6.26.2009

Re-blog

I started this blog as a way of getting my wedding-related thoughts out of my head and into another format. I didn't start this blog because I wanted to gain a whole bunch of followers and having a large number of readers isn't really even that important to me. So you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I got an email in my inbox that a comment had been posted on my honeymoon blog post from someone saying that my blog post had been added to the directory on www.honeymun.com. This surprised me a little bit. I guess it was a pretty good post but I never expected random people to notice my blog like that. It's kind of cool to know that I do have more viewers than just my friends that read the blog.

Anyway, since they posted a link to my blog over there, I'll quickly promote them. Their website basically posts stories from around the internet regarding honeymoons. It looks like there are some good resources on honeymoon tips and destinations. Most of the website are professionally done, while others are blogs like mine, but most are dedicated entirely to honeymoons and other travel. So click on over and check them out!

6.17.2009

Almost Party Time!

Next weekend is the first time our whole wedding party is getting together since Sezzy and I got engaged. It's also the first time that some people are meeting each other so we wanted to do something fun to get everyone acquainted. So we had an idea. The very first time Sezzy and I hung out with "her friends" (which happened to all be people I went to high school with), we did a box race. What's a box race, you say?

A box race is when you put a bunch of stuff in a box, including alcohol of various sorts, and the first team to complete everything in the box wins. It's competitive drinking at its finest, but it's also a good team-building exercise and a lot of fun to boot. If I can remember back to that first box race, I believe the contents in the box were:
- 1 bottle of Captain Morgan rum
- 1 bottle of vodka
- 1 case of beer
- 1 LEGO set
- 1 jigsaw puzzle

The object of the game is to have your team drink all their alcohol and then complete the LEGO set and puzzle. It was lots of fun and hilarity ensued. My team won (competitive drinking and me go hand-in-hand). We are hoping for the same result next weekend. However, being that most of us are three years removed from college, many of our drinking tolerances are not quite what they used to. Also, some of our friends aren't big drinkers. This was a bit of a conundrum. How can we make the game so that everyone can have fun and not be pressured to drink.

We think we found the answer. After some brainstorming last week, Sezzy had a brilliant idea and we ran with it. Our friends are just geeky enough to think it's awesome too. And while I can't disclose what our idea was, I will leave you with a hint:

6.01.2009

Another wedding and planning starts... soon!

As I mentioned in my last post, two of Sezzy and I's best friends got married just over a week ago now. The wedding was beautiful and Sezzy and I picked up some more ideas while we were attending.

The wedding was in New Jersey and while I'm not usually a huge fan of New Jersey, our friends couldn't have picked a nicer hotel and venue. First of all, the hotel was a castle. No, literally... the hotel looked like a castle:


Sezzy and I weren't part of the wedding party so we only went up on the day of the wedding, but we stayed overnight. We weren't going to make the mistake of not staying over on the night of the wedding again. Sezzy and I got in to the hotel around 12:30 and ordered some pizzas with some of our friends. Then it was time to get ready and head out to the wedding, which started at 4:30 pm. We hopped on the shuttle and about halfway there it started raining. The weather was bright and sunny the day before and the day after the wedding, but it sure had to rain on the day of.

The ceremony was at a place called Perona Farms and when we got there, I shook hands with the groom, Josh, who looked like someone just took away his puppy. He was so upset at the prospect of having the ceremony indoors, or rather, not having the ceremony outdoors. Everyone filed into the backup room, the "in case of rain" room, and took their seats. After sitting and waiting for about 15 minutes, the coordinator came into the room and started taking down the flowers. It was getting sunny. Had the storm passed?

After another few minutes, everyone was told to head outside, where it now looked like a beautiful evening. The ceremony was held in a secluded little terrace outside the main building. This was one of five possible locations where a ceremony could be held, but it looks like the nicest and most accommodating to me.



The reverend that officiated the ceremony did an excellent job and Josh and Monika's self-written vows were touching. They performed a hand fasting and a Polish tradition involving bread, salt, and sweet wine. It was a nice touch and it made their ceremony unique to themselves. The end of the ceremony neared and the rain crept back up, but the ceremony finished before the rain started coming down hard again.

Then it was time for the cocktail hour, where the food was quite good and the open bar kept the drinks coming. The featured food included stuffed peppers, lemon pepper chicken, sushi, and alcohol-infused fruit and veggies, among other things. Unfortunately, the cocktail hour was cut a bit short since the ceremony started late, but it was still nice.

Everyone was then ushered into the dining room where we awaited the newly married couple. The band, the Fuzzpops, was already playing when we arrived in the room, and they were quite good. Once the new bride and groom were announced and had their first dance, a server came to our table and took our order. I loved this idea. We didn't actually give a meal choice when we RSVP'ed. Instead a server came to the table and gave us two choices of main course and two choices of salad. They even asked each person individually whether they wanted their steak rare, medium, or well done. What a great idea!

Then there was some dancing while waiting for our food, and more drinks and chatting with friends. Another thing that our friends did differently was the seating arrangement. They had a sweetheart table and scattered the rest of the group of friends around the room. I liked this better than having the entire wedding party at one or two tables and scattering everybody else. We had people we already knew at our table, as well as a few we didn't know. It worked out very well.

The rest of the night was just fun. There was dancing and drinking and pyramid-building. The food was fantastic, as were the drinks. The guys went outside for some fresh air and pictures in between courses and this is when we attempted to build what would have been the largest human pyramid ever built by the BTPBT--a 6-person base.



Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it on attempt #1. We had to go inside and eat after that. We all came back out for attempt #2, but it was then time to cut the cake, so our plan was thwarted. In the end, we didn't get a full pyramid up. However, soon after the cake cutting, we all got a surprise - a cordial cart. Ok, really it was just a moving shot bar, but they called it a cordial cart because it was mostly after-dinner liquers (except for the Bushmills!). Things started wrapping up soon after that and by midnight we were back at the hotel. Some had planned to go to the bar to do Irish car bombs, but Sezzy and I were beat. We ended up going to bed a little later.

The next morning, we woke up and went down to the brunch that the bride and groom set up. We got there early and ate up to cure our headaches. We didn't see our friends at brunch but ended up running into the newly-married couple on our way down to the check-out desk. We congratulated them again and wished them well on their honeymoon and then we were off, back home again.

All in all, the wedding was a ton of fun and Sezzy and I picked up on some things that we liked, giving us more ideas for our ever-nearing wedding. Seeing two more of our friends get hitched got us more excited, but more importantly, we realized that we now have to start planning soon. Like, we actually have to start doing stuff. For our own wedding. It was a little crazy at first, but we are both ready to do it. Our venue gets officially booked in just over a month from now. Our engagement lunch with family and friends is in less then 4 weeks. We started looking at Save the Dates last night. It's crazy. Like, it's really happening. Here we go!