The Moon of Honey

OK, I alluded to our changed plans for the honeymoon in my post on Sunday. Now, here are the details!

First, we were going to the Azores. We love the show "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain. When he toured the Azores, ate great food, and drove through beautiful landscapes, we started looking into going there. The flights were reasonable, the accommodations were pretty & cheap, and they were islands! In the middle of the Atlantic! We were sold.

However, when we started really thinking about how much time we could take off work and how much money we could afford to spend, we started drifting closer to home. The Azores were out and the Isles of Shoals were in. Again with the islands! In the Atlantic! Except these islands are a mere ten miles away from our house, so that cuts down significantly on travel time & expense. Plus, they're gorgeous islands and despite living in Portsmouth for a couple of years, neither of us have yet set foot on them (I've cruised around them in a marine research vessel, but that's it).

However, there's only one place to stay out at the Shoals - the Oceanic Hotel. And they also host large Unitarian Universalist conferences in the summer. When I emailed to check on a room for the dates we needed, they weren't sure they could guarantee something because of a large conference that week. Cue sad trombone noise here.

So . . . we picked ourselves back up and started planning again. And somehow, this time, things came together. We were brainstorming locations that were close enough to drive or take a short flight to, that were far enough from home that we felt like we were getting away, and that were within our limited budget. And as we were falling asleep last Wednesday, it hit me! Montreal.

Montreal is an easy five-hour drive from here, it's in another country, they speak another language, and in just a couple hours of googling, I found a lovely inn at which we booked a swanky suite for around $200 a night! Bingo. :)

The inn, Auberge de La Fontaine, is located in a great part of Montreal (according to the internet). It's called the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood and it's famous for its shops and restaurants. Our inn is walking distance from most of the neighborhood and directly across the street from a big park (bottom photo). Our suite has a queen size bed, jacuzzi in the room, and a private terrace that overlooks the park! Photos below.

So glad this is all sorted out!

What a Wedding Week!

Try saying that three times fast! I think I panicked a bit when we hit the "five months to go!" mark on Tuesday of this past week. I started contacting vendors like crazy and this week got real busy real fast.

In the last seven days, we've done something, whether it's major or minor, with the following features of the wedding:

• My dress: buying it a year in advance finally caught up to me and I no longer fit very well in it! Luckily, it's from J. Crew, so I'm exchanging the one I have for a larger size. Cost a bit of extra $ unfortunately (I got the dress on sale the first time around), but what can you do?
• Tuxes: signed, sealed, delivered! Well, not really, but Justin & I made a trip to Mens Wearhouse, picked out the tux styles, got him measured, and paid for his! Now, to let the other two groomsmen know . . . (to the Best Man, who is assuredly reading this, it's ok if you get yours when you get back from Russia!)
• Cake: we met with a baker over the weekend, did a tasting, brainstormed an order, and pending parental approval & payment, that's done!
• Transport: after emailing a local trolley company, got their brochure with pricing and decided it's fairly reasonable. Next step is to sort out details and book!
• Honeymoon: will write a full post on this soon, but in short, we changed our honeymoon location (for the second time), booked the hotel rooms, and have already begun the honeymoon registry. Yikes!
• Wedding night room: booked a deluxe room at a local, ritzy hotel for the night. Done & done!
• Bridesmaid shoes: went back and forth with the ladies about colors, but have decided upon silver and will inform them this week and give them the go-ahead to buy.
• Bachelorette party: the hosting b-maid emailed to get a final guest list and we began tossing dates around. This will probably get sorted in the next couple of weeks.
• Day-of coordinator: decided to price day-of coordinators to minimize our stress on, well, the day of. Some were crazy expensive - I got a quote for $1600! - but some were reasonable. I'm having a phone chat with the $300 lady tomorrow.
• Flowers: the florist left a message while I was at work on Thursday. Will call her this week.
• Rental of dance floor, table, chairs, china, etc: we have to rent these things for our venue and are heading to the rental place tomorrow to scope out items and prices.

Whew! And all of this is in addition to my working three jobs, Justin attending school full-time, and the two of us hosting a game night on Friday and attending our nephews' birthday party on Sunday! All good & lovely things, but yikes - this week was busy, son.

Why it Rules to Have a Graphic Designer for a Bridesmaid

Exhibit A:
The bridesmaid ensembles, with choice of two shoe colors (gold & silver), in visual form. Until this, it was all in my head. And she did it "just because" - I didn't have to ask her!

And exhibit B (done at my request):

My ensemble!

Wedding Planning Update, Part Two (Electric Boogaloo)

My first (& most recent) update on wedding plans was back in September. Seems like it's time for another planning update, if for nothing else than my own peace of mind.

• Days until our wedding: 152
• Guests on the list: 232
• Blog posts about the wedding: 49 (now 50)
• Sites booked: 2 (ceremony & reception)
• Vendors booked: 2 (photographer & caterer)
• Vendors in communication with us but not yet nailed down: 5 (DJ, rental company, day-of coordinator, bagpiper, and ceremony-to-reception transport - a trolley!)
• Vendors waiting to hear back from (but give them a break - I emailed them today!): 2 (baker & florist). UPDATE on 1/26: heard back from baker already!
• Bridesmaid/groomswoman dresses bought: 4
• Invitation ensembles chosen/designed & soon to be purchased: 1
• Ceremony programs designed (all by our little old selves): 1
• Table name signs designed & ready to be printed: 24
• Deluxe wedding night hotel room booked: almost 1 (left a message for the woman at the hotel on Sunday - should be booked this week)
• Tux ensemble picked out: almost 1 (trying on tuxes on Wednesday)

And boy, are my arms tired. There's probably more going on than this list, but I can't think of everything at the moment. Suffice to say that I feel we've gotten a lot done & are mostly on top of the next items on the to-do list. Considering tomorrow is the five month mark, I'm happy with where we are!

The Church Search

So I haven't posted about our ceremony location yet. Actually, you also deserve a better reception post (the first wasn't very detailed), but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Part of the reason I haven't said anything about ceremony location is because it's changed a few times and has only recently become finalized.

At first, we considered an outdoor ceremony in a beautiful park near the ocean. I posted about the park on my other blog last June if you want to see photos. However, because it's a public park, we couldn't reserve a space to perform the ceremony. We'd also have to rent chairs & then transfer them from the ceremony site to the reception site. As one of my bridesmaids said, "That seems like too many moving parts."

Besides, as much as I loved the seaside park, I had always seen myself getting married in a church. I was raised in the church and though my attendance has suffered over the last decade of living on my own, I still want to say my vows in the beautiful space of a church sanctuary.

So - once we decided that, the church search was on. I wanted to find a local Baptist church due to my upbringing in an American Baptist church in Massachusetts. And conveniently, there is a Baptist church right around the corner from us! I contacted the minister in September about hosting the wedding. However, he was regrettably out for surgery this fall & things have been hanging fire since then.

We did get to meet with the minister last week, though, and he's put our date on the church calendar so we're pretty much good to go. There are a few more details to sort out (like fees, which hopefully won't be huge because I'm still an American Baptist Church member). We also got to check out the sanctuary with the minister & ask him about how ceremonies usually run. He gave us some good tips & I feel much more prepared now.

The church is really pretty inside & out, but one of the best things is this - we can walk there from our apartment! We're planning to have my side of the bridal party get ready at our apartment, then have Justin's side meet us here, take some photos (we live in a lovely brick 1860's house-converted-to-an-apartment-building), then have everyone walk down to the church. Can you imagine the fun photos?

Without further ado, here's is our church - both inside & out: