Alright.  So it’s been a while…sorry!  I’m watching So You Think You Can Dance and I have 20 minutes to write this post before I have to start cleaning!

So our Muskegon trip started on Thursday.  The drive to Muskegon was less than awesome.  We lost track of how many accidents we almost got in.  It was a mess!  Lucky for us, Benn’s a pretty good driver

While we were driving through Holland, we saw the huge yellow wooden shoe and we both said at the same time, “I’ve been there!”  It’s at Dutch Village…loved it!  I’m pretty sure Benn and I will be back when we have a family lol.  That’s weird to think…

Anyway, so we safely made it to Muskegon, made it up to our room and walked into a room of smokey stench.  Keep in mind, the whole building has been smoke free since May.  We walked out on our deck and there was a cup of cigs.  Yuck.

The sign in the room said there’s a $200 fine for smoking in the room.  We took cup of cigs down to the front desk.  She said she ended up charging the people in the room before us $500.  That’s great for the hotel, but we had to deal with the smoke.  We got a bottle of febreeze…awesome.

Fortunately, the febreeze type stuff worked pretty well.  Our room was nice, but it just gave us the creeps.  It looked like we didn’t have clean linens.   The carpet was old and ripped.  It just wasn’t very comfortable feeling.

We did have an amazing view of Muskegon Lake!  We took lots of pictures!

I don’t remember what we did our first night there.  I think we went down to Lake Michigan at Pere Marquette Beach.  We took some awesome sunset pictures there!  We had an encounter with a cute little birdie; he was very chatty

We ate at Captain Jack’s on the beach for dinner.  Oh man, it was awesome!  They have really good tater tots with cheese.

Friday, we went to the craft show at the Muskegon Summer Celebration.  It was so much fun!  I love craft shows.  We stopped in a booth with canvas prints hanging up in the tent.  The artist, Kevin is from Michigan.  He had just a few prints in his tent, but I pretty much fell in love with all of them.

We bought two canvases!  One is of dune grass and some wooden fence.  The other is of a staircase on the beach.The artist is Kevin Blackmer.  He has a flickr account, you can check it out here if you’d like!

We also bought a few pictures from other booths.  I fell in love with a $100 staircase picture.  We ended up getting the smaller version for $45.  We also got a few 5x7s of staircases as well as a wine cellar.  I really love them.

We also got a few 3x5s of beach related pictures.  I can’t wait to get them on the walls!

For dinner that night we went to a stupid bar, had the worst service, but I had the most delicious pizza I’ve ever had.  lol  I told Benn not to tip our useless waitress but he gave her like 4 bucks.   The cook should have gotten all of that tip.  Ah well.  Life goes on.

And I must be going.  Tomorrow’s my birthday and the fam is coming up to go out to dinner and they’re coming over after.  Can’t wait!  Gotta get cleaning!

Mindy

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Well, it happened!  We’re finally married!  I cannot believe how perfect that day was.  I loved every minute of it!  We had so much family and so many friends to celebrate the day with us.  We couldn’t have asked for anything more.

The ceremony was perfect.  We loved Reverend Marty’s messages.  I tried not to cry…we all know how that went.  It was so beautiful in every way!

The reception was amazing!  We loved the couples kisses!  We thought people were taking it pretty easy on us.

Funny thing about the cake…It was a beautiful cake, but we didn’t ask for blue piping…we asked for white; however, neither of us noticed this until the next day!  lol, it was pretty funny.  We had no clue how to do the cake cutting…so that was interesting.  It was probably the worst cake cutting in the history of cake cuttings!

The photobooth was a HUGE hit!  I’m so happy we spent the money on that; it was absolutely worth it.  We used Studio D2D for pretty much everything, including the photobooth.

We couldn’t have asked for a more  perfect day!

I can honestly say it was the happiest day of my life!

I’ll try to keep you updated on the honeymoon with pictures and things.  We  have a few busy days ahead.  We did find out that NOTHING but fast food and Pizza Hut is open past 1opm… if it’s open at all on Mondays in South Haven.

Thanks to everyone who helped with setup and take down of the wedding, and thanks to all of the guests who helped make our day memorable!  We can’t wait to see our pictures and video.

Mindy

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This past Sunday was my bridal shower!  My mom and my grandma had been preparing for it for weeks, and they did a great job.  They rented out a space at the Bronson Athletic Club; it was a large room with windows and a cooler for drinks and desserts.

When I walked in, everything was set up.  The tables and chairs were arranged in a circle.  Each spot had a scrapbook page, a rose and a piece of paper.  The punch was in the coolest punch dispenser I’ve ever seen, and the food was set out and ready to go.

My grandma made a beautiful poster with pictures of Benn and I before each dance, with a saying “On The Road to the Alter.”  It was so perfect!  I could tell it took her quite some time to put it together.  Did I mention it was beautiful and perfect in every way?

Katie put a little sash on me that said “Bride to Bling,” I thought that was cute.  I felt a little overwhelmed by the thought of the shower, especially since Benn wasn’t going to be there, but it looked amazing and I was ready to celebrate with my huge family!

Side story…

Starting with my senior class, Mattawan now requires all seniors to do a Senior Project in any field of choice.  You have to spend a certain amount of hours with a mentor, and by the end of the semester you present what you’ve learned over the course of the semester to your class and a panel of judges (who are usually parents.)

Well, Miss Sydney, my brother’s girlfriend, did cake decorating for her senior project, and let me tell you, she is fantastic!  She is currently working for a creamery in Kalamazoo/Portage decorating cakes when needed and serving ice cream.  Sydney made me a beautiful cake for my shower.  The fondant was shimmery and the cake was delicious!  It was so cute!

We played three games.  The first game, I wore an apron and grandma clothes-pinned 18 or so kitchen items on me (I had to carry a few) and I walked around the circle and people had to try to remember everything that was on me!  I think Janene won that game, and she got a little sewing kit as a prize.

The next game we played involved me dumping out my purse (which had been secretly stashed with other items…such as a tape measure and a tee, lol)  and whoever could match the most things won.  Stacy won that one, and Sierra pretty much called it; it was pretty funny.

The last game was probably my favorite.  Everyone was split into teams of 4.  They were given toilet paper, fake flowers from a lei, tape, a vine, and other accessories.  They had to use all the accessories along with toilet paper and tape to create a veil, and they had 20 minutes to do it.  One person on each team had to be the bride and model the veil.

Well guess who had to be the judge…ME!  Seriously!  How was I supposed to pick?!  The brides were Devan, Amanda, Grandma Hegedus, Aunt Nell, Sydney and Rachael.  They were all so cute!  I ended up choosing Grandma Hegedus because she looked the most like a bride!

After that, everyone got to have some cake and desserts while I opened gifts.  Ok, time for a secret.  So, after Benn and I finished our registries, I had kept checking online to see if anything had been purchased!  Well, we got a bit closer to the shower and I decided I wanted to be surprised…so I quit looking.  I’m so glad I did!  I loved being surprised!  lol  Now I know what NOT to do when Benn and I have our baby showers.  I know we will have multiple showers because I broke at least two ribbons   Do people have more than one shower?  I don’t even know.  Anyway….enough baby talk.

We are so thankful for all of the gifts, but I can’t thank everyone enough for coming.  I had a lot of fun, and it was great to see everyone else enjoying themselves.

Thanks to my mom, grandma, Devan, and Katie for helping set up everything, and thanks to everyone who helped us clean up!  Dave and Eric stopped by to help us and to bring carloads home, so thanks guys!  Sydney, thanks for the delicious cake!

Benn and I are so excited for the 26th to get here!  Friday I’m getting my tester hairdo done and this weekend we have more payments due.  My friend, Kira is throwing me a shower with my close friends this Saturday!  I can’t wait to see everyone again…it feels like it’s been forever.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a great weekend!  For Pictures, check them out here!  I don’t have all of them up, just some from one camera.  I’ll post more this weekend.

Mindy

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Benn and I are very excited about having Reverend Marty marry us.  We had our meeting with her Saturday afternoon at the church.  She’s such a sweetie!

We definitely didn’t come prepared for this meeting, but luckily she had everything taken care of for us!

She gave us a list of what the ceremony would consist of and the order that things would happen.  We changed a few things, but Benn and I were very pleased with how things would go.

She also gave us the “I do” paragraph and the vows she’d been saving for us…and of course it made me cry.  Benn cried a little, too.  They are perfect!

She talked about how it’s ok to cry and that the closer you get to the day you’ll find yourself crying on the way to the grocery store.  Well, I certainly have experienced a few of those spontaneous cries.  She said it will help me not feel so overwhelmed when the day comes.

I sure hope she’s right!

I am really looking forward to our ceremony.  I think it’s going to be exactly what we were hoping for.

In other news, this weekend Benn and I are having our bachelor and bachelorette parties!  I’m going to South Haven with my Maid of Honor (cousin Katie) and my bridesmaid Devan!  I can’t wait!  Benn is having a party at his cousin Kody’s house in Mattawan.

Next Sunday is my bridal shower, my friend, Kira, is having a shower for me the following weekend, and the next weekend is the BIG DAY!!!!

I can’t wait!

Thanks for reading,

Mindy

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You can’t have a wedding without a rehearsal dinner!  Well, you probably could, but that would be lame!

We started making a list of the people we need at the rehearsal dinner…I think I got to about 30 and was amazed there were that many people involved!  After finishing the list, we have 40 people coming to the rehearsal dinner! We limited it to immediate family, grandparents, bridal party, and other people involved in the wedding.

I stayed home from work one day to call around to restaurants in Kalamazoo, and I found a lot of options for the amount of people we’re having.   I found it extremely difficult to keep the price of plates between $10-$15.  Most places had prices between $25-$30 a plate, which ads up to a lot of money with 40 people.

Good news, we narrowed it down to two restaurants in the $10-$15 price range!

We went to look at Martell’s, which used to be the Black Swan.  They had a delicious looking sandwich menu, and we could have a room in the center of the restaurant to ourselves.

We also went into Friday’s to see what they had to offer.  They had a room that looked plenty big enough for a party of 40.  The music was quite loud when we walked into the restaurant, but you could hardly hear it in the party room, and he said we could even turn the music off if we wanted.  We decided this was our best option.

The best part is that the food is definitely in the price range!  We just want a room to ourselves and some good food!  We are very grateful that Jill and Chad have offered to pay for our dinner.  Benn and I are really looking forward to it!

Mindy

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That’s the question! We’d love to hear about places you’ve been that you enjoyed or thought were romantic. Benn and I don’t know where to go for our honeymoon, so maybe you can help us out! We’d like to stay in the states, but we’d love to hear about your favorite places in the world!

Benn and I went to Kohls and Target today to finish our registries! We were out for 6 hours. It took a lot longer than I thought. It was fun though! My favorite part of the day was when Benn picked out a mat for the kitchen that has a chicken on it! lol It cracked me up!

Side story: I’ve been wanting to find a dress to wear for the rehearsal, and I found one at Wetseal, which is one of my favorite stores, and I got it in the mail, tried it on, and it was very poorly made and didn’t fit right.  While we were out today, we went to Burlington Coat Factory and I found two dresses!  Benn spoiled me with both!  I’m going to wear one for the rehearsal and one for the Sunday following the wedding for the lunch with our families while we open our wedding gifts!

I also figured out where we’re getting our white wooden padded chairs from for the ceremony. We’ll be using Bell Distributing . They’re local and only charge a $40 fee for delivery.  Their chairs cost $2.25, and I couldn’t find a chair for less than that.  I feel pretty good about that decision.  That’s one of the last big tasks we had to get done.

Since we have the chairs figured out and the time of the ceremony decided, we can print the invitations and send them out!  Whew!  I was hoping to get them out by the end of this month, but I know we’ll be able to start printing them this week and hopefully get them out by the end of this week or early next week.

It’s getting so close!  We’re under the three month mark!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a Happy Easter!

Mindy

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How do you like the new blog?! Benn got it up a few days ago, and I think it looks very nice!

Well, Friday was a pretty productive day. I came home to go with mom to get my dress fitted. Turns out it didn’t fit and she has to let it out a little bit. We went to see Loretta. She has a really small shop in Portage…I can’t remember what her business is called at the moment.

Saturday we went to Boonzaajier’s to pick up our test cake. Unfortunately the cake didn’t turn out like we thought it would. The frosting looked very cool, but the decoration didn’t look great. The frosting is textured…very cool! We talked about putting ribbon around the bottom of each cake layer and laying flowers on the cake in a cascade.

Speaking of flowers, Benn and I went to see our florist a few weeks ago. She’s great! We went through all of the bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, and center pieces and decided the flowers and the colors. It was pretty fun! I only had an idea about what I wanted for my bouquet, but everything else I was kind of clueless, and Benn didn’t really have a preference. I was hoping to stay between $500 and $800, but we went just over $800, so I wasn’t too disappointed. We’ll be using orange tiger lilies for a few things, which are really pretty. I was looking around the internet for a picture of flowers for my avatar for comments on blog and I found a picture of these really pretty tiger lilies that are white with orange and yellow in the middle. I’m thinking about trading them with the tiger lilies in my bouquet and the centerpieces.

We also went through the menu and chose a few things we’d like to taste. Unfortunately The Fountains doesn’t offer a taste test, so we’re going to have to ask them to have one for us.

Benn has been working non-stop on the RSVP page. He was up all night last night coding it and he got it up! It looks very simple, but it takes time when you don’t really know what you’re doing. He’s done such a great job with the blog!

We made a list of things we still need to do. It’s not too bad. A few major things are left, like deciding where to get our chairs for the ceremony, whether or not we’re getting chair covers for the reception, the ceremony music, and the rehearsal dinner. We still have quite a few smaller tasks, but I think everything is coming together quite nicely!

Thanks for reading,
Mindy

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Well, if you haven’t noticed, the blog totally crashed for a while…and the design was lost.  Benn has been working non-stop on the new blog design.  I can’t wait for him to finish it up, I think it looks much better than the previous one, as much as I loved it.  What happened was he tried to update the blog and sometimes if you don’t do all of the recommended updates in order when it tells you to update…it fails.  That’s probably my bad.  But, the good thing is the new one is almost done!  We will be doing our RSVPs online, so he’s gotta get that working too.  Just wanted to let you know that I haven’t given up on the blog, we’re just working on the new one and it will be up ASAP!!

Hope you’re all doing well!

Mindy

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So Benn and I met with Giti from Confection on Tuesday to talk about our cake and taste their flavors!  We chose four flavors; vanilla, chocolate mint, peach bellini, and honey maple carrot.  We didn’t get to try the peach bellini because the peaches aren’t very good right now.  In place of the peach, she brought us honey lavender cake to try.  They were all very good!  The cake was of a thicker consistency, but it was still moist.  The chocolate cake was also thick and moist!  I think Benn and I would disagree as to the order of our favorite flavors, but in general, we liked the vanilla, chocolate mint, and carrot cake.  The honey lavender was really sweet.  The cake had lavender in it and it definitely had a flowery taste.

We talked about the kind of cake we want…which was hard because we hadn’t really decided what we liked.  I showed pictures of the cakes I had looked at and liked, but we had to narrow it down to our top three together.  We decided we liked ribbon on the bottom of each layer with a cascade of flowers.  Giti priced it out for us, and including delivery and set up, it would be $700.

We want to taste cake at Boonzaaijer’s because their prices might be a little better.

Overall, we were very happy with Confection, and Giti was very friendly, and I think she could bake us a delicious wedding cake!

About the bridesmaid dresses and my dress…instead of driving out to Quincy a few more times, I just picked up the dresses and we’re going to have them altered in Kalamazoo along with my dress.

Thanks for reading!

Mindy

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It’s been a few years since I’ve been in a Hobby Lobby, but Benn and I decided to go check out the one up the road on Friday.  They have so much STUFF!  We were on a mission to find popsicle sticks for program fans.  They have wavy sticks and straight sticks.  The straight sticks are much thicker, so we decided to buy a pack of those to try out.  We found some thick paper to try also.  I’d been looking for cardstock, but I haven’t been able to find thick enough paper.  We ended up buying some white tagboard in a huge pack of 8 1/2″ by 11″ paper.  We also found a very peachy colored pack of candle wax.  The wax looks like sand, so we’re going to try it out in the candle holders mom just ordered for us.  We were also thinking about using it for the sand pouring ceremony.  We also picked out very modern vases for the sand pouring!  They’re so AWESOME!  They’re tall and skinny with thick glass spiraling down the vase and the top is open at an angle.  They’re definitely more modern than what we otherwise would have gotten, but they’re so cool! We were also looking for 5″ metal pails to use with our table markers, but we didn’t have any luck.  I did find some online, so I’ll probably just order those.

Benn and I had so much fun just looking at all the house decorations!  We can’t wait to have a house!  First things first, we both need jobs!

We also decided to print our save-the-dates at Walgreens as regular pictures.  We wanted to do postcards, but they were going to be $1.00 a piece, and our pictures were 9 cents a piece.  The pictures just seemed a lot easier.  We did have to buy envelopes as well as stickers for the backs of them for the extra information, but I’m glad they’ll be in envelopes.

I’ve been getting addresses from people, so we should be sending them out pretty soon!  I wanted to get them sent out by November/December, but that clearly didn’t work, so my new goal is ASAP!

Benn and I’ve been home since Tuesday, so we’ve been spending time putting stuff away and cleaning.  This place is so small that any pile of anything makes the whole apartment feel like a disaster!

I also wanted to mention that I bought the Active for the Wii!  I tried it out last night, and it kicked my butt!  It’s a blast though.  I think it’ll help me keep a routine.  I’ve only had it for one day, but I absolutely recommend it!  My legs and arms and shoulders are sore, but I can’t wait to do it again tonight!  I’m doing the 30 day challenge, so I’ll let you know what happens at the end!

Thanks for reading!

Mindy

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