Meet the Wedding Party: Anna and Jon

Name: Anna Hendrick (Anna Ban, Bannz)
Job: Maid of Honor
Relationship: BFF to Erin (Rinnzy/Rinnz, ee)
How We Met: Anna and Erin officially met one fateful afternoon in 1999 when Anna when a freshman at SHS and Erin was a sophomore. The girls were thrown together by chance (and, probably a little, on purpose) and were virtually inseparable after that day. They navigated high school together and kept each other going by always gossiping, always watching TV, always laughing and usually talking about Destiny's Child/Beyonce (some things never change). They were separated for a few years because of college but that didn't stop them (thank goodness for the internet) and now both girls live in NYC and even run a Twin Peaks-themed Etsy shop together. They're still trying to figure out a way to put "Anna Ban & Rinnzy" in lights. It'll happen. Erin doesn't know what she would do without Anna to talk to, do crafts with, come up with book ideas with, obsess over TV shows with and just generally have hilarious times with.

Since we're both such hams...here are some photos of us throughout the years. Don't even pretend like you're not amused by them.



Let's get serious, Anna is my best friend in the world and I don't say it enough but I love her dearly and am so glad that she is willing to participate in our wedding in such a big way. I seriously can't wait to see what hilarity ensues at the reception (perhaps an "Empire State of Mind" rap-off...P.S. she would win).




Name: Jon Lewis
Job: Best Man
Relationship: Hetero Life Partner to Jimmy
How We Met: Jimmy met Jon on the first day of fifth grade, when, according to legend (which Jon can explain in elaborate detail if you get enough drinks in him), Jon complimented Jimmy on the obnoxiously colored Woodstock '94 t-shirt he was wearing at the time. When Jon asked Jimmy if he went to the concert, he simply responded, "No way. I got it at the mall." The rest is history. And though their lives have gone through countless permutations and they now find themselves on opposite sides of the country, they're no less close today than when they were still playing marathon games of Goldeneye in Jimmy's mom's living room. Jimmy is glad that Jon could take a break from his Salingeresque state of reclusivity in the Land of Enchantment to lead this rag-tag group of misfits know as Jimmy's wedding party, and he hopes that Jon takes his title as literally as possible.

Keeping the House

Since 2008, I've been in a situation of unemployment for the beginning of the year (always looking for work, mind you) so over that time I end up taking over the majority of the household chores like laundry and doing the dishes. I always do some normal household things too, like go through all my clothes or clean out and organize the linen closet. But I also do weird things like become obsessive about how the remotes are stored on the coffee table or find something stuck next to the fridge so end up pulling the fridge from the wall, vacuuming behind it and then rearranging all of the magnets and other things on it (which I may or may not have done tonight).

The rest of today was pretty standard, tho.

I spent today doing the laundry in a completely empty laundry room (which was amazing) while watching TV with Jordan (she's from Millionaire for people who don't know her) and seeing huge chunks of snow fall from the sky. It was a very nice, relaxing day but definitely puts my unemployment in the spotlight.

I'm glad to be able to do all these things and definitely glad to have something to focus all my organizational energy on while without a job. Even not thinking about the wedding planning (which would definitely be harder to do if we were both working), it's been useful for me to be home because Jimmy just had surgery on his shoulder (don't worry, he is fine) and is in a sling for a month.

Here he is enjoying his hospital attire pre-surgery:
So I'm doing the dishes and laundry all by myself and keeping the apartment clean while home alone all day, no biggie. What pushed me over-the-top into serious "wifery" is my newest obsession with sewing. Right now, only aprons, but I hope to have other projects soon.

I've had a sewing machine for over a year (thanks Grammy & Grampy!) and hadn't gotten up the courage to actually try something until recently. I've since sewn 3 aprons (only 1 to keep) and just cannot get enough of it. Now, I usually spend my days knitting or cross-stitching, so sewing is probably a natural third activity to take on, but it's still fun and new to me.

It makes sense to me. I'm always doing craft projects and I'm always doing household chores so why not do a craft project I can use while doing household chores? I even wore my apron (which is black gingham and red trim) while cooking banana pancakes on Valentine's Day. Perfect.

We're coming up on 7 months away and it already seems like everything is going by so quickly! But it's definitely coming together and we're getting really excited. So all is good.

Just gotta get Jimmy out of his sling so he can help carry groceries again.

Meet the Wedding Party: Evan and Nick

Name: Evan Cochnar
Job: Groomsman
Relationship: Consigliere to Jimmy
How We Met: Jimmy and Evan met in the cutthroat world of high school forensics, where they took joys in tearing apart their opponents with screwball debate cases and gonzo student congress legislation (not to mention a legendary two-man dramatic interpretation of the Star Wars Trilogy). In spite of their current lack of geographic proximity, they still find time to riff on episodes of The Sopranos and discuss the comparative merits of the Tarantino oeuvre.


Name: Nick Robbins
Job: Groomsman
Relationship: Accessory before, during, and after the fact to Jimmy
How We Met: Though they crossed paths several times in high school due to mutual connections in the Albuquerque punk rock scene, Nick and Jimmy didn't start hanging out until they both came to NYU for college. There they bonded over a mutual affinity for obscure indie bands of the 1980s. When not watching never-ending Simpsons marathons in their dorm, they used their proximity to the city to see many excellent bands (along with a few that kind of sucked). And while they still catch a good show from time to time, it's unlikely that any will top the epic Ween/Walkmen double feature of '03.

Hotels! Hotels!! Hotels!!!

The moment you've all been waiting for....drum roll, please.

*drum roll*

Okay, so here's the hotel info for the weekend of the wedding. We have a block of rooms at the Schenectady Holiday Inn (it has a pool!) for October 8th and 9th:

Holiday Inn Schenectady

You can call 518-393-4141 and ask for the Huth-Long Wedding block of rooms.

ORRRR

You can stay at The Stockade Inn (where the wedding is) but there are a limited number of rooms and they only have availability for the night of October 9th.

Stockade Inn Rooms

You can call 518-346-3400 to reserve rooms if you would like, just tell them you're with the Huth-Long Wedding.

Please feel free to email either of us if you have any questions!

8 Months to Go!

As our wedding ticker informs us, there are 8 months left until our wedding.

As some of our NY guests tell us, the Save the Dates are starting to arrive!

Yay!

In honor of that fact, here is a photo of my self-run Save the Date assembly line. I was catching up on Lost for the premiere:

And then a blurry picture of them all spread out and stamped (wouldn't it be fun if I did that on purpose to obscure the addresses? P.S. I didn't):Just a little behind-the-scenes action.

I hope this means we'll have some new readers, tho. We'll be updating this blog with hotel/travel info and anything else you need to know. And we'll do our next Meet the Wedding Party: Nick & Evan soon. (I know you can't wait).

"Do Not Play" List

As you can see from the rest of this blog, we've gotten a pretty decent head start in the planning of this shindig. We've already got a place, a date, a photographer, and Erin even already has a dress. But as far as I'm concerned, this show will live and die with one thing: the music. As such, Erin has given me the task of organizing all of the music for both the ceremony and the reception.

We decided very early on that we absolutely do not want a DJ, as this would probably result in me getting in a physical altercation with this unfortunate individual by the end of the night. And while I've always thought it would be awesome to have a live karaoke band for the reception, the logistical and fiscal demands of such a plan make it ultimately more trouble than it's worth. If I had the technology I'd probably try to clone myself (a la Multiplicity) and just DJ my own wedding, but, barring any breakthroughs on that front in the next 8 months, I've resigned myself to just making a 5 hour playlist of all the songs I think will make for an awesome Jimmy and Erin-themed party. I'd like to have some fun surprises in there for everyone, so I don't want to give too much of a sense of what music will be played, I do want to do a quick rundown of some wedding standards that will not be played. . .

1) "Electric Slide" / "Achey Brakey Heart" / "Chicken Dance" / "Macarena"

The fact that any of these gimmicky one-off dance fads has endured decades after its initial popularity is as surprising as it is pathetic. There's frankly no way to not embarrass yourself while doing any of these these so called "dances." The ability to perform any of these with any grace or competence is just as sad and lame as any amateur attempt to keep up with those that can - especially since there will likely be both photographic and videographic evidence of your shame.*

2) "Celebration" Robert "Kool" Bell has written many brilliant pop tunes, and this is no exception, but c'mon, this is just lazy DJing. It's as if the DJ just admitted to the entire reception that he can't remember whether this is a wedding or a bris.

3) "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" The proliferation of this song by wedding DJs is just perverse. It's like a theme song for passive-aggressive brides that want to gloat over their single friends.

4) "White Wedding" This song is problematic for two reasons. If you happen to be naive to accept the chorus of this song on a literal level, it's incredibly trite. If not, it's just in poor taste to send off the new couple into wedded bliss with a song about going on a coke bender**

5) "Wonderful Tonight" I've just always hated this song. Can't really explain why.

*I've expressly omitted "YMCA" simply because I find the idea of conservative baby boomers getting down to a song that's expressly about gay cruising hilarious.

**I'm willing to make an exception here if your wedding reception happens to involve liberal cocaine use.

Saying I Do: Etsy (Vintage) Style

As I've pointed out before, I spend a lot of time on Etsy during the day. Searching for items, reading the blog posts, seeing if there are more items labeled Twin Peaks, etc. Lately, I've done a lot of "wedding" searches just to try to get ideas for the wedding and see what's out there. Today I just did a simple "wedding" search under the vintage category. Besides coming across a ton of old wedding photographs (which I love looking at) I also found some awesome (tho maybe a tad goofy in practice) vintage wedding items. Like a centerpiece and some cake toppers:

Vintage Wedding Centerpiece
From rarefinds4u, $26.50

Vintage Wedding Cake Topper
From Road10, $16.00

Bride & Groom Topper
From Cariboucreek, $20.00

But some of my favorite were the weirder ones, like this wedding plate from the 80's and this postcard from the 70's.

.

The Wedding Plate
From TumbleWeedCottage, $12.00

Postcard Bride and Groom
From arcaniumantiques, $5.00

I love all 5 of these items but man...that postcard is pretty sweet. It makes me want to stage a picture like that of Jimmy and me. You know, for fun. Well, I guess I'd want a plate like that of us too.

I'll continue looking through Etsy and hopefully end up with a few of these items. Come on, they're all under $30!

A Lot Can Happen in a Month

So as of January 31st, we've been engaged for 1 month. I don't know what wedding planning is like for other people but it's been moving right along for us so far. We're trying to get as much benefit as possible from my current state of unemployment. So anything we can do, we're doing.

We got our Save the Dates on Thursday and will be ready to send those out by the end of this week (a lot of people are coming from places where they need to fly in so we want to make sure people have ample time to plan). We had a very productive trip to Schenectady this past weekend where we booked a photographer and found me a wedding dress. (Well, my parents and I found me a wedding dress. Jimmy wasn't involved in that part).

I didn't really think we'd find a dress so soon especially after watching hours and hours of Say Yes to the Dress. But we did. And, like many of those girls, I didn't get what I thought I was looking for and I DID have a "oh, this is my dress" moment while I was trying it on. So I guess there's some truth to that show. And now I have a dress and can spend my time figuring out what everyone else is going to wear. Sweet.