To-Do upon Dan's arrival.

1. ASAP, but a minimum of 4 days before the civil ceremony: apply for marriage license. Go to City Clerk's office. Bring ID (passport, birth certificate), and cash (I think $25 if we file in Cambridge).
2. ASAP, but no more than two weeks after Dan arrives (wait for him to be entered in the system): Apply for Social Security Number. Bring passport, birth certificate, all visa documents, and application form.
3. ASAP: File for AOS and EAD. Much more on this later.
   

Wedding Planning - Dispatch No. 4

Things to do while in EVV 8/20-8/26:

• Marriage Counseling with Pastor Joe (3 hours)
• Meet with cake decorator Carolyn (about 1 hour)
• taste, decide on flavors and design
  
• Meet with coordinator/florist Doug (about 1 hour)
• confirm colors, talk about specific flowers
  
• Dress fitting in Owensboro (about 3 hours, with driving time)
• Meet with chef Doug to set menu for Rehearsal Dinner (1 hour)
• Meet with chef Scott Schymik and Coordinator Andrea at Kirby's to set reception menu (1 hour)
• Meet with photographer Lvonne (probably upwards of 1 hour)
• she may want to do some photos of us, but mostly she'll want to get to know us and talk about our style

Wedding Planning - Dispatch No. 3

In the grand tradition of To-Do lists, I give you: Wedding Stationery To-Do List.

• Invitations: design and make
• Invitation, Reception Card, Driving Directions, Hotel information card, Registry card, Rehearsal dinner invitation, Reply card, Reply card envelope, Cocktail party invitation (night before)
  
• Place cards & Table numbers/names
• Menu cards
• Ceremony Programs
• Weekend itinerary card, directions and city information for welcome bags
• Schedule for wedding party
• Napkin rings
• Thank you cards - design our own?
• Cards for pastor, parents & attendants
  

Impending arrival

Now just exactly one month til Dan's arrival... I've settled in our apartment and am just waiting for him to get here and help me decorate and buy furniture.

So, countdowns:

• four weeks from Tuesday: Dan gets here late at night
• sixish weeks: Uncle Sam wedding
• fourteenish weeks: my General Exams
• roughly October: Dan receives Advance Parole and 12 month Employment Authorization
• 189 days from now: the Wedding
• 171 days from now: our fourth anniversary

That's enough of that. Suffice it to say, I'm excited.

Oh, and we have a church, reception site & caterer, florist, photographer, cake baker, and venue & caterer for the rehearsal dinner all booked. And I bought a dress!

Wedding Planning - Dispatch No. 2

This is what we're thinking for the reception location. Kirby's. It's elegant, beautiful, has a great chef, and is miraculously reasonably priced. It's a pair of mansions (the one pictured is the one on the left) with a large ballroom built in between. the main reception dinner and dancing will be in the ballroom and the bar will be set up in one of the side rooms in the mansion on the right. There are a lot of lovely little corners where people could escape if they want and the whole place has pretty great ambiance.



This is the ballroom. You see the side walls are exposed brick with windows in - they're actually the external walls of the houses on either side. pretty cool. in the upper right of this photo is the dance floor. You see a big mirror at the top middle of the picture? That's where they usually set up the cake.
This is a big mirror in the side room where our bar would be, showing the main staircase of the house. This is a great spot for photos and will be a good deal quieter than the ballroom during the reception. On the website, you can see menus by clicking on the bottom left picture at the center of the page.

We also stopped at Le Merigot hotel this afternoon to look at their rooms and just see what it looks like. This is the lobby and Blush restaurant and bar ("ultralounge"). It's pretty cool. If people are staying at this hotel, it could be good to go here for the quasi bachelor party.

The next picture is in the bedroom of the presidential suite, looking into the living room. It's crazy. About 2,000 square feet. The master bathroom in this suite has a sauna in it.


The next photo is one of their "three-way" suites. This is the one where Obama stayed a couple weeks ago. This picture is also taken from the bedroom looking into the living room. This suite has one king sized bed (2 people), but they could bring in a couple cots so that the suite would sleep 4. If they did that, it would work out to less than a hundred dollars per person per night. There is also an adjoining standard room (sleeps 4), so that the two rooms could be connected and 8 people could split the $500 price tag. Not too shabby. Anyway, it was crazy beautiful and not badly priced.


For the rehearsal dinner (dinner party with family and wedding party), we're thinking of going to Just Rennie's. It's a beautiful, small private restaurant with a fabulous chef. He'll work with us to come up with an individual menu, but he also has menus on his website (.pdf). Really nice guy and lovely space.

The florist/coordinator we're looking at is Doug at the Olde Salt Box. He used to run a flower shop across the street from my high school. I used to go in and buy myself flowers from him all the time. He's fabulous.

The photographer we're probably going to go with is Lvonne Bennett. Her website is really cheesy and outdated and the sample photos aren't as good as what we saw when we met her. The good thing is she doesn't cost $8,200, unlike one other guy we met with. She's not the cheapest, but she's also not overly expensive and she's really good to work with.

I think those are all the major decisions so far. Let me know if you have any thoughts. I love you.

Wedding Planning - Dispatch No. 1

Two things to report:

I visited two churches today - Trinity Methodist and Central Methodist (my home church). I think it'll be best (money-wise and comfort-wise) to stick with Central, as it's a known quantity. We know the people involved and Rev. Easley is totally scriptable. He said that we can incorporate whatever we want and change the wording of the traditional service if we want. I'll get you a copy of the service as quickly as I can. Anyway, here are pictures of the church:


There will be Christmas decorations up - garland around the altar rail and wreaths up on the balcony. There will also be candleabras on the pews and candles in the windows (lots of candles). Other decoration is negotiable.

The other thing we looked at this morning was The Old Courthouse Wedgwood Ballroom. It is GORGEOUS. Here are pictures.


This venue is probably the most complicated option - we would have to set up rentals for all the dishes and everything as well as contracting a caterer (which is easy... we have a good caterer in mind who is free that day and has worked in this space lots of times). BUT I LOVE it. It's got like... twenty foot ceilings and it's four rooms in total - there's a double foyer area (with a place to hang coats), and a little crescent shaped room in a bay window. there's gorgeous wood and marble work. BEAUTIFUL.

I'll keep you posted on further developments. We're going to have Chinese food and talk about the option of having a Chinese Rehearsal Dinner (Do you like that idea? It's Jimmy's - that good Chinese place - I think you liked it).

This afternoon we're going to meet with Vicker Photography, and to look at Haub's Steakhouse as another option for the rehearsal dinner.

Show Time

Today Dan is finally on his way to his interview in Frankfurt. He has all his documents in order, a little bag with clothes and food, and he took a train this afternoon (early morning my time) to Frankfurt. After a night in a little hotel, he'll report to the Consulate at 9:30 tomorrow morning to have his file looked at and - hopefully - approved on the spot.


I am on my way home to make the first of (probably) a series of wedding planning trips. I have appointments with various officiants, reception sites, caterers, florists, cake bakers, photographers and dress shops. I'm still feeling superstitious, so I'm not making any official decisions or plans until I get the high sign from Dan that all has gone well, but I am getting really excited for all the planning. Updates forthcoming....

Wedding Plans getting off the ground

Now that the Visa seems to be out of our hands for the moment, we've begun talking turkey about the wedding. We spent much of today and yesterday hashing out our basic preferences for format and timing.

Tentative Decisions:

• Pending the approval of a few very important guests, we're looking at a Christmastime wedding (for the ease of our traveling guests who need to book time off, as well as for the bride herself, who can't easily get time off during the fall semester and would be hard pressed to find time to plan in the summer).
• We're looking at having an early ceremony (noontime) and champagne and cake reception directly following, then a very intimate dinner later on.
• As for the ceremony, we want to work within the basic "traditional" structure of the wedding, but to really personalize the readings and music to reflect our interests and beliefs.
• We want to try to incorporate some Irish elements (maybe some traditional Irish vows or readings - I already have an Irish hanky to carry down the aisle with me) into the ceremony.
• We're looking for a reading in German, to be read by a German, in addition to another literary passage in English.
• Trying to start thinking about music to incorporate: I've got very definite ideas of the kind of music I'd like to involve - Bach for processing, maybe some Beethoven (Pathetique) or Chopin (a Nocture), and, for Dan (and because I like it), "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence."

Developments

Well, we're getting closer to choosing a date (Christmas-ish?), and we're in the last stages of the k-1 process. Left to do:

• Emily: finally complete and send I-134, documentary evidence, etc. (by Monday)
• Dan: fill out and send DS-230 I, DS-156, DS-156k, DS-157
• fill out and return Document Checklist - Request Interview
• receive appointment and go to interview, go to medical exam
• quit job, visit mother, come to Amurka already

I'm getting excited to start planning the wedding, but I'm even more excited to just have my Sparky with me in our happy new little home.

More waiting

Today is day 57 since we got our NOA 1 (notice of receipt by the USCIS). There was (according to visajourney.com) a big burst of approvals about a month after our filing time and out of 21 people with similar profiles to us (filing at Vermont, UK citizens, filing around the same time as us), 15 have been approved. Only one has an interview date.

Nothing has changed in about two weeks, as far as I can tell. This is very disappointing, since it looked like everything was going so quickly, and I'm really REALLY hoping that we'll hear something soon. Meanwhile I'm beginning to be nervous about the other parts of the process, but I guess that's a pointless worry until we hear something either way from the Vermont Service Center.

Our fantastic visit last week, though, did help. I just hope that we have an approval before we have to schedule another visit! I'd rather save up that money and use it for better things, like an apartment or wedding or honeymoon.

On the wedding front: we're discussing possible venues and talking about whether to have the big event in Evansville or Boston. Cost and familiarity would suggest Evansville would be the best choice, but Boston is where we've had a shared life. But vital members of my family may not be able to travel to Boston... so many things to think about.