Marry me, Stephanie!

I realized today that I hadn't shared the proposal story yet. Well, for those curious, here is a detailed account of the proposal told in the 3rd person, as it will appear on our wedding website (which has not yet been revealed!):


It was just a regular Thursday night at the end of a long September. Stephanie was returning home from a spiritual women's group meeting, and John was relaxing in his apartment, playing video games, waiting for her return. After the meeting, Stephanie's roommate (Ann) encouraged her to go spend time at John's apartment. She considered just going back to her apartment with Ann, but Ann gently nudged Stephanie towards John's front door.

Upon entering, Stephanie found John playing video games at his computer - nothing out of the ordinary. However, when he noticed she had arrived, he jumped up from his chair very quickly and quit the video games instantly - really out of the ordinary. He asked Stephanie if she wanted to go out for dessert. You see, it was technically John's night off, since he didn't have to work the next day, so he wanted to go out and have some fun. Unfortunately, Stephanie declined, explaining that she still had lesson plans to write and needed to be up very early the next morning for school. So she began working.

Not even a minute later, John excitedly exclaimed that he had been working on a surprise for Stephanie while she was away at her meeting. He went into the other room and came back with a wrapped present that had the shape of a large photo album. Stephanie asked, "Is this a photo album?" and John answered, "How'd you know? Just open it..." So she opened the present and found exactly what she had expected: a photo album. The cover of the album read "Our Adventures," much like the album from the movie "Up."



As they turned through the pages together, Stephanie found pictures from their whole relationship. John had printed out his favorite photographs of the two of them and labeled them each with cute, little captions. Thoughts began to cross Stephanie's mind: "Is he proposing tonight? No, he can't possibly be proposing. I know he doesn't have a ring. Stop thinking he's going to propose! There's no way." But, MUCH to her surprise, as she turned to the last page, she found a picture of John, down on one knee with the ring in hand, and another picture of the words, "Will You Marry Me, Stephi?" in John's handwriting. He was proposing!

Stephanie didn't know what to do with herself. She couldn't believe John had actually tricked her! He ran into the other room, grabbed the box with the ring, came back and dropped to one knee, asking her to marry him. She said "Of course!" and put he put the beautiful ring on her dainty, little finger. She also could not stop saying, "You tricked me! You tricked me! You're a tricker! I can't believe you tricked me!"

After the initial excitement of it all, they spent the rest of the night smiling with one another, sharing a glass of sangria, and enjoying some celebratory cake bought by Stephanie's roommate Ann. The lesson plans could wait another day...

Fun with (scanner) guns

Things are progressing.

The reception hall has been booked and we've already set up a sample appetizer/dinner/cake tasting for our visit home to RI for Thanksgiving. Delicious food is definitely something to be thankful for :)

Save the dates will hopefully go out in December and John's parents are thinking of throwing us an engagement party the week before Christmas in John's hometown (Johnson City, TN) for family/friends who won't be able to make it to the wedding. Both of these require that we have our registries set up, so that's what we've been working on all weekend.

We decided on 3 places to register, as each offers some fun things to choose from for us and our guests: Macy*s, Crate&Barrel, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. 

I don't think we were expecting to be getting it all done so soon, but seeing as the engagement party was just brought up, we felt the need to start a gift list. You could say the registry experience has been a whirl-wind these past two days. It's been super fun, but also intense at times. I mean... we're picking out the furnishings/do-dads of our future abode! And it can be really overwhelming, especially when you're at three different shops with all these different options and haven't really sat to ponder, "what color scheme would be good for the master bedroom?" yet. I don't think we realized what kind of undertaking it really was until we got to the stores and began to pick things out. 

Well, two days and about 10 hours of pseudo-shopping later, we've put together some pretty solid registries. What's great is we can still go into the registries online and add, delete, or update anything we want, so nothing is extremely permanent. Also, even if something we decide we don't really like a few months from now ends up being purchased, we can always return it for store credit. These thoughts make the process a little less daunting (as the permanence of it is gone)! 

Also, the scanner guns make it less stressful and even more enjoyable. We are masters of the barcode. Check it out...

Note John's flip-flops with his dress clothes. Registry shopping requires comfortable attire. 

Stun guns aside, we've discovered another fun thing about registries. Heading back from Crate&Barrel this afternoon, both John and I agreed that we felt as though we had just gone on a major shopping spree, yet felt even better about it because we hadn't spent any money. Seriously, what a great way to fill a desire to shop-til-you-drop-and-empty-your-wallet without actually emptying your wallet. Sign up for a wedding or baby registry at your favorite  shop (we won't judge), go scan your favorite items 'til your heart's content, then leave without spending a dime. Although you won't have any bags in hand on your way out the store, you'll still feel like you've shopped out all your energies and you won't feel any remorse about cleaning out your bank account. Ahhh, the joys of registries.  

Reception Hall: 92.4% Definite

The location of our reception has been the big question mark as of late. As I mentioned before, my darling mother (with my dashing father) has been going on meetings and talking with wedding-reception coordinators since the engagement like it's her job. John and I are so grateful to the both of them doing this for us. We wouldn't be 92.4% sure about the reception venue if it weren't for them. So, before I announce exactly where the wedding partay will probably be taking place, let me explain a bit (... quite a bit) of the process that has been going on.


Since the start, John and I said we wanted our reception venue to be something unique. I won't lie, I was somewhat inspired by a coworker who is having his wedding reception on the top floor of a beautiful library in Chicago, IL. So, the interwebz searching began. I also got some ideas from some family members (my bro Matt and cuz Sarah). Pretty quickly my heart (and some of John's too) became set on this:

Cheesy? ... yes. Hilarious? ... duh. Extraordinarily epic? ... well, obviously! The Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, CT hosts weddings on weekends right inside the actual aquarium. So while our guests were dining on their foods and sipping their cocktailz, they'd be able to go up to fish tanks and interact with the sea creatures. 


Needless to say, we were instantly sold. I mean... this is screaming unique. Can you think of a wedding that you've attended that is more out of the blue than this? (pun intended)


But, then we hit a wall. My momma was not happy. My dad wasn't thrilled either. And in addition, my Memere just thought it was weird. They made some good points, too. It would be far from the church and not to mention, just the food at the reception alone would have eaten up our entire wedding budget. (pun intended again)

Another pic of the Mystic Aquarium

So, we put the aquarium on the back burner and started looking into some other venues. Next up, I fell for the beautiful, elegant, classic Federal Reserve in Providence, RI. It used to be a bank and was converted into a reception hall many years ago. The inside is gorgeous. The bank teller counter has been replaced by a drinky drink bar, the ceilings are high and ornate, there's a balcony inside that overlooks the whole reception hall, the floors are marble, and the place just screamed unique. To be honest, I started the whole reception search thinking we'd have the reception in one of the mansions in RI, but that was quickly squashed by the big dollar $igns associated with each. Therefore, I think what really drew me to this place was it's resemblance of the inside of the mansions we couldn't afford. Check out these pictures:

The pictures are definitely a little outdated, but they give you an idea of the inside of the hall. So, I tell my mom that I'm interested and she sets up a meeting with the owners. It turns out that it's actually under new ownership. It's called the Dorrance now and it doesn't officially open for business until December. One of the new owners worked for this place for 10 years organizing wedding receptions while it was still the Federal Reserve. The other woman was her brand new partner... meaning they hadn't run a single function together. My parents ended up getting a really bad vibe from them (i.e. when asked about pricing for the food, they were given a random price quote and were told that a nice guy down the street is the caterer... strange much?). Unfortunately, my (second) dream hall was no longer a reality.

Two other ideas that came up were two barns in different parts of the state, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI (pictured on the right), but neither idea went very far (they both required furniture rental and caterer hiring). We emailed a few Country Clubs in RI, but each of them was booked (I mean, our wedding is only 8.5 months away now). There was also the Ocean Cliff in Newport, RI. My parents actually met with the wedding coordinator there and quickly realized that it was going to be WAY out of our price range. The landscape there is beautiful (right on the ocean with the Newport Bridge in the background) and the food sounded delicious, but to have an afternoon reception there (which is cheaper than an evening reception), it was going to cost thousands of dollar$ over our budget... and that didn't even include the alcohol! Lame.

Ocean Cliff en la noche

Now you're probably wondering... how did you go from alllll of these ideas to being 92.4% sure about a reception hall? Well, in pops the Radisson Hotel. My mom had suggested the Radisson as a reception site pretty early in the search. I put it in the back of my mind and spent most of my efforts coming up with the list of duds you just painstakingly read about. Well, once it looked like all those places were out of the picture (and I got a random email from the coordinator at the Radisson checking in on us), we decided to further investigate. We quickly discovered that we would be getting a LOT of bang for our buck$ if we decided to have the reception there. Check out everything they offer in their wedding reception package:

• Cocktail hour before the reception
• Four course meal for each guest (made by chefs at Johnson & Wales University... the same folks who catered my parents' wedding)
• Wedding cake
• Linens/tablecloths/etc.
• Ice sculpture (yes, you read that correctly)
• Champagne/wine toast
• Mirrors and votive candles to highlight our centerpieces 
• Discounted hotel rooms/suites for our guests
• Use of the hall from 5:30pm - 12 midnight
• Shuttle to and from airport for our guests
• Room for Bride & Groom at the end of the night

AND we would be under-budget by thousands of dollars. The frugal part of me just cries out with joy when I think of how awesome this deal is. AND to top it all off, having the reception at a hotel makes it suuuper convenient for our out-of-town guests (of which we'll have many... since John and I are just sooo friendly). 

Basically, John and I just can't say no. We talked about it and decided that (after all that research on reception venues) the reception hall isn't the most important part of our big day after all... it's about having all our awesome family and friends in the same place, and showing them a great time. We decided that (especially with all those extras included) the Radisson would help us affordably do just that!

And the only reason that it's 92.4% definite (as opposed to 110%) is that my mom hasn't called to book it yet. We're expecting this teeny, little detail will be taken care of tomorrow :)

The Ballrom at the Radisson

Radisson Courtyard

So, it is unique? ... not really. Is it fancy and mansion-like? ... nah. Is it going to stick out in the memories of our guests as the most amazing reception hall they've ever been to? ...nope. But, will it still be epic? ... you betcha! You can't have a Schwedding without epic-ness of some sort!

Oh, and all the money we'll be saving will help us pay for the grand honeymoon we've recently started talking about. If anyone has suggestions for a beautiful island getaway (we're talking crystal-clear waters, white sand, perfect temperatures, and fun adventures), we're all ears.