The other Wedding of the Year

Eric and I may have swooped in, got engaged and married in a matter of months, but my friend Tisha and her fiance Chris had 17 months to play a spectacular affair for their wedding in Ann Arbor. And they did not disappoint. The church was beautiful, the reception site was awesome, and everything in between was well planned and wonderful.  One of the highlights was the photo booth that they had at their reception. We visited it many times, always with entertaining results.  And of course, I got to toast one of my best friends because she finally found her ultimate partner. Congratulations to Tisha and Chris!

The Un-honeymoon

We were not prepared to take a honeymoon right away, but we did manage to sneak in a few trips to make up for it. Perhaps in 2010 we'll get our honeymoon, but for for this year, we settled for a trip to Pittsburgh to see the Steelers play a preseason game at home (they won!) and to take in some Pittsburgh sites. We were even able to use Eric's Museum perks to get into a local Pittsburgh museum for free and to see all six of the Lombardi trophies won by the Steelers. With the exception of some heavy rain on the way, we had great weather and it was a perfect weekend to cheer on our beloved team.

The wedding of the year...at least to us

So while everyone around us was having babies, I had other things to worry about. I had to plan a wedding! Eric and I tried to keep it simple, and tried to make sure it reflected our personalities. Outdoors on a chilly, but dry May day, on my Grandma Weiderman's 94th birthday, we said I do. My sister Mandy was my maid of honor, and my two best friends Tisha and Melissa were my other bridesmaids. Eric's best friend from high school, Ross, served as his best man, and other friends Jason and Ryan were his other groomsmen. My adorable nieces Isabelle and Naomi did very well as flower girls and Henry, my sister's son, provided entertainment down the aisle as well as on the dance floor later that night.

  

 

 We carried our love for movies into the theme by recessing to a Star Wars theme and into the reception, with Eric using Photoshop to create custom table names and we offered popcorn in movie theater buckets as an appetizer to the meal catered by my own mother and her friend, Dorothy.

All of our families helped us, either cutting the cake, cuing up the music, decorating, catering and even providing the location. The weather held out, the lights all worked (for most of the evening) and most important...I got to dance with my new husband.

A Christmas Toy

Things seemed to just fall into place for us just before Christmas of last year. We had casually contemplated getting a dog, but with Eric's allergies, we would have to have one that was hypo-allergenic. And with our tendency to not want to spend a lot of money, we hadn't found one that suited us. And then my mom crossed paths with a woman who was trying to find a home for her dog. She loved the dog, but she felt like they didn't give it enough attention and so they were hoping to find someone who could. So my mom mentioned it to me and I went to visit this dog and it was love at first sight. So two days before Christmas, we got an early Christmas present. A four year old, !housebroken! toy poodle. We named her Winnie, as in Winnie the Poo-dle. Get it? Ha ha, blame Eric for that one...

The start of something good

This year has brought a lot of change for us. A year ago, on a seemingly innocent trip to Toronto to see my absolute favorite band Barenaked Ladies, Eric got down on one knee in the middle of the city square in front of a gorgeous Christmas tree and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes! The trip turned out to be even better than originally planned (with that, how could it not?), with not one, but two BNL shows taken in, a trip to the Second City comedy club, the famous Honest Ed's discount store, and Casa Loma. And to end it all...a rainbow on our way out of town. Sounds like a pretty good sign to me.