Earrings: Done!

Yup -- it's two girly posts in a row. What can I say? It's a wedding. ;)

When I was in Ohio, my mom gave me the perfect earrings to wear. They were a gift to her from my paternal grandfather before I was born. He's been gone since 1987, so it's nice to have a little piece of the past with me on my wedding day.

These should qualify for "Something Old" as my mom has had them for over 35 years. That's old enough, right?

Don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the stones are rubies. It's as though my grandfather knew all those years ago that I would be choosing red and white for my wedding colors. They're perfect!

I just need to get them made from clip-ons to pierced earrings -- don't want to worry about losing an earring/family heirloom on my wedding day!
-kelly

Dress and veil: Done!

Warning: Super Girly Content follows... If you're not looking for the squeal-inducing details of our event, just skip on over this post. If you are, read on!

I went to Cleveland two weeks ago to try on wedding dresses. My mom is awesome and generously offered to buy my dress and veil for me and I have good news to report: I found one! And it's gorgeous! Yay!

My best woman Jenny joined us, so it was a full-on Total Girl Event -- we even brought some sort of pink mixed drinks in little airline bottles into the dressing room with us. (Go, Mom!)

While it was unnerving to try on dresses (I'm pale, the dresses are gigantic, and some of them were downright hideous), I am really excited about the one that I chose -- it's absolutely beautiful and I am so excited to wear it in less than eight (!!!) short months from now.

I won't post photos of the dress, but you can email me if you're dying to see it ahead of time and I'll send you a link. I will post this photo of my awesome tiara:

(Click to see a larger version.)

I'm really happy with it. It's so lovely! I just want to wear it All. The. Time. Whee!

Several people have asked how I'm wearing my hair, and I think I'm just going to have it pulled back in front with curls down my back (it's really long now -- so weird!) Kind of like this chick here, but my hair is longer. My veil is gorgeous and has a small edging of tiny pearls around it. It's really something. (Thanks again, Mom!)

And this ends the Super Girly Entry in our Wedding Blog.
-kelly

Our trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame

Well, our little wedding blog has been languishing, hasn't it? That's not to say wedding stuff hasn't been happening... we just haven't been reporting it. So now's our chance to catch up!

We went to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame in September (wow -- that long ago, already?! Time flies!) and it was AWESOME. The building is spectacular and the liaison we'll be working with is a great guy. If we weren't already excited before, this made us even more excited.

We didn't get a ton of great photos (excitement = camera shake), but here is a general idea of the place...

Here is the "front" door of the building. It's on the corner of Yonge and Front streets and is usually closed to the public, but it will be open for our event, which is fantastic:

(Click on any of these photos to see them larger.)

When you go through that door, you enter the room with the Stanley Cup (called the Great Hall), which is where we will be getting married. Whee! Check out the Cup:


There is a beautiful stained glass domed ceiling in that room. This photo does not do it justice -- it's really incredible:


This one is an even worse photo of the glass, but you get a better idea of the gorgeous ceiling:


After we get married in the Great Hall, the reception will continue down into the rest of the Hall of Fame. As we wandered through the place, discussing our "event" with the liaison, we kept getting distracted by all of the amazing things to see. Here are a few highlights...

(You can follow along on this map -- we'll get married at #12.)

There is an area called the NHL Zone (area #2 on that map) where we'll have hors d'oeuvres after the ceremony and a toast following the picture taking. There will be an iPod set up in this area for anyone interested in dancing. They'll move those displays out of the way, so it's just a big slate floor:


For the Wings fan in our lives [you know who you are], we took this photo. For your sake, we hope they win it again in 2009, so you can see a Wings-decorated HHOF!


For our friend who is a Canadiens fan, we took this photo -- it's the complete Canadiens locker room and, um, it's really flipping cool (sorry for the blurry photo -- you can get a better one at our wedding!):


There are super fun things to do at the HHOF, including interactive games (#6 and #8 on the map). It was too dark to get good shots of it, but here are a couple. You get to be the goalie:


Or you can defend against a goalie:

(Bill tried his hand against Ed Belfour but the photos came out even blurrier than these.)

If you're interested, you can see way better photos of the Hockey Hall of Fame right here.

We're so excited!