For those of you who don't know, I finally landed a teaching job, at least until the end of the academic year! YAY! I am teaching a wonderful third grade class in Essex Junction, Vermont and loving it-- but don't get me wrong! I am super, ridiculously busy! And I will be until 10-15 days (depending on in-service and snow days) before the wedding. This makes the weekly to-do list more important and more difficult to accomplish.
The other thing that is taking up some of my time is I am currently taking my last class in the graduate program at Saint Michael's College and will be graduating with my Masters in Education on May 14th (only 46 days before the wedding!) Needless to say, from now until June 30th I will be busy.
This week, however, is school vacation in Vermont and I have taken it upon myself, not only to get caught up in my graduate class, design and plan units on nonfiction literature and the early settlers, but also to accomplish some wedding tasks!
Some of the tasks were things that needed to be done and others were things that could be done. One task was putting together the table numbers. Without giving too much away I will say that there was a significant amount of time spent creating a template on Microsoft Word, and then formatting the signs on the computer, and then, of course, re-formatting the signs on the computer when I changed my mind about the size. Anyway, I decided they were finally done on Tuesday night (after some last minute re-formatting...). On Wednesday morning I saved the program to a flash drive and headed to get the signs printed at the UPS store. Of course, in my haste I had forgotten to save the file as a generic Word file instead of the Word 2007 file and the UPS store couldn't open the file. I wanted to say, "you are a printing store and yet you don't have the most current version of Word?" but instead I said, "Ok, I'll re-save them and come back". What I really did was head over to Staples who could open and print the files no problem- after charging 25% more and an additional "express" fee so that I could get them right then instead of dropping them off and coming back later (even though there was no one else there and the woman was just sitting around...) Anyway! They are done and look super fantastic-- if I don't say so myself.
I also picked up a couple of boxes of Sculpey oven-dry clay with which I am going to make the holders for the table numbers. If they look half as good when I make them as they do on the DIY website I will be impressed! More info to come later.
Another thing that was causing some stress was the rehearsal dinner. Let's just say that, after a number of long talks and some tears in the middle of a burrito at Moe's Southwest Grill, the issue has been resolved! We have booked a restaurant in Waterbury, Vermont for the rehearsal dinner which will be after the ceremony rehearsal on June 29th. Get ready for delicious fried pickles (they are really good! We promise!)
One of the biggest and most exciting things we did a couple of weeks ago was buy invitations. It was amazing how long it took to navigate our way through the website-- checking, double checking, and triple checking wording, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization while tabbing between the invitation website and a number of wedding invitation etiquette websites to make final decisions on all of the above. I won't say that the website was perfect... It was quite confusing... but that is to be expected when you look for a good deal on invitations. In the end we decided to pay $20 extra in order to get a digital proof of the invitation before they were printed, basically so we could quadruple check wording, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Who knew buying wedding invitations was so stressful! We got the proof, it was great, so we OKed the order and, amazingly, the printed invitations showed up on our doorstep in about 3 days. It was remarkable. We eagerly opened the box, or I should say, I eagerly opened the box-- far too excited to wait until Matt got home from work, only to realize that we forgot to order the RSVP envelopes... woops. Like I said, the website was less then perfect. I checked out the rest of the invitation package, spending most of my time looking at the one assembled invitation meant to show us how to assemble the rest. Then I got online and found RSVP size envelopes in the correct color for about 1/10th the cost that they would have been if we had bought them at the same time as we bought the invitations! Tragedy averted! I crossed my fingers that the color and texture would match. The envelopes showed up on the door step in about 2 days (go UPS!) and they were a perfect match. I ran them through the printer (not without some hassle -- I guess I should start spending the money to buy HP approved ink refills...) and now we are ready to start assembling! HOORAY!
I know I started the last paragraph this way, but one of the biggest and most exciting things we did a couple of weeks ago was... BOOK THE HONEYMOON!
After scouring the internet looking at all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean we became thoroughly overwhelmed. My mom suggested we visit a travel agent to help us out. At first we were hesitant so my mom explained how travel agents work (basically that they are free to the clients) and once we heard that we were all for it. That same week my mom got an invitation in the mail for an open house being held at a local hotel by Milne Travel and she passed it along to us. We attended the fair and talked to a representative from Sandals, one from Barbados, a very loquacious fellow from Apple Vacations (we had to fight our way away from him after 45 minutes), and a wonderful Milne Travel agent. We left the fair feeling much better, but like there were still too many options. We emailed the travel agent and set up a time to go in. When we went in we talked about what we were looking for-- basically any adult only (did I mention I will have just finished teaching 20 3rd graders 10 days before...), all-inclusive resort anywhere in the Caribbean. She strongly suggested the Couples Resort line, which we had heard from a number of friends as well. She sent us home with some information, some booklets, and the promise of an email with more info and prices soon. At home we looked at the Couples booklet and website and finally decided on Couples Tower Isle in Ocho Rios, Jamaica! We emailed the agent back and asked her to book it! YAY! 7 nights in Jamaica-- all set!
Anyway, as we get closer and closer to the wedding there are more and more tasks. Coming soon is squaring away the tuxedos, filling out the music questionnaire, and outlining the ceremony. It is all coming together!
