Amber and Devin’s Merry-Age

We both had a splendid time with all of you. Thank you so much for being a part of our celebration!

Don’t forget to UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS! You can follow this link to add pictures. Please be patient – our server is on a home DSL line so it may take some time to upload. If you have lots of photos, we would love it if you could burn them onto a CD and mail the CD to us at 3905 S. Hudson St. Seattle, WA 98118.

We are writing this from the Majestic Inn at Anacortes, and our deck doors are open to let in the morning breeze. We can see the bustling Port of Anacortes and hear the sounds of gulls and dock workers. We are off today to Lopez Island, which is part of the San Juan Islands:

Thank you all again, so much, for being a part of our lives!

Love, Amber & Devin

Some of you are arriving in Seattle early or staying late and have asked for things to do. Here’s a first stab at some ideas. I’ll do my best to update / expand this as the date gets closer. Updated 7/25/09.

Places to eat

Amber and my first date was at Cafe Salem – a small Eritrean restaurant in the Central District. It’s located at 2715 E Cherry St. Very affordable and extremely delicious. I recommend the foul mudammas (pronounced “fool”).

Amber and I are quite fond of the Verve Wine Bar, which is just down the street from our house. It’s mid-priced, with (not surprisingly) a good wine list. Tuesday nights they have special wine flights.

For cheap eats closer to downtown, checkout the Saigon Deli. Which one, who may ask? There are, in fact, at least three places called “Saigon Deli” in the International District, but the one that I like is the original, located on 12th Avenue, just north of Jackson Street in an unremarkable shopping mall. Their Vietnamese sandwiches are great and cheap!

Downtown, if you like pizza, Post Alley Pizza is pretty decent. And it’s located in an alley near the waterfront, which is fun to explore. It’s located between Spring and Seneca one block west of First Avenue (towards the water).

For brunch lovers, head over to Glo’s Restaurant on Capitol Hill – incredible Eggs Benedict. It can be crowded and it’s a small kitchen, so be patient for the food to arrive.

Bookstore

My favorite is Elliot Bay Book Company, located downtown. Good selection in a beautiful old building. They renovated their cafe a few years back and I haven’t been there since, but it used to be good, so it probably still is.

Head to the water

Take the bus or light rail downtown (don’t drive!) and head to the ferry terminal for the Bainbridge Island Ferry. Seattle has the largest ferry fleet in the United States! You can buy a walk-on ticket and enjoy spectacular scenery on your way over to the island. Once you get there, grab a ferry schedule (so you can plan your return trip), and mosey for a little walk (about 1 mile) to the Blackbird Cafe – it’s easy to find and if you get lost, just ask. Tasty pastries and coffee. Or bring a picnic lunch. The ferry comes pretty constantly, so just check the schedule about 30 minutes before you want to leave to figure out when the next boat will arrive. The best part is – fares are collected only on westbound sailings, so it’s free going back!

If you like urban canoing, take a trip out to the UW’s Waterfront Activity Center. You can rent canoes for rent on Lake Union. I recommend paddling across the water to the Arboretum, you can weave in and out of the lillypads, reeds and ducks, and there are numerous spots where you can land the boat for a picnic. It is definitely urban canoeing – there’s a major highway bridge nearby so there will be traffic noise. But it’s still quite pretty.

Sports

If you like baseball, the Seattle Mariners have a great stadium and they are playing okay ball this year. And the Sounders FC  are playing Barcelona on August 5, although good luck getting tickets to that one.

Excited about the wedding but not so sure about what to expect for the baraat/jaan? Well there’s only one thing you need to know and that’s this: dance! Dance like Mr. Rogers or Kermit the frog, or if you’re a real hotshot, like Shah Rukh Khan! it really doesn’t matter, as long as you dance!

And in that spirit, we provided you with a few groovin’ Bollywood songs so you can get a feel for the beatz and practice gettin’ your groove on. 

Fall in love with the extreme cheesiness of Mast Kalandar.

Or bounce your booty to Bhangra beats with this song from Jab We Met. Try to dance along and get a workout!

And now after watching all that, tell me you don’t want to dance?

For lyrics dubbed in English with a slightly older feel, check out this one. But don’t worry, we won’t have a Boys vs. Girls showdown at the wedding!

We can’t wait to celebrate our love for each other and for all of you this summer!

We hope that you will find lots of useful info on the site to help you prepare for the weekend. If you haven’t booked your accommodations yet, get cracking! Here’s the scoop on our love story.

To answer questions, such as what to wear and what’s up with that elephant and kitty on the invitations, glance over our FAQ.

Also, if you are interested in learning more about possible gift ideas, wonder over to our gifts page and have a looksie.

In an alternate universe, Amber is known as none other than the Queen of Amberry-ica. And although in this universe, her royalty is not generally observed, her love for all things berry reigns supreme. Devin, for his part, isn’t a mite shy about helping himself to an extra bowl of blueberries. No union of berry lovers could be complete without a berry-picking party. Sadly, yours truly will be too busy to attend, but not too busy to eat the fruits of your labors.

To stand in our place, we have asked Harper, a berry spectacular girl, and her parents Jason and Alexa and little brother Simon to host instead. Join them to pick bushells of berries (bring your own containers if you have them), we’ll pay for a couple dozen pounds and if you want to pick more than your alloted amount, go berry-crazy!

The Scoop

• Saturday, August 1st – 10-11:30am
• Meet at: Sakuma Farm, 17400 Cook Road, Burlington, WA (one hour from the wedding site)
• Here’s a map with directions from Coupeville.
• Contact information: Alexa Harrington (206 769 9763) and Jason Reep (206 769 9473) will be helping to coordinate this affair. You can contact Alexa over email at alexaharrington at gmail dot com.

We don’t have time for much right now, but we thought we’d leave you with a picture from our weekend visit to Whidbey Island.

Our most current dilemma has been trying to figure out whether or not we want to/can afford to pay somebody to take pictures or video of our celebration. Initially we thought, why not? And then we started looking at prices and our jaws dropped — anybody who has gotten married will realize that once you have the word wedding to a service, prices instantly double or triple… especially in cities with higher median incomes like Seattle.  Looking over our budget, it seemed like one of the easiest ways to keep costs down would be to ditch photographer! why not just ask our friends to bring cameras instead?

We’ve asked other couples about this, and get conflicting stories. several couples said they were so busy and overwhelmed on the day itself, that they enjoyed going back and looking at the videos or photos of the festivities.  One couple said they have watched their wedding video far more times than looking at their wedding photos. Another friend noted, after her father passed away, that she wished she had gotten a video made to be able to watch her father walking her down the aisle and noted she had never bothered printing a single one of her wedding photos. A third friend said we should at least hire a professional for the ceremony to have some high-quality pictures. We’d love a few nice shots, and Amber is especially excited about pictures (or videos) of people having fun and the reception (especially since we’re having a somewhat large one and we won’t get to witness everything that happens)!

In an ideal world, we think asking someone to make a video might be fun, but alas this contributes to wedding budget bloat at a time when we are looking to pare things down.  What do you think?