A Picture and a Thought - 2

Reason #362 I can't wait to get married to Bri: Not having to fold sheets by myself.

More Wedding Plans!

The blog is behind for a number of reasons.  The first is that I was super busy over the weekend and didn’t get a chance to write any posts until yesterday.  Although Hurricane Irene had not prevented my from having electricity, she had knocked out my internet, so making blog posts available took a bit longer than I would have liked.

Back to the business of the weekend!  The primary reason for the pilgrimage back to Vermont that my fiancé and I made over the weekend was to meet with the priest in her parish.  He usually likes to meet with couples in order to reserve the church for their wedding.  It was actually a very helpful meeting because he let us know some of the things that we need to do in order to get the ball rolling.  There are a couple things we need to take care of.  Because I am a baptized, non-Catholic Christian, we will be entering into what is known as a “mixed marriage”.  Because of this, we need to get special permission from the bishop in Burlington.  I also need a certificate, proving I have been baptized.  Additionally, because Brianna’s uncle will be officiating (conveniently, he is a priest) and is from outside of Vermont, he will need to get in contact with both the diocese of Vermont to be allowed to perform the ceremony in a religious capacity and the county to be allowed to perform the ceremony in a civil capacity.  Luckily we’re thinking ahead so this shouldn’t be a big deal.

On to the fun stuff:  Brianna bought her dress after trying it on again and getting her dad’s approval.  We also ordered our wedding bands.  I went with a simple titanium band (secretly I know that it’s made of titanimite, a rare allow of titanium and dynamite) and Brianna will be getting two bands made to go on either side of her engagement ring.  We were fortunate to be able to meet with the custom designer and she came up with a number of beautiful designs.  We’ve also started talking about flowers and photographers!  Luckily we’ll be headed back to Vermont a couple more times to get even more of the planning out of the way.

The next steps that we need to get out of the way are to get the pre-marital counseling done and to start tackling the guest list.  The guest list is a little daunting because we will have to balance the people that we want to attend, the people that we are somewhat obligated to invite, the people that our parents want to attend as well as logistical and quasi-political concerns.  I would prefer to keep the number as reasonable as possible but with two large families and fair number of close family friends I doubt that we will be able to have less than 200 people in attendance.  The unfortunate reality of a wedding is also that we’ll never be able to invite everyone we want to come and everyone who wants to come.  There will be some tough decisions, to be sure, but in the end I know that it will all work out.

I am more excited than ever about getting married to Bri.  I can’t wait for the wedding and it’s less than 9 months away!  There’s a lot to do but we have plenty of time and are well ahead of schedule.  It’s hard to believe, but I think it will be more awesome than the following picture:

-Lane

I Has a Happy

Unfortunately because I have written this post after Alex's more coherent, information, and better organized post about his super-exciting life, mine appears above his.  If you would rather skip the post that follows these comments, by all means, please skip it and go directly to Alex's post on New York City (you will come back and read this, won't you?).

I had an eventful weekend!  Saturday I met my family at a hotel nearby and we enjoyed a nice lunch.  The most exciting thing is that in this case, I can include my Uncle Bryan, Aunt Mikiko, and my two cousins in the phrase "my family"!  Even more exciting was that more family was on the way and that we were all headed to the wedding of another cousin of mine!

It was a very beautiful wedding.  I suspect all weddings are beautiful in their own way, but this one definitely made sitting outside in the record heat worth it (by far!).  There was a great party afterwards with lots of good food, dancing, and fun.  I was lucky enough that my fiancé was invited as well and though I joked about my extended family being on "double-secret probation" based on their behavior, we did see things that we liked and were able to get some ideas about what we like.  It also upped the level of excitement, both for the two of us and the whole rest of the family.

I stayed in the hotel with my family and returned to my apartment after a big, noisy, fun brunch with everyone who had come from out of town.  It made me really happy to see everyone but it's always a little sad to see them go.  Fortunately I get to see them again soon!  Now I have to go grocery shopping and do laundry... the return to real life is always a little disappointing.

-Lane

p.s. the fantastic picture at the top of the page comes from a webcomic called nataliedee.  There are all kinds of images like this one.  I would have liked to make a link directly from the picture but am unable with my level of computer ineptitude.

p.p.s. the usual "Training, Week of..." post will happen tomorrow.  I haven't run yet (I need to do that too!) and I don't want to post twice in one day, so I promise that will be up after work tomorrow.

More on the Marriage Front!

Yesterday was a busy day in the realm of planning my wedding.  Brianna and I visited two places we were considering for the reception, both near the town that I grew up in.

One location was in a very beautiful, rustic barn that had been falling apart until it was rebuilt.  It was a large space and the work of the wedding would be left to us. This comes with advantages and disadvantages: we'd be able to do things 100% our way and the space was essentially a blank slate but we'd have to come in the next day and clean up before 10:00am.  We'd also have to set up either the day before or the morning of the wedding.  We would also need to find a caterer.

The other location we visited at a local golf course and country club.  It is located much closer to the local airport and hotels and other things that make it easier on people who might be coming in from far away.  Everything is included in the price, including catering and a bar fee.  It also includes the cake cutting, which is a preposterous fee that most places charge just to cut the wedding cake, a limousine, gardens, and the use of the top deck of the driving range.  Ultimately, this option looked to be the best by far and we decided that we wanted to go with this one.

With both locations, there was one small, teensy-weensy problem: neither place had the date we had chosen (May 19th) available.  The barn was only available in very early May or very late June, which were too early and too late, respectively. The country club was available for the next weekend (May 26th) which will also be memorial day weekend.  Brianna's uncle agreed to officiate at the wedding (how convenient, since he is a priest!)  Changing the date seemed like a good solution, so the wedding is on for May 26th!  That's only a year and a day away!

-Lane

And then when you get married...

I was talking to the mother of one of my high school friends today when she said something that really surprised me: she said "and then when you get married..." Holy crap!  I'm going to get married!  It's one of those things that I know but is strange to hear from somebody else.

I have been dating my fiancée for nearly five years and have been engaged for about a month but it still seems strange to me that I'm getting married.  I think it might be because I've thought of myself as a kid for so long (my whole life, in fact) that it's hard to believe that things that happen only to adults are starting to happen to me.  We've even been considering places to have the reception and have started trying to put together a guest list.

I am super excited for the whole process of planning the wedding!  It's amazing to think that as young as I am, I have found somebody that I want to spend the whole rest of my life with; Brianna is definitely one of the biggest blessings in my life.  In a tangentially related vein, you might be wondering what rocket surgery and knitting have in common?  I don't know, but my fiancée writes a knitting blog!  If you are at all interested in arts and crafts, you should check it out.