Harp Music for the Wedding

I'm trying to kill the last half hour at work so I found the songs that our harpist is going to be playing so you can hear it...on the harp. Enjoy!


Seating of the Grandmother and Mothers
Wind Beneath My Wings:
http://www.victoriaschultz.com/audio_pages/wind_beneath.htm

Bridal Party Processional
Hymne by Vangelis
http://www.janaldridgeclark.com/wedding.htm

Shannon & Dad
Processional by Linda Wood:
http://www.harpmelodies.com/audio_samples.htm and click track 17

Sand Ceremony
Only Time by Enya:
http://www.alyshowe.com/html/wedding.html

Recessional
Allegro Maestoso from The Water Music Suite by Georg Fredric Handel:
http://www.victoriaschultz.com/audio_pages/water_music_handel.htm

Sand Ceremony

During the ceremony, JM and I are going to use the sand instead of the unity candle. Mainly, because I like the idea of it better. I'm not losing my past, I'm just merging my life with his. (Plus, the colored sands are pretty!) Then, the more I thought about it, I realized that the ceremony is outside. What if there's a breeze or it's windy??? Then the unity candle will blow out and that CANNOT be a good omen for the marriage. I don't usually pay too much attention to signs...but that one would be obvious!

Anyways, I'm trying to decide which 'sand ceremony' kit to get. Here are my options:

On this one, I liked the nesting unity sand vases (because you could use the vases later on), and the 'new oceans away'.
http://www.makingmemoriesandmore.net/sandceremony

This one I don't really like the vases, but they have a wider variety of sand.
http://www.moonglowcandles.net/wedding_sand.htm

This was kind of neat because we could each have our inital on our vase.
http://www.daisy-days.com/decanter-unity-sand-ceremony-set.html

Let me know if you have any grand ideas!

Tuxes, dresses,and cakes, oh my!

Well, we're another step closer to being prepared for the wedding. We emailed all the guys today and let them know the tuxes we picked out. We got them through A Step Above Bridal, which is where my dress is from. The guys will all wear black notch lapel tuxes and french vanilla shirts. The dads will have black ties and vests while JM will have an ivory vest and white and ivory striped tie. The groomsmen will have chocolate brown vests and chocolate brown and black striped ties.

This is the tux and JM's ensemble...Then this is the swatch for the groomsmen's...My dress came in last week so Mom, Lynds and I went over on Saturday morning and I put on the whole she-bang. It's still wonderful! And I still need to name the dress!!! For those of you who don't know, the first one who buys one of Antonio Fermin's designs gets to name it! This is a MUCH harder task then I had imagined. So much stress!!! I would love to name it 'The Shannon', or after seeing myself on Saturday, 'Princess Shannon'. But, my mom used Grandma Haines's inheritance money to pay for it, so I feel I should pay tribute to her somehow. 'Elaine's Love' (Connie's idea) or something of the sort. Anyone have any suggestions?!? Maybe I'll make it a contest...whoever comes up with the name I use wins something. Hmmm...I don't really have any prizes!

We also decided on a cake. Ritz Charles will be bringing the cake as well as the food. They won out pretty much solely on price. I was amazed at how good of a deal they gave us. Anyways, it will be the 'Ritz Buttercream' frosting, yellow cake and chocolate truffle filling. This is what it will look like (minus the flowery thing). The main color will be more of a lime green and then the borders will still be chocolate brown.We still have to decide on a cake topper. No clue what to do about that. We may just go with a big 'L'. How creative!

Our engagement photo session is in a couple of weeks and will be done by our photographer, Erin Hession. We had been planning on having it downtown on the canal (with Kodi, of course), but a friend of mine did hers at the Oliver Winery and the pictures turned out amazing!!! I emailed Erin today to see if that was an option. Also, it's my last name, and we're going to a winery for the honeymoon, so how fitting!

I think I need to hit the hay now. I'm not working tomorrow except for a class at 3, but I'm hoping to check out a couple of places and find out about bridesmaids dresses. Less than 10 weeks now...need to get my butt in gear!

I'll blog later about the honeymoon, rings, and hopefully other things that have been accomplished!

A visit to the wedding site

Last Friday, JM, Mom, Dad and I went over to the Monon Center to meet with the coordinator and take a look at the grounds. Everything was a blur when we went there originally and decided to have our wedding there, so I wanted to take another look and get an idea of what we need to order and decorate. Turns out they have made some major purchases that I am THRILLED about! They bought white wooden folding chairs for the outdoor reception (which we don't have to rent!). They also are buying a shuttle so the bridal party doesn't have to walk all the way over to the ceremony site...it's not that far, but it will be when I'm dragging a train behind me! Now they're thinking of buying...ok, I can't think of the word for it, but it's that rectangle thing that the bride, groom and officiant stand underneath. Kind of like this...

Although there won't be an ocean behind us :-) (BTW, this is Courtney, one of my bridesmaids, and her husband, Ben's, wedding in Naples last November).

I'm very happy with all that the Monon Center is doing. They actually haven't had any weddings there yet and they're bringing in a wedding coordinator from the Ritz Charles so they have all of these ideas. Yay!!! Here are some pictures of the site.

These are of the banquet halls where the reception will be. They had it walled off for an event that night. This side has the stage. We'll also have all the balcony area that you can see outside.

The wall that you see to the right of this picture below will be open leading into the other rooms.

This is the other side of the banquet hall.

And the kitchen area where the food will be set up.

If the weather is poor (which it BETTER NOT be!!!), the wedding ceremony will be held inside on this breezeway. The doors at the end of this hallway will be shut and the furniture will be removed.

This bridge will serve as the background to the wedding ceremony outside. That's JM and Dad up there ahead of us.

Closer picture of the bridge and Dad videotaping for Greg.

This is looking out from the bridge. Everything's flooded right now so it's not a great view...but if you can tell there's a small hill on the right. They are going to build a walkway up to the top of the hill and that's where the ceremony will be held.

I should be hearing from the Monon Center sometime this week with their final decision on the catering (it should still be the Ritz Charles). I'll also get to speak with the girl who is going to be coordinating the weddings and get some ideas from her.

Pictures of the ring

The camera obviously does not do it justice, but here's some pictures of the ring. Hopefully we'll get better ones soon!

Our big news...

We're engaged!!! Thursday I had my last final and I was told we were going out to celebrate that night and it was all a surprise. I was almost done getting ready when JM told me that he couldn't get the Christmas ornament he got me to stay on the tree right. Seriously? I'm trying to get ready!!!

Anyways, I went out to check the ornament because he seemed concerned about it. The ring was on the ornament, so when I took the ornament off the tree and turned around he was on one knee and asked "Will you marry me?"

Obviously, I said yes ;-) After that we went to dinner in Broad Ripple and then he had some of my friends meet us out at a bar and surprise me to celebrate. Tonight my parents took us out to dinner to celebrate as well. I don't think the enormity of it has sunk in all the way! I started reading this wedding workbook Lynds got me and was totally and completely overwhelmed. Yikes!!!

We have no idea the date or place...so far it's the fall and Indy. We're trying to work around a couple of things (i.e. my brother's deployment) but my goal is to have the date and place finalized before we go back to school in a couple of weeks. I'm working full-time (as well as over-time) and have my best friend's wedding over the break, therefore it might not work out as well as I think it will!

I tried to upload pics of the ring but for some reason it's not working. I'll try again later!