Party Bus: Check!

After a wedding we were at in Madison, WI this year, the one thing I wanted for our wedding day was a party bus. Instead of a limo or 14 vehicles to get the wedding party from the church, to downtown Brookings, to the reception hall, I wanted a party bus. I wanted to be able to have everyone in one vehicle and get everyone to the reception without anyone getting in trouble.

Problem solved. A 30 passenger disco ballroom on wheels. With 2 built in coolers and a $3500 sound system, I think we will be able to start the celebrating early! The bus is coming from Webster, SD and will be waiting for us after the ceremony. Wedding party, get ready, your chariot awaits…

Bridesmaids

When we got engaged first thing I wanted to do was start asking everyone to be in the wedding. Everything I read said to wait...think about who is really important in your life and be sure that is who you want to stand up with you.

The other thing that I wanted, was to make it special. I didn't want to call up these people and say, hey what are you doing August 29th? I wanted to do something different if at all possible.

So I found a couple of poems on the Internet. They talked about being friends, sharing memories, etc. Perfect, but I needed to add my own touch. So I incorporated our wedding colors and a bottle of champagne.

The reason it took me so long to post this is because I did get excited and ask a few people. I asked Emily right away to be a bridesmaid and had a little too much to drink on Halloween and asked her to be my maid of honor. Kelly knew I was going to do this for all my bridesmaids, so I asked her on New Years Eve. Either way I wanted to do something for each of them. So, finally everyone has received their bottle of champagne and is in the wedding party

Valentines Day in Deadwood

Hopefully everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day...we spent our weekend in Deadwood. A little gambling, dinning out and tubing on Deer Mountain. Enjoy a few pictures. As you can see we had fun!

Coloring Books

A about a week or 2 ago I decided that if I was going to make these coloring books, I needed to get them done. This was something that I decided I wanted to do and if I wait too much longer, other things would take the front seat and these would not get done.

So, I called insti-prints and had them print up 30 copies. Sat down on a Saturday afternoon and I got busy. They turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

These will be at the reception with a box of crayons for any kid that wants something to do. Or any parent that wants something for their kid to do at the reception!

If anyone wants the template for their future wedding, just let me know.

My workshop...


Working hard...



The finished product...


Stored till August...

Engagement Pictures are in

We got our engagement photos back today and were very excited to see how the rest of them turned out. We started of at McCory gardens on the SDSU campus and then to a few places downtown. Randy and I are really happy with how they turned out. I've included some of our favorites below. These are in addition to the great ones that Erin previously posted on her website. We really liked those ones too!

To party all night long!

I had a little trouble when it came to looking to pick a DJ. How do you find a good one? How do you know they are going to play good music and keep people dancing and entertained all night. At least when we were looking for a photographer I could go to their web site and see their work. Not a DJ. It is either word of mouth, someone you have seen, or take a chance on someone you have never heard of.

Final decision...Signature Sounds out of Rock Rapids, IA. We were able to see one of their DJs at my cousins wedding this May - Mike and Lyndsay's. We like him well enough, and the price was reasonable. Their dance went until 2 am, and people were still asking for more when he quit playing. We decided that had to be a good sign and we had a blast at the dance!

We are able have the DJ for 8 hours which includes light dinner music during the reception, mics for us to use for speeches, light show, and an awesome dance. The one thing we extra we decided to include with this DJ is a picture slide show of the dance. Two guys show up 1 takes care of the music and the other one takes pictures of the guests and everyone dancing and uploads them to a projector and a slide show plays all night. As new pictures are taken, the slide show gets up dated. At the end of the night we get a disc with all of the photos taken. So when a stranger comes around and asks to take your picture, smile you will be on the big screen soon!

We did talk to other companies, but either we were going to pay $1000 for a 4 hour dance, and anything and everything was extra. Other places we talked to were either booked on the day of our wedding, or the people we talked to really didn't appeal to us. Quite a few places had 14 different DJs on staff so you have no idea who you are going to get. I wasn't interested in leaving the dance up to total chance.

So there you have it. Now we just have to start putting together "Play" and "Do Not Play" lists and keep our fingers crossed the dance is a hit.

Engagment Pictures - Preview

We got our engagement photos back yesterday. Well, the proofs went up online. We were so excited to see them! We went out with our photographer Erin Smith (Life in Picture Photography) on Saturday to have our pictures taken. We started off at McCory Gardens on the SDSU campus, then moved to downtown Brookings. Randy and I are really happy with how they turned out. I've included the preview photos from the Internet. It will be about 2 weeks until we get our CD with all of the shots. They might be a litt blurry because of how I had to copy the online proofs, but I will update them with higher-quality pics when we receive the disk in the mail. Erin has been great to work with so far... she is highly recommended by us if you know of anyone that needs a photographer!

Engagement Photos Tomorrow

Earlier this week I contacted our photographer to try and get something booked for engagement pictures. I keep thinking that the sooner we get them taken and get proofs back, the better chance we have of actually doing something with them.

Honestly, engagment pictures, what do you do with them? I like the idea of using a few in a picture frame at the wedding in place of a guest book. Mom & Dad would probably like a couple, and grandma & grandpa would put a couple around there place too. But other than that, do you create a shrine for yourself somewhere on your wall? I have to wonder if engagemetn pictures didnt come with our photographers package, would we even do them at all?

Whatever my opinion is on what we are going to do with them, we are braving the elements and having them taken tomorrow afternoon. The snow around here was looking a little nasty as it has been warm enough for some to melt, then it refreezes and 1/2 of it is covered in dirt. As I was walking out of work last night there was a nice light snowfall coming down. Everything is now covered with all new white snow. Good deal, now on to the next dilema...what are we going to wear?

Last night we tried on 1/2 of our closet. Sweaters, button up shirts, you name it, we tried it. We figured short sleeved anything was out of the question - come on have you checked the forcast...Brookings tomorrow high of 16. We pick out 2 different outfits that hopefully will do the job.

Happy New Year!

About 8 days late...Happy New Year everyone!

We hope everyone had a fun night and managed to make their way home safe and sound. We decided to stick around in Brookings and went out with some friends. Brett & Meghan were back from Chicago, Ashley (Casey's wife) was up from Omaha, and other friends from Brookings met us at Skinners - downtown Brookings.

Here are a few pictures from the evening...enjoy