We will NOT be going to Scotland next year. I could not get funding for it.

Planning has continued to progress since last I wrote. RSVPs arrive in our mail box every day! Most of them bear happy news. Send yours, send yours!

We visited the organic butterfly garden from which we will be gathering a large number of our flowers. (Commercial flowers are grown with very heavy pesticide use, almost all of them outside the U.S. where the gardeners are exposed to toxins that would be illegal here, and are paid very little. I don't want my joyous occasion to support practices that give little babies cancer... detailed info/references available to anyone who's interested. e-mail me.) It's beautiful! And the gardner who nurtures it is a beautiful person as well. It looks like there will be many lovely flowers, and we are both very happy about the arrangement.

We have recipes and proportional ingredients list and decorative designs for the cake all drawn up in detail. We're going to do more practicing there... *grin*

We very probably have tables and chairs arranged. We have refridgerator space near the reception for flowers/cake/food. The reception hall is absolutely set, with all of the insurance and payments and everything taken care of. Mom finished the basket. We met with our officiant, and are feeling very happy about that. We're hoping to go out for lunch in the near less-hectic future (he has a lot of students doing their theses. And of course, I am doing mine). Tomorrow we are getting the marriage license.

Still looking for a dress for the matron of honor (the one I found didn't fit). Have a few promising leads.

That's all the thrilling wedding-planning news I can think of... over & out.

I am coming down to the wire on my senior thesis project. Wedding planning is relaxing by comparison. It's coming along slow and steady and calm, so far. I guess it won't get hectic until a couple weeks before hand.

Michael has almost finished the candles, and they're gorgeous! They're just decorative--it won't be dark before the reception is over--but they may be lit afterwards, and they should burn beautifully too.

My dress has been hemmed. Today it will be washed, and then it should be ready. My grandmother's silver cake server from her wedding is found and polished. My mom is looking for relatively fancy clothes for herself (she's an L. L. Bean type). The only clothes I still need are underwear, I think. Megan has agreed to do my hair. Ryan has contacted a men's formal rental place, and that sounds to be going well also.

Our lunch date with the officiant has been postponed several times: one week Ryan had the flu, the following week I did, the following week the officiant did, and this week is Spring Break, and I'm at home in Missouri. He has a copy of the current draft of the ceremony. Hopefully next week will work out. For similar reasons, we have yet to pick out a rehearsal dinner menu, although we do have a restaurant picked, and we've talked to the relevant person there. Also, it's finally close enough to the Big Day that we can go get our wedding license.

Oh, and we've been picking out music! Mostly for the post-reception-party, but also for the reception, and a little for the ceremony. That's been the most fun part so far--listening to all of our favorite music together, all day long. If you have a favorite dance-party song or romance song, or there's a song that just says "wedding" to you, we encourage requests!

Of course, testing cake and icing recipes is also a lot of fun. Ryan is brilliant in the kitchen. We still need to do more work in that direction though.

I've been having some difficulty getting in touch with Tina CW the past couple days. I hope I can see her soon.

I've been delighted at how many people have concrete plans to attend, who I was worried might not be able to make it what with the travel distance. I'm so excited about having all of you lovelies in the same place for me to enjoy, even if just for one night!

Things have been moving along steadily in Wedding-World. Ryan and I took advantage of the January ~break to spend long afternoons lazing in the sunlight pouring over the bed, carefully penning the words to the wedding ceremony. We finished the first full draft before the end of January, and have since been trying to get our officiant to look over it.

We canned the whole honeymoon idea after a meticulous financial review. Although I would kinda still like to go down to the keys.

I found a nice dark blue gown that may be just right for my matron of honor. Oh, and a ways back I got my shoes, and I have the borrowed veil. And we have the reception food planned out in some detail. We have pans for the cake and have been testing recipes. Megan's agreed to do my hair. I'm going to talk to someone about photography soon. Flowers are still up in the air.

Ah, and when I said Casa del WheeliEclipse was closed? I lied. We just can't turn away our friends. Cliff, Nick, Tina & Clair will be sharing couches/floor with Mike and Andrew.

Amusingly, word has gotten out, and people I hardly know will occasionally say things like, "Hey, when are you getting married?"

Ahoy-hoi, loyal weddingphiles. As the indomitable and lovely Julia has already mentioned, I did indeed have a conclave with Mr. Marco Meltdown, the most skilled and prestigious jeweler on Summit Boulevard regarding the wedding bands. Once he had entertained me with tales of radioactive gold that had passed into the jeweling industry from a man who stole a load of gold-plated radium balls used in the treatment of prostate cancer and melted them down ... and ascertained that I was certain our mass-spectrometer-derived gold was NOT radioactive ... we decided on two 24K rings ... one size 10 + 1/4 at 8 mm and one size 5 at 5 mm, hand-tapped with a jeweler's hammer to provide a Russian-peasant-inspired beaten look which would supercede any future wear on the soft gold. Smooth, no? And that's my first major personal single-handed contribution, aside from finding my swank Rat Pack jacket. Adieu 'til later, children of the Revolution.

I added a page about the history of the Ringling estate (where the reception will be held), for those interested in such things.

Finally got to talk to my best friend (& matron of honor). She's decided that it would be too expensive to fly her family of five down (an unfortunate, but very understandable decision). This means we're two cute little people less (I was thinking her older children might be a flower girl and ring bearer), but a smaller and simpler party is probably for the best. We still need a dress for her--light blue or light purple, size 8.

This also means that she and her baby can stay with us. Casa del WheeliEclipse is now officially closed to the public. All four attendants will be staying there (Tim lives there all the time; Cliff, Nick, Tina, and her Claire will camp out on our couches and fold out beds). There's no more room!

A few days ago I found some beautiful fake flowers to decorate my dress, and other things that need decorating too. My dress came with some really ratty fake roses on it, so now I've got something to replace them with.

Ryan went and talked about having the rings made. The jeweler's suggestions sound lovely; I think that's one more thing taken care of!

Welcome everyone! The wedding webpage is just about ready to go online. I spent all day yesterday on it, and I think it's in pretty good shape. All the links should work, and it should be navigable on most browsers. If you see anything you would like changed or clarified or added, let me know.

Planning for the actual event is coming along pretty well also. A quick inventory of things done and left to be done:

Bride:
Dress: purchased, at home; need to finish alterations on it.
Veil: Going to borrow Tina CW's, have her approval. It's at her house. Need to get it vaguely soonish so that whoever will be doing my hair has it to practice with.
Shoes: I'll be barefoot on the beach, but I still need some comfortable, flat-soled white shoes or sandles for the reception. No sweatshop labor either. I'll take suggestions. I'm a women's size 7.
Makeup: I'll do this myself. All-natural, of course. I think I've got it well covered.
Hair: Need someone to do my hair. Ask Megan?

Groom:
Shirt, vest: purchased, fit, lookin' good.
Pants: still needs pants. Ideally dark blue shangtung.
Shoes: don't know

Party:
Male: clothing will be rented, but from where?
Female: need clothing for matron of honor (Tina CW) & flower girl (Erin). No ideas for this yet. Simple, elegant, and cool pastel colors (lavender, light blue...)
Members: Need to verify the children (flowerchildren & ringbearer) for sure. Need to absolutely verify the officiant.
Rehearsal: Need to call El Greco about rehearsal dinner.

Ceremony:
We, uh, still need to choose/write the vows.
We also need to pick up a marriage license.
We have re-used (eco friendly) gold for the rings and Ryan's family jeweler (Mr. Meltdown) to make them.
Chairs and tables. Still need a plan here.

Venue: College hall has been rented for a long time; beach needs no rental. There is enough parking both places.

Music:
Grant has agreed to play for us, to this bride's lasting delight.
Need to procure a portable/reliable CD player for both ceremony and reception/party as well.

Photography:
Matt Steinhoff has agreed to do most of the formal photography. Yay!
We ought to get someone professional to take a couple key pictures to take the pressure off Matt though. *grin*
We need to make a definitive list of exactly what pictures we want.

Decorations:
Michael has all candle supplies, half are made.
Plan to buy fresh flowers at the Saturday market on main street and do much of the arranging ourselves. Have supplies; need practice.

Things:
Plan to make ring pillow out of wedding dress hem material (although it fit perfectly, it was quite a bit long, especially without heels). Mom and I will do this if no one else will, but I'd be happy if someone offered.
Mom has a pattern for the baskets, but not the materials yet.
We still need a nice cake knife & server
We still need a cheap but nice physical guest book (we can decorate it)

Food:
We need to sample the food platters we're considering to make sure they're good and see how much they really are. Perhaps for my birthday?
Julia thinks we can make and decorate the cake ourselves. Need to talk to dad (chef extraordinaire) to see if he'll help.
Need to talk to Melvin to see if we can have usage of New College cafeteria industrial refridgerators.

Papergoods:
Tina CW is doing invitations. Need to find quality recycled paper or next best alternative; need to finalize wording.
If someone wants to print up/copy the programs, would be appreciated.

Honeymoon: Ack! We haven't done any planning at all. We know we want to go to the Bahamas.

What am I forgetting? -- Julia