still on hold but hangin' on

so, i know you guys liked the farm, but it was feeling like a stretch making everything happen from such a distance... i mean, there's not even a grocery store within about 30mins of there if you ran out of ice and decided you needed a bag or two more at the last minute, you know?! we both agreed from the get-go that our wedding wouldn't be about the particulars but it really was just a time to celebrate with our family and friends... and we were worried that people wouldn't stick around or have as much fun if they knew a long drive would await them at the end of the day. plus, we love our city and really wanted to have our wedding here. 

so yesterday a client of mine said "why don't you just get married in the park" and i said that we'd thought about it tons but that it really would be nice to have someplace to shelter the food and have better access to restrooms and such. and he informed me that the park we'd been thinking about but haven't used much (that is *right* by our new - knock on wood- house) actually has the outdoor pavillions and ampitheatre AND a "villa" higher up on the back side of the hill accessed by a side street that he'd been to and that it was WONDERFUL! 

so last night after dinner with ellie and brad to celebrate our being under contract on the house, we all drove up there to check it out... and it IS wonderful! 

today i called to get the info and found out that while it's not as dirt cheap as my client claimed, it's still a STEAL in comparison to other wedding venues. it will provide us with indoor and outdoor areas to eat and boogie. and we can have alcohol as long as we hire a city cop to keep watch. and it has everything we need as far as bathrooms and such go. and it has a fireplace! 

the only hang-up is that the lady who books the place, minnie,  is out of the office until monday... and the lady who i spoke with on the phone told me she thought minnie had mentioned that it was booked every weekend til december - boooooo! i'm hoping this lady doesn't know about a secret empty weekend that is just waiting for us to book it ;)

we have already decided that we'll do a friday afternoon/evening wedding if we can't get a saturday... but i know i'd really rather not do a sunday. like at all. 

we had saturday, october 10th as our date mentally, but i just browsed online and found out that the birmingham folk festival will be there on sunday, october 11th and i bet they'll be setting up tents and trash cans and such around the park the day before and we really don't want all of that going on in the background of our outdoor ceremony so we will have to be open to alternate dates. no biggie. 

for now, i will share with you the templates i've made for our invites. keep in mind that i am NOT a graphic designer and that i don't have fancy programs on my computer to design these with - not even photoshop! these are just ideas to give to our graphic designer friend so that he can then make them *magic* in ways i cannot! i've designed two: one for our fun friends and another for "grown ups" and i'm hoping that he will be able to add borders and color and more interest to both so that they look more professional even though we plan to just print them out on our inkjet printer at home :)

my mom is constantly worried about me putting up my info online so please DO NOT stalk us or our wedding - THANKS!

i've been reading up on making your wedding more environmentally friendly and i think that we might pass up the save the date cards and as much mailing and envelopes as we can in order to "do our part". i don't know how it will turn out but i am thinking i will roll these up and tie them with a piece of twine and have a little tag hanging off that is personally "addressed" (to: so and so, with love from meg and patrick) with driving directions and our website on the backside so they can find more info without wasting more paper. and we are going to hand deliver every one that we can - not driving around like fools, mind you... but organically as we see people- because our guest list is mainly the folks who are in our everyday lives. i'll cave and mail the ones i have to obviously. 

and in house news, we have our inspection scheduled for this coming tuesday - so if you think about it, send us some really lucky good vibes that they don't find anything crazy and that we can proceed with ease from here! 

i guess this means that i should take the weekend of from mental planning until i know more info about the wedding venue when i call minnie on monday and have our inspection on tuesday huh?..... i'll work on that.... we'll see!