4X the holiday spirit

Christmas #1: Christmas Eve w/ Liz's family at her parents house

Christmas #2: Christmas morning at Liz's brothers house watching her nephew and neice open presents

Christmas #3: Christmas evening at my parents house w/ my grandparents

Christmas #4: Today w/ my sister, who just returned from a ten day cruise, and my parents

It's a lot of holiday cheer...but despite all the traveling it's been drama free and great to see everyone.

On Saturday we have the longest day ever....

• Leave parent's house in Maryland at 5:30AM EST to drive to Dulles Airport outside of Washington, DC
• Fly to Dallas
• Transfer planes and fly to LAX--arriving at 12:15PM PST
  
• Drive home to Hermosa Beach
  
• Eat something
• Get ready to out
• Go to a NYE party that begins at 8PM and ends at 4AM
• 5AM--home and in bed.

After accounting for the three hour time change...we'll be awake on Saturday/Sunday for at least 27 hours--more if dragged to see a couple friends DJ at an afterhours that begins at 4AM. But hey, it's our last NYE in Los Angeles, so no rest allowed!

invitation overload

I knew it wasn't going to be easy to choose invitations, but I had no idea just how difficult it would be. There are so many options to consider, it's ridiculous. Paper weight, size, shape, color. Borders, embelishments, bows, flowers. Printing method. Typeface style and color. Enclosure cards. Envelopes, double envelopes, envelope liners. I had no idea it was so complicated. When mom and I went to look, the salespeople kept pulling out big, gigantic book after book after book after book filled with sample invitations. Within 15 minutes of entering the paper store, the enormous table was covered with open books and mom and I both felt completely overwhelmed. I think she and I finally figured it all out, after three trips to the same store.

Happy Holidays!

We're off to Maryland very soon but before we go...

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to everyone that we hold near and dear!

(We're flying in a small puddle jumper from Logan Airport to BWI...so send some positive thoughts our way...)

Things are looking good

After some scare about our hotels, we seem to have found a temporary solution. Several alternate hotels are now listed on the site. (For all of you that just received your save-the-date cards, the guest info site is now back up and running after a brief downtime.)

Last night we went to a tasting. The details of what will be on the menu will be left a surprise, but I can say that the food was excellent...much better than I expected it to be. The director of the Red Lion told us that we could call her in the middle of the night at home if we had concerns leading up to the day. I wonder if that was merely lip service or if she really meant it. Either way it was extremely reassuring.

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Guest Info site down

We're starting to get more eyes here thanks to the just-mailed save-the-date cards. The information site is down for a bit so that we can update a few things to make sure everyone is getting accurate info.

It should be back up really soon.

Yes, this is thanks to those wonderful speedbumps...

The first speedbump

Currently we're a little freaked out because while we've been really excited about our hotel situation since setting everything up last June, we've now been told--quite unexpectedly--that everything has changed. Many of our guests have already booked, and that's great. But we really had this whole thing planned with the assumption that everyone would be there. Now, despite our best effort, things are now all amiss.

If the powers that be are on our side, this will be but a minor inconvenience for everyone involved.

Speedbumps...don't you just love 'em?

Donny, you're out of your element!

OK...so I've been really involved so far in all aspects of this process. Maybe it's my creative side, maybe it's just because I have a need to be hands-on...I don't know.

Well, that came to a halting stop today when we made our first stop earlier during our fully packed wedding prep week. Where did we go? The florist.

It's not that I don't care about flowers, because I certainly can appreciate them and I understand why they're an essential way to brighten up the reception space. That said, when we were speaking with the florist I felt more out of place than a polar bear on a tropical island. Dendro-whats? I did a lot of smiling and nodding. I will have no issue picking out flatware next month, so I think I did OK. I'm happy to say that my end-point was flowers, that's better than most grooms. I guess I had to have my moment filling the groom-out-of-place cliché. Fortunately, I have complete confidence in Liz's judgement and the woman seemed to know what she was talking about (not that I would know!?) so in the end, I'm know for a fact that it will all look fantastic and beautiful.

no rest for the weary

Do you ever create imaginary timestamps in your head? You know, like, "after the holidays, I will ..." Everyone fills in that blank differently, with things they need, things they hope for, things they want to accomplish. My most recent imaginary timestamp was "after I finish the semester, I will be able to relax and stop running around in 50 different directions at once." HA! Not even a chance. Since arriving in Massachusetts after finishing grad school, I've done at least 3872 things. It's to be expected, it being the week of Christmas, as well as the only time James and I are in Massachusetts together until the week of the wedding.

No, I'm not an idiot. I knew it was going to be hectic. I was just so stressed that I needed to create a light at the end of the tunnel. It's funny to stop and think about the lies we tell ourselves to stay sane. And hey, at least now I am busy with fun things rather than cramming for tests.

camcorders...

If anyone out there wants to be a sugar daddy/momma for a soon-to-be-married couple by providing them with a nice 3 chip DV camcorder to document the time leading up to their wedding.... well let's just say we wouldn't stop you.

I know, I know...well, maybe a close friend will hit the lottery and now they'll know what to get us for Christmas ;)

Getting work done

Does it ever seem like you have a million things to do right before you leave town? I'm wrapping up a freelance gig but I've started to feel like I have a million other things to do that I can't possibly get done. But then when I think about it, I can't sort out in my head exactly what it is I need to actually do. I leave on Sunday morning. It will be good to get a break for a bit.

She's done!

Wish Liz a big time congrats! She aced her comprehensive exam and she's done with grad school! May that stress be in the past and new stress be minimal...

Celebrate!

So much to do in five short days

I'm only going to be in Scituate with Liz for a week right before Christmas. With Christmas at the tail end of my time there, we really only have five days to take care of things. This will be one of the only chances that we get to meet together with people and do wedding stuff locally before June. So far we have the photographer, videographer, and taste testing dinners at the Red Lion. But there's more to be done that we haven't even started thinking about. Hectic times ahead!