We set a date! I called The Wake Robin and gave them my credit card for the $1,000 deposit, which is also the site fee, and we’re booked for Sept. 6, 2008.

It is so wonderful to have a date and a location set. I feel like I can relax a little now. I mean, we have a year and a half. But I really wanted to make sure we could get the place we wanted on the date we wanted.

We still have to sit down and come up with a contract, but I’m not in a rush to do that. The deposit is fully refundable until we sign the contract. Oh, and if we pay in full by the end of the year, they’ll take 5% off the top. So that would save us tax, just about.

I am so excited to have a date!

Here is the text of the announcement:

The cutline on the photo is:

James Clark and Jennifer Kronholm are the first engaged couple to work at The Lakeville Journal.

And the story:

Kronholm, Clark announce wedding plans

A September 2008 wedding is planned.

(I’m annoyed that the paper doesn’t post Family & Friends announcements on the Web site, so I had to retype this whole thing.)

Marsden, the arts and entertainment editor at our paper, came out yesterday to take some photos of us for our engagement announcement. I love being the editor of the Family & Friends page; the announcement is going to appear exactly as I want it to.

Here’s the photo we’re using:

We’re so happy with it.

We met with Shaffin at The Wake Robin Inn. Not only is the place perfect, but they will give us an amazing price break for being local. They offer three packages, standard prices ranging from $99 to $139. For us, the top package will be only $99. That means we can afford our 100 people! And this is before negotiating anything. We didn’t talk details, but they penciled us in for the Saturday after Labor Day, 2008.

We didn’t tell them this, of course, but they’re the only place we’re considering. Mom insisted I check out The Interlaken, but they’re both more expensive. Even before you consider the break the Wake Robin is giving us.

Also, the Wake Robin is just more our type of place. It’s less pretentious, and the owners, Shaffin and Michael, are so community minded. Michael is president of the Chamber of Commerce and they are always hosting community events at the Inn. It’s important to James to keep as much of our money local as possible and there is no one I would rather give it to.

I came across an idea last night, in one of the bridal magazines Sharon gave me, that I really like, so I wanted to be sure to write it down: leaving goodie bags in out-of-towners’ hotel rooms. The magazine, of course, had really expensive goodies in it, but I bet I could come up with something cheap. Maybe cut out write ups the paper does on local restaurants, photocopy some maps, stick in some cookies or candies or something from one of the local shops.

I hope people will stay at the Inn. Provided we do our reception there (I’m pretty sure we will, barring extreme expense, which shouldn’t happen — I hear they have a discount for locals).

I was thinking about cash bars, too. Mom said she liked the $139 per person package the Inn offers, which includes 5 hours of open bar. The people on The Knot think they’re horrible and you should never make your guests pay for drinks. But at $139 per person, we can only have 71 guests (assuming we only spend $10,000 on the reception, and I really don’t want to spend any more than that). As a guest, I’d prefer an open bar, but if I have to pay, hey, that’s better than no alcohol.

Maybe we can go with just beer and wine. I haven’t talked to anyone at the Inn yet, but I bet that would save a bundle.

So my mom sent me an email today freaking out because Sharon told her we’re going to have 150 people at our wedding. I really said that we want about 100 and that our guest list was at about 115, but James said he thought it was more like 150. Sigh.

Anyway, she wrote saying that if we want to have our reception at The Wake Robin Inn we’re going to have to do some major cutting because she and Dad can’t chip in more than *a lot more than I ever expected*.

Are you kidding? That’s awesome!

So I wrote her back and clarified and pinned her down on the amount. I can’t believe it. James and I figure if we save $500 a month between now and September 2008, we’ll have $9,000. That makes a pretty healthy budget. I never dreamed I’d have so much to spend!

And I feel a lot better knowing what we have to work with.

We celebrated with my family today at Kris’s St. Patrick’s Day party. It was so good to see everyone. Val brought champagne and John gave us whiskey. It was fun.

Sharon brought me a whole bag of bridal magazines. She and Dan got engaged around Christmas and have picked St. Clement’s Castle for their reception. I think the service is going to be at Sharon’s church, but I’m not sure on that. Anyway, their wedding will be March 2008, so we’re just six months or so behind them.

Sharon was so sweet to ask me if I still wanted to be her bridesmaid even though I have my own wedding to plan now. Of course I do! I’m always the reader at my friends’ weddings. I’ve never been a bridesmaid.

It’s so nice, though, to have someone to talk to about all this wedding stuff.

Do you have any idea how many Web sites there are dedicated to weddings? It’s absolutely insane.

A guy we work with gave me a save the date magnet he got from a couple he knows (they changed the date, so the magnet is useless). I love it! We are totally doing that. But the real reason he gave me the magnet was the Web site on the bottom: The Knot.

I checked it out and I am totally hooked! I browsed a whole bunch of invitations and saved a bunch of styles I liked. James is going to design ours, but it helps to have some ideas going in.

I also looked at a lot of dresses. I’m not going to try anything on any time soon (we’re not getting married until September of next year), but it’s so fun to look. I definitely like the tight bodice with a big skirt and a long train. I’m not entirely sure how I want the back to look, but I want something interesting, since everyone will be staring at it through the service.

But, oh, those beautiful dresses are expensive. James asked me how much I was going to spend on a dress, and I said, “Hopefully not more than the ring.”

I’d really like to spend $500, but I feel like that might be difficult to do. But not more than $1,000. That would be criminal.

Looking at the prices of the dresses freaked me out a little bit. The invitations were managable, most around $1 each, but the dresses! We don’t have a budget yet and I don’t see how we’re ever going to afford to do anything. I just got a debt consolidation loan to pay off my credit cards, and I really don’t want to wrack up balances again. I’d love to be able to pay for everything in cash (or at least pay off the balance every month). That’s going to make it tight.

James and I got engaged in Mexico.

They said on the ship (they have a shopping consultant to help you spend your money) that you can bring back as many loose gemstones as you want without having to pay any duty or tax on them. So James and I thought we would take a look, see if we found any diamonds we liked, then bring them back and eventually get them set for an eventual engagement.

We told the saleswoman what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend, and she started hemming and hawing, saying, “Very difficult.” Then her manager brought over this ring, and it was exactly what we wanted and it fit perfectly (and we could afford it, sorta). James started whispering with the saleswoman and the next thing I knew, he was on one knee, proposing in the middle of the jewelry shop.

I cried, if you couldn’t tell from the picture.