…and we haven’t written since February. Yeah, we clearly don’t do this blog thing very well. Perhaps, as things settle down, we will get better at it. I’m referring to the fact that we bought and moved into a new house and got married and blah blah blah since we last blogged. No excuse, but an explanation nonetheless. But I wanted to post here a couple of videos from a more recent wedding, the second wedding we’ve been to since our own, that undoubtedly will remain in our memories as one of the most unique weddings of all time. Take a look and you’ll see why…

Have you ever seen this before?

Seriously, this is crazy.

We have stayed very busy over the past few weeks!  Who knew you could have a wedding identity crisis?  Well, Danny and I went to another meeting with our florist and finally hammered out the flowers which helped us decide on pretty much everything else.

We have decided on orange as our accent color- a bold choice, I know!  The decisions we made with flowers helped us decide what kind of invitations we would like.  I’m really excited about our choice!  We also decided to order this GREAT monogram to go on all of our stationary.  I also went and got some odds and ends for the cake and a card box for the reception.  Apparently, the flowers are the glue that binds everything together.

We also picked out the tuxes last weekend!  Danny picked a great black tux with a blue tie and a black vest.  It looks really nice on!  It was kind of nice to get a sneak peek of what Danny will be wearing.  I think all the groomsmen are going to look really handsome!

What has been taking up most of our time, however, is the house hunt!  We’ve found one that we really like and are in the first stages of possibly making an offer.   We’ve been out with our realtor 5 times and have seen every available house in our target area and price range!  This one has everything that we were looking for in a home and is priced very well.  It’s hard not to get to attached when you find a house that you really like.  We’ll let you know how things progress!  This house buying thing is very intense!

One of my bridesmaids and my roommate, Diana, got engaged yesterday!  It looks like there will be more wedding planning to do in the coming year!  I’m so excited to share all of the things I’ve learned planning my wedding with her.  I’ve already loaded off an entire laundry basket full of bridal magazines on her.  Whew!  That cleared out a ton of much needed space in my room.  Congratulations Di and John!  I can’t wait for your big day!

The wedding shower date is set!  We’ll have our shower in Effingham, Illinois on March 28th at the Firefly Restuarant.  My mom took Danny and I there this weekend while we were home getting wedding things done.  I’m really excited!  The room is really nice!  It overlooks the water and has a small deck over the lake that we can use if its nice outside.  You can see pictures at their website if you would like (http://www.ffgrill.com/pictures.php). Diana and Lisa are also planning a girls night out for all of my friends from Indianapolis who won’t be able to make the shower in Effingham on April 11th which is sure to be a blast!

While we were at home in T-Town this weekend Danny and I purchased our wedding bands.  On Saturday, Ange and I went shopping and ordered a flower girl dress for Ella.  She looks adorable in the dress!  Danny and I also had a meeting with Billi Lou Jansen, my second cousin, about doing our programs and invitations.  Billi has a company, Walnut Street Cards, that makes homemade cards, invitations, etc.  She does a really nice job and is extremely reasonable! I think we are going to use her for all of our invitations, programs and place cards.

Only 109 days left until the wedding!

We have accomplished a lot since our last blog just a week ago.  We went to our tasting at the Rathskellar and ordered our food for the reception.  We’ll be serving a tossed salad, lemon pepper chicken with wild rice, pork medallions, glazed baby carrots, spaetzle noodles with gravy, Parmesan garlic mashed potatoes and rolls.   It’s going to be yummy! Danny also carefully tasted EVERY beer he could to determine which kegs to order.  On tap you’ll find the Rathskellar Amber and the Isenbeck as well as several American Lagers.

We also ordered our cake (which is delicious,) decided on a florist, booked our limo and met with our Realtor. We have also decided to host a cocktail hour after the ceremony on the back patio of Laurel Hall (where the ceremony is being held.)  It should be a great way for everyone spend some time together and enjoy the time between the ceremony and reception.  We’ll be having tray passed appetizers and as well as drinks to tide people over until dinner at 7:00pm.

On another note… we’re going to look at houses on Saturday with our Realtor.  I think Danny’s tired of hearing me say it but… I’m so excited!  We have had our eye on several houses for the past few months and now we’ll have the chance to see them in person.  We’ll keep you posted on the progress!  Check back when you have a chance.

Well alot has happened since the last time we’ve written. Most obviously to those checking the website, Emily has chosen the Bridesmaids dresses and thus, the primary color of the wedding. As a result,  I have updated the website color scheme to reflect this shade of Sapphire Blue.

Another significant accomplishment is that we have booked our honeymoon to Nueva Vallarta, Mexico! We will be leaving on the Monday after the wedding, my birthday, and will be gone for 6 nights. Check out the Honeymoon tab for more information.

Next, we’ve taken our first pass at registering. Registering for three stores was quite a feat for me to accomplish, as my tolerance level for being in a retail store other than Best Buy or Home Depot for more than an hour is pretty low (not to mention there was playoff football on all day). I’ll have to make it up to Em for being a grump during the last 3 of our 5 hour escapade. Check out the Registry tab for more information.

Our final significant accomplishment is that we have finally sent our save the date cards! Many of you may be checking the website for the first time because of this! Unfortunately, our printer inadvertantly screwed up the color of the cards, so if you’re wondering why they look purple to you, you can rest assured that I am wondering that as well. Rather than have the order reprinted, however, we felt it was more important to get the cards out so that our guests can start planning accordingly. Check out what they should have looked like!

And we’ve been busy busy bees lately as we approach crunchtime. We’ve met with a florist (after which I nearly passed out when I saw the initial quote, which has since been greatly improved), we’ve been entertaining the thought of a cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception, we’ve scheduled our food and drink tasting at the Rathskellar, we’ve scheduled a cake tasting, and we’ve quoted several limo services. Ontop of all this, we’ve contacted a realtor to help figure out if we might buy a house or rent an apartment after the wedding. Wow, that’s alot to think about!

Well, we’ll try to keep this blog updated a little more regularly in the coming months, so if you get a chance, stop by and see what’s going on in the life of Emily and Danny!

I finally found my wedding dress!  It is gorgeous!  I looked all over in Indy and nothing really struck me, then…. I went to T-Town to a little boutique and viola!  Isn’t that the way it goes.  All I’m going to say is that it is ivory and fantastic!  When I told Danny I found my dress guess what the first question he asked was…. how much?  Yup!  That’s my fiance! He was happy to know I didn’t go too crazy!  Now all I have to do is decide on the bridesmaid dresses… not a small task!  Luckily, I have 7 beautiful women to wear them.

Also…. Danny posted a survey to get some input on where we should go on our honeymoon.  Check out the Honeymoon tab and let us know what you think.  Remember, in this election year, every vote counts so…  Vote wisely!

We finally decided on a DJ for the wedding. We struggled to decide which DJ service to go with… its really hard to look at a website and determine if the DJ will be worth a damn. (That’s a Tony Esker phrase for ya…) Well, long story short we made a decision and he comes highly recommended. We have high hopes for a rocking dance portion at the reception! Also, I checked and they do have “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” Chad, start warming up the vocals. If you want to check out their website you may its www.djsdirect.net and his name is Evan. He apparently leads two lives. He’s a teacher by day and a DJ by night. We’ll see how that works out!

Danny wants to create a discussion board to post song requests on the website… I have a feeling that could get interesting.

Next on the list CAKE! Mmmmmmm!

We had our engagement pictures taken last Monday.  They turned out really well, although I wish I wouldn’t have worn the marshmellow shirt and Danny wishes he hadn’t put gel in his hair.  I guess that’s the way it is!  We are always more critical of ourselves I guess.  Our photographer is really talented.  We fell in love with her style! Anyways you can see some of our pictures on her website under the blog.  Check them out…

http://jamiesangar.blogspot.com/

We are on the main page right now however as the months progress you will have to scroll to the bottom and click on August 2008 to see our pictures.  I hope you like them as much as we do!

Yeah, it has been over a month since our last post, and I don’t have a very good excuse as to why this is. But as you can guess, with Emily at the helm, we have not been idol when it comes to wedding planning! Here are some of the things we’ve been working on over the last month:

• We’ve reserved the services of the Lockerbie String Quartet for the service
• We’ve booked our photographer and are currently planning an engagement photo session
• Emily spent a weekend dress shopping (while I was conveniently in Vegas for a bachelor party) and found several wedding gowns and bridesmaids dresses that she likes
• We have reserved a block of rooms at a south side hotel and are working to reserve another block downtown

In addition, I’m working to continue developing the incomplete part of the website, starting with the Accomodations page. If you haven’t already checked it out, navigate to Accomodations and check out the links to the right. Not all of the links are active yet, but I’ll make sure to post again when new updates are ready.

And I promise, we’ll try to blog a little more frequently. Until Later!