Check!

Things we have figured out for sure:

1)  Ceremony.  This will take place at our church.  On May 7th.  Well, pending the successful completion of our premarital counseling (Christian equivalent of 'knock on wood').  We were hoping for a Sunday wedding--an old-school Puritan-style wedding where you have a completely normal church service and at the end there's like a 10 minute wedding.  Just the vows and maybe a song and a bible reading.  BAM.  No muss, no fuss.  But that got shot down, and we're having a plain old Saturday wedding.  In the morning, we think.  Probably at like 10:30am, but we're not sure.

2)  Reception hall.  It was a little hairy for a while (many of the venues charge you upwards of $4000 just to walk in the door . . . then they require you to hire a licensed professional caterer (average cost: $50-$150 per person), and the restaurants with private dining options require that you spend a minimum of like $10,000--eek!), but we finally found a place with a more reasonable rental cost.  AND they will allow us to arrange the catering however we want--including ladies from church!  (Actually arranging the catering remains on our to-do list.)  AND the place is easy to get to, close to a (free on the weekends) parking garage, and metro accessible.  AND there are hotels nearby for out-of-town guests.  AND it's a ballroom, so we can dance!  AND there's a warming kitchen for food.  AND it's pretty.  See?

We're only renting half of it, but that should still be ample.  Such an answer to prayer.  (And it happened super fast, too--I found out about it on like a Wednesday morning, and found out it was available when we needed it.  That afternoon, we had a snowstorm in DC, so I got out of work a couple hours early, and HTB and I zipped up to Maryland to take a look see before closing time.  And . . . DONE.)  God is awesome.

3)  Photographer.  Another Godsend.  After freaking out over the potential cost of photographers, I emailed a bunch of newly married women in the church to ask for recommendations/estimates on what they paid.  And lo and behold, one of the girls is actually looking to become a professional photographer!  She's been the second shooter on a couple weddings and has done several sessions of engagement photos.  She agreed to give us a crazy low rate, which we snapped up!  So now we get to save beaucoup bucks and help a sister build her business.  Praise the Lord. 

TONS left to do (dress, food, rehearsal dinner, etc.), but it's nice to have some of the big stuff out of the way.