Reception Planning

I'm home in Minnesota for a cousin's wedding this weekend.  I went with my parents to go visit the reception site at Bryant Lake Park to count tables and plan rentals and where everything will go (I won't be back to MN until the week before the reception).  It's a nice park pavilion next to the beach.  There are walking trails, a playground, and a disc golf course on-site.  There are also come lawn spaces nearby that we can hopefully use for Bocce/Cowboy Golf/Croquet.  We're planning to get Buca catering for a midday meal and will have games, popcorn (!), and Fred's homemade cider.  All in all, we plan to have it be a fun and low-key event.  Like a grad party for graduating into married life.  ("Everything is going to be so different!"  Yeah, whatever.)

Matt and I are planning to get photos taken for the invitation cards in the next month, so invitation should be out relatively soon.  We're approaching the 3 month pre-reception mark, which is 2 months pre-wedding.

Cruise Updates

We've been tracking the price of our cruise, and the price of veranda rooms with a balcony dropped to be the same price as interior rooms.  So we're going to have a balcony!  Breakfast on the balcony.  The privilege of being able to be outside without having to look at or talk to strangers.  A constant interactive view of the Mediterranean.  The next level of rooms has a pillow menu, but we're not quite that fancy yet.

Matt's never been on a cruise, so we've been looking into different aspects of it a lot recently.  There's a lawn on the top story.  They have tea time on at sea days. (I really love tea time.  Especially if there are small sandwiches involved.)  And a cirque du soleil-type show.  And a two-story library. (!)  We're especially excited to travel to different destinations without having to pack our bags every time (We have officially decided that we're over hostels and backpacking trips).

Tomorrow (T -3 months to the wedding), we're picking up our rings.

Cake!

Matt has been talking about Whole Food's Berry Chantilly Cake for about 6 months. We even attempted an imitation at home. I only got the hint about 1 month ago when I asked if he wanted pie at the wedding, and he replied indignantly, "CAKE!" I'm definitely more of a pie person than a cake person, so I was a little hesitant about the cake thing. This cake has a buttery/cream frosting that's not too sweet (his usual qualm with cakes) and berries in and on it. We had a sample at Whole Foods once about a year ago, and were quite impressed.

Matt's been wanting to get this cake to try it, and after calling Whole Foods several times to set up a tasting with no result, we decided to just go buy one at some point. Last Friday, we had five friends over for dinner, and Matt decided that we weren't going to have more help than that. So we went ant got one. And since the 8" round was only $5 more than the 6" round, we got a big one. Luckily, I was the only pie-person at the table, and our friends loved it.

Matt loved it too. But unfortunately, we still have half a cake left after our friends left, and Matt ended up eating most of it. By Tuesday, he asked me to take it to work and dispose of it there.

The conclusion. It's pretty good. But it's still just cake. . .

We visited and booked our wedding venue last weekend. Stay tuned.

Wedding Bands

We went shopping for wedding bands today. The question of which metal to buy has been discussed for some time. We like palladium. It's like platinum but cheaper, like white gold but stronger. Maybe we're just nerdy and like the thought of wearing an eclectic element. Matt isn't particular about whether or not we get matching bands, but I want to feel like we're on the same team. A coordinated team. Here's the style we're looking at:

Chapter 2: The First Year

The next year was my last year of high school and Matt's first year at the U of M. He lived in a crappy dorm room in Frontier Hall with two good friends and an amateur rapper, who at one point managed to spray spaghettios across everyone's computer monitors. It was a pretty busy year for both of us. We went to prom together in April, Matt in my dad's tux and bowtie, and me in the dress I'd worn the year before.

Prom 2004

Matt also was exposed to the large togetherness that is the Baker/Ling clan, and started becoming a regular at my family's events. The entire extended family on both sides lives nearby, so gatherings are full of bubbly family members. Matt's family is dispersed around the country, so this was a bit of a shock to him.

At my cousin Carin's wedding

We organized another trip with the Venture Crew in the summer. This time, we went for a backpack trip in the Gore Range wilderness in Summit County, CO. I managed to convince some of my most excellent band friends to tag along, and my dad came as chaperone.

Chapter 1: Glacier National Park

We met on a trip to Glacier National Park (though we had known of each other since being on math team in 7th grade). It was with a group called venture crew, which is a co-ed subsidiary of Boy Scouts of America. My friend Tayler was one of the only girls going on the trip, so she asked me to come along. The trip involved two 22-hour train rides and a three day raft trip, so we all got to know each other pretty well.

(What a nerd.)

I don't remember the details of how we first started spending time together on that trip, though I do recall surreptitiously burying ants together in the sand. Something about our bizarre senses of humor somehow clicked.

The whole happy group

At one point towards the end of the trip, one of the kids asked, "Are you guys, like, in love or something?" Everyone laughed it off, but it turns out he was more observant than we thought.

On the train ride home

Dresses?

While home for the holidays, I dragged my mother and sister to David's bridal to try on dresses. I figure this is the only time in my life when I can try on wedding dresses. I'd better milk it, right? (Speaking of, we really need to get on the catering and cake tastings!) It turns out I'm not into dresses that look exactly like the dresses everyone else wears. Which seems odd, since I don't really like attention. But I really liked this Vera Wang (schma schma. . .)


However, I'm guessing that anyone who knows me isn't surprised to hear that I will not be spending $1300 on a new fluffy white dress that I will only wear for 10 hours. It turns out I already have a couple of white dresses that I enjoy a lot and that are more casual and frankly, more me. I'm a casual girl. I may have been a little put off by the need to wear magic undergarments underneath the fancy dresses. My mom still has to remind me to wear a slip. I live in Colorado, and I usually just don't give a damn if someone observes that I am wearing underpants. One of the dresses is actually from a clothing exchange and used to belong to a friend. The other is from a consignment store.

It was, however, very entertaining to try on dresses with my favorite females that live oh-so-far-away.

I feel delightfully like a cupcake.

This one had an awesomely feathery skirt.

This was my favorite of the ones there.