Sorry!

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates. The first 2 weeks back to school have been INSANE!! I'm starting to feel a little more under control now, so expect postings in quick succession. Just don't expect them tonight because E, Simon, Stephanie, Pam, Heather & I (and the class of 2010) are heading out for a 1980's bar crawl to celebrate being half way done with law school! Do expect pictures at some point in the near future.

Also, my posts will not all be after this one. I've post-dated several so that they show up around when they occurred (Fitting #?, 200 day count down, visit with brothers, etc.)

200 Days!

Hard to believe that in 200 days I will be "Mrs. Erik C. Nelson." This is technically speaking. In actuality, I will be Meaghan Bayer Nelson (see previous post). Mrs. Nelson sounds like a 3rd grade teacher — not a lawyer! At any rate, I'M SUPER EXCITED to be married and do married things. I've heard things change in your relationship but I'm curious to see it. We've been together so long, I have a hard time believing that things will be that different. (I know all you married people are laughing at my naivety right now!).

So, here are where things stand planning wise:

• Monogram: In designing process
• Invitations: Same
• Wedding weight loss: 2 more pounds!
• Dress: Redid top part - hopefully draping soon!
• Menu: Selected
• Ceremony: Need to plan readings, vows, etc.
• Bmaid Dresses: Need to pick up

So far so good. This wedding is totally going to be planned by May. No problem!

Dress Fitting # ??

Okay, so I've lost count of how many times I've gone to Tina's to do a fitting for my wedding dress. I know this is bad and that I should know, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. Let me start out with saying what didn't happen at the fitting today. We did not do any draping of the fabric.

In fact, Tina decided to redo the bodice and rethink the support structure of the dress. We decided to make some substantive changes to the straps, which in turn make changes to the bodice. I may also end up doing "recon" on how the skirt attaches to the dress we are using as a base for the design. Any takers on coming with me?

On the bright side, it is a good thing that we did this fitting. Apparently, all that working out over break really paid off! She had to take the bodice in by 1/2 an inch as well as adjusting other things that may have shrunk . . . I have 2 more pounds to go, but I doubt there will be any more changes in the trunk area—at least I hope not! Tina basically told me I'm not allowed to change weight. That's a lot of pressure considering the weddings in AUGUST! My next fitting is Feb. 4, so I'll be sure to post an update then.

Tina promises that we will be doing the draping VERY SOON at which point I'll post pictures again (doesn't seem like there's much of a point right now). Also, for this fitting and the next, my bmaids are off the hook as far as coming with me, which I'm sure they've appreciated!

Bridesmaids Dresses

ARE IN!!!!

Well, kind of. They are ready for pick up at Bella Bridesmaid in Chicago:

Hello Ladies,

I'm very pleased to tell you that your dresses for Meaghan's wedding
are in the store looking fabulous - and available for pick up and
shipment!

Heather so kindly offered to pick them up, so we are (I am) anxiously waiting until she goes up there again! I cannot wait! Yes, we will have a trying on party! My out of town bridesmaids already have theirs because they were shipped. Haven't heard any comments from any of them regarding the awesomeness yet, but it's only a matter of time. . . I have heard that they will need alterations but that's to be expected.

Speaking of alterations—as soon as I got the email from Bella, I replied all (deleting the salon, of course) asking everyone to NOT get them altered until at least this summer. Bodies can do a lot of changing in 7 months and I would hate for them to have to be altered a second time!

Expect goofy pictures from the aforementioned trying on party at some point in the near future.

7 Months

Yes, I'm still posting on the 15th of every month. I cannot believe it's been 7 months since we got engaged, and we still have another 7 months to go. The planning is going well and there isn't much left to do. Right now, it's just finishing up on the invitation design and figuring out wedding day logistics—hair/ makeup stuff. I'm not completely familiar with the area so it'll be interesting to try to figure everything out.

Right now, I'm in Sacramento visiting my family. It's 66º F here whereas it is -27º F in Champaign. Yeah... happy I'm not in town.

Anyway, not much to update people about so I'll post some more at a later date.

Other Meaghan & Erik's

So, for the heck of it, I decided to Google "Meaghan & Erik." Come to find out, there's another couple with our names! The nerve! And they just got married this past year. Here's their website, in case you are feeling slightly e-stalker: http://www.mywedding.com/meaghananderikswedding/. The other thing that came up was a link to this blog via a link to a good friend of mine's blog. It's good to know that there are not that many of us "Meaghan & Erik"s out there.

I think that I feel this way because when you Google my name, you only get me. I like that. There's something unique about that. Maybe that's part of the reason why I am having difficulty giving up my name (in addition to the whole losing my independent identity thing and the feeling like property thing). You see, if you Google Erik's name, you get thousands of hits and websites for an aspiring model/actor, technical consultant, and comic book artist among other things.

So, that led me to think about how many Meaghan Nelson's are out there. I was a tad disappointed at the results—there are a lot! Included in this search, was an eerily similar meeting story for Meaghan Nelson and her husband: There are also LinkedIn and Facebook profiles for Meaghan Nelson's. I had pretty much already decided on what my married name will be, but these Google searches sealed the deal. I've become pretty attached to the idea of being the only one with my name out there on the Internet.

So, my married name will be Meaghan Bayer Nelson. Two last names, no hyphen. Of course, I had to confirm that this was the best course of action: And was pleased to see that it was. Like I said earlier, I had pretty much decided that this would be my married name a few months ago—mostly as a result of getting spam emails from Bridal Expo and the like (see post here). In that post, I said I was pretty attached to my email, but later checked to see if my married name was taken yet—and it wasn't! That was a big step for me with this name-change thing. Next, E's dad renewed E's membership to Sam's Club and added me on it—as his WIFE! After the initial panic wore off (it took about a week), I think it's kind of cool to have something official with my new name on it. Granted, it's not my name yet but I'm beginning to warm up to the idea.

This does not mean I'm warming up to the idea of being the "Mrs." in "Dr. and Mrs" or to being "Mrs. Erik C. Nelson." Warning: If you send me anything with this on it, it will be hard for me to forgive you in the near future. I have my own identity thankyouverymuch. And on that note, I'm out.

In Sickness and in Health . . .

Erik is taking the whole "in sickness and in health" vow to a whole new level. Just 3 months ago he had major shoulder surgery resulting in me having to bathe and dress him, cut his food, and chauffeur him to and from work. Now, I love him, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for the whole nurse-thing. I think Erik would agree. But he was patient with me as a fumbled my way through either freezing him or scalding him in the bath or putting the dressings on crooked and shoddy. I think we both were relieved when he got the clearance to start driving himself again.



This morning he got his wisdom teeth out. He has been meaning to do it for some time and at his last dentist appointment, the dentist basically required him to do so—punishing him with check-ups every 3 months until he did. So far he has been a rebellious patient first wanting to go to work (I veto-ed) and then wanting to go to the supplement store (I acquiesced). Now he is playing "Call of Duty" and avoiding solid foods. My only hope is that he isn't going to be in too much pain.



This is not to say that he has not done his fair share of taking care of me. About 6 years ago, I got my wisdom teeth out and from his stories about the experience—I was in much worse shape than he is now. Since I went completely under, I was really out of it after the surgery. I also had a really bad reaction to the painkillers which resulted in my vomiting a lot and not being coherent enough to change my own gauze. So Erik lovingly changed my pukey gauze and took very good care of me for the duration. I think that I owed the last 2 surgery recoups to him for doing that. :)



That's what love's all about, isn't it? <3 class="story_title">

Tasting & Wedding Menu

On Friday, January 2, Erik's parents, Erik and I went to The Country Squire to do our tasting for the reception. Yes, it's super early but we were all available to do it and there's no telling when that would be the case again. Mike, our site coordinator, came up and said "hi" even though he was setting up for a wedding that night. I asked if we could see the ballroom all decorated and he said "yes!" It was great to see the hall decorated and set up for a wedding. We decided (after convincing Erik) to nix the chair covers because it's going to be cramped enough for dinner. I'm just hoping the weather is nice so that the guests can mingle outside with the hors d'oeuvres—otherwise, it may be close quarters. We'll have to take a few tables (including the head table) down after dinner. But we'll talk more about that with Mike when we meet with him in March.

Setting up the tasting was pretty easy. I had to call Mike with 4 different options of every part of the meal — appetizer, salad, entrée, vegetable, and potato. I also had to coordinate with our wedding cake baker to taste the wedding cake. Then all we had to do was show up and eat a lot of food! They gave us full portions of everything, which is why we brought 4 people!

The decision was actually really easy to make. All the components had a clear winner. We had a lot of fun tasting and critiquing everything. Erik & I felt like we were judges on Top Chef! Also, in keeping with the previous wedding milestones, I took pictures. See below.

The 4 of us trying the 5 entrées we picked out!

Wedding cake. It's hard to tell but there are actually 2 different coconut toppings. We like the flakier one better - the smaller flakes felt like sandpaper in our mouths. I'm also not sure why the cake lady put flowers on it . . . those will not be on the actual cake.

And, without further ado, our Wedding Menu:

Soup: Wild mushroom
Salad: Caesar
Potato: Twice baked
Vegetable: Stuffed tomato w/ broccoli au gratin
Entrée Options (guests pick on response card):

• Chicken Marsala
• Salmon w/ Cilantro Butter
• Filet
• Pasta Primavera (vegetarian option)
  

Wedding cake: Chocolate covered with buttercream frosting and coconut flakes.

Note that this does not include our hors d'oeuvres—we'll pick those out later.

Welcome Save the Date Recipients

Hello to those that are visiting our blog after receiving our Save the Dates in the mail. Thanks for taking the time to check out our planning process. I hope that you will continue to check back often to see how things are going. There are a bunch of things that I have yet to post on the blog — honeymoon information, the tasting, invitations, wedding dress updates, etc.

If you look to the right there is a link that says "Details for Guests." Click on that link to access our "The Knot" wedding website that has details about the wedding party, the venue and our registry. Upcoming additions to that website will be hotel accommodation information and directions.

Thanks again for visiting and I hope you enjoy reading this blog!

Wedding Registry Adventures

Although the wedding is 7 1/2 months away, we registered for gifts last week. I had an idea about registering being a long, involved process but was nonetheless surprised at how exhausting it in fact was. We registered at 3 home stores and Erik might be registering at Home Depot — I opted not to go on that registering extravaganza. We had some interesting observations at the 3 stores where we are registered. I'm writing my thoughts on these not to encourage people to buy gifts (don't want to be tacky) but just to share our experience. It's a touchy subject—how to get the word out there where one is registered—but this is by no means a sales pitch.

Store #1: Crate & Barrel
By far the easiest registering experience. Their scanner worked wonderfully and was highly intuitive. It was easy to enter in quantities and remove items. The salespeople were helpful but gave us our space. There were some items we wanted that they did not have in the store and so we went online later to edit our registry. Their website registry editing process was super easy as well. C & B far surpassed the other stores.

Store #2: Macy's
Next we went to Macy's. Our main goal for Macy's was to get the formal china. The thing about Macy's that was different was that we had to meet in a back room (the Registry area) with a woman who was not extremely adept at working on computers to set up our Registry. [At C&B we scanned everything, placed the scanner on a reader and then entered the information in ourselves via a touchscreen.] Another thing about Macy's that was a little off-putting was the store wanting our guest list to send them little cards that say we are registered there. In the same breath the woman talked about how we can't put our registry information on the invitations because that would be tacky. . . right and giving our loved ones' addresses would be okay and completely acceptable. Also, I specifically checked the box on the form not to get promotions in my email and, what do you know, I have gotten 5 since we registered. I'm not happy with Macy's right now.

The one good thing about going to Macy's was finally seeing the china in person. We went to Macy's with a certain pattern in mind but saw a few that we liked much better. Surprisingly enough, Erik and I disagreed on the pattern. He wanted a whimsical bow pattern to match our wedding flutes, dessert serving pieces, etc. (see future post), and I wanted something classic and timeless.

Here's Erik admiring his choice of Kate Spade's Belle Boulevard (scanner in hand):



Here's the one we went with (Vera Wang Grosgrain):


Store #3: Bed Bath & Beyond
Finally at around 7pm we made it to BBB—only to find that we had basically wasted our time at Macy's. Not sure if you guys know this (we didn't), but BBB has fine china. They had our pattern for a little cheaper and you can use those 20% coupons you always get in the mail! AND, though this is slightly obvious, their prices on kitchen electronics and kitchenware are much better as well! And it's the same stuff!

The one thing that was really, really annoying about BBB was the woman in charge of the registry. She kept us in her office for 30+ minutes explaining how to register and what we should register for and the benefits of a standing mixer (which we did not register for). Then, as though that wasn't annoying enough, proceeded to register for the fine china with us — like we couldn't do it ourselves. We were like, "Please get away from us. This is our last store and you are preventing us from eating dinner." We are still talking about this woman and how annoying she was. How young did we look?! Also, she offered us notepads of "inserts" for shower invitations that we could put our BBB registry number on. Are these people insane? I worry about the poor brides- and grooms-to-be that fall for this crap and then offend a bunch of their guests.

Anyway, despite annoying sales ladies, aching feet, and hunger, registering was quite fun. We didn't have any major disagreements about styles of things (except for the china). All in all, it was very successful. I do think that Erik had more fun than me though—he was in control of the scanner.

Here's a picture of us at the end of the night:

Save the Dates (Part 3)

I've written a lot about Save the Dates. For whatever reason they are a big sticking point for me. They are so final, you know. The guest list is set, names are (hopefully) correct, and now our wedding size is determined on who responds.

After Erik and I prepared the addresses (return and otherwise), Erik's mom stamped and sealed the Save the Dates. She did it like a pro! I wanted her to use a sponge or some other like product to seal the envelopes, but she licked them. (Sorry if that grosses the recipients out). Erik and I had this fear of the glue in the envelopes since that one Seinfeld where Susan licked the envelopes and died. We would hate to be responsible for anything like that. It's been 3 days and Barb's still alive a kickin', so we feel a bit better about it.

Anyway, the Save the Dates went out today except those that we still need addresses for (blame Groom). My apologies to those who have been reading and following this blog who will not receive Save the Dates. As referenced in an earlier post, I've recently reconnected with my half-brothers and that meant cutting some of my friends. I wanted to invite everyone, but that's just not possible. Erik and I split the list 60-90 and I didn't want to go back on that since his family is so large and they're family, so, of course, we want them there. Sorry, family will always trump friends. This is just how it works. If you have planned a wedding, you understand and if you haven't, you will.

There has been so much wedding planning accomplished this last week so expect some more posts in quick succession.