Brief Update

We are still enjoying our last two days of honeymoon-ing in San Francisco, but ModPhoto has updated their blog with some pictures from our wedding!

Eric and Vanessa's Viking Wedding

On the First Day of Married Life...

I woke up. Then I packed up an immense amount of "stuff" from the wedding ceremony, helped pack three cars, and drove back down the mountain with my Husband.

Yesterday was a beautiful, hectic, suprising day that I shared with people that I love and respect. It could not have been better.

Updates and pictures when we return from our honeymoon in San Francisco.

Another cake in the bank.

So with a little tweaking, mom turned her carrot cake into a low sugar cake and took it to the showerlette for testing. It was approved by all. The carrot cake will be one of the two low sugar cakes that will be part of the tower-o-cakes. So that gets all of the experimental bits out of the way. No more testing. Now we have a collection of proven recipes to work with. So all that is left now is to make them and freeze them.
And then we eat them.

The Sword Comes Together!!!

So we now have, though not in our possession at this time, our wedding sword.
Yay!
There were lots of renditions and revisions and total backtracking, but it is finally done. Went to a great blade smith in Norwalk Ca. by the name of Bill Stroman. He is good at what he does, and a real nice guy.
So I ended up deciding to give him a Irish style sword, as Nessa is my lil Pict. Then gave him the designs I wanted engraved onto the pommel and guard, and had him blue it to boot. I'd give you all a pic, but as of yet there are none to post.
But even though the type of work to be done on it was simple enough, compared to casting solid bronze pommel and guard, there were hidden troubles that neither he or I had expected. When he took the sword apart, it seems that the blade was epoxied into the handle and it actually broke at the tang. But again, Bill is good at what he does and a good guy, so he welded it all back together and gave it a proper polish. No extra charge. I like him.
So the ceremony will go off on a sword, without a hitch.
Or so I'm lead to believe.

::Massive Update::

Hello there! I know there have not been a lot of updates on what we have been doing - lack of time to upload photos from the past 30 days onto our flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/monstergirl00 ) ... and who wants to read a long blog post without pictures? No one! Ha!

Soooo, what have we been up to lately?

First of all, me & the womenfolk went up to Santa Barbara for some wine tasting/buying for the wedding. We got two great wines (in great quantities!) - a merlot from Gainey and a reisling from Kalyra.

It was a turn-around trip, but we did stop in Solvang for some goodies, and I got our cake topper (it's a salt&pepper set from Pea Soup Andersons - I'd seen it when FMIL and I were there in May, EJ didn't get to see it when we were there in June [sold out], but I managed to nab the only set on this trip!)

It is totally cute, and totally us! (Also, it's magnetic, so I am faintly terrified that I will separate them and they will ::stick:: back together then shatter upon impact)

Moving right along, EJ and I also went up to Idyllwild *TWICE*, and finally found a place. It is beautiful, and it is all ours! (I'm not posting specific because the entire internetz is NOT invited to the wedding. Sorry, folks)

That's us at The Fort (where the shops are), with Lily Rock in the background.

We have registered at three places: Crate & Barrel, Williams Sonoma, and Target. I will tell you, it was exhausting! After the first go-round (two-plus hours running around a store scanning things and trying to 'think') we realized we would have to break our trips up - and we're adding some online, just because I honestly can't face going back into a store with a scanner *yet *again. I also feel like a slight tool for expecting people to buy us stuff, but that's just me. FYI, Williams Sonoma treated us the best, with coffee and treats (scones and fresh fruit!), and also seemed pretty excited for us (of course!)

We have done some crafting, but I don't have any pictures of that to put up right now. Stuff is slowly but surely getting done. I will emphasize slowly.

Oh! And something realtively exciting:

We got our marriage license two weeks ago! If I had planned it better I would have waited for Friday (the Thirteenth), but I did not. Of course, waaay back in 2006 I was pushing for a 06/06/06 date "just because", but that was waaaay back when I was still in grad school and any type of martial-discussion was TOTALLY not on the table. And I'm much more happy with 10/2/10 anyway!

Total cell phone pic, which does not really hide the nervousness I felt while we were in the Clerk Recorder's office. I almost couldn't sign my name because I was shaking so much. Why? I do not know; like buying the fabric for my dress, this part just seemed so **final**.

That's pretty much the update to this point. Today's our 7 year anniversary, I'm planning to take some pics and give a brief post later on about "How We Met". Real exciting stuff, that - it involves lots of teenage girls, BBQ, a wingman, and an Irish Pub!

Quick Sidebar Update

Well! There will be a more full accounting of the past four weeks shortly (once I am away from work and can upload ALL the photos!), but two minor things:
1) LOCATION has been updated! Because we finally found a place!
2) Karen's title has finally changed on the blog. She came up with it a while ago. And yes, she has the longest title of anyone, any time, ever.

Plugging Along...

We've been feverishly working on random bits for the reception. Favor containers:

This is part one of ((three, sadly)) - trying to ready everything for the big minion-fest we should be having in August or early-early September to get all this stuff completed.

EJ has also been working diligently:

He has been working on some of the deco for our centerpieces. It is slowly but surely coming along!

One thing we have learned recently: (Jeep - shocks) + huge pothole + poorly wrapped vases = broken glass + frustration. Lesson learned.

We have also ::finally:: found a vendor who (doesn't carry, but has ordered) another part of our centerpieces for us; and Karen, our former Flower Maiden who has given herself a new and better title which I promptly deleted from my text messages before I could update her on the sidebar, has generously donated a HUUUUGE bag of felt which will become components for multiple deco and favor items...thanks, Ren!

Knitting Away...

Saturday was official World Wide Knit In Public Day (WWKIP Day, to the initiated!), and I worked on my wedding smoke ring (i.e. veil-like thing that is not a veil):


It is slowly but surely coming along...another week, perhaps, and EJ will build me a blocking board so it gets 'stretched' out and you can see the lace pattern that makes it up...and understand why it's called a smoke ring!*


*because it is a light and airy, almost ephemeral, circle scarf. Kinda like a smoke ring, in yarn form.

Heed the Announcement!

Save the Date announcements have been addressed, stamped, and mailed.

I guess we have to add some "interesting" content now, as ::hopefully:: some of our potential guests will be visiting here shortly!

I hope they leave comments....

Five Month Freak Out

Today marks exactly five months to the day we have scheduled for our wedding to take place.

I'm freaking out a bit.
Over EVERYTHING that still has yet to be done.

But instead of losing it in such a public forum (Hi, FMIL! Hello, coworkers!), I am choosing to focus on what *has *been *accomplished so far:

[X] All flatware has been purchased

[X] All dishware has been purchased

[X] Menu (apps and main) are set

[X] All linens have been purchased

[X] People are volunteering right&left to help out with the organization, prep work, and day-of stuff (thank you! we love you ALL!)

[X] Karen has been one busy woman; she's taken this:

And turned it into this:

Table markers!

And totally puts my crafty endeavors to shame at the current moment.

HOWever, I am going to a quilt retreat this weekend, and am planning to come back with no less that one and most potentially FOUR finished projects!

And EJ and I sat down tonight over dinner and did some schedule wrangling and division-of-labor stuff to figure out what we can get done this month while he's still away at Faire for the next 3 weekends.

Lucky me, I get to wash 140 cake plates, 110 full-sized plates, and over 200 pieces of flatware in the next 29 days. Anyone want to volunteer to help me with THAT??? Lolz!

Supply Stashing

This is the fairly boring post; the one where I say we have been doing lots and lots of little things (buying thread; buying endless amounts of flatware and dishes; trying to find things that are orange), but nothing major (i.e., no site, no photographer, no clothing). So far it's stacks and stacks of stuff:

and the *potential* for craftiness, but so far no crafts have been produced. I'm planning on taking care of some of that this weekend, I have plans with our Flower Maiden to hang out and at least 'talk' wedding stuff, most likely work on some centerpiece parts as well.

It's a mixture of excitement, nerves, and why-are-piles-of-stuff-in-my-way feelings around here. EJ's off at Faire for the next two months, but we're going thriftscoring out in that area tomorrow; and he's going to take some time off from Faire to help me finalize the site decision (once it stops snowing and existing snow melts). Hopefully buy this time next week I will have some more stuff to show off!