When all is said and done!!

Well, we're married now. All in all, it was a wonderful day and we had a blast. We just got back from our honeymoon in Jamaica and it was great!!

Looking forward to seeing everyone's photos!! Be sure to upload them to http://ninefiveonine.shutterfly.com ! It's fast, easy and helps everyone to see them!!

Only 4 weekends remain...

We only have 4 weekends, a mere 26 days til our big day! It's so crazy how fast this year of planning has flown by.

The crazier part is that the RSVP deadline is on Wednesday and we're still missing like 135 peoples' responses!! I can't believe it. I'm hoping that when I get to my mailbox today, it will be stuffed to the brim with RSVP cards! Some of the things we have left to do depend on those numbers and the final count is obviously going to be due to the caterer soon!

We have lots of stuff still to work on for the wedding. This week, we're doing centerpieces, tuxes, ceremony text and wedding bands. I'm sure we'll get everything done by the wedding, but boy is it going to be a tough 26 days to come...

47 days out now!!

I can't believe we're already down to a mere 47 days until the wedding! The days are going by so quickly that I know our big day will be here before we know it.

The invites are out and RSVPs are slowly coming back... it's very exciting to go to the mailbox everyday and see the little envelopes there! Sundays make for sad days though. ;) I'm very pleased with the way they turned out and glad to have gotten so many nice compliments on them.

My dress has come in and I've got my first fitting next week. I'm both excited and nervous about it!

We've been having tons of appointments with different vendors we still need for the wedding (cake, tux, flowers). But we're definitely making progress.

We've also booked our honeymoon to Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios Jamaica. I'm sooo excited for that!

We met with the officiant for the ceremony and he seems pretty cool and easy-going. We get to come up with our own ceremony text and make it our own, which is both exciting and scary, mostly because it's one more thing we have to do!!

The bridal shower is on August 2nd and I'm very excited to see what Crystal's put together for that.

Can't wait to see everybody!!

Check and check!

Well things are moving along quite rapidly now...

75 days til the wedding and we finally have a ceremony site. It's at the First Baptist Church of Royal Oak (The Church on Main). This really will allow us to move full speed ahead into the rest of the planning!

Other things we've checked off the to do list recently: 1. We've bought all of the invitations and I've used my creative skills to make them look pretty darn cute. 2. We rented a photobooth for the reception! This is going to be soo much fun for our guests and a great way to remember the occasion with the scrapbook that will be made there. 3. We've finished our registries.

We'll just keep working away at it bit by bit and with any luck we'll make it to the wedding day and have a beautiful wedding!

I've officially moved in to our new home and I've started to spread out a little. Still working on getting a routine down and I'm unpacking things little by little. We purchased some furniture from Gardner White recently and it's really starting to look like home. Patrick's parents have been working hard every day painting and doing other things in the house, which is definitely appreciated. They are doing great work and we're glad that they are able to help us out so much.

Well that's all for now. Only 75 days until the big day! Yikes!

Who knew door knobs were such a big deal...

Well, we finally have a place to call home! Saturday, we bought some new door knobs to put on the house so that we could have keys to all the doors and we labored for hours trying to get the old ones off and the new ones on. After 4 hours, we only managed to get one on. But we had finally figured out how to get the old ones off (not your typical door knob, and it was old). Patrick and his parents returned there on Sunday while I was at work and put the rest of them and the deadbolts on.
I got my first piece of mail at the house, a welcome letter from DTE (which I thought was already a bill). It sort of made it feel real, but I'm not quite there yet. It's going to be a slow process moving in, (as of today, the only pieces of furniture we have are 2 lawn chairs). Hopefully, we'll be able to move some stuff in this weekend.
This weekend is going to be busy though. Saturday, for me, is work, Aaron's birthday party, & Ruthie's bridal shower. Sunday is packing and moving and Gabe's wedding. Monday is more packing and moving hopefully.

As far as the wedding goes, we have picked a photographer!! Yay! We should be getting the contract today to review and we'll be signing it on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited about it. That's one big check off the list. Now, if only we could decide on that elusive ceremony site. I'm giving us until June 1st to have one picked or else I'm just going to go with the Royal Oak Church and call it a day. Hopefully, they will still be available for our day. I went to JoAnn's yesterday to check out DIY invitations and I'm still a little torn. I'm also working on getting the honeymoon booked (Jamaica!!) and having a special cake topper made. I have a checklist and I'm hoping to follow it and get things crossed off.

All in all, things are moving along and hopefully, we'll get everything done in time.

Updates...

Wedding related:

• Well, we're still lacking a ceremony site but that may not be the case by the end of the week. Patrick and I have meetings set up with a couple venues tomorrow so I'm crossing my fingers that something works out. If we could just get a site booked, all this planning will be so much easier.
• I've got invitation samples coming in the mail and I have to say I'm very excited about their potential. I'm pretty decided on DIY invites so that they turn out exactly as I (read: we) want them. Patrick says he's okay with it cause he has no problem contructing things. Which is definitely what will need to happen and we'll need lots of help when it comes to that. Luckily, we've still got some time before they have to go out (I'm thinking somewhere around my birthday).
• I'm also trying to look for shoes, a veil, a tiara, and a garter. Hopefully, I can find some that aren't too expensive!!
• Most importantly, I've been working on getting hotel room blocks for guests who are coming from out of town for the wedding. As you probably know, I work for an area hotel and I was able to get a great deal for guests. It will be at the Hampton Inn Madison Heights featuring a great rate of $59/night plus tax! This hotel not only includes the newly renovated rooms (renovations currently taking place and they look great!!), complimentary hot breakfast each morning (delicious!), high speed wireless internet, a newly renovated fitness center with dry sauna and the addition of an outdoor pool! Anyway, I'm really excited to share part of my life with you, especially with the amazing staff we have that will make sure you get great customer service! (I'm quite the sales person, eh?). Reservations aren't quite available yet, as we still have some paperwork to sign, but more details will be on the Important Information page of our website when details have been confirmed.

House updates:

We are getting so close to a closing date on this house in West Bloomfield. We're hoping for May 15th, but we will see. It's both exciting and daunting the prospect of soon becoming a home-owner!!

Well, that's all for now. Until next time!

Dress.... check!

I finally decided on my wedding dress. It's a gorgeous all white with metallic beading Alfred Angelo gown that really compliments my figure. I'm very excited about it. It should be here in June and thank goodness that's one more thing out of the way. Theresa and I went out shopping for other wedding stuff this past weekend (even though I've been so sick!).

Now we just have to find that elusive ceremony site...

...like spinning the tires in mud.

Well, over the past two weekends we didn't get much done. We've had an offer on a house sit and wait for the bank, and Shauna's been pretty sick. Moreso, the place that we were going to have our ceremony, after telling us several times that they were open, has magically discovered that they're not going to be available for our weekend, which leaves us hanging out to dry, again. Shauna tried to contact another site but, as far as I can tell, they have not even responded to her. Not an auspicious start!

I think that I'm going to to try and get some of the "Save the Date" cards out in the next couple days...I'm sure that some people would appreciate the signs of life...

Ceremony sites, wedding dresses, and house frustrations

We, once again, have been outbid on a house. It's getting very frustrating to keep looking at houses and finding ones we like and not being able to buy them. It adds on to the pressure of wedding plan. So hopefully, we can find one soon, so that we can stop splitting our efforts so much.

We are also still having trouble finding a ceremony site. I found a list of all churches in the city of Warren and we were going to start calling them, but Patrick's mom found a great advertisement in the magazine Newsbeat that mentioned renting out the atrium at Warren City Hall. So I'm going to call them today to check on prices, logistics and other such things. It would really be a perfect location because not only is it pretty, it also is super close (within a mile) of our reception site, Royalty House, and it provides a place for very nice pictures in front of the new fountain. With any luck, we'll have our locations picked out by the end of the week and we'll be able to really start looking into other vendors, like photographers and cakes.

It's getting close to the 6 months to go mark and I still haven't picked a dress yet! It's so hard to decide!!

All-Inclusive Resort for free!

Patrick and I just won an all-inclusive honeymoon package to Mexico or the Caribbean. How exciting!! The only problem now is figuring out where to go!!