The year of our wedding!

Happy New Year to everyone!

I hope you all had a safe and fun celebration. I myself was on the couch with tea and antibiotics fighting a case of bronchitis, sadly not out with my fiance. So, 2009 is here and I'm officially getting married this year!

Josh and I leave in three days to spend the quarter abroad in Quito, Ecuador. Check back for links to our travel blogs and picture websites - don't want to clutter this one up too much. Ready or not I will be taking a 10 week break from any real wedding planning until we return at the end of March. Hopefully I won't have too many wedding dreams/nightmares while I'm gone.

Also, our official wedding website should be up soon. Much thanks to Josh's brother-in-law Stephen, a web whiz.

Best wishes for a joyous and successful 2009!

Updates...

A few new-ish developments I thought I would update people on - although some of you already know and are probably sick of hearing it by now...

Engagement Photographs!

Our awesome photographer Laura braved the drizzly, mid-November Seattle outdoors with us to take our engagement pictures. They turned out alright considering the conditions. More to come in spring when all the pretty cherry blossoms bloom on campus. You can view the pictures at www.tottenphotography.com/madelinejosh

Really, in this family, it's all about the FOOD!

If anyone is part of the Cheng family or has taken part of a Cheng family gathering, you know how us people love to eat! So, after receiving several outrageous catering proposals, we decided to get a little more resourceful. Josh talked to the woman who cooks for his fraternity and she was thrilled at the idea of catering for us. Yep, we're having a frat cook for our wedding! In all reality, she's been a cook for 25 years, knows how to cook for large groups of people and is willing to do whatever we want. And, most importantly, we get more bang for our buck and more food for all the crazy Chengs to eat!

That's all for now. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

Wedding colors - finally...

I've finally come to a decision for colors! yay! How can the one thing that seems really unimportant be one of the hardest things to decide? If only I was one of those girls who had her wedding colors picked out at age 11...so, here they are in all their yellow, green and sapphire glory!

Everybody loves pictures!

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post. A little update, we decided to go with having Laura Totten be our photographer. She did the pictures for Josh's sister's wedding and they turned out amazing. We will meet with her in a week and a half to take our engagement pictures. yay! Hopefully, the surreal no-rain spell we've been having will hold out along with all the beautiful fall leaves here on campus.

Here are a few links to pictures of us from Amy's wedding. I think our engagement and wedding pictures will turn out just as fabulous.

http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf3c0bacca55&idx=286

Copy and paste this link and then click thru the next 3 pictures, they're all of us. And of course, I'll put up our engagement pictures when we get them back.

Ciao! Off to apply for jobs...

Plans still brewing...

Hello!  No new plans to report, really.  The next couple of days should prove interesting though; Josh and I have a wedding planning meeting at the church tonight (not really sure what we do at that, but we will see!) and our first marriage preparation/counseling session tomorrow.  More to follow here on those I'm sure...

In the meantime, I've been trying to finagle a way to pin down a photographer, band and caterer without spending the entire rest of our budget.  I cam across this website, www.agrandwedding.com run by a like-minded (and like-walleted) Seattle couple.  The website features ideas and vendors who offer things for under a grand.  Also, a feature on their website is the AngelBride component (www.agrandwedding.com/angelbride), which they compare to the Today Show 'Race to the Altar' wedding giveaways.  I'm definitely planning on entering Josh and me in this because I think we have a unique and endearing story - who wouldn't want to give these faces free wedding stuff?!  =) So, I'll keep you posted and when we're finalists (I know we can do it!) I'll tell you all so you can vote for us.  

That's all for now!  Love to you all!

Begin Blog - check!

(In Maui, pre-engagement, little did I know...)

The days of wasting time and procrastinating schoolwork via facebook have officially ended for me: Instead, I now find myself blissfully squandering numerous hours a day clicking from wedding planning sites to wedding blogs to wedding magazine sites. So, as if I do not have plenty wedding things to distract myself from senior year seriousness (haha) already, I am now officially debuting my blog!

For everyone far away or who I sadly don't get the day to day chance to talk to, I hope through this you can feel included in my adventures for the next 10 months, find some amusement and a much better way than facebook to avoid whatever it is you need to do.

Time to get to my homework for that 2:30 class...

Note: **Thanks to my best friend, my other M, for her inspiration to do this. Her idea has nagged in my head for weeks to get this going!**