Marisa and Dan’s Wedding Blog

Sorry it’s taken me a week to put up all the wonderful photos from my bridal shower, which took place last Saturday. The week that followed was crazy, exhausting and unhealthy (I came down with a bad cold a couple of days after the shower, which Dan caught later in the week). But now it’s the weekend again and I’ve finally had to chance to upload the pictures, which were courtesy of my photographically gifted stepmother, Karin. Check them out in our Photos section.

The shower itself was fantastic. While I can’t say it came as a complete surprise, I was nonetheless overwhelmed by the beautiful location (La Piazza in Merrick), the delicious food, the stunning decorations and favors, the diverse group of more than 60 women from all different time periods and aspects of my life who showed up to help me celebrate, and the MOUNDS of generous gifts I received. In fact, for several days after the shower, it was nearly impossible to walk through our living room due to the sheer number of boxes and bags. Luckily, we’ve finally found a home for just about everything — from the state-of-the-art coffeemaker that also grinds coffee beans, to the adorable “honeymoon kits” created by my bridesmaids, to the beer dispenser (yes, you read that correctly),  to the bird feeders made out of Fedele family heirloom teacups (yes, you also read that correctly). A million thanks to every single person who helped out with and/or came to my shower and made me feel incredibly loved.

In other news, as Dan mentioned earlier, the guys had their tuxedo fitting this afternoon at Men’s Wearhouse and all well smoothly. It’s amazing to me that Dan can walk in, choose a tux style and vest color, be measured, and be done in 20 minutes. I’d barely tried on one wedding dress in 20 minutes, mostly because it took longer than that just to pull the stupid thing over my body!

Just a quick update — wanted to thank everyone for all of your generous bridal shower gifts! Rest assured that not one gift will go unused, and just to kick off that statement, I made Marisa breakfast in bed!

Breakfast in bed!

I made an omelet with 3 eggs, chili powder, fresh garlic (pressed with our new garlic press), and mozzarella cheese. Shown here: Coffee made with our new coffee maker, the omelet on our new “everyday china” (which, I might add, does wonders for food presentation), all on top of our new bamboo serving tray. I’ve been brushing up on my cooking for some time now, so I’ll try to start adding pics of my creations to the blog. I can’t wait to start using that pressure cooker — not having one has been holding me back from making some awesome chili.

Our living room looks like a disaster, but not as bad as it did last night. We’ve been finding a place for every single gift and so far we’re making some great headway. Here’s a pic of our living room as we left it last night (and I can assure you, this is significantly better than it was when we first unloaded):

Not pictured: The Krups Beertender which helped with the cleanup a lot more than you’d think.

Marisa will update with the pics from yesterday’s bridal shower as soon as we can organize the pics a bit more. Until then, thanks again everyone!

Hi everyone — apologies that it took so long to upload these, but what with the house closing date bearing down on us we’ve been understandably preoccupied. Nevertheless, I just recently uploaded Karin’s photographs of the engagement party. Check them out in the Photo Gallery section!

…that is, if you consider renting out an Italian restaurant in western Nassau County, packing in 75 of our closest family members and friends, and stuffing our faces with food and booze for 4+ hours a “regular old Sunday afternoon”!

That’s right, this past Sunday Dan’s parents threw an engagement party for us at Fianona, a wonderful little Italian spot in New Hyde Park. My mother and I used the party as an opportunity to test out some wedding hairdos and makeup at Paul Anthony Salon in Manhasset, which was recommended to her by a co-worker. We LOVED what they did for both of us, and will definitely be using them on my wedding day. I barely recognized myself!

The party itself was fantastic. Dan’s parents pulled out all the stops for us, presenting Dan and me with an arsenal of meaningful gifts (including the bonnet Dan wore home from the hospital shortly after his birth, Dan’s grandfather’s pocketwatch and bracelet, and a personalized fleece jacket reading “The Future Mrs. Fedele” for me!) and plowing us all with enough wine, beer and liquor to keep everyone smiling all afternoon long. Members of our families also got to meet each other for the first time, and I was finally introduced to some of Dan’s father’s relatives, all of whom were very sweet and gracious.

A cute shot of us:

And one of me with my bridesmaids (unfortunately minus the Oregon-based Christina, who couldn’t make the cross-country trip):

There are more great shots in the Photos section, although I must warn you that there’s a strong bias toward select members of my family and my bridesmaid party. If you attended the fiesta and have any of your own photos to add, please email them to us ASAP.

The moral of the story? Sunday’s party reminded Dan and me of how lucky we are to have families and friends who are so supportive and who care about us so deeply. We had a great time and it made us even more excited for November 14! Oh, and the truckload of presents we received didn’t hurt either. It took us nearly two hours to open everything after the party, and we’re still in awe of how much we got. Suffice to say our house-to-be is going to be filled with beautiful new things. (Thank-you notes are coming soon, I promise!)

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks at work for both of us, not to mention that Dan is 12 hours away from officially owning a new car and we’re gearing up for an engagement party being thrown for us by Dan’s parents on Sunday, so we’ve been remiss in updating the blog as of late. Apologies.

The latest news is that our wedding will now have music. Whoo hoo! We’ve hired Dancejock Productions, the “recommended” DJ and entertainment company of the Royalton Mansion (not to fear, we took the recommendation with a grain of salt and did plenty of independent online research before electing to meet with them — the reviews were almost unanimously positive). Hate the name, love the company. We were very impressed by the women we met, whose name is failing me at the moment. She put my whole family at ease and didn’t try to sell us anything we clearly didn’t need.

Enjoying some family time at the Dancejock office.

So here’s the musical lowdown. It’s been my dream for many years to have a string quartet play at my ceremony (rather than the traditional organist), and Dancejock is going to do that for us since they employ a network of local musicians. During the cocktail hour, guests will enjoy a jazz trio complete with keyboard, saxophone and stand-up string bass. The reception will feature a standard DJ with an MC, not to mention a smorgasboard of multimedia treats that I’ll keep under wraps for now. Suffice to say, all the parents will be crying.

Now, time to steal a few hours of sleep before picking up Dan’s beautiful new Honda Accord coupe (which I’ll let him ramble more about in a future post) and getting a pre-party manicure/pedicure with my mother. Good night!

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.