Introduction

Posted by: Dan on Jul 22, 2007

If you’ve come to read our story from the beginning you can start by clicking here. Or better yet, you can find a full list of the articles here!

Welcome to “Engagement to Wedding” a blog that will chronicle the adventures, highs and lows, and all around great times that Brooke and I will be having as we plan our wedding.

I wanted to have a little keepsake of the every day events that we go through on our way to uniting as a couple. Over the next 10 months I know there will be a lot going on and in that time a lot of the little things can get lost in the confusion. Since I’m sure we’ll always remember the “more important” aspects of the planning it’s those little things I fear will slip from our memories. And that’s precisely why I wanted to do this blog.

I’m not sure if this blog will be beneficial to the internet community as a whole but hopefully as we continue to plan our wedding we’ll have some helpful advice to other future couples.

With that said… enjoy yourselves.

Avoid Woody's Steak House

Posted by: Dan on Jun 09, 2008

With all the moving going on these past few weeks I haven’t had a chance to update this blog – sorry about that. Two weeks of moving and another waiting for an internet connection will do that though.

I’m actually at work right now typing this because I’m pissed and I’m hoping that this post calms me down a bit.

This past Saturday night Brooke received a piece of mail from the IRS. Panic sets in as panic will when you get a letter from them. As it turns out it the letter was a Notice of Levy in regard to Woody’s Steak House. It appears that they own the IRS some tax money and the notice was to inform us that payments that should go to Woody’s Steak House instead should be paid to the IRS.

Basically what this comes down to is we’re now back to square one on the whole caterer thing. There’s no way we can trust that Woody’s would even be able to cater our wedding reception. I mean if they owe cash to the IRS (and that’s who we’re suppose to pay on Woody’s behalf) how can they afford the food we should be getting?

Yup, this isn’t good. Three weeks until the wedding and we have no food. Of course if it comes down to it people in my family have already said they’d be more than willing to start cooking. Even my cousin Mike mentioned roasting a pig. Yeah I could get behind that.

So people in the Wisconsin area… if you’re reading this, don’t go with Woody’s to cater your wedding.

PS – I will do my best to catch up on everything I’ve missed adding these past few weeks. Of course right now with looking for a new caterer my time will be very limited.

One Down, Two To Go

Posted by: Dan on May 28, 2008

Last weekend we got Brooke and her sister moved out of their apartment. And by we I mean myself, Brooke, Bettina, Kurt (Brooke and Bettina’s dad), Ted, Matt, Mel, Jodi – and later Cyndi (Brooke and Bettina’s mother), Ben, Becky and even Samantha.

Things went pretty well. In the morning Brooke came over to pick me up so we could go and get the U-Haul (and I’m not linking to them because of the hassle we went through with them!). I drove that out to Brooke’s apartment and we started to take box after box down. In a few short hours – even if it seemed like ages – we were loaded up and headed off.

The unpacking went a lot faster, as it always seems to. We unloaded everything out on to Cyndi and Kurt’s driveway and then started to haul things into the house and the garage. I think it was around 6PM when I got back to my apartment.

Sunday I went back over to Brooke and Bettina’s apartment to help pack up a few last minute things and to clean. I think I got home around 3:30PM or so and spent the rest of the day packing up things in my apartment. And pretty much all week (so far) I’ve been doing the same. Packing and cleaning.

Friday we get the keys to the new place and should be able to get all the boxes from my place over there. At least that’s my goal. If all goes well I hope we can get a few pieces of furniture over there as well. Then Saturday will be time to move the large items, clean up a bit and hand over the keys. I can’t wait.

Sunday I think Brooke wants to move some of her stuff over. So that’ll be another move. I think after than I’ll just want to sleep all week. I can’t though since we’ll have to kick it into high gear for the wedding. Only 30 more days!

Surprise #2

Posted by: Brooke on May 28, 2008

We were having a great day at school! We had just gotten back from a field trip to the zoo. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. I was the last to get off the bus when we returned back to school, so I signed the bus forms and headed inside. I was thinking of having a low key afternoon since we were all pretty tired from the field trip. I walked into the room and….

SURPRISE!!

I was surrounded by the mothers of my students! They had decided to throw me a surprise bridal shower. I was completely shocked but touched by their thoughtfulness. We had another wonderful spread of food and there were lots of gifts! It was a great opportunity for all of the moms to be together to talk and get to know each other! I opened gifts, we all ate, talked and laughed. We ended the party with a group pictures.

As I left school that day, I cried a little. I was so honored and touched that these parents would do such a wonderful thing for me. I felt so lucky to work with those kids and those parents and I really felt that the connection between us had gotten stronger!

Service Transfer and Moving Preperations

Posted by: Dan on May 21, 2008

For the past week or more it’s been time to get packing and to get ready to move. Last Saturday I made some pretty good progress at getting at least half of my packing done. I had planned to go through my storage area here at the apartment on Sunday but a call of distress from Brooke Saturday night had me over at her place to help pack instead. Which was pretty cool because I didn’t really get to see her that much the previous week. Plus I got to do my laundry over there.

Anyway the packing has been going well and I think I should get the rest done by early next week. This weekend however will be spent moving Brooke and Bettina out of their place. Assuming my fat-butt doesn’t pass out from too much exercise. Honestly though I think it’ll go fine.

I called a few places today to set up the transfer of services to the new apartment. I knew better this time and started with WE Energies since they’ll help make other service transfers as well. They helped with Time Warner Cable including the addition of digital phone and a DVR. However, I still had to call TDS Metrocom so that I could keep my same phone number.

I hate TDS – get ready, I’m going on a rant here. When I first signed up with them as asked for the lowest service that still included caller ID they put me on a plan that was way more than I needed. Only recently did I find out I was getting hosed. Anyway I was paying almost $40 a month through them for only a few calls a month. When I say few I mean the most phone calls I placed from my home phone in one month was 23. I’m allowed 500. On average I make 6 calls.

Anyway when I called to make sure I could keep my same number I was informed my TDS billing address would need to match my new apartment address which means they have to transfer service over to the new apartment. The cost… $50! And that’s not including the monthly fee. So in all it’ll be like $90 – unless they pro-rate the service for the few days. But I don’t know if they’ll do that because the lady never said – she didn’t even tell me there was a moving fee until I asked her. In hindsight I should have skipped asking and then complained about the fee saying I wasn’t told about it and wouldn’t have done it if I had known. Oh well. better to be honest and screwed over than save some money I guess.

So today’s little tip goes to people moving, rather than couples getting ready to get married. Call and set up the transfer dates for your services way ahead of your move date. Otherwise you could end up paying more.

Time for Some Tunes

Posted by: Dan on May 15, 2008

Tonight Brooke and I met with Shawn to go over some of the music for the wedding. I do believe things went rather well and we have some music selections to make. There are also few “think about it” items that we’ll have to ponder as well. Otherwise the music for the reception looks like it’s in very capable hands.

I wish I had more to put in here to help other couples out with selecting the music for their reception. However, Brooke’s known Shawn for a while, he does great work and we knew we’d be using him pretty much from the start.

I don’t have the information about Shawn with me but once I do have it I’ll make sure to post it. That way any couples in Wisconsin (Milwaukee/Waukesha) area will have someone to look into.