Ahh the holidays...

Sorry I've been away for awhile, we've been quite busy w/ the holidays! In addition to Christmas we also had an engagement party, a meeting of the families if you will. It went just lovely, while a bit overwhelming (since just our families was about 60 people including our bits and pieces of our bridal party.) I do love having a large family, and my Aunt Colleen graciously hosted for us. I will post the pics right after this.

Since then, I've also been quite busy. Since our colors are red and black, my sister and I went out today to search for some table decor. Hobby Lobby had marked all Christmas stuff to 80% off and since red in a Christmas color, we thought we might be able to find a few items. My sister and I found some lovely items I believe will make excellent decorations. I'm quite excited, especially since they are w/ our theme, spoiler, they have a cardinal some how included in them... I have many ideas for future posts, coming soon! Tomorrow we'll be going to a bridal show in hopes of getting some more ideas! Ta ta for now!

Church relief!

So it just so happens, that luckily our celebrant's church is available. (SIGH OF RELIEF!!!) I couldn't believe all that craziest happened but I am just relieved and happy to have it all figured out. So I keep working on/thinking about table decor. I could purchase some river rocks from a fellow Camogie friend, woo hoo! We shall see if I need them :)

Today I'll be going to get my ring cleaned before Tim's family Christmas party tomorrow... maybe finish a little Christmas shopping. I haven't had much time to look and read my other random wedding blogs. I believe I'll starting getting creative w this bloggy blog...

The Church (or so I thought...)

I will have to admit I'm freaking just a little bit. I was totally set on getting married at St Peter's in Kirkwood, my family parish that I grew up in. Had confirmed it two weeks ago as I was sending in my deposit for the venue. This morning I opened up my email only to find an email from the wedding coordinator that the priest had promised that day (as well as the 2 pm time slot!) to someone else. While I know there is no shortage of churches in St. Louis, that's for sure. I now am scrambling to make sure that this will be taken care of. I'm not totally stressing because I know I'll find a place, its just somewhat unnerving to say the least!

So we shall see what becomes of this

The Venue

In and email from my aunt, I realized there is no place in which the date is posted... so the date 10/2/10. Anyways, on to our venue. We've chosen the Sheldon. Its a beautiful spot and I'm so super excited. All we'll have to do is provide a cake, DJ, and table decorations. So I've been surfing craft and wedding blogs to check out table decor, please feel free to send your ideas my way!!

Since our colors are black and red and we met via the St. Louis Cardinals, I'm trying to include potentially cardinals or red birds for the decor. There are so many ideas, I'm just super excited to see what shape it will take.

Here's the site for the Sheldon

That's about it from wedding land today...

The engagement

So I realize this is somewhat backwards but I feel I have to catch up since I didn't start this prior to our engagement. So back in October Tim had arranged to take me to Lake Tahoe. We stayed in a great little condo up in the mountains. It was quite wild because all the hills and roads are very windy there to get to the Lake. I actually asked Tim to drive most of the way because of this fact. Anyways, my darling had made special plans way ahead of time to take me on a suprise sunrise hot air balloon ride over the lake the morning after we got there, however due to poor weather conditions we were unable to do this our entire trip and thus he had to improvise. Instead, we drove around the lake that Sunday, its about 70 miles around with many places to stop off at for scenic pictures and just amazing views. It can take an entire day if you'll let it. When approached at hiking area down to Emerald Bay which is featured in quite a few of the pictures, Tim and I decided to hike down to the beach area. It was a beautiful day outside and well we could use the walking. When we got down to the beach, we were walking around just exploring. I decided it would be fun to write <3 Js in the sand. After I wrote this in the sand, I turned around only to find Tim on his knee with a ring in a box, and he asked me to marry him. Wow, it all happens so fast. Of course I said yes!

Tahoe in the fall is beautiful, this just sweetened the pot! Every since than I've been doing a little planning here and there... I'm planning on posting my pics from the trip as well.

Figuring it all out...

So this is my second post, and well I'm getting used to all of this. I suppose I wanted to impart to many what I thought of first shortly after I had gotten engaged, and that was picking a venue. I can tell you in the St. Louis area there is an exhaustive list of venues, however due to large families we were restricted a little (since we're planning on around 250...) I was obsessing (you can ask Liz) over picking a spot. I came home every night to get updates from my amazing sister who was essentially helping me "vet" the various venues to whittle it down to a top 5 or top 3. Its tough trying to figure these things out when you're working all day and the various vendors/venues are at work during those times too. In addition to that, at first I didn't realize there were all sorts of additional fees that different places charge as well, tax (which is 9.75% in the city of STL, steep! To my knowledge there isn't this fee in the county), service charges, grat, hall rental fees, the list goes on. In my calculations it essentially added about 30% on to any and prices that were quoted. So my suggestion is to make sure you know all charges upfront.

During my obsessing time I wasn't much enjoying my engagement, instead I was nearly a freak calling and emailing every place I could think of all around St. Louis. Once that was settled and we figured out The Sheldon (so excited!!) I have now kinda taken a break. Since the wonderful woman at The Sheldon is helping us out, we've got the caterer and everything all set. All we've got to figure out is a cake, table decorations and music. I already have a cake place in mind at the moment, we shall see if it works out later. I think I was just relieved to not to have to worry about this any more. I also realized at that time my sister had encouraged me to not just talk wedding but to do other things, which I'm getting in to the grove of things.

One more thing to add to my post... I am determined to start my new fitness routine this week. I have really gotten away from working out and miss it. I know it will increase my energy and make me feel better.

We're enaged...

So we've been engaged for a little over a month now. In that time we've figured out our venue and colors (The Sheldon Concert Hall, and black and red). Quite exciting! There are are many other fun things to choose but after the venue bonanza, I've taken a little break. Its odd to think at this time next year I'll be Mrs. O'Donnell. I've been trolling for exciting DIY and inexpensive blogs about weddings, so feel free to pass some neat ones on!

More to come soon!