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Inspirational wedding

Check out this wedding.
Things I like:
- A location away from it all
- access to amazing wilderness
- colorful paper decorations!
- a napping spot at the reception (I am stealing this one)
- live music
- local wine
- lights (glow-sticks are a cool idea)

Valley Grove, One Year Out

We spent the afternoon celebrating and planning for the wedding, which is now just less than one year away.

We ate lunch at Chapati, our old favorite Indian restaurant in Northfield. They have a buffet for lunch every day, and we have been talking (joking at first, now talking) about having them provide the catering for the wedding. They are relatively inexpensive, close, and have great food. The trick is to get Indian food, without having it be an "Indian food" wedding. So we ate through everything in the buffet and think we have a good idea how we could make it work using Chapati as the main source of food, and then supplement with extra salads and such from elsewhere. The trick is to get food that is not too spicy, and not too sloppy. Of the food we had today, here is what we thought would work:

• Tandoori Chicken. A bright red yogurt marinated chicken with very mild spices that is baked. Everyone likes their Tandoori Chicken.
  
• Lots of Naan flat bread with their mango (sweet), onion (medium hot), and green (hot) chutneys. Everyone likes Naan. 
  
• Lamb Sabzi. An chunky onion curry made with spices that we really liked. It was a little sweet and very festive with hints of cardamom.
  
• A vegetarian dish. We didn't think any of the ones we tried today would work. The only thing close was the Chicken Palak, and well...
  
• Mango pudding, and lots of fresh fruit. Yum. 
  
• Chicken and Veggie Pakora. Think of really good fried chicken fingers and veggie nuggets. Thats what they are. 
  
• Of course lots of basmati rice

That's about all we would get from Chapati. The rest would be things from other places like salads, both the leafy and hearty kinds, along with all the deserts and drinks. I don't know if this would be more or less difficult, but we really think it could work well. 

After lunch, we went over to Valley Grove to see what things would be like this time of year. The answer was yellow, very yellow! The prairie was awash in three distinct and very yellow flowers that are very beautiful. The photos we took look a little brown and green, but in person it is a field of yellow.  There is also a smattering of some blue and white flowers, and wild berries that round off our gigantic bouquet.  It was 83˚ and sunny today, but also really windy so it felt nice and cool. But I can't imagine a tent holding up to that wind, the St. Olaf wind turbine even had to shut off! 

The last two photos are another idea of ours. It is a photo of the Big Woods state campground about 1 mile away from the church. For $50 we can sleep 16 people, with $3 a person more after that, up to 32 people! I said before that this wedding was going to be a rock concert, but this would really make it so! Anyone interested? We can reserve any time. 

Lighting idea

Now that we have a place picked out, all we need to do is, well everything else! So I will throw out one idea, lights! Via EvilMadScientist.com is an easy way to make temporary outdoor lighting with out candles to get blown out on our windy hill. I think they look like fireflys in little jars, which is really nice.

Look, look!

If you visit valleygrovemn.com, this is what you'll see! Check out August 29, 2009:

We haven't officially made a deposit yet, but it feels really good to have made a tentative decision about the place and date! And something about seeing the phrase "Megan and Chris wedding" makes me smile (awww).

a visit to valley grove

Chris and I made the drive down past Northfield this weekend to check out Valley Grove Church. There are actually two churches that make up Valley Grove- the smaller stone church (pictured first) was built in 1862, and the larger white church was built in 1894.



The white church isn't super special inside, although as our tour guide said, "Ah, you only spend 15 minutes in here anyway!" It does have a bell (which he let us ring!) and supposedly has really nice acoustics.

The stone church is where we would have the reception. It holds about 80 people comfortably, or 90 people uncomfortably. It was recently remodeled to make it more reception-friendly and historically accurate. This unfortunately meant putting plaster over the stone interior, but fortunately meant removing the false ceiling to open up the balcony that had been hidden for years. After they took the false ceiling off, they discovered that the original ceiling had been blue, and they restored the original color. Unlike the horrors that St. Olaf unleashed on Boe Chapel by trying to paint the ceiling "traditional Scandinavian colors", the blue in the stone church is really lovely.


One of the most unique features of Valley Grove (and definitely something that we'd never find at a venue in the Twin Cities) is the acres of prairie surrounding the churches, with Big Woods State Park lying just beyond them.


And, while we agreed that this shouldn't be a major factor we look for in choosing a site, it's important to note that Valley Grove is definitely Winnie-approved!


So, that was our visit! What do you all think of it?

All quiet on the wedding front

I apologize for the recent lack of wedding blogging, but it's mainly because there's not much to write about lately. I alternate between not thinking about the wedding at all to thinking "oh crap oh crap oh crap we're late!!". I think the best thing to do for now it avoid those darn timeline checklists and focus on getting big things into place.

Oh, and look at pretty pictures- like this wedding, where the bride handmade all the flowers. The ones above are all made of Post-It Notes. Awesome.