Still trying to catch up to reality....

Thank you all for the wonderful memories that helped make our day so amazing! Nick and I are still trying to get back into the swing of normal life. We have made the move into a very cute apartment on Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach. We are still working on getting everything moved in and unpacking has been a daily chore. We just ordered our Christmas cards yesterday, so make sure to keep your eye out for them in the next couple weeks. We love you all! Thank you!

Getting close!!!

So we are exactly 2 months out from the wedding... WOW!!!

The last 8 months have flown by sooo quickly! This week will be filled with final decisions on the look of the reception, music to be played, and the wording for the invitations (which will hopefully be going out by early next week)!! We have our first bridal shower this weekend and we're also in the planning stages of all the other fun events! Looking forward to our day and hope you all have a wonderful week!

Engagement Dinner Memories!

So we finally got everybody together for the official "meet and greet" of the families! We all went down to Papadakis Taverna in San Pedro for a whole lot of Greek food and great entertainment! Papadakis is known for its Greek dancing, plate throwing and glass breaking. The belly dancer that came through the dining room accepting tips made for some really great photos! One of their servers had such an amazing opera style voice and they have a resident tap dancer extraordinaire to keep you entertained throughout the evening.

Between the cheese and olive platters, the Tiropita and Spanakopita, the pickled octopus and the stuffed grape leaves, we were all feeling a little stuffed ourselves! And then the server wanted to take our order! Ha! Needless to say, there were quite a few take home boxes that evening. And then came dessert. Let me start off describing the reaction to the beautifully displayed dessert tray that had been brought to the table. No one was hungry. The restaurant had already very kindly brought out a 3 inch cube of carrot cake for Nickos and my engagement that had already made it around the entire table once before the dessert tray had been shown. No one was hungry. Nick then asks the kind gentleman serving us if he would bring out a small sampling of the desserts on the tray.... Before I can even begin to object, the man jets off to the kitchen and leaves me looking at Nick like he's lost his mind. Nick continues to assure me that he asked for "a small sampling of the desserts for everyone to enjoy." To this, I continuously reply that he just ordered a whole piece of everything on that tray. Nick denies this... adamantly. So, when the nice gentleman brings out 2 (yes, 2!) very large trays of desserts for everyone, none of us can believe our eyes. And still, none of us are hungry! So after we eat what we can force on top of the wonderful meals we had already eaten, more to-go boxes were added to everyone's stacks! The food was so good. It was probably too good. We were stuffed.

Thank you again, Dioni. Thank you for everything. You're amazing.

Love always,
Nick and Nikki

Plans coming along nicely!

Well, we're only a little over 6 months out from the big day! 

We got to go and decide on our cake this week! Rossmoor Bakery has some of the most beautiful cakes and their pastry chefs are artists with the frosting and decorating. We got to try samples of six different flavor and color combinations of frostings, cakes and fillings. Butter pecan, strawberry, and bailey's (oh my!), raspberry, and dolce de leche fillings, whipped cream and cream cheese frostings, and white, chocolate, and red velvet cakes. Mom and I decided we weren't hungry for lunch anymore. We're still deciding if we want a tier of sugar free for our one year anniversary cake or if we're going to do something very different but cute and adorable for the big day. You'll just have to wait and see! 

We've also met with and booked the photographer this week and are currently working on deciding the flower arrangements for everything. The bridesmaid dresses are the next shopping day planned and that will help keep the ball rolling. 

-Bear and Boo

One Day Three Rings

Today became a banner day in the lives of N Squared (Nickos and Nikki).  In the morning we decided to just go and look at some wedding rings at the store that Nikki's engagement ring came from.  

When we got there we made an agreement we were just going to look and not going to buy anything.  However, so as life goes, one thing leads into another and you immediately fall in love and have something for the rest of your life.  Now we have wedding rings and we are very happy with them!!

The Bear

(Nickos)

Welcome to our blog!

Hey everyone! 

I've decided to start a blog to keep everyone informed about the newest updates in the life of Nick and Nikki! We are currently getting a lot of the details in order and starting to make good progress in the planning of our wedding! Hope you enjoy hearing about us and please feel free to comment and message back!

Love always, 

Nick and Nikki

BEST TWO DAYS OF PLANNING EVER!

So Mom and I went shopping at David's Bridal on Tuesday to check out the different dress styles that looked good on me and to get a feel for what kind of a dress I was looking for. The first dress I tried on was beautiful. Absolutely could have been totally happy with it for the wedding. It was this giant poofy cinderella ballroom perfection of a dress with a bodice covered in sparkles. (And I do mean COVERED!) It was ridiculous, but it very much fit "me". So after taking some photos and enjoying its enormousness, the snow beast came off and the next dress went on. Completely different in every way and just as perfect. My mom and I knew we were in trouble at this point! It was extremely intricately beaded and sparkled and detailed with a beautiful chapel train. After looking at this one for another ten minutes or so, we moved on to the next style. That one failed immediately. It was funny. I walked out of the dressing room carrying the front, stood up on the podium in front of all the mirrors, let the bottom fall to take a look at it, and nixed it. Mom and I almost simultaneously said "nu-uh". It was great. We laughed a bit. The next few dresses were pretty, but just not the right dress. The next memorable one was a slinky sexy number that had a beautiful rucheting gathering the fabric to the side at my hip. It was a beautiful dress, I just thought that it looked like someone had made the dress too big and just pulled it all over and pinned it. Not for me. So by the time the store is almost closing, I have 4 dresses that I love. I could have been happy with any of them. One of the other brides that was trying on dresses told me that I would like a few of them, but when you put on the dress you're going to wear down the aisle, you just know it. So the last dress I tried on that day is the most beautiful dress I've ever seen. I can't go into details about it (because Nick reads this too), but you'll see it at the wedding! They added on the tiara and veil so I could see how I liked it and I was so in love with it. I knew it was mine. So excited!!

So Wednesday, I finally got to take Nick over to see the two locations that I liked best. One was a grand lobby with a three-story spiral staircase. It was one of those places that is just so perfectly designed for wedding photos. There were a few problems that would need to be worked out with this location, one of them being that we couldn't even book it until they found out their schedule for the theatre -- which wouldn't allow us to even know the dates available until after April... Yeah. We didn't really want to wait that long to let everyone know when they were going to need to be available. Also, Nickos really didn't like needing to wait that long to find out if it would even be available to rent. Off to the next place: Lakewood Country Club. This is a golf course right near my parents' house. There's a huge lawn area out in front of everything that would be where the ceremony would take place. When you first walk inside the building, it feels a little small, but in a quaint kind of way. There's a bride's room upstairs for all the girls to get ready that day. The reception room is a good size location. It has room for about 200 guests and included the dance floor and a bunch of other details that the other location didn't. There's a lake in the golf course that we can take a few pictures at and there's plenty of outside areas and beautiful scenery for photos. Nickos and I met with the catering director, went over everything, got all our questions answered and left. I'm thinking we're done for the day, we'll talk about it and book it later if we decide we like it. Well, instead we talked about it then, called my mom who offered to call the director and make the down payment, and we booked it. Yay!! So everything is official and we've got the location and date: Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at the Lakewood Country Club! 

We're so excited and can't wait for this wonderful occasion to celebrate our love with all of you! Save the date announcements will be coming soon!

Love always,

Nick and Nikki