Limos, and DJ's, and Videographers, Oh My!

I'm officially a day nurse again! It feels like I've been on nights forever. To celebrate this blessed event, I've used my two days off to fully immerse myself in house flipping and wedding planning.

At the end of last week Chris and I got our official kitchen design! We kept looking at each other in disbelief. If you could see the kitchen now, you would completely understand. The gentleman who lived there before us had unique taste, and that's being quite nice. The kitchen floor looks like grade school hallway flooring, there's only one wall of cabinets, there's wood paneling on 3 of the 4 walls, and there use to be an island with a base covered in orange carpet. (Thankfully, I never had to bear witness to that, Chris had it removed before we started dating.) And of course, there are no appliances; just the fridge and microwave that Chris bought when he moved in.

Our new kitchen has lots of cabinets (all with a specific purpose), a built in dishwasher and fridge, and an island (no carpet) with a built in cooktop and oven!! We are so so excited. We went to Lowes and priced our appliances and tile last night and I picked up extra shifts at work this morning! Between the kitchen and the wedding, it a necessary evil, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We are so excited and thankful to be given the opportunity to finish our kitchen before the wedding.

As for the wedding planning, I spoke with Pastor Hemenway today and the latest the wedding can be is 3:00 pm on a Saturday due to the 5:30 church service. So 3:00 pm it is! We are hoping to serve cocktails and appitizers at the AFB from 5:00-6:00 with dinner around 6:30.

Yesterday I researched 68 videographers, 56 DJ's, and 32 Limo companies. After lots of website visits, phone calls, and emails, we've picked out of DJ, are pretty sure we know our limo (and by limo I mean bus), and have narrowed it down to two videographers.

Our DJ: www.arockindj.com

Our Limo Bus: http://prezlimos.com/28-passenger-limo.html (This is what happens when you tell your wedding coordinator you have 8 bridesmaids and 8 groomsmen and she says "Holy Wedding Party!" That about sums it up.)

And our top two choices for videographers:
http://www.jonescreative.com/ OR http://www.katchvideo.com/

Watch the sample videos and let us know what you think!

Aruba, Jamaica, Ooo I Wanna Take Ya..

Yesterday afternoon I was curled up on the couch with a book, hot chocolate, and Skittles (the puppy), when a Southwest "Wanna get away" commercial came on. This prompted me to go up to my office and call the Aruba Marriott, the wonderfully warm resort where Chris and I were pretty sure we wanted to go on our honeymoon.


As the Marriott woman and I were talking I found myself falling more and more in love with the resort. I thanked her for her time and told her I would be calling her back once I spoke with my father (the Marriott king), and fiance. Little did I know I had just inquired about the last room available on the Tradewinds Club. It's marketed as "the hotel within the hotel." It has private hotel staff, priority to everything at the hotel, complimentary breakfast and lunch, appetizers, and an open bar every night. Even better all the rooms are king/queen suites with balconies overlooking the ocean.


So after a quick debate in my head, I decided to book the hotel. I promptly called Chris and told him what I had done. I held my breath waiting his response, hoping he was in his office where he couldn't get too upset. ;) Thankfully he was perfectly okay with my decision.

Next, I began to Google flight options from St. Louis to Aruba. I understand we're leaving on a major travel day, but the lack of flights and $$$ for them is crazy. Basically we are going to have to go to Chicago or Indianapolis a day early so we can catch super early flights to Charlotte, NC or Atlanta, GA to make our connecting flights to Aruba.

Looks like it's time to start learning the lyrics to "Kokomo"...

Aruba, Jamaica, Ooo I wanna take ya, to Bermuda, Bahama, Come on pretty mama...

(All pictures are courtesy of Marriott.com)

Security Clearance: Check!

Sara, Mom, and I bundled up and headed over to the base to meet with the catering coordinator. It was great to see the ballroom again, especially since it was set up for a 300 person luncheon. Even better, I got to see my future father-in-law who was there for a meeting, and Dale Carey, the wonderful gentleman who is sponsoring our reception.

It looks like we're going to be able to have everything we want including an extra large dance floor, plated dinner, open bar, and chair covers (my personal favorite, something Chris just doesn't understand. We'll just chalk it up to testosterone.) Let no one say you can't have a beautiful wedding on a budget. And if someone asks how, I have two words: wedding coordinator. Sara is absolutely wonderful and the only way Chris agreed to let me plan the wedding. She takes away the stress and knows exactly what and how to ask questions so we get all of the information we need.

I'm amazed at how much we got done in just a day and a half. I'm also sending the official contract to our photographer tomorrow and have reached out for information on limos and string quartets. Now I just need to focus on one day at a time, because I only get to do this once.

We're down to just needing one more idea for centerpieces. If anyone sees eggplant or deep purple candle holders like the ones below, please let me know. Below are the pictures of the ones we have. It looks stunning at night with the candles lit, but you'll have to wait for the wedding to see it.

Wedding Day Countdown: 320 days

I've decided to start keeping a blog in hopes of keeping our family and friends up to date on all that is going on with our wedding. The first part involved in starting a blog is coming up with the name. I decided to go to my favorite place for creative ideas: Google. I googled every way I could think of to come up with a creative, unique name for our blog and came up with a big fat nothing. So, I decided to use a line from "There is Love," the song that is to be sung during the wedding.

Today was a big planning day. Our wedding coordinator, Sara O'Shea, is a good friend of mine from Bradley. She came down today to help us with the preparations. We went to my dressing fitting, looked through hundreds of invitations, and designed our centerpieces. I'm so, so excited about them. Chris even humored me and told me how much he loved them.

Tomorrow it's off to the Air Force Base to see the reception site, the church, and the florist.

Let the games begin!