Rod and Jess’ Blog

It’s that time of year again, the time of year that the Harbison Weaver household breaks out the Christmas decorations and goes to Monument Circle for the lighting of the “tree”.  I thought I’d share a few pictures from our day:

Our Christmas decor - before going up! Each year we gain a few boxes - I'm glad we have plenty of storage room in our house.

Here's Mario in his Santa Hat while we were putting up the decorations.

The "tree" or the monument all strung with lights and garlands before being lit up.

Mario and I waiting for the tree to light up. I love his sweater - the colors are perfect for him!

Rod and Caroline before the tree was lit. I'm really lucky to have such a handsome husband and a beautiful dog!

The "tree" all lit up on the circle. In the background you can see the IPL building and their recreation of a tree!

Rod and I with the pups at the Circle of Lights! Isn't this such a great family picture? :D

It was a great day with lots of hot chocolate, turkey sandwiches, sweet potato fries and red wine.  A great way to kick off our holiday season.  How are you starting to celebrate the holiday season?

Last week we had cool temperatures so to celebrate I made a pumpkin pie:

This is it before baking, I love making pumpkin pie - it’s so easy!

We also purchased pumpkins (to glitter like last year) and fake leaves for our fall centerpiece.

I’m so ready for falling leaves and chilly nights - bring it on! 

Today we crossed a few things off of our list, namely the seating chart and place cards.  We’re still finishing the place cards and the escort cards up, but we’ve at least got them printed and ready to go.  I’ve also got things consolidated into a few boxes and am getting it all together for the day of coordinator, April.

Another exciting thing finalized today was that we ordered a small, hand-held camcorder for the honeymoon:

It’s HD and it’s small enough to fit in the pocket of cargo shorts! We’ll be able to use it to capture our trek to Diamond Head; the trip to Pearl Harbor and the beautiful beaches of Oahu!

Only 28 more days to go and we’ve got the following things to go:

• Write thank you letters to parents
• Finish wrapping thank you gifts for groomsmen
• Paint monogram on aisle runner
• Put together large manila envelopes for each table with place cards, matchboxes, table number and seating chart for the Day of Coordinator (these just need the place cards and the seating chart for each table)
• Figure out transportation schedule and who is driving Jeep/Taurus for Wedding party

I’ll also need to pick up a few last minute things like scotch tape (for attaching cards to gifts at the reception) and send out packets of info to the wedding party, immediate families and vendors.  I can’t believe we only have 28 days to go!  I can’t wait to be Rod’s wife. 

hee! 

Yesterday Rod and I worked hard on crossing a few DIY projects off our list.  A quick sampling of these:

Chair tags for our VIP guests (parents and wedding party)

The design of our programs (and all the cardstock cut)

Thank You signs for when we’re with the photographer

Signs for our chairs at the reception

Signs for the bathroom baskets

Tags for the OOT guest boxes

We got a ton crossed off our list, now I just need to start on painting the aisle runner and assembling all the programs.  We’ve also started to get responses back from sending out the invitations.  It’s a very exciting time at the Harbison-Weaver household!

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RSVP Date - August 5

Favors are an interesting thing when it comes to weddings. Some people use favors that are representative of the region they live in using maple syrup or key lime juice.  For Indianapolis you could give out tenderloins? Somehow it doesn’t have the appeal of small bottles of maple syrup. 

Some people do edible favors to ensure that there’s another dessert on the table other than just the wedding cake. Others do favors of tea or coffee because that’s something they are really into. I debated on coffee, but we drink whole bean and most people don’t have grinders so it wouldn’t really work for the majority of our guests. Some couples use items that are close to their hearts for favors and others just go with traditional favors.

We decided to do a little of each for our favors. One thing that we collect after several years of Great American Beer Festival (go on a beer vacation - I promise there’s something for even the Arbor Mist drinker at the festival - you won’t regret it), is cardboard coasters with brewery logos on them. Much like this:

Bells Brewery, a very adventurous brewery and highly recommended.

When attending Alison & Gary’s wedding last summer they had coasters at the bar imprinted with their names and it was like a light bulb went off. Why not incorporate those little cardboard coasters at the bar? It’s something that’s personal and also is representative of our love of beer.

Our version of the coasters for the Bar

Now that we had a favor idea set I began to think about how nice it would be to have something on the tables for our guests who wouldn’t necessarily go up to the bar. I wanted something that wouldn’t clutter up the table and would be very simple. I found matchboxes on the site where I ordered the coasters (For Your Party) and thought they would be the perfect “traditional” favor. Also if we end up with 100 of them left over then we wouldn’t be too upset because we could use them when we grill out!

Matchboxes for each of the adults attending. We’ll do alternating colors on the table.

Now matchboxes aren’t a safe favor for children to have, so we had to take that into account. What could we have on the table to keep them entertained and they could take with them at the end of the evening? I know Rod’s Aunt Pat is a balloon artist so she can twist the night away for the kids, but we wanted something else for our smaller guests. While searching for goodies for our ring bearer and flower girl I came across Coloring Books and Crayon packs.

Coloring books and crayons for the kids (from Oriental Trading Company).

I think favors are something that can be trimmed from the budget if you’re trying to cut costs, but can be a fun extra for your guests to enjoy.

What are some of the favors you have seen at weddings before?

Growing up I used to listen to the Cats soundtrack with my Dee Dee and my Grandma and we’d sing (my grandmother would sing perfectly and Dee Dee & myself would sound like dying cats) along to the record of the show. It’s a magical moment, when Grizabella ascends on the giant tire with Old Deuteronomy — oh hell, you’re not here for a recap of a musical. Let me get to the point, the song reminds me of people in my life who have gone on before us and who are unable to be here physically today.

In much of my wedding planning I’ve come across ways to honor grandparents, parents and others who have passed away. If we had gotten married in the Catholic church I would have insisted on lighting a candle at the statue of Mary for my grandparents, but we’re getting married outdoors. There’s no statues of Mary at the State Museum, and while I have one of my grandmother’s, I don’t think I’d want to lose it that day. If we were doing a simple mass I would say adding it to the petitions or prayers, but since we’re doing a very simple ceremony about our love, I’d rather it be a happy time instead of a sad time. I’d rather people focus on the celebration at hand instead of turning the wedding ceremony into a memorial service.

I think for us we’ll add a simple poem to our programs honoring those in both of our immediate families who have passed on before us; much like this:

We’re also planning on using Dee Dee and Bill’s crystal glasses for our champagne toast. Those glasses were very special to them, plus I don’t have to scour the internet for the perfect pair of toasting flutes. We’re not going to point out that they are Dee Dee’s glasses, just like the wishing well isn’t going to be mentioned as a symbol that day. But for the blog readers and my family who knew them it will be a secret between us.

We’re also planning on setting up a memory table near the guestbook table so that people can pay a silent tribute to the family members have passed on without making it the focal point of the evening. I’m thinking of setting it up similar to this:

Something simple listing each of the grandparents names.

I think it’s better to have a place where someone can quietly reflect rather than make it the focus of the day, what do you think? What ways have you seen the deceased mentioned in a wedding day that doesn’t “bring down the mood”?

In my never ending quest to check things off of my list I’ve begun the tedious task of shopping for the ceremony and reception.  I’ve been mostly purchasing things online as I can find exactly what I want and at great prices.  It’s been exciting trying to figure out things like what type of programs I’ll go with and what I want for candle holders.  At the same time it’s hard because I find things I fall in love with and then the color is discontinued or the price isn’t within the budget.  We’ve purchased aisle runners (200 feet worth), candle holders (216 to be exact) and all kinds of paper goodies.  Once all of the wedding finery started to arrive I was met with an important question - where do I go with all of it?  :D 

We’re down to 239 days until the wedding, but that means I have 239 days to figure out how to store all of this!  I’m glad to be getting things done early but at the same time this is a lot of stuff to store until then.  A few pictures of all the stuff coming in:

216 candle holders in pink, green & clear and white votive candles in their original packaging from Cudge.

Two aisle runners (to be customized later) which were both 50% off!

Paper products for escort cards, place cards, and programs from Paper Source; my “Mrs. Rodney Weaver” hoodie; gifts for the wedding party; coloring books and crayons for our child wedding guests and all kinds of other wedding related goodies!  Phew - there’s a TON here!

My dress and veil have even made it out of the closet and are taking over the door!  haha!

When planning your wedding where do you plan on keeping your supplies until the big day?  What are some tips for keeping things organized and not a huge pile of wedding finery(like our spare bedroom is slowly becoming)?

Last night Rod and I celebrated our first Christmas here at the Harbison-Weaver household.  We had to do it last night because this weekend we’re traveling to Peoria, Monday and Tuesday are in Cincinnati and the day after Christmas we’re looking to just sleep in before I have to go back to work.  A few pictures:

Another picture of our new TV.  This is the final setup of it I think we’re going to stick with.  It’s so nice and fits in that space really well!

I think next year we should get a bigger tree because this one is running out of room under it! There’s all of our presents before we unwrapped our gifts to each other.

Here’s a great shot of the fireplace and the tree from the stairs.  You can see the room that I don’t know what to do with when it comes to decorating!  :)  It’s perfect for Christmas though!

When we opened our stockings Caroline went crazy for her bone and was all wrapped up in her new couch blanket.  It was so cute, she didn’t even pay attention to us unwrapping presents because she was so interested in the new bone!

We used our big built-in buffet to display our Christmas cards we received and also our Holiday beer sampler (which we’re trying to save until New Years Eve).  I think the accent lights really enhance the card display!

We topped off the evening with a great meal of duck sausage, cranberries, shallots and Chimay Grand Cru cheese on hard wheat rolls.  It was so good! 

Our Christmas celebration was really nice and it was a great way to start the long weekend.  Now the driving marathon begins! 

It doesn’t seem real that it’s only two weeks until Christmas Eve. We had a little taste of Christmas last night when our “family” present was in stock at Circuit City. We switched to in-store pickup so we could get our Black Friday special early.

Our new HDTV - an LG 37″! It looks so nice in the living room and it’s such a good fit!

Rod also put up lights on the gutter and we got a wreath for the front door. Too bad the pillars are blocking the wreath!

View from standing in the driveway looking at the corner windows.

I think we look very festive for our first attempt at Christmas lights!

On Thursday night we watched the Bears game, I don’t think Caroline is a Bears fan (She’s probably a Bengals fan like me - haha!).

This week should be fairly relaxed, we have screener tickets to “I Am Legend”; this weekend coming up is our neighborhood Christmas Party and Rod’s work Christmas Party. It should be a good week. I’m also happy to have most of my Christmas shopping done (and wrapped)!