449 Days to Go!

Since Nate is taking the helm with the food and lifestyle side of this blog, I thought perhaps I should throw up an entry regarding the progress of our actual wedding plans.

The number of options that are out there for weddings border on brain-meltingly overwhelming. There are magazines, websites, and TV shows, not to mention advice from friends, relatives, coworkers...or complete strangers. Everyone has an opinion on what should be done and how. My problem, of course, is that I HATE being told that "have" to do anything. Telling me I "have" to do something is a little like waving a red cape in front of a bull; I'll do just about anything to prove that I can do what I want! Luckily, your wedding is the one time in your life that it's socially acceptable to be (a little bit) self-involved. I've found that often times when I bring up that I want one thing and Nate wants another, people say "Oh, just tell him that you're the bride and what you say goes!" I tend to laugh and assume they just don't know Nate very well ;)

Anyway, even though we're still more than a year out, we're starting to try and really nail down some decisions and get started on arranging and organizing.

1. Venue: The venue has been chosen, all that's left to do on that front is sign the contract and send the check. The Doubletree Hotel in Burlington VT is going to be the place. They have a lovely ballroom, a very nice courtyard with a wisteria-covered arbor for the ceremony, and the event coordinator there is really on the ball. The price is reasonable (or at least as reasonable as we're going to get, I think) and there are a lot of perks that sweeten the deal, like an included bridal suite for the night of our wedding and decoration set-up by the event staff. Plus, as I just discovered, there's an indoor pool, meaning I can swim the morning of (and maybe the night of!) my wedding. WHEE! We'd originally considered having the wedding in the Isles, where most of Nate's family is, but that turned out to be not only insanely expensive, but it would also be a real difficulty for those who don't already live up there, whereas having things in Burlington will be a lot more convenient for those coming in from out of town. There's a shuttle to and from the Burlington airport, which will be handy, and guests can stay right on the premises so no one has to worry about drinking and then driving.

2. Colors: The colors have been set -- after some minor wrangling during which I discovered that Nate is not a fan of coral OR teal -- and we've decided to go with cobalt and lime. It's nice because while it's fairly classy, they're also bright, which is important to me. We're thinking bridesmaids (and bridesman) in cobalt and the groomsmen in lime ties/vests. It's also been suggested that cobalt and green striped ties, or cobalt vests and lime ties would be a possibility.

3. Cake: we're strongly considering doing cake pops instead of a full-scale traditional cake. One of the bakeries I've been looking at in Burlington (which we're hoping to go visit while we're on vacation in VT in June with my parents) does cake pops in a variety of flavors, and then will also sell you a small "cutting cake" so you can still have the cake experience without all the hassle of actual cake. I think that decision is going to save us some money, and also make it more likely that guests will EAT the cake. (So often at weddings, by the time the cake arrives, the guests are already--hopefully!--out on the dance floor, and the cake goes uneaten. Cake pops are portable and less messy, so they're more likely to get eaten. Or are easier to drag away to the bridal suite to gorge on after the night is over?!) As I said, we're hoping to do some tastings in June, so I'll update you on how that went when the time comes.

4. Centerpieces: Neither of us are big on flowers, and since that's another area that tends to cost a lot of money, we've decided we'd prefer to do without flower arrangements for the tables. Instead, we're planning on using the candle holders already provided, and surrounding them with picture frames of varying sizes, painted in our colors, with photos of the two of us, as well as one holding  a copy of the poem that the table is named for (each table, instead of a number, will have a poem). We're also considering putting a potted herb on each table, since our favors are going to be herb infused oils. It will be a nice way to combine food (favors) and literature (poems), which is representative of the two of us. Mum has also suggested using individual herb seedlings at each seat, perhaps wrapped with appropriately colored floral wrap and a nice bow. Not sure how I feel about that idea, but we'll keep it in mind.

5. Bouquets: As I said, we're not big flower people, so I'm not sure if we'll have flowers for this, either. I've been investigating other options, like feathers, fake flowers, and other unorthodox materials. Haven't found anything that truly catches my eye yet, but I still have time.

6. The Dress: I have been looking on line a little, but I refuse to really worry about this until at least August. My mum is coming up for a visit in the fall, and she and I (along with my friend Katie and Dr. Boss) will go shopping then. I am very interested in the work of Roz la Kelin, but I refuse to get all deranged about a dress yet. There is still a lot of time, and since this is the area of the process that I am least looking forward to, I figure I will wait as long as possible before I start worrying about it.

7. Invitations: Invitations were another area that Nate and I could not make ourselves care all that much about. We've decided to send out physical save-the-dates (since I won a gift certificate and we could get them free) and then use an online service for the invitations themselves. Considering that this will be a destination wedding for about half of the guests, there is a lot of information that will need to go into the invitations, which would make them costly. We can spend roughly 1/5 of the money using Glosite, and include a lot more information. Plus, the online RSVPs can be tracked automatically, which is a big plus. I figure we'll probably have to send out about 5 paper invites (for the older relatives) but for the most part this should save us a bunch.

Anyway, enough babbling. When asked what my "theme" is, I usually say (after noting that I'm not sure a wedding NEEDS a "theme" beyond "Hey this is a wedding and we are getting married") that we are aiming for "Really Kickass Party". That seems doable, right?

Right?

489 Days Until the Big Day

So week one has gone pretty well, CJ and I had a few good meals.  There will be more pictures but right now my phone is in the shop.  I went disc golfing in the rain and moisture got into the phone and long story short $110 to fix.  I actually got pretty lucky it was such a inexpensive fix.

One night we had a stir fry which is very easy.  Garlic, ginger, some chicken, any spare vegetables you have lying around.  We had some leeks mushrooms and some sort of greens.  Basically brown the meat, set aside brown the vegetables add the garlic and ginger.  Then add some 1/4 cup oyster sauce, and 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 cups chicken stock and add back the meat or tofu, add greens and cook until they are done.  2 tablespoons of cornstarch with cold water and then mix that into the stir fry and you are all set, you can add more or less cornstarch depending on how thick you like your sauce.  I really like this style of recipe mostly because you can mix and match pretty much any ingredients that you want.

Cj bought me a new travel mug that is going to be perfect for drinking my morning juice in.  I am going to start bringing vegetable juice in the morning and drinking that instead of breakfast.  I am also very excited at work a new Asian restaurant is going in and I assume they are going to have some sort of vegetable based lunch.

Also I am finally over my cold and tomorrow we start going to the gym again.  The alarm is going to be set for 5 am and I am going to go to the gym first thing in the morning before I can come up with excuses on why I can't go to the gym.  I am going to try to go all 5 days this week.  Hopefully I get my phone this week it has really been harder than I would care to admit!

495 Days Until The Big Day

CJ and I wanted to start this blog to document our journey to losing weight and saving money for the big day. We have a lot of both that need to happen until then. We also wanted to work on ways to have fun together that are not super expensive. One of the things that we are working on is making sure that we are not wasting money, in the past we have wasted money in many different ways that we will not go into here but let us say mistakes were made. One thing I would like to point out the point of this is not to sacrifice having fun, this is not meant to be something to endure but rather creating good habits and making life style changes so that we can save money, for the wedding and then house/retirement. We also want to make sure we stay healthy so that after have a very very long retirement.

 Cj is not going to like this blog but I am going to post it here Mr Money Mustache this guy retired at 30! He did this through having a very good job and keeping his savings to a maximum. He was a software engineer and his wife was also employed and they spent as a household with a child $24,000 a year! They said the goal for him was $600,000 in investments and a home full paid for. He figured he could manage about 4% a year in investment yield and with the fully paid for house he shouldn't have to much to worry about. It is a very interesting take on how there are other options than saving up millions of dollars and retiring at 60.

 This will probably end up being a cooking blog because that is really what I like to do. For example today we made Split Pea and ham soup. It is a great recipe from America's Test Kitchen that uses bacon and ham steak.

So you basically cook an onion or two if they are small.

Add the following:
 two cloves of garlic
two carrots
a stalk of celery

Cook 5 more minutes and then add:

a chunk of ham steak (about a pound)
2 sprigs of thyme two bay leaves
1 lb bag of split peas
3 pieces of bacon (raw)
7 cups of water
bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes, pull out the ham steak and set aside, simmer the rest for 30 more minutes.

Pull out:
thyme
bay laves
the bacon

Blend up the soup or use a favorite of mine and hand blend the soup to make it more creamy and add the ham back in and you are done. It is a super simple recipe, the thing I like about this is it uses water instead of stock. After you blend this though you have an incredible hearty soup. CJ and I are going to start bringing out lunch to work and this is one of the recipes that I think is perfect to bring especially while it is so cold outside!