10-day forecast

That is right, the wedding is a mere ten days away. Currently the forecast is for a high of 81 and not a cloud in the sky. Keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way!

The cake is confirmed. The photographer is set. Food is decided. The ceremony is finalized. There are, of course, a bajillion little details remaining, but nothing critical.

In a few days people start to descend, the work will be over and all that will remain is the fun celebration bit: Thursday night revels, Friday am yoga, rehearsal, bridesmaids luncheon, a very small rehearsal barbecue, and then the main event on Saturday.

An email with maps, directions, contact info and more went out Monday. For privacy reasons we won't be posting the information online, but if the message didn't get through, give one of us a call or email.

Can't wait to see everyone!

Match.com worked for us!

Standard “make-your-own-wedding-website” have sections for the bridal party, event info, gift registry and the ooey-gooey “how we met” story. So here is the ooey-gooey story of how we met – there is even love at first site involved.

Location: Grass Valley, CA – a beautiful town in the foothills of the Sierras, once a center of the gold rush. Grass Valley today is an interesting mix of retirees, aging hippies, farmers, tourists and rural druggies. There are two schools of massage, a school of ayurveda, the gorgeous South Yuba River, extraordinary house prices and very little in the way of professional opportunities. It is not a booming metropolis teeming with bright, ambitious 20-somethings.

Brooke was new to Grass Valley, there for schooling at one of the massage schools. As part of a new year’s resolution to “be more social,” she vowed to accept invitations, go out to lunches, parties, events, etc. and, at the urging of friend Sarah, somehow agreed to give the dating site Match.com a try. She had zero intention of actually “dating” anyone and put disclaimers all over her profile such as, “looking for friends” and “new to the area, just want to find someone to play tennis with.”

Meanwhile, Christopher had been back in his hometown after college for a couple of years, was working at a nice job and was a little bored with the limited social scene in Grass Valley. He was on Match.com somewhat passively as something to do and hadn’t actually gone on any dates or even chatted with anyone.

Then Brooke happened upon Christopher’s profile. She hadn’t ever initiated “chatting” with someone on Match.com before, but thought, “what the heck, why not?” Christopher hadn’t ever responded to such notes, but figured, “what the heck, why not?” The first, “hi” turned into a few emails. The emails turned into a plan to meet for tea at a local coffee shop. Within the first few minutes Brooke inadvertently dumped all her loose tea leaves into her tea water and Christopher knocked the table, sloshing Brooke with hot peppermint-y water. How could it possibly fail?

The non-committal “let’s meet for tea” stretched for hours and then turned into a very long dinner. Two days later they went to a Coldplay concert in Sacramento and before you knew it they were moving to Portland together, buying a house and were engaged just shy of their two-year anniversary. There was a moment there early on when Brooke had a little freak out (“I didn’t mean to actually meet someone! I didn’t want to date anyone! But I really like you!”) She got over it and decided spending the rest of her life with a smart, charming, handsome, fun, nice, handy, loving, sweet, funny, radiant, wonderful person was okay. And our friends get some free food, beer and cake out of the deal this summer. Win-win really.

Welcome to Portland! Creative Itineraries for Visitors

by Laura Oppenheimer,
The Oregonian

Thursday May 22, 2008

Ah, Memorial Day.

Time to stash the parka until next year. Coffeehouses prop open their doors, festivals descend on Portland's waterfront. And weekend visitors arrive at our doorsteps, determined to experience Oregon before the rain returns.

Our first summer here, my husband and I hosted so many friends and relatives, we felt like we ran a B&B. Each guest flew into PDX armed with guidebooks and Internet research. "We've gotta see Multnomah Falls!" "Saturday Market sounds so cool!" "Is the Rose Garden still in bloom?"

We happily obliged. Multnomah Falls, Saturday Market, Rose Garden. Multnomah Falls, Saturday Market, Rose Garden. Lovely places. By September, though, we thought we'd puke if we had to visit any of them again.

We vowed to devise more-creative itineraries for guests -- and not just because we could lead Multnomah Falls tours blindfolded. There's an art to showing visitors what it's like to live in Oregon. To shop here and hike here and bike here, to eat here and hang out here. Now, visitors leave with a deeper understanding of our adopted home.

Read on for weekend agendas to suit three types of guests: friends, the family clan and parents.

Nothing wrong with mixing and matching these if you're hosting young-at-heart parents or a precocious 12-year-old. And you're welcome to squeeze in classic Oregon attractions. After all, they're famous for a reason: We're lucky to have them.

Keep reading for all the juicy details: Creative Itineraries for Visitors

Sunrise Yoga, Friday Morning, July 18th

Friday morning, before the craziness of the actual wedding begins in earnest, I would like to take a moment to breathe and be calm. So, at the Wedding Meadow Friday morning (specific time TBD), we will have a special yoga session with friend, realtor-extraordinaire & certified-yogini, Chelsea. It will be gentle and accessible for all-levels and I would love it if you would join us.


"The practice of yoga helps us experience inherent union, and building it into your wedding can help you return the focus to the deep meaning of your union, rather than the externals of wedding planning or anything else." ~ Julia Mannes, Yoga for Weddings

A note regarding the request for your attendance…

We love you. We want you to come (we wouldn’t invite you if we didn’t!) We are planning on a great celebration and a fun party. Also, Portland is pretty darn beautiful in July and this is a rare opportunity for friends and family to come together at the same time and place. And it is a really important day for us – a once in a lifetime event in fact! So it would be really wonderful to have you join us.

But we understand if you can’t make it. Gas is expensive. Flights are expensive. Hotels are expensive. We know money is tight and time is even tighter. We are genuinely trying to make this wedding simple, easy, fun & not break the bank – anyone’s bank! So if you can’t make it, or it is just too hard for the whole family to make it, don’t worry. Do what you can, and maybe that means you just send a flower and think of us on July 19^th.

(A preview of Brooke & Chris at the Wedding Meadow - site for the ceremony.)

The chi of Portland: High weirdness in Nirvana

(former Portland mayor Bud Clark pictured below!)

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER

updated 10:00 a.m. PT, Mon., May. 5, 2008

PORTLAND, Ore. - Acupuncture is not just for people. It's also for cities — if the city is Portland.

Adam Kuby has stuck a 23-foot needle into the ground down by the Willamette River and hopes to plant more, choosing locations where he figures the city's "chi," or vital energy, needs some help.

Unusual? You bet. Unusual for Portland? Not really.

For several years, Portland has been reaping praise from lifestyle magazines, from Men's Journal to specialty publications, as one of the nation's more livable cities, listed among the best places to have a baby, grow old, go for a walk, ride a bike, take a jog, breathe clean air, own a dog, take public transportation, start a business (green or otherwise), go out for dinner or not get mugged.

The praises don't stop. Swing a cat and hit 10. On second thought, don't. Portland is rated the third-most humane city in the nation.

But the magazines skim over Portland's quirkier qualities. They aren't bandied about, but they're not hidden either. To some, they make Portland even more endearing.

There's what's left of the 24-Hour Church of Elvis (online only these days), the Voodoo Doughnut Shop, nude bike festivals, the 5K Bare Buns Run in Forest Park and what was billed as the world's longest drag queen chorus line.

Public nudity is illegal in Portland, but in a state where live sex acts are protected as free speech, police involvement generally is limited to keeping order...

Read More!

Roll Call – the Bridal Party

All the official “make your own wedding website” platforms have sections for bios of the bridal party. This seems like a pleasant thing to do and really, the other details we are dealing with (tux styles, finding an officiant, wording of invites, etc.) aren’t quite interesting enough for a blog post... So, here goes!

Vaidya (aka “Sweet pea”), Maid of Honor. Hailing from Hyderabad, India, Vaidya and Brooke met during University of Rochester’s freshman orientation a decade ago. A few days later they found themselves in the same section of “Quest Calculus,” where Brooke impressed Vaidya by remembering her name. The two have been dueling at Scrabble ever since. Vaidya enjoys peas, hot weather and human rights. Though sojourning to Portland for the main event in July, the Vaidya-creature will prove elusive this summer. A newly minted Harvard Law School grad, she will be studying her brains out for the New York State Bar Exam, a few short days after the wedding.

Haley, Bridesmaid. A Florida native, this southern girl was drawn (by destiny) to Alaska the summer of 2006. While working at Denali National Park, she was stalked by the weird, yet somehow attractive, young HR man who helped her check-in. That fall she was lured to Portland by this same young man, who turns out to be Adam, Brooke’s brother. In Portland she has become acquainted with all-weather footwear, seasons and mastered the art of dressing for a sleety winter day. Her main qualifications for the roll of bridesmaid include a sparkling personality, dazzling good looks, general fun-ness and a wealth of creative ability (mad painting skills in particular.)

Alicia, Bridesmaid. Alicia was once put in the clothes dryer by big brothers Christopher and Buzz. The dryer doesn’t seem to have done any damage (she is currently enrolled at Sierra Nevada College), but we sort of had to make her a bridesmaid to atone for it. She is a serious volley-baller, a fan of the German language and Germany, and if you happen to catch her at the bar, dash that drink from her hand - she is only 20.5 years old!!!

Travis, Best Man. At 6’ 4” and 250ish fairly trim lbs, Travis is the biggest person in the bridal party, and will probably be the biggest person at the wedding - or that you meet this year. Travis is also a Marine (and a corrections officer), but seems more like a big friendly teddy bear than anything else. Or rather, a gigantic, friendly teddy bear. Chris and Travis played football together in high school and have been close friends ever since. Freshly married to the stunning Andreana, Travis leads the party in current “real-wedding” experience and will be on hand to make sure rings are not lost and beer is readily available.

Buzz, Groomsman. Actually named “Harold” (who wouldn’t ditch that one?) Buzz acquired his nickname before becoming a beekeeper. Seriously, he has an apiary business, “Buzz’s bees.” Brother to Chris, Buzz is also father to 2-year-old Max and the soon-to-be-newest member of the family, whose ETA is early June. Buzz also has a small-plane pilot’s license, an easy going personality, and is our #1 supplier of unfiltered, black-market honey. Okay, so it isn’t black market, but it is good enough for it!

Bart, Groomsman. Though an engineer by trade, Bart is the rare one of his field (like Christopher), in possession of social skills. He is also a strong proponent of tequila, a stand-alone qualification for entrance into the bridal party. Bart and Chris met post-college in Grass Valley when they were both working at Vector Engineering and Bart is honorary uncle to puppy-dog Samson. Sharp and witty, Bart is also a major sports fan, fairly new home-owner and overall nice guy. And ladies - he’s not just single, he's straight too!

Adam, Bride Dude. Brother-o-the-bride, Adam is an International Man of Mystery in Training. He studied political science and history at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and followed that up with a year in exotic Bialystok, Poland. There he ate jellied carp for Christmas dinner and would smear his visage with protective bear fat before venturing outdoors in the winter. He is currently trafficking in woolen goods here in Portland, so will be around to crack heads (if they need cracking) and be the generally calm, go-to person the day of the wedding making sure all which needs to get done, in fact, gets done.

Keith, Bride Dude. Step-brother-o-the-bride, Keith is a bona fide mason and aspiring electro-cardio-gram-er (the person who runs the electrocardiogram machine thingy.) A devoted student of kung fu movies and football, this background knowledge will be invaluable as he aides his fellow bride-dude in herding the masses, mobilizing the cadre of chair movers and making sure a good time is had by all.

Many others are contributing to the success of our summer party, but to list everyone would result in an overly verbose posting. Blogs are supposed to be snappy!