Holy canoli

I have a lot to tell you about!

Two weekends ago, Robby and I drove down and over to Grafton for a big Bergstrom-Barry family extravaganza. My parents, my brother and my two nephews also made the trip. We spent Saturday afternoon and evening hanging out with parents, siblings, Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I was a little nervous, but nothing too bad. His family was so welcoming and fun; it was a great afternoon! It meant so much to me to see all those family members around for our visit. It also meant a lot for my own family to be there as well! Robby had the wonderful idea for the get-together so our family could meet before our big day. It was a great idea - one of his many. I'm really glad we did it. Big big thank yous to all the travel, cleaning and cooking that went into the visit! I wish I had some pictures so share, but I managed to leave my camera in my purse the entire time.

In other wedding news, I found the bridesmaid dresses (yay, I found a great green!), I found my wedding shoes (many brains will implode at the sight) and today was our tasting at D'Amico! I knew it was going to be good and I knew it was going to be a lot of food but HOLY CRAP I had no idea a human could eat that much food in 2 hours. I was honestly in PAIN. (See what we go through for you people? Just to make sure your food tastes good? I hope you appreciate it) It was a great experience and I am just now coming out of my food coma - almost 3 hours later. It's really important for us to have good food at our wedding, and there is no doubt of that happening!

Take that, checklist!

A couple weeks ago, I confessed to Robby that I wasn't sleeping well and I felt really anxious. As much as I tried to fight it, I couldn't get the big wedding decisions off of my mind. I was worried, even though the logical part of my brain knew full well there was plenty of time. But you know how your brain can sometimes be all "YEAH WHATEVER, LOGIC. I'M NOT TRYIN' TO HEAR THAT."

Thankfully that anxious feeling has really died down. Because right now?
Church? Check.
Reception? Check.
Caterer? Check. (still anxiously waiting for the tasting!)
Florist? Check.
One of 2 hotels? Check.
And of course we've got things like our peeps, our pastor(s?), the guys have picked out the tuxes, my dress was ordered months ago.

And then today, we secured our photographer, Tirisha Dirks, and our DJ, Instant Request. That means we pretty much have all of our big decisions MADE. IT FEELS SO GOOD.

We have an appointment next week about invitations and I am now off to send an email to my girls about yet another dress. Yay!

OK- Now it's really happening!

We have been busy this weekend. Looking at invites, setting appointments, talking to DJ's, talking honeymoons, rehersal dinner planning and most importantly, we got rid of a bunch of Janna's stuff. We definitely have a stuff issue, as in, we both have a lot of it. We've lived on our own for a long time and you accumulaate a lot of crap. Right now, we'd need a 15 room mansion for all our stuff. We went through Janna's storage room and tossed bags and boxes and tons of other b words. We still have a looooong way to go, but it felt good to get a move on that. I'm planning on hitting my place pretty hard this week and making ready to toss a lot too. It really feels great to start doing things we've beenn planning for a while.

Speaking of which, I was perusing our registries and somebody bought us stuff! I still can't quite wrap my head around that idea, but now that's real too. This is so cool! When we get done with this ride ca we go again?

The worm has turned...

If you are reading this and you haven't sent Janna and I your address yet, well just you watch out!

In casual conversation with a pal of mine, I hinted that they wouldn't be coming to our Gala...if they didn't tell me where the #&^% they lived. Suddenly a bunch of my peoples are sending me their information. That's right. Wherever I go, people quake with fear and swear fealty to do my bidding, but you know, in a good way.

So come on, who's next?

Work work work - and it's actually fun.

Our trifecta is complete. For the most part.

Robby and I had a weekend full of wedding planning. We went to Target and spent a couple hours filling up our registry there. You should NOT be surprised to see many many DVDs on our list. We ran into a similar situation at Target as we did at Pottery Barn: lots of things are seasonal and therefore won't be around by the time we get married, so we'll end up going back closer to our wedding date.

We also walked around St. Paul looking at different hotels that are close to the caves. We want to set up a block of rooms at places we've seen. We have narrowed down our choices, so that is close to being finished. All I know is that I REALLY want to stay at the St. Paul Hotel! That place is incredible.

On Sunday we had our first appointment with a potential photographer. It went really well! I'm going to leave out names until we have made a decision, but the person we met with on Sunday has really set the bar high! We have two more appointments set up and I am working on a third. It felt great to get some more work done on our day.

Things that I'm slowly learning...

Not all businesses have your interests in the front of their mind. Oh, they SAY they do...

The bottom line is that this is the most important day of my life and if someone's going to be a part of it, even if that part is a business transaction, they need to be just slightly above incompetent at what they do, and they need to get it. The jeweller that I picked. He got it. The caterer that we picked. She got it. This may come a a shock, but large, multinational, corporate hotels reallly couldn't give a flying squirrel about your wedding day.

Capitalism marches on.

On that day...

Nathaniel Briggs patents a washing machine - 1797


Constantinople is officially renamed - 1930


France & Britain declare war on Russia, starting the Crimean war - 1854


Largest nationwide protest against youth labor held in France - 2006


Mr. August Busch is born - 1899


Mr. Frederick Pabst is born - 1836


Virginia Woolf drowns herself - 1941


Three Mile Island: America's worst commercial nuclear accident occurs in Pennsylvania - 1979


Paris is sacked by raiding Vikings - 845


Jesse Owens is posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold War - 1990


Vince Vaughn, Reba McEntire and Julia Stiles are born - 1970, 1955, 1981


Something to look forward to... on March 28, 2009: Janna and Rob get married! Save the date!!

Attn: Groom

(ahem)

Those hotels aren't going to call themselves!!!

Is there a do-over button?

As you may have surmised from Robby's last post, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond for our second round of registering. We drove over to the Eagan location, which was not the best choice in the long run, since it is apparently one of their smallest. The people working there were really nice and helpful, but unfortunately the selection was really lacking.

And no, we're not being sarcastic! We were both really surprised to find only 6 choices of tablecloths, 8 choices of placemats, 15 choices of bed sheets. After searching through their website, I also learned that it is nearly impossible to find dishes that are NOT offered in 16 piece sets. We really don't need any more coffee mugs, just get us some dang plates! I was also struck with the feeling that everything we were seeing at BB&B could be found at any other store--there wasn't anything unique.

This afternoon we went over to Pottery Barn on Grand Avenue. After a few minutes of frustration, we found a lot of items at PB and we'll be eliminating our BB&B registry. You can find a link to our registries here on the blog. Our last stop will be at Target, which we're pretty sure is going to be one long list!

My goal is 10 pages. I'm sure we can do it. YES WE CAN.

This week: we have an appointment with a florist, we're going to call some hotels in St. Paul and Roseville, finalizing things with D'Amico and some more work on finding a photographer.

I never thought I'd say this...

Dear Bed Bath & Beyond...

We need you to have more stuff.

So we're back...

We took off for a long Labor Day weekend with some friends and headed down Atlanta way for a nerdy-type convention, wherin many things were learned, not the least of which is that Janna and I travel well together, we can function on virtually no sleep and that a Waffle House visit remains on our list of things to do.

It's back to business. With our caterer all but selected it's time to work on the axis of evil / the Triad of Doom / the Big 3 (insert clever nom de plume here)...basically we need to pick out a florist, a DJ and a photographer. I'm not dreading these by any means, but our big decisions have been full of good luck so far, since they sort of came easy. We knew what church we wanted, what reception hall and the hall happily limited our options to 5 parts sucky and 1 part awesome. Now, I'm sort of feeling..."What? We have to make decisions? But it's our wedding?" I expect options written on gold edged cards delivered to me on a silver platter...preferably with a large tankard of ale or wine riding shotgun. I will then choose from said options by deciding which one is the neatest looking (Like none of us has EVER picked out a bottle of wine or a book like that).

Every time I think we've got the Wedding Hound on a tight leash, he (she) pulls the leash out of my hand, chases the neighbor kids up a tree and digs up a few bones. Bridesmaid dresses, hotel, invitations, photos, photo booth, flowers, music, DJ... There were people who warned me that at some point, I'd want to throw my hands and our carefully written notes placed in a carefully organized wedding folder up in the air and scream "ELOPE? WHY NOT?" ...well I don't, so bite me. I think I speak for the both of us when I say that picking all this stuff is fun because it's for, you know, our WEDDIN!!!! It's more of having no idea where to start and finding the time. We are both quite capable of putting our shoulders to the wheel and it's not like we're raising a barn or anything. However, if anyone wants to just, you know, make some decisions for us so that we can just lay back Cleopatra style and drink frozen drinks with paper umbrellas, that'd be great...

Do the words grilled vegetable tower mean anything to you?

Last night Robby and I had a meeting with Brenda from D'Amico catering. It was fantastic! Robby had spoken with her on the phone and through a couple emails and already knew that he liked her and he was right. It was so obvious that she knows what she is doing, she has considered things that would never cross my mind, and that they do a fantastic job. Plus, I found out she's from Milaca! No wonder I liked her. (Possibly because that information also won me a 20 minute back rub, but that's beside the point.)

The three of us sat down and talked about food, presentation, linens, glassware, more food, dessert, CUPCAKES and a lot of other stuff. Robby has both the benefit and the curse of having worked in restaurants/catering. He has good questions about how quickly the food is served but he also needs to be reigned in when he's close to asking which food vendors they use. Brenda sent us home with a mock-up price quote that she had created for us. When Robby checked his email later on in the evening, there was an updated quote from Brenda in his inbox, sent about thirty minutes after we'd left our meeting with her. Amazing service!

I have to admit I am already really looking forward to the tasting - I guess you don't do tastings with them until a contract is signed. But D'Amico is definitely first on my list, both because Brenda would be so great to work with but also because I just love their food.

It's my wedding, I'll wear Keds if I want to.

This will come as a huge surprise to all you when I tell you this: most wedding blogs/websites cater to people having quote-unquote traditional weddings.

It will also be surprising when I tell you this: Our wedding will not fit into that box.

I KNOW! Take a moment to digest this information. I am becoming more and more grateful for the advice that wavers from that well beaten path. On my Google Reader, I have 3 or 4 wedding websites that I read and a couple of them are proving to be wonderful sources of inspiration and support that we can do what we want-it's our wedding. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to read over and over again that you need to lose weight, grow out your hair, consider getting extensions, dye shoes for the bridesmaids, dance with your father to Butterfly Kisses, have a ring bearer, as well as not count on your groom to do anything except show up. In no way am I saying that any of these things are bad ideas--I've been to plenty of weddings with any/all of these decisions made and they've obviously been lovely. But I don't like being told that these are necessary. DON'T PUT THEM ON MY CHECKLIST, K.

One source for great ideas is this book: Anti-Bride Etiquette Guide. This book covers everything from engagement to receiving gifts. It describes 'the golden rules' of many aspects of the engagement and wedding as well as reasons for these traditions. Then it offers unique ways to break these rules, as well as suggestions for how to get out of sticky situations. Right now my absolute favorite source is Offbeat Bride. My friend Kerry introduced the site to me and I am in LOVE with it. The brides featured here really run the spectrum of women and have some of most creative weddings I've ever seen, including but not limited to a Peep centerpiece, a puppet wedding party, 29 year old male flower girl, and a ceremony on a pirate ship. I mean c'mon! How awesome is that?

The Wedding Party - short intros

Rob: Robby moved to the Twin Cities almost two years ago in pursuit of a magical quest and has slowly been fulfilling his plans for world dominion. To achieve that goal, Robby left the hospitality industry after 15 years of tireless service in order to pursue a path that would allow him to actually SEE the people he loves. He currently works as An Enrollment Specialist at Rasmussen College and happily spends his work day helping people go to college.

Robby can often be found in the company of his faithful companion of over 9 years, Winston, an 11 year old Black Lab who has made a significant contribution to the success of the relationship.

Now that he is able to have something resembling a normal life, Robby adores spending time with the friends that he missed too many years with and grills, reads, researches and writes. He has heard that there will be some kind of big ceremony that will require his participation in the near future.

Janna: Janna is living in Roseville, as she has for the last almost 9 years. Right now she works at Seward CSP, which is part of Mental Health Resources; the CSP is a drop-in center for adults with serious mental illnesses. She loves knowing that she's moving closer and closer to actually using that Master's Degree!

Janna spends her free time divided between seeing her friends, playing with her nephews, seeing the rest of her family, making Robby's friends her own friends, reading, watching movies, blogging, conquering nations and befriending woodland creatures. Oh, and sometimes planning a wedding.

Janna's Attendants:
Katie Isaza - Matron of Honor: Katie and I have been friends since pre-school, which is somewhat surprising since we didn't go to school together after kindergarten. We were able to keep in touch through church youth group and I couldn't ask for a better best friend. Katie is the stable to my crazy, the planner to by spontaneous, the loud laugh to my loud laugh. Right now Katie lives in Chicago with her husband Julio and son Samuel. Maybe someday we'll get to live in the same state again!

Rachel Verdoorn - Bridesmaid: I met Rachel during our first summer working at Covenant Pines in 1998 and luckily we were able to work together in 1999 as well because that's when we really got to be friends! Rachel and I lived together (with 2 other friends) the following year while she was planning her wedding to this goofball named Mike. Rachel has always been a great support to me: laughing at my strange jokes, listening to me complain or cry, sharing in my joys and excitements. It might sound kinda cheesy, but she's been a great example of how to be a wife but not forget about your friends; she does it simply by being herself.

Mary Kate Fretheim - Bridesmaid: I also met MK at Covenant Pines in 1998 and was able to work with her for two summers; then she moved in with me too! But we remained roommates up until... I forget, was it 2 years ago? Anyone who has ever spent more than 10 seconds with MK knows what a completely special, wonderful, caring, fun, and happy person she is. It's impossible to be with her and not get caught up in the excitement and enthusiasm that she shows towards everything that she does and everyone that she meets. I consider myself very lucky to be her friend.

Rebecca Mason - Bridesmaid: I met Becca at Rachel's wedding--they're sisters! I was able to convince Becca that she needed to move up to Minnesota and take her sister's place at the townhouse for a year. We've stayed friends through the distance and have been mistaken for sisters more times than I can count. I am sure this is because we look similar (at least when our hair colors match) but I like to think it's also because I truly think of (and treat her) like a little sister.

Rob's Attendants:
Nicholas Galezewski , Best Man -- Robby's best friend in college and the Best Man at Nick's wedding where he delivered a Shakespeare-worthy toast. Nick & his wife Lucia asked Robby to be the Godfather to their son, Jack.

Eric Traband , Groomsman -- Eric brings years and years of professional Groomsman experience to the wedding party. Rob & Eric have shared more apartments than anyone except Winston. This, sadly, marks the end of a long and happy roomateship

Todd Weinkauf , Groomsman -- Rob has known Todd's family for most of his life and it was in High School and many nights at his parent's barn that they realized they were the only people in the world that found each other's jokes funny. Despite never agreeing on anything and a tendency to bring out each other's competitive nature, Todd & Rob have remained friends, mostly because they are still the only one's that find each other amusing.

Chris Hesselbein , Groomsman -- It is worth noting that Rob and Janna laugh pretty easily. Often times at nothing. When that seems to happen, it's usually because they're remembering that one time Chris did something funny. Chris brings his unique talents for being awesome everywhere he goes and the bride and groom hope that their friend will help liven up what is sure to be a stoic and stagnant reception.

Officiant: Dave Bergstrom, Janna's big brother.
Janna and Rob had no question when it came to who would be officiating their wedding. Dave has been supportive and excited about his sister's boyfriend through out their relationship and has had no problem becoming friends with Rob. Which isn't surprising considering they are the same age, have the same sense of humor, many of the same interests and hobbies and both have an insane ability to remember TV and movie quotes.

The proposal

We had tentative plans with Janna's cousin Sarah and her boyfriend John. Robby had prepped them to be conveniently busy when Janna called to finalize plans that evening. Robby then spun a tale of being invited to a preview night for a restaurant and for Janna to be home at a certain time. It was only after he met with her parents that evening to ask for their blessing that he called Janna and said , "I kind of need you to drop what you're doing and meet me at the rocket."

(At Central Park in Roseville, there is a piece of old playground equipment which is part climbing apparatus, part slide and is shaped like a rocket. Our 2nd date was at this park and has become a special place for us in the past year.)

Janna met Robby at the park, where they climbed the rocket. After some coy smiles and bashful foot shuffling, Janna may have mentioned that her heart was beating really fast. Robby got down on one knee and asked Janna to spend the rest of her life with him making him feel that way. She responded perfectly with a bit of flailing and an "Of course."

You know, once she was able to find her voice and talk through the sudden onslaught of tears in her eyes.