I'm Truly Blessed!

I went to Nancy's beautiful home on Saturday afternoon so I could attend my bridesmaid Allison's baby shower. It turned out to be my bridal shower! Nancy's whole house was filled with my friends and family members, all there just to spoil me rotten. I felt truly blessed to have that many of the special people in my life all in one room. Check out the gorgeous chocolate cake from Frederick's that was adorned with cherry blossoms. And Shaelyn was proud to show off that not only was she wearing a dress to the shower, but she got her ears pierced too! She seems prepared to take on her junior bridesmaid duties. I don't think I have ever opened so many presents so quickly. I got many beautiful things, including a lovely hand knit that I don't think can actually post a photo of here and still have a "family" blog. I got to wear a cute little bride to be veil with flashing red lights on it. I am skimming very quickly over all the details of the shower. The roads were getting slick, and several people had traveled a long way, so they needed to get back on the road quickly.

And that was just half of the adventure! Michael had slipped a change of clothes and a pair of pajamas out of the house and to Allison on Friday. So I changed into a "going out" outfit, got to adorn a bachelorette sash and a glow in the dark "Last Night Out" button. A limo showed up in the snow storm and (after our driver got the limo out of the snow bank) Alison, Jacinda, Allison, Nancy, Sherry, and I went to Plymouth. We had dinner and drinks at Foster's Boiler Room at the Common Man Inn. And then the limo driver slowly brought us back to Nancy's house for a girls' slumber party. We watched a few old wedding videos and laughed at how much the styles and people had changed.

Basket Class

I went to basket class on Saturday and made this continuous weave basket. It's about 6 inches wide and about 5 inches tall. It still needs to be stained. I believe I will be keeping it for myself and not gifting this basket.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Nancy and Jacinda were both in the same class!

After class, the three of us ended up on an impromptu wedding shopping trip. We had a quick lunch at Taipei & Tokyo in Bedford, and then we were off to Grenon Trading Company. We searched through the vases, plant pots, decorations, ribbons, silk & artificial flowers, candles and more. I found potential vases for the wedding tables, as well as some candles for the table tops, and plenty of satin and gross grain ribbon in matching wedding colors.

Oh my God, it's almost Christmas knitting marathon!!!

Alison had the whole knitting gang over to her new condo on Saturday the 8th for a knitting marathon. (I'm a bit late in getting the photos downloaded from the camera and then uploaded to the blog.) This is knitting Alison, not Allison the bridesmaid, or Alison the non-knitter who just had a birthday.

The idea was to set aside a whole day for us to knit on all of the Christmas gift projects that might not be quite done yet. There's nothing worse than knitting on a deadline.

Our honorary knitting manservant, Fred, attended to keep us adequately hydrated and fed. He was pretty jolly in his Santa hat and apron. He even took out the trash! He's such a great cook and spoils us something rotten... holiday pound cake, baked and stuffed cheese in puff pastry, chex mix, spinach stuffed phyllo dough triangles, homemade liver pate, wine, champagne, and I'm sure he whipped something else up that I am forgetting.

Meanwhile, as if there wasn't already enough food, everyone brought at least one food or drink item to share. And since we are compulsive knitting people, most actually brought more than one food item. So in addition to Fred's feast, we had Jacque's bakery desserts and decorated cookies, stuffed mushrooms, fried ravioli, cream puffs, eclairs, chocolate nut fudge, white chicken chili, red chili, macaroons, veggie platter, fruit platter, soda, apple brandied egg nog, chips and salsa, cheese from Butters, pistachios, peanuts, cashews, Swedish Fish and Christmas candy, and I know I am forgetting something. We ate, and ate, and ate until we started complaining because our stomachs hurt.

I brought each of the girls (and Anthony) a little magnet from Cafepress that proclaimed them all Yarnoholics. Here's Nancy showing off her new magnet. I'm sure Nancy is just pleased I have blogged her photo.

I didn't do any Christmas knitting myself. I am committed to finish Brandi's white cabled wedding afghan. Brandi was married last spring and knows she is getting this afghan, but she'd probably like to have it this winter to use to keep herself and her puppies warm in the evening when they snuggle.

We all brought Alison ornaments. This is her first tree in her own place, and we were afraid she wouldn't have enough ornaments, or even a tree for that matter. But one of Alison's neighbors gave her this cute little tree, so she ended up being all set with ornaments and Christmas cheer.

Jacinda's dress shopping

Nancy, Jacinda and I went to Marry & Tux in Nashua tonight after work. Marry & Tux has later hours on some evenings so working girls can actually make it on a week night to do some shopping. And they also seem to have some larger sized dresses in stock so girls with assets can actually get a good idea of how certain dresses will fit. Kudos to Marry & Tux! Jacinda took several dresses into the dressing room, but once she tried on the second style, she knew that was the one she wanted and didn't bother to try any more on. It's a beautiful dress and it looks beautiful on Jacinda. And it is from the DaVinci bridal collection, which offered more pinks than some other lines. The pink Jacinda is getting is called fuchsia, but it is much more of a real pink color than actual purple toned fuchsia. It will match well with the color scheme I have in mind. I am excited about this gown. Jacinda ordered her dress and it should arrive in February.

We celebrated our shopping success with dinner at CR Sparks in Bedford.

And Nancy is ordering her dress tomorrow from a bridal shop in Laconia.

Wedding Planning

Lots of fun wedding stuff happened today!

On the way home from work tonight, I beat the Halloween Howl crowd to Main Street in Concord and I went to Apollo Travel Services. I spoke with Carmen Martin, a travel consultant, and set Michael and I up with a wedding registry for our honeymoon trip. I remember when Allison and Jay were married, they registered for their honeymoon trip to Barbados and I thought it was a great idea. Michael and I are still thinking we might like to go to Costa Rica, but we still have plenty of time to decide on the exact destination and what resort we'd like to stay at.

I definitely need to start the process for getting my passport. I hear that the passports are not taking near as long as before, but I still need to leave enough time for processing.

Nancy brought me several tuxedo rental pamphlets from the Laconia area today, and Allison told me how she and Jay were happy when they used Mr. Tux in Concord for their wedding rentals. Michael still needs to decide on what attire he would like for himself and the groomsmen, but if rentals are involved, it might be easier to rent them in Laconia since it will be closer to Lake Opechee Inn.

And then for dinner tonight, Michael and I met with Rick and Carolyn Bowie, and Nancy and Dale at The Weathervane in Chichester. It was really nice to meet Rick, as he is going to be our wedding DJ. Both Michael and I are excited since he's got a great personality and seems like he will be able to get people moving on the dance floor. We look forward to our meeting with Rick in February when we will go through lists of music for the wedding.

And then after dinner, Michael and I went to Jared's (The Galleria) to look at wedding bands for Michael. He found a few things he liked, so we took model numbers and will stop in there again to see if he still likes the same styles, as well as check a few other stores.

Nancy's dress

I met with Allison, Nancy and Jacinda at Borders on Saturday to do a little wedding planning. After Borders, Jacinda and Nancy tried on bridesmaid dresses for me at Cassie's on Main Street in Concord. Nancy found a long dress at Cassie's that she liked in the dark brown, but then when we were in Ever After, a shorter cocktail length Alfred Angelo dress took over as Nancy's favorite dress. And she looked so good in it too! So Nancy is going to order that dress in the same espresso brown as Kim's dress. I really think Nancy honestly could wear this dress again sometime. It is Nancy's style.

Top of the Town Take Over

I think that Joe Holiday's Top of the Town in Belmont saw the most action it has had in a long time last evening. Michael and I attended the 35th birthday party for Owen P. Shackdaddy, the alter ego of Glenn. The Top of the Town accepted us openly as we made conga lines, sprawled across the small dance floor changing partners randomly, and whooped it up making a ruckus. I would classify the folks who frequent the Top of the Town as "older" and they do like to get on the dance floor and move to the sounds of the synthesizer player. Many people seemed to actually know how to dance, meaning, I saw the jitterbug and some other formal dance steps. One "regular" who seemed happy to accept our younger crowd was an 86 year old who still had enough energy to take on both Alison and Nancy on the dance floor. The Dancing Hands synthesizer show was one of the few times our group took an intermission. Nancy thinks this is the location that our rehersal dinner should be held at. Interestingly enough, the staff said we should come back again soon rather than asking us to never come back.

The Date Is Set

I met Nancy, one of my bridesmaids, and Jacinda, my Justice of the Peace of Honor, at the Lake Opechee Inn late this afternoon. I am so excited to report that the date for my wedding has been set as Saturday, March 8th, 2008. The ceremony and the reception will take place at the Lake Opechee Inn in Lakeport, NH. It is such a relief to have a date. Now I can pull all of my planning so far together with an actual end date. I believe there are 168 days left to my wedding now, 5 and a half months. 5 months left once I return from Hawaii.

Now I can stop stressing about not having a date set and start worrying about how little time I have left to plan.

And I am so lucky to have friends who network. Nancy was able to arrange for me to have a "life of the party" DJ for my wedding. Everything is shaping up for a stellar wedding so far.