Best of

Pictures from our wedding are popping up in our photographers' year end "Best of the Best" picks. Thanks, Aaron and Heather!

Married!

And we are still talking about how perfect everything was – the weather, the food, the family. We loved every minute of the day. More thank yous and pictures to follow...

"Two weeks from today, we'll be married!" we said yesterday. I hope everyone is ready for a wedding. Here's the info on our ceremony again:

We've decided to do something a little different with the ceremony, because it's important to us to make our family and friends part of it, too. While we are not Quakers, we will be holding our wedding ceremony as an edited version of a Quaker Friends Meeting, or Quaker ceremony. After we say our promises to each other, guests will have an opportunity to say something nice before we exchange rings. Heartfelt toasts or excerpts from texts are examples of what you might prepare for the ceremony. Messages may be literal or metaphorical, and about anything appropriate to the joy and solemnity of the occasion—love, family, marriage, life, or what you will. In other words, it's kind of like the toast tradition that normally occurs at dinner.

Please keep your message relatively short (no more than a few minutes) so that all those who would like to speak will have a chance to do so without the ceremony going on too long!


See you in two weeks!

Thank you

Thanks to everyone who has offered their help (dishes, garage-sale skills, etc)! Both of us are thankful to have such generous family. Plus, it makes the wedding that much more personal and special for us, and hopefully for you, too. It's time to start addressing again! The invitations are almost ready to mail...

In other news, Elliott convinced me we needed chickens. Meet Patrick (the Plymouth Rock hen) and Jane (the Golden Laced Wyandotte). They look young here. They give us eggs; we give them food. And I get to listen to their quiet clucking, which is actually kind of calming.

Check your mailboxes!

We mailed the Save the Date cards on Sunday, so they're on their way to you and should be arriving soon! Next, I've got to work on invitations. I'm using these poppies from our garden as color inspiration – the orange is even deeper in person, with a little more red than on the screen. It's the color most of them have turned out to be, though there are a few light salmon blooms, and every once in a while a white one.

Assembling Save the Date cards

We're almost ready to mail the Save the Date cards! Last night we watched The Princess Bride and stuffed all the envelopes. Today I addressed, trying my best to make my handwriting "fancy." We are short a few stamps, but they should be on the way to your mailbox by the end of this week. Here's a preview.

Quail Ridge visit

We finally got to see Quail Ridge Lodge in person, during our (brief!) trip to Missouri at the end of April. It was rainy, but, I think, still beautiful. I'm just crossing my fingers that there will still be a little color on the trees the first week of November. The park ranger seemed to think there would be.