The season of giving

I want to take some time to remind everyone that Christmas isn't the same for everyone.  There are sick, poor, and hungry.  I know a lot of workplaces sponsor families and that is great, please participate.  I like to give all year but at Christmas it is especially important because this is the time when people feel the hurt most.  Please don't forget about those in need when buying gifts for your friends and family; when cooking big meals; when staying warm in your house; and when spending time with healthy friends and family.  The wedding industry is crazy expensive and I try to keep people less fortunate in mind when planning this as well.  Some charities I love: 

National MS Society 

Ronald McDonald House 

Cystic Fibrosis 

Local Food Banks 

Snowed in...

We have been getting a lot of snow up here in NE Ohio.  I hate driving in the snow so I have been spending more time at home.  This weekend we made some Root Beer for the holidays :)  Today I painted some frames to use at the wedding.  I think they came out pretty good.  I have a few more to do still but I was waiting for these to dry.  it was pretty easy.  I did a coat of brown, coat of white, coat of crackle paint then the top color.  The orange one I had to sand a bit too.

Bridal Party Spotlight {Mike Marignoni}

Mike is a friend of Dave's.  He currently lives in Hilton Head SC.  We miss him very much!  I always enjoy talking wine and eating with him.  He is a good cook, but we never had much time to cook together before he moved.  Dave and Mike have many fun stories that probably aren't appropriate for this blog!

Updates

Nothing major happening on the wedding front.  Been busy with plenty of other things!  We have been finalizing the guest list so we can send out save-the-dates.  Getting all the bridesmaids measured for their dresses has been a little chore.  I scheduled a tasting at the Barrington, can't wait for that!  While we were in Myrtle for Thanksgiving I got lots of great vintage family wedding pics.  I am excited and am trying to find the perfect frames for those.  We also picked up some sand from the beach and will be having a sand ceremony.  Now I need to find the perfect jars to hold it in!  I printed some of our engagement pics and even blew one up to hang on the wall.  I am looking for an old vintage typewriter.  I would love to put one near the guest book.  Does anyone have one we can use?? 

Bridal Party Spotlight {Joey Case}

Acting like we are using the phone booth in England

Going to our cousin's wedding in SC

Joey is my brother! :)  We are pretty close for being almost 5 years apart.  He is currently going to school at OSU for Civil Engineering and is also in Naval ROTC.  He loves it and is very patriotic.  Our family travels a lot so we have been to many fun places together such as Italy, Greece, England, the Bahamas, etc.  We enjoy celebrating our Italian heritage and eating Italian food!  (and wine, and sambucca!!)  He can be very protective, I thought he was going to go to jail in Greece for killing a guy that said something to me in Greek. (the guy looked creepy, but we have NO idea what he said!)  But, he loves Dave!  Sometimes they are like the same person, haha. We all went to the Dominican Republic together in the spring and it was a blast.

Relaxing in the Bahamas

Bridal Party Spotlight {Addam Chipps}

Addam is Dave's brother (my soon to be brother-in-law!!) and the best man. He is a marine and works at Quantico.  We love to go visit him and Tara in VA.  They have a beautiful home in an awesome town.  We always check out the wineries and breweries nearby.  Dave and Addam like to play golf together and beat each other at fantasy football.  They also love to drink Jamison and can go through a whole bottle in a matter of hours.  We always love visiting with Addam and Tara and can't wait until they have kids we can spoil!! :)

Bridal Party Spotlight {Tara Chipps}

Tara is my soon to be Sister-in-law.  Addam and Tara got married Nov. 7th, 2009 in beautiful Fredericksburg VA where they also live.  She is origanally from Jersey and has a Jersey attitude!  We both work for electric companies so we are nerds and talk about work.  We also like to shop for shoes ;)  I am so happy she is going to be my sister-in-law.  The four of us have a lot of fun together!  The past two years we have spent Thanksgiving visiting the Chipps.  It's like a vacation and we all get to hang out :)  Can't wait to see them at Christmas!

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  I know I did.  We went to Myrtle Beach to spend it with the Chipps.  Long drive, but definately worth it!  No wedding updates, those will probably slow down with the holidays.  Busy, Busy!  Hope everyone got good black friday deals.  We didn't do much shopping.  Everyone have fun and be safe in the month ahead!

Productivity



http://www.mintdesignblog.com/?p=927

 This weekend was a busy one!  Friday we drove up to Fremont to meet with the photographer and pick a save the date.  We picked one, and I did not post it on the last post so those of you getting one would still be surprised :)  It's a good one, I am excited to send them out.  They will probably get sent out around Jan or Feb.  We are going to Myrtle Beach tomorrow to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with the Chipps'.  I am excited, I spent most of the day Sat cooking and getting ready to leave.  I made some Italian Sausage sauce for a pasta dish, bacon bark, a stromboli for the ride down, and some Andes Candies cookies.  All yummy, but the kitchen was a mess!!  haha.  Sunday though, was another day of getting things done for the wedding.  I went back to Catan Fashion, this time with my mom, Aunt Donna, and Alec.  I retried on one of the dresses I found last time and bought one!!  I have my dress!  I won some free accessories, so I think I found my necklace too.  I want to try it on again when I go back to try the dress on when it comes in.  Free is definitely good!  Not much is free in the wedding industry.  I also decided on Bridesmaids dresses and Alec bought hers!  She stood next to me while we were both in our dresses and wearing our earrings.  It was a lot of fun.  The earrings were made by a family friend and I love them.  They look great with the dresses.  I think the dresses will really look good on everyone, and go well with the guys.  We stopped in Tuxedo Junction with my dad and Dave as well and they looked at some Tuxes.  We decided on some to compliment the bridesmaids dress.  Now, they will just have to go back and get fitted.  I am still trying to decide what I want the ushers to wear.  There is 3 of them.

Engagement Pics!

Here are some of our engagement pics.  We had such a fun day :)

Bridal Party Spotlight {Diana Oleas}

Diana is from Equador.  She was an exchange student at my parents' house in Chardon in '05-'06.  As always, we went on many family trips to PA, and Texas, and had many fun times.  Joey and Diana came down to see me during Sibs Weekend at OU and Diana and I got tattoos (actually I got mine a couple days later, but the thought was there)  She now comes back to visit every year and we want her to move here!  She is currently going to school to be a doctor. We miss her and can't wait for her to be in our wedding!  :)

Flowers!

This weekend I met with the florist.  On my way up I picked up some cupcakes from Main Street Cupcakes (loved the Sweet Potato Fluff one!)   We got a lot of things figured out and I am excited to see all the things we talked about come to life.  I just love fall, orange flowers!  Big ivory spider mums too! :)  She is going to make a mock up of my bouquet with fake flowers so I can see what it will look like.  Maybe I can bring it to a dress fitting and see what the whole look will be!  :)
Dave and I also met with the Pastor on Sunday morning.  He was my childhood pastor and I just love him.  I am so excited for him to be a part of our special day.  Dave seemed to really like him (but Dave likes everyone!)  For so long it seemed like there was so much to get done and it was very daunting, but lately things have been falling into place!  I feel like we are well on our way to having everything look perfect. 
The engagement pics are in :) :)  I will post them as soon as we send the Save-the-Dates so people are still surprised by those when they get them :)  We love many of them, it's a hard decision to just pick one to announce our love!!

Bridal Party Spotlight {Abigael Jaymes}

Joey, Abbey, Dave and Me in Canada

Ok, So her name is really Abbey Snyder and she is my brother's girlfriend.  She goes to Malone University in Canton OH and is from Geneva, OH.  She wants to be on TV and she is good at it!  We just love her.  They have a pretty cute story about how they met.  Abbey and a friend went down to the OSU vs. Iowa game.  After an exciting win this picture was taken with the NROTC guys:

The Pic

As you can see, Joey's name is covered by Abbey's shoulder.  She facebooked the guy on the left and asked who the guy on the other side was.  My brother told the guy to definitely give her his name because she is hot!  They began flirting on facebook and eventually met up at home.  They have been together ever since.  Aren't they cute??  

Bridal Party Spotlight {Alec Montforton}

At our cousin's wedding

Alec is my cousin and Maid of Honor.  She is going to Mercyhurst in Erie PA for Event Planning and will be graduating in May.  So, she is my wedding planner too :)  Alec is from the west side of Cleveland so I get to see her often.  I'm excited to do wedding stuff together like shopping and crafts and parties! I can't wait to see where she gets a job after graduation and I hope it's close to Akron!

DJ

I had a big day at work today.  Going on temporary assignment for the rest of the year.  Pretty exciting!   But I'm sure that's not what you would like to read about.  Dave and I made a pasta carbonara for dinner then drove out to Ravenna to meet with a DJ.   We loved him and put a deposit down!  I'm so excited to have another thing done.  We have all of our vendors and have paid all the deposits.  This is really happening!!  We are going with Cipriano Productions.  The owner is a nice guy who just loves music.  Tomorrow I am going up to my moms to see my aunts and cousin.  That should be fun and I'm sure wedding stuff will be talked about.  :)  Happy Halloween weekend everyone!

Dresses and Bridal Shows

     Tara came up on Friday from VA to spend some bridesmaid time together :)  We started the weekend with some homemade pasta and vodka sauce and 3 bottles of wine.  It was good to catch up.  Saturday we met my mom and Mari (her exchange student from Japan) in Strongsville to look at bridesmaid dresses.  When we got there we decided it would be fun for me to try dresses on too.  I tried on dresses for about an hour and may have found one!  My consultant, Chookie, was a big Hawaiian lady who was awesome.  She kept telling Tara how to get me into the dresses and calling me Pipsqueak.  haha.  I fell in love with 2 and can't decide what to do!  I am going to go back in a few weeks and try them on again.  Tara tried on some bridesmaid dresses and I think I found that too!  I want my other bridesmaids to try it on but Abbey and Alec seem to like it from the pics :)  It's a burnt orange that I just love.  I didn't think I would find a color of orange that would look good on everyone but I think we have!  I also took a look at tuxes at the attached Tuxedo Junction and found a great green for the vest and tie that matched with the orange like I wanted.  The boys are going to look dashing!  I really felt like I got a lot done.  Catan Fashion really is a one stop shop.  They had photography and cake stores too.  The place was so big, I swear I walked 2 miles just looking at everything, and the back and forth from bride to bridesmaid dresses.

     Sunday was the Today's Bride bridal show at the Sheraton in Cuyahoga Falls.  Sandie (mother of the groom), Jenn (mother of the ringbearer, wife of a groomsman, and friend), Alec, Tara, my mom, Mari, and Aunt Donna all came with me.  It was kinda hard to talk to everyone and visit all the booths with that many people but it was fun!  We tried some good food and cakes. They even had cannolis with the chocolate fountain.  I picked up some information on a DJ and limo service.  We had a chance to look at more tuxes but Dave likes the ones we saw on Saturday.  We got in a photobooth and took some fun pics.  A lot happened this weekend in the world of the Chipps wedding!

*UPDATE*  Here is our photostrip from the show!  https://www.shutteryou.com/events/view/photo/2437767/?viewstrip=1

Engagement Shoot

We got our engagement pics taken yesterday!  It was soo much fun.  I went and got my haircut before so it looked fresh. :)  We were worried about the weather (it was supposed to rain) but it turned out to be perfect.  Not too cold and not too windy.  We got some great pics with the sun peaking out from the clouds overlooking the valley.  We went to an old barn and the basement of the Winking Lizard!  I love old things haha.  We also hit up the train station in Penninsula.  I cannot wait to see how they look!  Our photographer is great, I have known him for a long time.  http://www.easywindstudio.com/ is the address if you want to check them out!  I will be sure to post pics whenever I can :)  We are using one for the Save-the-Dates. 

Busy Day!

I finally talked to a DJ (for 1.5 hours) today.  Not sure if we are going with them but saw them at a wedding recently and loved them.  The party definitely went all night long.  I also bought tickets for the bridal show in the Falls this weekend.  I am excited for that!  I have never been to a bridal show and (most of) my bridesmaids will be there! :)  On another note, we have our engagement pics tomorrow so I spent some of the night getting ready for that!!  I can't wait.  Love, love, love our photographer (more on that tomorrow)  Lots going on this week so I will be updating often!  TTFN!

Haake wedding

Zach, Dave, Mike, and Zach's cousin at Moe's after the rehersal dinner

Mike and Dave



What a beautiful day!  I can only wish for a day next year as nice as we had for the Haake wedding.  Dave was in Zach and Laura's wedding this past Sat.  Mike (one of our groomsmen) was as well and came up from SC on Wed to hang out before the big day.  It was great to see him and we miss him!  We had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone before, during and after the wedding.  Zach had a St. Louis Cardinals grooms cake.  Pretty cool!  Congrats to the happy couple!

Groom's cake

Honeymoon

We are trying to decide where to go on our honeymoon.  We went to Punta Cana in the DR in March and loved it.  The all-inclusive sure would be nice after planning a wedding!  I enjoy traveling to new places though and would love to go somewhere new.  Anyone have any ideas or experiences to share??

1-year!

It is one year till the wedding!!  I worked all day -blah- then went up to the venue to see how things may look this time next year!  We are having our wedding at the Barrington Golf Club in Aurora Ohio. The ceremony and dance floor are outside.  It was about 50 degrees today, I'm hoping it's a little warmer but they have outdoor heaters. It also had just finished raining when I got there.  Everything was beautiful, nice fall colors.  I can't wait to see it decorated and have all my family and friends there!