To Our Faithful Readers

Thanks to all for an absolutely wonderful day! Sarah and I could not have been happier! There were several times we looked around and thought that our day was made ever more beautiful by the amazing group of people collected at the Arboretum. Everything went just as we hoped it would!!!

As we get pictures, we will certainly post some on here for folks to see! Also, we will post all of the Arm's Length Self Portraits and misc. pictures on facebook and we would love for you to send any pictures you took either on facebook or some other way.

We are off to see Kooza tomorrow and then heading to Wisconsin for a brief honeymoon! We look forward to the relaxation and couple time!!

Lots of Love
Sarah and Travis

3 Days!

The days are going really fast! Sarah and I spent some time at the Arboretum today thinking through some things. If the weather is like it was today (which it sounds like it might be) it will be absolutely beautiful!

Sarah and I tested out our wedding video too in the Macmillen Auditorium! I choked up a little because the slide show is so beautiful on the two HUGE screens above the dance floor! Just think...I got choked up after about 10 seconds of video....imagine how it will be on the actual day! I think it is all starting to hit me a bit.

I picked up my suit and everything fit nice...so that was good news.

Now tonight is all about getting ready for Sarah's mom to come to town tomorrow and also putting some finishing touches on things. We both have to finish up our vows...they are almost done but we have to hand write them out.

Tomorrow...the bride and I have our pedicures and manicures for the wedding (yes...we both are getting them done...I am wearing flip flops during the ceremony) and a trip to Sam's Club to pick up some last minute snacks for the families to nibble on during the big day.

Here is hoping the weather continues to cooperate!

~Travis

4 Days...soon to be 3! Yay!!

Today was another productive day! It sort of helps that we got up at 7:00 AM for a trip down to Dundas! Seriously...it is summer!! We had to be down to Dundas so Sarah could get the windows tinted on her new car and so that we could drop my car off for some upgrades (tinted windows, sun roof, heated seats)!! YAY!

While in Dundas (that is where my mom and Dan live), we borrowed my mom's kitchen for some early morning baking! Our hotel guests are going to get a little treat of our favorite cookies. My mom has a wonderful convection oven, a nice mixer, and lots of room to spread out our baked cookies! It worked out so well that we finished about 3 hours before we thought we would!

I apologize for the poor quality on the picture...we forgot the camera at home...so I had to use my cell phone!

When we got home with Sarah's hot new tinted windows, she napped and I finished up some of the little details that I had to email out. We also spent some time burning the cd with all of our prelude music for the wedding! It is coming so fast!

Sarah and I wanted a break from wedding stuff so we went out on one of our last hot dates as a pre-married couple! We hit up the science museum! We had a blast exploring the exhibits and seeing the Titanic stuff with no one there! It is so quite in the evenings! I would recommend an evening science museum date to anyone who wants to quietly enjoy the museum without screaming kids!

As I finish this blog, the time strikes midnight! That means 3 days! With that...it is off to bed!

~Travis

10 Days and Counting!

WOW! We are almost to the single digits! Here you can see the chalk board in our kitchen that we use to keep a count down of the days. It seems like just yesterday that we were in the 20s!!

Sarah and I have been very busy this week doing tons of last minute stuff! We applied for our marriage license on Tuesday and today we did some shopping. I got my hair cut and Sarah did her practice hair run through also!

Yesterday, we spent some time getting ready for the groom's dinner. We wrapped all of the gifts for our best men and we made the menus for the restaurant. We are trying to have a fun time with all of the little stuff.

Of course, this week has also meant making a lot of the final payments on the bigger items! It can be a bit overwhelming, but we sure think it is going to be a fun day!

This weekend Sarah is going to head home to hang out at the farm with her family and I am going out of town with my mom and brother for a big volleyball tournament at Trent and Angie's campground. Both should be lots of fun and good QT with family before the big day!

Fan Programs!

We are in the wedding month now! Scary! Not scary because I am nervous about marrying Sarah, but scary because where does time go!! It seems like just last week that I proposed to Sarah at the Guthrie. Or yesterday that we booked the arboretum and were 6 months away (that seemed like such a long time to wait at that time!!)

We have been jamming this week on wedding stuff and we finished up our fan programs yesterday. My aunt Sue came over on Wednesday night and we whipped through them...but of course, we ran out of ribbon. We ran and got ribbon yesterday and it feels great to have them done! And I think they look great! Now it is on to favor boxes!!

Programs

The last couple of days have found Travis and I working on the wedding program. Today, I finished typing up the ceremony script. Travis and I went through it together to time it out. We are at a little over an hour...so we hope people bring comfy blankets to sit on. Just messing with ya'! Wouldn't you all kill us if it was that long on a hot summer day at the end of July?! We should be right around 30-35 minutes. We added some very personal touches to the ceremony and are happy to have something unique to us...not some "cookie cutter" ceremony.

We also started working on the wedding programs for our guests. We made a couple prototypes and are very happy with how it turned out. We are getting ready to pass this project off to Sue, Patti, and Chelsea. We are very grateful that Trav's aunts and cousin are willing to help out with this. Family rocks! Everyone has been so supportive throughout the engagement and we are so grateful!

Working Hard!

Since Sarah and I are on summer vacation, we have really been working hard to get some stuff done for the wedding. We have the prototype done for our fan programs and that means we have the overall plan for the ceremony down.

Yesterday, Sarah and I met with my uncle Troy (our florist) and my mom to talk flowers. It was fun to sit down with Troy and figure out some of the logistics. Meeting with Troy, I could definitely see why people get wedding planners...Troy thought of stuff about the logistics of our big day that hadn't even crossed our mind. Troy is going to do his first ALL GREEN wedding (our flowers will be all in shades of green) and I think he is definitely intrigued by the opportunity to do it.

Now it is just a waiting game until we have all of our RSVPs in so we can finalize our seating chart! I am a little hard core about RSVPs, so if you haven't responded yet...I might have to come and get you!!

Our First RSVP!

Our invitations went out this week and we got our first RSVP back already. Travis's grandparents, Connie and Gary, were the first to reply. It was so fun to see it in the mailbox. I actually ran back to the house to show Travis. We were both very excited!

Family Reunion Fun!

Sarah and I just got back from a nice - LONG - Memorial Weekend! We spent it in Morris for the Felstul Family Reunion (her mom's side of the family). We got up to Morris Friday night and had some fun out at the farm playing Wii and hanging out with Sarah's parents and her brothers. It is always so nice to see everyone!

On Saturday, we woke up slightly tired but ready for golf! Sarah and I are not big golfers, but it was a beautiful day and we had a great time golfing with Sarah's uncle Bob and aunt Geri! 

After the golf outing we joined the rest of the family at Wells Park for a picnic! We ate, drank, and had a great time! Sarah's brothers led all of the kids in a rousing game a kickball...which was super fun to watch...lots of laughs! 

On Sunday, we all went to church and then Sarah's aunt Barb and cousins Kristie and Lisa threw us a wonderful entertainment-themed wedding shower. My parents and brother joined us and it was a nice afternoon. I don't have any pictures yet from the shower, but when we get some...we will post them. Sarah and I really enjoyed the weekend and thought it was super cool to have our two families together! 

To finish this post off...I thought I would post this picture of our new place settings that we got at the shower from Sarah's family. The table looks great!! 

My First Shower

This past Saturday I had my first bridal shower. I'm fortunate enough to come from a small town, and my home town church hosted this shower for me. It was wonderful to be surrounded by my family, friends, and neighbors. Many of the guests watched me grow up and it was so special to spend Saturday morning with them. Everyone was SO generous. Even people who couldn't be there in person dropped off a gift. It reminded me of how lucky I am to have grown up in a small town. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

My bestest friends from high school! Suzi, Marisa, and I had a nice time catching up. I'm so excited to celebrate with them at the wedding!

Family, friends, and neighbors

the wonderful hostesses

Mom and me

The table cloth was the PERFECT color! I just LOVE green!

Wedding Website

Our Wedding Website is officially done! For those following us on the blog, we wanted a spot for people to go to get all of the information for the wedding day...including what to wear, how to get there, and all kinds of little details! The address will go out in our invitations, but you can get a sneak preview by clicking here!

I encourage you to check out the "What to Wear" link! Sarah and I had tons of fun posing for the pictures. 

Studio 6 Rocks

Yesterday afternoon Travis and I had an appointment to look at table linens. We were SO impressed and pleased with Jean at Studio 6. She really "got us". Travis and I are very laid back and want a casual reception. Jean was totally on board with that and gave us some great ideas to make our theme and "color branding" carry through. We are so excited to see how the rich chocolate brown with the bold splashes of apple green will look in our reception/dance space at the Arboretum. The details are really coming together! And in 80 days all of our friends and family will be able to enjoy those details with us!

Coloring Books and Shopping

Sarah and I got a ton more done today!

Sarah spent some time assembling an activity/coloring book for the handful of kids that are coming to the wedding. They are really cute with some mazes, wordfinds, coloring pages and a scavenger hunt. Sarah has spent hours and hours working on it and it turned out nicely...so many hours that she will be collecting them at the end to make sure the kids used them and she will spend our honeymoon grading them.

We also spent some time at Michael's picking up random stuff that was on sale: random glass bowls for the candy buffet, ribbon for the cake, ribbon for the goodie bags, lots and lots of ribbon. 

We made our final stop to Archivers and I think we actually have everything we need to finish our invites. We are waiting on two addresses and then we can seal the envelopes. Mind you, we are not sending out our invites until the end of May, but it feels good to be getting things done! We are getting to the point where all we do is eat, work, sleep, and wedding. Yes...I am using wedding as a verb meaning anything and everything to do with the wedding! But we are really having fun with it and that is all that matters!

Happy Trails!!

Travis

A Productive Evening!

Sarah and I can hardly believe how productive our evening was...wedding wise! We started with a tasting after school at the Arboretum! We tried some great appetizers and had a good conversation with the catering director to plan our menu. We picked some of our favorite things and now we just have to wait to get an idea on pricing. 

Then we headed to Archivers in Eden Prairie Center to buy the final things we needed for our invitations. We bought the stickers that we will use to seal our envelopes and the stamp to embellish the stickers. We also had to buy our silver pen to write on the brown envelopes. We are all set now to start mass production of the invites! YAY! Here you can see Sarah getting excited as she opens the FIRST completed invitation!!

ext we headed to the Dollar Store to shop around. We had nothing specific we were looking for, but we thought we would check it out. Little did we know that we would stumble upon great party favor boxes for our candy buffet at the reception. Yes...that is right...I said candy buffet!! We think they are super cool and we are going to stamp our tree (a tree you will see throughout our wedding in different locations) onto the boxes. 

When we got home, we had an even better wedding surprise! Our first set of ties for the wedding arrived. We are not doing the standard tuxes for our brothers in the wedding...we are doing tan suits and flip flops! We are buying the guys ties in different shades of green We heard about a great tie website (thetiebar.com) from my friend Anne who used it to find the perfect orange tie for her wedding and we found several ties that we liked. Well...we got them today and we LOVE them!! Here you can see me modeling them!!

Sarah and I spent lots of time this weekend getting our invitations all ready to be addressed and mailed. We have the bulk of them done and now we just have some finishing touches to do. It is SO much work to do your own invites...now I know why they are so expensive to buy! We printed, glued, and cut! YAY! It feels good to have a lot of it done!! 
We also just found out that we are going to have a shuttle from the hotel (the Holiday Inn Express in Chanhassen) to the Arboretum on the night of the wedding. The shuttle will begin at 4:00 and will travel back and forth until midnight. That should make it easier on folks who want to REALLY have a good time on our wedding night!

Sarah and I are stepping it into full wedding planning mode now! Sarah picked up her dress on Friday and it FITS!! YAY! Not that I have seen it...I am trying very hard to avoid the closet in the spare bedroom!!!!! She has a fitting coming up very soon! We have a meeting/tasting with catering on Wednesday and Sarah has her first bridal shower coming up fast! Lots of fun! 

Good Times

It has been a busy couple of weeks...not necessarily wedding wise, but it has still been crazy. Speech has finally wrapped up and we are looking at finally getting some wedding stuff done! We are hoping to finish up our invitations when we aren't cleaning the garage or writing papers!! 

Check a couple more things off the list!

Sarah and I got a few more things done today! It feels good to get things checked off the list!!

- Sarah spent some time today figuring out the wording and design of our invitations and I am going to be really honest....she did a real nice job!

- Then we headed over to Anchor Paper in Burnsville to pick up some of our invitation stuff from Amy (our dear sweet friend who works WAY too much!) We got a stamp we really like and now we have the paper so we can print our invites.

- On our way home, we decided to stop in a Crate and Barrel to register (you can see/shop for it online too). We had a fun time going through the store and now people can shop for our wedding... (keep in mind that my birthday is coming up too and Sarah's shortly after :) Keep in mind we are also registered at Target, but there are still a few kinks in that one...Sarah is working hard on that!

I think that is it for now...

MMMmmmmmm Cake!!

Well, for those of you who we don't see very often, you may not have heard about our recent 180 in terms of wedding desserts. Sarah and I were originally planning on having bars and treats for dessert. However, when Sarah and I attended the wedding fair at the Arboretum, we sampled a cake that we fell in love with. So today, Sarah and I headed over to Buttercream in Minnetonka for a tasting. The cake is just too good to pass up! After trying an assortment of types of cake, we have opted to go with two kids: a raspberry/lemon filled cake and a white chocolate/chocolate "marble" cake. We are going ultra-simple with the design. The cake above is most like what the cake will look like, except we get to pick out our own ribbon to match the colors to match our wedding! 

More to come as Sarah and I continue to accomplish tasks over our spring break! 

Hotel!!

Hi all!

We have had a ton of requests for the hotel information for our wedding. You can reserve your room at the Chanhassen Holiday Inn Express. It is a very nice hotel near the Arboretum and we have a block reserved. You can make your reservations at this site: http://events.ichotelsgroup.com/DPRD-7NXLCB/MSPCH/website/

Wedding Invitations

Well...it's been awhile since Travis or I made an entry into this wedding blog! So, I thought I would drop a quick note to keep everyone up-to-date.

We have some wedding invitations at home that we need to look through. My friend, Amy, works at a scrapbooking store and so we have the perfect connection for creating very personal invitations. She put together some samples and they are very "us". The colors are perfect! It's going to be fun to design them from scratch!


Travis is so busy with speech and I'm swamped with History Day, so we haven't been doing much wedding planning. I am sure when things calm down we will start attacking our wedding to-do list with gusto! I know tuxes/suits are at the top of the list!

A wintery visit

This blog entry is a little delayed, but I have had a pretty busy week (and I appologize now for its length)! We had the end of the quarter sneak up on us and I had my first speech meet of the year today (Sarah came with too...oh what one does for love!!)

Becky, Sarah's mom, spent a few days with us last weekend! Sarah and her mom spent a ton of time doing wedding stuff: looking for a dress and visiting the wedding fair in Minneapolis. Needless to say, I had some nice down time to catch up on my tivo watching. It was great to have Becky (my future Mother-in-Law) hang out with us all weekend...even if she slept a lot :) Just kidding! Poor Becky was sick as all get out, but we tried to let her relax as much as possible!

This time, well Becky was snoozing during a movie, Sarah and I took some time to try out new hairstyles for our wedding day... 

Can't you tell Sarah loves this game!!

On Monday, Sarah and I had the day off, so we took Becky out to the Arboretum to see the wedding and reception site. We love the Arboretum! It is amazing how different it is during the winter, but we still had a nice time there! 

We started out with a walk to the Trex Deck, where the wedding ceremony will take place! Let's just say, it look very different right now than it does in the summer!! Just be thankful we are not getting married outside in the winter!

After braving the elements, we headed inside to eat in the restaurant. It was a nummy lunch and then we showed Becky the Macmillan Auditorium where our reception will be!

Sarah and I are coming up on the 6th months until the wedding mark...which is very exciting. Our parents are going to meet each other tomorrow morning and we are plugging away at the wedding plans! This has been an exciting ride and we are very thankful for all of the friends and family who have joined us along the way!!

Mission Accomplished!

I found a dress! Yippee! Yahoo! I found a dress!

My mom, Becky, is in town for a three day weekend to do some fun wedding stuff. Yesterday we had a 1:00 appointment at David's Bridal. There's some crazy road construction in the area, so we were running behind and I was feeling stressed out. Not a great way to start a dress appointment. Then there were SO many people in the store. Again, not a great way to start a dress appointment.

However, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful consultant. She really helped to turn the mood around quickly. Welela was a complete sweetheart and she put me right at ease.

I'd already been on their website, so I had some dresses in mind. However, I noticed a great dress on a mannequin almost immediately. I tried on the dresses from my list and then Welela brought me the one from the mannequin. Is it "cheesy" to admit that as soon as I saw her unzip the bag, I knew it was 'the one'? When I put it on and came out to look in the mirrors, I actually got tears in my eyes. As someone who isn't overly emotional, this was a pretty good indication that this was the dress. It's the only one that got such a strong reaction from me.

Travis was right. When I found the right dress, I just knew it was the right dress. That's exactly what he told me would happen.

I would certainly hate to give too much away on the blog, but I would say that dress is perfect. It's elegant, simple, and kinda vintage looking.

Here are some dresses that I didn't get!

Wedding Officiant

Travis and I are striving to make our wedding as unique and personal as possible. So, we asked my youngest brother, Matthew, to officiate our ceremony. After some initial shock, he agreed! In November we went through the process of getting him ordained on the internet. After jumping through a few small hoops, he is now a licensed minister with the state of Minnesota.

We are so thrilled for Matthew to marry us! This will ensure that we'll have the ceremony of our dreams. Travis and I will be surrounded by all of our brothers and that's all we could ask for!