Grab your datebooks

So, the big moment has finally arrived ... well, the first big moment anyway. We have chosen a date and venue for the wedding! Wow, this blog has a lot of exclamation points! OMG!! (It's good that I can still make fun of myself ... give me a few months are we'll see how much of a sense of humor I have left ...)

The wedding will be June 13, 2009 at the Indiana Repertory Theatre. (Yes, this is the theatre where I work.) The ceremony will be held on-stage and the reception in the theatre's absolutely amazing restored Art Deco lobby.

What a relief to have the date and location set. I feel like now the rest of it will start to fall into place much more easily. Official "Save the Date" cards will come out October-November-ish. More info as things develop.

Warning! Wedding planning may be hazardous to your health!

So, I know this will shock you all but it turns out that moving across the country, starting a new job, and planning a wedding at the exact same time might be just a WEE bit stressful. :)

It's nice to have positive stressors for once (instead of negative ones like my company going bankrupt and unemployment ...) but these are still major life events. Time to take a breath, have a little patience with myself, and consider taking things one a time ... I mean, really, the world will not end if I don't pick my dress and bridesmaid dresses, find ceremony and reception venues, choose the entire menu and finalize the guest list this week! (In fact, it would be a really bad idea if I tried to do all those things this week.)

I hope the note of humor I've attempted to inject here is reading through. :)

Progress is being made: we have started examining our budget and talking about venues. A few email inquires have been made, we visited one place (informally, we just went for drinks and appetizers on our own to determine whether we should investigate further) and our goal is to have a venue and date by the end of August.

The "where"

So, we haven't gotten to a lot of planning yet but there is one detail we have decided on: the wedding will be in Indianapolis.

We considered different possibilities in choosing a city for our little party: we thought about having it in Buffalo (it's where we met, where we started building a life together), we thought about Bloomington (it's where I grew up and much of my extended family is still in the area), but ultimately we decided on Indianapolis.

A few different factors helped us make this decision. First, so many of the people who will be invited are already scattered across the country. Indy is fairly centralized and a reasonable drive from Bloomington and Buffalo, plus it's large enough to have plenty of flight options for those further away. Indianapolis is our new home and we're looking forward to sharing it with the people who are most special to us. Also, as I'm realizing, a wedding is a pretty expensive affair so why not choose to make that investment in the businesses and people who make up the community around us?

No matter where we chose a large number of people would have to travel to attend, and we realize that there will probably be people who won't be able to make the trip. Our greatest hope is that those who cannot attend will at least be here in spirit.

We made it!

Well, we're in Indy now, try to get settled in to our new place. We've pretty much found room for everything (hard to believe if you've seen all the stuff we have) and are trying to take care of all the little details like getting internet hooked up at the house and figuring out where the grocery store is. I LOVE having a washer and dryer ... and an air conditioner, since it's like 91 today.

Anyway, now we can start thinking about planning! More updates soon.

See you on the flip side

Well, we're hitting the road for Indy in about an hour. The truck is packed, the apartment's been cleaned, (our deposit returned, god bless our landlord), the cats have been traumatized and we're all set! Let's hope for safe and uneventful travel.

Talk to you all soon.

Spotlight Interview Project

I've outlined this for many of you already in an email but one of the projects I hope to accomplish with this blog is a series of "Spotlight" posts about each of our immediate family members and the members of the wedding party. I think this will be a nice way for everyone to learn a few things about each other, especially since we're scattered all over the country and many of you have not met (and probably won't meet until next summer).

I'd like to post a photo with each profile if everyone is okay with that, just to help put names with faces. If you have concerns about posting your photo online (or a photo of your children) please let me know.

Also, the blog is currently a public blog, meaning anyone can access it. (Not that I think there's going to be much traffic from total strangers.) If people are uncomfortable with this I do have the ability to make it a "members only" blog. However, this will complicate things when we get to the invite stage and want to post things like directions, etc.

I'll probably begin the spotlight posts once we get moved. I'll contact you by email to get a little info before your turn and will be sure to let you proofread your post before going live with it.

Feel free to leave comments with your feedback.

Ooooh, I'm in!

Jen will probably post much more than I will, but I feel better being a small part of the blog...

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to the Owen-Harmon wedding blog! I hope this will a place for family and friends to find information about planning, ask questions, post ideas and generally help us celebrate our upcoming marriage!