Finding a Venue

Within two days of arriving home after Alumni Weekend I was looking online for local wedding venues. I found a few lists at sites like Here Comes The Guide and The Knot and I started poring through them, comparing locations and such and trying to figure out what I wanted. I eventually culled a list of about 5 that I sent to Kevin, which prompted him to create his own list and send it back to me. Then we started setting up appointments to see these places and get quotes.

A mere week after getting engaged we traveled out to a bed and breakfast in the countryside. We liked the idea of having the whole property to ourselves for the weekend and wanted to see what pricing was like. The property was absolutely gorgeous, and the inn was large enough that our entire wedding party could easily stay on site with us. The downside of renting out a bed and breakfast for the weekend is that it's pretty expensive.

We didn't have a clear idea on budget yet, but we knew that the quote we got was at the upper end of what we wanted to spend. We filed it away as a maybe and went to look at a more reasonably priced location. The manor we saw second was definitely cheaper than the bed and breakfast. It also wasn't anywhere near as nice. The ceremony would take place on a concrete patio near a somewhat busy street, which wasn't appealing

Kevin had remembered a hotel near the airport that was set up to host conferences and weddings. We weren't able to get an appointment with their wedding coordinator, but we decided to stop by and at least look at it. I fell head-over-heels in love with this place. The ceremony site was reminiscent of both my grandmother's house and the first apartment Kevin and I shared. The hotel was gorgeous, convenient to everything but also hidden away in a forest. There was a prom there that night, so I managed to convince myself that it couldn't be that expensive.

It turned out that a 5-hour event at the hotel was even more expensive that an entire weekend at the bed and breakfast. Kevin had been prepared for that, but I was a little crushed by the news. We found ourselves back at square one, hoping for something nicer than the manor we looked at, but cheaper than the bed and breakfast.

The next week Kevin and I went to look at a country club that was a little bit out of the way. I had originally thought it was a hotel when I made the appointment, because I'm bad at reading websites. We decided to check it out anyway. The property was gorgeous and included a library where we could take wedding photos (big plus). The price was much more in line with what we were willing to spend. The only downside was that the nearest hotels were about 10 miles away, meaning we'd have to pay more for shuttle service on the day of the wedding. We had one more place we wanted to look at, so we put a soft hold on the date we wanted and left to thing about things.

The following weekend, my mom was in town and was able to come look at the next venue with us. It was a conference center that was a little far from our house, but fairly close to the airport. The big draw of this place was that it had over 900 rooms on site. All of our guests would be able to stay at the conference center, which would be super convenient for everyone involved.

The conference center itself was really nice. The grounds were pretty and the room for the reception had a nice patio that we could also use. The conference center also handles food and alcohol for the reception which makes planning even easier. There's even a sports bar on the property that all of the guests would have access to after the reception ended.

As soon as we got the estimate, which was similar to the country club, we decided to go for it. So I'm happy to announce that we have settled on a date and location for our wedding. We'll be getting married April 26th, 2014 at West Belmont Place at the National Conference Center. Details about travel and accommodations will be here and on our website soon. And now we can start looking at stationary for Save the Dates.

Okay, I may have already settled on stationary for Save the Dates. But now we can order them!

Circuits and Delayed Responses

I've met with my new personal trainer twice now. I really like him, more than either of the trainers I worked with at my last gym. He's easy to talk to, and there's a distinct lack of judgment that makes me more comfortable. If a given exercise is too hared on my ankle or back, he quickly teaches me a modification. At the same time, he's focusing on exercises that will strengthen my ankle and back so they aren't so prone to injury in the future. And he's giving me routines that emphasize fat-burning overall.

The first thing he introduced me to was the concept of circuits. I pick seven machines, each focusing on a different muscle group. Then I do a set of 12 reps on each machine without taking time to rest in between. This has the dual benefit of keeping my heart rate up (fat burning!) and making the exercise go quicker. I can get through three circuits in a little less than half an hour, which is impressive, considering how much lifting I do during that time.

I'm supposed to set the weight such that I can do 12 reps, but would be hard-pressed to do more. This direction has led me to discover some interesting extremes. On the shoulder press I can barely make it through twelve reps with the lowest possible weight. I thought I was gonna die the first time. Now it's hard, but I can at least get through all of the reps without arching my back. On the leg press I've yet to find my limit. I started at 70 lbs, knowing I could do that, and have been increasing the weight each time until I get to the point that 12 reps is hard. I'm up to 170 lbs now, and still having no problem getting through the reps. It turns out that my legs are a lot stronger than I thought.

The part I'm most surprised by is that muscles seem to have a delayed reaction to this exercise. After my first workout, I felt great. About a day later I started feeling sore and could finally identify which muscles I'd worked out. Now that I've been doing the circuits regularly for a week, that soreness has turned into a low-level constant. After my second session with my trainer, I had the same experience. About a day after working out new muscle groups were sore. I'm not sure if this is normal or not (I don't remember it happening the last time I got serious about going to the gym), but I like it. Working out doesn't leave me useless for the rest of the day, but I can still tell that I've been working. It's doing wonders for my motivation.

I haven't noticed any weight loss or size change yet. I've also just started. I hope I'll start seeing some changes soon. In the meantime, I'm excited to find out how much weight I can actually lift on the leg press.

Google Really Is Omnipotent

In the past few weeks I have become painfully aware of how integrated my internet experience is. As soon as Kevin and I posted our engagement to Facebook, my news feed became nothing but wedding ads. Ads for dresses and shoes. Ads for engagement rings and wedding bands. Ads for venues and caterers and photographers. Ads for planning services.

This soon leaked out to other websites. No matter where I went, the majority of the advertisements I saw were wedding related. The algorithms knew I was getting married soon, and they seemed to believe that I ceased to have an interest in anything else. Gone was the daily Buffy quote that I so looked forward to on Facebook. In it's place was an announcement about some sale at David's Bridal.

Then something really strange happened. I had been poking around some department store websites to see if it would even be possible to find a reasonable wedding dress in the $200 - $400 range. I'm a long way from trying anything on, but I have some ideas about what I want, and I wanted to see how close those matched up to reality. To my surprise, I found a dress for less than $200 that I really liked. I sent a link to it to Sarah.

And then I started seeing it everywhere. Every time I logged on to Facebook, that dress was in one of the ads on the side. When I went to other sites, blogs I frequent or even news sites, there was a good chance that it would be there as well. This dress started following me around the internet, begging me to buy it.

It's been a couple of weeks, and that has mostly tapered off. I still see it once a day or so, but that's nothing compared to the days after I shared it with Sarah. In its place I'm beginning to get weight loss ads. "Tricks" for losing that extra inch before the big day or whatever. Which is possibly more disturbing.

It's a little frightening to realize the extent to which my online activity is being monitored. All it takes is one IM and suddenly Google knows exactly what wedding dress I'm considering and is trying to shove it down my throat. I'm a little surprised I hadn't noticed before just how pervasive this is. Then again, focusing all of the ads around a single topic makes these things more obvious.

I'm looking forward to the day when I'll have a bit more variety in my online ads again. I doubt I'll ever look at them the same way again, though.

Wait. That's Not What I'm Supposed to Say

Getting engaged has been a bit like taking a crash course in etiquette. There is so etiquette tied up in announcing the engagement and planning a wedding that I'm a little worried I'll end up doing the wrong thing. Well maybe not, since it's my wedding and I'm pretty good at not caring too much about what other people think. But the things we've had to deal with so far have been interesting.

The first faux pax emerged when we began calling people up to tell them of our engagement. Everyone offered there congratulations, but one of my aunts quickly corrected herself. See, you're only supposed to congratulate the groom. The bride receives your best wishes. I can only imagine that this is a holdover from the days when girls where sold into marriage. It seems equivalent to saying "well, I hope you find yourself with a decent man, but there's no guarantee." Since I've already lived with Kevin for three years, I think I have a pretty good sense of what to expect.

For the most part people don't seem to know or care about this distinction. But there have been a handful of people ready to remind us about the proper way to react to news of an engagement. I certainly understand and appreciate the sentiment, but I find myself slightly offended whenever someone makes a point of offering me their best wishes instead of congratulations. Especially because these people usually need to start a discussion about etiquette.

Our other big etiquette dilemma revolved around the engagement party. Our college friends threw us a fantastic one in California the day after we got engaged. It was a ton of fun and very low-key. Then we got home and our local friends began asking about an engagement party.

On one level, this flies in the face of Miss Manner's advice to never throw a party for yourself because it tends to look like a gift grab. If someone else throws a party on your behalf, you should be gracious and go along with everything. But you should never expect one.

Then again, this is the modern era, and we had already planned to invite everyone over for a Memorial Day BBQ anyway. So that naturally evolved into the engagement party. Then we had to deal with the guest list. We're planning a fairly small wedding with a lot of out of town guests. This means that there were people who had already been invited to the BBQ that we weren't necessarily planning on inviting to the wedding. Which is not something you're supposed to do. An invitation to the engagement party tends to imply an invitation to the wedding, since the wedding is usually the bigger event.

In the end everything worked out. We kept the BBQ strictly a BBQ, and Kevin's mom provided some sparkling wine for everyone to toast with after we ate. But trying to untangle the web of what we're expected to do is already stressing me out a bit.

I know that in the end it won't really matter. We'll invite the people we want to celebrate with. Everything will be chill and fun, because Kevin and I are both fairly low-maintenance. As long as the day ends with us married, nothing else really matters. Everything else will just be something to laugh about in the future.