Back in Town, good news

I'm back from Virginia. We had a fantastic time visiting various relatives and sharing our big news -

Jennie and I are getting married next summer!

Everyone was excited to hear the news - most importantly our brothers, who we asked to be our Best Men. We bought a few wedding books to give us ideas on what we want to do (and what we decidedly do not want to do). The most interesting one is titled I do but I don't: Walking down the aisle without losing your mind. It's a book that chronicle's the author's experience with getting married, and it critically examines the behemoth that is the "Wedding-Industrial Complex" along with the various traditions surrounding weddings. It's really opened our eyes to what we want to do with our wedding.

Luckily for us we have both of our sets of parents in our corner (weddings under protest can be quite uncomfortable, as we learned last summer). Just as importantly, Jennie's cousin Beverly Ann will fill in as our unofficial wedding coordinator. She's a huge asset because not only did she have a wedding very similar to what we want, but she missed her calling as a professional party planner. She's organized many company picnics/dinners and has all the relevant connections in Loudoun County.

We made a preliminary guest list and it was much larger than we expected, but after the initial shock we're not overly concerned about it as we plan our wedding to be pretty low-key and fun. Our motto is that we want a fun wedding rather than a Perfect Wedding, and I think we can pull it off. Now we just need to hunt down everyone's addresses - more difficult since our intended officiant and one of the groomsmen are currently out of the country.

We're not sure of our official date yet, but it will probably either be the last weekend in May or in mid-June sometime (we're still waiting to hear on one or two family-related things we need to schedule around). We're planning on doing it at Jennie's parents' house. We'll do the ceremony in the front yard and have the reception/party in the back yard.