Tag Archives: wedding

party

Day 3: Muneer & Megan’s wedding

Well, guys, there’s a new married couple on the block! Today, Muneer (Harrison’s college suitemate) and Megan tied the knot in a small ceremony in Hanover, NH.

Congratulations to the newly married couple!

St. Denis Catholic Church weddingI even got to recycle my reception dress:

Mica & Harrison, wedding victory tour

The reception was held in nearby Quechee, VT at the Simon Pearce glass blowing gallery and restaurant.

Simon Pearce, glassblowing

I smell a new hobby….

The building is over top of a waterfall!

Quechee waterfall, Simon Pearce

The glassware was somewhat out of our price range, but it was really nice. We got to eat and drink off it at dinner:

Simon Pearce, wedding table

That’s sparkling cider! Modern Face of Temperance, yes!

Guess how much this bronze moose statue costs. GUESS!

bronze moose statue, Simon PearceDid you guess $25,000? Because that’s how much it costs to own this miniature bronze moose calf. Mmhmmm.

It was a mini reunion of Harrison’s Harvard buddies:

Roommate Ahmad

Roommate Ahmad

 

Shaq & Kamila

Shaq & Kamila

Brian & Jenn

Brian & Jenn

David & Gin

David & Gin

A long-running joke between us and Muneer is his “death grip” in otherwise friendly photos:

Deathgrip Muneer

The wedding weekend happens to fall during the Quechee Balloon Festival. As the party was winding down, some of the balloons were being illuminated in a field next to the reception venue. I’ve been waffling back and forth as to whether I should get tickets to see Wicked on Broadway next week. (As you probably know, I love Wicked. Harrison is ambivalent towards it, but I’m sure he does not appreciate being greeted in the car by a blast of “No Good Deed” from the stereo cranked on high.)

This is a sign that we should go see it, right? RIGHT?!?

Wicked Hot Air Balloon

Three times isn’t too much “Wicked”!

It has been fun, Vermont!

WVT group in Vermont

Tomorrow, we head to Canada!

 

 

 

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Uncategorized

Wanted: Wedding Victory Playlist Suggestions

Wedding chalk decorations

We received a copy of our official marriage license today, so as Father-in-Law says, we’ve “done it now.”

WVT kicks off in just over a week. We leave next Wednesday, June 12th, for a wedding in New Hampshire. What better way to kick off a wedding victory tour?

Harrison has been planning furiously: making extensive route maps and deciding which destinations we’ll hit along the way.

While we’re driving roughly 10,000 miles, we’re going to need some good music. Unfortunately, our current selection is mostly limited to burned CDs of alternative pop-punk from our high school days. And while I do love Something Corporate, I’m pretty sure a new marriage can only endure so much New Found Glory, Yellowcard, and Fallout Boy.

Thus, let’s continue with the crowdsourcing of this wedding victory tour! I am asking you, our friends and family and Internet creepers, to suggest music for our very long journey.

Do you have a favorite song for roadtripping?

How about some lyrics that really speak to you on the open road?

What about that album that really brings you back to middle school/high school/college/summer 2003?

These are all perfect suggestions for our Wedding Victory Tour Playlist, and we want to hear them!

Really! We are going to need a lot of music for this trip. Please use this form to suggest a song or album for us to add to play with the windows down (or maybe up) on the open road. Make sure to tell us why this musical selection is a particularly good addition to our WVT playlist.

Even better, tell us who you are and leave your phone number or email address. (No worries–only we’ll see this form!) I’ll do my best to contact you when we listen to one of your suggestions!

You’re probably a music buff and are just bursting with suggestions. Well, lucky you, you can resubmit the form as many times as you want with new stuff.

Thanks so much in advance. We can’t wait to hear from you!


If the embedded form doesn’t work on the WVT site, access just the suggestion form here.

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planning

Libby Hill Park: Richmond on the James!

Well, dearest readers, we finally have an officiant and have chosen the venue for our upcoming nuptials on May 24th, 2013. Something modest and under-budget because that’s how we roll.

highclere_castle(Image source)

I have just discovered Highclere Castle can be rented for weddings to the tune of £15,000+VAT. Yeah, no big deal, right?

Actually, we are delighted to announce that we will be getting married in a more cost-effective venue that is slightly closer to home: Richmond’s Libby Hill Park!

Here’s a boring, nearly five-minute video of it:

According to the city’s Parks & Recreation website, Libby Hill is one of the three original parks  in Richmond. My favorite thing about it is the nice view of the river. In fact, this is how Richmond got its name–it resembles a view of Richmond on the Thames in England, hurrah!

In the event of rain, we plan to camp out and have a very short ceremony under the porch of the park house.

Libby Hill Park House

Libby Hill Park House, Richmond, VA

One of the many benefits of having such a small, weekday morning wedding is that we didn’t have to make an official reservation for the park. I doubt anyone is going to be using the park on a Friday morning. And if other people are milling around, there’s enough green space that we will be able to find some room to get married.

Our officiant, Mr. Mehfoud, is a Richmond celebrant who has been marrying couples since 1978 and even married stepdad Steve’s cousin and his wife Laura two years ago. When I spoke to him on Tuesday, he said that he knows his short, secular ceremony by heart. We’ll be married quickly and unobtrusively, but officially and awesomely!

Now that we have the majorly important things (venue, celebrant, photographer) in line, it’s time to start planning the road trip in earnest. After Harrison turns in his dissertation draft next week, we’ll start poring over the road trip books we got for Christmas and scouring the Interwebs for cool destinations.

And also, Kayla and I started a collaborative board on Pinterest today, just for the sheer joy of distracting ourselves with wedding crafts. Because who wants to write a comprehensive exam on ESL grammar when you can make decorations out of coffee filters and whiffle balls…

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information

Wedding Victory Tour FAQ by Harrison

Harrison's WVT FAQ

Harrison likes to ask questions and then answer them.

What is Wedding Victory Tour? Rather than hosting a large wedding ceremony and reception for all of our family and friends, Mica and I have decided to have a small courthouse ceremony with immediate family, followed by a cross-country (+ Canada!) roadtrip during which we will visit our various disparately-located family and friends.

Why the name “Wedding Victory Tour”? We needed something more interesting than “Wedding Roadtrip.”  Wedding Victory Tour seems the correct mix of epic and ridiculous.

Why don’t you want to have a traditional wedding, like normal people? We are rather abnormal people.  Namely, we would find spending the better part of two months bopping around in a car more enjoyable than hosting a massive party for family and friends.

What is wrong with parties? Nothing!  Given the choice, though, we would rather have many small gatherings with individual family and friends than one huge bash.

The thought of spending that long in the car with any one human being makes me ill. Please phrase in the form of a question.

Why in the world would anybody want to do this? We love travel, roadtrips in particular.  I (Harrison) love driving, and Mica loves passenger-ing.  We have driven back and forth from graduate school in Illinois to our parents’ houses in Virginia many times, and we recently completed a 2500-mile roadtrip around the middle of the country, so this ain’t our first rodeo, so to speak.  We are excited to see whether our astronaut diapers will hold up for the duration of this significantly longer journey.

When is this happening? We will set out in early to mid-June and make our triumphant return in late July or early August.

Where are you planning to go? Roughly, we are planning to make a counter-clockwise loop around the continental US, along with a bonus excursion to the Canadian maritimes. [Mica’s edit: I want to take WVT to the UK, but I’m pretty sure we can’t drive under the ocean. Womp, womp.]

Isn’t this rather environmentally unfriendly? Yes and no.  It will certainly have a significant carbon footprint, but so does flying.  A 10,000-mile trip in a reasonably fuel-efficient car emits about as much carbon as two passengers flying roundtrip from San Diego to Richmond, VA.  We have three family members in San Diego who would have likely been invited to a traditional wedding.

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