We Got Married!

We had the best wedding ever! Thanks a million to everyone who helped make July 25, 2009 a day we will never forget. We are so blessed with wonderful family and friends and we were thrilled to see so many of you in Denver.

I guess this blog has run its course since we're married now. But before we close it down, we have one favor to ask of you and a few youtube videos for you to watch, if you so desire.

FAVOR: If you took photos at our wedding, please send us a CD/DVD/Memory stick/etc. with your images. We're creating a massive photo/video library of the day and would love high resolution (well, higher than facebook) images to play with.

YOUTUBE: My personal photographer/videographer (aka Uncle Greg) put together a few wedding-related videos. Below is his email describing the wedding and the four videos he made. Please enjoy!

One week ago today, our niece, Audra, was married to James McCollough. His family is from Texas and her family is from Missouri...so they decided to hold the "ceremony" at Elitch Gardens (the amusement park), in Denver (where they live). This wasn't the first wedding held there, but several park employees agreed it was the most creative (attached is the wedding itinerary).

Here is a video of their wedding ceremony (set to music) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u0Mu9Z8GqI

The song was originally from a cartoon called "The Jetsons." The version they used was a remake by another band - but, I'm old-school, so I used the original for their wedding video...They had the song play over the park's loud speaker (for the Ferris Wheel) while they signed their marriage license with the "big pen", threw a cotton candy bouquet, and a licorice garter. The park left it on for at LEAST an hour in continuous loop - everytime I walked by the Ferris Wheel to get something from the office building, it was blaring!

They chose this song for two reasons: This December, James is finishing his doctorate in Physics - (thus, the space travel reference) - and Audra loves it because it's fun! The people at the park were THRILLED with how the wedding turned out! The creativity, fun, and cuteness of Audra & James made it special for them, too!

Here are videos of Audra and James as they grew up (James' video features his "theme song" - written by Audra and performed by Audra & James):

Audra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqTj3Sng7I&feature=related

James: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AtdSc-DjL0

At the reception, guests were given "mini-pink things." The original "Pink Thing" was a crocheted square (made by my mother) that Audra & James began taking on trips to personalize her photographs (sort of a traveling gnome). A friend of ours crocheted over 60 of these things so the guests could have them to take on their adventures/travels. Audra wrote this song, James sang the lead (in the style of Johnny Cash) and Melodie, Caprice, & I sang the harmonies on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiFJ0mi6cwI Who knew my mother would have started a "Pink Thing" movement? PinkThing even has its own "Facebook" page (if you're a facebooker, check it out: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Pink-Thing/87563332470?ref=nf ) Way to go, Mom! Everyone loves her!

We hope you enjoy these videos I made!

Greg & Melodie

Sincerely,
Audra and James.

Wedding Itinerary

We are about a week away from our wedding at Elitch's! Wait...what? Where did all the time go???

With a lot of help from Audra's Uncle Greg (thanks, G!) we have put together an itinerary for our day at the park. Click here to view and/or print it.

A few important notes:

• The itinerary is optional, but we will be really bummed if you're not at the Ferris wheel at 5:15 PM. Be there or be square!


• If you have little desire to ride rides or go to the water park, you probably don't want to show up at 10:00 AM when the gates open.


• Don't forget to wear your tuxedo/bridesmaid/flower girl/usher/whatever t-shirt if you are part of the all-volunteer, do-nothing wedding party.


• If you're coming from out of town and are not staying at the Westin Westminster you will need to pick up your tickets from us by Friday, July 24 (unless we already mailed them to you). Send Audra an email to coordinate: removed @gmail.com. **This one is kind of important...without your tickets you can't get in!


• Please return any unused tickets/parking passes to us as soon as possible following the event.

See you soon!
Audra and James.

Who Wants To Be In The Wedding Party?

We think it would be fun to have some bridesmaids and groomsmen on our big day but we don't want to assign these titles to anyone because we're just not that bossy. So if you want to be a member of The Audra and James Wedding Party, just dress the part!

While we ride rides and stuff all day, James will be sporting a handsome tuxedo t-shirt and Audra will be wearing an elegant wedding dress t-shirt. Tuxedo t-shirts abound on the internet, but here's some help for you ladies (or gentlemen) who are looking for that perfect bridesmaid t-shirt. Choose whatever color looks best on you! The wedding dress t-shirt Audra has looks the same except the dress is white. James' current tuxedo shirt can be found here but he might be getting a different one because the graphic looks better on the web site than it does in person.

I suppose if you'd like to wear an actual tuxedo or an actual dress that would be ok. It might not be the most comfortable attire for an amusement park but we're not going to discourage anyone from wearing fancy clothes.

If you come as a "bridesmaid" or "groomsman" you don't have to do anything special except pose in a photograph with the other bridesmaids and groomsmen so twenty years later we can look back and admire our all-volunteer wedding party.

And finally, if you're an adorable child reading this blog and your dream is to be a flower girl or a ring bearer in this wedding then find a suitable t-shirt online and use your parent's credit card to buy it ASAP.

What Are You Waiting For? An Engraved Invitation?

Greetings!

You should receive your official invitation soon if you haven't already. Many thanks to Amy (mother-of-the-groom) and Bo (aunt-of-the-groom) for all their work on the invitations. We think they look super cute!

Now the ball is in your court, people. We need you to RSVP! Don't sit on that postcard for weeks, send it back as soon as you can. And don't hesitate to contact us if you have questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or simply wish to communicate to one or both of us about anything--wedding stuff or not wedding stuff.

Next on the wedding planning agenda is deciding what to serve for dinner. This Friday we meet with the head chef at Elitch's and perform our taste test. All those in favor of hot dogs say "aye". Just kidding. Maybe.

By the way, we forgot to inclue the URL for this blog in the invitations, so if you happen to be reading this we applaud you. Oh wait, the blog is linked to facebook..so if you're reading it from facebook we still applaud you but *slightly* less enthusiastically.

That concludes this blog installment.
Audra and James out.

Save The Date Part 2

Hello friends. If you indicated that you were interested in attending our wedding thing, or if you are related to Audra or James, or if your name and address were entered into our shared "address list" spreadsheet on Google docs, you will be receiving a little postcard in the mail in the next few days reminding you that our wedding event takes place Saturday, July 25, 2009 at Elitch's in Denver.

In the spirit of Do-It-Yourself, we printed these at home. Audra was supposed to use the paper cutter in her office today to get these bad boys ready to mail, but the office was closed due to inclement weather. Snoooooow Daaaaaaaaay!

With no paper cutter at home, Audra and James had to make do with a ruler and a razor blade. They were cut, stamped, and walked over to our neighborhood post office where the not-so-friendly-but-not-exactly-rude postal employee told Audra how much postage it takes to mail a postcard to Spain. (It's $0.94 in case you're wondering.) Our stack of postcards is now running through the collection and distribution processes at the USPS. Godspeed, little postcards!

Point of Clarification

We've gotten a couple of questions about how much it costs to get into Elitch Gardens, the place we're doing our wedding thing. So, to clarify, all-day admission to the park and dinner on 7/25 will be provided by us.

Also, to address a question from the first blog: We are both keeping our respective last names. Audra thinks her name is cool and James thinks his name is cool, too. We thought about picking a neutral, third-party last name but decided that would not be cool.

Save the Date

After much hemming and hawing, we have finally decided on a date: Saturday, July 25, 2009. We hope you will be able to join us! Official invitations are forthcoming, but in the meantime please drop us a line letting us know if you think you'll be able to attend so we can get a rough headcount.

We're going to have our marriage celebration at Elitch Gardens. For those of you who don't know, Elitch's is an amusement park. That's right: amusement park--roller coasters, a water park, people laughing, people screaming, funnel cake, etc.

Anyone who wants to celebrate with us will get admission to the park (including the water park) all day and dinner in the pavillion area. James and I will have some sort of exchange of vows (or something) to articulate our commitment to each other, but please note that in Colorado we don't need a minister or Justice of the Peace to marry us. Colorado is a DIY state when it comes to marriage. Don't believe me? I challenge you to read the law: Section 14-2-109(1) C.R.S. (1993). If you're not in the mood to look up the statute, just check out this information from the City and County of Denver. (Now do you believe me, mom?)

If you read our first post you'll remember that one of our guiding principles was that whatever we end up doing should be fun. This should be fun!


p.s. Summertime in Denver is fantastic...no humidity!