Pro photos - sneak peek

I am literally in awe of these images and will let them speak for themselves!

Detroit Photographer:

Dionne & Joe at The Shooting Gallery

www.theshootinggallery.com

(side steps at Fort Street Presbyterian in Detroit)

(side steps at Fort Street Presbyterian in Detroit)

(Hart Plaza, Detroit)

let them eat cake

Cake tasting starts this afternoon.  YUM.  Well I don't love cake but I won't mind eating some :)  Details to follow...

FOOOOOOOODDDDD

Score!

Mark, myself,  my parents and Mark's mom & stepdad all went to Vince's for dinner last night.  This place is amazing plus very special to my Shine family and I'm so happy to say it's the official site of our rehearsal dinner.  The food is stellar (if you like to eat baby animals I hear the veal is superb) and it's a ten-minute drive from the church.  It's a good Detroiter experience for anyone that hasn't been there before. 

Last night I had the spinach fettuccine noodles and arriabata sauce. MMMM, so happy I stopped myself and saved some for lunch today.  Topped it off with a delicious dark chocolate and raspberry frozen dessert.  Mark went with pizza; the rest of the meals consisted of two veal marsalas, a spaghetti & meatballs and baked mostaccioli.  And Morettis.  Yum.

Really? I care about banquet chairs?

Well, OK. I think I had an actual bride moment this week; I rented fancy chairs for the reception. Now, I do realize that no one cares about chairs. Unless they are horribly uncomfortable do you even notice? Doubtful. But will mine look pretty? Yes. My true thought process behind this was why on earth spend money for linens when they have free ones and why on earth cover chairs with more linens when it's just a chair. Then I saw pictures. Not going to lie, linens make a big difference. Alas, I'm half Dutch and can't do it. But I'm also half Irish and want to have a sweet party. So the compromise is that I found a great deal on these chairs:

And now I'm skipping the fancy table linens. Cheaper to go this route and I like this look infinitely better than chair covers. Officially a bride now!

Side note: the best pricing on the Chiavari chairs that I found in Detroit is at A Moment Forever. Stacy is very sweet and you can tell she loves the wedding industry (the photo is of the actual chairs they own).  They offer lots of other services as well.

"i was runnnnnnn-innnngggg"

We made it! Mark plowed through the Detroit Free Press half marathon and I took what I hoped would be the easy route by keeping with tradition and running the marathon relay with my family. I didn't train enough and then I had too much wine for dinner. It was a tough 5-ish miles for me!! After giving my knee a week off I'm going to go back into my regular running routine so as not to be outdone next year.

Mark did great, I'm so proud of him for finishing! He didn't train either but assured me he is half-Kenyan so running long distances comes naturally to him (must be half albino Kenyan). He only walked once up a hill, which was better than I can say, and now he can barely walk at all. Must be the German half that has the sore legs...

Regardless of the tough run we are both looking forward to next year's race. I'm sticking with team RunShine and Mark might up the ante and run the full thing. Let's see if we make it through this year's Turkey Trot first though ;)

Going to the chapel

Last Thursday Mark and I left the Tigers game (sad loss to Kansas City) in the 8th inning, allowing my Uncle Jim to catch the foul ball instead of us, to meet with the coordinator at the church and put a deposit down. Just seven months prior to April 10 we finally have our ceremony site! For the past month we have been attending Fort Street Presbyterian in Detroit; a beautiful and historic church downtown (read some of the history HERE) across the street from the new Freep/News building. The bonus is we’ve really been enjoying the services there and Taylor likes the children’s church.

Next wedding item to tackle is the invitations, I’m looking to do some cost-cutting here since, no offense to my wedded friends, I throw the invites away after the wedding.

Say cheese!

Mark and I are working on what I think is the most fun part of planning: the photography! After scouring scores of photographer websites/blogs and sending link after link to Christa and Liz for input I landed on the following three to meet with:

http://www.jeffreysimms.com/
http://www.adamsparkesphoto.com/
http://www.theshootinggallery.com/

Each has their own style but all three definitely have a photojournalistic edge that Mark and I really like.

The goal is to have our choice finalized by NEXT weekend. Not easy!

~Sara