Drop a note!

Hello everyone!

The actual wedding ceremony is months in the past, but I notice that this blog is still getting visitors, and a lot of our visitors seem to be from outside of the United States!

So if you are visiting this blog, I invite you to either sign the guest book and/or leave a comment here and let us know who you are, where you're visiting from, and how you found our blog!

Thanks!

John and Tamara

The Big Event

Now that Tamara and I are married, and our joyous celebration has passed, this will most likely be the final blog entry here. But I did want to post one final entry just to sum up what a great time it was.

For me, I kept thinking it was one great extended weekend, even though things really began on Wednesday with the Bachelor Party, continued on Thursday at the Rehearsal Dinner, then of course the wedding on Friday, and a party for in-town guests on Saturday.

Several of my groomsmen and ushers were old high school buddies, and it was just so incredibly wonderful to have them around for those 4 days. We hung out, we joked, we told stories, we had a blast. I'm so glad that we have remained close through the years, and I wish we could hang out like that more frequently.

Several close college friends were around for some or all of the festivities as well, and catching up with them was awesome. They made our special day even more special.

It meant a lot to me to have a very large contingent of present and former colleagues from my school at the wedding on Friday, and Tamara had a rather large group as well. These are our local friends, and they are the people we love to hang out with on a regular basis.

The Big Day was just a teensy bit stressful. The wedding was scheduled for 6:00, and around 4:00, it started raining pretty heavily in Arlington. This rain only got heavier, and it, combined with accidents on seemingly every major highway in the metroplex, made a LOT of our guests arrive late. Fortunately, ironically, surprisingly, annoyingly, luckily (whichever word you choose to apply) -- the priest somehow thought the wedding was at 7:30, and did not show up on time. As a result, nearly everyone WAS present before the ceremony began.

The reception afterwards was incredible. The food was great, our dj was awesome, the cakes looked and tasted beautiful, and we had a fantastic time. My only complaint was that we didn't get to dance to every song we had given to the dj, because we were too busy greeting and talking to guests! (Especially House of Pain's Jump Around. When I heard that come on, I almost gave myself an aneurysm, mentally WANTING to go dance, but rationally KNOWING that I had to stay and continue the conversation.) There were a few people I would have liked to dance with, but hey, them's the duties of the bride and groom.

We exited the reception hall to an archway of sparklers, fitting on the 4th of July weekend, and we hopped aboard a horse and carriage, which thankfully had not been exposed to Beefarino. I was expecting the guy to take us right across the street to the hotel, but instead, he took us on a 20 minute leisurely tour of downtown Ft. Worth. The rain had stopped, there was a little bit of a breeze, and the people out walking around the stores and bars called out "Congratulations!" as we passed. It was pretty darn cool.

And now we're married! Aside from the rings on our fingers, nothing physical has changed, so it's still a bit surreal. But it definitely feels warm and fuzzy inside, so we've got that going for us.

We leave soon for the honeymoon!

Didn't make the cut

After our meeting with the DJ the other night, there were a few songs that unfortunately got left on the cutting room floor.

Here are a few songs that you should enjoy now because they (sadly, in some cases) will NOT be featured at the shindig.




While this song would seem to embody one of our lives, it doesn't really lend itself to slow OR fast dancing (Donny Osmond's efforts to the contrary).



First, most of the lyrics are unintelligible. Second, the few lyrics you CAN understand are "Licky boom boom down."




This song would seem to fit our "Love" themed sit-down dinner. However, we don't want people vomiting said dinner all over themselves. Thus, Barney gots ta go.



A holiday classic. That holiday just isn't the 4th of July, so we shelved it. Had our wedding been in December or January, though...




This song is just plain stupid.




See "White and Nerdy."



While this song would no doubt have everyone up and dancing and shouting the answer every time RP Jr calls out the classic question, we just didn't want to scare anyone who might think there are actual ghosts in the Depot.



Why did this one get cut? I got nothing.

Dog days of summer

Here we are, less than a month til the wedding, and summer vacation has begun! John is fully moved out of his house and into the condo, the wedding plans are almost fully set (though we are still waiting for the rings to come in), and early gift packages have been arriving nearly every day!

Tonight we are meeting with the DJ to finalize a few things.

Any suggestions for dance songs?

Just point and shoot

We just got back from registering at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and that was a lot of fun. Tamara had already registered us at Macy's and Williams-Sonoma earlier, but she had done it all online. Today, we went out and walked around the store while we picked out things for our wish list.

John of course insisted on holding the scanning device (or as he calls it, the "magic gun").

Now that the invitations have gone out, our registries should be just about in proper order. We are registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond; Macy's; and Williams-Sonoma.

It's only a shame that we can't register at the Macaroni Grill...

A school shower

The good folks at John's school threw us a shower yesterday after the kids had gone home. There was a lovely cake, snacks, and punch, along with several of John's co-workers.

They gave us some truly lovely gifts -- a crystal serving platter, some candles, a wall sconce -- and plenty of gift cards. Gift cards are always great because they can be used on various items, AND they don't take up any space, which is especially valuable now that we're going to be sharing Tamara's condo for a while until we can find a new house.

Thank you to everyone who so thoughtfully contributed to our shower!

Engagement Photos

This afternoon, we spent some time and had some professional photographs taken. A lot of time and effort went into the planning, the staging, the costuming, and the locations. Here is a sampling:

Actually, we are joking -- we took these ourselves (could you tell?). The true engagement photos looked pretty amazing, but they are not available yet. Jess Graham was a joy to work with, and we can't wait to see the pics. She took over 500!! Thankfully, she is going to narrow down the available options, or we might want to order them all!

UPDATE!

A sampling of the engagement pictures are up and viewable at Jess's blog. They look great (in our very unbiased opinion).