Wedding Registry

We are registered at Crate and Barrel and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. My tip is if you walk into the store, use Kate's name (Kate Stadille). There are lots of Rich Thomas' getting married at these stores. There is only one Kate Stadille currently at both these stores.

Asking

This is cross posted from my blog, Sad Salvation

I asked Kate to marry me in Portland and she said yes. Yes, I asked her on March 17th St. Patrick's Day, but I am getting a head of my self here.

Kate and I started Monday by sleeping in. After breakfast and internet at the Kennedy school we looked for places to get Kate's nails done. We drove around Portland for a little bit before meeting Sean for lunch.

The whole time all of these things happened I was trying to figure out when I was going to ask Kate. Kate knew the proposal was coming soon. She knew that I ordered a ring but I did not have it with me in Portland. Knowing that, Kate has accused me of being kind of "squirrelly". She knew something was up.

I figured my only chance was to make her think I was going to do something at Dinner and ask her earlier. After a couple of text messages with a friend I decided I was going to ask her on the Hawthorne bridge in the late afternoon. I wanted to get my hair cut first. I was just hoping that the weather would hold out.



I had an appointment for get my hair cut and Kate had a nail appointment. My best friend for high school and college, His sister Shannon is a hair stylist in Portland. I had seen her over Christmas. She said she would be happy to cut my hair. We tried to hook it up two years ago, but the timing was all wrong.

It was cool to have my hair cut away from home by a person who knew me. It was a good haircut. I do not have a hair stylist in San Jose I like this much. If I lived in Portland I would go to Shannon at Dirty Little Secret all the time.



I told Kate after the Haircut that I wanted to take some photos of her on the Hawthorne bridge. Earlier in the trip I told her how the Hawrhorne bridge in Portland. Not only did it go between two of my favorite parts of town, it is also a beautiful bridge. Since I take a lot of photos it was not hard to convince Kate that I wanted to take her photo on the bridge.

I knew that I wanted to ask Kate with a photographic months back. I got the idea while we were in Philadelphia after Christmas. I wanted so way to ask Kate that I could later post on Flickr. In February I had Peter Conrad make the sign for me and take the photo of me. The photo of me at the top of the post was taken at the place where Kate and I had our first date, Mission City Coffee.

On Saturday I had Don run out and make a print for me. I knew that I was not going to be able to slip away from Kate for long enough to get it done. This lead to the whole thing with me acting "Squirrelly".

I walked Kate on the bridge and started taking some pictures. After a few pictures I said I had a prop for her. I handed her a bag with the photo in it. The print was 8x10. She looked at the photo and was surprised. She did not expect me to ask her there in this way. I am happy I could surprise her. I told her there were two more signs in the bag, 'Yes' and 'No'. I told her she needed to pick one of them out and hold it up. She held up the 'yes' sign.



We were both floating six feet off the ground when we got off the bridge. We went back to the Kennedy school. It was packed when we got back there. St. Patrick's day attracts a lot of people to the Kennedy School. We used their soaking pool for a little while. It seemed perfect. The water was warm and air was cool. We were as close to weightless as we could be. We floated around each other was we talked about the future.

We headed back to the room to take advantage of the Romance package, which was a bottle of champagne on ice and two chocolate truffles. After a little time in the room we decided to get some dinner in the hotel restaurant. The wait for the restaurant was 90 minutes, but when you are staying at a hotel with its own brewery and six bars, waiting 90 minutes for a table is not too hard.

We had a lot of beer, chicken wings, tater tots while we waited. We mooned at each other over steak and beer for dinner. Steak has become a celebration meal for us. It seemed perfect that night. Lets just say we were pretty free with the drinks that night. Everything that night seemed to make us happy.

We stumbled back to our room after a few hours. When got there I wanted to make sure we finished I wanted to make sure we finished off the bottle of champagne. I paid good money for it and I did not want it to go to waste. It was a little warm and flat for sitting out, but that was fine by me. The only glass clean in the room was a pint glass. We ended up sharing that glass, trading it back and forth. I ended up Twittering "we finished a bottle of flat sparkling wine out of a pint glass. what a perfect day."

After that I had this Idea that we should go out side and look at the stars. We we got outside we found out it was raining. The sky was gray and we could not see any stars. So we ended up dancing outside in the rain. It was still pretty cool. It was the end of a perfect day.

Hotel Rooms

I have a block of discount hotel rooms that guess can book. Please contact me about the information about the hotel room. I would put it here, but I worry that a bunch of people I do not know would book these rooms.

T-180 Days

The wedding is 180 days from now. Yes, the date is that close. It does not feel like I have been engaged for six months, but I have. When I said this to Kate yesterday she was shocked. Time has a way of doing this to you.

There is a lot of planning we have yet to do. I think we can do it, but there is a lot of work for us. With both of use having new jobs, it is going to be hard. We need to get on it.

See you in 180 days

In the first months...

When I moved out of the house, it was months before I graduated from high school. I moved in with a then boyfriend one on further wiser thought I had no business moving in with. Five months the whole thing was over. I had then entered college for the first time and gotten a job at Acme Comics. I started writing poetry and listening to Tori Amos. I was majoring in English Lit. and looking forward to becoming a poet. All in all taking myself way too seriously, and learning little to nothing about the secrets about being a woman. Ah, yes there was also D&D, coffee shops,open mics and copper-red hair dye. All intermingled with drama class, and brooding, confused gentle boys. We were all trying to figure the world out at the same time it created way too much static for one coffee shop. Ah, the clove smoking headache days.

Years later...(too many to count and feel good about)

Someone with brownish hair and green eyes messages you on Yahoo! Personals of all places. A place she thought she would never have to use. She messages you because you are the only one with a witty yet sensitive subject line. Shes tired of dealing with nonsense. And by nonsense she means those things that should have been glaringly obvious to her in the first place. She blames herself for a lot of what has happened to her, with her and around her. No longer owning the words "All I Ever Wanted Was An Al Pacino" one of her poems she used to quietly scream. She thinks that you are one of the most beautiful people she has ever seen and one of the most gentle low voices she has ever talked to. You take a chance and go out with this seemingly bright woman to a coffee shop. A woman comes out of the gate, but you can tell in someways she still thinks of herself as a girl. She doesn't have any idea what to do so she hugs you. This is the first real conversation she has had with anyone in a long time. She observes looks into your eyes while you talk to her about your being one of eight. A fact that she finds rather astounding and respects your Mom and Dad for. She talks about the trials of being a Catholic girl in public school. You understand, in fact she is finding you over time understand her more than anyone ever. You talk about politics and she doesn't even bat an eyelash when you say your a Republican...well maybe one eyelash. Two at most. You and she play around with the idea of holding hands, leaving them loose on the table between the two of you. Both of you looking to see if it is the right time...

It feels like you have known each other for a very long time now...

Shes at your kitchen table in the mornings. You smile over at her, she thinks you are the most glorious thing in the world. Both of you listen to each other. Both of you understand. Something she has dreamed of but thought she would never find. She holds you to her heart like a piece of fragile glass, knowing you will be careful. Knowing you will be there for a very long time.

Twitter at the Ceremony

I will admit that I want to have someone as the designated Twitter'er at the wedding. (Or is that tweeter?) For those who do not know, Twitter is a social text messaging/micro blogging service. Living in Silicon Valley, of course I am a big twitter user. I have a bunch of friends who I keep in contact mostly through twitter now a days. I know that lots of people do not use twitter and many do not even know what it is. There is a good video that explains Twitter in plain English.

I think it would be cool to set up an account just for the wedding. We would have one of our Twitter using friends at the wedding tweeting to that account. This way we could have a play by play of what happened at the ceremony in 140 character chunks. I think it would be a cool thing to have to look back on. It is a 21st century addition to the wedding album.

To say the list Kate does not like this idea. She thinks it is tacky and classless. She does not see it as something fun that we could do. I am hoping that other people can help me convince her that it would be a fun thing to do.

Park Map

Here is a Google map to the site of the wedding


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