The End of the Beginning.

Well, the reception on June 9th went great! We ended up having about 100-125 people show up to wish us well and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Well, scratch that; if there would have been little to no breeze that would have been better. We had to turn off the chocolate fountain because there was *just* enough breeze to blow chocolate all over the place.

But other than THAT everything went great.

The only thing that stinks is that the bride and groom get to spend so little time with anybody at a reception because they have to spend a little time with everybody! It really is true that the reception is NOT for the bride and groom. We felt so bad saying goodbye to people as they were leaving even though we didn't get to talk to them at all before then. Sigh. Oh well, at least it was nice to see a bunch of friends and family, new and old.

So that brings an end to this weblog. Though our marriage continues, this won't. Thanks to everyone who read it and followed along in our planning and preparations. It was...fun. We wish you all the best and God speed.

Now a picture of us shoving cake in Benjamin's face.:


It's the little things. Smiles.

T Minus...

Oh, Lordy. There's so much to do between now and Saturday!

Planning and Preparing.

We're going to be getting into the nitty gritty big time reception planning stuff for our event on June 9. Actually getting married got us kind of side tracked.

Getting pregnant did, too. ;-) That's right, Glenda will be delivering our baby sometime around December 1, 2007.

The Flip Side: We're Married!

Sorry it's taken so long to get back here after tying the knot more than a week ago. Part of it's been laziness, but part of it's been the fact that we don't have internet at our apartment yet.

The ceremony went wonderfully. Each of our fathers gave a prayer/statement of blessing. Benjamin gave his own special son's prayer. And each of us teared up a little bit at different parts. In attendance were our close family members.

I won't ramble on. Instead, here's pictures! (click them for a larger version)

Our handsome little ring bearer!

---------------------

The bride and groom at the altar.

---------------------

What a kiss!

---------------------

Happy to be Man and Wife!

---------------------

Cutting our "Wedding Cake", Macaroni Grill's gift to us. :-)

Wedding Day

Tonight we marry. Catch you on the flip side.

The Final Coundown to "I Do"

With just over 3 days to go until we get married, things are moving fast!

This weekend we moved into our new apartment. Well, our stuff went into the new apartment, but we're still getting it all organized and figured out. With all of our boxes and bags stacked everywhere last night, it all seemed really overwhelming, so I took it upon myself to relieve some of the pressure. When all was said and done the place actually looks inhabitable now. There's still a lot to be organized, but it's not all piled in the middle of our living room any more.

Almost everything for Friday's wedding ceremony is done:

We met with our minister, Kent, on Sunday to set up the order of service -- it's a simple ceremony, so we didn't have to do it really far in advance. I just remembered some important phrasing that we need to make sure is included. I'll make sure we get him called today.

We have both wedding bands ready to go; the only thing I'll need to do Friday where that's concerned is take her engagement ring to be cleaned.

We're all set on our clothes for the day, though I do need to make sure all my stuff is clean before then. Not a big deal.

Mom is putting the final touches on the flowers right now. They're beautiful!

Finally, today I'll pick up the marriage license and put it in the safe with the rings.

We're REALLY excited! This has all moved very fast but it's all felt very right. Among other things, Benjamin is so stoked that his dad is going to finally live with him and Mommy, Glenda is happy that her queen-sized bed won't feel empty at night and I'm just happy that we can finally be and do all the things as a family that we've looked forward to and not have to wait any longer.

Just over 3 days to go!

Wardrobe Adjustment

We were going to get a new suit for Benjamin to wear at our wedding, but he's not going to be able to wear a jacket now. He broke his arm Wednesday evening. Read all about it at my personal blog.

Say a prayer for us. We'll be moving this weekend and getting married next Friday, and all the while kiddo's got to deal with a long arm cast. Oh yeah, there's still supposed to be rain Saturday during our move, too. The stress level is rising for all three of us.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

...don't wash out our moving day.

It doesn't look good for Saturday when we're supposed to do our major moving.

Praying hard.

Flowers and Frenzied Packing

On Sunday afternoon Glenda, my mom, and I went shopping for flowers. Since my mom used to be a professional florist and...well, she's my mom, we thought it'd be great for her to do the flowers for our wedding. She's also willing to do it for free if we pay for the materials. Very cool.

So off we went to JoAnn ETC to see what we like. After a couple of hours of perusing the different styles, colors and so on, we found stuff that works really well together and will look awesome.

Right now we're both scrambling to get everything packed to move this weekend.

By the way, anybody want to help us move Saturday and Sunday?

Change of Plans

This Valentine's Day, we have an announcement related to the love we share and our upcoming nuptuals:

Because of the nature of our relationship and Benjamin being in the picture, we have decided that it would be wiser to get married sooner rather than later. We are moving up our official wedding date to Friday, March 2, instead of waiting until the announced June 9.

A number of factors have led to this decision. Saying goodbye to each other after we've spent quality time together has become increasingly more difficult. Benjamin asks Mommy almost daily when he'll be able to see Dad again. We have felt almost like a separated couple in reverse, trying to arrange when the kiddo can see his dad. We've looked at our finances and realized that it would be most financially prudent to consolidate insurances, food, living expenses and so on sooner rather than later.

We've thought about the good reasons to wait until June 9 but have come up lacking. For many other engaged couples, they need so much time to plan a decent-sized wedding that they have to wait in order for things to get done. We've never wanted a big wedding to begin with, so there's even less for which to wait around. Engaged couples typically don't have a six year old in the picture; and that's a dynamic that changes everything much more than we ever imagined.

We will still be having a really cool event on June 9. It will, at a minimum, be a neat reception-type event and we've talked with our minister about having a brief vow-renewal ceremony of sorts. We want our friends to be there. We want to have a kick-butt party. It will still be an outdoor event next to Lake Jacomo, and we'll still share in this blog our thoughts on preparing for it.

On March 2, however, we've decided to have only close family at the ceremony. Because of the short time frame between now and then, we feel like we can't ask so many people to change whatever plans they have to accommodate us. Frankly, we also want this to be very simple and intimate.

So we have a lot of work to do. A week before the wedding we'll be doing the major moving into a much larger apartment in Glenda's complex. We have to meet with our minister to finalize the plans for the March 2 event. We also have to get all the other legal stuff in order. After that, it's back to arranging for the June 9 event.

We're really excited about all this. We're sure it comes as a shock to you. Please rest assured that we've talked and prayed a LOT about all this and we feel like this is the direction in which we need to go for our family. God bless and please pray for us.

With God's Love,
Michael and Glenda

Never Ending.

Glenda and I both have decided on something else (besides a flower girl) that we DON'T want in our wedding -- or need not be said. You might have heard this one before. It's paraphrased here, but you'll quickly get the idea:

The wedding ring is a circle and has no beginning or end. Such is the nature of God's love for us and husband and wife for each other. Blah blah blah....

My take: Do you really have to tell us what the rings are for? I think we know by now.
Glenda's take: "How many times does a person really to have to hear that in their lifetime?"

Location, location, location!

We have a site at which to get married! I won't give too many details yet, but the wedding will be outdoors next to an area lake. The theme: "A picnic-in-the-park wedding".

The view is lovely, the site has a lot to offer, and the day is going to be wonderful.

Five months to go.

Wedding Dress or Weird Nightgown?

A while back Glenda wanted me to give her ideas of what kind(s) of wedding dress I would/wouldn't like for her to wear. Let's just say the following falls into the WOULDN'T category. Oh my.:

Back to the Business at Hand

Glenda and I are back in the swing of wedding planning. Golly, the holidays made it rough. Once we were done each day with whatever holiday stuff came up we just were too worn out to think about the wedding.

Last night we worked earnestly on our master calendar: what needs to be done by what date. It went a little slower than we thought, so we'll likely finish that up tonight.

Sunday we plan to go look at some wedding/reception sites in an attempt to FINALLY figure out where this shindig is going to be held.

A Little Bit Lax

Well, it seems like forever since I have posted anything to our blog. The school year is coming to a break, and that means that I am testing students and preparing for quarter grades.

Michael and I are trying to prepare for Christmas. We have been a little lax on wedding plans, but last night after I put kiddo to bed, I stayed up and read some articles in one of the magazines Michael bought. Some of the articles I wasn't planning on reading because the couple had a more traditional wedding, but I ended up reading the articles anyway. I did find some interesting ideas from those articles too. Some of the ideas dealt with what the attendants wore, and some were about flowers.

I am hoping that while I'm on break from school, that I'll have more time to get some plans down. I think we have at least one color, and we have some ideas, but nothing is really set in stone, so it's probably about time that we start taking care of that.

Honeymoon Ideas

Glenda and I started looking at honeymoon ideas yesterday. One of our magazines suggested starting by brainstorming places we've always wanted to visit and then go from there.

It looks like we're going to end up doing something tropical. I've always wanted to spend time on the beach next to the ocean. Sometimes I look at the tropical pictures that come with the Windows desktop or screen savers and think, "some day I'm going to go there!"

We may wait for a bit after we're married to actually go on the trip. That's due to a couple of different factors, including avoiding the peak vacationing season, job stuff and having money saved up. We'll just see. If we do wait, I think it'd be cool to spend at least a couple days soon after the wedding at a nice local hotel/resort as a "mini honeymoon" before the actual big trip later.

Priorities.

We want to have a fairly small, simple wedding. We both are hoping for something that is truly meaningful, worshipful and special. That means that the way we approach some elements of the wedding ceremony and festivities surrounding it are going to be...different. Everything that day will be focused around kicking off our marriage in a special way, all the while having friends and family there to join us in the experience.

I've been fascinated to find out in our research that so much is devoted to making the best experience possible for the guests. One magazine or Web site even said something to the effect of "most of the time the guests care most about two things: the bride's dress and how good the cake is."

Really? If that's true...how sad.

We've thrown out all the ideas of what a wedding *should* be like. We can say with great certainty that many of the elements of a "typical, traditional" wedding really turn us off. Our ceremony and reception may make some of our guests walk away saying, "Well, that was kind of different," but we want that statement to be followed by, "but it was really nice."

We want our guests to enjoy themselves, but we also can't help but think that spending ridiculous amounts of money on extra stuff, fancier cake, and a super-elegant wedding dress is not necessarily good stewardship.

We welcome your comments. I especially would like to hear about what's most important to you as a wedding guest. Is the cake really number one in your eyes? Do you first look to see what the couple's colors are? Are you most interested in the bride's dress? What would you think of a wedding that breaks away from the norm?

God bless.

Family Fun

Today: Michael, Benjamin, and I were able to spend time with Michael's family for Thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun. I was able to get to know Michael's brother and sister-in-law better. Amy showed me their wedding movie, which Michael video taped and produced. I must admit, Michael did an awesome job! (Not that I'm biased or anything;)

We were able to spend last evening with my parents which was very interesting! I had issues getting some medicine from the pharmacy and my mom ended up having to make the dinner. Michael, of course, was able to make things better with his sense of humor. He can always make me laugh, even in the least desirable situations.

Tomorrow, we are going to spend some time with more of Michael's famliy. I know it will be a lot of fun! Benjamin always enjoys spending time with Michael's nephews.

What a Date This Has Been

We've set a date! Not three days after I proposed, we now know that our wedding date will be June 9, 2007. What's so interesting about the date is that it is exactly one year after our first date when we went to the Royals game together. We thought it'd be cool to keep our anniversary the same for...everything!

Setting the date seems like a huge step. The reason I say that is because the very first two family members we told of our engagement -- and many friends since -- have asked "do you have a date yet?" Who knows their wedding date 30 minutes after the proposal?! Honestly?

But anyway, the date is now set! Now the questions will be "what are your colors?" and "how many attendants are you going to have?" and "where are you going on your honeymoon?" Patience, my friends, patience. :-)

Smiles, Michael

Wedding Magazines

Today I took a couple of issues of Brides magazine over to Michael's for him to look at. Some of the stuff in it he thought was really cool, other stuff was...questionable. He's being so wonderful about wanting to be involved in the wedding planning process, and it makes me love him even more than I already do!