Our Vineyard Wedding

Alright so I am working on ordering invitations and that has me thinking about how I am going to address them… and the question I have is how do women like to have envelopes addressed is it Miss or Ms? I think Ms sounds to nondescript and snooty, but I think it is the official way to do things. Any thoughts?

Whew… we’ve been pretty busy lately, and not entirely on wedding stuff, so this post is a bit overdue. We made a trip to CT (actually two driving trips in three weeks) and got a fair amount done, so now it’s time to fill you all in.

First, we have selected a hotel for our guests, and it’s actually the closest one to the vineyard. It’s also very close to Foxwoods Casino and our package includes free shuttle service both to and from the wedding as well as the casino!

The hotel is called The Hilltop Inn & Suites (be prepared for some music when you visit the site) and we’ve booked plenty of rooms for Saturday night, as well as a smaller amount for Friday and Sunday nights. You can read all about it on our special hotel page.

We’ve also selected a DJ who we’re really excited about. In fact, we’d like to let you request some songs, so feel free to do so in comments to this post. We’ll start keeping a list of requests once they come in and we’ll be sure to write about it then to let you know.

That’s all for now — more planning to do!

Just a note that I’ve installed a plugin on this blog that attempts to keep the comment spam down. Spammers are now leaving comments on blogs, and since we are having our wedding near a casino and both of Michelle’s parents are pharmacists, it makes it particularly difficult to filter based on some of the more popular words.

The plugin adds another blank to the comment form, after your name, that asks you to type a couple of random letters or numbers, basically in order to prove that you are a human and not a spamming computer. Please let me know by email if you have any problems using it.

Well I am a little behind in the goal update from February… here we go:

February’s Goals:
*Save the date labels (DONE)
*Mail save the date cards (DONE)
*Michelle’s passport application (DONE)
*Justin’s passport application
*Bridesmaid dresses (DONE)
*Honeymoon search (almost there)
*DJ contract (DONE)
*Ceremony rough draft (DONE)

Alright so not that bad, got most of the stuff done. Now for March…

March Goals:
*Ring shop/purchase
*Invitation order
*Hotel arrangements (almost there)
*Rehearsal dinner location/reservation (working on it)
*Tuxedos
*Honeymoon plane tickets
*Vows/readings

It seems these lists are only getting longer and not shorter.

Michelle and I drove to Connecticut and back, plus about 200 miles in the middle, in about 48 hours. We’re a little tired, but we had a very productive weekend. We met with our Reverend, Alice; a potential DJ; and an event representative from a hotel that we’ve since selected for our guests. We were also able to spend a little time with Michelle’s brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, which was great, but each day began at 7am and ended after midnight, so it was definitely tiring.

Besides getting things ticked off of our lists, I felt it was a good weekend for another reason. Alice was able to provoke us with some questions that required some thought, which is great. It was nice to think about the why and not just the what. My favorite three questions were:

* The time that X happened, did you feel that you were in a winning or losing position?
* How do you show thanks to God for the love that you two share?
* What are you finding the most challenging thing to be about all of this?

Thinking about these things and answering together was a good experience. Talking about why I’m thankful and how I show it was a good thing, and the realization that we’re not often in winning and losing positions between ourselves was a reaffirming one. Answering that the most challenging part is keeping it all in perspective, not getting bogged down in the details, and keeping foremost in our minds the reason we’re doing all of this kept us focused and made us realize all the more that we’re on the right path.

A good weekend, for sure.

P.S. I’ve upgraded the software behind this blog to the latest version. Please let us know if you see any weirdness, but I think things should keep sailing right along.

We just got to CT from DC. Justin and I are spending the weekend meeting with the reverend, a potential dj, searching for hotels and trying out a rehearsal dinner possibility. Also we are hoping to spend saturday night dinner with KC, Marc and Jimmy. Then head back to DC on sunday, it feels like we were just here. But we are hoping for a productive weekend. Now to bed!

As Michelle posted yesterday, this weekend we had our engagement party held by Michelle’s parents. It was an absolute blast! It was great to meet (and re-meet) so many friends and family, as well as see our high school and college friends together. On that note, we’ve got a couple new things going on on the site, so here’s a summary:

* photo page, including new photos from this weekend
* online pre-RSVP
* registry list

You can reach the photos page here or from the right sidebar. We have 60 new photos from Saturday’s party.

If you’ve received a save the date card, you can pre-RSVP here and help us get an idea of whom to expect. Please note that we will be sending out full invitations to folks later on and that this is only a pre-RSVP.

Lastly, you can find links to our registries in the right sidebar.

We’ll be traveling to Connecticut again in two weeks to meet with our Reverend and prospective DJs. We’ll update again after that, I’m sure!

We had a GREAT WEEKEND… and many thanks to everyone who was there to spend it with us. Justin and I made it to Gwen’s on Thursday night and then the three of us traveled to CT by Friday afternoon. It was really fun to have everyone over and spend a weekend together. And on Saturday we were successful in finding and ordering the bridesmaids dresses. And some of the Save the Date cards were mailed out. Mom’s engagement party went really well and everyone seemed to have a good time. And it was Justin’s first chance to meet with many of my parents cousins. Plan to be back in CT in a couple weeks to continue on with the planning.

Quick update… we are heading to CT tomorrow night for the weekend. My parents are hosting an engagement party on Saturday night. Plus my bridesmaids will be in town and we are going dress shopping. Keep your fingers crossed, my hope is that we find and order dresses. Justin’s mom is making the trip to CT so we are planning to show her some of the sites/arrangements that have been made. And on the DJ front… we were planning to meet with a potential DJ on friday night, but I am having a horrible time trying to get in touch with him to set up a time.

We will see what the weekend brings… but I am very excited.

January Goals:
Create and order Save the Date cards (DONE)
Online RSVP program (DONE)
Registry (Partially Met)

February Goals:
Mail save the date cards
Ring shop/purchase
Mail in passport application
Bridesmaid dress shopping
Invitation design
Begin honeymoon searching
Contract with a DJ
Begin choosing ceremony selections/readings

So as you can see things are moving along. We are going to be making one weekend trip to CT in Feb to get some things done up there. I am a little nervous about getting all of Februarys tasks done, perhaps ring shopping will be pushed off till march. Any suggestions about invitations and ring searching are welcome.