Hey That’s A Nice Life

Well, maybe not everything … but everything that does happen all happens at the same time.

Our wedding is in less than 30 days.  I am working on three media campaigns simultaneously.  The ALL CANDY EXPO is about 45 days away.  And, on top of that, this week my office is moving from Vienna, VA to Georgetown in northwest Washington, DC.

I’m excited about all of those things … but I’d be OK if they were taking place over the next three months and not the next six weeks.

Nonetheless, everything is happening all at once so it’s best to embrace it.  Here is a preview of my new office:

Check out my purple accent wall and door.  My future MIL, Penelope, is going to be very excited when she sees this.  Thanks to Tori for providing us with updated pictures as the office is completed little by little.

We’ll be ensconced in the new digs on April 13.  I can’t wait.

‘That was easy.’
courtesy of ‘jaxed’

There was a time when I might have been offended. Last week Susan said that she hasn’t said much to people about my photobooth project because - until that week - she hadn’t been sure I’d pull it off in time. Now that I have been in the software development business for almost 20 years, though, I was flattered and amused.

Flattered because she’s been watching me do various tests and proof-of-concepts the last few months. Those have apparently made her believe that I’ve made enough progress and come up with enough solutions that I would be able to be done by the time the wedding rolls around. It’s nice that I can do things that she finds impressive and sees them as a sign that I’m not a complete boob.

Amused because I know that projects like this follow the 80:20 rule. The last 20% of the project is what takes 80% of your time. The first 80%, of course, takes the other 80% of your time. So now that I’ve gotten all the components doing what they need to do it’s a matter of making them play nice together and putting it all in a neat little box. Well, not so little - “normal” photobooths measure something like 5 feet long, 3 feet wide and over 7 feet high.

Be that as it may, here’s the gist: unless everything goes completely pear-shaped at this point, there will be a big old box you can sit in at our wedding. Press a button - a repurposed Easy button, in fact, like the one pictured above - and it’ll count down, take four pictures of you, do some behind-the-scenes magic, and print them out into a strip like you’d get from a boardwalk photo booth.

You can look forward to some more posts about the pieces and process I’ve gone through and what’s to come.

courtesy of Me

Whee!  The invitations are in the mail.

Wedding elf Kristen came over last week and helped me address, emboss and seal the envelopes.

Today - in the middle of the blizzard - we took the invitations to the post office across from Lost Dog Cafe (yes, we had lunch while we were in the area).  I asked the man behind the counter if we could have the invitation postage cancelled by hand.

As I expected, he gave us a funny look and then handed over the stamper.  Don got to work and a few minutes later the invitations were cancelled and in the mail.

There are pictures documenting the whole thing, but I am way too tired to post them now.  I’m off to Florida through the weekend … so maybe Don will post them in my absence.  Ha ha ha.

[So there. --Don]

When we first launched our wedding Web site, we mentioned that the Friday evening Welcome Picnic would feature entertainment by those in attendance.   This was an idea that Don casually mentioned one day, and that I immediately loved.  Probably even more than he expected.

It came about when Don pointed out to me that in addition to all the talented wedding elves who would help us make invitations and take photos and just be all round helpful before, during and after our wedding that we happened to know an extraordinary number of people with talents in the performing arts.  He thought it would be cool to ask all of them to perform the night before the wedding instead of asking one of them to perform during the ceremony.  As soon as he said, I was determined to make it happen.

So we started by casually mentioning it when someone would mentioned his/her talent.  Then last week, I updated the Web site with actual information about the “Talent Showcase”.  But the full court press started today.

This morning we had some folks over for brunch.  After we had plied some of the talent with lots of mimosas and bloody marys, I started in earnest.  And surprisingly, everyone agreed.  Some really got into it, making plans for acts and making notes about what numbers they would perform.

Others agreed reluctantly, and if you’re one of those people I’m telling you now that we don’t want you to be uncomfortable and will not hold you responsible for anything you said today.  Well, most of you anyway.

Here’s a list of some of the things people agreed to do:

EP - Sing opera
KD - Maybe play a secret new instrument and perform a lounge act with MD
MD - Perform a lounge act with KD
TB - Emcee and perform a 5 minute comedic stand up
TB - Sing
EW - Play the flute
LW - Play the guitar
KW - Irish dance
KH - Sing

We have some out of town friends attending with similar performing abilities that we’re hoping to recruit as well.  EG has said she will sing and play guitar and we’re hoping CVR will sing as well.  FBIL2 also is working a little number for us.  

The best part about today was that we learned about talents people had that we didn’t even know about and were reminded about talents that we had forgotten about overs the years.  So, I bet some of you reading this blog who will be our wedding have a talent that you’d love to show off - it can be serious or silly - and we’d LOVE to include you.  Drop me e-mail (susan at fussellwhiteside dot com) and let me know what you can do.

We going to show off our talents, too.  Don is considering a little juggling act for Friday night, in fact.   As for my talent, well … you’ll see it in the wedding invitations, the programs, the menus, the escort cards, the Save the Date cards, the thank you cards, and so on.  It’s hard to perform, but you won’t be able to attend this wedding and not notice it.

An official e-mail will be sent about the Talent Showcase AFTER the invitations get mailed after which time we’ll need to know what you will perform for our lovely emcee, but feel free to tell me now if you’ve already made up your mind.

I’m going to tell right up front that we’re not having a bourbon bar OR a cigar bar at our wedding.

Sorry.

I was out of town for work last week and caught a bug on the way home which kept me housebound all weekend.  Finally, on Sunday night, I asked Don to spring me for a super casual dinner and we ended up at a soup and sandwich joint in Old Town Alexandria.

We sat down near a table with two women and the fattest binder I have ever seen.  In a super scrolling font, the homemade front cover read, “Tying the Knot.”  I almost sprained my eyes rolling them, but I could not stop myself from listening to the women.  I kept trying to look out the window onto King Street, but I keep turning back to them.

And after a few minutes, I looked at Don and said, “Those two don’t know each other.”  It was some kind of bridal meet up.  Among strangers.  A very small bridal meet up among strangers.

One is having a bourbon bar.  The other is having a cigar bar.  One told her fiance she just couldn’t get married in 2010 because people would say they got married in twenty ten (instead of two thousand ten) and she couldn’t stand the way that sounded. 

Seriously. 

That’s what she said. 

Don paid attention to exactly none of it and when I hit the highlights for him on the way home, here’s what transpired.

DW: I want to go to wedding with a cigar bar.

SF: Oh.
(feels slightly ashamed)

I’m sorry.  Do you want me to look into arranging a cigar bar?
(I can literally hear the cash register ch-chinging in my mind.) 

DW: No. I want to go to a wedding with a cigar bar. I don’t want to pay for one.

And THAT’S how I know I’m about to marry the right guy for me.

So, we’re not having a bourbon bar and we’re not having a cigar bar, but I sincerely hope you get to attend a wedding with each some day. 

And, please, take Don with you.

100.

That’s how many days until the wedding. 

Just thought you might like to know.

If you’ve been reading the blog from the start, you know some of the early problems we had with the reception venue caterer.  If you started reading more recently, I wrote a lot about it during the month of August.  The catering manager was a challenge, to say the least.

Today, my mom sent me an article from the local weekly paper offered below without comment.

Dooley named new GM at Centerplate

(Jan. 9, 2009) John Dooley has been named the new general manager of Centerplate at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center in Ocean City. Centerplate provides catering services for all events held at the 40th Street venue.

Dooley most recently served as the food and beverage director of Centerplate at Yankee Stadium in New York where he had worked since 2006. He has also served as a regional executive chef for Centerplate at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., and then the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Earlier in his career, Dooley was the executive chef for Service America at Indiana Convention Center and RCA Dome in Indianapolis, executive chef and food and beverage director at the Doubletree Park Terrace Hotel in Washington, executive chef at Aramark at Sprint in Reston, Va., and senior food service director at Aramark at SAIC in McLean, Va.

During his career, Dooley has managed food and beverage services for numerous high profile events including the Grammy Awards, movie premier cast parties, the Economic Club Dinner for President George H. Bush and the NBA All-Star game in Denver.

“John brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our catering operations,” said Mike Noah, convention center executive director. “We believe our clients will be well served by his expertise in food and beverage services.”

- Ocean City Today

I wonder what happened to Silent Bob?

I’m not sure how it happened.  For a long time, I thought there was every possibility that we were not going to register for gifts.  And then one day I went online and started a Macy’s registry to complete the four colors of Fiesta ware that we currently own (cobalt, sunshine, plum and tangerine).  And then Don agreed that Bed, Bath and Beyond would be a good place to register.  When I saw the amazing plates that are fancier than our Fiesta ware (but not too formal and stuffy) at Pottery Barn, I wanted to register there, too.

This is the Emma pattern from Pottery Barn.

And then it was basically done.  Last week, Don and I headed to each of the stores to make our final selections.  There were a few things I wasn’t happy with at the end of the day.  The silverware we selected at Macy’s turned out to be $60 a place setting (we saw the sale price at the store) and we immediately ruled that out.  I didn’t love the barware or stemware we found.  BUT, it was basically done.

We popped into Crate and Barrel to see what they had on the after-Christmas sale and I found the stemware and the glasses and the silverware I want.  It was an agonizing moment.

We couldn’t possibly go from zero to four registries.  No way.

But Don, who is never one to play by the rules and occasionally manages to surprise even me, said, “Why not?”.  In the age of online shopping, directing people to one more Web site is not really that big of a deal, he argued.  Even if people go into the store to make their purchase, they’re likely to investigate online first anyway, right? 

So, there you have it.  We created four gift registries.  I’m relieved it’s done and I’m very happy with our selections, but I still feel a little sick about it so we also decided to list a few charities we care a lot about on our Web site registry page.

Our registries:

Bed, Bath and Beyond
Crate and Barrel
Macy’s
Pottery Barn (this one will not take you directly to our registry for some reason)

Or make a donation to a charity of your choice, or to one of the three charities listed below that mean something special to us:

• Habitat for Humanity
• Gilchrist Hospice Care (Formerly Hospice of Baltimore)
• A charity to support marriage equality

  (We did not send up charitable registries with these organizations, so be sure to let us know if you make a donation so that we can make sure you get thanks where thanks is deserved!)

Happy New Year! It’s 2009 and I can finally say it. It’s the year we’re getting married.

According to the Martha Stewart wedding web tools, there are 121 days before the wedding. Yikes! We better get a move on.

I am the first to admit that I am a sap. A sensitive, prone to cry at tissue commercials sap. So it should come as no surprise that I have a tendency to make even non-emotional things into teary moments. My latest silliness is to apply the phrase, “the year I was engaged” (or the “the year we were engaged”) to everything. For example, this is the Christmas we celebrated the year we were engaged. We saw West Side Story for my birthday the year we were engaged. The Christmas tree fell down when a neighbor’s cat snuck into the house and remained undetected for two days the year I was engaged. Yeah, it’s weird.

On Monday, I celebrated my birthday. I am now 34 - the same age I will be when we get married in May. The realization made my stomach flip flop in the most pleasant way and I know that starting in a few weeks everything is going to be all about the “year we got married.” One thing I’m really excited to say is, “President Barack Obama was inaugurated the year we got married.” Here are some things I am hoping to say:

• The stock market and worldwide financial crisis turned around the year we got married.
• The feds lowered interest rates on new mortgages to 4.5% the year we got married.
• The weather was lovely on May 2 the year we got married.
• More states began allowing ALL people to marry the year we were married.

What do you hope will happen in 2009?