mrshl | blog

This is where I post about the Wedding.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to write a long-winded recap about the single most important, amazing day of my life. That’s why we have pictures. More on those in a second. First things first: I want to thank all the family and friends who attended our wedding, bought us nice gifts, and who (hopefully) had a great time partying with us. Really, it meant so much to see all those great people suffering in the sun waiting…and waiting…and waiting. Waiting to see Jordan and me take our last walks as single people toward a shared future. We’re pretty stoked.

Considering we didn’t hire a planner, I thought things turned out great. Jordan’s parents, Frank and Linda, turned their house into the perfect setting for both the ceremony and the reception, and everyone we’ve talked to seemed to have a good time. Only the weather was uncooperative. Oh, sure we had a lot of sun for the outdoor ceremony. But it was oppressively hot and sweaty and uncomfortable for those of us wearing the finery. And then we had to shut the reception down early when a scary thunderstorm moved into the area. The thunderstorm convinced a lot of people to leave, which meant Jordan and I had to leave in a hurry so there would still be people there to see us drive off in the antique truck. Luckily, we were able to get out of there before the deluge started. Actually, I’m not sure the rain ever came at all.

Anyway, we got through it, but there are some loose ends to tie up…

Wedding CDs
Some of the folks who left ahead of the weather missed out on the free mix CD we gave to our guests. It was a recreation of a mix I gave Jordan when we first started dating. If you didn’t get one, I have extra copies. If you can’t wait for that, I’ve assembled the songs and the artwork into a convenient zip file you can download. 

Target delivers gifts to wrong address
If you purchased a gift from Target and used our registry to ship it to us, it probably didn’t get here. That’s because Target somehow managed to ship all our gifts to our old address. We registered at the kiosk in Target, and we put in our current address as our registry address. We assumed they would use that as our shipping address (the software didn’t ask us to confirm our shipping address). Somehow, they found Jordan’s address for her online Target account, which had not been changed. We’ve corrected that problem now. And we didn’t lose any gifts. Most of them were returned and credited to the buyers account.  A few of them are waiting to be picked up at UPS. What to do if you purchased a Target gift? Check your credit card account and see if you got your money back. If you did, that means your gift was not delivered. However, the Target registry will still list your gift as "fulfilled." If you still want to purchase it for us after all this trouble, I believe the site will let you.

Credits
If you enjoyed the wedding and reception, it is due to our families’ remarkable efforts and hard work. Frank and Linda worked miracles to get everything done, and they employed an untold number of people and businesses in crafting the perfect day, most of whom I wouldn’t be able to identify. But there are some planning areas where Jordan and I had particular influence, and I couldn’t recommend these people highly enough.

• Flowers. My friend and bandmate Johnathan Andrew Sage did the flowers, and they were awesome. I knew they would be, as Johnathan has a well-deserved local reputation for pulling off events that are much larger in scope and budget. We are incredibly thankful he made room for us on the always-hectic Mother’s Day weekend.
• Food. Baxter’s on Main (in Bastrop) did both our rehearsal dinner and the ceremony. Any time I get to eat Baxter’s two nights in a row, it’s been a swell weekend.
• Band. Jordan’s brother plays in the popular Austin band, Lomita. They learned two full sets of classic cover songs to play for the ceremony. Due to the whether, you only got to hear the first set, but as always they sounded like the gifted pros they are. At some point, I’m hoping to get them down here for another Houston show. I’ll let you know when it happens.
• Invitations. Our wedding invitations were hand made by Angela Spoede, who works at the 1st Court of Appeals with Jordan and was a law school classmate of ours. We know we were a bit late getting them out, but we got a ton of compliments after they arrived. I will note here that our save the date magnets, for which we also received a lot of compliments, came from Pioneer Color. Their designs were leagues better than every one else we looked at. We even used the design for the CD art above.
• Print Shop. Matt Brownlee at Copy(dot)com bent over backwards for us, printing and cutting our invitation inserts, reply cards, programs, and CD liner notes. Reasonable prices and incredibly quick turnaround. I can’t stress enough how important it is to use a locally owned print shop instead of Kinko’s. Accountability is priceless. 
• Officiant. John Spoede (Angela’s husband!) did an outstanding job officiating our wedding, and he was extremely helpful beforehand getting us ready for the big day. In the pictures, he’s the one helping me figure out cuff links and button covers. John’s day job (one of them, at least) is counseling at the Houston Center for Christian Counseling.
• Pictures. Yes, finally, the pictures. The fine folks at BendtheLight.com sent three photographers to our wedding to capture the ceremony and reception. And they gave us a deal because they’re just starting to build a portfolio. At any price, I’d say they’re worth it. The pictures aren’t up at Pictage yet, but the photographers leaked a few via their blog. All I can say is freaking WOW. This slide show provides an even better preview. You should be able to order prints and see more photos at Pictage soon. Until then, we have some of our own pictures up at Flickr, and Jordan’s friend Helen has some here. By the way, if you took pictures of the wedding and you’re uploading them to Flickr, please tag them with "mj5.10.08"; that way, they’ll all show up together.

How was the wedding? It was great. Really, really great. Let me know what you thought in the comments.