Wedding Photos

Here are some of our wedding photos. Our photographer, Merv Coleman, did a great job. It rained some of the day, but let up in time for some outdoor photos. The mountains outside of Red Lodge are in the background. We are very happy with how the photos turned out.

Home in Minnesota

We arrived in Minnesota on July 1, after driving for two days in the car with the cats. It was a long trip and we were happy to finally arrive. The movers came with our stuff about a week later. Thankfully we didn't have any problems and the whole thing went relatively smoothly. We have been spending our time lately unpacking and getting settled in St. Cloud. It has been going ok so far, although we both have to admit that this has been a big move! We have made some friends already, mostly through our friend Adrienne who lives here. This social connection makes us feel less isolated here, which is nice. I have also been studying for the licensure exam in order to become a licensed psychologist. This isn't a requirement for my job, but will be good to have in the future if I want to ever do any private practice on the side. So I have been spending a good deal of time working on that. (it is kind of a beast!)
So far, married life has been going well- we are both happy to have each other through these other big life changes. What a summer!

Back in Pennsylvania for now...

After driving back to Minnesota and flying back to Pennsylvania, we are officially back in Huntingdon for now. Our cats, Jupiter and Callie, were happy to see us! We are going to be moving to Minnesota on June 30th. We had a great trip all over the West for our wedding and honeymoon. It was really nice to see everyone and we enjoyed the whole experience. We will be getting our photos from the photographers here in the next few weeks and we will post more wedding pictures then.
We'll update as the move approaches!

Black Hills, South Dakota

After spending a few days in Cody visiting with family and relaxing, we left Wyoming and started heading back toward the East. We are currently in Rapid City, South Dakota. On our way to Rapid City we stopped in Deadwood and played a few hands of blackjack. It was fun. Today we explored the Black Hills. First, we went to Mount Rushmore. It was interesting and worth seeing for the most part, although it is a bit over commercialized and over the top. We then went to Crazy Horse Monument. This monument is a bit more culturally sensitive and does a better job of attending to the history of the Native American population in the area. We enjoyed seeing the Native Americans selling their hand made crafts and jewelry. We then went on a drive through Custer State Park. We enjoyed this part of the day the most. There were less people and more opportunities to see unaltered mountains and native wildlife. We also encountered some non-native "wildlife" in the form of donkeys that also live in the park. They are used to humans feeding them, although they aren't supposed to, so they surrounded our car almost immediately. It was pretty funny!
Tomorrow we are headed out for our long drive back to Minnesota in preparation of flying back to Pennsylvania. The honeymoon is almost over but it has been fun to see all of the sites.

Jackson, Wyoming

After leaving Cooke City, we drove through Yellowstone National Park and arrived in Jackson, Wyoming. It was a great day in Yellowstone, with many animals out and not very many people. We saw a grizzly, wolves, a coyote, buffalo, and elk. Being from Wyoming, I love the mountains, especially when it is quiet because the tourists haven't arrived yet. In Jackson we stayed in a cute cabin, that we called the "honeymoon cabin." We took a tram ride up to the top of the Tetons at Teton Village ski resort. We also walked around town and took in the sites. It was a nice trip. After our time in Jackson we drove back through Yellowstone and arrived back in Cody for a few days. The highlights of the second Yellowstone day were a grizzly bear with her cubs and seeing Old Faithful erupt. We are now in Cody at a bed and breakfast. Today we went rock hunting with my dad. We found some neat fossils. So, overall it has been a nice honeymoon and lots of western site seeing. We will post pictures soon!

Cooke City Montana

We are currently on our mini honeymoon, starting in Cooke City Montana. Cooke City is near the northeast entrance to Yellowstone Park, and is the city with the highest elevation in Montana at 7200 feet. Given that, it is actually still very cold here and is SNOWING as we speak! This is actually pretty typical for a high mountain town, but for those of you from non-western locations, it is probably hard to imagine! We have a quaint room at a local lodge and will be heading to Yellowstone and Jackson Wyoming tomorrow. Given our remote location we also don't have any cell phone service either, although there is some internet. We saw a grizzly on our way to Cooke City too!
Right now we are off to explore the local stores here in Cooke City.

We Are Married!

The day finally arrived! We had our wedding yesterday and it was a really nice day. We had expected rain and were surprised when we had fairly decent weather. Which meant we were able to get a few photos outside of the mountains. The ceremony was at the Red Lodge Golf Course.
The morning started with the women getting our hair done and the men decorating the reception site. We then all met up at the ceremony site (which we were able to decorate the day before) and ate a bite of lunch before we all got dressed and ready. It was kind of a whirlwind of photos and getting ready from that point on until the ceremony.
The ceremony was a very special, meaningful celebration for us. We feel like it went well and was exactly how we envisioned it. Since we had around 40 people at the wedding, it was small, relaxed, and intimate.
We then took a few more pictures and headed to the reception at Bridge Creek Restaurant. The reception was a fun time with food, cake, drinks, and family/friends. The men did a great job decorating! The food was really good too.
Overall, we are very happy with how everything turned out! Thank you for all of those who attended.

48 hours to go!

Chris and I made it to Red Lodge after spending some time in Cody first. We have been doing a lot of last minute details. Although it is a bit hectic, we are looking forward to the wedding. For those of you attending the wedding, we are staying at the Pollard in downtown Red Lodge.
The ceremony is at 3pm at the Red Lodge Golf Course. The reception will follow at Bridge Creek Wine and Kitchen.
This has been a great year and we are excited the time has finally come!

Making our way West...

After two long days of driving, we arrived in St. Cloud, Minnesota. We have spent the last few days visiting Adrienne and Steve and securing an apartment for our permanent move here at the end of June. We have enjoyed the visit and found a nice apartment. We also stopped in at the college where we will both be teaching next year. This was Chris' first time in Minnesota and "the Cloud" so it was good to see everything. We also are thankful to Adrienne and Steve for their generous hospitality and help in this process. This is a picture of our future apartment. The wedding is very soon, we are excited!

On our way!

We are heading west! The wedding is fast approaching, less than two weeks and we are ready to hit the road! We are driving from Pennsylvania with a stop in Minnesota to find a place to live. We are mostly ready for the wedding, just the last minute details once we get to Montana. I am all done with my job at Juniata College as well, so it is an exciting time!
For those of you coming from out of town for the wedding, we recommend packing layers as it was still snowing in Red Lodge this week. The weather in the mountains can vary quite a bit this time of year, anywhere from snow to sunny and warm. It is unlikely to be overly hot though. We will see you very soon!

"House-Cooling" and Wedding Shindig!

Since a number of people we know in Pennsylvania are unable to make it to our wedding, and we are moving in June, we decided to have a get together at our house this weekend to celebrate. We had a nice turnout and enjoyed visiting with everyone. It was also fun to see people from the various circles of people we know like those at Penn State and Juniata. It was a nice time!

Senator John Kerry!

Funny story... Chris and I met at a John Kerry campaign event during the summer of 2004, when Kerry was running for president. Chris attended the event because his friend was hosting the party, I went because I wanted to meet more people in State College. It obviously worked out!

So when we were working on sending out our wedding invitations, we decided to send John Kerry an invitation to see if he would respond. We enclosed a brief letter describing our story. We weren't sure if we would get a response, but today in the mail we received a card from his office. I was sure that it would only be a simple form letter, but instead we received a personalized note directly from the senator, hand written, signed and everything!

In case you can't read it on the picture, he wrote "I'm delighted my campaign brought you together and I appreciate the invitation enormously. Celebrate well and come say hello one day! All the best."

I was telling Chris we should save it and in 50 years take it to the Antique's Roadshow and see how much it is worth! It was fun to receive it today.

ONE Month to go!

We have one month until the wedding! That means we are in the final planning. I think we are mostly prepared. We met our pet sitter last weekend for the time we are gone for the wedding. We also are still working on getting the programs and table cards completed this week. Otherwise, for now we are ready! There will be a lot to do the week of the wedding- but it has to wait for now until we are in town.

Also we are having a "House Cooling- Wedding- Good Bye" get together at our house this weekend for our local friends who couldn't make it to the wedding. It should be a good time.

Spring wedding details

The wedding gets closer every day! We are looking forward to all of the upcoming events. Recently we finalized our guest list after hearing back from the RSVP's. With that information we have been working on making place cards for everyone at the reception. We have also been putting together a program to hand out at the ceremony, which means we have been working on finalizing parts of the ceremony. We wanted to include a reading of some sort, but all of the readings on the internet seemed too generic. So we developed our own, more personalized reading that we are looking forward to sharing at the wedding. Our friend Judith will give the reading during the ceremony. We also have a creative unity ceremony that we will include in the ceremony.
We also had our wedding announcement appear in the Cody Enterprise, the hometown paper. This picture isn't as good because it is a photocopy, but we were happy with how the original turned out.

The final detail we took care of recently was reserving our hotel room for the time in Red Lodge. We will be staying at the Pollard Hotel, which is right downtown Red Lodge. We chose the Pollard because it was slightly more affordable than the Comfort Inn and a bit more centrally located, although not by much. Everything in Red Lodge is "nearby." The day after the wedding we will head to Cooke City, Montana one night and then through Yellowstone over to Jackson, Wyoming for a few days in a nice cabin. We will then head back to Cody for a few days at a bed and breakfast before heading back to Pennsylvania. Please feel free to email us if you have any questions about where to stay or other travel planning questions. It is a beautiful area, so if you can take advantage of seeing the sites we would recommend it!

Spring! Means the wedding is near...

The weather in Pennsylvania has improved in the last few weeks, making it seem very much like spring around here. We are excited about the sunshine! The spring weather also reminds us that the wedding is getting closer. We have been doing a few tasks for the wedding this week. We ordered our rings which should arrive very soon. Mine will be an eternity band with diamonds and Chris' will be a men's band with a simple design. It was fun to look at the different options and pick them out. We are also starting to hear back from our invitations. It is fun to get the response cards in the mail. I also scheduled manicures and pedicures for myself and my bridal attendants for the day before the wedding. Looking forward to that as it was sure a lot of fun in Arizona. We also finalized our wedding cake and mailed the topper we would like to use. Chris' family has agreed to help put together our table decorations for the reception, so we mailed those off this week as well. We appreciate the help!
All together, it is at the stage now where we have a lot of little details that we are putting together as the wedding nears. We are both looking forward to it!

Spa Vacation With My Bridesmaids!

I have three bridesmaids: Kosha, Adrienne, and Sierra. Since they didn't know each other very well they decided it would be fun to take a vacation together prior to the wedding as a way of getting to know each other better. It was also a nice way to celebrate the upcoming wedding and get away from the cold in our respective locations! We went to the Desert Ridge Spa and Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. We spent three nights in Arizona. We spent our time eating, drinking, sitting by the pool, and getting manicures. It was rough!
The first day we went shopping at a local shopping center for shoes they will wear at the wedding. We then ate Mexican food, which I enjoy a lot. For some reason there is a shortage of Mexican food in Pennsylvania. We then sat by the pool the rest of the day.
The next day we all got manicures at the spa, worked out, ate lunch at the shopping center, and then more pool time. The second day though we got to use the spa pool because we had purchased manicures. It was a very nice pool with all sorts of perks. We all would like to thank Kosha's aunt Teri and uncle Bruce for being the taxi service for the trip. They were great!
This whole trip was such a good idea and we all had a great time. I feel so blessed to have such great friends who care about me enough to think about putting something like this together. Kosha and I have known each other since 1998 in Laramie, Sierra and I since 2000 in Oregon, and Adrienne and I were on internship together in Utah in 2007-2008. Each is a unique and special friend in my life.
Given all of that, Chris and I are continuing to get excited about the wedding and seeing everyone. We will see all of you soon!

Spring!

We are getting closer to the wedding everyday! It is finally starting to feel like spring here in Pennsylvania, which means we are getting closer to May.
My wedding dress is finished, and we went to pick it up on Tuesday this week. It looks very nice. We also ordered our tuxes for the guys. They will look very nice!
We are getting excited about the wedding, seeing everyone, and doing the final planning this spring.

Registering

Happy Valentine's Day! We spent the day shopping in State College. We registered today at Target. The registry is available here. It was fun to register! After we signed up, they gave us a scanner to go around the store with. It can be tempting to scan everything! However, we tried to look for items that we can really use. We are happy with our selection!

We are also registered at a gift shop in Cody, Wyoming if you would like to shop locally. Their name is Love's Gifts. Their phone number is (307) 587-2214. They said out of town guests are welcome to call and purchase something from our registry over the phone if you would like.

All that being said, we are most excited about seeing everyone at the wedding and sharing this big moment with the important people in our lives!

Attending to details...

We have been doing a lot of planning for the smaller details of the wedding in recent weeks. I ordered a veil, small tiara, and shoes to wear for the wedding. We also decided on the design for the tuxes. We are going to have a string duet play at the ceremony, so we worked on picking out some of the music they are going to play. We also ordered and finalized the decorations for the ceremony and reception. I also am having my dress altered currently, it will be done early March. We are planning on working on the invitations soon. The fancy wedding stamps for those arrived in the mail today. We are enjoying getting these smaller details settled.
I should also mention that we had plenty of time to attend to these details in recent weeks because we had a crazy amount of snow with the blizzards so we were home inside for a long time!

Wedding Guest Information

Lodging: We have reserved a block of rooms at the Red Lodge Comfort Inn. Their phone number is 406-446-4469. When you make your reservation let them know that you are in the Platt\Scheitle wedding group. Note that the hotel will stop holding the rooms 30 days before the wedding, so be sure to make a reservation early!

If the Comfort Inn isn't your style, there are other options.

Travel: If flying to Red Lodge, you have two options. The first is to fly into Cody, WY (airport code: COD) and drive up about an hour to Red Lodge. The second is to fly into Billings, MT (airport code: BIL) and drive down about an hour to Red Lodge.

We are registered at Target, available here. We also registered locally in Cody, Wyoming at a cute shop named Love's Gifts. Their number is (307) 587-2214.

More Wedding Dresses!

As I mentioned, I tried on a lot of dresses! Here are some more pictures of the various dresses I tried on. Again, none of these are actually the dress I finally decided on!