Hotel information (in case you don't want to stay at Brooke Lodge):
Okay, so really...there's a LOT of hotels in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Area, and the best thing to do is go to travelocity.com or expedia.com, whichever you prefer and find a hotel that suits your budget needs/preferences. Brooke Lodge is super nice, and convenient because the ceremony and reception will be right there, but we understand that it's a little pricey! Expedia/Travelocity are picking up anything from an EconoLodge (~$55/night) all the way up to McCamley Plaza (~$155+/night), so if you're willing to make the drive you can find just about anything!
The address for Brooke Lodge (in case you were basing your hotel search by address instead of city) is 6535 N. 42nd Street, Augusta, Michigan. Happy hunting!
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
THE WEDDING DATE: May 20, 2006
For those who wanted to know. A little history on this date - this is the date that Benjamin and I first started "going out" when I was in 7th grade. That lasted about 4 months because he was going into 9th grade that fall, and the distance between the middle school and the high school was just too much for him to handle right now relationship-wise. (I always find this ironic, considering we spent most of our relationship over 300 miles apart.)
This is also the same date in 2001 that we started dating again -- just before I graduated high school, and just after he completed his first year of college. It's a very sweet and nostalgic date for the both of us.
For those who wanted to know. A little history on this date - this is the date that Benjamin and I first started "going out" when I was in 7th grade. That lasted about 4 months because he was going into 9th grade that fall, and the distance between the middle school and the high school was just too much for him to handle right now relationship-wise. (I always find this ironic, considering we spent most of our relationship over 300 miles apart.)
This is also the same date in 2001 that we started dating again -- just before I graduated high school, and just after he completed his first year of college. It's a very sweet and nostalgic date for the both of us.
*The* Engagement!
So where to begin...back in Europe. Kristen and I took a trip to London for 2 weeks, but decided to take a little excursion to Paris at the beginning of the second week. We ended up spending Sunday night at the train station because our train left at 5:30AM on Monday, well before any tubes started running. Upon arriving in Paris, I checked my email and read that Ben had visited my parents while he was in Kalamazoo for the weekend. I was pretty exhausted from spending the night in the train station so I didn't really think much of it.
Fast forward 12 hours of sleep later, I wake up and it dawns on me. Ben visited my PARENTS in Kalamazoo. Without me! So then I get a little excited, but a little part of me tells me not to - he is after all a boy, and they can after all sometimes be dense. Either way, I crossed my fingers and hoped for a romance novel-style proposal at the airport upon my arrival back to the States. After all, he says he misses me terribly right?
Wrong. I land at the airport on Sunday to a hug and an offer to carry all my luggage. I find this a little upsetting so I'm fairly reserved for the carride home. After listening to Ben tell me how much he missed me and how I'm not allowed to go overseas without him again, I finally blow up at him about the engagement...he looks bewildered and says we can go ring shopping next Sunday. I am quite satiated for the time.
I emailed my friend Susan when I got home to arrange dinner - she's picking up a second job at Borders Books in addition to her current job as an engineer for General Mills, so we both thought it'd be great to get dolled up and have dinner and drinks before her life became unreasonably hectic. Susan can be a stress case, so when she told me it was a really rough week, and she'd talked David into picking up the tab, I thought fabulous! I'm upset, Susan's upset, let's all go have drinks ;-). We agreed to go to this nice seafood place downtown called The Oceanaire, and Susan has reservations for both of us at 7pm.
In typical Susan-fashion, she calls me to tell me that she's having an emergency at work and is thus running late. This is no surprise to me, so I just resume getting ready and I call a cab to take me downtown. I wait 20 minutes while I watch the cab company drive back and forth across the road outside of my apartment complex, clearly lost. Finally he comes to pick me up. He drops me off at the Oceanaire at 7:25, and at this point I feel bad because the restaurant's been holding this table for me and Susan for so long.
I speak with the hostess and explain to her that Susan is running late, and that I hoped that they hadn't given away our table (the restaurant was very busy with many people waiting for tables). Luckily she hadn't, and she leads me to my table in the back of the restaurant.
Sitting on the table is a single rose and an envelope with my name.
Oh. My. God.
I sit down and open the envelope and the card was adorable -- it is clearly handmade from scrapbook supplies, and very very sweet. After opening the card, I start to get teary-eyed because it says all these wonderful things about me, and then our waitress comes and whisks me off to the bar to meet Ben who's all jazzed up in his suit and tie and shiny shoes, drinking some pretty strong-looking drinks.
Ben proceeds to hug me and sit me on a bar stool, buy me a glass of riesling, and grin at the dumbfounded me. He tells me how Susan helped him plan while I was away, he tells me how hard it's been for him to keep the whole getup a secret, he tells me how this is the best decision he's ever made in his life, and then he reminds me as my eyes are welling up not to cry because it'll make my makeup run (chuckle from me, watery eyes from him).
As he gets down on his one knee at the very crowded bar, I can feel tingly numbness all over, and I hear the guy sitting next to us at the bar with his date say "Oh my god, there's a ring coming out!" Ben asks me if I would be his forever, and of course I say yes. He slips the perfect ring on my finger and explains to me all the things about this ring that make it perfect for me (and especially why it's more perfect for me than the ring that I'd picked out).
The rest of the evening is magical with a fantastic waitstaff, amazing seafood, and a flaming baked alaska for dessert (very cool...except you can taste the Bacardi 151 on the marshmallow after the flames went out). After dinner, we walk around downtown until my feet start to hurt in my strappy stiletto sandals - the weather is perfect, not too windy, but just cool enough for me to comfortable in my dress and shawl. We hold hands and kiss and I stare at my ring every few seconds, and we have a fabulous time.
So that's my fairy tale engagement story, beginning to end! ;-)
So where to begin...back in Europe. Kristen and I took a trip to London for 2 weeks, but decided to take a little excursion to Paris at the beginning of the second week. We ended up spending Sunday night at the train station because our train left at 5:30AM on Monday, well before any tubes started running. Upon arriving in Paris, I checked my email and read that Ben had visited my parents while he was in Kalamazoo for the weekend. I was pretty exhausted from spending the night in the train station so I didn't really think much of it.
Fast forward 12 hours of sleep later, I wake up and it dawns on me. Ben visited my PARENTS in Kalamazoo. Without me! So then I get a little excited, but a little part of me tells me not to - he is after all a boy, and they can after all sometimes be dense. Either way, I crossed my fingers and hoped for a romance novel-style proposal at the airport upon my arrival back to the States. After all, he says he misses me terribly right?
Wrong. I land at the airport on Sunday to a hug and an offer to carry all my luggage. I find this a little upsetting so I'm fairly reserved for the carride home. After listening to Ben tell me how much he missed me and how I'm not allowed to go overseas without him again, I finally blow up at him about the engagement...he looks bewildered and says we can go ring shopping next Sunday. I am quite satiated for the time.
I emailed my friend Susan when I got home to arrange dinner - she's picking up a second job at Borders Books in addition to her current job as an engineer for General Mills, so we both thought it'd be great to get dolled up and have dinner and drinks before her life became unreasonably hectic. Susan can be a stress case, so when she told me it was a really rough week, and she'd talked David into picking up the tab, I thought fabulous! I'm upset, Susan's upset, let's all go have drinks ;-). We agreed to go to this nice seafood place downtown called The Oceanaire, and Susan has reservations for both of us at 7pm.
In typical Susan-fashion, she calls me to tell me that she's having an emergency at work and is thus running late. This is no surprise to me, so I just resume getting ready and I call a cab to take me downtown. I wait 20 minutes while I watch the cab company drive back and forth across the road outside of my apartment complex, clearly lost. Finally he comes to pick me up. He drops me off at the Oceanaire at 7:25, and at this point I feel bad because the restaurant's been holding this table for me and Susan for so long.
I speak with the hostess and explain to her that Susan is running late, and that I hoped that they hadn't given away our table (the restaurant was very busy with many people waiting for tables). Luckily she hadn't, and she leads me to my table in the back of the restaurant.
Sitting on the table is a single rose and an envelope with my name.
Oh. My. God.
I sit down and open the envelope and the card was adorable -- it is clearly handmade from scrapbook supplies, and very very sweet. After opening the card, I start to get teary-eyed because it says all these wonderful things about me, and then our waitress comes and whisks me off to the bar to meet Ben who's all jazzed up in his suit and tie and shiny shoes, drinking some pretty strong-looking drinks.
Ben proceeds to hug me and sit me on a bar stool, buy me a glass of riesling, and grin at the dumbfounded me. He tells me how Susan helped him plan while I was away, he tells me how hard it's been for him to keep the whole getup a secret, he tells me how this is the best decision he's ever made in his life, and then he reminds me as my eyes are welling up not to cry because it'll make my makeup run (chuckle from me, watery eyes from him).
As he gets down on his one knee at the very crowded bar, I can feel tingly numbness all over, and I hear the guy sitting next to us at the bar with his date say "Oh my god, there's a ring coming out!" Ben asks me if I would be his forever, and of course I say yes. He slips the perfect ring on my finger and explains to me all the things about this ring that make it perfect for me (and especially why it's more perfect for me than the ring that I'd picked out).
The rest of the evening is magical with a fantastic waitstaff, amazing seafood, and a flaming baked alaska for dessert (very cool...except you can taste the Bacardi 151 on the marshmallow after the flames went out). After dinner, we walk around downtown until my feet start to hurt in my strappy stiletto sandals - the weather is perfect, not too windy, but just cool enough for me to comfortable in my dress and shawl. We hold hands and kiss and I stare at my ring every few seconds, and we have a fabulous time.
So that's my fairy tale engagement story, beginning to end! ;-)
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