I Caved.

So I was trying to avoid the whole blog thing, because everyone's doing it and I don't like peer pressure. But I just have so much that I want to keep people updated on now, and instead of sending annoying daily e-mails to my bridesmaids, I figured I'd just give them a place to check in on the progress if they felt like it.

I guess it's obvious by now that I am engaged. After 8 years of pre-engagement bliss, we have entered the marathon stage - wedding planning. I have to say, life was fairly relaxed until now :) I recently graduated from Gettysburg, recovered from pneumonia, started applying to med school and started my full-time job at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, which doesn't sound relaxed, but compared to the past two weeks it really was! It's really not that bad, it's just that we'd like to get married in late May of next year, and since that's only 10 months away and its a popular time of year to get married, we're feeling lots of pressure to get a place booked.

So far we've visited Celebrations at the Bay, which is a beautiful site in Pasadena, MD on the Chesapeake Bay, but the people who work there are apparently bloody thieves... they wanted $23K for a 115-person ceremony and reception. YIKES. We had really gotten excited about that place and really hadn't invested much time in looking around anywhere else, so after that big let-down on Sunday, we had to really start looking around. Today we visited Wakefield Valley Golf Club in Westminster, which is the exact opposite - SUPER affordable and very accomodating and friendly. Very willing to work with us on menu changes, special arrangements, whatever. That was refreshing, but unfortunately neither of us got that "this is it" feeling when we were there. We're not sure what to expect and whether or not it's a good idea to expect some sort of magical feeling, but I need to be more excited about it than I was today. Friday we're visiting Linganore Winecellars in Mount Airy, MD, and Saturday we're going just across the bay bridge onto the Eastern Shore to visit the Silver Sawn Bayside at Queen Anne Marina, another waterfront site. If it hasn't become clear by now, we're planning to do an outdoor ceremony and we'd love for it to be by the water! It could even be a pond or a river, I don't care! Next week we're visiting Turf Valley Golf Resort & Spa, as well as Stone Manor Country Club out past Frederick in Middletown. I really like Stone Manor, and I'm excited about Linganore too (it would be very unique). Ben is all about Silver Swan (he's really gung-ho on being by the water) and Turf Valley. I'm really afraid we'll end up with differing opinions on the final location decision, which will be tough to compromise on!

In other news, I got my dress last weekend :) People might call me crazy for not looking around more, but I really didn't want to allow myself to try on $1500-dresses and fall in love with them - there are more important things I'd like to splurge on. I found a beautiful chiffon gown at Davids and I only spent $350 on it, so I'm thrilled! I LOVE IT! If you want a pic, e-mail me. I don't want to post anything here, should Ben accidentally stumble upon it. He'd be very upset. I'm counting on him not knowing what "chiffon" means. He's not big on fabrics :)

AND one more thing... after the big let-down on Sunday, we went to meet my great aunt and picked up my great-grandmother's diamond :) Those of you who have known me for a while probably know that I was VERY close with her until she passed away two years ago, so having her diamond is going to be really special. We had it reset and now Ben is withholding it from me, because apparently he's a proponent of certain forms of torture. He picked it up today, but he wants to do a proposal and surprise me somewhat, so now I'm waiting. Hopefully my next post will be about the proposal...