The Final Countdown

Yes, The Final Countdown.  And no, I don't mean the song by semi-famous '80s rock band, Europe.  I mean the final countdown until we get married!  This past weekend, Mary and I spent most of our time at Mary's parents house in Homer Glen finalizing all kinds of details.  Mary will pretty much be "camping out" there, as she says for the next couple of days.  At least she only has a two-day work week!

The details over the past few days have included the final guestlist, seating assignments, transportation logistics, photography details, place cards, menu cards, programs, and amongst all that, finishing cleaning out Mary's old apartment!  Just because we're planning a wedding, though, doesn't mean our normal activities have been put on hold.  I had to take Bentley in for a comprehensive check-up yesterday, go to the dry cleaners this morning, get a haircut tonight, and find time for Starbucks in and amongst all that.

With all the pressure we're feeling to get everything done, we fortunately have Mary's Aunt Lorrie to keep us entertained!  She came up with a really funny "what if" scenario.  What if Bentley got access to Mary and Jack's wedding blog.....?  Find out here!

Ceremony Programs

Mary and I had kind of been stressing a little about the ceremony programs.  Originally, we were going to do them ourselves, but since time is becoming rather limited in the homestretch, we opted to seek help.

My Mom has agreed to take on this challenge and enlisted the help of my sisters.  My Mom really hit the ground running, too!  I mentioned it to her last Friday night, and the next day she had bought samples of paper, artwork, designs and the like for us (mostly Mary) to look at.  We are just providing some creative insight and the copy for the programs, and they'll be handling the rest!

Not only is it one less thing to stress about, but after seeing both my sisters' programs and the rehearsal dinner invitations, I'm really excited to see the final product!

The Music Is Almost Done

I realize that the title of this post is less than original, but I think I've lost some creative energy at this point in the game :)

Anyway, Mary and I met with the music director and organist, Tom Z., at St. John Cantius last week to go over our music selections for the ceremony.  Tom was not only very talented, but also had a vast knowledge of classical and religous music.  Most of the songs he played us were from memory.  We only have one selection left to make, and we'll be submitting everything to Tom this Thursday.

Also, we have been finalizing our musical selections for the reception over the last couple of days.  We both went through our iTunes libraries, picked out songs we liked for the reception, be it cocktail, dinner or dancing music, then took turns listening.  That's the easy part though.  We're still working on our specific dances: first dance, father-daughter, mother-son, introductions, etc.  We'll be submitting those to our DJ company in the next day as well.

So, as I said, the music selections are almost done, and since the wedding is NEXT WEEK, it's just in time!

Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

By now, everyone in the wedding party should have received an invitation to the rehearsal dinner to be held at Pazzo's.  The rehearsal will be at St. John Cantius at 7:30pm on Friday 9/26.  Don't be late!  Immediately following the rehearsal, we'll be going straight to Pazzo's.  If you have any questions or feel you have mistakenly not received an invitation, please let us know right away!

We Now Return To Our Previously Scheduled Wedding Planning

Some of you may already know, but yesterday, Mary and I moved into our new home!  The day started at 8:30am at my sister's place so the movers could pick up all my boxes, my dresser, tv, chair, bar, computer(s) etc.  That took just less than an hour, but after the first few boxes were loaded, I could already tell that I would be very thankful for hiring movers by the end of the day. 

The movers and I then headed to Mary's apartment, we got there just before 10:00am.  With the exception of a dresser, everything in Mary's apartment got moved!  Bentley was there and he was very confused with all the people coming and going.  The boxes weren't too bad.  The difficult items were Mary's couch (with two built-in recliners) and her love seat with a pull-out bed.  Both were really heavy!  Fortunately, Mary lived on ground level with only three small steps.  After another hour and a half or so, it was off to the condo.

It was at that point that I was REALLY glad we hired movers.  They had to carry everything up the back stairway to our second floor unit.  After about two-thirds of our things were moved in, it started to rain...a lot!  All the furniture was covered and the the contents of the boxes were all fine.  For the most part, everything went great (one small bookshelf incident), and after five hours, everything was moved in!

Mary, her Dad and I went to grab a quick bite to eat before retrieving Bentley from Mary's apartment to finally bring him "home."  We unpacked and organized things for several hours before finally retiring for the evening with a bottle of champagne and a frozen pizza!  Now that floor-refinishing, cleaning and moving is over, we can get back to the task at hand.  Only two and half weeks to go!!