Wedding photos, really quickly.

I meant to include these in yesterday's post, but couldn't get blogger to let me upload photos. 

My favorite, from El Weddingo:

All photos taken by my dear friend Anne Sherwood. 

Pacific Northwest Roadtrip

We returned home last night from a one week road trip to the Pacific Northwest, where we visited friends and family and Dusty was the best man in a friend's wedding.

I didn't take my camera, but had a handy blackberry for quick photos.

We drove to Harrison on Friday afternoon, and saw a bunch of windmill blades being shipped via rail. Pretty cool to see!

We weren't in a hurry on Saturday, so we toured the central part of Washington state. My family used to go boating on Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam. The dam was a Depression-Era program which brought electricity, flood control and agricultural irrigation to Washington. I wanted DJ to see it. Obviously we were too close for great photos.

Unfortunately, we paid for our little detour later, in the form of delays, chains required and crappy spring snow over Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades. We took my sedan for the trip, as it gets so much better gas mileage. We never take my car out of town in the winter, as I don't have snow tires or all wheel drive. Since I never leave the city limits, I don't have chains either. Which was going to be a problem when the Washington State Patrol shut down the pass and then checked every vehicle for AWD or chains. Umm... yeah. Thankfully, the state patrolman was distracted when he checked our car; I'm pretty sure he glanced at our Montana License plate and just waved us through. We went for it, and it slowed our arrival in Seattle by about an hour and a half.

After a great dinner with Brian and Denise on Saturday night, we woke up kind of early Sunday morning and headed down to Pike Place Market to walk around. Of course, all I photographed were the blooming trees!

And daffodils! Planted on rooftop containers. So great.

You might be wondering what we did with Harlow while out of town. She stayed with our friend Mark and his dog Charlie. We were a bit cautious, as neither dog had really spent much time with another dog before. But they got along famously, and Harlow was able to go hiking off leash, play in a great back yard and generally just be a very spoiled dog. She's exhausted today. Mark is a great photographer and would send me a photo or two like this:

Monday we went back to Pike Place Market and loaded up on fixin's for a dinner at DJ's mom's condo in Long Beach, Washington. Seafood!

After stopping for a great lunch with DJ's grandmother, dad and dad's wife, we drove down to Long Beach. It's so weird to me to be at a beach where you don't take a blanket and a cooler and lay out. But it was a very relaxing stay with a lot of reading, snoozing, and walking. We even had my friend Erin up from Astoria for dinner!

Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Castle Rock visiting Dusty's parents. Friday about noon we headed down to the Portland area, where we picked up Dusty's tuxedo for the wedding, and hunted Pliney the Elder. Pliney is a great beer which is IMPOSSIBLE to find. Serioulsy, people laughed at me. Between Seattle, Astoria, Vancouver and Portland, we could only find a single bottle!


Saturday was the wedding, held at the World Forestry Center near the Portland Zoo. Super fun. The only photo I snapped was a late night blackberry shot. We are shiny. Oh well!

Sunday was a long haul of a drive from Portland back to Bozeman. Eleven hours, plus a one hour time gain. Gah. We left at 8am and arrived home at 8:30pm. Thankfully the roads were fine. It must be close to spring, as Road Construction Season has begun with bridge replacements over the Clark Fork River in Montana...

Still a Sourpuss

I'm unsure if I made it clear in this blog that I didn't really care for wedding planning. I was good at it, I think, because I'm a control freak. I had things planned out, spreadsheeted, photo-prepared, and ready to go. But I didn't enjoy it. Really, really, really didn't enjoy it. Really, really, really glad that's over.

I'd rank myself in the middle of the girlie-to-tomboy spectrum. I wear dresses, a lot (it's cooler in the summer and they look better on my body), but also like football. I'm not afraid to tackle big projects that require power tools, but still like high thread count sheets and having fresh flowers inside.

Yet when it comes to things wedding-related, my give a shit usually ends at locating the bar. I disliked being responsible for an event that so many people put so much pressure on. Irritation set in whenever someone asked me, again, about the details for something that DJ had taken responsiblity for. As I told my friend Alli a few weeks ago, no matter who you delegate to, give orders to, etc., they still come to the girl in the white dress with the questions.

So over a month later, I still get irritated when people ask me (in that singsongy, obnoxious tone of voice) "Heeeeyyyy there Mrs.--------", or "Hey married lady!" or "Isn't life WONDERFUL now that you're MARRIED?!" or "Tell me ALL ABOUT IT!"

Question: when someone asks to hear all about your wedding, are they really interested, or just trying to start conversation?

I dunno. I guess after nearly a year of changes I'm just glad it's done. Thankful that it's over, want to see the pictures, and then don't want to deal with it anymore. Ever. And dread the next one I have to attend.

I'll be the sourpuss in the back making snarky comments.

Ten on Tuesday

This is going to be a short, yet unbelieveably rambly post. Hey, it's Tuesday... let's do it this way:

1. The last Wednesday I posted, waaayyyyy back in June, ended with golf ball sized hail, which caused MAJOR damage to our vehicles. Major. Like I thought I'd drive home and find windows out of our 9 month old house (none were, thankfully). So, two insurance claims and nearly $10k in checks later... I'm still not sure what our plan is to repair our damaged vehicles.
2. El Weddingo happened! and went beautifully! It was warm, but overcast to not boiling. Really, it went really, really well. I will recap it more later. It includes things like great times with girlfriends, unexpectedly over the top flowers, yelling obscentities at my dad... good times people.
3. We've been home a week. I still haven't totally unpacked the wedding tubs. Motivation has left my body, almost entirely.
4. I'm pondering a major change at work, both in how the program I work with runs, and if I even want to continue in this career field. No big plans, yet; I guess I need to let the stress of the last few months settle.
5. We have finished landscaping the yard! Soil pep went into the beds last weekend, and I planted the last of the perennials on Sunday night. As well as about a million Iris splits from my friend Shannon!
6. The hail did major damage to my veggie garden. MAJOR. Like I'm not even sure if the onions are going to make it. I'm kind of at a farming fail right now.
7. There is a possibility of a Mexican honeymoon in November.
8. Maybe the lake again next weekend.
9. Major developments for my parents.
10. Finally! I'm excited to start actually decorating our house now that every. single. penny doesn't have to go to El Weddingo!

I'm back!

Wednesday, quick-like

I'm super busy getting work stuff delegated, making final to-do wedding lists, and otherwise survivng on a stress diet of popcorn, coffee and jelly bellies; oh and red wine last night. So, quick like, here's what's on my mind right now: stalking weather.com and accuweather.com. Here's what accuweather.com says for the week before the wedding:

Remember that my bachelorette party is on Thursday! About 15 friends are coming together to enjoy a day on the dock and behind a boat pulled by Mikey, who will also be the bartender. Tubing, skiing, wakeboarding, and having fun, HELL YES 93 degrees!

And for the wedding? The day that we're dragging 150 people to BFE North Idaho to hang out at my parent's house?

Again, 93 degrees, hot and sunny! Reminders to self: drink water, lots of it. Sunscreen, and put some on DJ too. Drink more water. Stay in the shade where possible.

I'm super pumped, today, about the weather. Is three kegs enough for 8 hours of drinking for 150 people (including the Friday Pig Roast and Saturday Cocktail Hour and Reception) when it's 93 degrees out? Is this a math problem?

Pup-a-roony flowers

Pronounced "dog-a-roony", Harlow's most frequent nickname is in frequent use right now. She's getting so big, and trying to teach her manners is, well, trying our patience sometimes.

But, she's so darn cute. Especially when she gets the confused line down the middle of her forehead. She gives us this look like, "what in the wide wide world of sports is a'goin' on here!"*

One of the wedding questions we've gone rounds about is to have her around on the wedding day, or not. I've wanted to kennel her. DJ wanted to have her around, and we've found we can move her kennel up to the house his mom is renting. So, she'll be in Harrison, just maybe not staying at my parent's house.

But if she's going to be in town, it'd be fun to get her in some photos. Because how great is this:

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I don't think I want her to actually attend the wedding; just be availalbe for while we do photos before the festivities get started. And if she's going to be in photos, pupa-roony needs a corsage!

Yes, it requires treats to get her to sit still like this.

*Blazing Saddles reference

Oh it's lovely weather...

... I know, I shouldn't be stalking weather.com already. The 10 day forecast only goes through July 2 right now; we won't even arrive in CdA until July 3. But still, a girl can't help but get excited at this:

Mid 70's and NO chance of rain. I'll take that!

Dad's parents get married

My mom's parents were married in the fall of 1951. Sometime about a year later, Bob and Joyce threw a party at the little house they were renting in Colton.

A classmate of Bob's, Dan Kramer, called a girl he knew from school in Colton, and asked her to come with him to Bob and Joyce's party. Jan Reisenauer went with Dan Kramer to a party at the Heitstuman's, and married shortly thereafter.

Janet Reisenauer, 1952 graduation from Sacred Heart nursing school

All four of those people are my grandparents. See, small town. I told you.

Dan and Jan were married in October of 1954; in the same church in Colton that Bob and Joyce married in three years prior. I've never asked, but it's unlikely that Joyce Heitstuman attended, as by October 1954 she was nearly 9 months pregnant with my mom.

This is the first photo in their album. I'll share the rest over the next few weeks!

Dance it out

DJ's not really a dancer. Check that; he's a dancer, but it's usually a goofy song to the dog, or about bowel movements. You know it's true DJ!

Although we are not having a "traditional" wedding, I did want to do first dances. We're in the process of still figuring out what songs to go with, but I wanted to share some of our ideas:

First Dance as a Married Couple (which, ahem, would imply that we dance as an un-married couple, because we don't): Van Morrison, Days Like This. I like that it's upbeat. I like that we can actually move to it; not just do the 7th grade sway.


Father/ Daughter Dance: Loudon Wainwright III, Daughter. The lyrics are great for my relationship with my dad, and I'm a swimmer. Same thing, a little more upbeat, albeit with a funky interchange (is that what it's called?) in the middle.

Mother/ Son Dance: DJ's still working on what to dance to with his mom, although the Beatles In My Life seems to be a leading contender.

Do me a favor, listen to the songs, and tell me what you think...

Wedding decor (or lack thereof)

Let me begin this (relatively short) post by saying that I don't really care about wedding decorations. Really, It's not high on my agenda of things to do.

But, we did spring for (white) table linnens to go with the (blue) rental chairs. Simple, easy to coordinate. I plan on bringing along a needle and thread, in case it's windy. We can sew the tablecloths to each other under the tables, kind of like suspenders.

I've asked my good friend Joslyn to be an impromptu florist; and she'll create 15 centerpieces. And that, my friends, will be the extent of our table decorations.

The 250+ flowers we planted over Memorial Day weekend will have to suffice! The only other "decoration" I'm considering is sheer curtains for the shack deck. You've seen this picture again and again, but what do you notice about it?

 The photo is taken at 6:00 pm in the evening. Now pretend it's July 10. And 80 degrees out. And bright, and sunny, and HOT... guests will want to enjoy the view, but probably also not want to be baked by a late evening north and west mid-summer sun. So, I'm on the hunt for cheap sheer material to hang; either rod-pocket curtains or actual sheer material that I'll sew into a rod pocket. I think I have enough tension rods to suspend them between the posts. Or, hell, we'll just staple the "curtains" to the inside of the ceiling, and I'll tie them up with ribbon until they're unfurled like roman shades.

I mean, isn't this cool:

Reception Re-do

Dudes. It has been a crazy-ass rollercoaster of a week. First our wedding budget is smashed by a $3,000 site fee we can't afford, which kills any plans for a fall honeymoon because we'd be broke. Then the marina won't shut down to host us. I cried on Friday afternoon. Big, sad tears that my insistience upon having this wedding in Harrison had caused a giant effing mess for 150 of our family and friends to deal with.

I cried Friday morning. DJ was willing to swallow the bitter $3,000 fee and just move on. I was just sad and overwhelmed and frustrated and mad. I cried again. Then I kicked DJ out of my office and got to work. I work best under pressure. I knew the odds of finding all of the parts we'd need for a full-out reception on my parent's lawn would be long.

I called tent rental places and I found a tent. The same company also had enough tables, chairs, table linnens, and dance floor squares. I put down the deposit on a 20 X 50' tent and neccessary sidewalls, 15 8' tables, 110 chairs, and 12 4 X 4' dance floor squares yesterday. It all arrives at 10 am on Wednesday, July 7. I'm paying extra for them to set it up on Wednesday; peace of mind.

I called catering companies, on a Saturday, and contacted two of them. Both gave me very reasonable bids. One of them catered a wedding in Harrison last July. One of them would bring real plates, utensils, napkins, their own tables, a crew, coffee, punch, water pitchers, and cater dinner and cocktail hour for a price we could afford. We hired this caterer.

We're ordering four kegs through the store in town. We're having one or two porta potties set up below the shack. Everyone in my family is dragging out strands of Christmas lights. We're finding DJ equipment.

And suddenly, I'm oh-so-excited about this. I wasn't really before. Excited to be married? Yes! Excited for the wedding... meh. But now, now a party for 140 of our closest friends in a place I love sounds fantastic to me.

Finally, after so many years of saying "things happen for a reason", I truely believe things happened for a reason on this one. Harrison, here we come.

So, wedding guests, prepare yourself for a tented lawn party, with tables under the tent, in the driveway, on the porch of the shack, and on the deck. Prepare for dancing (on a real dance floor!) in the driveway, with strands of lights strung above. Get ready for badmiton and a fire pit with s'mores down by the water.

Prepare yourself for Mikey Kramer, maybe in a wetsuit. A little fuzzy. A little scary. More spandex than necessary, but an enthusiastic, glad to be here, let's have some god damned fun kind of a wedding reception!

28 days- starting from scratch.

We're so screwed  about the reception location right now. The manager of the marina won't shut the place down for us from 7-10 pm, because he doesn't want to displace 50-70 regulars. I offered to have the regulars sit on the deck, he wasn't interested. I offered to let the regulars come in after 10 pm, he wasn't interested. He offered to set up tents in their gravel parking lot (shared with the boat launch), which is laughable, at best, for us. Neither of us was willing to compromise.

Sidenote: WTF? What kind of businessperson turns down a gaurantee of $8,000- 10,000 to chance having a really good night? I don't understand!

So, now we're down to two options. Pay the *surprise* $3,000 site fee (also see if we can negotiate it down) to use the restaurant (which isn't totally big enough for our guest list- long story, FI didn't understand the ramifications of inviting 300 people and so here we are).

OR, seeing if we can put together a tented reception at my parents house in 28 days. I made a temporary hold on the necessary tents yesterday. We have no caterer, or DJ/ sound equipment (my cousin was oging to use the restaurant's sound equipment to DJ).

I was totally worthless at work yesterday trying to figure out where to go with this. Next up is making a true pro/con list for this and seeing where the chips fall. I'm just not sure which way to go.

Also, why the hell would someone start planning a wedding 10 months in advance if it's going to come down to a 28 day scramble? I'm to panicked to be angry or upset; we just need a direction to go in!

Give me some advice. Where do we go from here?

My family is from a small town...

No... really. A small town. Like it's the biggest it's ever been, at 350 people in 2010. Both of my parents are from Colton, Washington, and graduated in the class of 1972 together. With 19 other people.

Somewhere back in the the family tree I think some cousins are married.

But don't worry, I don't have a third arm coming out of my forehead... yet.

So how does this relate to the photo below? Well, I've been showing you photos of my mom's parent's wedding in 1951. And in the background of this wedding photo is my mom's dad's dad's blacksmith shop. Great grandfather ben was a blacksmith, who fathered 10+ (13? 11?) kids before dying just after the age of 40. Until I saw this photo, I'd never known where Ben's blacksmith shop was.

And why all the discussion about my parents being from a small town? Because this photo is from my other grandparent's wedding. Dan and Jan, my dad's parents, met at a party at my mom's parent's house, and were married in 1953.

Don't worry, I'll be sharing those photos too!

Lights

One of the areas we're trying to skimp on for the wedding is decorations. With an outdoor cocktail hour, ceremony location and who the f knows what for a reception venue already decorated reception venue it would be impossible to compete with nature. And we don't have the budget for crazy uplighting and draping and chandeliers and extensive centerpieces.

The reality is, I don't really care about any of it. No one ever divorced because they didn't have uplighting at the ceremony.

Decorations for the cocktail hour are the flowers we planted over Memorial Day. My mom and grandma have pots of flowers going for ceremony site decoration. We're doing super minimal centerpieces... which is a big step from my previous declaration that we wouldn't be doing centerpieces.

I did want to do something though. I initially wanted to hang paper lanterns around the house, although unlit, as we'll be at the house during the daylight hours:

And I found some reasonable places to purchase them... but... I didn't want to spend over $100 on paper lanterns (that wouldn't be lit!). So... off in another direction I went.

DJ and I already have a lot of Christmas lights, so using them would be free. So do my parents. I use Christmas lights to decorate around Christmas, but also in the summer for nice mood lighting on the deck. And Michaels was having a 50% off sale on their spring silk flowers.

So last night, I watched Peggy Sue Got Married* while pulling silk flowers off of plastic stems, and sticking them onto Christmas light strands. I finished two strands, and still have over 70% of the silk flowers left to use on the other strands that I and my parents have.

For free Christmas lights and $26 in silk flowers, I can creat 6-7 100 foot long strands of these:

Since the silk flowers have some color, you'd be able to see them as a garland in the daylight. Then at night they'll be colorful and festive. We'll wrap the railing of the deck at the reception venue (restaurant? marina?) so that they'll be visible at night. We'll also wrap the railing of the shack, and maybe the posts under the deck. Simple, and cheap.

*WTF with Nicolas Cage in that movie? He's so weird...

Deflated.

Can we talk?

We've got 31 days until the wedding, and yesterday afternoon the reception venue sprung a giant $3,000 "site fee" upon us. A site fee that was not planned for, budgeted for, previously discussed or mentioned. I was mad yesterday. I scrambled and am in the process of exploring other options, before I even respond to the restaurant.

By the way, WHO DOES THAT? Just springs a "oh by the way, that'll be an extra wad of cash that you don't have!" in an email? Especially when we met face to face last week, and have been speaking on the phone frequently! What. The. Hell.

Anyway, in the big scheme of things, it'll work out, and maybe even to our advantage. But in the short term, it means stress on my/our end, and a giant sense of disappointment that my extensive planning, spreadsheeting, and "save image"ing still means that with 31 days to go, we're scrambling.

The disappointment that comes with that is so deflating. We haven't picked first dance songs. The To-do list is still a mile long. Yet... I have no interest in working on it until this gets sorted out.

And dealing with the whole thing makes me sad... there are so many better ways to spend five figures of money.

Give me some advice. How do I perk up from this wedding-slump and jump start the enthusiasm again?

Harrison

O EM GEE do I have a story for you. It involves taking the scenic route home, and turning a 5.5 hour drive into a 13 hour expedition. Snow, railroad tunnels, swift moving streams and 1 AM (on a school night!) arrivals. Suffice to say, I've got a lot to say.

Also, HELLO JUNE!

I'll leave you with this tonight. A view of Harrison, taken with a blackberry camera, in the back of a speedboat. Are you ready for wedding fun, because we've got 38 days!

Wedding photos- Bob and Joyce wedding party

I wrote the other day about photos I had in mind for the wedding, and remembered our photographer asking me which of my grandparent's wedding photos they'd like to recreate. In looking through them, I suppose the only applicable one is that of the two of them: 

I'm surprised she kept the little jacket on for this photo, unless maybe it was taken in the church?

I wonder what color the wallpaper and carpet was? Teal, pink and mauve maybe?

It cracks me up that no one in theis photo is looking in the same direction!  Not to worry Gretch, I think this is a little too far for me :)

This is an easy-peasy photo to take of the wedding party. Of course, for us it'll only be four people!

Registry must-haves

A couple of wedding gifts have started to trickle in (note to self: write thank you cards TONIGHT). We have such generous friends and family members! Since both of us formerly lived on our own at one point, we've already got a lot of stuff... but we're looking forward to upgrading!

What, then, are the top three things on our registry? The items we'd return all the crystal, barware, plates, kitcheware, etc. for?

Registry Must Have Item 1: KitchenAid Mixer

I'm drooling. At this very moment, I'm drooling over this appliance. Please? We bake, a lot. We make dinner, breakfast and brunch, a lot. It comes with cool attachements like an ice cream maker! It's pretty, and the accent color in our kitchen is red.

Registry Must Have Item #2: Dyson vacuum

It has amazing reviews. We have a dog. We have a golden retriever. We have tumbleweeds of hair under the couch. The Shop-vac is awesome, but unweildy. We have two vaccuums for inside right now: DJ's for vacuuming, mine for the wand attachment. It's $100 off right now.

Registry Must Have Item #3: new bedding

We've been using the duvet cover that I sewed from two sheets for my apartment in Lexington five (5! already?) years ago. We need grown up bedding. I've been waiting to decorate our Master Bedroom until we get new bedding.

Photo list

Our photographer asked, and a few friends strongly reccommended, that we make a list of all the photos we wanted as a means of ensuring that the photographer didn't miss someone the day of the wedding. Here's a preview of what is on the list(I've tried to source my photographs where I can, sorry if I missed some!):

Getting Ready:

Anne will start photos as I start getting ready. Or rather, as Gretchen starts getting me ready. I'm pretty certain we'll do makeup and hair in the dining room of the place at the lake, as it gets the most natural light in the house. Hopefully this portion of the day, from noon until 2 pm, will go smoothly. I'm sure there will be photos like this:

I'm glad that Gerdy will be doing the makeup and hair, since I can be more honest with her than I might be with someone I don't know.

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Since my bridal party is just my sister, it'll be all my mom and sister helping me get ready. Although I have asked a couple of people to come over and have a drink with me and hang out during this time to help make me laugh and calm down!

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Especially this one, since I'm known to be a hot blooded gal, who sweats when she gets nervous. And I'm sure I'll be nervous. MOM- CRANK up the AC! (Sidenote, I've done the fan up the skirt before, as a bridesmaid. It only makes you realize how hot you really are. Like eyelids sweating hot).

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Wedding party photos:
I'm supposed to be ready by 2 pm, when the Model A will be picking DJ up from the hotel and bringing him to my parents house for bridal party photos. I'd like to start this session with a few moments just DJ and I, to give us a chance to check each other's wedding duds out. I love photos like this, of couples spending some time with each other before going into the storm of wedding day events.

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Seriously, how cool is this?

Once we do photos of me and DJ, we'll have about an hour to do photos of the entire wedding party... me, DJ, Gretchen and DJ's brother Brian (also the designer of our website). I have a whole list of places to scope out doing fun photos, and I'm planning on reconoitering them over Memorial Day weekend. Suffice to say, they'll have a very relaxed, fun vibe. I'm thinking drinks at One Shots, something by the school, in the Model A, and around the house.

I am, however, having a hard time finding ideas for what to do with small wedding parties to create interesting photos. Any suggestions?

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This one in particular cracks me up. I'm wearing a hoop skirt. Gretchen likes to twirl. We're totally going to twirl.

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This would be fun too, of the bridal party sitting on the dock watching boats go by.

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Family photos:

We'll have to be back at the house by 3:45 pm to do family photos. This is where the list-making comes in. These will be the most "posed" photos; me and my mom, DJ and his mom. Me and my dad, DJ and his dad. Etc. I have a whole list of these shots, so as to not forget anyone.

Then at 4:30 om, DJ and I (along with the photographer!) will leave the house via the Model A to do more just bride and groom photography around town at the places we missed. This session also serves to get us out of the house while guests arrive for the Cocktail Hour.

Cocktail Hour photos:

We'll arrive back at the house at 5:15 pm; hopefully by then the cocktail hour will be in full swing. Anne's one strong mission during this time is to get photos of me with my aunts and uncles, DJ with his aunts and uncles, me with my cousins (all 30 of them, if we can get them rounded up), and one of the entire crew. Hopefully it'll look something like this:

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Ceremony:

I'm leaving it up to Anne as to which photos to take during the ceremony, but I do want her to get one from up on the hill, looking down on the whole scene. I told her last week that I'd like a photo that gets the wedding going on amidst the bicylers, jet-skiiers and boaters.

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Post Ceremony:

Anne's reccomendation to me was to vacate the ceremony site IMMEDIATELY after walking back down the aisle, or we'd get caught chatting away with friends and family. So we're leaving in a boat... my dad's Mastercraft. I wanted to go old school wood boat, but we don't  know anyone who has one, and I'm out of time to find someone. The half an hour or so that we cruise the lake will give us a chance to get great photos in more flattering light, like these:

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The remainder:

What does that leave?  Well, there will be the standard photos of the reception, families, etc., but there are a few specific photos I'd like to get that evening or the next morning:

How cool is this? With sparklers and a long exposure!

And yes, you can't get married at the lake without at least one of these photos: