Monday, April 28, 2008

Directions: UPDATED!

UPDATE: Here's a simpler map than those used below. Something substantially like this may be included in the wedding program, if it prints well...


ORIGINAL: Since nearly all of our guests (with a few important exceptions) will have to drive a goodly way to an unfamiliar destination, I felt it important to put up some helpful directions and maps. First, how to get to Berry College: this set of directions I culled from Berry's own website: "Directions to Berry".

From Atlanta:

• Approx. 1 hr., 20 min.
• 72 mi. Take I-75 N to Rome-Canton Exit 290.
• Take left off exit, drive 2.5 mi., then road ends at a light.
• Turn left, then take an immediate right onto Highway 41 North.
• Drive 2.8 mi., then turn right onto Highway 411 exit.
• Drive 17.3 mi., then turn right at light onto East Rome Bypass (Rome Loop 1).
• Drive 8.4 mi., then take right at light (see The Martha Berry Museum) onto Martha Berry Highway (U.S. Highway 27 North)
• Drive 0.7 mi., then turn left into Berry College main entrance

From Birmingham, Alabama:

• Approx. 2 hrs., 15 min.
• 128 mi.Take I-59 North to I-759 at Gadsden
• Take I-759 to 411 N Take 411 North from Gadsden to Centre
• At Centre, take Alabama 9 to Georgia At the Georgia state line
• Alabama 9 will turn into Georgia State 20
• Take Georgia State 20 to Rome At Floyd Medical Center in Rome, turn left onto Highway 27 (Martha Berry Highway)
• Drive on U.S. Highway 27 until you reach the main entrance to Berry College (on left)

From Chattanooga, Tennessee:

• Approx. 1 hr., 30 min.
• 75 mi. Take I-75 South to Exit 312, Highway 53
• Take Highway 53 West through Calhoun to Rome (approximately 25 mi.)
• Turn right onto Rome Loop 1 at the light (see Calvary Baptist Church)
• Turn right at the 3rd light (see The Martha Berry Museum) onto Martha Berry Hwy (U.S. Highway 27 North)
• Drive 0.7 mi., then turn left into Berry College main entrance

Our friends from sundry locales in Georgia will probably do best if they proceed to Atlanta by the most expeditious route they know, then follow the "From Atlanta" directions.

Next, how to get to Frost Chapel for the ceremony and Ford Hall for the reception: Berry's campus is much easier to navigate than the number of turns may seem to indicate, so I've included Google satellite photo maps to provide a more accurate view.


From Berry College entrance to Frost Chapel:

• Turn left (drive 0.4 mi)
• Turn right (drive 131 ft)
• Turn right (drive 69 ft)
• Turn left (drive 0.2 mi)
• Turn right (drive 0.1 mi)
• Turn left (drive 0.3 mi)
• Turn left toward Redmond Gap Rd (drive 3.1 mi)
• Slight right at Redmond Gap Rd (drive 0.5 mi)
• Turn right into the Frost Chapel parking lot; the chapel is easily visible on the hill south of the parking lot.

The maps below show each of the turns in the directions above:


From Frost Chapel to Ford Hall:

• Turn left from the chapel parking lot onto Redmond Gap Rd (drive 0.5 mi)
• Slight left (drive 3.1 mi)
• Turn left (drive 0.3 mi)
• Park in one of the available lots that surround the Ford Complex; Ford Hall is the large building that stands alone at the north of the quad.

The map below shows the final steps of the directions above:


Thursday, April 17, 2008

Four Weeks! Gah!

The wedding is so close now! And we still have so much to do! Four weeks out, David and I are very excited about our wedding and the way that everything is just coming together! We have just enjoyed another fun wedding shower (this one in Birmingham with David's family and friends), where I got to meet lots of people who are important to David. We also got some lovely presents and generally had a fun time!

We also spent last Friday visiting Rome to do wedding stuff: namely, to meet with our Wedding Director, Mrs. Cathy Cauthen (love her!) and have the trial run of my wedding hair at Blonde on Broad, a beautiful salon on Broad Street in Rome. I have Erin McCrary to thank for recommending Dru, my hairstylist, who is great and so fun! Before my hair appointment, we got to meet my brother Billy for lunch (very fun) and David and I visited Myrtle Hill Cemetery, an incredibly cool terraced hilltop graveyard that somehow I never found time to visit while I was in college in Rome.

Finally, you should all be beginning to receive your wedding invitations right about now. Aren't they pretty? See you all at the wedding in four weeks!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Bridal Showers Galore!


I take up my pen....or keyboard.....to write you again, my friends, this time to recount the wonderful time had by all at our first wedding shower! On March 29, at Salem Baptist Church in McDonough, GA (my parents' church), the women of the Fowler and Norman families, plus lots of family friends, gathered for our first shower. Since it was not a couples' shower, David didn't get to attend, but he still gets to enjoy all the presents! The shower was hosted by Mrs. Cindi Goss, my mom's best friend and my second "mom," my Aunt Kathy, and Mrs. Dee Wise, Mrs. Debbie Noble, and Mrs. Laurie Brown, all also friends of my mom and the family. All three of my grandmas came, as well as my Aunt Robin and cousin Meredith. My great future mother-in-law, Mrs. Debra, and sister-in-law, Pamela, came all the way from Alabama! There were many other family friends as well, plus two of my four attendants: my maid of honor and sister, Bethany, and the lovely Laura Nix. Laura got all artistic and made my quite fetching "bow"quet for the rehearsal, seen above. She did a fabulous job!

We received so many amazing presents that it is impossible to list them all or do them justice, but I will say that we received so much that we had to go back to Target the Monday after the shower to add more things to the registry, just so people would have things to buy! We received a beautiful set of pots and pans from Grandma Fowler, a vacuum from the Gosses that we are using already, eight plates of our nice china from Mom and Dad, and some exquisite monogrammed napkins from Mrs. Susan Ford. These are merely a few of the amazing presents we got, and we were so overwhelmed!

We are really looking forward to our next wedding shower, which will be on April 12 in Birmingham, Alabama, with David's family and friends. He is especially excited about this one, because it's a couples' shower so he gets to be there. I've told him that he can open all of the presents, since I opened them all at the other party. Well, that's all for today's post: to any wedding guests who are reading this, we can't wait to see you at the wedding on May 17!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Magnets!

If you are viewing this blog, then you have probably received one of our Save-the-Date magnets! We were so happy to receive the magnets as a gift from Geographics, one of my dad's customers. We think they are gorgeous and we hope that you all love them just as much! Be on the lookout for invitations soon!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

We shot up a Macy's!

and a Target, too, with one of these babies: a store registry phaser... um... scanner.

We actually had a great deal of fun, picking out dishes and towels and such. It was also a challenge to try to balance between what we need now (and will match the eggshell walls) and what we'll want later (when we have a home we can paint). We've also got a good bit of research still to do, particularly regarding cookware and vacuum cleaners -- which are not all created equal, but are nonetheless too expensive to replace readily when they are annoying but still functional. Still, we managed to get the bulk of the job done, and you can check out the results by clicking the registry links over on the left sidebar.

Of course, the real fun was the scanner, which was primarily my job. Perhaps it was undignified of me to pad down the aisle with it in the two-hand TV cop grip*, and to demand that Katie hold up the targets to see how accurate I could be from a distance, but I blame the store: if you don't want me to play like it's a gun, don't give it a grip and a trigger. In case anyone wonders, the Target scanners are vastly superior to the Macy's scanners: they're lighter, newer, easier to use, and accurate past eight feet. And the Macy's scanner had a battery life shorter than Katie's phone, compared to which the mayfly is venerable.

* The Palm-Supported Grip, aka the "cup and saucer grip", is what I was using. I recommend it.

Engagement Pictures! UPDATED!

(Originally posted 12/3/2007; also posted at The Oak Hermitage.)

So, yesterday we frolicked about the Georgia Botanical Garden for our engagement photos. Other than the one in which I make a goofy face, they're all quite splendid! Our photographer is Katherine Birkbeck (KB Photography); she has a good eye and is very easy to work with, not at all intrusive or dictatorial.

Here are the ones she liked: Katie & David's Engagement Photos.

Which one is your favorite, dear reader?

UPDATE: The link above is to our photographer's blog, but this one is to a much more extensive photo gallery: Katie & David's Engagement Photos. Here are some samples to whet your appetite...

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Of Rice and the Wanton Slaughter of Birds

You've heard this, of course: don't throw rice at weddings, because it kills birds. This is, incidentally, a lie: an "urban legend" (Sorry, Dr. Henken!) perpetuated by Ann Landers and the Bird Seed Industrial Complex. (Ann Landers, at any rate.) Skeptical? Then consult the Snopes.com article on the subject: "Is rice bad for birds?"

This, then, is a fair warning: if we decide to have our guests pelt us with rice as we leave, let none condemn us as persecutors of our feathered friends.