Greetings from Mrs. Davidson

Yup, the social security card came in the mail today so it's official with the US government now. So, as you
can see, we decided that I would take Douglas' name. I also decided to keep all of my existing names, so now my legal name is composed of four names: first, first middle, second middle, and last! The name change was really easy to get used to after the wedding. The name change process isn't as nightmare-ish as it's been made out to be, but that's for another post.

I have lots of exciting posts coming up, some I want to wait to do until the official wedding photos come in because we don't have any really good photos of the specific details I want to talk about posted on the site yet. Speaking of which, if you want to see some photos from the wedding weekend, dear Vanessa put together a Flickr site for everyone to upload their own photos to! Check the postings out at Flickr.com/crddwedding

 Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

The Monday before the wedding, Douglas and I decided to go out for one of our favorite lunches: express hibachi at Kabuto. The express lunch is great because you get a drink, your choice of two main details (salad, soup, garlic noodles, rice, etc.), and your meat of choice or veggies for about $8 and you're in and out in no time. The portions are perfect! So if you're ever in the south end of Charlotte, definitely check out Kabuto.

We hop in the car after lunch to head to the airport to pick up my brother (also, best bro/best bridesman) when I get a text from my woman of honor, Sarah, asking about my preferences for a waffle maker. As if I wasn't excited enough that it was our wedding week, but my best gal just told me she was picking up the item I wanted most off of our registry! Score!!!

Shortly thereafter, Douglas and I picked up my brother, who I hadn't seen in a while, from the Charlotte airport. We get him some lunch and hit the road. I forgot to tell poor Anthony that we were heading right for Roanoke after he landed. Good thing we cushioned the blow by having Kaylee in the back of the car to keep him company.

Best Bro & Bride

It was really great having Anthony around for the week leading up to the wedding, not just for the extra man-power, but just to be able to spend some quality time with him.

Anthony proved to be quite the wine connoisseur

Groom and Best Bro sorting candy. More on this later.

It was really good to see him come out of his shell, too. He was really quiet the first day or so, but after getting to know everyone, he became the life of the party! You'll see a bit more about Anthony when we get into the rehearsal dinner recap and then the reception. Boy can still bust a move!

We were lucky to not have a lot to do during the week before the wedding, and yet we had our hands full. There were meetings with vendors, getting the right documents to the rabbi, ordering the beer, and just putting everything together.  

Anthony, Douglas, and the candy piles

Janice inspecting the flowers

Decorating the flower pots for the rehearsal dinner

Janice, Cousin Mary, and Mom (in the back) walking the linens and flowers to the venue

Anthony showing off as we prep the venue

Mr & Mrs!

WE DID IT!!!!

Recaps coming soon!

3 weeks, 2 days, and....

snip

The Short Short Short Version

Ah! So I was going to have time to do a full post, but plans have changed! Douglas started a new internship this week and was supposed to work Tues, Wed, Fri. However, they asked him to switch his Thurs and Fri. What does this have to do with posting? Well, it means we can leave for Roanoke sooner! Even if we don't leave until tomorrow morning, there's still stuff to get together.

What are we planning to do this trip?

• Apply for wedding license!
• Pick up wedding rings!
• Meet with the caterer
• Possibly meet with the rabbi to work out ceremony details

What could be more exciting than that?

• Our ketubah arrived today!
• I have an idea for a hair style.
• Found a salon to check out. I'll schedule a trial for my next visit into Roanoke.
• We figured out the groomsmen gifts.
• The groomsmen are getting their clothes taken care of.
• We have the concept for our centerpieces! We'll probably have the color scheme worked out this weekend.

Very exciting!!! We cannot wait to get into town tomorrow and at least get 1 or 2 things taken care of. The rest will be done on Monday.

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!!!!

Oh, September

Have no fears, your Google Reader didn't glitch. There was no post last week. Douglas came home! It's a bit bittersweet because we were hoping the his internship would turn into immediate full time work, but we'll take it as long as we're back living together.

Not wasting any time, Douglas set up another internship, this time locally. He starts after the holiday weekend. We're both glad that he'll be working, but man would September be easier if he wasn't or if we could afford to have a second car. As always, we'll make it work. Other than my job and his internship, we have a trip to Roanoke next weekend which doubles as a wedding trip and a networking trip and two weeks later we're attending a wedding in South Carolina on Saturday and then a wedding in Charlotte on Sunday! Busy busy bees. Then we're in October!!! AH!

Of the many things we have planned to knock out on our next Roanoke visit, we were going to try to squeeze in applying for the wedding license. Having a delayed stroke of genius, I double checked what ID documents we'd need for the state of Virginia. A copy of a birth certificate isn't good enough, it has to be a certified copy. Not having one, we jumped online and researched how to apply for a copy, how much it would cost, and how long we'd have to wait for it. Average waiting time is between 5-10 days for the order to be processed so we don't really expect to have the document in-hand before the Roanoke trip. So the marriage license will have to wait for another trip.

Speaking of marriage licenses and contracts, we ordered our ketbuah! I love the wording on our ketubah. The language is so heartfelt that we're probably going to combine the reading of the ketubah with the vows and just have the language serve double duty.

Oh, and another thing we have done, we have our first dance song narrowed down to two tunes.

I apologize for how my posts as of late seem to break off after a short time. It's difficult to keep a train of thought going when there's a lot going on in the house. Since both Douglas and Louis won't be home until after 6p starting next Thursday, I'm hoping that I'll be able to squeeze out better posts in the hour or so of downtime between work and chaos. :)

Sashes and Towers and Clowns, Oh My!

Talk about being clueless. Here is how I arrived at my bridal shower:

Yes, that's a blindfold and a veil! Fortunately, I do not have any injury stories to share! I ridiculously cute and sweet escort was successful in driving me to the location without me getting carsick, escorting me across the parking lot without getting hit by any cars, walked me up stairs without me stubbing a toe or tripping, and navigated me successfully through a busy delicious smelling place.

My future-husband and escort

Since the location had been kept top secret and couldn't smell anything discernible (it smelled delicious!), I was stumped when I was told to guess where we were. To be fair, I probably could have guessed in maybe three to five tries, but I was so nervous (I don't do well as the center of attention) I couldn't think straight. In my head, I was rattling off pizza places that are in NY and local cupcake bakeries, all of which I knew weren't correct. After a few stumbling attempts to not be a party pooper, my blindfold was removed to reveal that I was at one of my favorite sweet spots in Charlotte - Amelie's French Bakery in NoDa!

If you don't know about Amelie's, let me paint you a picture...or rather, show you some pictures of their decor.

Reminds me of places we used to hang out in while in college in Asheville. Good times.

With the location finally revealed, my blindfold became a sash and the party started. Side story on the Bride-to-Be sash - it was worn by brideswoman Vanessa at her bachelorette party! Now it is in my possession until it is time to pass it on to the next special lady to get married.

Ms. Sharon looking on behind me

So what, pray-tell would a constitute a "party" in bride-to-be-Crystal-land? Well, there would be amazing people...

Brideswoman Vanessa and me

Brideswoman Noel and Woman of Honor Sarah

Sadly, I don't have too many great photos of the rest of the guests. Trust me, it was a group of awesome women (I love you guys!).

...fun decor....

Mismatched plate settings!

The plates were so pretty! Love that they were mismatched.

Yes, these are personalized Hershey's fun sized candies!

...we'll throw in some gifts since there are a LOT of photos of the table o'treasure...

Booty

 ...tasty tasty treats....

Plate of goodies! And yes, they were delic-wait for it-ous!

Yummy Yummy Yummy, I have mousse in my tummy

...and clowns?

Yes....clowns.

So yes...clowns...
Let's start at the beginning. There is one bathroom for customers to use. This, not surprisingly, causes lines. So I was holding up the next stage of the party (opening gifts) while I waited to catch a bathroom opportunity. This is where the Amelie's staff is awesome - they let me use their staff bathroom so we could move things along! Their office rocks, by the way. They have a large portion of their office dedicated to play areas for their young kids! Very cool. Anyway, I'm coming back from the office bathroom when Janice runs up and grabs my hand and starts dragging me past the side room where the shower was taking place. It takes a few seconds for me to compute that she's telling me that there is a purple clown and I need to get a picture with him. As I'm computing this, she remembers that
I
Hate
Clowns.
By the time we reach the clown, who is talking with Vanessa, Janice asks if I'm ok with this. I take one look at the clown and respond "Yup!"
Confused?

Clowns I Hate:

Never trust these guys!

Which is why I enjoy this movie:

Clowns I Don't Mind:

Who doesn't love the Joker?

Goth Clowns!

So what's the difference? Circus clowns always look so happy, but a few straws short of a bale happy. They always make me nervous. Never trust a happy clown. This was my kind of clown, though, and not just because he worked the black and purple color scheme. He was the right kind of evil/scary clown. He looked evil enough to where it didn't feel like he was hiding his motives, but not so evil it went into "The Hills Have Eyes" crazy. So while I was cracking up at the fact that there was a clown at my bridal shower, I loved that of all the popular places in all the world, he walked into this one! 

So what was the crazy purple clown doing at a french bakery if he wasn't hired for your shower, I hear you asking. Well, apparently, there's a local group that does an Evil Clown Bar Crawl around town, and this was the second annual crawl. They went around town that day collecting school supplies for kids! How cool is that? After he obliged for the photo, we saw Mr. Evil Purple Clown walk past the windows of the side room a few times during the shower, so almost everyone got to see him. He was a hit of the party!

So thank you, awesome purple evil clown. You were a very unexpected but awesome surprise!

Speaking of surprises...

stay tuned...

Cake Poll

Hello, readers. It's been a long time since we had a poll post. This one is for those who have planned events that have already taken place.

Do you have any wisdom to impart on deciding on details about the (wedding) cake? Is it wiser to get just flavors you like or to mostly cater to the palettes of your guests? Did you end up with a lot of leftovers? How many people could your cake serve vs. the number of people showed up?

"You're wet." "Yes, It's Raining."

This bride-to-be has been showered!

This past weekend, a lovely group of ladies gathered at one of my favorite local bakeries to throw me a (mostly) surprise bridal shower. The only information I had was the date and the time I needed to be ready by.

Before getting into the shower, though, let me start with the day before; the day Charlotte got six inches of rain in three hours! The downpour wouldn't have been much of an issue for most as it occurred mostly mid-day, before most would be driving into town. (Luckily, Douglas didn't have to drive in that rain to get here!) However, one we knew who would be arriving Friday evening wasn't coming by car, but by train. Brideswoman Vanessa enjoys taking the train and almost never comes away from a trip without a story. This trip, she had a story. The train wasn't leaving Raleigh! Why?

Charlotte's Amtrak Station Under Water

Charlotte's Amtrak station is known to flood, but this was ridiculous. An hour or so later, her train was ready to leave Raleigh and give the trip to Charlotte a shot. By the time we showed up to pick her up, the parking lot had drained but the station building was off-limits (lights were off) and the tunnel where the riders would leave the platform from was flooded, so Vanessa got to trek across gravel to leave, with the other passengers, out of the service entrance. It took a while, but we got her! She then informed us that one of the cars in the parking lot was her conductor's. Ouch!

We finally got Vanessa back to our place and hung out for a few hours. Then, around midnight, while we were discussing some logistics for wedding stuff the girls were helping me out with, we get a knock at the door. SURPRISE!

Brideswoman Noel is at my door!!! This little lady had paid me a surprise visit once before in DC, but that was with Vanessa as a co-conspirator. This time, Vanessa was also surprised! We didn't know if Noel was going to be able to come in at all, so for her to show up was that much more awesome!

With Best Man #1, Brideswoman #1, Brideswoman #2, and Future Husband under the same roof, it was time to pack it in for a few hours of sleep. Putting my head down and wondering what the next day would hold, this image never crossed my mind:

We Have Bands - Wedding Bands, That Is!

Who knew the impact of crossing one little item off the to-do list?

Future mother-in-law, Jane, and I were able to make an impromptu trip to Roanoke early this weekend. It was a quick in and out trip with the major objective being making some decisions about the rehearsal dinner. On that end, we had success. On top of that, we were all able to pop into the venue and see that the window trims are up and the tables and chairs are in and the bathrooms are finished! Ladies and gentlemen, the venue is DONE!!! Being able to see everything in the space, Douglas and I were able to discuss blocking, seating, etc. Another big deal from the trip was that I was able to make some decisions about the table decorations!

But the tables are for another day. Jane and I had some time before lunch, after which we would head back to Charlotte, so Doug and I decided it was a good opportunity to pop into a few jewelry shops to look at rings. First stop, Jewells Fine Jewelry. If you are ever in Roanoke, I recommend popping in. They have an array of different jewelry styles and the ladies who work there are fantastic! We were in the shop for maybe five minutes before Douglas was holding a lovely black ceramic Benchmark ring, that he had been considering, in his hand! This was big because other jewelry shops didn't have a sample of the rings, you had to just order from a catalog. So Douglas is able to actually check out a ring in the color, material and very close to the style that he was considering. Score! We all loved the ring and the hard part became deciding which of two styles he liked best! While Douglas was deciding, I was able to check out some simple plain women's bands. This was exciting because I just was not liking any of the jeweled bands most stores showcase. They just didn't work and I couldn't even comprehend spending so much money on such thin bands. But that's just me. I found a style that I liked when one of the ladies asked the other if she had shown me "the sample ring". In a flash, a sample ring was brought up from behind the counter - a nice little white gold number in a similar style to the sample I was just looking at. After slipping it on my finger, we were floored by how perfect it worked with the engagement ring! They looked like they were made as part of a set. BINGO! I had found a wedding band! The style - Comfort Fit. The material - white gold. The size - PERFECT! "We can hold this very ring for you, if you'd like." After checking it out and seeing that it's pretty much brand new, I told her "yes, please"! I had found MY wedding band! I was wearing MY wedding band with my engagement ring and loving it! I bounced up and down with excitement as Douglas made his final decision on the style that he liked and asked a few more questions about the ordering process as he would have to order his. As soon as all was said and done, Douglas and I looked at each other. I was too excited. "Douglas, we BOTH have wedding bands!" was followed by a perfect high-five. (are we not perfect for each other?) The store is holding onto my band for me until Doug's comes in and we'll pick them up together. The only detail we have to decide before putting the order in for his ring is what to have engraved on the inside as it's free if he gets his engraved before it's sent. Mine can be engraved in-store. After having major success at the first jeweler we stopped in that morning, Douglas, Jane and I walked next door to have a celebratory lunch.

Once I got used to the fact that we had just secured our wedding bands, my wedding mojo was completely re-energized! So far, the wedmares about being unprepared for the wedding have not resurfaced. I still have some details to figure out, but none as significant as the rings. I am back to being excited about the wedding, having fun finalizing details, and am so ready for the bridal shower on Saturday! That's right, you heard me, READY for the bridal shower! "Let's do this, I'm a cashew!"(Not safe for work or children)


Did I mention that they were kind enough to clean my engagement ring for me before we purchased anything? I honestly didn't realize how dingy my ring had become until I saw it cleaned again! I'm doing my best to keep it shiny and clean for the shower, but man do I need to make sure it gets cleaned again right before the wedding! So sparkly!

As if finally finding rings we loved wasn't enough, it also marked the point where we had shared a significant wedding planning moment with each of the parents!

I found the dress with Liesa, my mom.
We found the venue with Larry, Doug's dad.
And now we found the rings with Jane, Doug's mom.

Yes, yes, I know that John, my dad, is missing from the list, but he gets to walk me down the aisle and that's not part of wedding planning. ;-)

So what's next? Tomorrow I'll be calling to schedule my dress fitting, hopefully for next week!

We're getting married!! Let's do this!

The Terror of the Three Month Countdown

It's here, whether I like it or not, it's here. We are officially three months out from our wedding! *clears throat* Let me rephrase, "HOLY SHIT, WE'RE THREE MONTHS OUT FROM OUR WEDDING!!!"

I have been denial about this benchmark coming for a long time. Three months means full speed ahead, no excuses, do it or forget it. This is the time when you start wondering "why, in the world, did we decide to plan a wedding from over two hours away?!" I love our location, so I don't have regrets on choosing Roanoke, but not having a car (and being about three hours away) makes it a HUGE pain to knock out small things - like throwing together a table setting, popping into a jewelery store or florist, stopping in at the dress shop after work to twirl in the dress and put a few hair decisions to rest and revisit the veil decision to put that to rest. Alas, these small things have turned into months of agonizing with websearching, sketching, and going in lots of circles in my head. UGH!

The good news is that I finally busted through my planning-block and made some headway on some wedding decisions this past week. I have a shot list for the photographer, some fun ideas for the girls, a rough idea for a day-of hairstyle, and stumbled across a Final Four bracket approach to choosing our First Dance tune! We even had a brief stint of entertaining an idea for the honeymoon, but we ultimately decided it wasn't what we wanted to do. At least there's some headway being made in the honeymoon department.

The bad news is, August is going to FLY by. I haven't even peeked at September yet. I'm too afraid to. I need to make it through August first. What am I trying to squeeze in over the few weeks August has to offer?

• Bridal shower (2 weeks!)
• Dress fitting (Roanoke trip)
• Trip to see Mom & Dad before the wedding, go shopping for Mom's outfit (PA trip)
• A potential move (if Doug's internship goes full time)

and that's all that I know of at this point! Throw in work typical life stuff (like Louis' bday) and we have ourselves a full month! AH! It is going to fly by!

You know what, though, I'm going to be very happy come the end of August, because one way or another, Douglas and I will be living together again! It will be very nice to be together again, especially leading up to the wedding! We can make all the jokes we want, but it's been hard living apart for the past couple of months.

On a last, totally disjointed note (to go with this totally disjointed post) - our venue is nearly complete! It has tables and chairs now! And...guess what. The chairs are....PURPLE!

Hiatus

Hey, folks.

Instead of blogging yesterday, I decided to accompany the future-brothers-in-law to a viewing of "Transformers 3". The movie was so bad - yes, worse than the 2nd one - that I just am too flabbergasted to write about the wedding. So that's my excuse for this week's missing entry.

Next week's entry will be lacking as well as I will be off on a business trip.

I'll see if I can make it up to you with a week or two of double posts when I'm back in town.

Happy July, everyone!

Planning from a Computer

As some of you know, Douglas and I became a one car family while we were living in Maryland. My dear Rav4 never fully recovered from saving our lives in a crash with a drunk driver back in 2006 and it finally got to a point where it was better to take her up to PA and leave her with Mom and Dad should they need a backup vehicle. Between my taking the metro while in the DMV and working from home in NC, being a one car family hasn't been too difficult - until now.

For the first few weeks of Doug's internship in VA, I didn't really have anywhere to be, so being stuck at home until the evening wasn't too big of a deal. Then, the wedding stress set in. I needed to start working out ideas for decor on the tables, figure out shoes, and play with flowers. Alas, being carless, I could not quell my curiosity with a quick run to Michael's or A.C.Moore or Sears. Instead, I threw myself into the classifieds of wedding websites, Craigslist to find local yard sales, and the full array of sites between Pier 1 and Pottery Barn. It didn't take long until I was in a downward spiral of obsessing over details because I couldn't find what I liked or what I thought I was looking for. Before I knew it, I had wasted many evenings up to my digital elbows in websites with nothing to show for it. How could I not find inspiration or even a lead on the internet?!

I went through every extreme - "Holy crap, that's too simple, I need to put a lot more on the tables!" to "Screw centerpieces. Everyone forgets they're there anyway." I was pissed, frustrated, irritable, simply not happy with the fact that I was obsessing over these details that really shouldn't require this much effort and stress. I also felt really stupid for letting it get to this point.

I finally decided to express my angst through Twitter and low and behold, a college friend who follows me throws out a suggestion, a website she used to get stuff for her wedding. Always on the look out for another wedding resource, I checked it out. The very first thing I saw made me giddy - they let you shop by color! Score! This means not scrolling through tons of pages, liking a design and then learning it doesn't come in the color you want. So I opened a tab to shop by red, one to shop by purple, and one to shop by plumb. It only took a minute or two to find a few things worth bookmarking - which had not yet happened in all of my searching! I was bouncing in my chair. After taking a few minutes to come down off of the I-finally-found-something-interesting high, I decided to send the finds out to my girls and mothers to see if they really were as good as I thought they were, or if I was being deceived by my look-what-I-found haze. Verdict: total find!

After a fun phone conversation with Mom and a suggestion by one of the brideswomen, I decided to order one of each of the goodies to see in person to check out the colors and sizes. This would also give me something to play with instead of simply visualizing. What accent color will work best? How should they be put together? Will the idea for a little embellishment work as well as we think it will?

Now my frustrations have turned to excitement. Right before writing this post, I got the email saying that the goodies have shipped! I will finally have something material that I can play with and experiment with and actually feel like I'm doing something for this wedding other than paying deposits and drawing sketches.

It's good to get a reminder every few months that it's all coming together...cause we're running out of time!

Digging the Tracks - Part 4

Welcome back to Diggin' the Tracks. This segment is more sappy and romantic than the past few. You have been warned.

Track 15 - Michael Bublé's Save the Last Dance for Me. Douglas and I are all about some Bublé! Narrowing down which Bublé tune to include on the STD took some work. "Wedding Date" is a movie we both enjoy and has a ton of Bublé tunes. As we're both fans of the show Las Vegas, we really enjoy the episode w/Bublé (tie the lobster part in w/the Friends reference of lobsters - and we have ourselves a mantra!)

(I'm currently trying to track down a clip from Las Vegas, but not surprisingly "Las Vegas" "Michael Buble", "Lobster", and "Catch of the Day" yield more than just clips from the tv show.)

And the clincher for us being all about some Bublé, is a story from when we were apart a few years ago. Douglas was starting his job at CBS Radio in DC and grad school at Johns Hopkins. I was still in my job at CBS Radio in Charlotte and hunting for gigs in DC. We couldn't afford for me to move until we were sure we'd both have incomes that would sustain us as DC was significantly more expensive than NC. So when I left Douglas in Maryland and flew back to NC, I didn't know when I'd see him again. Since we were both CBS Radio employees, we had the luxury of communicating through the company email. At one point, I got a an email with nothing but lyrics. The lyrics read something like this:

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky, I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

Home by Michael Bublé

Sitting at my desk, I just start crying (I'm tearing up right now), and if you know me, you know I don't cry much. Ever since then "Home" has always had a special place in our hearts, as has Bublé.

Track 16 -  Love You by Maxwell. Maxwell is one of those artists that you're not really aware that you know of until you sit through one of his albums. So why were we going through Maxwell albums? He was coming to do a concert in DC and we were able to score tickets! Very quickly, one night in DC turned into three since every night sold out in no time! Since Douglas and I were going to go see this artist and I was not familiar, we started our pre-concert ritual of Douglas sharing some of his favorite tunes with me. One by one came the realization of "I know this song!" Fast forward to going to the concert. In DC, you can't just park or come out of the subway near your event location - especially in the middle of DC. So we had to walk several blocks from the metro to D.A.R. Constitutional Hall and it didn't take long to realize that we were going to be with a lively crowd. Heck, once we were in the concert, we got to watch a couple make a baby right there in the audience. Let me just tell you, if you ever have the chance to see Maxwell in concert - do it. He's and his band (yes, band) put on a heck of a show! We go sappy for Maxwell and his love songs. That night we got to hear "Pretty Wings" before it had hit the airwaves. 

Track 17 - Side by Side from one of our all time favorite movies, "Hudson Hawk". If you haven't seen it, know that it's campy as hell. Knowing that, you'll either love it or hate it (majority are the former). 

 There's really no need to explain past this - just go watch the movie. If you do, you'll be rewarded. This is your first clue of things to come. There will be at least one "Hudson Hawk" inspired element to the reception. Will you be able to pick it out?

Track 18 - Leave a Tender Moment Alone by Billy Joel. ***HUGE Billy Joel Fan - Right Here*** There are two things that I grew up with and, therefore, run through my blood: the NY Mets and Billy Joel. While Douglas knew some of the hits, he has been exposed to, possibly, more Billy Joel than he ever thought he would. It went without question that at least one Billy Joel tune would be on the STD and/or play a significant role in the wedding day soundtrack. So how did "Leave a Tender Moment" get chosen out of all of the romantic tunes? Simple - while we follow some of Billy's advice, like "Tell Her About It" and "To Make You Feel My Love", we have never been able to leave a tender moment alone. At least for me, it started out from just not knowing how to react early in the relationship and falling back on laughter or picking on Douglas. I wasn't the only one. ;-) We were very aware that we had never been able to just have a nice moment, and once having that realization, we've never been able to resist the urge to leave the tender moment hanging. It's just one of those little quirks that makes our relationship unique. We give ourselves enough time to go "awwwww" and then turn the "awwww" into sarcasm or crack a joke or pick on the other. To be honest, it makes the tender moments that much more "us" and enjoyable. 

Alright, gang, that does it for our 2nd to last "Digging the Tracks" segment. That's right - there is one left! We are officially at the four month mark, folks!

We Have Food!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a caterer!

We still need to provide the deposit to lock in the date and we will officially be having Blue Ridge cater our wedding!!! They have been beyond amazing in working with us. Douglas and I have been emailing all week to finalize the menu. Blue Ridge even gave us a discount on our drink package so that we'd be within budget!

We only have ONE vendor last to secure - the DJ. We thought we had a lead on a decent DJ but his proposal showed a complete lack of attention to detail, so the search continues.

If You're Getting Married, Hold On Cause It's Gonna Get Bumpy

One thing I'm learning being in the world of wedding planning is that the universe doesn't think that getting married is not enough of a drastic life change and will, more often than not, send another upheaval your way just to see if you can handle it.

I thought we'd be one of the lucky ones. Douglas may or may not be starting a full time job that he loves two months before the wedding, giving him enough time to get comfortable and for Kaylee and I to relocate. I'd stay in my job for at least the next year and a half to two years to help us build up a nest egg after the wedding before deciding what to do next, whether it was to be a stay at home mom or what to do career-wise.

However, the universe apparently has other ideas. Some things have come to light recently that mean I need to get my butt in gear and start figuring out what I'm going to do next. We're definitely not doing kids quite yet, so I need to figure out where my next career step will be. I'm not planning on leaving my current job, but I need to get my backup plan in place should I need it. Consider it packing and checking my parachute.

Ah, life upheavals. You just never can really plan for them. I am grateful that I got the information I did when I did, because I have time to prepare - more time than I would have had otherwise. So at least it won't be a drastic and sudden life change should it need to happen.

Last Vendors Standing

My last caterer post is probably still fresh in your minds because of how ridiculous his shenanigans were. A recent meeting with another caterer, helped to show us the extent of how ridiculous Mr. S was.

As you may recall, Douglas is in Blacksburg, VA, for a paid internship with Modea. Since he's up in the Roanoke area, he's able to meet with vendors that we would otherwise have trouble meeting with. He's already met with one potential DJ and more recently met with a caterer that we've been dancing with since day 1. The most recent part of the dance was in a recent post.

Blue Ridge Catering

Douglas called them the morning after our less than mediocre meal from Szechuan. We were so excited to learn that Blue Ridge still had our date open and anxiously waited to set up a meeting! Douglas was able to take that meeting earlier this week. Without having met any of these folks yet, but having heard them talk and heard how they interact and perform - I cannot stop talking so highly of them!

Blue Ridge was one of the first caterers we bookmarked while doing web searches. They had a nice array of sample menus on their website and those gave us the sense that they'd be able to pull off the types of food that Douglas and I eat (nothing fancy or spicy). Since we first contacted them through their website, Mark, the owner, was quick to get on the horn with us and hear about what we were trying to achieve with our event and what types of foods we liked. Positive #1 - interested about the event and inquired about our food interests. Positive #2 - On the phone, Mark sounded genuinely intrigued by our ideas.

The first time we said "thanks, but no thanks" to Blue Ridge was because of me. Having just started to look at the cost of wedding stuff, I couldn't get over the sticker shock. After spending a few more months in Wedding Budgeting Land, we realized that Blue Ridge was actually really close to what we were budgeting anyway - this brought about our third and latest revisit. The second time we said "thanks, but no thanks", we had made the decision to go with Szechuan after weighing the two, our favorite two, food options. You've already read about how well our family tasting of Szechuan went, so that brings us to this week and our third revisit, but first meeting.

Sadly, Douglas was not able to meet with Mark due to a sudden death in the family. Mark offered to either reschedule or keep the meeting and have Douglas meet with a member of Mark's staff. Positive #3 - Making sure we're taken care of even in the face of a family emergency, but also prioritizing your own family. Major points. So Douglas shows up to Blue Ridge and is greeted with a plate of desserts! Positive #4 - the first caterer/food option to provide any food-item whatsoever. Positive #5 - Douglas said they were reaaaaaaaaaaally tasty. The meeting didn't take long, but sounded like it went really well. We all already had three versions of menus that we had emailed back and forth throughout our revisits, so no time needed to be spent on putting a menu together. They discussed tweaks and what-if-we-swapped-this-item-for-that-service. They were easy going, eager to listen, made suggestions and adjustments on the fly, and came across as genuinely wanting to ensure that we had a great time at our event - NOT that they showed off at our event.

So here we sit (though in different states), waiting for two more versions of the menu to pop into our inboxes. We already know they come highly recommended and have a great reputation. They provide their own staff. They want to get you the food you want, make sure you'll enjoy it, and present it in a proper way. As has been the case with our other vendors, we knew when it was right. I do feel a little stupid that we've been circling this vendor the ENTIRE time we've been planning, but this is why I took my time - to learn from my mistakes and be able to correct them. I feel 100% better dumping a buttload of money into Blue Ridge, knowing that we'll all enjoy the food, than throwing it to Mr. S and knowing no one would enjoy the food.

What's on the menu, you seem to be asking. I'm going to keep that one under my belt for now. I can share one thing that this caterer was totally awesome in providing as an option, but will definitely not be making an appearance (due to cost, sadly).

A clothespin s'mores bar (not a photo of Blue Ridge offering)

Clothespin Smores Station
A Chef Tended Station. Graham Crackers & Bittersweet Chocolate w/ Mini Clothespins, dipped in Marshmallow and torched to order.

Alas, there will be no s'mores at the reception. In light of this reality, here is how I see myself spending my time between wedding-to-do-stuff the week before:

Stop 1: Fork in the Alley or Fork in the City for fresh s'mores

Stop 2: Polished for mani/pedi

The Registries

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (they're all far, far away), I mentioned our registry. Thanks to suggestions from you readers and others, we were able to build up a decent registry for the wedding. I was feeling pretty good about it. Then, the girls put together a bridal shower and I was reminded that there need to be things on the registry for that, too! Now I feel as though I don't have enough items on the registry! Of course, now that the registry is mostly composed, it makes it a lot easier to thing about other items to add (suggestions still welcome).

So what did we do?

We set up two registries - a gift registry and a charity registry.

The charity registry is through the I Do Foundation. This site makes it incredible easy to find and select your favorite charities, whether they're national or local! We chose seven charities that were important to us and, poof, our registry was done! Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Our charities of choice are:

	RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network)
	Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation (CDRF)
	DonorsChoose.org
	National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
	Humane Society of Charlotte
	Childrens Trust Foundation Roanoke Valley Inc
	Petco Foundation (Sadly, the It Gets Better project is not listed and is added to our registry page on its own)

The gift registry is through Alternative Gift Registry. One of the groomsmen used this for his wedding and we really liked what they did with it. The site lets you enter anything you want - text, hyperlinks, etc. - so it's really easy to incorporate items for many different stores, or some that you don't have specifics for. Since a lot of the places we typically shop don't have registry options, this allowed us to incorporate items from those sites in one easy to access place.

Of course, while it's been great for us, it does require a little extra work on the guests' part. They simply can't go to Store A and look us up. I have created online registries at three stores to help keep track of items I found interesting while browsing, so a few folks might get lucky (but there are only a few items on each registry). It's a shame that this site doesn't have an app.

Unfortunately, our biggest problem with our registry is knowing where the stuff will go. We'll be on pins and needles for the next few months wondering whether Douglas' internship will turn into a full time gig. If it does, then we'll be relocating about one to two months before the wedding. Since it's hard to determine what you might need in your own place when you're still living with a roommate, it's been mostly a crap-shoot for us. That's why we've included gift cards on the registry.

So, after adding a few more items for the bridal shower, hopefully the registries will be complete and another thing will be crossed off the list.

A Foot-Long Engagement

As frustrating as it's been, and as often as we've seriously considered eloping, I really cannot express how grateful I am for having a long engagement. The first few months, when we were throwing out ideas and seeing what would stick, were especially hectic because this was the time everyone, include myself, were dealing with our own ideas of what the wedding was going to be and trying to get a handle on what it would become. This time let everyone get out their frustrations without the frustrations or stress influencing any decisions that were being made. Lots of conversations occurred, whether over the phone, through email, through texts, or while on a night walk with the dog. Ideas were kicked around, ideas were tested out, minds were changed over and over. Was it taxing? Yes. Was it ridiculously stressful? Yes. Did it make us not want to have a wedding? Some times. Was it worth it? Totally!

Now jump from being five months in to being five months out.

Since most of the dust has settled and most decisions have been made (some deposits put down), things are going really smoothly. We're still having typical wedding issues. guests not seeing the wedding website address that was printed on the CD cover for the Save the Dates AND was on the invitations and mixed messages going out about plus 1s, but now that we're into the thick of planning, if someone is caught off guard by an idea, they usually take a few minutes to get their heads around it and then we're off to the races with productive talk - did you ask your vendor this? Who's in control of that? If you do this, remember to be mindful of that.

Another positive about the long engagement is that it has allowed us to have a few family weekends to get together in Roanoke and have everyone be included in the process. One thing I've regretted during planning is that my Mom and I live so far from each other. We haven't been able to just go out for chai and coffee and just sit around and have all of the small talks that need to occur and help iron out details and figure stuff out. It's been great having my future brothers around to bounce ideas off of or to vent to. We've been able to go around town sampling cupcakes with my future mother-in-law and kick around ideas for the hospitality suite as well as cake. We've been able to make a few trips to Roanoke to have conversations and plan with my future father-in-law and future-step-mother-in-law. Still, I really wish that everyone was closer together. With any luck, Douglas will be hired by Modea (first week of the internship is going GREAT, btw) and we can work on getting everyone between southwestern VA and Charlotte before we start the journey toward babies. I am grateful, though, that we were able to have at least two family weekends in Roanoke to show folks around and give them a real idea of what was being planned.

Case in point - this past weekend. When Douglas and I had our different menus from our various food vendors, we knew that once we made a decision, we'd want to do a tasting, and, if possible, do a family dinner so everyone could sample the food and give us feedback. We had narrowed the food down to two vendors: Szechuan (Doug's favorite Chinese restaurant in town while growing up) and Blue Ridge Catering. Both menus would satisfy everyone's dietary needs and provide a decent amount of food for everyone. We decided to go with Szechuan, so that is what we had for dinner on Saturday night. Having spoken to them earlier in the week about them drawing up a more detailed contract, they knew that we would be ordering our wedding menu as take out for the family to enjoy. I point this out because the food was less than on par. One menu item was scratched almost immediately. The pineapple shrimp was apparently covered in a mayo-based sauce - not enjoyable. Past that, everyone was ok, but not great. While everyone knew we wanted feedback, they were still being careful not to say how blah the food was. It didn't take long to get the conversation going, though. I think we were all happy to be in agreement. The food was a disappointment. The next morning, Douglas was on the phone with Blue Ridge as we kept our fingers crossed that they still had the date open (they did!). While Szechuan is still on the table, Blue Ridge is in a very good position right now. After revisiting the last menu they sent us (which we loved), we realized that for them to provide drinks was going to cost as much as we were budgeting to get drinks from Sam's - DONE. They provided staffing - DONE. Douglas is setting up a meeting with them to discuss details in the next week or so. If everything works out right - we'll be signing with Blue Ridge! The best part about this turn around - the week before, Blue Ridge catered an event for one of future-step-mother-in-law's organizations with a menu that was similar in style to the one we were eyeing and people were raving about it! Future-father-in-law really dug the presentation of the food! Double-score! So fingers crossed - we'll, once again, have our food figured out soon!

We were also able to get two more sample cakes from our lovely baker, Lisa (who totally gave us four small cake bon-bons as a treat). So Mom and Dad were able to taste the wedding cake! We were also able to sample the third flavor combo we were considering. The only arguments going on about the cake was which flavor to make the biggest tier. Oh the check marks and stamps of approval were being marked in my head!

The downside to having two family get-togethers for wedding stuff is that months and months worth of conversations occur during only a few hours. We discussed everything from centerpieces to flowers to chuppahs to gifts for the wedding party to shuttles to what the parents would wear to why the groomsmen weren't wearing jackets. They were mostly good productive conservations, but boy is it a lot to deal with in such a short time! We equated it to being worn down by a sander - quickly. By the end of the night I was questioning why were were throwing an event that cost so much money! But by the next morning, the giddiness was back and things had been worked out. I'll tell you what, though, last weekend I hit that moment where I understood why everyone says "It was worth it, but I'd never put myself through that again."

So here we sit, on the other end of the weekend and less than five months away from the big day. About 50% of our guests have already given us a yes or a no whether through online or physical RSVP or hotel reservation. We are on task with our budget. Most of the big vending decisions have been made and secured. And, the Rapture has been rescheduled for Friday night, so the Scavenger Hunt should be more interesting. ;-)

Another Wedding (Planning) Weekend

This weekend we're headed back to Roanoke to meet with the family and do wedding stuff. This weekend is less about planning and more about enjoying the fruits of our labor. Saturday night we'll be enjoying our wedding menu from our restaurant of choice and topping it off with two sample cakes from our baker! Kaylee is looking forward to hanging out with grandparents she hasn't seen in quite a while.

RSVP update - we have more than a quarter of them back! Lots of folks have been writing nice little notes back. We got the best one today because we didn't realize we were mailing one to Albuquerque, NM! (see previous post for reason why that's funny)

Invites and the Disappearing Wedding Planner

Two weeks ago I told you that the invites were here and that they were mostly ready to go out. Well, now they're out and we've started getting RSVPs back! Since all but a handful have been received, I can now share with you what our invites and RSVPs look like.

As mentioned previously, we ordered from VistaPrint.com because we were able to get half off with my UPromise account and we didn't have to spend a lot of time picking out colors, fonts, and inserts. Douglas and I had more fun announcing our wedding with Save the Dates than we did with the invitations. No matter what idea we came up with or which place we looked, we just couldn't really get into the invites as much as we got into the STDs. This made it both really simple and really difficult to commit to a specific invite. We browsed through the wedding invitation section and the regular party invite section. We found a ton of great ideas in the party invite section, but those cost more (go figure) and it was more difficult and costly to do RSVPs for those cards. So, at the 12th hour of us being fed up with dealing with invites, we made a decision - really, Douglas just gave into my leading favorite.

So enough already! What did we go with! (I hear you)

Here they are!

So what were some of the decisions we had to make with the invites, besides which design to go with?

1) Would we do the formal wording with Mom & Dad inviting the guests to attend? - since Mom & Dad are footing the bill, we decided to leave this decision up to them and gave them final approval on the complete wording of the invitation. They were so excited about it that we were able to place the order right after they saw the initial proof (hooray for email!).

2) When should the RSVP cut off be? - This decision became really easy once Douglas got offered an internship (more on that later). We are handling the RSVPs so I wanted to make sure we would be at the address on the invites for as long as the RSVPs were coming in. It's not that I don't trust mail forwarding, I just didn't want to add an extra variable that someone could use as an excuse. "I sent it, they must have lost it in the mail." Because of this, the end of July made sense. After deciding on that, we then realized that by having the date be the end of July, it would give us August and September to viciously hunt down people who didn't RSVP or to follow up with those who forgot to fill out the top section of the RSVP (just because you say "no" to the scavenger hunt, I can't assume that it's also a "no" for the ceremony). The hunting down unknown RSVP responsibilities will be passed off to family members as we may/may not be moving during the fall.

3) Why no kids under 13? - Way back at the beginning of all of this when we put together the initial guest list, we realized just how many kids under the age of 5 would be invited to the wedding if we allowed children: enough to fill up a regular classroom! We love kids. We would love to have kids at our wedding. But this was going to be waaaaaaaaaay too many little ones running or crawling around for anyone to handle. Once we figured out that it was going to be very difficult to accommodate the little rugrats (and there are some really cool ideas out there on how to keep kids entertained at weddings) we also realized that since there were so many young ones that their parents might enjoy some adult time away from the kids for a night. So why is the cut off at 13? We're not looking to be lewd or anything, but with beer flowing and our adult sense of humor, we didn't want to have to mind our tongues (or worry about anyone else minding theirs). Hopefully a good time will be had by all and no one will get offended because their toddler started walking around the next morning quoting dirty limericks.

4) Who gets +1s? - This was the ugly part of the whole decision making process. Everyone feels more comfortable having the option of bringing a plus one. We had gone into the guest list process assuming plus ones for everyone who wasn't already paired up. Unfortunately, we never actually noted that in our list so we didn't realize that it would take our guest list near 200 instead of the already bloated 150. So we had to sit down and see who all would desire a plus one - big number. We weren't comfortable with simply picking and choosing, so we narrowed it down to engaged and married couples - much smaller number. Having that number, could we make any exceptions for other plus ones? Only one exception was possible - the wedding party. That only knocked up the count by about 4. Totally doable. Funny enough, as soon as we made this decision (but hadn't told anyone yet), we found out one of our chuppah holders got engaged! Way to get in at the buzzer! We're hoping that by August we'll have a really good sense of what our actually numbers are looking like and if they're low enough (talking about looking for over 20% not attending) we may be able to make a few more exceptions for plus ones. So sit tight folks, you never know what could happen!

5) How do we word the RSVP? - We knew from day 1 that our RSVPs would not have typical wording. Cruising the wedding blogs, I had found a lot of really fun examples of wording folks had used. Of course, as we were playing with the wording, we realized that we had to make it very clear to folks how they were responding if they marked option A over option B. Always include some clear designation of YES, NO, or MAYBE. Very important!

The invites didn't take us too long to put together and get out the door. Once they were gone, it officially marked the end of the "big" things we had to get done. We had booked nearly all of our vendors and invited all of our guests. So what the hell do we do now?!?! After a few minor freak outs, I sat down with Douglas to create a new list of what we had left to figure out/do. Now we start getting into the details.

Those details are for another day. Let's discuss the second topic of this post - Douglas!

You may or may not know that Douglas has done a lot of the heavy lifting with this wedding - dealing with the phone calls to vendors, putting together multiple versions of the Save the Date CD, and helping the girls with the bridal shower (you go boy!). Recently, Douglas decided that planning a wedding so far away was not really working for him and that he'd be able to do his job more efficiently if he lived in the area. So, on May 23rd, Douglas will be a temporary resident of Blacksburg, VA! Ok, ok, so the real reason is that he kicked ass at his interviews and was hired as a full time paid intern at a hot new company, Modea! It's for three months and they're not sure whether they'll have enough projects going on to hire him on full time immediately after his internship ends, but they seem to really like him. So I will be staying behind in CLT while Douglas goes to work in VA for three months. Should they be able to offer him a full time gig, I'll pack up and off to VA we shall go! If not, Douglas comes back to CLT and continues his search for work until Modea tries to tempt him back (please tempt!). We're both very excited at the prospect of living in the Blacksburg/Roanoke area since it's A) Freakin' gorgeous, B) in the mtns, C) near some of his family, D) closer to my family, and E) an even cheaper cost of living than we're already maintaining! Yes, please!

Of course this makes wedding planning both significantly easier and difficult at the same time. Douglas will now be able to meet with vendors more often (we've just starting looking for a DJ) in person instead of just via email or phone. However, most of our decisions/discussions have taken place during our night walks with Kaylee. While we can still do that over the phone, it's not quite the same. So there will be a lot more back and forth between us. I don't think it will get too bad until July/August, where the panic starts to kick in. My first fitting will be in August! AH! Full gear! *breathing* The good thing is that Douglas will be working again and in an environment that is perfect for him. While he's off doing that, I will have my office to myself and will be able to sneak off during my lunch break to the newly built on-site gym. I'm so excited about the new gym! The current one is too small, cramped, and doesn't have many windows. If more than one person goes in, you'll be rubbing elbows during workouts. The new one is a newly built free standing structure with LOTS of windows and looks out onto the pool! I've spied new equipment in there lately, so now we're just waiting for them to announce the opening and tell us how to access it!

Enough about the gym. Douglas, gone, 3 months. Of course we'll see each other every so many weeks. There's Memorial Day weekend, the Charlotte ComicCon, Father's Day, bridal shower, etc. I won't be able to go up to see Douglas unless Louis is planning a trip since Doug is taking our car. So sadly, the Roanoke trip next weekend will probably be my last one for a while (which will drive me nuts, btw). I will be so much calmer being IN Roanoke as we get closer to the wedding instead of being in CLT and feeling like I can't do much. :-p

So let's all wish Douglas well! This is a great opportunity and I'm so excited for him and proud of him!