Calendar

Here are some of the dates of upcoming "stuff" related to the wedding...

Friday, June 1 -- Bachelor Party
Sunday, June 3 -- Couples' Shower
Friday, June 8 -- Rehearsal @ 5:00
Friday, June 8 -- Rehearsal Dinner @ University Club @ 7:00
Saturday, June 9 -- Wedding ceremony @ 4:00
Saturday, June 9 -- Wedding reception @ Mangiamo @ 6:00

Weather Forecast

I'm always amused at the mock precision of the "extended forecasts" by some of the weather services. For instance, on May 29, with the wedding 11 days away, they are saying that it will rain on June 8 and be sunny with a 0% chance of rain on the day of our wedding, June 9.

I know that forecasts more than 4-5 days out are really no better than drawing bingo numbers, but I'll chronicle the Accuweather.com and other services' forecasts as the day approaches...

UPDATED 5/30 -- forecast has already changed drastically from yesterday...see below
UPDATED 5/31 -- Accuweather changed next Friday's forecast high by 22 degrees since yesterday!
UPDATED 6/1 -- Accuweather changed Saturday's forecast high from 75 to 63 since yesterday, and Friday's high from 86 to 76. They're all over the map...

(Forecasts as of today at the beginning of each line, followed by previous forecasts)

ACCORDING TO ACCUWEATHER.COM:

Friday, June 8
As of 6/01: 76 and cloudy
As of 5/31: 86 and partly cloudy
As of 5/30: 64 and sunny
As of 5/29: 67 and rain

Saturday, June 9
As of 6/01: 63 and rain
As of 5/31: 75 and partly cloudy
As of 5/30: 80 and rain
As of 5/29: 64 and sunny


ACCORDING TO THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Friday, June 8
As of 6/01: 80 and thunderstorms
As of 5/31: 81 and thunderstorms
As of 5/31: 75 and rain
As of 5/30: 74 and mostly cloudy
As of 5/30: 77 and rain

Saturday, June 9
As of 6/01: 80 and sunny
As of 5/31: 81 and sunny
As of 5/31: 79 and mostly cloudy


Tom

One more detail....

This morning I decided to update our blog because I knew it hadn't been updated in awhile and saw that Tom had the same idea yesterday... we tend to do that a lot. :) I can add one more detail .... we started registering last night at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was exciting to pick out things that we both like (after a few compromises on both of our parts) for our new life together as husband and wife!! We still have to go back to pick out some things, but at least it's a start. Only 71 more days......I can't wait!

New Details

Okay, we haven't posted in a while because we've had trouble finalizing certain basic aspects of the wedding, but in the last week or so, things have really taken shape!

We met Reverend Melody Johnson (pastor at Porter Hills) last night. She will be officiating our wedding, which will be taking place in Meredith's parents' back yard on Saturday, June 9 at 4:00pm. We are both excited that Reverend Johnson will be taking part! Hopefully the weather will be nice and the ceremony will be in the sunshine, but we will be prepared with a tent in case "Michigan Weather" hits us.

My Dad will be my Best Man, and Meredith's sister Sue is the Matron of Honor. Meredith's daughter Danielle and nephew Noah will be Flower Girl and Ringbearer, respectively (I don't think I really needed to say 'respectively' there -- you could've figured that one out). We're still working out others' roles, but we won't have any other groomsmen or bridesmaids.

The reception will start at approximately 6:00pm at Mangiamo (formerly Gibson's) on Lake Drive. We have reserved the Library Room, the one adjacent to the bar near the entrance, which seats about 50 people. Although there's no door to separate us from the bar, the room is fairly enclosed and should provide a very quaint setting for the reception!

After that, Meredith and I are going to Niagara-On-The-Lake and Toronto for our honeymoon! We've reserved a nice-looking Bed & Breakfast for Sunday and Monday night in N-O-T-L, and a very well-reviewed hotel in Toronto for Tuesday through Friday nights. So far our only plans there are a Leon Redbone/Madeline Peyroux concert on Wednesday night, and a Blue Jays game on Friday night. It was actually Meredith that stumbled on the fact that Leon Redbone (one of my favorites) was going to be there the same time we were. I love her!!!

Tom

How did we meet?

Okay, this question has come up a few times recently. I'll make the answer short and sweet.

Match.com.

She 'winked' at me first. I had viewed her profile about 160 times before that, but I was too chicken to initiate the match. Once she winked, though, I e-mailed her right back, and the rest as they say is history!

Friday is...

Meredith and I met 1,000 days ago today. When we were first dating, for some reason we kept count of the number of days. She recently dug up a Christmas card I gave her in 2004 which referred to the number of days. It was for that reason that I used it in the marriage proposal (979 days at the time). And today it was 1,000 days that I've known her. The date that we met is memorable for two reasons -- it was 06/05/04, easy enough, but it's also the date that Ronald Reagan passed away. We were on our first date at Festival of the Arts downtown, watching her niece Anna dance on stage, when we first heard of his passing.

Meredith wondered what I would give her for our 1,000 day "anniversary." If "annum" means year, and "diem" means day, I guess the correct word would be "dieversary." I told her she'd get nothing and like it. :)

Somewhere in my mind I had wanted a wedding date of 09/08/07, or 05/06/07, or something that had some symmetry with 06/05/04, but it looks like 06/09/07 makes the most sense for more practical reasons. We're trying to make the date definite by booking a reception hall and, oh yeah, finding someone that will actually marry us, but the date looks pretty solid at this point. And it looks like we're going to Toronto/Niagara Falls for our honeymoon! It should be beautiful in June!

TH

Wedding Dress....

I got my wedding dress! I went shopping this past weekend with my friends Dawn and Shelly and bought a beautiful dress .... but I won't share any more details here. :) I also got a dress for Danielle to wear that is just darling! Tom and I made a list of all the things we need to plan/do for the wedding, but I think we've made a good start. Only 102 days until the wedding ....

Just had to say ....

that I am marrying the sweetest guy in the world. I don't tell him often enough - but he does so many "little" things that I appreciate. I am sooo thankful and blessed to have him in my life. :)

Picture from last summer...

At Meredith's company picnic in August 2006.

(click to enlarge)

My thoughts ...

I had to chime in on my thoughts on the proposal and upcoming wedding. :) It was a "normal" night for the 2 of us so I really didn't expect it to happen that night. It was absolutely perfect ... perfect because it was the 2 of us doing what we normally do, but yet romantic and very creative at the same time. Even though there were a few glitches, I thought that made it even better because that's how real life is. One of the best parts of the whole proposal was when Tom said "you are standing exactly where you were when I first saw you." I can't wait to get married to my best friend!

Saturday, June 9, 2007???

All of our wedding plans are still in pencil for the time being, but we're looking at Saturday, June 9, 2007 for our wedding date. It seems fitting, because Meredith's birthday is July 9, and we got engaged February 9. This will make it easier for me to remember in the future -- "on the 9th day of any month, you'd better do something nice for Meredith..."

The wedding location is not official yet either, but the one we have in mind is outdoors! Either way, it will be a very small ceremony (family only, maybe a handful of very close friends). We will definitely throw a party for our friends near the date of the wedding!

Her daughter Dani is going to be our flower girl. She seemed excited last night to hear that her mom and I were going to be getting married! Meredith got her a very nice Wedding Barbie, and a book on how cool it is to be a flower girl. I think that helped!

She Said Yes!

Well, this is the best way to start a blog that I can think of. Meredith and I got engaged on Friday night! Things didn't go according to my not-so-perfect plan, but fortunately for me it was "good enough!"

My plan was to sit down with her and play a game of Gin on her living room floor (a recent common occurrence for us), and have her draw a card that said "I love you! Follow the music!" right at the same moment that her favorite song, "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters, began to crescendo on my iPod hooked up to speakers in the dining room. I was to synchronize all of this by inserting a 3-minute silent track on my iPod, and by using a 3-minute sand timer to let me know when to let her draw the card.

2 problems with this plan: I had tested the sequence of tracks on my iPod earlier in the day, and after listening to about 1 minute of the 3-minute silent track, I got bored and clicked the "next track" button to Everlong. Unfortunately, this impatience made me miss the fact that after 2 minutes of total silence, the speaker system shuts itself off. I had also placed the sand timer in a spot where I was getting a lot of refraction from the light behind it, so I could only tell when it was getting low, but I couldn't tell when it ran out of sand completely.

So there I was, hemming and hawing, stalling for time, thinking to myself that the song was going to start playing anytime. So after what turned out to be 5 minutes (instead of 3), I finally had her draw the card (which gave her Gin also, by the way). I then excused myself to the other room to find to my chagrin that the music turned itself off. So, I restarted it and sprinted back into the living room. She heard the music, and after about 30 seconds, my proposal plan continued.

She walked into the dining room to see the speakers and a sign that said, "Don't Turn Around." (No, not an Ace of Bass reference.) I used this opportunity to sneak up behind her, retrieve the ring that was hidden behind her kitchen trash can, and get down on one knee. I then clicked the Next Track button on my remote, and a computer-generated voice said, "Okay Meredith, turn around." She then walked toward me and my outstretched hands, right onto the very spot where I saw her for the very first time nearly 3 years ago.

The proposal itself was fairly personal, so I won't share the words with everyone here, but here's the other problem with my plan: In the kitchen I had set up my digital camera, which also takes short movies with sound. I started taking the movie at the same time that I started the 3-minute silent track on my iPod. I had tested the camera earlier to make sure it could take a 5-minute movie, which was all that I thought I needed (3 minutes of silence, then a 2-minute proposal). Unfortunately, with the extra delay of 2-3 minutes, the camera ran out of memory at 7 minutes and 57 seconds, which was the EXACT moment that I was opening the box and about to say, "Meredith Lynn W....will you marry me?" The camera even made a beeping noise to let me know while I was proposing that we weren't ever going to get to see her say yes. :( So all we have is a poorly lit, barely audible movie that shows everything but me popping the question and Meredith saying yes.

But the important thing is that she DID say yes!

-Tom