Wedding Website Update

I know I have been shirking my blogging duties lately, but please bear with me as I get set to re-launch into more wedding related activities after a brief hiatus. Thanks for being patient, it's been a very hectic few weeks for the future Essama family!

I wanted to keep you posted regarding our wedding webpage. In my haste to put something up when we first got engaged (lest I get harassed by The Knot and Wedding Channel stalkers--you know who you are!), I set up a page at The Knot. I have now taken that page down and switched over to Wedding Channel. You can find us here: http://www.javadandessama.weddings.com/

We decided to do this for a couple of reasons:

1. Wedding Channel incorporates most of your registries onto one page, so they're easier to find. Plus if you register at Macy's, like many do, Macy's does not show up on The Knot!
2. I want to put our wedding web page on our save the date magnets that I will eventually send out and The Knot's link was some ridiculous jumble of craziness. Wedding Channel is very straightforward with their urls, as you can see above.
3. Wedding Channel allows you to link your registries to a charity of your choice so that when and if people buy you gifts online using the Wedding Channel link, a donation is made to the charity of your choice.

Being able to link to a charity of your choice, ours being the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, was very important to us because one of Steve/Belinga's groomsmen, Gary Walton, unfortunately passed away last week after a long battle with leukemia. Therefore we wanted to do our part and see if we couldn't raise a little money and awareness for the cause as you help us celebrate our big day.

You can still however go to The Knot and search for our wedding webpage and it will lead you to the Wedding Channel page. Pay no attention to the fact that if you search The Knot, it says we are getting married in PA. I'm trying to get them to change that...it's so hard getting a hold of any of these people--it's only done through e-mail and not on the phone!

Stay tuned for more exciting updates as I seriously start to decide on bridesmaids dresses, colors, flowers, invitations, save the dates, etc!

PS: For those of you kind enough to leave guest book comments at The Knot, have no fear, I moved all your comments over to Wedding Channel!

Love is in the Air!

There must be something in the water folks!!! Everyone is getting engaged!

Mazel Tov to our good friends Caryn and Brett who got engaged on June 9 and congratulations to our good friends in Denver, Laurie and Brad, who got engaged yesterday, June 17!

That makes 6 weddings next year already and more to come I'm sure! How exciting!

Busy Weekend!

This will probably be a long post as this was a very hectic, busy, whirlwind weekend!

As most of you know, this weekend was our engagement party hosted by our good friends Fred and Beth Reevey. They were gracious to offer their house for our party and it was wonderful! Many of my bridesmaids and many of Beth's friends enabled all of this to happen by bringing various foods, beverages, a delicious cake and the best party favors ever! Christine and Laura, with help from others, slaved over a smores kit (complete with graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows) to fit in with the camp theme. Fred cooked up a storm on the grill and there were tons of other treats to feast on!

Belinga and I had a wonderful time with our closest friends and family--we only wish we could've spent more time with everyone! It seemed like we only briefly talked to everyone and some people we didn't even get to talk to. I guess it's good practice for the wedding because there will be three times the amount of people there and about the same amount of time. It's so hard to not have quality time with everyone, but it was so great to see everybody! Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate and made the party a success!

I will post some pictures up as soon as I upload them!

Before the engagement party, I took my sister Laura, my friend Blair who flew in from Boston, and Christine to Jeanette's in Manassas to try on more wedding dresses. Man, it really is tiring! You get pulled and squeezed so much to see how the dress would look on you were it to actually fit; my stomach was hurting pretty bad. I found a few other contenders, but my search isn't over yet! I like to make fully informed decisions so I'll probably hit up Bridal Visions sometime soon as well.

Then on Sunday after dropping my sister off at the airport, Belinga and I headed to Macy's to start another registry. Let me tell you, it's not as fun as I'd thought it would be! It's really tiring and there are so many choices it makes your head hurt. We spent 2 hours there and only decided on china, crystal and flatware. But we have plenty of time so we'll keep plugging away!

So that's the update so far--stay tuned for pictures from the party!