Marriage license? Check! August 23, 2008

Yesterday Pete had a day off from work so we figured it would be a good time to get our marriage license.  In PA a marriage license is valid for 60 days and, since yesterday was day 50 in the countdown, we decided to go for it.  We took ourselves and all our paperwork down to the courthouse in Doylestown.  It wasn’t exactly the most, um, speedy process.  Their computers were down and they had to do it the “old fashioned way.”  Seems that writing takes a lot longer than it used to!  It took over an hour to have the staff ask us some questions, fill out the form, and for us to pay our $90.  It was kind of anti-climactic but it’s an important part of the process!  They’ll mail it to us on Monday and then we hold on to it until the big day.

This morning we met with the folks at Dan Schantz again.  We picked out the mums that’ll be used for the decorations and talked with them a little about the bouquets & other flowers we want.  The person we talked with about it back in April or May had some medical stuff come up so we’re working with a new person now.  I’m glad we were able to have the meeting, though, and get everything squared away.

Now, on to the other things on our weekend post-it note…

There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza August 21, 2008

“Flower pots” for the centerpieces, originally uploaded by heatheracarter.

Well, not really but that’s the dang song that keeps running through my head! I found a great garden/florist supply website by way of a great blog I read called “A Practical Wedding.” (It’s a good innoculation against the craziness that the wedding industry and oh so many websites seem to try to inject into people’s weddings. I mean, come on, is your wedding really going to be a failure if the fruit in the cocktails during the cocktail hour really doesn’t match your wedding colors? Or, heaven forbid, the napkins don’t match??) Anyway, these are going to be the “flower pots” for the potted mums that will serve as both decoration in the meetinghouse and centerpieces. I liked the copper color – thought it was in keeping with the fall colors so evident in October. Last weekend I found some nice little votives to hold the tealights and those two things may be the beginning and the end of our table decorations for the reception. (I’m still debating that one.)

Weekend Post-it Note August 17, 2008

Last year I was talking a friend who was planning her wedding.  She said that, as they got closer to the wedding, she and her fiance had a short list of things that they would do each weekend.  We decided that sounded like a good idea – a good way to keep the details feeling manageable.  Thus launched the “weekend post-it note.”  Because of it’s size, we can list out just enough things to make progress but not so many that we get overwhelmed.  The post-it note for this weekend included:

• Getting the paper for and designing the programs
• Getting the paper for and designing the place cards
• Planning the menu for the reception
• Getting the things to fill the gift bags
• Getting a response from the last few folks we hadn’t heard from
• Ordering pots for the mums
• Get and fill votives for the reception
• Figuring out what help we need during the ceremony

Now that we’re under 2 months, I find that I’m getting a little more anxious.  Things are going so smoothly that I’m increasingly becoming convinced that I must be missing something.  (LOL – I can find stress even when it’s not there!!)  However, the “weekend post-it note” seems to be helping keep that well under control. 

The ceremony is complete! August 10, 2008

I’m happy to announce that the ceremony is complete!  It took longer than we expected to get everything together – lots of reviews, changing a word here and there, getting stuck, getting going again.  However, I’m really, really pleased with the way that it came out.  We found some really nice readings – and some wonderful people to do them.  We wrote our own vows so those will be especially meaningful for us.  There’s one section that’s sort of akin to a sermon that a minister would do (sort of) that’s called the commentary on marriage.  We got really stuck on this part.  Our officiant put something together that was nice but didn’t quite match what we were going for.  (Not her fault – she’s only met us once and we can be a little quirky!)  We tried to write it ourselves and, well, that didn’t go well at all.  It’s hard to write about yourselves and marriage in that way.  We asked our parents for help and they shot some ideas our way.  Bingo!  That’s just what we were looking for!  So now we’ve sent the final draft to the officiant and to the very talented calligrapher that will be doing our marriage certificate. 

Now that that’s done, I wonder what we should be doing next???  I’m sure we’ll think of something!

Adventures in wedding planning August 5, 2008

One of the things that’s been most interesting to me in the process of planning this wedding is finding some new and interesting resources both in our community and on the web.  Today I ordered my necklace and earrings through a vendor at Etsy.  I also got the things I’m going to wear in my hair form an Etsy vendor.  Etsy is a website where crafters and artisans can go to sell their wares.  Everything is handmade and, because there’s not much of a middle man, it’s pretty affordable.  My jewelry will be on its way to me from the artisan in the UK shortly. 

Another hidden gem was our baker, Amanda.  She has a degree in graphic design and makes cakes as a way to build income while staying home with her children.  Her cake is tasty and I’m anticipating that it’ll be beautiful too.

In other news, the reply cards continue to come in.  We’re headed out for a few days vacation but when we get back we’ll be calling everyone who didn’t respond yet.  We’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of folks are coming, even some that we didn’t expect.  We literally have folks traveling from both ends of the country – CA/OR and ME – to join us in the celebration.  We’re honored and excited that folks want to make the trip!

Well, I guess that’s all the news that’s fit to report for now.  Talk to you soon!