Holy crap. you guys. We're totally married. We're on our honeymoon now. Can you believe it? David's ring is so shiny. Today we biked this really long, steep bridge. Here it is:http://www.cooperriverbridge.org. See? Really long. Then we had lunch with some Shriners. They had chicken and dumplings. Then we toured the USS Yorktown, which was totes romantic, y'all. Tonight, I may have had some free champagne courtesy of the French Quarter Inn. Y'all should stay there when you visit Charleston. Kay, talk to y'all later!

Here is everything you need to know about this wedding.
Download and print this PDF for all the details.

Madeline Island is about five hours from Minneapolis.  This includes a Ferry ride.  The drive is a little over 4 hours and the ferry adds another 1 hour (it's a 20 minute trip and leaves every 30 minutes). The ferry costs $11.50 per person round trip, and another $24 for cars. If you don’t need a car, you can park on the Bayfield side and walk.  Make sure you park in a place that allows overnight parking.  Many of us will have cars on the island so getting around won’t be a problem. The Inn (Wedding, Reception, Breakfast) and Joni’s Beach (Groom’s Dinner) are 3/4 mile for the ferry landing, a 10 – 20 minute walk from the ferry terminal.
Here is the ferry website with all the details.

WEDDING SCHEDULE
    FRIDAY – 7:00pm
Groom’s Dinner at Joni’s Beach
    SATURDAY – 4:30pm
Wedding and Reception at the Madeline Island Inn
    SUNDAY – 9:00am
Goodbye Breakfast at the Madeline Island Inn

 . . . although it almost was.  Since the wedding is in Wisconsin, we need to get a marriage license in Wisconsin.  Plans were made, reservations reserved, meetings scheduled, and Birth Certificates were nowhere to be found.

Wisconsin requires bride and groom to present a valid birth certificate before they issue a Marriage License (which is really stupid!).  Last night, we where gathering the necessary papers and Carmen could not find hers.  Fun Fact: Carmen was born in Houston Texas. Another fun fact is that it costs $500 to fly to Texas to pick up a copy of one's birth certificate if one actually wants to get married in Wisconsin.  Otherwise you can wait 10-15 days to get one delivered, happily drive to Wisconsin, happily get a marriage license, happily wait another 6 days (just to make sure you're not going to freak out about the whole marriage thing), then get happily married.  This would make our wedding date August 32nd.  If you think weddings are hard to plan, just try getting the lunar calendar altered. 

In Minnesota, you just have to show up with a Driver's License and a bag of Skittles.  The plan was to get married on August 17th by the honorable Joseph Klein.  Then we would lie to all the guests, pretend that we really weren't married, and get married all fakey-like.  So plans were broken, reservations unreserved, meetings cancelled, courtrooms schedule.  

Enter Carmen's mother, super superhero, certificate locator, and honorable-wedding honorable mention.  After ripping our house apart, Carmen's mother ripped apart her house and found the certificate. It was inside a box, inside a box, inside a box, inside a hand-carved wooden doll that looked like Boris Yeltsin ( which you can buy here ).  The wedding is saved and we don't have to lie, scheme, and pretend.

We thank you Joseph Klein and the honorable Hennepin County Courtroom 1055 for your understanding.

The boys (Dylan, Joe, Tom, and Dave) took me out on the town.  The original plan was to ride go-carts in Burnsville.  The weather wasn't looking good and our go-cart sherpa, David J. Harris, was out of town doing a comedy gig.  Also, Dylan assured us that Burnsville was not ready for our intense Metrosexual energy.  Besides, If we had gone, I'm sure at least one of us would have been tasered.  For more on go cart tasering in the Twin Cities, click here.

We first stopped at the Strip Club in St. Paul.  It turned out to be a steak place and not an actual strip club.  We all ate strip steak and french fries with bacon ketchup.  Even the vegetarian in our group enjoyed the food (just not the meat food).  The waiter was married three weeks before and assured me that rain on a wedding day was good luck.

If rain on the bachelor party (and bachelorette party) day is good luck, Carmen and I are very fortunate.  On the way home from the party, parts of Franklin and I-94 were flooded.  There was lots of lightning, rain, and flooding throughout the evening.  Tom brought and umbrella and Dylan braved the storm to "pull the car around" on a number of occasions.

Later in the evening we went to Cafe Latte for giant pieces of cake and pie.  The server made fun of us for the lamest of bachelor party location choices and the fact that it was a Tuesday night.  "Nice send-off guys.  Who planned this?"

I disagree.  It was an excellent sendoff!  Thanks guys!
More photos here!

My girlfriends and I had a bachelorette party this weekend. We went camping at Willow River Campgrounds in Wisconsin. It was a totally awesome weekend with lots and lots of food, climbing of waterfalls and a very special Ken doll who performed a little dance for me. On Saturday night, we even had an exciting storm with sirens going off, which really set the party mood. All that fun has really got me in the mood for all the wedding fun to come! Special thanks to Ariel and the girls for planning such a special weekend!

The wedding shower was at my house on 6/27/10.  We had a wonderful time with games, margaritas, taco bar, ice cream bar and lots of wonderful friends and family!  Thanks to all who came and made it such a fun time!

Carmen and I had a wonderful time in Willmar.  The neighborhood ladies threw her an exceptional wedding show for Carmen.  There was yummy deserts, fun games, and lavish gifts.  
They also strongly suggested that we register at Herberger's since our other registries were running thin.  Not being one to disappoint the community who shaped me and warmly welcomed my Fiancee, we went and added the registry.

Herberger's

Carmen is mostly a nurse now.  All she has to do now is pass the boards (which will be easy given her genius abilities).  This is a picture from the pinning ceremony.  You'll see blow-up for the pin in the upper right (just like on CNN).  It is her mom's nursing school pin.

Congratulations!

I've got mine ready!
Yeah, they're designer. Merona. 

Anyway, David and I have been learning to cut a rug for the wedding. We're taking weekly swing dancing lessons through Minneapolis Community Ed. Our instructor is also a certified accountant! We can't wait to show off our smooth moves...

Carmen and I are canning various jellies and perserves for the reception favors.  Four ounce jars of Jam for everyone!  

Just days before we embarked on this adventure, we received our first wedding gift in the mail, a water bath canner.  I hope the rest of the wedding planning goes this magically well.  For our first project we canned a dozen jars of Strawberry Jam.  Step one . . . peel the strawberries.  Needless to say, this is a bigger project than I expected.  

The first batch was mostly successful.  Successful, in that we triggered a secondary smoke alarm and not the one that automatically calls the fire department and makes every one go outside.  

Here is a picture of what I scraped off the stove before it burned and asphyxiated us:

Click here for more canning photos.