I mentioned briefly in the previous post that The Pond House Cafe, where the reception will be, is located in Elizabeth Park in West Hartford.

Elizabeth Park is beautiful, and has lots of lovely spots where a wedding ceremony could be held. You need to get a ~$200 permit to get married in the park, but as site fees go, that's not so bad. The only downside is that you can't reserve any part of the park--you show up the day of, and hope there aren't other weddings/picnics/frisbee games/what-have-you going on in your location of choice. Personally, I don't think this is so bad. Other weddings withstanding, I think that most people would happily relocate to allow for a wedding ceremony to take place. And if there is inclement weather, we can always have the ceremony in the banquet room at the Pond House (which is actually what happened at the wedding that I went to there). That's really not ideal, though. So...should we take a "go with the flow" approach and plan on getting married in Elizabeth Park, or should we make more concrete ceremony plans somewhere else? We've got plenty of time to mull it over, but what are your thoughts?

Lots of Happiness

So, the past couple of weeks I've been massively stressed about finding a reception site. We had found a place that looked ideal: near water, great location, ceremony on-site, affordable, and pretty according to the website. But snooping around on webshots and picasa, I found some photos of the banquet room where the reception would be (suspiciously omitted from the facility's website)...and I was not impressed. Erika, you saw them. You know. A little to 'contrived rustic' for me, with a large, strange, "Let's Get Physical"-style mirrored wall and a disjointed room layout. Also, the outdoor ceremony area was revealed to be right next to the parking lot.

So, the search continued. Potenial site #2: not available on the date we were looking for. Potenial site #3: minimum guest requirement of probably double the amount of people we'll actually have. Potential sites 4, 5, and 6: lovely, reasonably affordable, and all available on our date; however, all located waaaaay in the NE corner of the state and likely to be not ideal for post-alcohol consumptioin individuals driving home at 11 pm.

Finally, we narrowed it down to two contenders that seemed well-located, affordable, and pretty. It became obvious fairly quickly that we both preferred one to the other, but we didn't want to get our hopes up in case it was booked. Long story a wee bit shorter, it wasn't booked, the other one was, and there is a contract in the mail on it's way to Tempe for The Pond House Cafe in West Hartford. We will likely have the ceremony in Elizabeth Park (see link from site; it's where The Pond House is located) in one of the gardens. I've actually been to a wedding there, so I know that it's pretty and that the food is good and the facility is clean and nice. The contract isn't signed yet, so hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by posting this, but I am really, really excited.

Also, I bought the shoes I posted about a while back, and they are, to repeat what I told Erika earlier, FAB.U.LOUS. They're even a bit more teal than I'd thought (the photo shows them more stright-up blue, at least on my monitor), which was my only caveat about them prior. So, lots of happies in the wedding planning department. Hooray!!!

paper flowers

I'm kind of loving these paper flowers from papersource. I'm not sure in what capacity, though. I've thought about paper flowers in lieu of traditional bouquets; real flowers can be so expensive, and I've never really been a fan of buying or even receiving flowers as a gift b/c frankly, they seem like a bit of a waste of money. However, I'm not sure that a) buying enough paper flowers to make 8 bouquets, 8 boutonnieres, and howwevermany other floral thingamabobbers would be less $$ than inexpensive real-flowers options, and b) I have the patience to make that many paper flowers. Hmmm...

Easily amused

So I know that considering that the wedding is still a little over a year away, registering is probably a wee bit premature. But people, registering is fun. You go the store and they give you the little scanny-gun-thing, and you get to run around going "I love that! BEEP! And that! BEEP!". A good time is had by all. So knowing all that, when I received a card in the mail back in February announcing a "registry party" at Crate and Barrel, I had to drag Dana. They opened the store early just for registering couples, and served coffee and snackies while you walked around and BEEPED to your little hearts' content. Good snackies--like, little panini sandwiches made with Nutella. YUM.

Anywho, once we were done there, we were on a roll. We hit up Macy's, where we registered for these freakin' adorable plates, and Target, too. We are greedy little bastards. Mostly I just wanted to post a picture of the adorableness of these plates, which have little birds on them, and about the wonderfulness of my husband-to-be, who let me register for these plates, which have little birds on them.

Clearly I don't have much new to say in terms of planning...I expect that will change in the coming months. Stay tuned!!

Other pretty blue shoes...

Hmmm...also cute, a shorter heel (my feet will thank me), and more "teal-y". I also like that the green beading on the shoe is similar to the green of the bridesmaids' dresses.

Also, I am mortified that I am paying this much attention to a pair of shoes. This is so unlike me. Gah.

pretty blue shoes!

Inspired by Erika and her robin's-egg-blue suede wedding shoes, I am on the hunt for blue shoes to wear on the big day. I'm leaning more toward a teal/turquoise, and have not seen much that I like in the limited internet browsing that I've done. Until I found these. I love the color, and the shirring (is that the right word?) on the shoe reminds me of the fabric on my dress. They're $70, and I'm not sure if I should snap them up or keep searching...I do still have more than a year, after all. Any thoughts?

the dress

What's a wedding blog without pictures of the wedding dress?? This, of course, is top secret--at least, for the menfolk. Here she is!

I popped in to a local David's Bridal just to see if they had this dress in stock (I'd seen in on a mannequin at a David's in CT around Christmas, but they didn't have it available to try on). An hour and a half later, there's a wedding dress hanging in the closet in my guest bedroom. What can I say?