Weddingness

So it is official, Travis and I are engaged!.

So begins the wedding planning. I am already stressed about it. We are planning on 10/29/11, Halloween weekend. It will have some Halloween aspects but won't be all gothy. Have to keep it classy.

It's hard because we don't have a set budget right now. My parents are paying for the reception, my older sister is paying for the photographer and Travis's mom will be taking care of the bar tab. We want this to be a sweet wedding but don't want to go broke either.

The biggest issue we are facing right now is guest list. Travis and I want to keep it to 150 people. This is near impossible with how large my family is. I mentioned to my mom cutting family members that are not involved in my life (I haven't seen some of my aunts and uncles in 15+ years) and she got all defensive. I can already tell this is going to be a sticking point. I just want her to keep in mind this is MY wedding (Bridezilla here we come) and not a family reunion.

My best friend Erin is going to help me with finding a place, since she just got married this past June. I have a couple other friends as well getting married here soon and I am going to pick their brain on what they think of different venues. I really wanted the art museum, but after doing some research found out the most they can accommodate is 75 people. There is no way we would be able to pull off that small of a guest list.

The top contender right now, after just perusing the internet, is BoMA (bomaevents.com)
It's an old church they converted in to a huge bar, after it didn't do so well, they closed it down and turned it into an event venue. This place is beautiful and has art everywhere! Not to mention they have an option for an omelet action station and a waffle action station, which is exactly what I wanted!

So some of my ideas to keep it classy Halloween and within a budget are

1. No flowers: For center pieces I want carved pumpkins (with stars, the date, our initials,or symbols) For the bouquet I might do origami flowers or just none at all
2. Favors: Masquerade masks! and a photobooth for people to take pictures!
3. Cake:I love love love how fondant cake looks. I hate hate hate how it taste. Not to mention BoMA charges 300 for cake cutting service. So instead cupcakes!
4. DJ: Travis and I are audiophiles, big time. A traditional DJ will probably not have the bands we want or like. So instead I am asking my friend Nick to DJ and give him a general playlist to work from.

More details to come as we work them all out!

The Dividing Line

http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/HEY-US-GOVERN-Keep-OUR-in-the-US-America-is-in-a-crisis-too/265351844335?ref=nf

The above posts makes me very sad and angry for more than several reason. I feel like the people who repost that kind of isolationist rhetoric are probably also the same people who were for the Iraq war and even if you pointed out the hypocrisy of their statements still wouldn't understand it. I am frustrated with the war because we have spent billions upon billions of money for a war that has no end in sight. The things that could have been achieved in our country with that amount of money makes my head hurt. So how is that different than giving money to Haiti? We (well the US Government) chose to go to war with Iraq, Haiti did not choose (unless you think like Pat Robertson) to have a massive debilitating earthquake. It's important that our country helps out those countries that need our help because we are a global power player and we need to show the world that we are not as ethnocentric as many in our global community think we are.

As a human being I think every human being should be offered help in situations like this. I Don't think that it's fair that we have some people in our own country that are living in similar conditions to those in Haiti, but that means we need to take more initiative to volunteer more in our own communities and raise awareness about problems facing our country as well.