The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friends....

...like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.








A sneak peek of our wedding on the edge. More to come...

We Did It!

We did it! We tied the knot!

(Come back in a couple weeks for gorgeous photographs from our photographer. And in the meantime, visit our Wedding on the Edge Facebook page to share your own pictures from our wedding!)

Oh Yes, It's Jeff

What Do You Get When Two Introverts Go Traveling?

Lots of pictures of each other, but no pictures together!






Oh, well. Our awesome wedding photographer will make up for that in September!

And since I don't think we've shared a picture of him on this blog yet, and he is most displeased with our oversight.... Here is a picture of a very important family member, indeed:

Cu Gwyn, The Best Cat Ever



Cu says, "All Ur Windowsill R Belong to Us!"

Lillies Among the Lilies

The Lilly kids enjoy an afternoon of drawing and coloring at the Phipps Conservatory Spring Flower Show.

The Beer & Budget Meeting

Rumors have surfaced that every few months, Jeff and I travel to my hometown to visit my parents and hold a "Beer & Budget Meeting" to go over wedding plans and finances.... and that, at these alleged meetings, I ply my parents with alcohol and force them to watch PowerPoint slide shows.

Alas, the rumors are true! In fact, our third Beer & Budget meeting is tomorrow night, and I have the dazzling graphs and animated check-marks to prove it. But before Jeff and I wrap up work for the day and hit the road, I thought I'd share a few choice slides from the 20-slide presentation that I'll be subjecting my parental figures to like Chinese water torture. Enjoy the sneak peek (and thank your gods you don't have a perfectionist for a daughter)!

Bejeweled by the Sea

Water and Rust

Photographs I took one late afternoon during our trip to the Outer Banks earlier this month. An alternate title for this Glimpse of the Edge post might have been, "In which Ali reveals her obsession with beach fences."



Seriously, though, do you ever get hooked on a particular subject and feel the desperate urge to take a thousand pictures of it? ...no? Just me?



Anyway, I think maybe it's the water and rust theme reasserting itself again. There's something about weathered metal grown rough with age and exposure, against the clean, clear blues of the ocean and sky. Not to mention the striped shadow play, the tension of captivity and the frustration of erosion contrasted with the exhilaration of freedom and flight....



Or.... maybe I just think they're pretty.

OBX Wedding Expo SWAG!

As Michael Scott can tell you, SWAG stands for "Stuff we all get!" And it's one of the perks of any expo or convention. Of course, I am not exactly pro pamphlets-you-just-end-up-throwing-out-anyway, far from it! But the amount of information available all in one place — not to mention free samples of yummy food stuffs and more free pens than you could possibly dream — plus being able to interact face-to-face with potential vendors... I have to admit, it was very productive, and more than a little inspiring.

So here's a little taste of Wedding Expo weirdness, spread out on the kitchen table of our hotel suite:





You think that's bad? This is nothing! Over breakfast the morning of the Wedding Expo, we very carefully went through the program page by page and highlighted only those vendors and booths we needed or wanted to check out. We'd already nailed down a venue and officiant, and we were well on our way to securing contracts with a photographer and caterer. So what we were primarily looking for by this point were: flowers, cakes, seating and sound equipment rentals, and maybe a DJ or musician, depending on how the budget was looking. Of course, we were going to swing by and sample the food and desserts folks had set out — but we were happy to pass those pamphlets by.

In the end, we did a pretty good job at only taking what we needed. Business cards, pricing sheets and, best of all, reusable treats like tote bags, pens, a wall calendar, music sample CDs, postcards, drinking glasses and an eco-friendly aluminum water bottle. Yeah, okay, and there were some scented candles and chocolate treats in there, too.

All in all, I'd say the OBX Wedding Expo was a big success! Now my task for today is to sit down with all this SWAG and try to sort it into reasonable, organized piles for follow-up.



Wish me luck!

Autumn in the Outer Banks

Right now, Jeff and I are down in the Outer Banks for a long weekend to visit the OBX Wedding Association's Wedding Expo, check out our venue in person and interview with some of our potential vendors!

There will definitely be photos to come (and stories to tell of our adventures), but for now, I thought I'd take you back in time to that then-mysterious journey we took this past September, the Big Fall Wedding Tour 2010. As you all know by now, we're having a beach wedding in my favorite childhood vacation spot: the lovely Outer Banks of North Carolina. Of course, back then this was strictly top-secret classified information, so as not to spoil the surprise of the Save the Dates. Sure, it was kind of an open secret on my side of the family, where folks have been planning days off and rental house reservations for months now — but in theory, anyway, TOP SECRET.

Now the cat's out of the bag, the pelican's on the move (and the sand dollars are slipping down the dunes of our savings and into the ocean of wedding expenses, to take a metaphor too far). So now, of course, I can share with you some pictures of our trip this past fall without giving anything away!

Want to know what our wedding in September is going to be like? Enjoy these glimpses of the edge....



Dune and Sky



Between the Dunes



Leaving the Docks



It's a Buoy!
Sorry. Couldn't resist.



Water and Rust



A Full Moon Rises

The Holly Jolly Lilly Family

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Celebrating Family and Ancestry

Last autumn, Alison and I celebrated Samhain (the druidic holiday of family, ancestry, autumn, and so on) with my kids. I put together a bunch of pictures from that time into a little video with some of my favorite music, "The Maids of Michelstown" by the Bothy Band. What could be better than love, fallen leaves, and pumpkins?

Autumn Water Lily

Filling the Seas

It's already Friday again, and I know you lovely readers out there (all three of you) are just dying to know how our Fall Wedding Tour 2010 trip went this past week. The full story and pictures are on their way, but for now I thought it'd be fun to give you a glimpse or two of some of the sights both wonderful and strange that Jeff and I saw during our journeying.

For instance, this odd event that we were privileged to witness from the deck of a ferry crossing between islands....



Apparently, the military sends a boat out on the second-to-last Thursday of every month to refill the oceans and maintain the sea level so that it conforms precisely to their official maps of the coastline and the relative altitudes of surrounding mountain ranges. On the third Tuesday of every month, they send a different boat out to suck up any water that has melted from the glaciers or been dumped by heavy rainstorms (this is especially important during hurricane season). On some months, this means they send a boat out on a Tuesday to suck up the water, and then two days later send another one out to put the water back.

True story.

Sneak Peak: The Ring

Jeff and I are still on the road, on the blazing trail of the Big Fall Wedding Tour 2010! If all goes well, this little tidbit should automatically post, as we head from the beautiful beaches of the Outer Banks towards Greensboro, NC, where my dashing fiancé will introduce me for the first time to my future mother-in-law. Wish me luck!

In the meantime... I know you've all been waiting for it, so here's a sneak peak at what's coming up soon here at Wedding on the Edge:

Together Moments

First Glimpses

My relationship with Jeff began online, a correspondence between two bloggers both interested in spirituality, meditation and politics.

This was the very first picture of himself that he ever sent to me......






...and this was the very first flower he ever gave me.



(Yes, that's right, a digital, clip-art stargazer lily.)

Introducing: The Happy Couple

Meet the blushing bride....






...and the lucky groom!