Wedding Favors

I've gone through quite a few ideas for wedding favors (the top of the list still being mini bottles of homemade limoncello and vodka for the Italian and Polish sides respectively), but with our budget in mind, I think I've come up with a perfect compromise that is still very "us." I know that everyone does wedding CDs, but here's what I propose: a cd of a capella versions of all of the songs that are most meaningful to Alex and I.

Makes sense. Alex was in an a capella group for many years. I'm pretty musically inclined. We're having an a capella group at both the ceremony and performing at the reception. So here's what I'm thinking. Glassine CD envelopes lined with scrapbook paper and a belly band held in place with a personalized sticker. Et Voila!





The most difficult part of this endeavor (aside from burning over 150 cds) is getting a perfect sticker. I, of course, went running to the talented art department at work and enlisted the help of Ms. Jen Mendoza, artist extraordinaire. In no time flat, she had come up with all of these!




I chose my very favorite, tweaked the layout of the date a bit, and sent them off to be printed. Hopefully they will be delivered in time for maid of honor, Jenna, and I to get a few of them together during her visit next week!



So now that I've spent some time at the craft store picking out the envelopes, paper, and ribbons, all I need to do is come up with a playlist, burn some CDs, and put them together. My current playlist ideas include:

• I've Just Seen a Face - Beatles
  
• The Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra
  
• Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys
• Hey Jude - Beatles
  
• In My Life - Beatles
  
• God Only Knows - The Beach Boys

Speaking of wedding planning, I checked with The Knot to see how I was coming along on their "official bridal checklist" and was thrilled to see that I have successfully accomplished 41 tasks! That was until I saw that there were 142 left to accomplish...Whew!

Save The Dates

The above ended up being the final (and fiscally responsible) choice for Save the Date cards, but I think I created 20 of them by the time I was finished. Here's a few of the contenders.

Engagement Photos, Christmas Cards, and Holiday Gifts

Now that I've got a few dozen gorgeous engagement photos from the talented Mrs. Katie Nagle (www.knaglephoto.com), I feel like I've done nothing but come up with projects to use them in. Our engagement photo session at UD back in November was a great time, and luckily Katie thinks that Alex and I are "cute" and endearing rather than crazy.






Now that the holiday season is upon us, one of the shots with Harper made the cut as our family Christmas card.




And these shots are framed and wrapped for my Mom, Alex's Mom, grandparents, and other important family members.






And of course I made a collage for my Mom of these three!

Puppy Kindergarten

Today was a milestone day in the Rizzbanik family. After 5 weeks of tough love, lots of corrections, and a prong collar, Harper graduated puppy class! He did very well and made some new friends in the meantime. Although we are sad we won't be seeing Bailey, Guinness, Doc, Frankie, Penny, Jake, and Spartan every Tuesday now, we are very proud of our little guy.

Here's Harper working on "SIT" and "STAY."

And here's Harper waiting his turn to work on "COME."

And here's Harper receiving his diploma and a kiss from his teacher, Pat Hoffmann. So proud of our little guy!

Wedding Website Up and Running

So it took us long enough, but the wedding website is up and running courtesy of the combined efforts of myself, Alex, and Misters Steve (BSK) Kreiss and William Lynch.

True to character, I'm dying to update it even though it's been up for a mere 12 hours. The lovely Mrs. Katie Nagle has posted our engagement pictures, so now I have a ton of gorgeous, high resolution, sentimental shots to choose from. In the meantime, here's our site! Visit www.annieandalex.com to see the live version!

NCTE in Disney

Here's my artistic rendering of my coworkers and I all ready for our conference in Disney! Apparently I'm the Aryan coworker...

New York

Sometimes Alex's school asks strange things of him. For example, this weekend Alex and several of the other folks at CK Kung Fu found themselves helping out at the Rochdale Village Healthy Heart Project in Jamaica, Queens. You can see Alex in the video below at 0:09 seconds in. He's the tall guy in the back who looks very serious about "making a change."

I've learned to stop asking questions about what his school is up to and just chalk it up to community service and a good cause. Since he was already going to be in New York and he was asked to be in Jamaica by roughly 7:30am, we opted to make a mini vacation out of it, grabbed Nicole to watch Harper, and stayed in Times Square.

The hotel ended up being very nice (and very clean), although I remembered about New York's current bedbug crisis AFTER booking the room and had a few mini freakouts. I definitely checked out BedBugRegistry.com at least a dozen times. The good news is, there were no ill reports about the Belvedere and I checked myself (flipping up the mattress to check the cracks for critters while Alex rolled his eyes at me). In other news, if you're ever staying in NYC and are looking for a hotel in Midtown that won't totally destroy your budget, I highly recommend. It's a ton better than the last place I stayed and was over $100 cheaper as well.

Since Alex had to be to Jamaica ass early (and take LIRR to get there), he went to bed pretty much as soon as we got there. I, on the other hand, rounded up Chrissy and Kirsten and we headed out around midnight to see what was up in Hell's Kitchen. After comically waving at Chrissy through the door of the hotel because she REFUSES to set foot in any NY hotel after her own bedbug situation, we were off.

We ended up having dinner at a cute place just two blocks from the hotel called Vynl. It was trendy, fun, and decorated with Barbie dolls, a lot of candles set into niches in the walls, and 70s album covers.



All of the food and drinks were vinyl themed (ie - the Fiona Appletini, Purple Rain, and Santanagria). We shared some delicious onion rings, some dinner, and a few drinks. I always forget how expensive alcohol is in NYC until I get back in the city.



After doing some damage there, we opted to head to Therapy, a bar that Chrissy's friend Anthony works at. Turns out it's a ridiculously awesome gay bar. The only part that was a little weird was the co-ed bathrooms. Still not sure how I feel about that. Especially when I was washing my hands and was being chatted up by a beautiful gay British 20-something. It was a little bit surreal.




Therapy ended up being a lot of fun, although the drinks were lethal. I had something called "Love on the Rocks" which I just tried to find on their online menu and it's not there. Hmm. Interesting. We did a bit of dancing including an especially fun round of Lady Gaga songs, and Kirsten even got up and danced with one of the muscle-laden guys on stage. Apparently we closed the place, because suddenly it was 4am and it was time for us to make our way home.



Luckily I was close by, so I bid Kir and Chrissy farewell and walked the half a block beyond the 49th street subway stop back to my hotel. It turns out Kir and Chrissy had a rougher time than I did getting home. In the morning, Alex left early and I slept until 10. After I got ready, I texted Chrissy to tell her I was on my way to Queens to see her apartment and I would hurry so we could make our 2pm show back in Midtown. She texted back to take my time. Kirsten had fallen and knocked out her two front teeth on their way home, so they weren't going anywhere.

WTF?

So of course I pick up the phone and call as I head towards the subway to get there and see the aftermath for myself. Turns out Kir is fine, now, but not two minutes after they left me, she missed the curb and faceplanted into the street. In telling me about it later, she said it was seriously the most painful thing she's ever felt. And judging by Alex's own recollection of having his teeth knocked out as a kid, it's pretty, pretty bad. The poor girl broke one of her two front teeth clean in half, and the other broke off at the corner into a jagged fang. All day long I was afraid she was going to pierce her lip and I was glad that she hadn't done that when she fell in the first place!

Long story short, since Kir felt awful and was tending to wounds, we ended up spending the day in Chrissy's fabulous apartment sitting on the floor in a nest of blankets talking and watching bad tv on Hulu. I got to meet Sri, see the painting that Chrissy did (the apartment is at least 6 different, fun colors), and catch up with two of my favorite girls. Eventually we got Chinese food, ate, and headed into Midtown to wait for Alex to return from Jamaica so we could go home. Kirsten was planning on riding home with us, but after Alex missed two trains back, she opted to take the Chinatown bus. While we waited, we sat in the one and only Starbucks in all of Manhattan without a public restroom. Of course. So a few coffees and waters in, we all had to pee. I actually didn't end up getting to until I was alllllllll the way back at my own house several hours later. Fantastic.

So eventually Kir got on the bus home, Chrissy headed home, and I met Alex at NY Penn where we grabbed NJ Transit back to Hamilton and then drove home from there. Thank god for Nicole and Matt because after that long day, they had dinner waiting for us at the house. I have never been so happy to see two people or sleep in my own bed. And of course it was nice to be able to go without worrying about Harper.

So all in all, an eventful weekend.

And this week things really haven't calmed down. We've already had dropping the girls off at Mom Mom's and had Harper's first puppy class. Tonight is dropping Harper off at Arlene and Rob's for his staycation with the girls while we're out of town, followed by rushing Alex to the airport to make his 8:30pm flight to las Vegas to visit the Macs courtesy of the best fiancee in the world. Then tonight I pack for a 530am meeting at Keith's house for a 6am ride to the Philadelphia airport for our flight to the NCTE convention in Orlando. Don't worry, I have my mouse ears packed!