days for responses sent Saturday to roll in, and then the harassing calls begin. Seriously, people, send 'em in! Argh.


Things we have not done that we probably won't do (due to time/money/not caring anymore) and that's ok:

*Take dance lessons
*Create custom Mad Libs for each table
*Schedule enough time to go to a third location for photos
*Hire a videographer
*Make or buy a cake stand
*Create a slideshow/photo display


Really? It's all ok. We are executing our most exciting wedding project, the details we care most about are happening, and the name of the game now is maintaining sanity for the next 18 days.


Everyone we saw this weekend expressed their excitement for us, and for sharing our day. While there have been times when elopement has been tempting, I can't imagine missing out on the community celebration that's in store.

The Save the Dates were our first wedding project, and we had a blast designing them together. We decided that since our invitations were going to be on the formal side, we wanted to have fun with the Save the Dates. We came up with the concept together (along with Meg, our friend/Pat's cousin's wife/our invitation designer).

The whole thing is a reference to the beginnings of our relationship in high school, a short 10 years ago, and the things that have happened in that time.

Here's the story behind all those items:

• The pink stub on the left is the parking stub from Thacher Park (where Patrick proposed), for the day we got engaged last summer.
• The ticket along the bottom is from our trip on the Eurostar from London to Paris. We took the trip in November 2001 when Patrick game to visit me during my semester abroad in London. We ate crepes and went to the top of the Eiffel Tour at night.
  
• The "photo booth" photos we took in our living room in March-- a  black backdrop (fabric found at a thrift store) hung in a doorway, the camera on a tripod, Calvin staring at us like we'd lost our minds.
• The ticket stub on the bottom right is from a Dave Matthews concert at SPAC. Our music tastes have changed a lot since then, but we attended quite a few concerts during our first few summers together. One of the first gifts Pat gave me was Before These Crowded Streets, and the album with Tim Reynolds will always remind me of the first time I visited him at college. I'll always love those late 90s/early 00s DMB albums for the nostalgia invoked.
• The ticket stub above is from the movies, at a second-run movie theater that no longer exists (Cine 10, anyone?).

"In our tradition, celebration of life is more important than mourning over the dead. When a wedding procession encounters a funeral procession in the street, the mourners must halt so as to allow the wedding party to proceed. Surely you know what respect we show our dead, but a wedding, a symbol of life and renewal, a symbol of promise too, takes precedence."
-Elie Wiesel (thanks to Meg for reminding me of this passage.)

As we get closer and closer to our wedding day (23 days, the countdown says), reminders of those we've lost this summer are constant. The task of deleting two names from the guest list. A stamped and addressed but unsent shower thank you note. A call to the florist to change two corsages into a memorial arrangement. The list of family photos to capture. We try not to dwell on these things, but they're there. The above bit from Mr. Wiesel is a good reminder of the focus and purpose behind the wedding celebration-- a celebration of life. Ours lives, the lives of our guests, the lives of those who won't be with us, but who left us with so much. And I promise you, we are all ready for a good celebration.

Oh. my. gosh.

One month.

1.

According to theknot.com we have 83 things left to do, 18 of which are overdue. There's a reason I haven't used The Knot's checklist.

Questions for you knowledgeable folks--
Where can I buy:

-A chalkboard (like, 18" x 24" or something like that)
-A scrapbook with black pages
-Card stock in one color, for not a lot of money. I'm looking for that deep purple/eggplant color

We are at a good point-- the projects we have left feel manageable, as long as we keep ourselves on schedule and enlist a little help. We've ditched any projects that are just going to be too much (we were kicking around some video/slideshow ideas and various complicated favor ideas-- figuring out what's reasonable and what's just not going to happen was a good step).

Wanna help?
Either Labor Day weekend (if people are around) or the weekend after (if no one's around the weekend before) we'll be having a 'wedding project assembly party' for anyone who's interested in lending a hand. A lot of people have offered to help, but geographic logistics and life events have made it hard to take them up on it-- this is your chance to be a part of the magic! We'll provide food and beverage and eternal/undying gratitude.

And, dear sweet wedding guests, please don't forget to pop that RSVP in the mail, aight? Merci!

photo by Patrick

Last night, just before the stroke of midnight we moved the last of our things out of our old apartment and turned in the keys. A lot has happened in our two years on Market St, while living under the words 'Always Desirable'. That place is full of good memories, and it was sad to close the door on the empty apartment. Many more good things await us at the new place, I know-- we just have to unpack about 100 boxes first.

I feel like we've been neglecting wedding business, but this weekend we've got a lot on tap. Tonight we are headed back to Albany-- I have a dress fitting (does anyone know where I can buy Spanx? Like, tonight or before 10 tomorrow morning?), and a hair trial and I hear that Patrick has his bachelor party. We're also meeting with the cantor who is singing at our ceremony-- she's an old friend of Patrick's and his family, I can't wait to meet her. The first time we called her to ask her to sing for our wedding she did a few numbers over the phone-- love it.

Linky link
The wedding blog I started reading this morning, got sucked into, and thus was a bit late for work because of:
$2,000 Wedding

We could never pull this off (did you catch that bit about how we have nearly 100 people with just aunts/uncles/spouses and first cousins/spouses?), but the story of how they did it is inspiring. Sara and Matt's wedding was extremely personal, and looks like a whole lot of fun.

Of course, we are breaking lots of her rules with our wedding (sit down dinner, DJ, actual wedding dress, no ping pong table), but hey-- as much as we love campfires and boardgames, we also really like to get dressed up and celebrate in a slightly fancy way. As far as I'm concerned, either way is a great way to mark a special event. Whatever works for you.

I got to work today and realized that yesterday was Grace and Dave's one year anniversary! Happy Anniversary (a little late), you two crazy kids!

Grace and David's wedding was one of the best I've ever witnessed. It was also one of the most simple. They planned it in six months, had no wedding party (although I did get to be honorary bridesmaid for all the primping and prepping), and there were only 70 people there (mostly Grace's brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews, and Dave's aunts, uncles, and cousins). Grace didn't stress about a thing, everything was kept simple, there was no DJ, her mom did all the centerpieces, it was at her parents' home, and it was just gorgeous.

Most importantly, Grace and Dave were so happy.  Their happiness was contagious. Everyone was relaxed and enjoying themselves, and the setting at the lake house was perfect. There was no 'event design', and every event of the weekend was a group effort on behalf of the family, neighbors, and friends. Grace's sisters and nieces provided the ceremony music, her nephews provided the cocktail hour music, and the neighbors brought all the food for the day after brunch. Everything about it was heartfelt and genuine, just like Grace and Dave. Grace is one of my favorite people in the world, and I am so happy that she found such a great person to share her life with. I only wish our lives were playing out in the same state!

A few more photos from 8.11.07:

 
 
You can see more of our photos from their lovely day here.

How will we remember this summer when we look back on it? Tremendously sad. Tremendously exciting. Full of possibility. Full of loss.

Full of life and its ups and downs.

The loss of my grandmother has hit me hard. Unexpected, unprepared, all too fast. Grief compounded by the loss of Patrick's grandmother just a month before.

I have found comfort in these things:

-That Patrick got to know my grandmother, and oh how she loved him. When she was around him she was a charming flirt-- giving him a hard time, laughing, teasing. She knew we would be married and happy, she gave us her blessing, and we were able to share the wedding planning with her. I will never forget the day we went to her house to share the news of our engagement-- she was thrilled.

-In the support of our family and friends. I have felt closer this week to my uncles, aunts, and cousins, than I have in years. The loss hit everyone hard, and all we could do was try to hold one another up.

-In the fact that while Patrick and I imagine this wedding to be the coming together of our families, our families have already come together. In addition to Pat's parents and brother, his grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins were there to comfort and support us last week. It's hard to express how much that meant-- how much they all mean to me.

-That her life was long and full of love, and that when she died she was surrounded by her children, and not in any pain. It's the kind of death we all hope for.

-In the fact that for the past 9 years (since I went away to college up through just a few weeks ago), Grandma wrote to me nearly every week. It's too painful right now, but I know that down the road, when I miss her, I can go to the box where I've kept her letters and read a few -- her sweetness, her sense of humor, and her love are all right there. I am so grateful that she wrote those letters. It's the best argument there is for the old fashioned pen to paper letter.

So now we do the best we can to move forward. And moving is what we're doing-- quite literally. We drove back to Northampton a few hours after the funeral on Friday, and have spent the rest of the weekend packing up and making trips to the new apartment.

Invitations went out last week-- in between all the rest we're doing our best to stay on top of wedding plans.

I can't wait for our honeymoon...

There has been so much geekiness in planning this wedding -- from our Google Docs and Spreadsheets for our budget, guestlist, and to do list, to the wedding wiki, to this very blog. I've also geeked-out in all of the wedding blogs I've added to my Google Reader.

Some of my favorites:

• A Practical Wedding -- This stuff is gold. This is the wedding blog that keeps me in check and brings me back to reality when I feel like I'm surrounded by wedding pressure.
• Upstate Photographers- Yay! Our photographers started a blog!
• The Engaged Guy - If only he'd post more often...
• Style Me Pretty - Eye candy.
• Brooklyn Bride
• Earth Friendly Weddings
• Etsy Wedding -as if I need someone else helping to fuel my Etsy obsession... the wedding has already given me so many reasons to make Etsy purchases!
• Handcrafted: The Cure for the Common Wedding
• i heart peonies
• snippet & ink

There are plenty more, but many of them just serve to make me feel like a loser for not devoting my life to complicated DIY projects, or sad about not living in California where our wedding reception could be held under a tree with no fear of rain. These 10 are a good mix of inspiring without losing touch of reality.

Truth: I don't dress Patrick. Sometimes we shop for clothes together, he asks my opinion and I ask his, but I don't dress him up like a Ken doll. I don't pick out his clothes or coordinate his outfits. He's a grown man, he has good taste, and he does just fine dressing himself.

I will not be dressing him on our wedding day, either. It makes me gag every time I see a wedding blog post or a wedding magazine article about "Dressing Your Groom". Seriously? Your groom is not an accessory, not another "detail" of the day to coordinate. It is his day, too, and he deserves the respect of picking out his own outfit!

Patrick did a lot of research into proper men's formalwear for our mid-afternoon semi-formal wedding. I was clueless about types of tuxedos, suits, ties, and jackets. Anyone who knows Patrick knows that he likes to do things right, he respects tradition, and when he researches something he leaves no stone unturned.

The style of dress he chose for himself and his groomsmen is classy, classic, and handsome. I didn't go with him and his brother when they went to the menswear store to try things on--I trusted that they could handle it. We both agreed that there would be no hot pink vests or cummerbunds, but beyond that he figured it out.

We both like to get dressed up, and we're both excited about getting more dressed up than we've ever been on the day we make a very important commitment to each other.

It's trendy right now for grooms to wear sneakers, or untucked shirts without ties, or a shirt and tie but no jacket. These looks are fine and work for certain types of weddings, but I think the groom deserves to dress up to mark the occasion. To me, it's a sign of respect for the day, his wife-to-be, and the guests.

Mostly though, I disagree with making the groom just another accessory. Pat's not just an accessory to my life; he's the most important thing in it. And he's not just an add-on to the wedding day like the cake or the flowers; he's the center of it (or one half of the center of it!). At the very least, I can respect his ability to pick out clothes, and his right to join me in getting all dressed up in our wedding day finery.

Of course, if it was up to me, I'd choose something like this for Patrick:

We finally/officially finished registering last weekend (I'll follow proper etiquette and not mention where, but the information is out there).

We've spent years tolerating teflon that flakes off into our food (seasoning!), using handed down plates, pots, and pans circa 1982, and drinking out of college-grade glasses. We've dreamed about matching plates, good flatware, and knives that actually cut. "Someday, we'll register for a [fill in the blank]" was our mantra from the day we moved in together.

So after all that, we never expected registering to be so overwhelming! We wanted to be practical, to register for quality but not extravagance (ok, we broke that rule here and there-- but the Griddler is just so cool! And it sounds like a Batman villain). We wanted to select things that would help us create a grownup household, and that would last for years to come. The thing is, neither of us is all that comfortable asking for things, especially things that really aren't necessities. And isn't the point of a registry to tell people what you want, even if you don't NEED it?

With some practice (and encouragement from our moms) we got better at it (obviously-- we have two very full registry lists). And who doesn't love a scanner gun? It's hard to be gun shy with that thing.

Of course, we live in a small apartment with minimal closet space right now, so most of this stuff will stay in storage until we buy a home in a couple years. Unless, of course, we move to a bigger apartment just so we can have dinner parties at a table set with coordinated place settings... but that would be silly, right?

the edison club (our reception venue) has finally brought their website out of 1998! it's not perfect (especially if you're using firefox and the window isn't maximized. hm, i'm assuming they're working on this...), but it's so much better than what they had. you too can see it, here. 

elsewhere on the web, yet another fantastic post is up on a practical wedding. go read about 'wedding industry rage'. i have my own things to say on this topic, coming soon.

in the offline world, it seems that the 'is so and so invited to the wedding?' questions have begun. sigh.

just a quick post to say thank you to meg at a practical wedding for mentioning this lil blog!

meg's blog is refreshing and helpful, and her wedding is going to be lovely. i think we are kindred wedding planning souls. her tagline, 'creative, thrifty, sane' speaks to me!

there have been a number of budget-focused posts in the wedblog world recently, a trend that i appreciate. it's nice to be inspired by the WOW weddings that are more production than celebration, but it's also nice to be reminded that most of us are planning within the reality of budgets, a shaky economy, and prices that just keep on climbing. cheers to practicality!

5/2 update: here's one more! (although i disagree about #7. at least in our case, every 'non-traditional' venue we looked at had plenty of hidden costs-- insurance, rentals, rain plans, restrictions on music, exclusive vendors, and so forth).

green and earth friendly weddings are big these days. in planning our wedding, we didn't set out to make any kind of social statement-- we just want to create a day that reflects our values and our love (aw!).

a nice result of this approach is that we've done a pretty good job of creating a wedding that is both 'local' and 'green'. i can't say that it is totally and completely either of these things, but for the most part, our choices have reflected these values.

green how?
*by purchasing antique jewels rather than new
*by finding reusable and reused centerpieces
*by using recycled paper in our invitation design.
*by choosing bridesmaids' dresses that are made of natural materials, made in the u.s.a., and are made without sweatshop labor (i  guess that's not so much a green point as a social one, but still an important point). more on aria here, on thryn's blog about her truly green wedding-- their efforts to be earth friendly are admirable.
*by incorporating as much 'old' as possible-- family pieces, borrowed items, thrifted items. the more history, the better!

local how?
nearly all of our vendors are small businesspeople based in albany or northampton. most work out of their homes and/or run their own business. this is true of our florist, our photographers, our dj, our invitation designer (disclosure: she's also family! and she's great), our cake baker, the store where i bought my dress, and the store where we are renting the boys' tuxes.

to be honest, most wedding-related businesses are on the small side, and probably most are local-- but not all. when given a choice between a larger company and a smaller one, we almost always felt that the service and connection was better with the small business. we can email any one of our vendors at any time and get an immediate response, directly from them.

in addition to the green and local themes that have emerged, we've also been pulling a lot of handmade aspects into the wedding (and i don't mean handmade by me, not yet anyway!). i've bought a number of wedding items on etsy and from local artists. the items i've found on etsy have been one-of-a-kind beauties, and again- the connection with the artist far outweighs any connection i've ever felt with a big box store! (side note: etsy is among the best places to find gifts for anyone. you will find everything you can dream up and lots of things you can't imagine anyone dreaming up.)

unfortunately, it's not possible for us to have a through and through green, local, and handmade wedding, but we can make each decision with those values that are important to us in mind.  so far, these guidelines have steered us in the right direction. now we just have to get everyone to carpool from the church to the reception... or maybe we can get a monorail installed along central avenue for the day.

my wedding ring is inside this box:

it's strange (and hard!) to have it here, in my possession, but unable to wear it for another five months. i took some photos of the ring itself, but they didn't come out very well-- i'll try again soon using pat's camera, it tends to do a better job than my highly-portable yet limited-functionality camera.

it took a couple trips to see serena before i was ready to pick out my ring. a lot goes into a decision about a ring you'll be wearing for the rest of your life, a ring that's full of more symbolism than any other piece of jewelry.  like my engagement ring, the band is also an antique and it's also from the 1930s. i went in thinking i wanted a plain band, but it turns out they just didn't look right with my engagement ring. there were so many beautiful antique wedding bands to choose from, but the one i chose was the only one that looked right when paired with my engagement ring.

i love how when we make appointments with serena she calls it an appointment to "look at jewels", and after my ring had been resized she called to say my "jewel" was ready. so much prettier than the word "bling"!


we're headed to albany this weekend to look at tuxes for pat and to continue the search for his wedding band. we thought we'd found it, but the first plan didn't work out, so the hunt continues. we also may have found our centerpieces... we'll see.

i've said it over and over: i love the wedding we're planning. the traditional ceremony that includes our own touches, our loving friends and family, the classy but not stuffy reception, the little bits of us we're bringing into it-- it's all just right. but i do have some alternate wedding fantasies floating around.

without rules, with endless resources, with no limitations, and with guarantees of perfect weather conditions, our wedding could be....

-on the dock at lake george. reception is on the grassy area behind the beach (which is not one bit soggy) surrounded by those strung bare bulb lights, guests are seated at long picnic tables, food is grilled, there is corn on the cob and lots of summery salads. there are bunches of wild flowers and lanterns everywhere. our favorite bands play their happiest songs. there are very clean and classy bathrooms nearby. the rehearsal dinner is a square dance on the beach. we've rented out the entire association for the weekend, and no drama ensues. sunny weather is guaranteed and it turns into a warm evening with no bugs. wish boats on the lake at the end of the night. a midnight swim. a sail the next day.

-looking out over the capital region from thacher park lon a late september afternoon, on that point of land where we saw a wedding take place once. i have a long veil that blows in the wind, out over the edge of the cliff. we take a ride on your dad's motorcycle (i wear the helmet over my veil, which blows behind us). the reception is in a pavilion that is decked out with paper lanterns and draped white fabric. there is bocce and croquet on the lawn. cuisine is mediterranean with perfect tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. everyone wears sun dresses and summer suits with bright ties. we are allowed to stay after dark, there are fireflies and sparklers and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

-wedding ceremony is at st. mary's church in northampton. afterwards we lead our guests through town, to the reception at the hotel northampton.  photos of us and the wedding party are taken throughout town (including, of course, crossing diagonally, beneath the calvin marquis, eating herell's ice cream, and listening to a street musician). reception music is provided by erin mckeown.

-another pioneer valley dream wedding: on the deck overlooking the river at the montague book mill. they actually do host weddings here, at the restaurant beneath the mill. the photos by the river and among the books would be amazing, as would everything about the setting.

-in geneva. ceremony in the hws chapel, reception in houghton house (cocktail hour in the sunken gardens). there is a silhouette artist on site- everyone receives a custom silhouette to take home. the gallery space features photos by us, our friends, and our families. all of our guests stay in the campus houses along the lake. we end the evening on one of the benches overlooking the water.

-black tie affair with the reception in the new york state museum, specifically
in the area surrounding the carousel
(in real life only available to non-profits- or so they said 6 months ago). catered by the gingerman, a jazz band plays, and there are gigantic preston bailey-style flower arrangements everywhere.  also, that old school photobooth and a cotton candy machine.