T minus 11 days...

So…T minus 11 days until the day that we have been planning for the last 569 days (no, I didn’t count out the days…I have an iPhone and guess what? “There’s an app for that!”) I have been getting kind of nervous the closer we get to the big day…not nervous to be married, but nervous for the actual wedding. All of the big stuff has been done for a while…let’s not kid ourselves, 569 days is PLENTY of time to plan a wedding! But now that we are 11 days away, all of the tiny little details are creeping up on us and it feels like there is still a ton left to do.

So I have my wedding binder with everything we could possibly need detailed over about 36 different spreadsheets. I have copies of everything saved on my home computer, my work computer, and I always e-mail myself a copy of anything that I update just in case something happens to the copies I have saved elsewhere. (Hey - I never said that I was a sane person…) So most would say that I am pretty prepared for the wedding, but I still had that nervous feeling.

Last night, after Jason picked me up from work, we decided to stop and have dinner at a Chinese restaurant on our way home. The wedding binder, which has been permanently attached to me for the last couple weeks, was updated during dinner with some more tiny details that needed to be documented. After we were done eating dinner, our server brought us our fortune cookies. Here is what our fortunes said:

 I started to feel a little less nervous after reading those!

Engagement Photos!!!

We booked our photographer, Preston Palmer, in July of 2008 and one of the things included in our package was an engagement photo session. A lot of people use the engagement session for a picture for their save-the-dates, but since we used a photobooth picture, we weren’t sure if the engagement session was all that necessary. We were engaged in April of 2008, so one would think that our photos would have been taken around that point. However, if one thought that, one would be wrong. For anyone that knows me well (or reads this blog,) you would know that “Operation Skinny Bitch Bride” would need to be nearing completion in order to have my picture taken for two hours straight! So…we waited to have them done until October. The first date we had scheduled was Monday, October 12^th. If you remember that day, you will remember that there was a big snow storm. Not great for outdoor engagement photos…so instead, Jason and I went to Happy Hour at Pop!! and had the bartender take an engagement photo for us.

We rescheduled for October 23^rd, and guess what? It rained all day, so we ended up at Pop!! again for Happy Hour…different bartender, but same willingness to take our “engagement photo” of the day.

 

We were starting to think that the pictures were not going to happen due to lovely Minnesota weather. We did discuss possibly canceling them all together and just having a photo session with Preston when we got back from our honeymoon, but we decided that it could be a good idea to do them before the wedding for a couple of reasons. #1 We would be able to get comfortable with having our picture taken constantly, as we have been told this might be something that happens on November 28^th. #2 We could get comfortable with our photographer, so we are a little more relaxed with him on our wedding day. #3 Our photographer could figure out what our best angles are so that the wedding day pictures turn out well. #4 We could have hundreds more pictures of us together to obsess over and try to decide which ones we should have printed! We ended up scheduling them for my birthday, October 26^th. It was a bit chilly, but it turned out to be a very bright and sunshiny day...perfect for an outdoor shoot!

We decided that since it is tradition to go to Happy Hour on days that we have engagement pictures scheduled, we shouldn’t mess with tradition and we headed to McGovern’s before we met with Preston. Sadly, the bartender was not as proficient with the magic of the iPhone camera as the bartenders at Pop!!, so we ended up having to take our own “engagement photo” in the mirror behind the bar.

We met up with Preston at Irvine Park and started the process…his instructions were to pretend that he was not there, always walk next to each other, kiss a lot, and have fun…so that is what we did. We hung out in Irvine Park for a while and then headed down to the train tracks and the river for more pictures. We felt like total doofusy goofballs, but we had a really good time! We got really comfortable with our photographer and we are super excited to have him capture our wedding day. Click here if you would like to look through the 335 photos that were taken (there are favorites folders set up, if you only want to look through the really good ones.) Otherwise, here are some of our faves from the day…the picture quality is not the greatest because I basically copied and pasted them, but you can get the idea even if the picture is not high resolution, right?

 

 

  

Jason's Bachelor Party!

Kellee tells me, “I have to do a blog posting about the bachelor party.”

I told her “What happens in Northeast Minneapolis stays in Northeast Minneapolis.”

After a few moments of Kellee staring with great intensity, I finally said “Fine, I’ll do a blog posting.” (That’s kind of funny if you read the post about the marriage proposal)

Let me start by giving a big thank you to Jordan for talking me in to having bachelor party and for getting everything together. Without him it would not have happened. Jordan and I, after much deliberation, finally picked Elsie’s Restaurant, Bar & Bowling Center as the place to start and then after that, we were just planning on the night to unfold and lead us where it will, like all the best plans.

You may ask yourself, “Really, bowling? You guys are a little old to have your party in the bowling alley?” And I would have to answer, yes we are a little old but there is nothing like bowling to get a group of people who don’t know each other to bond into a lean, mean party machine. We managed to bowl three games and drink a few pitchers without serious injury.

Exhausted from our rigorous games, we were hungry. As any good bowler will tell you, three games in a row will build a man-size appetite... or at least that’s what the good bowlers told us. We decided to head over to Mayslack’s for a hardy dose of meat sandwiches. The massive sandwich is made up of a stack of garlic-enhanced 8 hour roasted beef with onions and banana peppers on a rye bun. The sandwich is delicious going down, but the next morning your breath and/or burps are not pretty (sorry Sheila.) After stuffing yourself silly on a stack of meat, what every good American needs is the soothing sounds of rock and/or roll. Lucky for us, we had two bands to help with the digestion of our meal.

At this point in the evening things start to get a little fuzzy so you will have to pardon my lack of detail. The first band, “The Full on Quench” was rocking some good covers but I could not tell you what their sound (as the kids say) was, but they certainly helped to ease the gastrointestinal discomfort. Then after a short break we were energized by Cocaine (the band,) stepping right out of a 80’s metal video Cocaine (the band) blew our minds. Then we did some walking, then there was dancing in a bar, then we left and took a photo in front of a funeral home, then there was Grumpy’s bar and some serious discussion of wives and marriage that went over my head. And then I was asleep on Sheila and Troy’s couch and Jordan was asleep on the ottoman. The next morning, all smelly and groggy, we all went to breakfast together “May the circle be unbroken...” at Elsie’s.

A big THANK YOU to every one who made it out. Man did I have a good time…one of the best!!! I love my friends.