Paula writes:
I think I need to work on my moves for the reception. These couples got some mad skillz.
Archive for January, 2008
A little light entertainment.
Paula Writes:
I now have a dress for the wedding. Well, two of them to be exact. And damned if I don’t feel all girly in them.
I would post some pictures, but I think Joe wants to be shocked and awed by the stunning vision of my girliosity on our wedding day.
Tara, if you are reading this, I cannot thank you enough. You have taken a big weight off my shoulders. Well, some of the weight. Wedding dresses are heavy! Thanks again.
Ooooohhhh…I think this means I get to go shoe shopping.
Joe writes:
A big sigh of relief: We have a place to get married. And it’s the place we wanted from the beginning. Remember that bookstore we talked about? We drove to Springfield this weekend to see if it would still be available. The owner said it was, so it’s official: We’re getting married at Well Fed Head.
The bookstore, admittedly, has much better and regular customers than us — even before we moved to Joplin. But the times we’ve been, we’ve loved it. It’s been easy to spend too much of an evening searching through the shelves, finding new things and new-to-us things. And because Paula and I love books so much, it just made sense. Plus, it also fits in with our “small wedding big reception” idea.
Michael, the owner, agreed. He’s going to let us have our wedding in the bookstore’s side room, where they have a lot of their poetry and music performances. We can’t wait! In addition to helping us have our dream wedding, he put a smile on Paula’s face, which helped melt away a lot of the stress we’ve been feeling over wedding details lately.We are so grateful to Michael and everyone at Well Fed Head for making a dream come true for two geeks in love.
Paula Writes:
Dang, Joe beat me to it. I would have called this post “Bookstore Booked” or possibly “Goin’ to the Bookstore and We’re Gonna Get Married”. My plot for a truly cheesy headline has been foiled. Darn you, Joe. Darn you!
Well Fed Head is a really wonderful place. And not just because they are letting us get married there. If you haven’t been there, you should visit.
I am still a little concerned about the size of the place. The performance space where we are going to have our ceremony will hold about 40 people comfortably and between 50 and 60 if we want to really pack ‘em in. While Joe and I did have the “small wedding big reception” idea, I think I just wasn’t prepared for quite so small. So now I am trying to reconcile the opposing ideas of getting married at this wonderful location, and wanting as many people as possible to witness me saying I do to the most incredible man in the world. Think we could get a cable access show?
So anyway, here are some pictures of the place we are going to get hitched. The pictures aren’t great, but I was all excited and stuff.
Joe writes:
This weekend is a big step. We haven’t mentioned the name of the bookstore where we want to get married, because we didn’t want to jinx anything. But we are going there this weekend to find out if we can still have a wedding there. The owner was agreeable back in August or September, but he told us to come back at the first of the year and finalize it. So we’re gonna. And we hope he’s still game. Cross your fingers for us!
In other news, cousin Jonathan gave us a great song by The Postal Service that will likely make its way on the invitation. What other songs do we have picked out? Like an episode of Lost, I’m going to tell you about Nikki and Paulo instead, and not address the invitation for another four weeks.
Joe writes:
My cousin Holly has a blog! And it’s so much cooler than this one. She’s doing hers through the .mac service; truth be told, she’s made a Web page. And it kicks rumpus. Yeah, I said rumpus.
The wonderfully cute people there are her kids and husband, Mike, who completely understands my obsession with the Pirates of the Spanish Main game. And Holly is an awesome photographer.
Like an idiot, I missed their wedding years ago. I probably had to work, but still. They had more than a marriage; they had, if I remember right, a “wedding adventure.” Lots of games and stuff. There may have been Jenga. Not entirely sure. Help me out here, Holly!
Paula first met the clan more than a year ago, when we still lived in Nixa, and one of her favorite memories is of Holly’s son Luke’s crazy obsession with bananas.
Holly and her family, Uncle John and cousin Jonathan came to Nixa to stay with Dad. Right before the visit, the water heater, um, what’s the word: Tried to kill me with electricity. Yeah, that’s the word. Or six. Anyway, Uncle John, Holly and my cousin Jonathan stopped by to help me replace it. Paula and I went to the store so we could feed our visitors. Luke was happy that we got bananas. Really happy. Boy loves bananas, apparently. He is such a happy, excited kid normally, so his “excited and happy” mode could probably power a small city. He saw the bananas on the counter and turned to his mom with the brightest eyes, biggest smile and said, “NANA PEEEEASS!”
To this day, when Paula and I see bananas, we say that to each other.
Joe writes:
First of all, the hed above should make it painfully obvious that Paula writes better heds than me.
If the Joplin bridal expo was a bust, then the mall’s thing was even less helpful. We did get a card for a purveyor of small gifts, but that was it. No good tux or dress ideas, no ideas for people on a budget. That kind of ticks me off, actually. The wedding industry seems bent on milking people’s joy of a union. There are some generous fathers out there who would pay for everything their little girl wanted on her happy day; I’d probably be one of those fathers one day. But seriously: $5,000 for a photo album? $500 for a cake? Wedding shopping reminds me of governmental spending, only without getting all the covert secret spy stuff that comes with that $1,000 toilet seat.
As the day nears, we’re trying to narrow down locations. The bookstore Paula alluded to is still a possibility, though Paula doesn’t think it will work out because of space issues. I came across some other ideas this morning:
~ The Nixa Community Center, but their phones have been busy all morning.
~ Historic Firehouse #2 on Commercial St. Paula is pretty hot, and seeing her in her wedding dress, I might burst into flames. 
We thought about using one of the rooms at the library, but the library told me this morning that those rooms cannot be used for personal events.
So, I’m open for ideas… anyone have any unique locations for a wedding?
Paula writes:
I am extremely stressed out.
Thank you, that is all.
Paula Writes:
Well, as luck would have it, I did indeed survive the Bridal Expo this afternoon. Huzzah!
It was a very near thing though, as the air conditioning was not operational in the convention center. It was absolutely broiling inside the building. Apparently the event staff tried to alleviate the sweltering heat by opening the back door, but this resulted in all sorts of havoc due to the high winds so the doors were closed again leaving all of us wedding fanatics to suffer.
I know you are all anxious to see pictures of the event, being that sharing our experiences with planning our wedding is the reason we started this blog. And photos are a great way to share. So I won’t keep you waiting any longer.
Yep. That’s it.
It turns out that there was no photography allowed at the Wedding Extravaganza Expo. In fact, while I was in the process of cuddling with a dove(don’t ask), one of the women I went to the show with took out her cell phone to get a quick picture and we were told that we had better lot let anyone catch us taking pictures or we would be asked to leave. There was even a police officer there for just such infractions of the bridal show rules. I have to say I think this is a terrible way to do business. I think taking pictures is the best way for brides to remember things that caught their eye and to give them the opportunity to make comparisons. But I guess the people who run the Wedding Extravaganza feel differently.
I think all in all, while the bridal show was interesting, it was pretty much a bust. But I will not be deterred. Tomorrow Joe and I will invade the Bridal Fair at the Northpark Mall.
Stay tuned….
Paula Writes:
Now that we have gotten past all the holiday festivities, it is time to get down to business. The business of planning a wedding that is.
This weekend I plan to attend a bridal show, which ought to be…umm…interesting. If I survive that and still want to get married, then either this weekend or next we will hopefully make another visit to the bookstore where we would like to hold the ceremony. This visit will determine whether or not we can use the space. If not, panic will ensue as we try and scramble for another venue. Once we secure the location, the next challenge is finding an officiant that wants to perform the ceremony in a bookstore that I believe used to be a haunted house. And don’t even get me started on the reception…oh, and the invitations…can’t forget about those.
Ah so much to do, so little time.
