April Showers bring May Flowers, but February Showers bring Weddings!

This weekend, Marcus and I traveled up to Maryland for my shower (which of course also included a busy weekend of wedding planning). We flew up Friday night, got in late, but still had time to discuss plans for the weekend before going to bed. Two of my awesome cousins from Israel happened to be in the States this week, so they ended up coming to my shower! It was great to get to see them.

Saturday, we slept in, then I went and got my hair trimmed for the last time before the wedding. Then we went over to the Bolger Center to choose where exactly on the grounds our ceremony will be. We found a really pretty spot, convenient to the parking lot and the building where the reception will be, so that went really well! I also got to check the mail - so at least we got one day's worth of excitement over receiving RSVPs! After that, we headed to my cousin's pom competition (she's a senior in high school, and is her pom squad's captain this year!). That was fun, although they didn't win. Then we went to Mama Lucia (an Italian restaurant) for dinner, where we ran into our florist randomly! When we got home, the adults went to bed, and Marcus and I stayed up talking to my cousin Noa until after midnight.

Sunday, we slept in again, then headed over to my aunt's house for my shower. I was a little nervous about the shower, since my aunts are crazy and you never know what will happen when they plan something, lol, but it turned out to be really fun, and it was GREAT to see everybody! We played lots of fun games, ate yummy food, and I got a bunch more awesome gifts. Overall, a great success! Meanwhile, my dad took "the guys" (Marcus, my sister's boyfriend, some family friends, and my cousin) bowling...I was SO jealous! After the shower, my sister and her boyfriend and my Israeli cousins all got on the bus to head back to New York. That evening, my mom and I spent a lot of time going through pictures to find a couple I was looking for for various wedding-related projects (one to go on the guest book table, and two for various parts of my sister's present). We also went out to dinner, even though we were still full from the shower, lol. Then we came home, watched a couple of home videos, and went to bed.

Monday morning, we got up a little earlier and headed to the florist. My parents had changed our centerpieces, so we wanted to see the new ones, and we ended up making a couple of changes ourselves. But I think everything is finalized now with the flowers, so that's good! Then we went home, ate lunch, and played cards until it was time to head to the airport. I also spent some time looking online for a barrette to use in my hair for the wedding.

It was a busy weekend, but a lot of fun, and things are getting much more finalized now! I can't believe there's only 6 weeks left until the wedding, it seems like we still have SO much to do!

Some BIG Checks (finally)!

The ongoing Invitations Saga is finally over! This morning, I took the invitations to the post office and dropped them off to be hand-canceled and mailed. I am SO relieved to finally have them out. Now we wait for responses. I'm jealous of all the people on The Knot whose RSVPs are coming to them - my mom INSISTED that our RSVPs go to her, so instead of getting to check the mail excitedly every day, I just have to wait impatiently for my mom to email me updated lists of who has responded. I also have mixed feelings about the RSVPs...while I am very excited to be done with the invitations, and excited to get responses and finalize the fact that people will actually show up (lol), part of me is worried, because I know that some people won't be able to come, and I will inevitably be disappointed by some of the "no"s. At this point, it's still POSSIBLE that each individual person we sent invitations to could say "yes"...but once they RSVP "no", that's it. I'm weird, lol.

Another big check - last weekend we took our ketubah to Michael's to figure out framing. We weren't sure how we were going to do it, because we want to display the ketubah during the reception (so we wanted it to be in a frame for that), but we need to have it out of the frame to sign it at the ceremony. Well, the lady at Michael's was VERY helpful, apparently they do lots of ketubahs, and she suggested that we go ahead and get it framed, and just leave the glass out of the frame so we can sign it IN the frame, and then after the wedding we can get the glass put in. Brilliant! So that's what we decided to do. While at Michael's, we also purchased a couple of 8x10 frames for our baby photos that will be displayed on the guest book table at the reception.

Since the last time I posted, several things I talked about have been completed also! We got the marriage license, no problem, so that's ready to go. I also attended all FOUR of my dress fittings, so now my dress actually fits me, and is nice and crisp and clean (she cleaned it for me as well). It is back in my possession now, hanging in my closet until the wedding.

We also finished compiling a CD of classical music to be played while our guests are arriving to the ceremony location. We will have live musicians for the ceremony itself, but since we wanted a mix of classical and Jewish music, we decided to hire musicians to play the Jewish music (they are Klezmer musicians actually) and make a CD of classical music to be played before the ceremony begins.

A week from tomorrow night, we will be flying up to Maryland again - this time for my bridal shower. I'm excited to see everyone who will be there! And of course, my mom has our whole weekend fully booked with other wedding-related stuff, too. I'll be getting my hair cut for the final time before the wedding, we'll be going to the florist to finalize some stuff, and we'll also be going to the venue to decide on the exact spot where we want to have the ceremony (the grounds are HUGE, and they say that you can do it anywhere on the grounds). I'll definitely be posting again when we get back from that trip, to write about the shower and also other stuff we get done between now and then!