Officially Engaged!

Last weekend my family drove and flew in for an engagement ceremony at MJ's parents house. It was the official Indian engagement, even though he proposed 4 months ago! 14 of my family members came in for the event. I was so touched! MJ's family had quite a few family friends there as well. They had redone the kitchen cabinets and counters, done some landscaping, and bought a new living room rug. It was a really nice ceremony and everyone had a good time. Lots of food and mingling and everyone looked so nice. MJ even surprised my brother with a birthday ice cream cake! There was even a cute moment where MJ got down on one knee to put my engagement ring on my finger again in front of everyone! Tee hee MJ and I thought it was good practice for the wedding - even though there were only about 30 people there, everyone was staring at us for the whole ceremony and there were probably 10 cameras/video cameras! Luckily I'd gotten my hair blow dried for the first time and tried to be as girly as possible by painting my toes and nails, and generally beautifying. My parents did so much work preparing for the event, so I'm glad it's over and everything went so smoothly.

I think we're going to sign a contract with a DJ this weekend. MJ has talked to the DJs and done all the research and it looks like we're going to go with the first one we ever talked to anyway!

I still never heard back from the decorator after we last met her. I sent her a final list of items we wanted and she never responded, despite multiple follow-ups. We're still hoping to be able to sign with her, but this isn't a good sign :(

My mom and I leave for India next Saturday (5/1). Hopefully the ash in Europe will be cleared up by then, since we're supposed to meet in Amsterdam and do the last leg together. I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much has to be done after we get back. We'll only have 3 months, but we'll need to send invitations, work on our first dance, register, find an apartment and move, take care of the legal marriage, book the honeymoon, and work through all the final details of the wedding day.

I'm still hoping to work a photo booth into the reception or cocktail hour. My brother has photo booth software on his laptop that we all played with when MJ and I were there a few weeks ago. We had such a blast! You can add your own backdrops and effects, so we were having a great time in my parents' living room, pretending to swim or climb the Eiffel Tower! I can just imagine how much fun our guests would have taking pictures of themselves. The hardest thing is to figure out how to make it work logistically. Do we have someone stand near the laptop and push the button for people? Do we strap it to a table of some kind and leave instructions for people? Do we create our own backdrop or use one of theirs? How do we ensure it's not stolen, dropped or has food spilled on it? We'll see if we can pull it together in time :)