Three weeks to go!

The big day is just three weeks away!  We can't wait to see all of you at the wedding!  

Meet the Groomsmen!

Karl's brother Dale is a firefighter in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.  He and his wife, Shannon, have a sweet dog named Rambo.  Dale, Karl, and several other tough guys enjoy annual fishing trips to Canada.  

My (Amanda's) brother, Elsworth, is a librarian in Washington, DC.  We went to library school together, and we were both on the world championship-winning book cart drill team, Dewey, et al For My Baby (shown below, just after sweeping the competition in Chicago in 2005), and on the library school's kickball team.  The last picture in this post was taken while Elsworth was still in the hospital after being born.  Our grandmother, Adrian, is holding him, and the little blonde girl reading to her newborn brother is me!  No wonder he became a librarian!  

Meet the Bridesmaids!

Caitrin and I met right before we started our first year at the College of Saint Benedict, on an orientation canoe trip.  We've been friends ever since; we love to knit, make jam, reminisce, and of course sing our favorite song, "Saint Benedict's Ever."  Caitrin lives in Denver with her daughter, Macie, who is in first grade.  This photo was taken right after our canoe trip, in 1995.

Amanda and I met in library school.  I remember the day we became friends: at a Jail Library Group meeting, we began commiserating about wishing we could live in Star's Hollow.  Soon after, we began a long-standing Tuesday night Gilmore Girls date.  I was lucky to work with Amanda for one year in Monona.  We co-wrote the "Lit Bits" column for the local paper, featuring children's book reviews and personal anecdotes.  The above photo accompanied our column on detective books.  Amanda lives in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, with her husband, Mac, and their ever-expanding collection of furry friends.  We're planning to run the 2009 Madison Marathon together!  

The Proposal

Karl's proposal was so sweet and clever. We had picked out a ring together at an antiques store, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but I never would have thought that he'd do it this way...

Karl and I like to go Geocaching (basically scavenger hunting with a GPS). One day in April, he suggested that we go out and find a few caches. He had written down two sets of coordinates from the geocaching website (or so I thought), both located on Picnic Point. We set off together and found the first set of coordinates way down a muddy bank, near the water. Under a fallen tree was a leaf-covered trash bag. Usually, caches are in metal ammo boxes, so I thought there was no way the bag was it. I told Karl the bag probably held a dead body, but he laughed and told me to take a look. Inside the bag was an elaborate picnic, including flowers and wine. We had our picnic on a rock, and then we went to find the second set of coordinates. The GPS led us out to the very tip of Picnic Point; in order to actually get to the coordinates, we'd have had to go out in the water (which was still icy). I was ready to give up, so I turned around to head back to the truck. Karl was standing there with the ring, smiling. He got down on one knee, said some very sweet things, and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course!