Cheryl & Chris's Wedding Blog
Friday, September 10, 2004
The invitations arrived today - woooohooooo! Now I can spend the next 3 weeks writing up envelopes, stamping, folding, making maps, and stuffing. Yes! Heeyyyyy, wait a minute.... Oh well, I had some time free up, it's definitely time to add something to studying and wedding classes.
It appears that we're headed to St Louis a day earlier than originally planned. The original idea was to drive after work on Tuesday, and apply for the wedding license on Wed. Fortunately, I took my father's advice (No, wait, did I type that? Make it go away! Delete, delete!) and called the marriage license office. Turns out that if we want to pick up the license on Friday, we have to apply on Tuesday, which means we need to leave for St Louis on Monday night. Grr.
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Today is "It can always be worse" day...
I was grumbling the last day and a half about the rain around here, but then Dad sent me a note from his friend who moved to Jacksonville FL this year. He's not waiting for his fourth hurricane since he arrived. So we're siiinnnggging in the rain... Then I've been getting ramped up with more wedding details of late. At the wedding classes last night, one couple related a dress horror story. The place that the bride ordered her dress and all of her bridesmaid dresses from, closed. As in she went to pick up her dress on Wednesday, and was told that if the bridesmaid dresses weren't on the Friday shipment...oh well. She's getting married on October 16. While I was looking for a link, I find out that a court ordered the stores to stay open 4 more days to allow brides a chance to get their stuff. Yikes! Well at least even if the store I got my dress from closed down, I know that my bridesmaids aren't dependent on it!
So as I said, last night was the first of our four wedding classes. Last night's was about the Catholic definition of sacramental marriage and then we had a talk as well from a married couple. I thought it a bit funny that they had 9 kids and were encouraging everyone to use Natural Family Planning. Maybe they can have someone with two kids come talk about it, that might carry a bit more weight. :) Overall it wasn't bad. First they had a priest talk about marriage in the context of the Catholic Church. Not a bad talk at all, but my suspicion is that dependent on the biblical grounding and how conversant people were in Catholicism, it could have been a bit deep. I flubbed the "what is the symbol of marriage" question. DOH! sex, not rings! You see how my mind goes to jewelry instead of intimacy? I wonder if that's a bad sign. I got the symbol of Baptism correct - water - do I get partial credit?? Huh? Do I? I also noticed my fiance, who SAYS he knew the answer was mum. Hmmmm....
Anyway, next week's session is supposed to be on communication, and we have "starter questions" for homework. One which makes me laugh is "I can see myself married to you for 50 years - True or False". Just a hint: False is probably the wrong answer.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
It's criminal day here in wedding world
First Tammie found a great link about someone going to a bridal shop and stealing 300 gowns. Say what? I like the title on the web page - now all they need is 300 grooms! Hey, maybe the thief was just hard to fit! Don't be surprised if eBay starts showing a much larger variety of wedding gowns for sale.
Then I stumbled across this story about how two major department store chains (including one at which I'm registered!) colluded to keep Bed, Bath & Beyond out of the Lennox & Waterford market. Dang it! They've been keeping bargain basement Lennox out of reach! Next we'll find out that Walmart couldn't carry it either.
All is not well in Matrimonial Industrial Complex world.
Ok, I just liked that turn of phrase, Christine used it the other day.
Back to the real world!
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Very cool, Pittsburgh Cares just sent out info on a group called One Day's Pay. Basically their goal is to make September 11 a voluntary day of service, charity and compassion. I think it's a fabulous idea, and in case anyone else likes it, I have left you a link.
Back to my napping...
What a busy weekend!
We loaded up Fred and left for St Louis on Thursday afternoon, arriving somewhere around dawn on Friday. Ok, just kidding, it only felt like that long. It was probably 10:30PM Eastern time on Thursday. Then Friday it was off to Royale Orleans to confirm a cake selection. And the winner is 203. Of course, because 204 would have been too over the top, as Becky & Chris said. Ok, the picture is sort of here. After a bit of consultation with Chris, we've done away with the pillars to the top layer. Then the important details: The top (8")layer which we get to keep is chocolate. (Chris & Christine, you can discuss chocolate fetishes in December!) The next layer down (9") is white cake. The layer below that (don't know the dimensions from here) is white with strawberry filling, and the bottom layer is chocolate (so the masses will have some!). Mmmmmmm.
Anyway Friday evening Chris did the first race in the Gateway Cup. This one was in Lafayette Square in St Louis, an area I haven't driven through in 10 years. When I went through, it was a lock-your-doors kind of place where about 3 or 4 hardy souls had fixed up some grand old houses and probably kept dobermans to make sure the neighbors didn't break in. Now it's a fantastic, gorgeous place. Mom & Dad went and had a chance to learn all there is to know about night criteriums. Mom became the queen of the cowbell, earning a blister in the process. That's some cowbell dedication there!
Saturday, Mom's side of the family threw me a surprise shower. Mom did a fantastic job of making me think it would be in the afternoon. It was great, and when it was all said and done, we got some fabulous things. We now have a china place setting, one setting of our silverware, two of our crystal water goblets and two of our crystal champagne flutes. So I'm all set for a good meal, I wonder what Chris is going to eat off of! :) It was cool to see some cousins again, and my aunts. We had a good time playing "rob your neighbor" and chatting. Everytime the crowd of us gets together for any reason, we say "We need to do this more!" Alas time has a way of slipping away.
And while I was being showered with presents Chris went racing in the second Gateway cup race and Dad went bike riding. Hmmm, while Mom & I were stuffing our faces, the men-folk were working out. And then that evening was a big tasty dinner at Zia's on the hill. Mmmmm. We also went by Rose on the Hill, which is where we're having the rehearsal dinner. Mmmmmmm.....
Sunday we headed to the Hill for the last of the Gateway Cup races that Chris was participating in. It was a toasty day, near 90, but Mom, Dad and I found a nice place to hang out in the shade with our coolers and chairs. We had a good time cheering, and Chris seemed to enjoy the race! After all was said and done, we folded up camp and went to Ted Drewes for the world's best frozen custard. We had a quick visit with my Grandma that evening and we left early on Monday. It was a very full weekend! Freddy's weekend was almost as full with some serious squirrel chasing (his new favorite sport), and running up and down the fence with the neighbor's dog, Sunny. Fred slept the entire way back to Pittsburgh, with the occasional awakening to move his head out of the sun.
If anyone needs me I'll be the one drooling on my keyboard.
