65 Days

... till El Weddingo. At least that's what our registry on Macys.com tells me when I open it. In bright red letters it tells me we've got 65 days to get this shit together! I feel like the to-do list is unendingly long!

I mean, I guess it is really happening, and in a pretty soon-ish fashion. We mailed the invites on Tuesday, and laready have our first RSVP back. One of the benefits of arriving back home earlier than planned from vacation is having two days to decompress and stuff wedding invites, right?

And it's pretty nice to do with a puppy curled up at your feet.

Harlow, of course, was super helfpul licking the envelopes :)

You gotta start by pinning it between your paws, like this....

And then make sure you get a good amount of spit on it. Yeah, on the tasty part. Sometimes it helps if you work up spit by chewing a little bit.

I mean, sometimes you just have to show that envelope who is boss.

Sigh. With 120+ invites going out, I've got a lot of work to do.

Harrison's campground

A drawback to getting married in Harrison is the lack of hotels. Or hotels, plural. There is one. It has 15 rooms. There are also two fantastic Bed and Breakfast places. And vacation rentals. And a campground.

And since none of our guests are staying at the Hilton, this is obviously a very low-key kind of wedding. Shorts and a polo? Perfectly acceptable! Heels and a cocktail dress? If you want to! Sundress and flip flops? Great! We're just hoping my dad keeps his shirt on.

When I was in Harrison last week I stopped into City Hall to check on a number of things. They also let me glance through the reservation book for the campground. There are a handful of RV camping sites left, and a number of tent sites remaining!

Which is good for my extended family... as my mom put it, they're great in the 4th quarter and overtime. They don't plan ahead, but when they show up you will have a GREAT TIME!

A number of friends have reserved RV sites for camping, and I wanted to let you guys in on what the campground looks like. It ajoins the (closed for 2010, I believe) marina, city park, and has a bathroom with showers. Very basic, buy functional.

This is kind of a dark photo, but, lake to the left, RV camping spaces in the middle, marina at about 2 o'clock.

Each RV space has water and electric, and a picnic bench. They are definately cozy, but I think all of our wedding guests will end up in this line of spaces; we've got great friends so I have no doubt it will be fine!

But if you sleep walk, or have a kid who sleepwalks, you might want to wear a life jacket to bed- the lake is RIGHT THERE!

Stamp it out

I love personal snail mail. I love sending it and I love receiving it. As a historian, I often wonder how future historians will write biographies without personal correspondence to provide insight into how people’s lives. Totally nerding out, huh?

For some reason I always notice the stamp someone uses as postage. Given that we’re working on getting our Save the Date Pamphlets ready for printing by early December, I started thinking about how would mail the pamphlets. I think we’ll end up with a 5.5” wide by 4.5” tall envelope, about the dimensions the pamphlet folds down to. Once we get the first one printed I’ll run down to the post office and weigh them in the envelope; hopefully they come in at the postage rate of a first class, 44 cent stamp. Because I’d hate to spend tons of moolah mailing this!

One of my sister’s many talents is her very nice handwriting. Mine is chicken scratch, and DJ’s is worse. Gretchen has agreed to spend a portion of her Christmas Break addressing our StD Pamphlet envelopes. If things don’t get to harried, I might run the envelopes through the printer first in order to put our return address on the upper left corner. Or do I want to put the return address on a sticker and put it on the back envelope flap? Hmm.. thoughts.

While I was at the post office this morning I noticed all of the different stamps available. Of course, it’s the holidays, so there’s a dearth of Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and general holiday stamps out there. Since our Pamphlets will go out right after Christmas, I’d like the stamp to be non-Christmas-y. I asked the Post Office dude what stamps they have available, and he recommended I check out the online options.

So off to the United States Postal Service website I went. And look what I found:

There is of course, the classic 44 cent American Flag stamp. Maybe appropriate given our July 10th date's proximity to the Fourth of July.

Then there are more wedding and love themed stamps...

This one, waaaaayyyy to cheesy to even show DJ. Although it'd be a good inside joke. Early on we agreed that we didn't want any (in our mines) hokey posed ring shots. And when I had breakfast with our photographer, one of the first things she said was that she doesn't do the photo of the two hands, with rings, sitting on the bible... HAHAHAHAH... thank god. Because that's totally not us.

But I digress...

This one isn't bad. Again, the rings hanging off of the L. But it doesn't really flip my skirt up, you know?

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. I like cake. Who wouldn't like cake on an invitation? however you'll notice that this is a 61 cent stamp... which adds 17 cents per envelope to the mailing costs. It's good to keep in mind in case our pamphlets and envloeps are overweight.

I kept clicking around and stumbled across an idea that I like. The USPS seells National Park stamps! What if we got a collection of them, from National Parks we'd each visited, and used them as postage to send out National Park Pamphlet-esque Save the Dates? This idea has merit... (are you reading DJ?)

The last idea I stumbled across was the 50's Fins and Chrome stamp collection. Since my dress is from the '50's... weell... maybe not, but they're cool!

Overall, I didn't see anything that was a decider, but we'll keep looking. Do you think I'm totally nerdy for even paying attention to this?

Guest Rooms

This summer while helping my mom paint the lake house we took a morning to walk over to the Lakeview Lodge in Harrison to check it out. Although DJ and I weren’t engaged yet, I was hopeful that I could convince DJ to get married in Harrison

Harrison has a lot of great aspects, but it is missing one big item: abundant hotel rooms. There are 15 hotel rooms in Harrison. Total. Plus four rooms at the Bed and Breakfast.

The “Where will people stay” issue really impacts DJ’s family and guests. Most of mine will stay at my grandparent’s lake cabin or camp, but DJ wanted to make sure his peeps would have a nice enough place to stay.

The Lakeview Lodgeisn’t much from the outside right now. Like a lot of businesses and commercial properties in Harrison, it’s been in need of serious reinvestment for a while now. New owners came in about two years ago and probably saved it from the brink of being a tear-down.

So when my mom recommended that I should go check it out, off Erin and I went to investigate. And I was so incredibly surprised! The manager Claire is such a sweetheart (Irish- how does an Irish girl end up in North Idaho?) and the owners are so great.

The owners have started out by redoing the interior of the guest rooms, and will move to an exterior remodel later. They figured the guests didn’t care what the exterior looked like if the rooms were nice. And they’ve done such a great job!

Most of the guest rooms are actually suites, with a small kitchenette and sitting area. Families often book a room in the hotel for a week since it’s so close to the bike trail and marina, and the cooking areas are used heavily.

Guest suite 1. I wonder where they got the bar stools... I like them for our house!

Full out KITCHEN!

The bed folds out, so this suite sleeps four.

Yes, I know this is a "bad" photo, but I wanted to show you the view out of the doors!

All of the guest rooms open up out the back onto a shared sitting area which has tables and chairs on it. The Lakeview Lodge is right above the bike trail, and right over the public docks and beach at the marina.

Shared patio area.

Public marina.

Bike Trail.

One of the coolest suites was the two guest rooms which opened inside to each other. The kitchen is VERY VERY nice!

Apparently they're also equipped for small chillun's.

This couch folds out too.

It's a hide-a-bed!

Functional bathroom.

Doorway into kitchen.

Totally outfitted kitchen.

Awesome view.

Seriously! Even my grandparents don't have a dishwasher at the lake!

They also have this patio area out front, which has a BBQ for use of all the guests. Pretty inviting, don't you think!?

I wonder if we should be having our reception here?

After visiting the Lakeview Lodge I was sold on a Harrison wedding. It was totally doable, and there are accommodations in town for people. The key, I think, will be begging people to bunk up as much as possible so that we maximize bed space and leave no room unoccupied. I feel like Eisenhower pulling the logistics for the invasion of Europe on this one. We’ve got spreadsheets identifying who has hotel room priority and who else is SOL.

The kicker is that in order to get this to work, I have to remember something crucial on New Years Day. The Lakeview Lodge does not take ANY reservations until January 1. None. Won’t even block off rooms for me. So I have to call at 8:01am on January 1 to do so. Claire knows to expect my phone call.

There is also a campground in Harrison, where we hope a number of our guests will stay. More on that later.

Logistics, especially when getting married in a SMALL town are difficult. I still have not a clue where our flowers will come from…

What do you think? Would you stay at the Lakeview Lodge for me?