Hotel Deals

For those of you interested, we have blocked out rooms (10) at the Boston Marriot - Peabody and have a discounted rate at The Salem Inn. Just be sure to mention the Ellison/Mariano wedding. The Marriot rooms will be released three weeks prior to the wedding and the discount is $30 off per night. For the Salem in there is a 10% discount on a two night minimum stay. Check out the links for these and other area hotels under the Where to Stay links.

The Dress

I know I know, it's bad luck to talk about, much less show a picture of the wedding dress before you get married. Shopping for a wedding dress has definitely been a challenge for me. I wanted something simple with clean lines, not poofy!! But it was also very important to me that the dress contain no animal products. I actually found this to be less of a challenge than I anticipated, many dresses are made from synthetic fibers these days. I had wanted a natural fiber (hemp blend) dress, but the timing just wouldn't work out since our wedding day is less than three months away!

My mom and I hit the usual bridal dress shops last Sunday. Although we didn't really find any dresses I wanted, it was good to see different styles to narrow down what I was looking for (I'm not one of those girls who has thought about her wedding dress since she was 5, I was playing teeball). It was fun to spend the afternoon with my mom and seeing her reaction to each dress. After lunch we gave up for the day but she convinced me to look at one other place....

So Tuesday night we met at Weddings by Debbie. How ironic that I end up buying my wedding dress only a few minutes from where I grew up and across the street from the mall where I spent much of my time in my teenage years.


So this is just a teaser photograph, you'll have to wait till the ceremony to see it!

The Ring

My engagement ring has a story, I love that! It started back in December when John and I went up to Banff and Lake Louise for a few days of skiing, snowshoeing, and relaxation. After skiing both Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, we took a break from the slopes and rented snowshoes to hike to a point overlooking Lake Louise. It was a beautiful day, but very cold. After our hike we went into the Fairmont Chateau to try and warm up and eat some lunch.

As we wandered around the hotel, we decided to browse their jewelry store. Right away I was drawn to the section of sapphires (my birthstone). John urged me to try on a few that I liked. The one that stood out to me was a beautiful oval-shaped sapphire flanked by two heart-shaped diamonds with a modern white gold band. John could see that I loved it, and being the giving man that he is, offered to buy it for me on the spot. My first response was no way, that I didn't need something so extravagant. He kept trying. So I told him that it seemed silly to buy such a sparkly ring, since if we ever did get engaged, I wouldn't want to wear both of them. I ended up having to half drag him out of the store. On our way out, he had me wait while he went to the bathroom. I noted the time on my watch carefully to make sure he wasn't going back to buy it. He was back quickly, so I relaxed. Little did I know that the story of my engagement ring began there...

John has since told me that he spent the next few months trying to get a hold of that ring. First there was the sizing. John secretly stole the rings I normally wear and traced them several times on a sheet of paper, measured them, and even uploaded the image and registered them in ArcGIS.

Then there was actually getting the ring across the Canadian border. And the hold up with the credit card authorization. John said he had wanted to propose while we were on vacation skiing in Colorado, but no ring. Same story when we went to Portland for his birthday. When he finally got the ring he didn't want to wait until our next vacation rolled around.

So that's the story of my engagement ring....

The Engagement

A week ago today, John and I got engaged!! On Friday night we went out to dinner at a fancy restaurant, Mark's. It is located in a beautifully renovated 1920's church only a few minutes from our home in Montrose. The service and food were excellent, and they went out of their way to fix something vegan for me. I had a sense earlier that night that John might propose ... we both got dressed up which we rarely do, plus marriage had been a more frequent topic of conversation in the recent weeks. Although the restaurant was lovely, it was crowded and noisy. John later told me that he intended to ask me to marry him when we got home that night, but we were both stuffed and exhausted, so he waited .....

Until Sunday morning. I came downstairs after sleeping late to find an amazing vase of flowers on the table with two mimosas, and a little jewelry box. I asked John what was going on. He turned to me and said that it would make him so happy if I would marry him. We put our arms around each other and I whispered in his ear "you know I will" before giving him a big kiss. He tried to allow me some time to "think about it" but I told him that I've known for a long time now that I wanted to marry him. So he popped the bottle of champagne and we got engaged!