Rings Preview

stepan: Friday, August 30 6:14 PM

We visited Brian to take a look at our wedding rings. He has Jennifer's ring already cast and will need to borrow her engagement ring to polish it to fit. My ring currently exists only as a wax blank but it looks very promising, too. We're now faced with the decision as to which white metal to go with for my ring.

Flowers Flowers Flowers

jfer: Wednesday, August 28 11:26 AM

Bekki, our florist, came over to the house last night with her husband, Chris. We're going to keep the flowers fairly simple...I think they are going to be gorgeous. The bridesmaids will carry a cluster of miniature, plum calla lillies. The mothers will probably carry a single, regular size calla lilly. My bouquet will be a clean and simple, white/off-white round bouquet of flowers. We're doing loose flowers on the tables as decorations. Bekki has a ficcus we can rent to block off an aisle in the chapel. She also has a ton of votive candle holders that we'll also use on the table tops at the reception. We've got an appointment for a week from Friday to actually go look at flowers. WOOHOO! We're getting closer to getting this thing put together!

We've got guests coming to the wedding!

stepan: Thursday, August 22 8:43 PM

Today we received our first reply cards in the mail! So, it's official - we'll have at least four people coming to the wedding. Thanks to Heidi and Dave and Bekki and Chris for being so prompt. It made our evening.

Tasty Food

stepan: Thursday, August 22 8:40 PM

We got to do our tasting with Word of Mouth today. Most of their food is exquisit and everything was quite distinctive. We really liked the passed hord d'euvres. We need to get together with Rebeccah soon to do the final arrangements.

Seller's Remorse

jfer: Tuesday, August 20 8:45 PM

It was such a pretty dress.

Parking is Reserved

stepan: Tuesday, August 20 9:02 AM

I go an email from the Texas PTA confirming that we have their parking lot by the Allan House. That makes a little over 80 spaces - half in the Travis County lot behind the house and half across San Antonio street in front of the house. There should be plenty of parking in the surrounding streets, too, but it's still a good idea to car pool, if you can.

Another batch out

stepan: Sunday, August 18 7:03 PM

We very industrious and got another 80 invitations out. It was a great feeling dropping off the box of envelopes at the post office. We still have a few to send off, but first we have to solve the envelope issue. Jfer has some good idea, though, and it may end up better than the "real" envelopes.

Wedding Invitations

stepan: Thursday, August 15 10:28 PM

While Jennifer continued addressing, I printed, cut, scored and folded 120 maps and BBQ invitations. They actually turned out very nice, but we'll need to get more paper to finish the rest of them. As it is, our first batch of invitations should be going out tomorrow morning.

While working on our invitations, we have learned several valuable lessons tonight:

• Trimming boards are an awesome invention - many thanks to WHM for letting Jennifer borrow theirs
• Order at least 50% more invitations than you're absolutely certain you'll need
• Sure, they send you extra envelopes, but you still are limited in the number of mistakes you can make
• Do not mix alcohol or anything distracting while addressing envelopes
• Unanticipated stuff may stress Jfer and me for a short time, but does not faze us in the long run - nor does it really strain our relationship

Did I mention we're running short on envelopes?

Buffalo Lodge

stepan: Monday, August 12 3:52 PM

We're making progress with our honeymoon. I booked the Buffalo Lodge, not far from the Buffalo National River, for the three nights following our stay in Hot Springs. Jennifer came up with room assignments that, we hope, should not cause too many problems - not as easy as one might assume. I am really getting excited about the trip and spending time with my families. I hope the weather will cooperate when we are in the Ozarks.

Engaged Encounter

stepan: Monday, August 12 3:20 PM

We finished our engaged encounter weekend, One in the Lord, at Jennifer's church on Sunday afternoon. Overall, it was a very good - if exhausting - experience. I think we covered all the important things that you really should reflect on and resolve with your partner before making the commitment to marriage.
The sections consisted of a lot of practical information on what you will encounter in marriage and how you should prepare for it. The presenters were couples that had been married between 15 and 40 years. Talking with them over the breaks was really enlightening. Of course, a lot of the instruction was tinted with the Church's point of view, but I don't think that any non-catholic partner's were offended by it. Some of the things we covered included communication, roles, family planning and child rearing.
If you're in the process of planning a wedding, please take some sort of marriage preparation seminar - it's an extremely good investment of time.

One in the Lord - The First Night

jfer: Friday, August 9 10:00 PM

This weekend Stepan and I are doing the marriage prep seminar that is required by the church. The organizer is the same guy who led my confirmation classes last year. That kinda adds a whole level of comfort for me that I was not expecting.

Today we discussed what a Christian marriage involves (fidelity, permanence, fruitfulness) and why it is considered a sacrament. It's all pretty basic stuff that seems like it would be true for any faith. We also touched on the stages of life and a goodly portion of this evening thinking about who we think we are and whether or not we consider ourselves successful as independent individuals. According to the Church, it's important to realize who you are, who you think your fiance is, who your fiance thinks you are, and how those ideas of individuality are suppose to fit together to create a family. It was gratifying to see how well our answers meshed with each other.

Wedding Shower

stepan: Sunday, August 4 11:57 AM

We had our first wedding shower yesterday. It was the "family" shower and was organized by Elizabeth, with Meredith and Meredith lending a hand. It was a very lovely affair - Elizabeth put a lot of planning and work into it and executed flawlessly! The turnout was great and everyone had a good time.

We also used the shower for blind wine tasting to help us select what to server at the wedding. The "blue flower" and "orange aum" labeled red and white wines got the most votes.

Thanks to the hostesses for their work and to all the guests for their company. And thanks to everyone for their generosity and kindness.

Addressing the Invites

jfer: Thursday, August 1 5:15 PM

Bride's Maid Elizabeth and Groom's "Man" Meredith came over on Tuesday to begin the addressing of the envelopes. After about an hour of discussion on format (whose name goes on the outer envelope? which names are included on the inner envelope? what pen should we use? do you spell out the state name? or use the abbreviation?), the list was divided up, and we began. Thirty minutes later, we broke for the dinner that Stepan cooked for us (polish sausage, grilled corn-on-the-cob, fresh veggies). An hour after that, we broke again for dessert (sauted fruit with rum over ice cream). Despite our various starts and stops, we made amazing progress. By the end of the night, we had over 80 invitations addressed, stamped, and stuffed. They are only awaiting our map and bbq invitation inserts which we are still working on.

You wouldn't expect this kind of work to be fun, but I kinda enjoyed it. Thanks to Elizabeth and Meredith O. for lending their perfect pens to this endeavor.