HONEY MOON BLOG! FROM THE ROAD!

Check out our sister site rovrluv.blogspot.com!
We are uploading pictures and writing a road log of our travels as often as we can find service in the big sky country.

Thanks to our wonderful friends and family for making our wedding day truly incredible! We are so grateful for all of your hard work and dedication to a do it yourself wedding! :-)
Cara- my best friend in the whole wide world!
Chris
Pedr
Rebecca
Marty
Alysa
Brandt
Solveig
Seth
Judy
John
Alexis
Tariq
Kim
Brian
Janet
Melissa
Shannon
Matt
Andrew
Lauren
Judith
Homer
MOM and DAD Guptill!
Mom and Dad Williamson!

PLAN C

It has been raining raining raining!! The wedding  ceremony has been moved to my parents house 2024 East Main Street Center Conway New Hampshire 03813! Bring rubber boots. It is soggy! ;-) See you tomorrow! It is time to rehearse!

-Allison

Are you moving?

I spent some time this evening trying to shove all of our camping gear we will need on the trip into the random cardboard boxes in the garage. After much stuffing, the boxes proved to be inadequate so a run to Staples was needed. 

I arrived at Staples and was surrounded by shipping boxes- a whole aisles worth! But they all came in bundles of 3 or 5 boxes... not one box. But a little tag said that you could purchase just one, but you had to ask....

You can see where this is going... The lady in the shipping center didn't have any of the packages opened already- I had to go get one for her to open. Only to find out that she had no way of knowing how much to charge. This went on for a while. I stood up at the front, clogging up the one open register while employees ran around looking for someone else who knew what to charge me. 

While we were waiting, the lady at the register inquired, "Are you moving?" referring to my assorted stack of huge boxes.

"No. It's for my honeymoon."

It is not a quick conversation... but we had the time.

You should see all of the stuff in my kitchen right now- it is a Tetris nightmare. But I can't wait to be out there on the road and camping! :-D

wedding license paperwork silliness

Marriage License Day

Waiting and waiting at the Chesterfield town office....

Tada!

Rain, rain go away!

This is getting ridiculous. I have never been so aware of the amount of daily rain and thunderstorms we have been having as I am this summer. Is it just me, or has it been unusually rainy? I am hoping that it will be all rained out very very soon.

(okay, turns out there is a hurricane.... this is what happens when you don't have t.v. or read the news. I only feel a tiny bit ridiculous and uninformed.)

Where to stay and how to get there

Where to stay?

Since the Mount Washington Valley is my hometown, I have never needed to stay in any of the fine hotel accommodations in and around the valley, so it is difficult for me to recommend one in particular. I have included a link titled the MT Washington Valley Guide created by the Chamber of Commerce which is very complete and can tell you much if not all of what you might ponder as far as places to stay, things to see etc. 

How to get there?

As far as directions, I recommend using the Google map included on the page (or your personal GPS) and entering these addresses as the "Directions TO" option. 

For the Wedding Ceremony use:

"1734 Main street Center Conway NH 03813"

 ...and unless you are traveling from Maine, the turn will be on your left. And there will be signage. Don't worry.

For the Reception, take a left out of the entrance and drive less than a mile. My parents house is on the left, with a large front yard/field and a long dirt driveway. It will be the place with the tent. ;-)

oh, I forgot to tell you...

1964 Land Rover = no power steering, no power brakes, and no windshield wiper motor... 

Love,

Dave

:-)

Over the River and through the woods

The next two weekends are the bachelorette and bachelor parties. We are all off to the woods for camping, fires, presumably some alcoholic beverages and fun with our friends etc. Girl fun I think includes kayaking and canoeing while Boy fun includes a pig on a spit. In any case... We are both in serious need of kicking back. This will be so good for us. (Sorry Wilbur). 

Our thoughts on wedding gifts

This feels like a rather pretentious thing to be writing about, but Dave and I do have some thoughts about wedding gifts and registries. We feel that since we already own the basic items that people - who perhaps haven't been living on their own- would register for, we began to think outside the traditional Registry box. 

We have struck a golden idea! We are dreaming of clearing (some of) our 32 acres of beautiful rolling woodlands to build our "Forever House" in southern New Hampshire in the not so distant future. What could be more wonderful than to watch a young apple orchard bloom alongside our marriage and family?! Our thoughts exactly! So, if you wish to help us build this orchard we would be delighted! We will, when the time comes, plant your young apple tree on our property reminding and surrounding us daily of your love and support. 

We have already purchased the first two trees, which will make up our altar at the ceremony!  I have learned that apple trees need a different type of apple tree with which to cross-pollinate; they cannot bloom on their own. I think this fact is incredibly symbolic of the union of two people coming together in marriage; represented by two young trees that actually need each other. It is terribly sweet. 

Since the land is not yet cleared and the nursery I've spoken with recommends a spring planting-it seems as if gift certificates to a nursery would be the most logical choice. To make it easy I will recommend one nursery: Miller Nurseries out of NY. They will provide shipping service when it is time to plant the trees. I will post a link to their website under the "Things we Love" section.

in the making

So, you probably have noticed that our Save the Date cards, invitations and RSVP cards were not your ordinary variety. We had a blast putting them together and finding them. However, since they were so individualized, we found that there was little time or room to explain what was so special about them. 

The Save the Date cards were hand painted by myself and my mother, Laura on the porch of the Cadillac Shack, on Hopson's plantation in Clarksdale, MI. (Check out their site!) The same shack where David and I spent three life-centering days the winter before. 

The invitation process began with David and I painting with oil on two separate pieces of heavy art paper each about the size of a poster-board. We painted in the  company of each other, but each on our own piece. An amazing fact about the two of us as artists is that we were both - prior to having met each other - drawn to painting fields. Not "landscapes", but fields. Our eyes are drawn to the exaggerated lines of harvested cornfields, the contrasts and the contours of open spaces.

We were speechless when we discovered this about each other. It was astonishing in ways that I don't think anyone else will ever fully understand, but to us- it was a sign.

When it came time to paint our invitations, we knew exactly what it had to be. Fields. And it was also the first time we had painted together. 

On each invitation is a piece of David's field and a piece of my field, cut simultaneously from the originals while they were stacked together. This is our way of sharing with the people who are closest to us, a very intimate and meaningful part of ourselves as we invite you to celebrate and witness our marriage.

And of course, the RSVP cards also have their own story. I couldn't possibly begin to tell all of them, but I will say that David and I bought many of them at antique and secondhand stores on our trip out West last year and at various other points since our engagement. The rest were purchased by my mom and I on our trip to MI this spring. We retraced the path that David and I travelled the previous year and returned to the very large antique store (Boho's) in Memphis, TN to purchase more postcards from their collections. 

back to the drawing board...

We have taken the honeymoon adventure to the next level and have initiated Plan B, which involves:

• A 4-day transcontinental railroad ride
• Blind faith
• A sense of humor
• Purchasing a 1964 Series II Land Rover, located in Washington state and driving it East. It comes complete with bench seats and a pick-up cab (not shown)
  

Is that cool or what?

$4.02 a GALLON!!!!

The plan, as it stands now, is to travel cross country in our 1992 Land Rover, Range Rover name "Cheeks" to Glacier National Park! Doesn't that sound like a ton of fun? We certainly think it sounds like fun! But as many of you will have already discerned from the title to this post, it is starting to look like not such a good idea. I mean at this point - the point where gas costs over four dollars a gallon - you start to rethink such an ambitious, three week, driving cross country plan.