Last weekend was my first “big” bridal event, my shower in Cincinnati, thrown by my Matron of Honor, Mary. Erin and my mom also worked really hard on the shower making it a truly wonderful experience for me.
Mary, Me and Erin before the festivities began
My wonderful mother and I joking around.
The lodge all set up for lunch
The afternoon was kicked off with a wonderful lunch of finger sandwiches, fruit salad, greek pasta salad, macaroni salad and chips. There were pitchers of iced tea, lemonade, limeade and a 100% fruit juice punch.
Me with a glass of the wonderful party punch that Mary put together.
They followed lunch with a few games, including one where they had e-mailed Rod ahead of time to get his answers to sixteen different questions. I ended up getting 12 of sixteen correct! I think Mary was beginning to think we had collaborated on them, but Rod and I just “get” each other! 
After the games we cut the cake. My mom had gotten two cakes, one was a sugar free raspberry cheesecake and the other was a regular key lime cheesecake with icing.
There’s a view of the iced one and you can see a little of the sugar free one.
While everyone was eating their cake it was time for me to open gifts!
The table of all the gifts. Also note the yellow recipe box on the corner of the gift table, each guest brought a family recipe for us and extra cards for Rod & Jess’s kitchen!
Me opening presents. Probably my most unique gift was where someone had framed our invitation so we could display it in our home!
Some of the beautiful flowers decorating the lodge.
It was a wonderful experience for my first bridal shower and I really felt special on that Sunday. Mary, Erin and my mom put a lot of effort into my shower and I feel honored that they would work so hard to make me feel special. It was so nice to have all of the women who are important in my life surround me and shower me with attention. Thank you to everyone who came out, I feel so honored to have you all in my life!
It’s our first and only Valentines Day as an engaged couple (hopefully - haha!). To start the day off right Rod sent me flowers at work today:
Apologies for the blurry camera phone picture, aren’t they gorgeous?
Tonight we’re going to Weber Grill for dinner and exchanging gifts. I’m also hoping to go for a walk with Caroline to enjoy the 45 degree temperatures! I’m also not working on any wedding related projects tonight as I’m all caught up on my theknot.com checklist!
What are you doing to celebrate Valentines Day?
This weekend has flown by! I’m trying to be better at updating the blog, especially with us going live with the rest of the site shortly. Let me know if you’d rather have more wedding content or more content about our life!
Friday was nice and relaxing, we went up to the new market in Fall Creek Place, The Goose, and had some very delicious lamb brats for dinner on crackers with goat cheese and a trio of mustards.
Doesn’t that look delicious? I’m so happy that we have the Goose in our neighborhood as you can find all kinds of amazing meats and cheeses. If you’re ever in Indianapolis and looking for delicious specialty food I’d check it out! We called it an early night on Friday so we could get up early and root for the Boilermakers up in West Lafayette. Tailgating is hard work but a good time. A few pictures of us at Ross Ade stadium show how much fun we had even though Purdue lost to Michigan State.
Us in the Stands
The view from our season tickets
When we got back to Indy we had a dinner party to attend and had a very late night! It was a lot of fun though and left us well prepared for a morning of sleeping in. This morning when we got up we tried making delicious egg, bacon and cheese biscuits with an onion horseradish sauce. They were so good and only after gobbling them down we realized that we forgot to take pictures of our delicious breakfast. After breakfast we headed to the grocery store to pick up food for this week’s menu. We picked up a bunch of beautiful fall colored daisies to add a splash of color to the dining room.
Aren’t the colors great?
Tonight we’ve been working on the website, ordering save the dates and putting together a shutterfly photo book for our engagement pictures. A pretty productive “lazy Sunday” if I do say so myself!
So we have a lot booked/done for the Sept. 2008 wedding! I’m surprised to be this far and still have over a year until we’re married. I read several blogs and message boards and it seems that we’re way ahead of the curve. This is great as we’ll have more time to work on our DIY invitations, save the dates and all other stationary needs.
We have a photographer booked for our engagement pictures and for the day of our wedding: Hostetler Photography.
We’ve got the Indiana State Museum for the ceremony and the reception:
View of Indiana State Museum and Canal at Night
View of the inside of the Indiana State Museum set up for a wedding
View of the Indiana Obelisk in the middle of the O’Bannon Great Hall!
Example of Wedding Setup on the Canal
I would love to take a gondola ride from the reception as our big exit!
We have our florist (Baysore’s Flower Shop in Cincinnati, OH), and generally what the bouquets are going to be. Mine is going to be green roses with white calla lilies and the bridesmaids are going to have mostly greenery with white cluster roses. Rod is going to be matching me and the groomsmen will match the bridesmaids. We’re also looking at two arrangements (one for either side of the steam clock) for the ceremony to be brought inside during the reception and placed on either side of the band.
Our officiant is going to be Rod’s uncle since we’re not getting married in the church. We’re very excited about being able to write our own vows! We’re also excited about having a weekend at his uncle’s home to serve as our pseudo marriage retreat that we can use to focus on the important part of the whole wedding, the ceremony!
We also have the musicians and the Caterer for the event! I think we’re way ahead of schedule and Rod and I are taking some time off from planning to enjoy being in love and taking this time to try to strengthen our relationship.