New Wedding Website & Other Updates

A lot has happened since I last posted on this blog. Where do I begin? Maybe I'll go section by section.

Theme:
So we have pretty much agreed upon a theme - Comics, since that's what brought us together. I'd like to subtitle that "He colored my world," but Nick thinks that's too one-sided. But even without the title, we are definitely planning on having a colorful wedding. Beyond that, I may keep things a secret, so at least something is a bit of a surprise that day!

Date:
We are still hoping on 8/20/2011. But we have not confirmed that date with the location yet, so write that in pencil on your calendar for now!

Place:
We are 99% certain it'll be at Letchworth State Park in New York, but we won't confirm that until we've actually laid eyes on it in person. We are traveling to New York in July for Nick's cousin's wedding, so we plan to see Letchworth and complete the confirmation paperwork on my birthday (July 6), so stay tuned!

Budget:
Don't ask. Although several items have turned out to be less than anticipated, even more items seem to cost more than we'd planned, so the figure just keeps going up. Fortunately, we started pretty low to begin with, but still...

Photographer:
We are going to do an engagement session with the photographer we chose when we are in New York in July. So I'll keep her information private until then. I guess engagement sessions are kind of like a paid job interview (we pay her, of course). Hopefully we'll all work well together!

Flowers:
So this one has been fun researching, but I still don't have any answers. I have looked at tons and tons of bouquets. So far, my favorite is the bouquet that my friend from college, Leah Feeney, had at her wedding. The challenge is that most of the flowers I like are not in bloom in August. So I got another great idea from Offbeat Bride: flowers made from ribbons. I love how vibrant the colors look and that the flowers are not limited by the season. So I'm kind of leaning towards doing this. It looks like a lot of work, but I figure I've got over a year to pull it off, right? If you live near San Francisco, I may be calling on you to help me with this project. And let me know if you have any experience in this department, because I, mostly definitely, do not. Cross your fingers I can make it happen!

Attendants:
Nick and I are still figuring out who all will be in the wedding. There are so many people I'd like to ask, but we want there to be a balance between the number of groomsmen and bridesmaids. So for now, I've asked my sister to be Matron of Honor, my dear friends Mari and Johanna to be bridesmaids and my niece Jessica to be a junior bridesmaid. Jessica was all cool and casual about accepting my invitation, but I bet she's more excited than she's letting on! My sister was in town this weekend, so we went dress shopping for both my bridal gown and the bridesmaid gowns. Mari was able to join us on this excursion. I thought this dress was a lot of fun. But from the look Mari gave me, I thought she might kill me if I picked that one. I couldn't ask Nick to come with us, because I didn't want him to see me in my dress if I found one that I liked. And his response when I emailed him that photo was similar to Mari's facial expression, "R U kidding?" So I guess that rules out that one. In the end, we left with just a little bit more of an idea what Nick and I are looking for.

As for groomsmen, I hadn't really thought beyond your basic suit or tuxedo, but again, Offbeat Brides helped me to think outside the box. Unfortunately, Nick didn't get too excited about any of those ideas. So we'll have to see how that turns out.

Guests:
Nick has an enormous family. So another project I got kind of obsessed with was figuring out his family tree, especially on his Mom's side. His Mom has 9 sisters and there are 24 cousins on that side alone. So I created a family tree of photos to help me keep track of which cousins belonged to which aunts. I had a lot of fun putting that together and it's already been helping me. I am just hoping I can memorize faces and names and connections before our wedding. A year sounds like a pretty decent amount of time to get that all figured out. I posted this photo on Facebook and have amused Nick's family with it, as well.

That sounds like more than enough to have accomplished since my last post, huh? I am still leaving a lot of details out that I've been working on, but I have to keep some stuff as a surprise. But lastly, I'll mention, we have a new website. This site is where I'll post all of the finalized information so you won't need to weed through this blog to figure out... Now *where* is the wedding going to be? And now *what date* is it going to be? Those details will all be kept well organized over on our theknot.com website. The URL is http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/NicholasIannone&MelainaEller.