Come on Ride the Train.....

This weekend, I went to Plainfield, IL to not only visit Jim and his family, but to do some important wedding planning. After a bit of trouble at the border where I thought for a moment the border guy would not let me in the country, I made my way by train to Chicago. What I was hoping would be a nice relaxing train ride where I could sleep some of the way, turned out to be a sold out train full of college kids on fall break. I arrived in Chicago late Friday night without the nap I so desperately needed. Jim drove to Chicago from MN after work on Friday and came to get me at the train station and then we made our way to his parents house.

The next morning we began a very long day. We met with a photographer at 9:30 the next morning (when you go to bed at 2 am central time, which is really 3 am my time it was pretty rough to get up!). We had loved this photographers pictures and we excited to meet with her. She did not disappoint. She was very personable (as well as very reasonably priced) and we believe she will be a great fit to help document our wedding. We decided to go ahead and book her! :)

Next we were off to the Rosary Rally. Jim's mom is in charge of it at her parish and every year Jim comes down to help her. We were fortunate to be able to arrange to come down this weekend to help her out. Jim and I led the rosary and the Marian prayers for the rally and Jim even led us in song with is guitar. It was extremely windy, but 30-40 people braved the wind to come out. What a great witness! :)

After that, we were off to look at two hotels to possibly book for our reception. We felt it was really important to have the reception in a hotel because of the large number of out of town guests we will be having. Unfortunately Plainfield does not have much in the way or reception halls so we had to venture out of town a bit. We looked at two hotels about a half an hour away that were literally across the street from each other. While they were both beautiful, we had a clear favorite of the day. We still had one more hotel to look at the next day, so we decided to hold off all judgment (for the most part) until the following day.

After all of the wedding planning, we felt we needed a break and decided we needed to have a date night just for us. We were very close to the Naperville Riverwalk where we had shared our first kiss long ago. We hadn't been back since so we thought it would be fun to go back. We even found the exact bench we sat on for our first kiss. It was really romantic and sweet to be there again, realizing how much had changed since last August.

We were thinking of possibly having our wedding photos done there so I also wanted to scout it out for potential picture opportunities. When we arrived, there were two newly married couples getting their photos done. I tried really hard not to out and out stalk them, but I did see some really cute photo ideas while walking in the general direction of the couples. I made a mental note of the awesome poses.

After the Riverwalk, we headed out for a nice dinner. It was so great just to put the wedding planning on hold and enjoy spending time in person with each other alone. We cherish these times so much. They are simple and many couples enjoy them daily, but for us it is a treat. We had some great Mexican food and we were able to just spend some quality time together.

After spending some time with his family that night, complete with videos of Jim as a baby and their family trip to Detroit/Windsor in the Fall of 1992 ,we got some rest for our next busy day. We had a full schedule for the day again. We woke up early to get to 9 a.m mass. After mass, we headed to our last hotel appointment. While the reception hall was very pretty, we decided that our hearts we still set on the previous days favorite hotel. We decided not to make any rash decisions until we went home to crunch some numbers. But we couldn't do that yet, because we had an appointment with a videographer. He was great! Not only did he give us a Starbucks gift card, but he was all tech savvy and Jim loved him. We had seen his work online and were very pleased with it, so we booked him as well.

After that we were finally able to make it back to his parents house for some good family time. Jim's whole family was there, so we enjoyed a great meal (amazing lasagna!) and a bonfire (complete with S'mores). It was great to spend time together, because with Jim living in Minnesota, this doesn't happen very often when it is not a holiday of some sort.

That night, we did indeed crunch the numbers and decided on a hotel. We are excited! :) We will be finishing up the booking of that this week. It was great to meet with all these wonderful vendors. We asked them about the complications that could arise with our visa process and all of them were very accommodating. We are very thankful for that.

This morning, it was time to head home, but not before Jim's parents made us a great breakfast. It was an amazing weekend. We feel great knowing we now have a venue, photographer and videographer. The only thing that wasn't perfect about this weekend is that we miscalculated how long it would take to get me back to the train station and I was so rushed making my train on time, I didn't get the sweet long goodbye with Jim. The good news is, I did make the train! :) The bad part is the realization that I won't see Jim again in person until Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving that is...). This will be a long 5 1/2 weeks for sure!