yes! yes! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

All the pieces are in place. As of a few days ago, we have hired the major "broad strokes" of the wedding. Here they are:

Venue

Caterer

Florist

Photographer (still looking for a videographer)

Music

Someone to marry us

transportation

hotel

Gift registry

At this point I am felling like a mad scientist.....waiting for lighting to strike so I can yell out "It's alive!"

Throughout the whole process though I have thought of myself more like the GM of a baseball team. My job has been to go out and get the scouting reports, se them in person when I can, then hire the professionals for my team. If you hire the right experts, the rest will happen.

Now there are tons of details to sort out, the batting order, who plays where, the workout schedule, etc.....while I will be involved with those decisions, my fiance is really the manager of the team. She gets to make those calls and the day tot day stuff. I am the smartest GM in the world cause I found the smartest manager.

Now let's go win the pendant!

venue shopping

So it looks like the first major decision to make (besides the size of the party, which is going to be many fights to come) is to start looking for venues. Apparently if you do not book the place you want 12 months before the date you will not get it.

I guess I never really thought about it before, where do I want to get married? What sort of room do i want to party in? In college, the answer was always either "the bar" or "someones basement" (Note: do not recommend either to fiance).

There are a wide variety of places out there, I do know what I don't like. I don't like wedding factories, where they are only in biz to have one wedding after another. I have been to these sort of places, and on one occasion while the priest was saying "I now pronounce you" the preacher at the ceremony next door beat him to it, and the ceremony I was at was overpowered by applause.

So those places are out (also cause during dinner we sneaked into the other wedding to go to that bar).

If it is outside, it seems like you must have a tent. I am all for a tent, but when my fiance asked what happens if it rains? and I answer we get wet....arms get crossed defiantly. A tent does seem rather expensive for what it is.

Someplace quaint maybe? That is what we are looking for, but quaint also equals small....it has to fit.

At this point we have gotten some recommendations on places, checked them out online and narrowed them down to our top six...we are looking at them this weekend. If none of them work, then I guess our top six will become a top 12 and we will look some more.

Wish us luck, I wonder if this is how Columbus felt when he first left in search of the new world? Maybe, but then again the Queen of Spain was financing him so it may have been easier.