"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.