You're Invited

Another big check on the check list!

We took mom and dad to the invitation place yesterday, and we were able to come to an agreement on invites! The ones we picked are actually the first ones Aron picked out the last time we went looking. So this week we just need to finalize what we want for the wording on the invite and reply cards, then we can go order them next weekend! It is still hard to believe that the wedding is getting close enough that we need to be ordering our invites. About 2 1/2 months before they get mailed out!

Flower Girl

Heather and I took Lauren to try on some flower girl dresses yesterday, and as I suspected, she looked adorable in all of them. We went to David's Bridal, and I think we found the dress that she is going to get.


Right now it has a white sash around the waist, but we would replace that with one made from the extra material of the bridesmaid dresses so should would match them. I also love her in the tiara.

Little White Dresses

On our last visit to the bridal shop, the woman in the store recommended Burlington Coat Factory as a place for affordable flower girl dresses. Since I had some time this afternoon, I decided to take a trip over there to look. There are some adorable looking dresses, and imagining my niece Lauren wearing one makes them even cuter! So this weekend, I am going to go back with Heather. We are also going to visit David's Bridal and check out the selection there. I was really set at first on wanting Lauren to look like a mini bride, but with a sash that matched the bridesmaids. However, after looking around, I think she will look great in any of theses dresses, and I don't really care if her dress matches my original vision.

While making my way over to the little girl section of Burlington, I stumbled upon my first official honeymoon purchase! I saw these cute beach skirts that would be great to wear over a bathing suit as we lounge on the beach in Cali and Hawaii. I know I still have a few months to go, but I can't help but start to get excited for our trip. And I know I'll continue to pick things up as I find them over the next few months.

Luck of the Irish.

Friday night was the first official meeting with the rabbi. Last time we met with him it was an informal meeting to see if he is the one that we want to do the wedding. So this time it was official.

We went over the logistics of the wedding, like what we are expected to bring. We need our own kiddish cup, which is fine, since I bought one in Israel for the occasion. We also are doing a Havdallah in the beginning, and I bought a beautiful candle for that in Israel also. Probably in another month or so, we will go meet with him again.

This weekend we also started to think about invitations. I met a really nice woman the bridal show that has a store that is down the road from us (right next to Archie Moore's). So while getting food from Archie's for the second time this weekend, we stopped in to take a look. I was impressed that as soon as we walked in, the woman said that she remembered me from the bridal fair before I could mention that I was there. We learned from this that there are thousands of possibilities, and we have no idea what we want. We are going to go back again on Sunday with my parents and look again, so we'll see how that goes.

Other than that, this weekend was filled with corned beef, beer, and friends. Saturday we walked with Tom to the parade in Milford. People joined in throughout the day, and eventually, we made it back from the bars for a wonderful corned beef dinner courtesy of Aron. After dinner we all went to Tom's for a bonfire. Sunday the celebrating continued with a trip to Sarah and Justin's St. Pat's party.

Aron and I dressed very festive for the parade. Me with my Shamrock antennae and Aron with his Guinness jersey.

More dance

Last night was our second dance lesson, and this time it was a private lesson. Our lesson was with the owner, and he seems like a really nice guy (though a bit strange). We started off with his fiance, who is really nice, because he was busy with the couple before us still.

Today's lesson focused on the Waltz and Swing. I have learned that I am pretty decent at the steps and making sure I am on the right foot and doing the right thing with my feet. I have also learned that I am terrible and turns. I seem to be in a rush to get back into dancing that I speed through the turn. Oh well, we will work on it.

Last night we also played our first dance song for our instructor, and he mentioned some ideas of where we can go with it, but I don't really remember anything he said. Plus, he has a thick German accent, so I really can't understand everything he says.

Last night was the last of our free lessons, so we bought a package. It is pretty expensive, but I think that is a good idea. If anything, it will give us some confidence on the dance floor so we don't just stand there like middle schoolers swaying back and forth.

In other wedding news, tonight is our 2nd meeting with the rabbi. We are going to head there after Aron gets home from work, meet with the rabbi, then stay for the Friday night service again. This temple doesn't really do Saturday morning services, so they read from the Torah on Friday nights. They keep it pretty short, but it is still longer than a normal Friday night service. I really don't mind. I kind of enjoy the idea that we are attending services on occasion. It is still not something I can see myself doing weekly, but I wouldn't mind my attendance being more than just a high holiday (if that) thing. It is also really inconvenient that the temple is all the way in Ridgefield, but the rabbi there seems to be the best match for us, so it is worth the drive.

Hair Do

Another checked off item on the list.

I called yesterday and booked a place for everyone to get their hair done. We are going to Hair Attraction, where the whole family used to get our hair cuts. They are the place that did my hair for the prom both times. I figured it was close enough and convenient for my parents house and for the Marriott. Sometime in May I'll make an appointment for my hair trial (must remind Heather to take out the Tiara that I am borrowing).

For hairstyle, I want something that is half up and curly. Something like this:
(without the bow)

I am going to search out more pictures of styles that I like to bring with me when I go for my trial. I'll update when I find more of what I am looking for.

Dancing Fools

We successfully completed our first dance lesson!

Last night we had a group class, which consisted of us, and one other couple. They seemed to be about our age, and they also signed up at the bridal expo. I think the small class and the other dragged along fiance made Aron feel better. The other couple had no clue what they were doing either, so we were not the only clueless ones.

We started off with a foxtrot, a basic box step, and a tango. I will forget all of this very soon, if I haven't already, but it's ok, our instructor is not expecting us to remember anything. And much to Aron's delight, he said no practicing at home.

Our next lesson is Thursday evening, and this one is just Aron and I and the instructor. They like to get you in for your private soon after the first lesson so they can minimize the amount of forgetting.

So far so good on the dance. I think even Aron would admit that it was not as bad as he was expecting.

Checks on the list

We made it to the Waterview this weekend! Aron and I, along with my mom and dad and his mom all got to meet with our wedding coordinator. At this meeting, we set the menu, picked out a cake, talked about how the night would work, picked out table linens and worked out where everything is going to go in the room.

For the wedding cake, it will be a square cake with raspberry ribbon around each layer. On the inside will be white cake with cannoli cream .

Table linens so far are white table clothes with black napkins. They didn't have a color close enough to my color scheme to have the napkins match.

For the menu...some highlights...
Main Course:
Fillet Mignon
Salmon
Chicken Picatta

Cocktail Hour:
Raw Bar
Martini Bar
Carving Stations
Cheese Station
Beef Wellington
Portobello Mushroom Fries
Crab Cakes
Thai Chicken
and more that I can't remember right now...

In other wedding news, dance lessons start tonight, and I am really looking forward to them. Hopefully Aron will warm up to the idea a bit once we get going with them, but if not, oh well. We are already committed to doing them.

The weather was beautiful this weekend, and it felt like spring. And spring means that summer is getting closer, and so is the wedding. My counter officially has a 4 where it says months. Yesterday we crossed the 5 months to go mark, and it really seems like time is flying. I am not very worried, I feel like we have a handle on the planning for the most part. And any do-it-yourself projects can be accomplished over summer vacation.

I bought myself a present this weekend. I waited on line for over an hour for a free pandora bracelet with purchase of a charm. I got myself 2 charms to start off the bracelet. We know I have a thing for monkeys.
That's it on the wedding front for now. Less than 5 months to go!

Waterview resheduled (again)

Tomorrow, we are finally (hopefully!) going to meet with our coordinator at the Waterview. We have been trying to do this since December, but floods and flu have kept this from happening. So, as long as there is not big emergency between now and tomorrow, we will be at the Waterview.

Next Friday we have another meeting with the Rabbi. I think at this one we cover a little more of the getting to know you stuff. I think we also talk about text for the ceremony and things like that. We also need to talk to him about wording for the ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) so we can that over to the woman that is going to make it.

This weekend will also include a trip to get my tires replaced. I knew I was going to need new tires, but I was looking to hold off until the summer. But the flat tire I got yesterday sped up the process a bit.

Hopefully this weekend there will be a lot more wedding details after our Waterview meeting!

Just Dance. I'll be ok. Da Da Da Da Just Dance.

Just for the record, I now have that Lady Gaga song stuck in my head...but anyway...

The first step towards Aron and I not looking like dancing fools at the wedding has been taken! At the bridal expo last weekend, I met with the nice people from the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. I filled out the form for more information, and I found out that a new place was opening in Orange this week. So I circled both Orange and Trumbull as places that we would go. Monday afternoon, the nice British guy from the Orange studio called me and offered some free introductory lessons. So it is official, we begin lessons next Monday. When he asked about our dance experience, I told him that we had none, so we are doing a group class for first time dancers. I am hoping to do a few group classes and then a few private so we can work out some fun moves to our first dance song.

As you can probably tell, I am really excited about this. And if you know Aron, you probably can guess that he is less than thrilled with the idea. However, I mentioned it months ago, and he agreed to go along with the idea. Apparently he only agreed because he never actually thought that I would make it happen. Too bad, I made the call, and now he has to do it. But really, we are going to have 175 people watching us dance, I want to look like we have some clue as to what we are doing because between the 2 of us, we have 4 left feet.

So Monday night begins the dance adventure of Aron and Julie. And if it doesn't go well, there is always a bar next door...

More checks on the To Do list

Yesterday I attended my first Bridal Expo. It was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be, especially since almost all of our vendors are picked. But I decided that I needed to see one of these things for myself, so I brought Jamie along for support, and we tackled the bridal expo at the Arena at Harbor Yard (where the Sound Tigers play).

When we walked in, we were greeted by the people from CT Bride magazine, where we were given a free copy of the magazine. We got tons of freebies through the entire expo, including a loaf of ciabatta bread. The best information I got was from a place right down the road that does invitations, which we are going to start thinking about soon, and also from the place that does dance lessons (which I need to get us started on as soon as possible if I want this to happen).

In other wedding planning news, Aron took advantage of the snow and working from home today to make some calls and send some emails. He called the woman about the Ketubah, and we are going to give her all of the information on the text we want after we meet with the rabbi about it. Speaking of, Aron emailed the rabbi with some dates that we can go to meet with him this month before a Friday night service.

Also added to the list of things accomplished is sizing another bridesmaid. Victoria and I went on Saturday morning and she picked a dress and a size. I am getting closer to being ready to finally order these dresses!