Photographers needed

I know many of you that are coming to the wedding are photographers, and you're all amazing in your own way. I couldn't narrow down one person to designate as my photographer (although - feel free to volunteer yourself if you're up for the challenge.) I did want to ask someone who knows me personally, because they would probably know the important key shots I would love the most, but I felt bad to ask someone and have them not be so involved in the night and I would hate to take away from anyone's fun, so the slot for photographer has been left blank. So, I was figuring we could do a sort of social experiment and everyone can put on their professional photography hats and bring their own digital cameras and take the best images possible, and I could collect them on everyone's way out via a card reader and my trusty laptop. Then from all those wonderful images we can put together a kick@ss album that will blow people's minds away!! How awesome to have 100 different points of view captured in one collection of photographs! I think this can work out amazingly well.

Are you up for the challenge? I'll be requesting your feedback on the RSVP cards that are coming along with the invitations. But I'm really hoping that I will have lots of help with this. There are a dozen things going on all at once on our party night, you'll have a mansion, new england fall scenery, food, costumes, friends, family, spooky things, funny things, live musicians, tricks, treats, and a wedding to top it off! This is a photographers dream come true! So please plan ahead and bring your camera and your creative ideas. I think anyone attending will happily pose for you, so feel free to experiment and use this experience to build up your portfolio as well as my wedding album!

thanks ahead of time.
I created a photo site on shutterfly where I will post all the phtotos after the party: http://kristendanhalloween2010.shutterfly.com/

Time/Date change - kind of. .

Yes, we are still getting married on Halloween - only there's a little twist to this affair. Halloween is Sunday October 31, 2010, our party will take place on the evening of Saturday October 30, 2010 and we will be exchanging vows after the stroke of midnight which will make it officially Halloween morning (spooky & cool, right?!?) We hope to have a candlelit midnight ceremony surrounded by all our closest friends and family. I couldn't imagine a more magical looking moment!

less people will need to leave early to rush home for work/school early the next morning.

you can still enjoy Halloween and trick-or-treat at your neighborhood since you'll be home

anyone coming from a distance will have Sunday to travel home and won't have to miss the party

we're planning a leisurely brunch Sunday morning @ Stevens Estate for anyone that wants to come

we don't want to miss much work, so a Sunday recuperation may be helpful

We found our officiant! Danny’s uncle, Joe Risteen.

This modern day renaissance man is a jack-of-all-trades for sure. Not only is he an amazing son, doting husband and the dad to two wonderful dogs (that he rescued from homelessness after the hurricane Katrina disaster), he is also a ballistics specialist. And as if that wasn't enough, he is still able to find time to be an actor! If you’d like to see his most recent work just head over to the movie theater to see him acting aside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s most recent movie Shutter Island!

Joe is absolutely one of the coolest people we know. It is a blessing to have him in the family, and an honour to be able to call him a friend. We're very excited to have him officiate our ceremony.

We found our venue!! This is making the whole event seem so real and exciting!

Feel free to check out the wonders of the Stevens Estate, located in lovely North Andover, MA. The website doesn’t even do it justice, it’s gorgeous! Talk about some spooky/elegant potential!

One of the wonderful features of this location is our ability to rent the upstairs rooms for overnight guests. (PAJAMA PARTY!!!) Dan and I, as well as our parents and grandparents will be staying overnight to have a brunch in the morning downstairs. If you would be interested in a room, please comment here or let us know directly so we can give them a heads up on how many rooms we’ll be using. All guests are welcome to stay who want to. Don’t be shy to ask! If we’re inviting you to our wedding we like you ;) Here’s the price list I got:

$130 per King room with private bath (based on double occupancy)
$110 per King room with shared private bath (based on double occupancy)
$45 per additional guest room
$85 for a single room with a shared private bath

I think they all have fireplaces. The 2^nd floor all rooms have their own bathroom, the 3^rd floor is the cheaper rates and they have a shared floor bathroom. They range from King beds to twins and there can be multiple beds in each room. Just let us know your situation and what you’re looking for and they can work something out for you.

All credit goes to Dan's mom Linda for finding this gem! wow!! I can't wait to see you all there!

Save The Date! Halloween 2010

I am very excited to say I've just placed my order for my save the date cards to be printed! I used my graphic design skills to totally make them myself. Phew! It took a while, but I'm quite happy with the way they look (in PhotoShop anyway.) They should be printed and shipped in the next few days and I can work on addressing them over the weekend. I wanted to get them out soon because there seems to be quite a bit of confusion and people think I'm getting married this year. I don't want this Halloween to pass and anyone thinks I just didn't invite them to the wedding. I've happily been having a money-saving day today and before I checked out online I searched for a coupon and found one for $20 off my order. SUPER SWEET! So, I'm quite happy. I always am proud to see my hard work being printed out anyway, but this is just way more exciting than usual since when people get these cards they'll be preparing for our big party next year.

I don't want to wreck the surprise when it comes to your mailbox, so here's just a tiny glimpse of how it turned out.

Now I need to work on my mailing addresses for the labels. Yikes. That will be a challenge all in itself. I should probably put a little effort into it and make myself a mailing list on my computer so I can use this again for printing out invitations and for Holiday cards and stuff, huh? Let's see how this goes.

Cake Time

So, I thought I had a great idea today, and Danny seems to be fine with going along with it! Yay!

It started yesterday at Newbury Comics. We were in the book section and a super bright happy eye catching book cover caught his eye (as it was trying to do.) It was this book Hello, Cupcake! There are some great Halloween Themed Cupcakes in there! They sell it at Target, and sometimes I see it when I'm on my way to the photo studio when I'm working. I browsed through it before, but it didn't occur to me that it was something I'd have the need to buy. How often do I make cupcakes anyway, right?

Part 2 of my idea occurred after the gym today when I drove by the Hostess Outlet store (is that what it's called? an outlet store?) Yeah, the Hostess Store, you know, Hostess, with the yummy fatty good snack stuff. And BAM it hit me. Everyone loves Hostess Cupcakes. I'm planning a wedding where a cake-type food is very much being looked forward by me. According to the Bridal Association, the average wedding cake costs $543! How much is a Hostess Cupcake? Less than $1. I could find many other wedding-related things to do and buy with a few extra hundred dollars I'd save on freakin' cake. Soo. . How about if I unwrap the little yummy chocolate cupcakes and add some home made awesome mm-mmm-good icing and flair to the top. We can make them Bugs, Jack O'Lanterns, Body Parts, Werewolves, Zombies. . etc!! It's perfect, and so much more memborable than a boring white covered wedding cake.

I think this will take a lot of pressure off. If you're reading this, let me know if you don't like those Hostess Cupcakes. Maybe I'm completely wrong about it, but I think I'm onto something here. If we go with the cake thing, there are going to have to be tastings, and it will get all drawn out and we have to pick a flavor and color and size and it'll get crazy. This way, it's chocolate and cream inside, and then yummy toppings. Maybe we will have a mini cake to cut just for some formality. And it'll be cute to take pictures. I always wanted a Head Cake with gooey brains inside. So, we can research that and see how it works out. But I'm totally thinking overall, we will go with the cupcake ideas.

I ordered some cool crafty items for Oriental Trading co last night. While I have some free time during the summer, I'm hoping I can make out save-the-date mailers. I read since our Date is on a Holiday, we can send those out 1 year in advance, and that's just a couple months away, so it's not too crazy to get started with them if I'm making them by hand I think. I like the idea of a post card, because then you don't have to waste an envelope, but I also like the idea of a magnet. I'm not sure which we will go with, but I got some lace & ribbon looking stamps that can be used to dress up either type of invite. They will also work nicely with the scrapbooking stuff I've beend doing. So, it's a double hitter there. =)

I registered at JC Penny today, thanks to the advice of Kim. They hook brides-to-be up with some good information and free stuff, so it's worth it already. I even found some cool stuff on their website to add to the registry. I think we will also be doing an Amazon registry, since that's more of the stuff we always are spending our money on. But, a gift is a gift, and we'd be totally happy and grateful for anything we'd get to kick start our married life together.

I also added a wedding date countdown to the blog today. How exciting! 480 days to go! =) So much to do! teehee.

We've narrowed down the sites at least. Now we just need to go visit them and see which one we want. This is really getting official now. It's going to be such an awesome party!