Whose wedding was it, anyway?

Thank you Lady of Laughter!

Some fun pictures!

Thank you to all our friends who have sent us their pictures! WooHoo!

Thank you Emma for these pictures!

Extra, Extra

AMANDA AND JONATHAN

TIED THE KNOT!

Amanda Herel, well, now Amanda Ettinger, married Jonathan Ettinger on Saturday! Jonathan was overhead saying to her, “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum. You came along and everything's startin' to hum.” Amanda responded with, “Still it’s a real good bet the best is yet to come.”
They will head to Belize in a few weeks for their honeymoon. Six days in the jungle, three days on a private island and one day in swingin’ Belize City!
The planning is over, the party is over and the best part is, now the marriage awaits!
In your honor we have made a donation to B.A.R.C. (the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition). Fink is quite happy about this, as she was once a shelter cat herself. This local organization provides a safe haven for homeless animals and finds permanent, loving homes for them. It has a special place in our hearts and maybe one day we will adopt our own puppy there!
In addition to a donation to BARC, we hope you enjoy the specially-made mints in the purple and blue wrapping. It meant so much to celebrate with you today. We hope you had a terrific time, and now you can have fresh breath, too!
We do especially want to thank those who helped us get to this day. First off, our parents, Ken, Eve, and Roxanne. Your unconditional love and support never ceases to amaze us, and we just want to say you did one hell of a great job—just look at how we turned out! We love you so very much.
Without the love and laughs of Andrea Snyder, aptly named our Lady of Laughter, there is no way we could have made it to this day. We look forward to many more laughs along the way.
Best man Kevin Miller and his lovely flower girl, Ruby Miller. What can we say, you’re super-fabulous, dear friends. You will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Lady and Lord of Sanity, Vivian and Jason Herel, let’s always find plenty of time to drink lots of good and even not so good wine—we love enjoying life with you!
Groovy Groomsman Dave Tisue is THE MAN. Your relaxed, loving spirit is something we will be forever grateful to have in our lives.
Alyssa Ettinger, the Lady of Verse. She is the end all, be all. Oh the places we’ll all go together! Thank you for your constant love.
The Flower girl with the purple in her dress, Tori Frank. It means more to us than she’ll ever know that she threw petals down the aisle for our wedding. The torch has been passed.
Our heavenly chuppa holders, Joanna Maharaj, Jaki Florsheim, Olivia Frank, and Nicole Ettinger. Some of you are related to us by blood, but you all are connected to us by your joyous spirit for life. We wouldn’t have wanted to stand up there without you!
Kevin Bartlett. We’ll just write his name again to emphasize how important he is. Kevin Bartlett. Your guidance, joy and never ending love of life has helped shaped not just our wedding but the rest of our lives together. We thank you from the bottoms of our toes, heads and most definitely our hearts. You are a wonder.

Much love to all!

p.s. thank you to our
Lady of Laughter
for the above photo!

We're counting down the hours now

A couple of people have a wedding count down to the second, Jonathan being one of those people. Lady o' Laughter too. It is VERY close to the big day and it's remarkable how time passes by so quickly. The week has been a blur of final touches, biting nails, and sheer exuberance.

Amanda has stayed in contact with her fellow writers from the Iowa Writer's Festival and it was her month to decide what the group would write about. The word she chose for them to write about was ELATION!

Jonathan's friends from work took out both of us to a great tapas place called Salud! It's wonderful to know Jonathan is surrounded by such loving, warm spirits at work. Thank you to all the ladies and gentleman who shared a meal with us!

Amanda's class and their parents will celebrate with us tomorrow morning for a pre-wedding Celebration! When Amanda asked her kids what celebration means they said: "cake, costumes, presents and...a pinata." Hmmmm, that's a good idea!

Keep your fingers crossed that we're both going to be in good health the day of. Sniffles and aches have cropped up here and there.

We read through our ceremony with Kevin and we feel completely confident that this will indeed be OUR ceremony, done in our quirky way. We look forward to seeing you VERY soon!

Signing on the dotted line

We're really doing it! We have our marriage license!

The Best is Still Yet to Come

Jonathan here: Okay, so we're in the home stretch. Only 16 more days until the big day. I'm told that Amanda's final fitting is this Friday. I still have no idea what her dress looks like and having received too many conflicting descriptions from the Lady of Laughter I am unable to form any clear picture in my head. While the temptation is certainly there to hack Amanda's email and find pictures, I honestly can't wait to see her on our wedding day.

Meanwhile the ladies in my office have all insisted upon taking me out for snacks and drinks next Wednesday. Very sweet.

Just about everyone has returned their response cards, and we are so glad that so many friends and family are able to join us on our wedding day.

Did I mention that it's only 16 more days? I can hardly wait.

Amanda here: The ladies at my work place gave me a "Yay you're getting married party." It was lovely. Thank you to them!

Also we want to send a big thank you to the Lady of Laughter for taking pictures of us this past weekend. We had a whirl wind tour of Brooklyn! You'll see those pictures on the big day!

Marathon Day

Yesterday, at 26 days to go, we watched a 26 mile race...somehow fitting. Even as a bystander, the New York Marathon is an amazing thing to be even a small part of. Standing at mile 8, outside the Atlantic Center train station, thousands of runners passed by as we cheered. Most of the marathoners wear their names on their shirts, so we can encourage them as they run. As we called their names, "Way to go Jimbo, Katie, Pablo, Stan, Melissa...," they thanked us by smiling, waving, or just simply running by. Anyone who knows Amanda knows that they definitely heard us.

So, we just wanted to thank all of our friends and family for their encouragement since we announced our engagement this past June, and as we run through the next 26 days ahead. Our next marathon starts at Bubby's on December 1st and the course for this one passes through far more than the five boroughs of New York City and has no specific finish line. We can't wait to begin this journey, surrounded by our friends and family to cheer us on.