Wedding Train: Stop #1

Come on ride the train
It's the choo choo ride it woo woo
Come on ride the train it's the choo choo wedding train

Gemma and Rusty

May 29, 2010

Monponsett Inn
Halifax, MA

Jake and I are wedding veterans (well, more so me than him). We have attended three prior weddings together. And I've been attending weddings since 2003. My memory escapes me now, but I think I went to 4 or 5 in 2004 alone. Yea, we do things differently out West.

Anyways, I digress. The take away here is that this was our first wedding as an engaged couple. You see weddings in different light when you are planning your own. You notice the personalized touches. And when you go to a slew of weddings with the same circle of friends, you make mental notes on what's been done just so that you don't copy them. Or maybe it's just me and I'm crazy.

Let's move on to some pictures, shall we? Oh before I forget, Jake was one of Rusty's groomsmen!

(All photos taken by moi)

While this wedding was in MA, it was an hour drive from where we live. Between rehearsal, wedding, and the after party, we booked a two night stay at the "hotel" that the rest of the clan was staying at. You'll notice that I wrote hotel in quotations. I'll be blunt, it was a skeevy roach motel. As it turns out, they lost our reservation. The only rooms left were smoking rooms, which were down in the section that they rent out for Section-8 housing! 

Jake armed with the yellow pages and me with my trusty Garmin GPS, we started calling up hotels in the vicinity. I honestly didn't think that we'd be able to find any vacancies since it was Friday night of Memorial day weekend, near the Cape. Jake struck out. I chose a high end hotel from the list the GPS spit out. I figure if it's expensive, maybe they'll have a room. I struck gold! The Radisson 3 exits up put us up for the night and the next. The women behind the counter must be an angel. After hearing about our story, she gave us the house rate for both nights!  

The Radisson was located in the cute town of Plymouth (yes, Plymouth rock). There were cute shops everywhere and local ice cream stands on every corner! We were able to explore the area some and enrich our minds with history before ending our adventure.

(Personal photos)

P.S. Plymouth rock is a pretty small rock.

All aboard! Next stops: Rochester, NY and Folsom, CA. 

Updates - June 2010

Hey Y'all! A lot has been going on around here. We've been attending weddings (3 between the two of us in a single week). We've been chipping away at our wedding planning, slowly. We've been helping others with planning their wedding. I've been asked to be a bridesmaid. Of course there was Father's Day. Soon, we'll be flying out for our annual trip to Oregon, attending more weddings, celebrating our third anniversary, closing in on a full year of engaged life, and who knows what kind of adventures we'll find along the way. We'll get around to posting our adventures over the next few weeks, hopefully we can catch up.

Coming up:

Wedding Train: Stop #1, #2, and #3

The White Dress (FYI: there will be no pictures in any dress postings made prior to the wedding)

Tales from a Crafty Bridesmaid

Random wedding findings

A while back, I ran to Costco to pick up contact solution. If you've ever been in a Costco (or BJ's), then you are familiar with the "I must take a quick look around" mentality. I didn't expect to find anything. Actually, I was hoping not to find anything. A find leads to money spent. Well, mission FAIL because I found this:

Double sided gift wrap set in our wedding colors AND in our rehearsal dinner colors! Oh yeah, our rehearsal dinner has a theme of it's own. Stay tuned to find out how we'll incorporate this find.

Milestone: Font

We have officially purchased our wedding font: Kon Tiki Enchanted! Done and done.

Previously:
I ♥ Font

May I have this dance?

I came across this video not long after we got engaged. The couple, obviously pros in the swing [dancing] circuit, is dancing the Lindy Hop. EPIC first dance if you ask me.

Oh how this makes me miss dancing. After taking my first ballroom class in college at the urging of a friend, I was hooked. I took every class possible (and some twice). When I was away from school during my internships, I would take group lessons at local dance studios. Somewhere along the lines, I got it in my head that I wanted to dance competitively in Dance Sport. It took seven years of dancing and thousands of dollars spent on workshops, group and private lessons to learn that I have a nasty case of stage fright. I still love dancing, just not when the spot lot on me. Hmmm, this is going to make our first dance interesting.

Many years ago, I thought that I would dance something fierce at my wedding. Unfortunately for me (fortunately for Jake), we won't be doing the Lindy for our first dance. BUT. Yes, there's a but. We won't disappoint. Jake came out of his "cave" (aka office) one day, took my hand, and proceeded to show me a few steps of my favorite dance he had learned from online videos. Can you say "aaaaawwwwwwwwww"?

Random Fact: I took a Lindy Hop workshop from Frankie Manning himself!