WE'RE MARRIED!

Our original plan to have a intimate, romantic wedding on St. John USVI has now morphed into a slightly larger, fun, family affair at the Newton Marriott, while still having a family vacation, followed by a honeymoon on St. John and St. Thomas USVI.

This is my second marriage, but the one that will last forever (and 'eva, and 'eva, and 'eva... as we like to say).  I have a 9-year old girl and a 5-year old boy.  Life is ALWAYS BUSY.

My FI is a wonderful, loving, generous man, especially coming into a "ready-made" family.  We are so blessed that he has come into our lives and he's made all of my dreams come true!

Our wedding party is rather simple... my best friend Deb will be my MOH... Jimmy's best friend Charlie is his BM.

OTHER VENDORS (not listed in the bio below): 

JUSTICE OF THE PEACE

We have asked Jackie Dellicker to conduct our ceremony.  She is the Town Clerk of Holliston and a friend to one of our family members.  She's a very sweet woman and has been extremely delightful to work with as we have written the ceremony.

DJ

His name is Aaron Topfer.  We met with him and he is very accomplished, not the hey-hey-hey flashy DJ that turns a lot of people off, and seems to have a really good handle on what we are looking for.

Aaron is going to play piano during the ceremony and cocktail reception, and then DJ for the dinner and dancing/reception.

Songs we are thinking of:

Entrance

Rock and Roll Part 2 – Gary Glitter

First Dance

I Love the Way You Love Me – John Michael Montgomery

Cake Cutting

L-O-V-E – Nat King Cole

Mother/Son  /  Father/Daughter

Unforgettable – Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole

 Anniversary Dance

Through the Years – Kenny Rogers

Last Dance

Save the Last Dance for Me – Michael Buble

http://www.1877yourmusic.com/index.html

     REVIEW - DJ

§          Aaron lived up to all of the referrals and our expectations.  He was extremely professional, sometimes forgetting that he was there because we he was so not “in our face”.  For the ceremony he did an exceptional job playing live piano, accompanied by our friend playing the flute.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the piano music he played for the cocktail hour since we were taking pictures, but everyone raved about him.  Dinner music was very appropriate and non-obtrusive, and for the reception, he provided a rockin’ fun time.  He played all of the songs we requested, and did a great job of fading out our too-long first dance song.  When he noticed that some of our guests were leaving around 10:30, he recommended that we do our “last dance” song sooner rather than later, which people enjoyed (it was a Friday night or a long weekend).  He continued playing until midnight, but by then we were all pretty spent after a fabulous night of dancing and fun!

PHOTOGRAPHER

We chose with Karl Blaser.  We met with him and he has been so incredibly responsive and accommodating. He's provided us with albums to look through and a DVD slideshow (similar to what we will purchase of our big day)... We really have a great feeling about how he will capture our wedding day, to be enjoyed for a lifetime to come. 

http://karlblaserphotography.easyphotoview.com/OnlinePhotos.asp

Our engagement pictures:  Click on: Couples ----> Julie and James ----> Password:   june

Our wedding pictures:  Click on: Weddings ----> Julie and Jim ----> Password:   joy

     REVIEW - Photographer

o         Engagement Pictures

§          Grade = A-

·          We were thrilled on the day of the engagement session.  The location (Singing Beach in Manchester, MA) was beautiful and scenic, and it was a gorgeous day.  See my words of wisdom after the fact, but I think we could have been more at ease having our pictures taken.  Again, something else that was more our fault than the photographer’s.  We did have a fun time, except for the sun in our eyes.  We found several that we loved, but the mistake was, I had was seen some other knotties’ engagement sessions.  Some had hundreds of pictures, some had hours of photography – beautiful daylight transformed into beautiful sunset shots.  The photo montages were awesome, in every true sense of the word.  I think I was hoping for something like that.  But I had to realize that not only was that not the original intention (which was to get a picture that could be put in the signature matte frame), but that’s not what I was paying for (it really was just an inclusion in the overall package).  When I thought of it that way

o         Wedding Day

§          Initial Grade = B

·          Karl showed up early and seemingly stayed beyond the 6 hours we contracted him for.  He was a great sport at taking our ad-hoc direction of extra pictures we wanted him to get with our rather large families.
Seeing some other brides have their pictures almost instantaneously (within 1-2 weeks of the wedding), two weeks later, I’m still waiting with baited breath to see mine.  Two minor things I noticed the day-of, first being that the family members seemed to be lumped together. I’m really big on ensuring that the people are just clumped together saying cheese.  I was hoping for more symmetry.  Again, I haven’t seen them so they may be perfect, but it’s just something I noticed as we were taking the picture we sometime 10-20 people in a shot.  Second thing, I felt like he took too many pictures of me dancing.  I know that sounds like a weird thing to say since the day I guess is supposed to be about us, but I just felt very self-conscious having my picture taken dancing so much (think Elaine from Seinfeld).
But overall, Karl took some wonderful pictures, although I feel like some were missed or forgotten (he was mortified to realize he lost our MUST TAKE list).  But what I will always remember, we had just sat down to dinner, and he was off eating his meal, when he noticed it the sun was setting.  He stopped eating and came and asked us if we wanted to go down to the gazebo by the river for some sunset pictures.  We high-tailed it to get those special moments.

o         Response Time

§          Grade = C+

§          Karl told our guests that the photos would be online within 1-2 weeks after the wedding.  We received our pictures 3 weeks and 1 day after, which probably isn't horrible, but it just made me a little sad, knowing that other Knotties have their pictures by the time they get back from their HM, and not many of my family or friends had sent us pictures.  I really wanted to relive our day sooner!