Hello People. It’s Matt. Long time no read.

Lisa and I have been together for one year as of last Saturday. A lot of things have happened to me over the course of that year; I moved twice. I was promoted at work. I saw the Smokey Mountains. I went to Knoxville. I watched and learned about Ultimate Frisbee. I went to Asheville. I saw the Biltmore. I ate at Rafferty’s for the first (and hopefully the last time) in my life. I started going to Christ Presbyterian Church. I met a LOT of people and made a lot of friends. I learned about weimaraners. I played with a weimaraner. I cleaned up after, yelled at, was bitten/scratched/tackled by, and danced around with a weimaraner.

I also learned a lot of things. I found a lot of love in my life that I hadn’t seen before.

It was, after all of that, a very humbling year. And every second of it was because of Lisa. I can’t imagine any other person that I would rather spend the rest of my life with. After her, and her family, and all of their generosity and love, and going to church with her, and spending nearly every waking moment of every day with her, I can honestly look back at the last year and feel overwhelmed with the anticipation of every moment of the next year, and the one after that.

Last night I wrestled with the sprinkler in the back yard, soaked my pantleg, sprayed the dog, assembled a spreader, and spread pesticide in the yard. I’m pretty close to being fully domesticated I think. Hopefully the yard will still be green and living when I get home from work today.

The last two weeks have been quite the whirlwind, so I’ll start at the beginning.

The weekend of June 27th (following a week of packing and cleaning at Matt’s house), we flew up to Cleveland, OH. Both of our Dads came to the airport to pick us up in Matt’s dad’s new Monster (FJ Cruiser, I think, is it’s actual name). It was my parent’s first time visiting Berea, OH, and seeing where Matt’s family lives. There was much Wii playing, eating, chatting, churching, etc…, had by all.

The main purpose of this convergence of the Wohlgemuths on the Pusti’s Ohio home was the very first bridal shower for Matt and me. I met aunts, family friends, cousins, and neighbors. It was a girly get together that was both fun and a bit overwhelming. I loved meeting everyone, the generosity and kindness that they all greeted me with was incredible.

The following day I attended my first Catholic Mass with both of our families sharing a pew. Afterwards I got my bootie kicked by Jilly at Mario Kart, and we ate lunch at the restaurant where we’ll be having the Ohio Reception after the wedding!

It was a wonderful trip.

The next two days in Nashville were spent working and moving Matthew into our new “bungalow,” as my grandma calls it. E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G. But thanks to all of the church friends and college friends that came out and helped us move it all, and enjoyed some spaghetti afterwards!

On the third day….we flew to Philadelphia. My grandparents live there, it is where my father grew up. Matt had never been to Philly, so my parents and I showed him around the historic sites. We saw the Liberty Bell, toured Independence Hall & the Betsy Ross house, threw pennies on Ben Franklin’s grave site, sat in William Penn’s pew at Christ Church, etc… For lunch, we all got Philly cheese steaks in honor of Matt’s first taste of the Philly tradition. Matt and I went back downtown alone the next day and met up with his friend Laura. She is doing her residency at a few hospitals in town, so we had lunch with her and her friend. We then fought off hoards of people for some all-you-can-eat ice cream at Penn’s Landing. We paid $5 each.  We just ate one small scoop of ice cream. The fight for that tiny little cup just wasn’t worth it. We split up from his friends and proceeded to walk towards center city. It is fun wandering around between the sky scrapers & tall buildings.

The following day Matt met the rest of my family, Uncle Ronnie & his girlfriend and Little (Cousin) Ronnie, his baby, Nicholas, and his girlfriend, Crystal.

We flew home at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning. John and Chandler picked us up from the airport. They were taking care of Stormy while we were gone. They’re the best!

So, all in all, we survived! We had a great time.

Back to wedding planning.

Last Sunday, we had the opportunity to meet the couple that saved us from looming disaster.  After hitting wall after brick wall for almost three months, this amazing family said they had a friend they could talk to who had a beautiful estate.  This friend agreed to allow us to have our ceremony, basically, in their front lawn.

Meeting them finally was fantastic.  Even more fantastic was learning the type of people they are, and learning that we’re going to get to have the exact ceremony that we’ve been hoping to have.  They have even gone above and beyond in their generosity and openness with their property…

What a huge blessing.

:o)  Let the planning continue!!!

My dear friend Chandler married her main man, John, last weekend in Pittman Center, TN. The whole weekend was filled with festivities and good friends. It really was a weekend to remember. I think we all got a little sunburned and bug bit. :o)

…and of course, take notes! This was the first wedding Matt & I had been to together, and the first in general for either of us in some time. Both of us spent most of the time super excited about our own wedding!

We have been diligently working away at invitations. They will go out by mid July. They should contain all the information the invitees need. If not, you know how to reach us!

Keep dancing! See you in 4 months :o)

For everyones’ general knowledge…Matt & I are signing the lease tonight for a house in which we will live together after we are married!

Excitement doesn’t even begin to describe it.

:o)

On Sunday, Matt and I had our engagement photos taken.  It was quite an experience.   Fortunately, we hired a friend to handle all of our wedding photo business :o)  I really can’t wait to see them!  Jessica (Jessica Rayborn Photography) said that they’d be ready in about 3 weeks.  Matt and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Jessica & her husband/assistant/photographer, Ryan.  I’m really hoping the one of Matt & I on the street corner, me: handful of illegal flowers, and Matt: wearing a homeless man’s cross medallion, turns out.  :o)

We are now in the process of finishing up Invitations (which will contain information about area hotels and maps), preparing for the first shower, and tying down where we’ll need flowers.

Oh wedding!

Lisa and I spent all day yesterday walking around stores creating our wedding registry. These stores are Macy’s, Target, and Bed, Bath and Beyond; in that order. We got up pretty early and basically got all of the pre-registry jitters out with coffee and cereal and Sherry, the nice lady in the Macy’s china department, who was, despite being understaffed and slammed all morning, sporting a very good attitude. I learned a lot of things about how registries work. I was really surprised at how easy it was to do; we filled out maybe a sheet of paper or so, they handed us the scanner, and we were released like the masters of homemaking bliss that we really hope we are. More than anything else, I was surprised at how many times I saw something and thought highly of it solely on the basis that my parents had one, or that my mom had recommended it in the past to me. I can’t really imagine having to make a registry without input from parents, whether it’s asked for or not; just having the experience of watching your parents buying things for their home makes all the difference in the world.

Target was alright. I think Lisa and I both looked at Target as our little catch-all safety net, but after Macy’s and before Bed, Bath and Beyond, we found ourselves skipping what we registered for at Macy’s and also skipping things we wanted to save for Bed, Bath. We left with maybe 50 items on our registry, which I’m sure some high-brow Target elitist will probably scoff at later. I didn’t register for any power-tools, cds, dvds, or video games; there aren’t any gag items either. As we were leaving, I told Lisa that I regretted not putting a Polaroid camera on there.

The last stop was Bed, Bath and Beyond, who were really interesting. They spent a lot of time trash talking Macy’s, we had to wait the longest to set up our registry and their scanner was the most complicated. They were really nice though. The lady who set us up was a little more intrusive than either Lisa or I probably would have liked her to be. She followed us around at the beginning, and she kept pushing high dollar crystal gift ideas on us and giving us reasons why our guests would want to get us a crystal vase instead of a toaster or a coffee press or something that we actually wanted. After she wandered away, Lisa and I spent mostly the rest of the day walking around methodically scanning and debating colors and items. We probably walked out of there with the most items registered, but for good reason; Bed, Bath and Beyond had the most of what we’ll probably really come to need when we figure out where to live. Lisa, after walking around most of the day, was basically suffering from low blood sugar, tired of walking around in circles, and both of us were pretty much retail-ed out.

Eating at Logan’s afterward, we sort of marveled at the fact that we accomplished all of that in one day, without fighting at all over colors or wants, and without any real snags or hiccups. We were pretty much totally exhausted, but we made it.

I’m going to go ahead and encourage everyone to start looking at the registries now. There were a lot of things, especially at Macy’s, that are on sale now, and that can be ordered online, so everyone should try to take advantage of that if possible. We tried to keep budgets in mind (both ours and yours). There’s a pretty healthy variety to pick from. I know that we won’t get all of it; at this point I’m just happy that we can move on to the next thing on the list: invitations (which I made earlier this week), flowers, tuxes, and finding a place to live.

Links: Macy’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and Target.

Hey everyone!  No photo yet because we haven’t taken the newest photos off of Matt’s sweet camera.  I’ll fix that soon.

So, the update.  We finally finished Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  We both learned a lot…around week 7 or 8 it really started to drag…but we made it!  It actually is a huge blessing, the information…talking about money and being on the same page BEFORE we’re married.  We’ve already set up our goal for spending/saving/investing for at least our first year of marriage.  Excitement!

We are also wrapping up marriage counseling.  Also a huge blessing.  The couple that we meet with are amazing.  Their heart, their family, their honesty, their friendship…I really can’t put into words how much this new relationship means/has meant to Matt & me.

Also, Matt’s family has the ball rolling on the rehearsal dinner!!  AND we are working on trying to trade my parent’s timeshare for another location for our honeymoon…warm and sunny.  We’ll see what works out.

I’m glad you all got your Save The Dates!  Matt designed them.  I think they’re awesome.

In other news, airplane tickets are outrageously expensive right now.

Matt is sitting behind me making little jams on his sampler machine.  It’s mostly the cutest thing ever.  He makes a little jam, lets me listen to it, then starts over on a new one.  :o)

You may have been surfing along “the net” and come across all of this wohlgemutay business. There’s been a giant spike in traffic in the last few days; I’m mostly attributing that to all of the save the date postcards we sent out last week. I thought it would be tactful to say hello to the new folks.

Hi.

Lisa and I are going to be married on an estate in Nashville, TN. It’s historical. It’s beautiful. It’s outside. You’ll love it. I promise. After the ceremony, we’ll all be eating at Saffire in Franklin, TN. We’re renting a room. It’ll be private. This will be prime ‘meet the family’ time, since, at that point, we’ll all be family. I’m excited about this. I can’t wait for that. We’ll eat and talk about ourselves and get to know one another. We’ll do the name game or something –ice breakers. It’ll be like the first day of school all over again.

Lisa and I are in the process of figuring out logistics for those attending; we’ll have a list of hotels and maps and the whole nine yards. I’m hoping that we’ll have everything set up so that getting around and dealing with all of that stuff will be as easy as possible for everyone coming.

Of the two main “Before you marry my daughter, you’ve got to…” stipulations, we’re nearly finished with Dave Ramsay’s Financial Peace University and we’ve got two more sessions of marriage counselling left. Both of those things have been hugely entertaining and informative. Our marriage counselling is hands down the best part of my week every week. We’re going to be working on our invitations, the flowers and figuring out where it is we’ll be heading the day after we get married. Probably someplace warm. Because Lisa likes beaches. And as the compliant future husband, I have no problem with that.

Have a nice week. Thanks for stopping by. To be continued.

Yesterday, Matt & I created, printed, addressed, stamped, and mailed our SAVE THE DATES! NEXT…find a reception location.

Happy Easter everyone!