138 To Do's

Like I said, there are still plenty of things to do for the wedding! I have a checklist on my account at http://www.theknot.com/ and today it's telling me I have 138 items to complete on my to-do list, and 138 days until our wedding. I guess I better start by completing 1 task each day from now until the wedding :)

On another note, tonight I didn't get any wedding tasks done because Franchesco and I went to Benihana for my birthday-week dinner! Did you know that Benihana gives you $30 off your meal during the month of your birthday? (You just have to sign up for their email list). Totally worth it! $30 will get you a very big, very free meal :) I even got free ice cream, and I have enough food leftover for another meal tomorrow!

September

It's amazing to me that we are nearing the end of September, and how fast this engagement period goes. There are less than 5 months until our wedding, and I really want to soak in the joy of this chapter of my life. Planning my wedding is something I have dreamed about for years, and the only thing sad about it is how fast it flies by. I don't want to take anything for granted, and I want to have as much fun as possible during these last few months of wedding planning :) Luckily for me, there is still plenty left to do!

September 3rd, 2011 was a big day for us -- and the lovely Brianna Millett (http://briannacolleen.com/) helped us to capture all the special moments :) Here is a sneak peak of some of our engagment photos, and there will be more to come in a couple weeks!

I also had the pleasure of going dress shopping with 3 of my beautiful bridesmaids - Alicia, Allie and Rachel - last weekend. So far, all the girls like the same dress so we may choose to go with just 1 style rather than the girls wearing different styles in the same color. We've chosen the below style in the color shown - "Lapis." We liked the shorter dress styles better than the longer ones. I hope the girls aren't too cold in February!



I also thought I'd throw in a picture of this pair of shoes that I love, also in Lapis. I'm thinking I might wear these with my wedding gown :)

It's been really fun working at David's Bridal over the past month. I'm getting lots of great ideas for my own wedding and it's really fun to help other brides find a wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses! Speaking of working, I also got a new full-time job (just found out on Monday) working for the J.M. Smucker Company as a Category Development Analyst. Once again, I'll be working with the buyers at Target doing sales analysis for Smucker's product categories (peanut butter & jelly, baking mixes, oils, coffee, etc.) I start on October 3rd and I'm very excited!! I also plan to continue helping out at David's Bridal on a part-time basis after I start my full-time job.

In addition to the new job, Franchesco and I are also planning to move to a new apartment next week! It will be a little bigger than the apartment we're in right now, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and it's just a little bit outside of downtown Minneapolis. It's going to be an exciting fall and of course winter as well with the wedding and everything. We're very excited about all the positive changes in our lives! Thanks for being part of it :)

August

I realized today that it's been quite a while since I've updated our blog! Things have been crazy since we got back to Minneapolis...but in a good way! Franchesco started working at Fogo de Chao, the Brazilian restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, and I'm working part-time at David's Bridal while also searching and interviewing for full-time positions. We bought our very first car last week...it's a 2008 Toyota Camry in dark slate (the exact color I wanted!)

Things are going well and we are very happy to be back. Feeling a bit unorganized though because most of my stuff is still in boxes because we have to move into our new apartment unit next week. Busy busy!

Saturday will be a big day too, we're having engagement photos taken :)

First Dance

I LOVE this song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Gg8HH1UzM&feature=related

Engagement Photos

P.S. - The photographer we chose to do our engagement photos is Brianna Colleen Photography. She is awesome! I met her at my church's spring retreat, and I'm so excited for her to do our photos!

Check out some of her photos on her website:
http://briannacolleen.com/

Wedding To-Do List

Well, we've been back in Minneapolis for a little over a week now and we're starting to get more settled. Within the first couple of days we rented a truck to get all of my stuff out of storage, so it feels great to have everything back in the apartment. Last weekend our friend Elis invited us over for an awesome Brazilian dinner at her house, and she graciously lent us her car so that we can use that to drive around to get groceries and look at some cars to buy, etc. Thank you so much Elis!!!

We've had the opportunity to catch up with a couple of good friends (Michelle and Robert to name a couple!) and I'm looking forward to seeing a few more friends this weekend. Franchesco and I have both had a couple of interviews in the last week, and now we're just waiting to hear back...hopefully today! Wish us luck in finding new jobs quickly :)

In other news, I'm also proud to say that I've made some headway with our wedding to-do list! I got our guest list straightened out and got the remaining addresses that I needed, and we even got all of our Save-the-Dates addressed and in the mail this week! I also reserved some blocks of hotel rooms in Lancaster for any wedding guests that are coming from out of town, and scheduled to have engagement pictures taken on September 3rd. Last, but not least, we started working on our wedding registry at Macy's on Wednesday.

Completed Save-the-Date Cards!

Here's a few other things on the list for the next month or two:

• Hire a videographer -- I've been looking at Christopher Lee Films, an awesome videographer in Central PA. He filmed Mickey Shuler's wedding this past summer, which I thought was neat to watch (Mickey went to my high school and played football for Penn State and the Minnesota Vikings). Check out some of Christopher Lee's highlight reels at: http://www.christopherleefilms.com/Wedding_Reels.html
• Plan our wedding ceremony
• Start planning our honeymoon
• Continue to fill out wedding registry -- We are planning to register at Macy's, Target and maybe Crate & Barrel
• Research/purchase wedding insurance -- This is important since we are planning a winter wedding and there's no way to know what the weather will do!
• Begin planning rehearsal dinner -- As of now I'm thinking this will take place in Lancaster, but to avoid people having to drive all the way to Lancaster 2 days in a row, I might look for some alternative locations closer to home.
• Finalize invitation wording -- We definitely want to do a bi-lingual invitation in English and Portuguese! I've found a design that I like (matches our Save-the-Dates) that will allow us to do multiple pages, one in English and one in Portuguese. Franchesco's sister helped us yesterday to do some translating for the wedding invitation :)

That's most of the big stuff we're working on for now! I hope that you've enjoyed our updates :) I can't wait until our engagement pictures are done so we can share them with all of you on the blog!

Back in the USA!

We are back in the USA and Franchesco and I couldn't be happier! We spent a few days in Pennsylvania before flying back to Minneapolis. Thanks to everyone who came out for our engagement party last Friday! We had a great time and I'm so glad that Franchesco finally got to meet everyone!

Now that we're back home in Minneapolis, we've only got 6 months to go until the wedding! I'll keep everyone posted as the wedding plans continue :)