And Then A Thing Occured To Me...

I hate getting near the end of the week. Well, I like it in terms that the weekend is coming up, but I hate that it seems everyone puts off their work until now, which given my function at work means more work for me. But I suppose that's how things go.

We've been thinking more and more about the date of the wedding and the "reception" party. I mentioned previously that we were considering June 26 to be the date for the party and at that time I talked about some of my concerns. In light of that, a few people mentioned that we possibly put the party off until later in the year, say early Fall. Even though I really like the June 26 date, I'm thinking the wisdom of holding the party later in the year might win out.

There are a few reasons for this, some of them I've mentioned before. June is the beginning of convention season here in Chicago, as well as festival season. For a good three months straight there is always something going on in the city, and most likely downtime. That also means that hotel prices will be high, and that catering companies will be booked, and rooms will be expensive. Now I'm not looking to be cheap, but I'm also not looking to put my friends and family out to come celebrate with us.

We could move the date up, but then we run into a concern of will it still be cold (this is Chicago Weather, the city that thinks it's reasonable to snow in April…) and whether or not we have the time/money to pull it off. So if we can't move it up, and we don't like the date we originally thought of, then all that's left is to move it further out. Want to know the added benefit to doing this would be? Not having the party on June 26 leaves that day wide open for us to do something else, like… possibly flying to Canada for a weekend retreat and exchanging vows. ;)

So that's where we are right now. We had to slow down the planning a bit because the fiancé's car needed some repairs and I've been distracted by a new game, but we'll get this planning back on track soon enough!

Rounding Out The When

All this planning for the wedding and we haven't even scratched the surface. With the decision to have a private ceremony or whatnot away (but still not knowing where exactly) out of the way, we decided that we want to have a party here in town, something that essentially amounts to a reception. We want to do that here in Chicago because this city is very important to us and because all our friends and family can easily get here.

But that then leaves us with the question of when to have said party. Our current thought line is to have it on June 26, 2010. June 26 is our anniversary, so the date holds meaning for us, and it will be a Saturday, which makes it even more appealing. A Saturday in June in Chicago… sounds nice.

The potential problems: Pride typically falls that weekend. And checking the planned events for the city this year that is the weekend that Taste of Chicago opens downtown. Both of these things have upsides and major downsides. On the upside, there could be plenty for our friends and family to do while in town. If they make a weekend out of it, they could stop by the Taste and sample some of the local faire or they swing up to the Pride festival for some gay flavor. We could also spend the Sunday after with everyone at the Pride Parade, which would be a blast! However, both Taste and Pride draw pretty big tourist crowds, which could cause some congestion downtown (which would be crazy for those not familiar with Chicago) and would also mean higher priced hotel rooms.

I really, really like the idea of having our party on the 26th, and I think it's important for us to pick a solid date sooner rather than later so that we can get into the nittier parts of planning, but with all these potential other things to consider, I think we need just a little more time to mull it over.

Weekend Update With... Just Me

This weekend we decided to have people over to our place for fun and frivolity. We hadn't had an official house warming party, and this technically still wasn't one, but everyone that came over brought drinks and ended up leaving plenty, so I suppose that counts as gifts, and thus a house-warming party!

One of our friends wanted to watch SNL before things really picked up, so we decided to flip on the TV and pull up chairs. My TV is a bit old, and has issues with reception from time-to-time. Usually, you just jiggle the back where the cable and coaxial cable connector meet, and you're all set, but on this particular occasion when we jiggled the cable jack, the whole coax thing came off the back of the TV. Completley. Just popped right the hell off.

I would say that I was pissed, but it's an old TV that pretty much sucks anyway. We can still use it for video games and movies and such, but there's just no way to get the cable to it now.

Me being the techy I am said that this would be the perfect chance to get a new 1080p, 120 MHz refresh, 40-inch delicious viewing box. But after talking with the better half, we both realized that we don't necessarily need the TV. Don't get me wrong, we want it, but with all the TV shows we watch being posted on-line (except True Blood, but that's what Bit Torrent is for... not that I would ever support less than legal means of obtaining digital media...), we've decided to try and go TV-less for the time being.

This could be an interesting experiment, for sure, but we'll see. The only reason I want the big, new, shiny TV is for my games, but I've found myself unable to pull myself away from Spore and Warhammer Online on my PC, and if the better half can watch his TV shows on his computer (without the need for a DVR, mind you) then why not?

We'll see how this week goes... the credit I have with Dell that I was saving for a new laptop may just get used for a TV instead if I just can't go without.