Kansas City, here we come!

I'm headed out on my bachelorette party weekend and I'm so excited!  Twelve girls, two nights, Kansas City = fantastic weekend!  On the agenda: shopping, Royals game, and Howl at the Moon, the BEST PIANO BAR EVER!

I can't wait!  Stay tuned for a recap! :)

Yes, shortest post ever.

Marriage prep

As it turns out, we aren't just throwing a wedding, but also starting a marriage.  Who knew?  So the other day we had our first marriage preparation counseling, via the technological wonder that is Skype, with our minister, Brian.

First of all, some background on Brian (and why we are doing our counseling through Skype).  I have known Brian since we were in the same three year old preschool class.  Growing up we were always in the same choir and youth group at church, and we were good friends in high school.  Oh the stories I could tell you about Brian...but I digress.  I will tell you that he TP'd my house SEVEN weekends in a row my senior year of high school!  My dad is still threatening to drive to Pennsylvania and get revenge by TPing Brian's house.

Brian and I in high school.  Ah, memories.
Sorry for the slightly blurry scanned photo...but please enjoy my ridiculously long hair.

When Brian decided to go to seminary after college, I always had in the back of my mind that I would love to have him perform my wedding some day.  How cool is it to have someone that has known you for practically your entire life officiate your wedding?  Luckily Matt also thought that would be great, Brian was available, and we were on our way!

But back to the counseling session.  None of us had ever used Skype before, so we weren't sure exactly how this would go, but it was so easy and worked so well!  It was like Brian was really with us, except for when he was messing with the special effects and was flying in a spaceship on the screen. :)  Matt and Brian had never met, so we talked a little about Matt's life and then dove right in to all kinds of topics, and before we knew it we were out of time.  Brian gave us homework for the next session and we came up with some topics for next time.

So we are now officially on our way not only to having a wedding, but starting a marriage.  Six weeks to go! 

Random musings

Thought number one - there is NOTHING better than watching wedding RSVP's come in!  I get an email every time we get one, and while it is incredibly distracting, it's also incredibly awesome!  We just keep watching the list grow as our family and friends agree to spend the day with us.  One of my good high school friends RSVP'd today and it hit me just how many of my favorite people I'm going to get to see all at the same time!  It's getting real now, and I am getting SO EXCITED!

Thought number two - wedding planning really does take up a lot of time!  Even though I feel fairly on top of things, there is just always something to do, something to plan, something to think about.  I suppose selling my house in the midst of this doesn't help.  But as excited as I am for this wedding, I'm also excited for the day when I get home from work and I don't have a giant to do list waiting for me!

Tomorrow's post - the engagement pictures.  Stay tuned!

Wedding Shower!

This weekend we went to Ottumwa for a wedding shower hosted by some of my mom's wonderful friends.  They had the great idea of making it into a coed cocktail party so that my dad could be involved and everyone would have a chance to meet Matt!

Check out the beautiful invites!  We knew we were in for a good party.

Details have been blurred to protect the hosts

The party was so much fun!  Food, drinks, and great people that I hadn't seen in WAY too long.  How can you beat that?  While I was sitting there, it hit me that we really are getting married!  Holy cow!  Turns out this isn't just a fun party I've been planning...

I was so excited that so many people came that I've known since I was growing up, and all of whom knew my mom.  I know she would have loved to be there.  Thanks to everyone who came, it was great to see all of you and the party was very much appreciated!

Two months till the wedding, here we go!

The invites are coming, the invites are coming!

Yes, that was a lame Paul Revere reference, but I'm so excited about our invitations going out that I'm okay with it.  I feel like Matt and I looked at every wedding invitation imaginable before finding something that was perfect!

Of course I had to make them as complicated as possible, so I decided I wanted to hand draw the maps myself and a few other details.  After a lot of planning and designing (a special shout out to my co-worker Katie for your help), the invitations are done and I think they look great!  They are going to print early this week and will be in the mail soon!

Then comes the fun part - watching for everyone's responses to come in!  I can't wait!!

Engagement pictures, round two

You may be saying to yourself, "But I thought they already did their engagement pictures a long time ago?"  Yep, we are so high maintenance that we need multiple engagement sessions. :)  Due to our 6 month engagement, we imposed upon the fantastic Katie McDonald to take a few quick shots of us that we could use on a save the date, and decided we'd wait until spring to take the full session.  Because really, who wants to take pictures in winter clothes when you can wait and wear fun springy clothes?

We just had our real engagement session and we had a blast!  It was a long day full of location changes, costume changes, and lots of laughs as I got loopy and had a giggling meltdown.  Katie was fantastic to work with and put up with our awkwardness all day, and even managed to make us look like we knew what we were doing!  She was even dodging traffic in the middle of the street, and I had to save her from an oncoming biker at one point on a trail.  She was really showing her dedication to photography!

The highlight of the day was that Katie managed to get us access to the Iowa Cubs stadium to take some shots on the field!  Here's a sneak peak, or you can view more at Katie's blog.  Enjoy!

Thanks, Katie!  We love how they turned out!

The Wedding Singer

Matt and I have been debating for quite some time about what we were going to do for ceremony and processional music.  I wanted something super fancy like a string quartet or a harp, and Matt wanted something simpler like piped in music or a synthesized keyboard.  Needless to say, we were getting nowhere in this discussion for quite some time.

Recently we were at an ice hockey game with a group of friends when I jokingly said that a group of our friends who have a band should play at the wedding.  Suddenly we both realized that our friend Cory, the lead singer of the band/most talented musician we know, would be the perfect choice for our ceremony music!  Cory plays every instrument imaginable, has a great voice, and has a great repertoire of music to choose from.

As it turns out, Cory has always wanted to perform a concert on the stage at Simon Estes, so it's win/win for everyone!  We couldn't be more excited about our choice of musician.  Take a look, he's a natural!

Cory rocking the air guitar at a friend's recent wedding
Photo c/o Katie McDonald Photography