Weather Update

10 days away!

Make sure you check out the Things To Do page for some ideas of what to do while you're in Cheery Erie. Right now it looks like the weather might be a little cloudy, but still up in the 70s.  Plan accordingly :)

Here's a nifty little video about Erie to help you prep for the trip:

Strawberry Fields Forever

Today my Mom, Lauren & I headed out to Northeast for some strawberry picking. We had perfect weather, perfect picking and a perfect morning.

Yum.

I spent the afternoon making over 100 mini cupcakes for the mini reception at church after the wedding. Starting to get down to the little projects and finishing touches! Last week I finally completed the wagon which I refinished for our flowergirl & ring bearer--I die from the cuteness.

13 days!

SIXTEEN DAYS AWAY??

I couldn't resist.

Nineteen days and counting...

Everyone told us that the time would fly between our engagement and our wedding, but sheesh! We can't believe that we're less than twenty days from getting hitched.

Last week I was up in Jersey for our friends Pat & Angel's wedding, and that was the last time Kev & I will be together before the wedding. It's really starting to sink in!

I was able to stay in Jersey for a week in mid-May. After a lovely surprise bridal shower with all the Jersey gals, thrown by Kevin's mom, I spent the time moving in all of our gifts and items from my hope chest. We also had Pr Pete & Dale Hubbard as our first dinner guests. It was time much needed to settle into our apartment and get to know the Morristown area.

I picked up our marriage license last week--we can now officially be married in the county of Erie :) I've also been working on other small projects and decor for the wedding. My dress is almost done, and last night my mom and I worked on my headpiece. I actually looked like a bride when I tried it on--so weird!

As promised, I've added a "Things to Do" page in the sidebar. Happy planning :)

At the creamery down the street from our apartment

Soon to be official!

A Little Clarification

We have limited space at our reception hall, so the reception is for family and close friends only. If you received an invitation with a pocket and three cards [reception, RSVP, and website cards] then you are invited to this reception. If you received an invitation with a pocket but no cards, please contact us!

However, our wedding day just wouldn't be complete without all of our friends and members of the local congregation, so everyone is invited to the ceremony with a light reception to follow at the church.

We really wish we could've had everyone at the reception, but it just didn't work out with our huge families and our limited budget :/

On another note, I graduated this past Saturday and had a wonderful day with Kevin & my family. Kevin's on his way home now, and won't be back in Erie until the wedding! Oh my!

Room Block Expiration

To our out-of-town guests:

The offer for discounted room rates at the Hilton Garden Inn and the Courtyard Marriott will expire on June 1st. If you haven't booked your room and would like to receive the discounted rate, you can do so by calling either hotel and mentioning the Kolb/Orlofski wedding. Phone numbers are available on their websites.

Thanks!

Invitation Emergency!

If you have received an invitation to our wedding, it should look like this:

There should be three cards in the side pocket: a website card, a reception card, and an RSVP postcard. If you are missing any of the pieces, please let Kevin or me know as soon as possible! It seems the clear seals we used may have broken and the additional cards fallen out.

You can email us at kev_and_em@live.com and we'll get you the information lickety split! Thank you :)

Procrastination Makes Perfect

I'm writing this post now, instead of writing one of the four papers I have due this week. I have a terrible case of senioritis, with complications of wedding hyper-excitement. Luckily, I have an uncanny ability to write A+ papers at the last minute, which is what I'll be doing tomorrow night.

The Orlofski family visited Erie over Easter weekend, and we had a great time together. Friday night was an incredible worship experience followed by a fun night of coloring eggs.

 On Saturday, Kevin & I ran wedding errands and went to the reception tasting with our parents. You loyal followers of the blog get the inside scoop on the dinner options: Chicken Oscar and Prime Rib! After trying all five options, we decided that these two were by far the best.

We finished off the night by assembling our invitations--yay! They are sitting in this lovely cardboard box in my bedroom, patiently waiting to be dropped off at the post office:

Sneak preview!

Easter Sunday was beautiful day spent worshiping, learning, and loving family. Mom made a chocolate decadence cake, which was to die for.

My #2 procrastinating effort has been adding things to our registries. They got pretty wiped out after the bridal shower a few weeks ago (thank you to all the ladies who attended!). We don't have a lot of room in the apartment, so we're getting creative. We added this super cool shower head that I am SO EXCITED about. And an AeroBed inflatable mattress so our guests will be super comfy when they visit. Make note of this my Erie peeps!

April Showers bring...July Brides?

The view from my bedroom
window en ce moment.
 Boy that grass looks green!

Fittingly, it's pouring rain outside today, just in time for my bridal shower this afternoon. Very much looking forward to it!

The last few weeks have been consumed with schoolwork for me...two weeks left, and I will be free to concentrate on wedding arrangements. I can't believe it's less than 80 days away!

Our biggest challenge right now is getting the invitations in the mail. We've had some hangups with the design and printing, but our goal is to have them signed, sealed, and (on the way to being) delivered by the end of this week. Hopefully.

I've also been working on the table centerpieces, decorations, and music...I'm so thankful that we have such talented friend who are willing to share their musical gifts. Kevin and I are both music-lovers, and the music we're choosing for the ceremony is very meaningful to us--full of worship and praise to God for giving us each other.

Kevin started moving into our apartment on Thursday, but it's a slow process. Here's what it looks like so far:

In a few weeks I'll be posting a "Things To Do" section, with some suggestions for our out-of-town guests who are coming in on Friday or Saturday. Much to the surprise of most people, there are some pretty cool things to check out here ;)

100 Days!

So close...yet so many decisions to be made!

Tonight Kim and I worked on the invitations, and there's just too many options. Pocket folds, envelopes, enclosures...who knew it would be so complicated? Hopefully we'll have them finished by early next week and can start printing.

This weekend I'll get to see our apartment for the first time, and on Sunday we'll celebrate the engagement of our friends Nancy Lynn & Jerred :)

THE Dress

I completely forgot...my dress came in! Since my mom and grandma are doing the alterations, we picked it up and brought it home. The pink garment bag has been auspiciously hanging in our living room for a couple of weeks now:

Makes me nervous just looking at it!

Home Sweet Apartment :)

Spring is here! And that means the wedding is just around the corner.

We actually haven't done too much planning in the past month...school, apartment hunting, and job searching has taken the forefront. Kevin signed the lease on our apartment in Morristown last weekend...yay! It's a pretty large one bedroom apartment at the Hamilton Court complex, with hardwood floors and lots of closet space. And it's less than a ten minute walk to "The Green", a city center where there's a strip of shops, restaurants, a community theater, and the like. Kevin moves in mid-April; can't wait to see it with all of our things settled in!

For all my Erie peeps, here are the directions. Bookmark, print, and memorize so you won't get lost on your numerous visits to see us.

View Larger Map

Last week was my spring break, and I was able to sneak down to Orlando, FL with my mom and sisters Kim & Lauren for a short 4-day getaway. Good girl time. We did all the free stuff-- Downtown Disney & Universal CityWalk--and it almost felt like the real thing. Almost.

I couldn't resist :)

Hanging out with Kevin's look-a-like

p.s. The ski trip was not a disaster: after a few hours of blood (ok, no blood..but severe bruising) and tears, I was able to make it down the bunny hill without falling or hitting anything. Success!

p.p.s My mom and dad got me this wicked cool orange luggage set for my birthday. Yet another reason I can't wait for the honeymoon!

Baby Steps

Tonight we got the BEST news...two of our creative/odd ideas for the reception have been approved by our event coordinator! I'm so excited. I'm not going to reveal what they are, but they involve sparkle and yumminess.

We've slowly been crossing things off the list...my sister Kim has been working on our invitation design, and it looks awesome. The girls ordered their dresses this week, and we registered for tuxes. I've slowly been ordering supplies for decorations and the bridesmaids' gifts, and we've been researching flowers, bouquet options, and arrangements. Oh, and centerpiece design is complete. Best of all, Kevin's cousin Emma has agreed to be our flower girl! She's quite adorable and we're so happy she's going to be part of our big day.

My dress should be arriving any day now...the suspense is killing me. Kevin and I will be together this weekend in Shawnee, PA with the NJ youth for a ski trip; it will be my first time on the slopes! Let's hope I spend more time upright than this guy:

Dream A Little Dream Of...

Disturbing wedding scenarios I've dreamt about:

- having the reception in the wrong room
- finding the perfect centerpieces
- all the bridesmaids wearing hideous dresses
- my wedding dress turning out horribly wrong
- wearing way too much makeup
- unnecessary candles on the reception tables
- wrong officiant holding the ceremony, and finally,
- wrong groom.

That's right, I've dreamt about marrying the wrong guy. And the most disturbing part: everyone at the wedding was trying unsuccessfully to convince me it was Kevin.

And you thought I had this whole "wedding stress" thing under control.

In more positive news, we made the final decision on wedding party attire, so the guys and gals should be ordering this week. We also scheduled some tentative dates for the bridal shower and girls' weekend, and I designed and ordered our guestbook using our engagement photos by Reflections Photography. On the to-do list for this week: invitation design and ceremony music.

Yeap, this is a fairly accurate portrayal of my wedding nightmare.

Surprise!

Dad and Mom O and I schemed to plan a surprise visit for Kevin this weekend. I flew in last night and joined them for dinner at Kev's favorite steakhouse. He tried unsuccessfully for about an hour to pretend he was mad at me :)

We put today (Saturday) to good use: breakfast at a Park West Diner with the family and putting our Christmas gifts into storage. Then it was time for some apartment hunting. We visited a couple areas and narrowed down our favorites to Boonton and Morristown. Kevin braved a bridal salon with me to look some bridesmaid dresses. Our most exciting stop of the day was Aires Jewelers' new showroom. We met with Ron (who designed my beautiful engagement ring) to pick out Kevin's wedding band and design mine. He had some great suggestions and we can't wait to see the digital mock-up of the rings together. And Kevin picked out a very cool engraved tungsten carbide band.

After a nap and dinner, we set up Kevin's HD webcam with the Sparkbooth program and tested it out--the photos turned out even better! Needless to say, our photo booth is going to be awesome.

We also decided on an invitation design, which my sister Kim will revamp for us (more DIY!). On the tap for this evening is choosing ceremony music, making final decisions on the bridal party attire, and, of course, doing Kevin's RI lesson :)

 

(most beautiful, but surprisingly difficult to fit with a band)

Build our own photobooth? Heck yes.

Kevin and I love photobooths (as evidenced by our blog banner ^^). We wanted to have one at our reception, but the options were limited (this is, afterall, Erie) and expensive. On a whim, I googled "DIY photobooth" tonight and found Sparkbooth, an incredible, automatic, fully-customizable photobooth software for $59! All you need is a laptop, webcam, and printer. With the help of my handy friend Phil Kies, I think we can definitely build a sweet booth. Here are the trial run photos (and these with my $6 webcam!):

 

"Orange?"

My monthly fix of BRIDES Magazine (compliments of Brian & Danielle--thank you:) arrived on Saturday, and I am proud to point out that not only is there an entire spread of how to add orange to your wedding color scheme:

and adorable orange details throughout the magazine:

but also that our orange and grey color scheme is listed as a hot color combo:

Not that I need validation from an over-commercialized wedding magazine, but the usual response when I tell people our wedding colors is, "Orange? Really?". So it does feel good to know that someone else out there thinks it's a good idea :) The designer/blogger at How About Orange? shares my enthusiasm for this lovely shade, and also has some pretty cute and environmentally-friendly DIY projects that may be making their way into our wedding day.

We're this close |<--->| to making a decision about the bridal-party-wear; once that's done it will be on to invitations and then cake (my favorite!) and decorations. For now I will say only that there will be helium involved. 

Lots of helium.

Six months down, six months to go!

Kevin got me the most wonderful Christmas present: a ticket to Montana to spend the week with our future ringbearer! Raylen and Aunt Em have had an awesome time working on his walking skills :) And we took some pretty adorable pictures.

We finally mailed our save-the-dates out last Monday, and signed the contract for our reception hall, the Garden Atrium at the Ambassador Center. Information about nearby accommodations is available above on the Hotel Information page in the right-hand sidebar.

If you're visiting our blog for the first time, please sign our Guestbook!