Have you always lived in Alaska?  Do you like living there?  What is your favorite thing about Alaska?  I hope to visit someday.  If you had a friend visit who had never been to Alaska, where would you take her and what would you do?

This is the chapel where we were married.

And the stained glass windows were so pretty.  Here is one view of them.

My bridesmaid/good friend singing with my pastor's husband at the ceremony (they sang this while we did God's Knot- the Cord of Three Strands):

The same bridesmaid singing Etta James' "At Last" as the final dance of the night. She's phenomenal: 

Our "surprise dance"... the bridal party was doing the "bridal party dance" and the music changed, the girls pushed the guys away, I pretended to be confused, and then we did a choreographed dance. The video starts at the beginning of the choreographed part: 

My parents gave me $10k. I think we'll wind up going a little bit beyond that by a few thousand dollars (but only because my mom wants "extras"). I'm very happy with my budget. Although I live in a fairly wealthy and expensive area, I found a great, fun, affordable venue, as well as talented but reasonable vendors. Even if I had a bigger budget, I'd be doing the same things!

So, what about you? Are you happy with your budget? Are you getting most everything you hope for? Would you say your budget is "average" for your area?

My budget is certainly not average for my area. It's about half of the "average".

Again, just being curious! 

I can wait a few semesters before I start, but I have to tell them now when I intend to start. Any suggestions? Should I just start now and get a loan, or should I start in January and hope that I get a job that will pay enough to cover tuition? I've been praying about this and I still don't know what to do.

It's going to take a week or more to get it fixed.  Thankfully H's aunt and uncle had a car that they don't drive that they were willing to loan us.  Ironically, it's a small SUV, which we've been discussing as an option when we decide to replace the truck.

Oh, and?  The loaner I'm driving is actually 5 years newer than my poor truck!  Plus it's an automatic and fully loaded.  I told H I'm going to be totally spoiled and not want to give it back!

She did say that she would hand off my resume to the person who will be in charge of finding candidates to fill that other person's job, because it's a similar position, to see if I'm a good fit. She also said if I wanted to I could hold on to her number if something I'm interested in comes up and she would get my materials to the appropriate people.

I'm sad because it sounded like they were ready to go through with me had this person not stepped forward.

DH has called Uncle about 5 or 6 times today.  His uncle never once answered or called back.  (DH left at least one message.)  Who knows if we'll ever see him.

The whole family (except his parents) are like this.  It gets frustrating.  DH wanted to do a bachelor party type trip with his cousins to see a Pirates game but nobody would respond to him about it so he gave up the idea.  I asked once why he didn't consider having any cousins in the wedding (he is an only child) and he said something about how unreliable they all are so he didn't want to deal with it.

I just needed to vent.  And I should ask for prayer because if we do get together tomorrow, I'm probably not going to want to be friendly.  Thanks for "listening".

Edit - I should have said that I don't much care for myself but it is so hard to see DH's feelings hurt.  When the whole thing went down with the cousins, I cried because he was so hurt by it.

to check it out  go to www.garrettviggers.com/weddingmusic.htm

what did you walk to? what did your party walk to? help!

An open bar is out of the question, as we don't have the budget for it and FI and I don't want to encourage people to get drunk. However, I also realize that we're hosting this event to thank our guests, and I wonder if some of them would feel uncomfortable if they didn't have the option of having a drink. I'm tempted to consider a cash bar, even though it's usually advised against. I feel that this option would ensure that less people (if any) would get drunk, while allowing guests to order a drink should they really feel the need. I would also hope that FI's family would be slightly more tolerant of us going this route, as neither he or I would directly providing or paying for the alcohol. If we were all going out to eat at a restaurant, anyone would have the option to order alcohol, anyway. I know that some people will say that it's rude to "expect guests to pay for their own drinks"... however I'm not really expecting them to pay for them at all. We'll be offering plenty of other non-alcoholic beverage choices, but the option would still be there for those who really would like to take advantage of it. If we didn't offer the cash bar, then the alcohol just wouldn't be available at all.

The only other compromise that I can think of is to have both champagne and ginger ale available for the toast. However, I still feel that FI's family would be upset over this, as we would be directly buying/providing alcohol. Does anyone have any suggestions/input on this?