Marisa and Dan’s Wedding Blog

Yes, that’s right — Dan and I are officially house-hunting!

We were planning on sticking it out in our current one-bedroom apartment until after the wedding, but after many discussions with our various sets of parents, we came to the conclusion that the housing market is ripe for the picking RIGHT NOW, and it might not be to our advantage to wait almost a year before we begin looking. So we’ve enlisted the help of Dan’s mother’s realtor friend, Chrissie, and tomorrow we begin scouring Commack, Dix Hills, Deer Park, East Northport, and Smithtown (towns in western Suffolk County, Long Island, for the uninitiated) for The Perfect House. Who knows how quickly we’ll find anything, but we’re certainly going to give it our all. It’s hard to express just how excited we are at the prospect of owning property. Sure, we’ll be pretty broke for awhile, but we’ll know that our hard-earned cash is being invested in something that belongs to us, rather than going to a greedy landlord who can’t even be bothered to ensure that our building’s boiler is properly functioning on any sort of regular basis.

In other news, we’re in the process of piecing together our honeymoon with the help of my aunt Lesley’s travel agency, Syosset Travel (sorry, no website link!). We’ll be flying out to San Francisco a few days after the wedding (probably Tuesday or Wednesday, November 17 or 18), renting a car, and driving to Napa and Sonoma Valleys for a few days of West Coast winetasting — hurray! Then we’ll be driving or flying (yet to be determined) to Los Angeles and boarding the Sapphire Princess for a seven-night cruise down the Mexican Riviera (in a mini-suite with balcony, natch). While flying to Hawaii would have been wonderful, this trip makes a lot more sense financially — especially given the fact that we’re most likely going to be buying a house very soon. I, for one, am looking forward to the honeymoon with every ounce of my being!

It’s hard to imagine that I proposed just over a month ago, and we have so much under our belt already that I struggle to figure out what’s left. We managed to accomplish a lot just this weekend so I figured it was about time to make a new blog post.

First of all, there’s a very good chance that we will be married at Church of Our Saviour Lutheran in Manhasset, assuming of course we pass our whole Pre-Cana Inventory (the pastor, Ray Ormand, was very insistent that we don’t call it a test). Pastor Ormand was very stalwart in saying that we must show we’re compatible enough in the church’s eyes before he will make the commitment to marry us on the date that we stated. Thanks to modern technology, the Pre-Cana Inventory will be taken online, after we both get the link on Tuesday. Once we meet with the pastor a few more times, then we can make a down payment and secure the date for our wedding. In the meantime, here are a few pics taken of the place, thanks to Karin’s ninja-like photography.

The next day we scheduled time with Stefan’s Florist to get the flower settings all squared away. We had been thinking about a wine theme and after visiting a few vineyards recently, we came upon a really cool idea for the table centerpieces that reflects both of our tastes. We discussed it with the good folks at Stefan’s and they seemed to have a few good ideas themselves that they ran past us, and in the end we came to an agreement, making them our official wedding florist! (Don’t you wish we’d tell you more about our brilliant idea? You’ll just have to come to our wedding to see it…). Sadly we don’t have any photos to share, but when we go and visit them again we’ll be sure to take a few of the samples they have to show us.

And to end this blog post on yet another uplifting note, a bunch of people in the wedding party went out to celebrate Marisa’s birthday at Croxley Ales in Farmingdale on Saturday night, and all posed for this great pic:

From left to right: Eric, Dan, Kirsten, Marisa, Alan, Craig

Visit the photo gallery to view full-size versions of these pics.

We’ve officially booked our photographer and videographer: AC Video and Photography. (The photo on the website doesn’t load, but don’t let that fool you.) The company is run by a great guy I know from work, Adam Cooper, who’s done photography for the North Shore-LIJ Health System since roughly the beginning of time. On the side he does wedding and other event photography and works closely with a network of established videographers.

Although I’m familiar with the high quality of Adam’s work considering I’ve worked with him for the past two years, I wanted Dan and my family to see what he could do. Adam came to our apartment (bonus!) and showed us wonderful samples of wedding photo books and DVDs, and everyone was sold pretty quickly. I feel very confident knowing that he’ll be documenting our wedding day from beginning to end!

Today I bought my wedding dress! And you can’t see it! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

Sorry, I know that’s obnoxious, but considering that Dan and I are blogging about basically every other aspect of this wedding, I want my dress to be one of the few remaining elements of surprise. Suffice to say I think it’s gorgeous and it makes me feel like a princess — which is the entire point of a wedding dress, no?

My mother, my stepmother Karin, and I met at Macy’s Bridal Salon in Manhasset this morning at 11, where I showed my bridal attendant several pictures of dresses I liked from magazines. She proceeded to pull six or seven dresses off the rack that she felt would meet my criteria. I tried the first one on and it was just…perfect. Beautiful and elegant and attention-grabbing without making me look too much like the main character in a circa-1950 Disney movie. No matter how many other dresses I tried on (and a few were quite stunning), I felt a magnetic pull back to the first dress. Four hours later, I made my choice, complete with a beaded veil and sparkly headpiece to match.

Sure, I could visit 100 other bridal salons and find a million other beautiful dresses, but why mess with perfection? We Hohebs tend to figure out what we want pretty quickly, and in this case I definitely trust my gut. I’m not usually a big fan of being the center of attention, but I can’t wait until the doors of that church open and everyone sees what I’m wearing!