Update: 8 Months & 6 Days (249 Days!)

We sent out our save the dates! Neal brought them to the post office yesterday.

What we've done in the last few months:

• Catering Hall = Booked (Leonard's of Great Neck)
  
• Florist = Booked (Flowers by Brian)
• Photography and Videography = Booked (Lawrence Photography)
• Rabbi (Clergy) = Booked (Rabbi Stephen Karol)
• Dress (Bridal) = Purchased (Bridal World)
• Engagement Photography = Done (Hayley Rothman)
  
• Save the Dates = Sent!
  

The only things that we still need are a DJ, rings, honeymoon, and some small details like invitations and ordering bridesmaid dresses (which have already been picked out).

Keep checking back for more info!

Update: 296 Days!

Colors
We've decided on a purple, orange, and white scheme. I've been playing around with the idea of adding some bold pink and greens, but we'll see. Here are some samples:



Bridal Party
All of the girls are set for the bridal party: Amanda (my sister), Danielle (childhood best friend), Jillian (best friend from NFTY), Jackie (college roommate), and Angela (college roommate). Neal pretty much knows who he is going to ask but has not asked anyone yet. The boys are lucky, they have way less to do so they can be asked later on.

Bridesmaid Dresses
All my bridesmaids are meeting up this weekend to look at dresses! Some of them have already tried on at David's Bridal, but we didn't find anything we really loved. The girls are all such different shapes that it might be hard to pick something everyone loves. I'm playing around with the idea of different dresses that are the same designer, material, and color.

Wedding Gown
My dress... well there are two dresses that I really like right now. I still haven't fell madly in love with a dress but I do feel somewhat pressured to pick one. We are only about ten months from the wedding, and I need to have one picked about 8 or 9 months out. I really love the trumpet and mermaid style dresses but I can't find any that have the perfect amount of sparkle to them. When I ask people their opinions I get very mixed reactions - mostly because the dress style is so unique. I'm just not sure that I want a typical a-line dress.

Photography and Videography
Booked! We are having Lawrence Photography. We've seen wedding photography done by our photographer at our venue and loved it. So happy to have both of these set.

Flowers
Booked! Flowers by Brian is a company who also has a lot of experience with our venue. They are going to bring and decorate a huppah because I hated the one at Leonard's (our venue).

DJ
Neal is working on finding us a DJ. The biggest problem is that there are too many! It's so much to go through each of the popular DJs. We are starting with the list that our venue gave us.

Save the Dates
Almost done! They'll be going out this week, as soon as we get some more stamps. Last week Neal and I put the magnets into the envelopes. Yesterday I printed all of the address labels. Today I put all of the address labels on them and return address labels, and all of the stamps we had. We have about 40 more to stamp and then we'll send them all out!

Rabbi
We met with Rabbi Karol towards the end of June. It was a great first meeting, and we have our next one in October. He'll be doing our ceremony. Check out the ceremony section of our website for more information about our wedding ceremony.

Summer 2010
This summer was pretty crazy with wedding planning and work. I was so busy with camp and classes, and Neal with his job, baseball, and softball. One major highlight of the summer was our trip out to Illinois where I was able to meet most of Neal's family. It was great to put faces to names and I can't wait to see everyone again at our wedding in July. Now the academic year has begun and Neal is back to class at Queens College for his teaching certificate, and I'm taking a grad course through NYIT towards my Masters. And we're super busy with planning our wedding!

Colors!

I'm pretty sure we've picked colors! We really like the purple with orange and white. I made this first inspiration board, and found the ones below:

Any opinions?

In other wedding news, we are meeting with the photographer and florist next weekend.

We're also going to figure out "Save the Date" notices sometime soon. Maybe magnets with our pictures so you can have our pretty faces on your fridge :-).

Peace, Love, and Family

The apartment is finally set up! My posessions are moved in and I am officially living there. Neal's furniture is there and he will be moving in this weekend. Our parents were nice enough to start us off with some beatiful, comfortable furniture. Neal's parents bought us an amazing pillow top mattress and my parent's bought us a couch. These are very similar to ours:


This weekend we had our first dinner party. Neal's parents, my parents, and my grandparents all came over for appetizers, dinner, and drinks. It was so nice to be able to host for everyone (and wow, it's a lot of work!). I put together a bunch of appetizers including my specialty- spinach dip in a bread bowl. There was acutally room for all of us in the apartment, I'm so glad we all fit. Can't wait to have more parties!

Engagement party plans are moving along. We sent out invitations to family and are waiting for some RSVPs to decide what time we will invite our friends. RSVPs are due on Friday so we'll see. My parents booked a tent and Neal and I will be ordering the food soon.

So the apartment is set up and we are getting situated, we even have Franklin Square library cards now. My grandparents and Aunt Marcy gave us our engagement gifts early to start us off, so now we can actually cook with our new pots, pans, and toaster oven! One of our last purchases for the apartment is this beautiful mezuzzah. It's perfect for us and I can't wait to hang it:

More updates soon!

Summer Lovin'

BIG news: Neal got a transfer down to Long Island! He starts at his new branch, about two minutes from our apartment in Franklin Square, on June 15th.

It's almost summer, and we're ready for a hectic couple of months. Neal and I will both be busy adjusting to work and taking classes. We'll also be moving and planning an engagement party.

This weekend we started the move. We moved a bunch of my stuff into the apartment, and we got a brand new 42" 1080p HD LCD flat screen tv! Our parents gave us some awesome gifts - Neal's parents bought us a queen sized pillow top mattress, and my parents are going to buy us our dual recliner microfiber couch. So exciting!!

On Saturday, I started sending out engagement announcements/party invitations. The first batch went out to family. It took me about nine drafts to finally get the perfect invitations but I designed them myself on photoshop. I'd post an image here but there's too much personal info on it. For our party, we decided to have "two sittings" so that we can fit everyone in our backyard. Basically, we are going to have our family and older. My parents are renting a 20ftx30ft tent for the party with 60 chairs, 6 tables, and it also comes with lights so we can party all night or as long as we can last.

Now I must take a couple minutes to relax before bed, I'm still beat from packing, unpacking, and organizing so much of my stuff. Nightynight!

Apartmento

We found an apartment! It is untraditional for us to live together before marriage, but this commute is really tough! We're going to be moving into a great one bedroom apartment in Franklin Square sometime during June. Neal's working on a transfer down to Long Island, and he starts Queens College the last week in June, when I start camp.

Below is a scaled blueprint (1 box = 1 ft.) of our apartment that Neal and I made last night on Paint (click on the picture to see the full image, the bedroom appears cut off below!):

We also made our first craigslist.com purchase! We traveled to Fresh Meadows, about 20 minutes away, in Queens, and a nice young family sold us a great table for our apartment:



In wedding news, today we took a few engagement photos and are getting ready to send out Engagement Party invitations. Look for those soon, coming to a mailbox near you!

We Like to Party!

The summer is sneaking up on us and we are so excited to celebrate. We have started planning our engagement party for this July. I'm working on the invitation to our party instead of doing school work - messing around on Paint Shop Pro is much more fun. We are trying to be creative about these things.

We have narrowed our venue search down a bit. We've looked at a bunch of catering halls and have even narrowed those down to a few that we like. We have a favorite right now, we'll see what happens as it gets closer. We still have so much time that it seems almost unreasonable to book right now. We are not tied to a specific date so we are in no rush to book.

I have also started looking at dresses online, mostly at David's Bridal. I'm partial to them because of their reasonable prices. They also have a great petite selection and a fabulous website where brides post under the dress they chose, and most of them also add pictures. It helps to see real people in the dresses rather than just stick thin, tall models.

In other news, Neal and I are both starting grad school in the latter part of this year. Neal will be starting CUNY Queens as a part of their education program, studying to be a Math teacher, and I'll be working on my MAT in Instructional Technology at NYIT.

Between our jobs, school, and wedding plans, we have our work cut out for us over the next two years- what an exciting time for us! Expect your engagement invites soon!

Preliminary Searches.. Summer 2011, here we come!

In order to choose a venue, we need a number. So this past weekend we made lists and did the math, and our numbers are ridiculously high. Our number one priority is to have all of the important people in our families/lives there. Now all we need to do is find the perfect venue.

As I see it, there are a few (but really many) options.

1. Combo: Hotel/Banquet Hall
2. Combo: Temple/Banquet Hall
3. Catering Hall
4. Dinner Cruise

Combo: Hotel/Banquet Hall:
We really like this idea because it's almost like an all weekend hotel party! I'd much rather see my family and friends for an entire weekend than a five hour event. It would be beneficial to have everyone in one place for the weekend. They even have fabulous deals that include all of the entertainment, floral arrangements, etc. I called some wiser family members who mentioned the unnecessary cost of hotel rooms for out-of-towner-s who have relatives to stay with in the area. I'm not sure how many of my family members would go for that. It's still under consideration because I'm pretty much in love with the hypothetic idea.

Combo: Temple/Banquet Hall:
This option still stands. Temple Tikvah, formally known as Temple Emanuel, does have the catering facilities and can be a pretty venue, but it's somewhat dark, and possibly a little squished considering our massive guest list- not really ideal for the light summer wedding we want. The Temple/Banquet Hall idea is one that needs more research and exploration.

Catering Hall:
The typical wedding option. A catering hall might be the best bet because it is typical. It will be easier to book DJs that they normally work with, florists who know their set up, etc. They also all have specialists that assist with the planning. They are used to cooking for large amounts of people, and tend to have a nicer menu. And many catering halls are a decent distance from motel/hotel/inns.

Dinner Cruise:
This could be an elegant and memorable choice. We really like the idea because it has so much potential, and it is the most unique option. It would also probably be the most expensive and shortest party. Just another idea.


Till next time...

Our Engagement Weekend!

This was an awesome weekend!! It started with a very fancy dinner at Mighty Joe Youngs, and a really romantic proposal. Neal got down on one knee and everything. It was amazing!

Pictures:

Isn't it beautiful?! :-)