New venue, new date!

Hi everyone! Wow, it has been far too long since we have updated what is going on with the wedding! First things first, we have decided to have the reception where we met - Church (the bar, not the place of worship!). This comes after much discussion about how to make our wedding the most fun and most meaningful it can possibly be - and what better place to celebrate our nuptials than at the very place that we first laid eyes on each other? We think this will be very special, and it has so much meaning to us, (and will also keep us from getting ridiculously in debt to have our reception somewhere that feels a little too stuffy for us anyways). The people at Church have been super accommodating and are going to allow us a lot of room to do what we want, how we want it done. We have free reign over decor, music, everything! We are also going to be able to work with their chef and create a personalized menu filled with our favorite things! Church also has a parking lot so, if the Red Sox are not playing at home that day, parking will be easy and free! Alternatively, we will run a shuttle from the ceremony site to the reception, which is not very far. So there that is! The ceremony at St. Thomas Aquinas and the reception at Church!
Also, due to the availability of ceremony times on Sundays (which are much better than Saturdays due to the Mass schedule) and our desire to pay for an open bar - we have decided to move the date to Sunday 09/19/10 - the day after our original date. We hope this will not mess up any one's travel plans, and hope that our out of town guests take advantage of a Saturday night in Boston to enjoy our wonderful city!
As you can see, planning remains full steam ahead, with a little more than a year to go. We have a lot of the details planned out in our head, and are working on getting those things together and to fruition.
We have been able to secure DJ Brian (of Love Night at Common Ground fame) as our DJ for the reception, which is going to be amazing! Going to Love Night has been a favorite past time of ours, and is something that we love to do with our friends, so having Brian supply the tunes is going to be perfect! As a matter of fact - the night before Matty proposed we were at Common Ground to do some dancing, and he actually had the ring with him, but missed his window to pop the question and decided to wait for us to be alone! So sweet!
We have been watching the Tour de France, as is our annual tradition, and have found some inspiration for our cupcakes in the hills of France. Matty had the awesome idea of making the cupcakes create rolling green hills, and to put our cupcake topper (which will be us on bikes) riding the trail! He is so crafty!
We are also talking about making the reception area look like the Blue Bayou restaurant at my favorite place in the world, with pretty Asian inspired lanterns strung about. I have found some great lanterns in our wedding colors on-line, at a great price too!
Thanks to the wonderful eye of Ms. Jeanne Jo, we have been getting all sorts of great DIY ideas from craft blogs and Martha Stewart, and cannot wait for her to get back to the East Coast so all of the bridesmaids can get crafting!
Dress shopping is also on the horizon, and though everything is going to be a secret - right down to the cut, I have found an amazing website which fits my personality to a tee, and I just have to share it with you!
We can't wait to see all of this come together and to share our immense love for each other with you next Fall! Thanks for following us, and there will be a lot more to come soon, so check back!!
If there is anything that would be helpful for you that we can post - please leave a comment and let us know!

Lots of love,
Stef and Matty