The Dress Voyage, Part I continued...

After a lovely breakfast of a roasted vegetable omelet, home fries, amazing wheat toast and, of course, ice water galore!!!

We are now waiting for our rental car to arrive so that we can head out to the mall where Jcrew and David's Bridal are located - we're heading out a bit early cause we can't park the car so we'll get a chance to browse the glorious american shops like Gap and Anthropology.

I have to say, I'm pretty nervous. I hope the dresses look good on me! I hope I don't feel like a big balloon wrapped in white. And I hope my friends give me constructive criticism but aren't too hard on me. And that the sales person isn't too pushy. Maybe someone should feed me a champagne to calm my nerves?

I'm sure it will be great - just gotta get started!

Wish me luck :) I'll check in later...

The Dress Voyage, Part I

Well, here I am, in Boston! I flew over yesterday to start a whirlwind, dress searching journey! I met my mom and my MOH Mike at the Boston airport and then we were picked up by bridesmaid Kate and whisked to our lovely hotel where we were handled with great style! I even managed to stay awake long enough to have a drink in the bar with Mike and mom...

Of course, I found myself wide awake at 6am.. jetlag or nerves? Probably both. After a trip to the gym this morning and a leisurely breakfast, we are planning on heading to JCrew and David's Bridal, followed by a dinner with all 7 of us in Cambridge - should be a blast!

I'll keep you posted as the journey progresses!

The Video

Inspired by the scrabble video, I put together a little introductory video of the two of us...

The song is by the oh-so-lovely Claudia Koreck, who sings, in Bavarian "I mog di dog" (in German, "ich mag den Tag) (i love the day...)

Here it is!

The Voyage to find The Dress

I haven’t told you about something BIG yet, because the planning was still in the works, but I am taking a big trip to the US to buy…. duh duh duh

THE DRESS
My mom let me know very early on in the process (like the day we announced our engagement) that there was NO way she was missing this, for the life of her. So I suggested that I arrange a trip to come to the US – to Boston - and dress shop! Lucky me, the flights were SO cheap (I am talking less than 300Euros direct flight) so I snapped up a ticket! I am so luck y because my mom has totally taken the reins on this one, and has planned the whole trip. I am also DOUBLY lucky because almost all my Bridesmaids and my Man of Honor will be travelling to Boston to meet me!! wahooo!!!

Here’s our plan thus far, crafted by my mom:
Arrival Friday evening. Transfer to hotel. Pretty hotel, look!

Saturday:

-Wake up (probably way too early because ill be jetlagged), breakfast,

-perhaps mosey-ing around and then

-meeting up with the Ladies and Man for JCrew appointment at 2pm. Fun shall be had by all as we all slip into various dresses (perhaps mike will try on something?! do they have men’s stuff too?). This will be my first wedding dress ever tried on ever!

After: dinner and drinks with mom and my crew somewhere in Boston

Sunday: Perhaps a trip to David’s bridal, more hanging out, perhaps some fun meals
Monday: open thus far
Tuesday: New York City here we come! Train to New York, appointments at Saja Wedding and Jenny Yoo, train back to Boston in the evening
Wednesday: More Boston time, perhaps one or two more appointments
Thursday-Sunday: Off to Grandma’s house in New Hampshire! Hopefully I will have time to hang out, visit with my uncle and my grandma, and sneak in a trip or two to a Michael’s and Target :) I have to fill my growing wish list that I keep on my computer desktop. In this list right now are:

-lemonade jar
-almond joy
-glue dots
-xyron sticker maker
-cricut?
-hudson chalkboard paint
-steel cut oatmeal

Weird mix of stuff, right? right.

SO excited for my dress trip.

Our Website

As I’ve mentioned, the website is up! It was a long time coming, and actually a lot harder than we thought. Well, than I thought. The hardest part was getting a certain web programmer I know motivated enough to make the website.

By the time we sent out our save the dates, we had a version up. A very SPARSE version. No photos, almost no infos, no links. It stayed this way for quite a while. Then, Mr. Schnitzel had the ingenious idea of setting up a Wordpress site for us. That way, he could do the programming but I could put up the content with my limited to no programmer knowledge. YES!

And this, my friends, was our saving grace. You see, he is happy to do the programming part, but the content- not so much. So this worked amazingly, because I could add and subtract and rearrange to my heart’s content, all without bugging him!

Here’s a screenshot of our site:

As you can see, we have various menu categories. Each of them pop out to reveal different categories. Here’s what we have so far:

• About us
• Our Story
•  Photographs
• Community (Forums)
• Wedding Traditions
• Polish Wedding Traditions
• German Wedding Traditions
• US Wedding Traditions
• Location
• How to get there
• Hotel
• Attractions
• Munich Attractions
• Buchenberg Attractions
• Surrounding Area
• Transportation and Lodging while travelling
• People (introduction of bridal party, family etc)
• Phrasebook (english, german and polish words)
• Registry
• RSVP
  

I am really happy with the structure so far, and those I’ve asked have been able to find things fairly easily. I really enjoyed writing all the “tourist” sections, and I can imagine it will be quite helpful for our guests who have never been here before and are looking to make a bit more out of their trip. I am also posting updated cheap flight information under the “how to get there” category (I have a Kayak Alert set up from NY-Munich and when I get new info, I list the cheapest airlines on the site, not the prices, since those often vary).

Overall, we really like the flexibility of a Wordpress site: it has ease of usage, for someone like me, but the boy can also program things however he (or I) like. Now I wouldn’t necessarily recommend wordpress to anyone without the “crutch” of a programmer at their side – we got our website to look like we wanted it because I had a handyman who could reprogram the templates. Also, we have our own domain name, which Mr. Schnitzel set up all fancy, and I wouldn’t have known how to do that.

Otherwise, the thing is FREE (except for the domain name) which is pretty great.

What else should I add to our website? Anything missing?

Written in wood...

At almost all the lovely Bavarian markets, there is a stand that does this kind of wood burning to engrave designs and messages into pieces of wood or other wooden objects:

I can think of so many possibilities for this craft: personalized cake plate, personalized serving platter, or perhaps my favorite: personalized dress and suit hangers!

Look at some of the fun stuff available:

Fun, right? Any other ideas for incorporating this craft into our day?

Bring me..

these flowers!

source

LOVE! And the blue plates too...

The Band Story

So once upon a time, we had a band. And this band called us almost every day! They wanted to know how many people we'd invited, what kind of Music we wanted for our first dance, if we were doing a Bride Kidnapping.  Then, this adorable band called with bad news.

Their guitarist can't make it. They play a lot with only three people - keyboarder, drummer and singer. But I mean... what's a band without a guitarist?! Apparently they don't have a backup. That may be the way Bavaria rolls...

this means "really traditional bavarian"...

source

So we are at the beginning again!! Anyone know a good bavarian cover band offering fun wedding music for a wedding in July? Preferably with an English speaker who can do good moderation?

Ahhhh!! Wedding planning is HARD.