Stories

Honeymoon Photos

Sun, 5 Oct 2008 15:10:11 -0400

It’s taken a while and we’ve finally found the time to post some of our honeymoon photos online. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to the photos we’ve posted. As I put together the album, I was surprised at how little we used the camera. Sorry, but it is what it is.

The picture above is from the boat dock at the Magic Kingdom’s Ticket and Transportation Center. A friendly Disney cast member gave us giant pieces of chalk and we got to decorate the sidewalk. They left it alone for the entire day too. When we left the Magic Kingdom after the fireworks, the chalk was still there!

And if you happen to notice that we don’t have any pictures from Swing Niagara - there’s a reason for that. We accidentally broke the camera our last day at Disney. Oops!

Disney PHOTOPASS

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:02:17 -0400

Disney has this nifty service called “PHOTOPASS” that allows official Disney photographers to take lovely pictures of theme park guests while they wander the parks. As a guest, you receive a credit card that connects all of your odd poses and pictures together.

When you get home, you can share the PHOTOPASS album with friends and family. And then Disney hopes everyone buys lots and lots of souvenir photos.

Here are the 49 “official” Disney pictures from the PHOTOPASS program. We’re working to get our own personal honeymoon photos online for your enjoyment. Disney’s material will have to do for now.

Click this URL to see our album (URL updated so it actually works on September 23):
http://www.disneyphotopass.com/share.aspx?share=f1b37d8b-632b-42ea-af87-d9c64fff55b7&site=Default&c=PROFESSIONAL&a=ALL

Hyatt Harborside

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 22:00:49 -0400

Since neither Stephanie nor myself are “morning” people, we decided to cash in some points at a hotel at the airport. That way, we only had to worry about waking up early and catching a shuttle to the airport instead of dealing with either rush hour traffic and/or the MBTA.

That part of the plan worked like a charm. There was a small snafu settling on our room. The first room had a faulty air conditioner, a wet spot on the floor, and an odd perfume smell. The second was a “smoking” room. The third room faced the airport, instead of the harbor, and came with a free breakfast.

The next morning, the breakfast was yummy. The airport shuttle worked out perfectly. And we caught our plane without a hitch.

The McDonald’s Post-Wedding Reception

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 18:40:50 -0400

Things wound down around 5:30 or so. Much like the reception, closing up shop at the Bedford Village Inn was a piece of cake. It wasn’t long until Steph and I were cruising home on the highway. We had a bit of paperwork to do at Neal’s house. So the first order of business was to stop by and take care of that.

And that’s when we found out that he was running out to get sandwiches and wouldn’t be home for 30 minutes. We had time to kill. So we took advantage of this newfound schedule blip to swing by McDonalds to get something to drink.

While we were sitting there enjoying our drinks, the family behind us asked “did you guys just come from a wedding or something?” Stephanie was still wearing her veil’s headpiece - it was effectively stapled to her head with 100 bobbypins - and the sparkles gave it away.

We turned around and proudly said, “Yes. We just got married a few hours ago. Thanks for coming to our reception!”

They congratulated us, one of their kids demanded attention and we parted ways. And the day continued. I never got their names.

Thought Fragments - The Wedding Ceremony

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 11:39:15 -0400

The actual ceremony was very blurry. Apparently, I mouthed the word “wow” when I first saw Steph in her dress. Neal was absolutely perfect. He wove in his unique multicultural spiritualness and his humor into the ceremony. In case you wondered what he said about us at the end of the ceremony, it went something like this:

Neal’s Story About Stephanie (paraphrased from the original):
A few weeks ago, Marc and I wondered whether what the weather would be today. Stephanie, however, had done her research. She told us that the weather had been absolutely lovely in Bedford, NH - mid-seventies and sunny - for the previous five years.

Neal’s Story About Marc (paraphrased from the original):
During our ceremony planning meetings, Marc had given me a document to work off of. I thought I’d read you his final words now: “Blah Blah Blah. Yadda Yadda Yadda. By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you Mr and Mrs Derbyhat. You may now kiss the chickie.”

Pre-Wedding Activities

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 10:09:12 -0400

I have to admit that the wedding was something of a blur. For months, everyone offered the advice to “just let it happen and enjoy yourself.” While I’ll admit that advice is fantastic for roller coasters, it’s easier said than done during a wedding.

My biggest worry was that I wouldn’t wake up in time for the wedding. So I set no fewer than 6 alarms to make sure I woke up on time. As it turned out, I on;y needed about 4 of them to get me going. I’m happy to say that I managed to get to the wedding hall on time. More importantly, I arrived earlier than Stephanie. She was a few moments late willing to adjust the schedule a little bit to better suit her needs. No worries though. I got to get all of the requisite “groom” photos out of the way before everyone else arrived.

Keeping our fingers crossed.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:23:44 -0400

One of the inherent risks of honeymooning in Florida during hurricane season is, well, hurricanes and other large, nasty weather bits.

By the way, good luck to everyone in Florida who is dealing withTropical Storm Fay as we speak. On a (selfish) personal note, thanks for volunteering to take on the hurricane now. Because obviously, like lightning, hurricanes never hit the same place twice in a short period of time.

Right?

Heh. Here’s to keeping our fingers crossed.

More Photos!

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:45:15 -0400

I’ve added another gallery to the Photos page. Last month, Steph and I did a pre-wedding photo shoot with our photographer. He offers the service as a way to acclimate the bride and groom to getting their picture taken. “Usually one of the couple has a hard time getting comfortable in front of the camera,” he said.

Yeah. That’d be me. Stephanie is quite photogenic and I’m a turnip. If that doesn’t make any sense to you either, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t make much sense to me either. But sufficed to say, I’m an addled wreck with a fake smile when you point a camera lens at me. It has something to do with how I stretch my upper lip over my teeth.

Despite my turnip-ness, I’m really happy with the way the photos came out. Somehow, Tom managed to get me comfortable enough so that I photographed a bit more like a potato as opposed to a turnip. As I recall, the word “tequila” and “pickle” had something to do with it. So maybe the agave plant and cucumbers are more photogenic than turnips? I don’t know. I’ll leave it to you to discuss the relative photogenic qualities of vegetables and starches in the comments.

In any event, I’m pretty sure that prints are available from Tom Gibbons - http://www.gibbonsphoto.com if you’re interested.

Hair Trials

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:10:43 -0400

Stephanie came home today after a ~3 hour marathon “hair trial” with her hairdresser of choice, Sandy. The experiment was successful. I’m not sure exactly what the outcome will be, but I’m assured that it will be lovely. And that’s all I have to say about that.

So why am I continuing to write? Well, Stephanie had quite a few bobby pins in her hair. She also had some tiny, black rubber bands. That pile of pins above is what she took out of her hair after the trial. And it’s actually a partial pile. The remainder of pins fell down in the car on the drive home.

As a person who doesn’t really have a lot of hair, I have to admit that I’m really surprised that Stephanie’s head will contain so much metal And since I’ve recently learned that bobby pins are made of a ferrous material, there might be some entertaining adventures in magnetism during the wedding.

In case you’re interested, to the left right, you’ll see what Stephanie looked like after we got all of the junk out her head.

Photos!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:24:45 -0400

As we get into the final stretch in wedding planning, less obvious details are becoming more obvious. For example, we’ve always said that it’d be really cool to see the wedding day photos that our guests take. But how do you do that?

The solution we’ve come up with is pretty nifty. If you look above, you’ll see a “Photos” link. This photos page is (or rather, will be) a summary of all of the various photo albums that Steph and I have now and hope to have in the future.

Here’s the cool part. Anyone can upload photos to our wedding album gallery. Pretty cool, huh?

The other cool part is that I finally found an excuse to put pictures of my guinea pigs online. (You can only add wedding pictures though.)