Hotel for Guests

We reserved rooms at the Joliet Wingate Inn for the wedding guests. Hopefully everyone will reserve their rooms by July 10 in time!!! It's a really nice place though.

Rehearsal Dinner

Matt's parents have decided on Louie's Chophouse for the rehearsal dinner. It's going to be a lovely time, and they have really yummy food and a nice setup there. Yay!

Tee shirts and stuff

So I came up with the bright idea to design tee shirts / etc. for all of the women in the bridal party.










All this stuff is on sale at http://www.cafepress.com/mmwedding

without the 08.11.07 part, too. :)

Of course, it became too expensive to actually buy for everyone (I only got tote bags for Mom and MOH, buttons for the little girls, and a baby tee for myself to wear on the plane to honeymoon!) -- but it was still fun.

NOVA SOUL

Oh. My. Gosh. We got NOVA SOUL for our reception band! I am SOOOOO excited -- they are SOOOOOOOO good! It's a 7 piece band -- lead female vocals + keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, sax, and trumpet. We got them for the cocktail hour and then 3 hours of dancing post-dinner. They are officially going to rock the party! WHOO!

The Dress

WARNING! DRESS SPOILER!
































If you would have told me that I'd someday buy my wedding dress on ebay for $220, I would have laughed at you! But that is what I did.

I got it from the butterflybridal store.

It is new, gorgeous, and only needs to be taken in.

Don't tell the groom about this!

(Click on the image for a larger view.)

Date and Place!

We've set our wedding date for August 11, 2007 in Joilet, Illinois! Wahoo!

We'll get married at my home church, Messiah Lutheran, at 3:30pm, and the reception will be at 176 West Banquet Hall, from 6-11pm. The church was easy... but finding that elusive well-priced but nice banquet hall was a challenge! Thankfully, I think it will be really nice, the food there is great, and it's nice and big, too. We'll have a buffet set up and plenty of good stuff going on. :)

The Ring and The Story

My engagement ring... isn't it gorgeous???

On July 21, 2006, Matt told me that we were going out on a "real date," at "this place my friend recommended," so get dressed up and be ready around 5:30. So I did, and he picked me up that evening. When we got to his car, he handed me a beautiful bouquet of daisies, one of my favorite flowers (hint 1). I got in the car, and noticed it was unusually clean and nice smelling (hint 2). Off we drove, and we arrived at a restaurant we hadn't been to for awhile: Pizzaz, the cute Italian place where we had our first date, back in August 2003 (hint 3)! I thought, oh my gosh, this might be it!, but we made it through an entire meal without any proposals.

When the waitress came up to offer dessert, I tried to order some cannoli to help curb my disappointment and/or apprehensiveness (I wasn't quite sure which one I felt). But then Matt said, "Let's go someplace else for dessert, okay?" I reluctantly agreed, so we left. We got to the car, and Matt said, "So... where you wanna go?" I couldn't believe my ears. Here, I had hoped he might propose over dinner, and then he didn't even have a place picked out for dessert! I responded, "I don't know. Where do you want to go?" while actually thinking, "Arrrrgh!... There was perfectly good cannoli in there!!!" So Matt said, "Wait, I think I know a place. I'll surprise you" (hint 4). So we got back into the car, and Matt started driving. He drove, and drove some more, and eventually he had gone so far east that we were out of Cleveland. Then he got on the interstate, headed towards Pennsylvania! At this point, I couldn't stand it anymore, and asked, "So... WHERE are we going!?"

Matt responded by pulling out a blindfold and telling me to put it on (BIG hint 5)! At this point, I could NOT stop grinning, during the nice 20-minute ride. If this wasn't it, I didn't know what was! So we arrived at our final destination, and Matt said I could remove the blindfold. It turned out we weren't in Pennsylvania - we were at a beautiful beach on Lake Erie, where Matt had packed a dessert picnic of Godiva chocolate, strawberries, and Asti Spumante! Wow! We were both practically too excited to eat but managed to have some of the dessert. As the sun was setting over the lake, Matt proclaimed his love and asked me to marry him - and I (obviously) said yes!