So, as many of you already know, Jon proposed to me during our karaoke shindig. I had no idea that he was going to do it but the best part was, all of our friends (for the most part) did know. Kate and Jared brought champagne. I had not one but TWO friends who were secretly videotaping the entire thing. I had another few friends taking photos. It was awesome. Totally, utterly awesome and I'm still on cloud 9 a bit. (He proposed at the end of singing Elvis Costello's "She" and had been practicing for days, unbeknownst to me).
And, within 20 minutes of being engaged, people were asking us when we were getting married. While that DID seem a bit fast, we have also moved quite rapidly since getting engaged (only about three and a half weeks ago). Here's what we've accomplished:
- We set a date. July 10, 2010
- We have a place for the ceremony: St. Mary's Student Parish, A2
- We have a place for the reception: The Gandy Dancer Restaurant, courtyard. AMAZING food.
- I have already gotten The Dress. (It's gorgeous, I love it, very vintage-y and others have described it as being either very Jackie O, or very Audrey Hepburn)
- We have settled on a wedding party/attendants (whatever is the "proper" term) and asked most of them. Some we will ask when we see them in person in Phoenix for Josh & Julie's wedding.
- We have notified various relatives
- My mom will make The Cake (carrot cake, working on tweaking the recipe to stand up to being cut into a gazillion pieces in Michigan in July).
- Jon's mom will probably make the invitations.
- We have decided on at least A color (purple, my favorite).
- We have an AWESOME photographer booked. Bryan Mitchell, who is also a photojournalist for various publications like the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and has shot certain events like the Kid Rock Hoedown at Comerica this weekend and the No Doubt/Paramore show a few weeks ago (among others, he's so cool). He had a photo on the front page of the Det News last week when that tanker caught fire.
- We're working on the guest list (we can have only 140 people, there will have to be cuts, that's causing stress).
- We've "conned" a friend into playing the piano before the ceremony. Rodger is an AMAZING pianist. He will be awesome.
- We've also "conned" another friend into being our DJ and MC at the reception. Chrysta has phenomenal taste in music, knows that real jazz isn't Kenny G and does a radio show on WEMU. She will, no doubt, be awesome.
- We've already been through two meetings with the priest that will be marrying us AND done the FOCCUS "test". More hoops to jump through for the church, but we're moving along.
I'm sure there are a zillion other things we've already gotten done that I've already forgotten about, but considering we haven't even been engaged 4 weeks, this isn't bad :) We're way ahead even by Martha Stewart's standards. I know a lot of this could have waited, but I figure since I've got the time right now before school starts, I might as well get some of this done.
We're really excited :) Thanks for all the well-wishes from people!
