My Ann
I know, she’s disarmingly cute, but don’t be fooled… like a cat that one. Martial art skills beyond compare, trained by the great Chuck Norris himself.
Meet Ann Mai, Maid of Honor…
Trust me. Ann is in this picture.
Read more… …
Archive for January, 2006
Trust me. Ann is in this picture.
Read more… …
Groom’s Man Dan
Dan’s a hard guy to describe. He’s not really like anyone else that I’ve ever met – and I mean that in a good way. I guess before I describe Dan I should tell you how I know him.
So back in 2004 Tiffany got into a little Med School in Baltimore and I packed up to leave Los Angeles (the traffic had abused my last nerve anyway) for Washington, DC, which is only about 40 miles from Baltimore.
Why do I bring this up? Well, Dan is a Montana boy. But I don’t know him from Montana. My first job in DC was as an intern for Senator Conrad Burns. That was Dan’s first job here too, and that’s how it all began.
Every Spring, the Cherry Blossoms in DC bloom and tourists descend on the city like locusts. Since we were all new to the city, we braved the mobs to see the sights. It was worth it, but look behind Dan the ham at the crowds.
The Making of the Band
We got the ring. We got the plan.
Time to put the two together.
The first thing to do is to find someone to do the engraving. A lot of jewelry places can engrave, but the trick was to find someone that could do it from a computer image and three-hundred and sixty degrees around the outside of the ring. Plus, if I can find a place that uses lasers, that would be awesome ’cause lasers are awesome.
So WeddingVowRings.com seemed a logical choice. They have a laser engraver which uses a computer to engrave a scanned image into the ring. I contacted them and they were very friendly and very eager to do the job.
Next step is to determine the usable space of the brushed white-gold band of the ring. A careful measurement showed: 1/8″ wide by 3″ around. Now it was just a question of creating the file. WeddingVowRings told me that a .TIFF image format would be best, so I created a new file in PhotoShop at 1000 pixels/inch: 3000×125.
The next project was to get a high-resolution scan of the EKG that I could use and PhotoShop it into the file I created. The trick here was that modern EKGs aren’t like the screen that you see on TV (beep… beep… beep… beeeeeeeeeeeee… “We’re losing him!” “Damn it, Jimmy, you’ve got to LIVE!”). They measure multiple lines at a time in addition to breathing patterns. The mock-up I did gives you an idea how curvy the line is. On top of that, there’s the red grid in the background that had to be stripped out.
Using my PhotoShop techniques, I leveled the baseline for the EKG, stripped out the background noise and produced the following image:
Click to see full size
Now all that was left was to send the vendor my ring (physically) and that file (electronically). To cover my bases, I sent it with a delivery confirmation and some serious shipping insurance. It went out the door Friday. I’ll update with progress.
Ring Tones
So while we were in Los Angeles doing all of the wedding planning we did one other thing that we didn’t post about. It’s sort of planning, but sort of something totally different. It has nothing to do with the event while at the same time being the central focus of the event.
Tiffany bought my ring.
The name game
So when most ladies get married, they have a pretty big decision to make… Do I keep my own name, or do I take his? In the past, this may not have been much of a decision, as most women were expected to take their husband’s names. These days, we have moved into an era in which women have nearly endless choices: take his name, keep my name, hyphenate both of our names, have him take my name, screw names and just be the woman formerly known as Potter, you get the idea.
Engagement photos!
After much ado, the engagement pictures are here! So, to fully appreciate what we, and Rafael our photographer, had to go through to get these pictures, let’s take a little trip. We’re back in California for only a week to get most of our wedding planning done. We previously posted about finding Rafael and how excited we were to be able to work with him. We scheduled our engagement photo shoot that Saturday at Laguna beach. This is a beautiful spot, and other photos from his website that we liked were shot there as well. We were all set. Then the rains came tumbling down… Rafael tried to squeeze us in earlier, but we had already booked appointments. So we took our chances and by the time Jed and I showed up, it was full on raining. It’s pretty hard to take nice pictures in the rain, and we couldn’t reschedule because the next time both of us will be back there is for the wedding… so the show must go on. Rafael found this courtyard of a church next to the beach, very pretty. It would have to due. Then as we set up, some of the less fortunate who didn’t have shelter from the rain took shelter in the courtyard and were rather drunkish and belligerent. Good start. We managed to take our pictures, did some even in the rain, and it was a lot of fun.
Round 2. Rafael gets our pictures up on his website two weeks later, as promised. I’ve been DYING to see these picture since we shot them so imagine my excitement. I go to see them… his website is down. It’s down most of the day until finally, it’s fixed. Then, we log on, and the pictures are big red X’s. All of them. I’m thinking there’s some sort of lesson or cosmic message going on here… And a few minutes ago, they uploaded and they’re awesome.
We will be posting pictures of this ill-fated engagement shoot soon. Don’t touch that channel.
His Bridesmaid
A lot of my best friends in college were women. This made my contribution to the wedding party a little more difficult, since women don’t make good groomsmen. Tiffany had a similar problem, so we decided that she’d take one of my friends as a bridesmaid and I’d take one of her friends – Dante – as a groomsman. This is not to say that Dante isn’t my friend or Vanessa isn’t Tiffany’s friend. But I’ve known Vanessa for longer than Tiffany, and Tiffany’s known Dante for longer than I have.
Meet Vanessa Harikul.
The Dancing Groomsman
Of all the Groomsmen and Bridesmaids, I’ve known Luke Powell (luxgladius) the longest. Which is to say, back in 1993 when I started at Loyola Sacred Heart High School Luke was also starting there. I was coming out of public schools, while he’d been doing the private school thing his whole life, coming from Saint Joseph’s Elementary where he’d been shaving for three years. We had different circles of friends at first.
Our yearbook debate photo from the 1997-98 Season. Luke’s leaning on the barrel of the tank (yes, TANK), and I’m behind him in the trench coat, sunglasses and blond hair. We were soooo cool, hahaha.
But it was Debate that created and sealed our friendship. Starting my sophomore year, Luke was my debate partner in Team or Policy Debate. Together we put up some pretty impressive numbers on a speech and debate team that has won the State Title for Speech and Debate 23 straight years. Our record for preliminary debate rounds – think the preseason at a debate tournament was 83-1 – a win-loss ratio that still stands as the State Record if I’m not mistaken. Strangely enough, though, our win-loss record for out-rounds – think single elimination tournament play seeded by the preliminary rounds – was abysmal, 4-12, with those four wins coming at the same tournament in Bozeman – the largest tournament in Montana and the only one that we ever won.
Save The Date
A dress bought (and quickly returned) from Nordstroms. A digital camera. Photoshop.
Yes, that is actually us – not just our heads photoshopped onto the bodies of Jolie and Pitt. It took several hours and cafeful, sometimes painful posing (those shoes weren’t very comfortable for poor Tiffany).
We’re rather happy with the final product.
Click to see full-size
