Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Did You Take Pictures At The Reception?

We've gotten some great Iceland pictures uploaded to the internet. But I'm going to put together an online album of sorts, so I'll link to it all when it's completed (this may be a while).

But we're not getting our Reception pictures from our Photographer for a month! Does anyone have any they want to share?

You can go to www.flickr.com.
Sign in as:
Yahoo ID: aligradywedding@yahoo.com
Password: 092609

Then just choose "Upload Photos" and upload some of your favorite shots. We'd really love to see some pictures from the Reception!

For Your Viewing Pleasure: The Wedding Video

By popular request, here's the wedding video we showed at the reception.

You can watch it below, or watch it larger at YouTube.



The song is from Bjork, who is an Icelandic artist.

Our officiant, Johanna, belongs to an Icelandic religion that worships the traditional Norse gods. She was really terrific!

Hope you enjoy the icebergs~

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Operation Reception: Success!

We had such a great time at the Reception last night! We hope everyone else did too! It was the perfect way to cap the entire wedding adventure. We want to thank everyone who came, it was really great to see you all. We did our best to try to talk everybody, but it goes by very fast! Hopefully we'll be seeing most of you again in the near future.

We fly back to LA today, and back to work on Monday. But check back in a few days, because after we get settled we'll be posting wedding pictures and the wedding video and reception pictures and honeymoon and all those swell things.

Thanks again, our friends and family are awesome!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Summing Up!

Only a day now until the big Reception!

Just to make sure you haven't missed anything with the flurry of posts lately, here's a summary:

Stop By And See Us
at The Kite and Key on Friday &
at the Windsor Suites on Saturday!

A few pictures from Paris

A few pictures from Iceland

And due to a cold and rainy weather forecast, we're moving from the Library Terrace to the Library Lobby. Same address though.

Tune back in after the Reception for Wedding pictures and Reception pictures and things of that nature.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Plan B: Cancel The Sweater

The weather saga continues! Now, all of sudden, it looks like rain. Along with the previously mentioned cold. And we have become convinced that it just wasn't meant to be outside! So we'll be inside the Lobby of the Library instead. Cancel the sweaters!

I hope you have enjoyed tuning in to the serialized drama "Wedding Weather of Philadelphia".

Sweater Update!



They don't allow propane heaters! We might explode the Library. But we're still going to try to throw this shindig outside. All these East Coasters, who are obviously not from California, keep telling me that it's not going to really be *that* cold. But I am skeptical. Either way, the sweater update today? Definitely bring one. I guess we just want to make sure you all have a taste of Iceland!

Chance you will be updated on the weather situation again at some point? 100%!

Matt & I are still working on this jet lag business. But as far as Reception planning goes, it's kind of awesome, because otherwise I'd never be up by 6am every day. On the downside, I have a sneaking suspicion that the words I say do not always make sense.

T-Minus 2 days to the big party!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Stop By And See Us - Update!!!

So we're settled in at the Windsor Suites and our room is 1511. You need to swipe your room card to get the elevator here. But we'll tell the Front Desk that we will be having visitors on Saturday and to let you up. So unless you can just hop on when someone else calls the elevator, just ask the Front Desk and they should let you up.

Bring A Sweater!
We've had to make the final outside or inside decision about the Reception. All this time we've been worried about rain -- and it's not forecasted to rain -- but there's a cold front coming in! It's only supposed to be 67 during the day! But our outside location is so great, it's hard to give up. We'll be getting heat lamps for your comfort and probably moving back inside after dinner. But I just wanted to warn you that you might want a sweater or jacket to be comfortable.

And here's a reminder about 'Stop By And See Us':

You're Invited!

Friday September 25, 2009
8:00pm - 11:00pm
The Kite & Key Tavern


1836 Callowhill Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
http://www.thekiteandkey.com/

Saturday, September 26, 2009
9:00am-11:00am
Open Suite - Room 1511


Windsor Suites
1700 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Stop By And See Us!

We're in Boston! But tomorrow we're going to Philadelphia! The whirlwind marriage adventure continues. Actually, it's 5:30am here, but I found myself laying wide awake in bed -- it would be 11:30am Paris time -- and so I had to get up. But there's a couple days left for me to get straightened out so hopefully I don't look like a zombie when I see you all! Matt, on the other hand, is totally concked out. Lucky guy.

UPDATE: Nope. Matt's up too.

We know the Reception is going to go by very fast, and we'd like to get to see everyone while we're in Philadelphia, so if you have time:

You're Invited!

Friday September 25, 2009
8:00pm - 11:00pm
The Kite & Key Tavern


1836 Callowhill Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
http://www.thekiteandkey.com/

It's located less than a half mile from the Windsor Suites (if you are staying there) and just behind the Free Library.

Come, stop by after dinner and hang out with us for a while!

also

Saturday, September 26, 2009
9:00am-11:00am
Open Suite


Windsor Suites
1700 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Drop by our suite at the hotel and say hi! We'll be checking in tomorrow and we'll post the Suite number.

Hopefully we'll have enough opportunity to really see everyone in Philadelphia!

See you soon!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Au Revoir Paris!

We leave France in the morning! We've had a really great time!


The last 3 days we've been in a teeny tiny totally adorable town called Dampierre-En-Yvelines. They have all these great walking paths and today we walked along the river Yvette in the Bois de Saint-Benoit (it's a forest). The B&B we stayed at was really great -- it's a beautiful area, and the lady who runs it, Jos, has been so nice to us. It's been awesome to relax for a few days before returning home.


But, at last, I've managed to put up just a couple pictures of our adventures in Paris:


Matt & I, who have almost perfected the art of taking pictures of ourselves, at the Eiffel Tower:



Me at that glass pyramid at the Louvre:



Matt at the top of the Sacre Coeur overlooking the city:



Matt & I at the Arc De Triomphe:



Me at the Champs-Elysees:



Matt at Notre Dame with gelato:



Matt and I in front of the chateau in Dampierre-En-Yvelines:


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

People are asking how many chocolate shops did we actually get to? Well, the count is 7! One was closed, and the other -- the directions were way too confusing. So we did pretty well all things considered!

We're only in Paris one more full day and then we're going to a Bed & Breakfast outside the city to relax before coming home and gearing up for the Reception. But we're going to bring a good amount of our chocolate down with us and relax and eat chocolate :)

Hopefully I'll manage to get some pictures online on of these days!

Au Revoir!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Paris Update!

Bonjour! Just a quick update! There's so much to do in Paris! Every day I come up with a fairly ambitious amount of things to do and then we do about a third of them. Tomorrow's plan includes 9 chocolate shops (Matt put a limit at 8). I'm not sure we'll make 9 chocolate shops, but it's a worthy plan nonetheless.

It rained on us tonight but we still managed to walk all the way home under our umbrella. (We'll certainly never make 9 chocolate shops if it rains on us tomorrow).

Today we had lunch at a restaurant with two Michelin stars! We've never had any kind of meal at any kind of Michelin starred restaurant. But La Table De Joel Robuchon has a great lunch deal that was too hard to pass up. We got soup, appetizer (I had rabbit pate! I had never had rabbit or pate. It's not something I would usually eat. But whatever, why not!), entree, cheese course (yes, a cheese course!), dessert and coffee. It also came with a bottle of wine. The dessert spoon had gold dust on it and the chocolate that came with the coffee also had gold dust on it. Matt noted: "There's a finite amount of gold in the world, and some people are eating it". Today, we were those people.

I have to tell you about our entree, it was unreal. I wish I had a picture but it was such a classy restaurant we didn't feel we could take out our cameras in the middle of the meal. It was fish and chips -- being that it was fried fish and potatoes -- but it wasn't any fish and chips you've ever seen. It was an entire fish, that had been fried -- tail and eyes and everything (Matt's fish wouldn't stop looking at me) and they cut it open in the middle and folded it over and fried potatoes on top of it. I know I can't explain it. But it was crazy.

Oh wait, I googled and found a picture. Prepare yourself:



Yes. We ate that. It was really good actually. Matt liked it a lot a lot. I liked it a lot. But yeah, it was weird.

We don't usually eat at classy restaurants, so we found it a little intimidating. The kept offering us more bread! They only give you one roll at a time, and if you eat it, they come back and ask if you'd like another one. And come back and come back and come back. They also constantly refill your wine and water glass. At one point, Matt wondered, since they had silently been refilling him -- how much wine have I drunk? Who knows? And since there were a billion courses I never quite finished any of them and every time they took my plate away, they were really concerned and kept asking if everything was ok. It was ok! It was just filling!

We've also had crepes (very good!), falafel (very good!), baguettes (some very good! some just ok!), and macaroons (also quite good!). Eating is very important to us. We have restaurant reservations the next 3 days, so we'll see how all that goes!

Matt, as it turns out, really likes cemeteries. Creepy right? Perfect thing to do on the honeymoon yes? I had only planned to go to one of the famous cemeteries in Paris, but we went to a second since Matt liked the first one so much. The graves are all really cool (they have statues and little buildings and all kinds of things) and Matt took about a thousand pictures. Yeah, it's still weird. But he likes what he likes I guess!

It took a day or two but we finally figured out the 'Velib' here. Velib is a system of bikes that you can rent and return all over the city. We've been Velibing everywhere and it's a really great way to see things. We've seen twice as much being able to ride bikes than we would walking. Matt is still vaguely paranoid about injury since you have to ride with the traffic, but there are lots of bike lanes and we haven't had any trouble.

In general, we've been having a really great time and fitting in all that we can while still trying to relax and take it easy. We went to the top of the Sacre Coeur and you get a really great view of Paris (but there are 300 steps! Feel the burn!). And we went to the Raspail Market and bought cheese and bread and soap from the stalls there. And we went in Notre Dame at night. And we walked down the Champs-Elysees and saw the Arch De Triumph.

We have lots of pictures of the trip, but I don't have time right now to upload them and make them the right size for the blog, but I'll put them up when I get the chance.

Wednesday and Thursdays we're finally going to hit a bunch of museums. So we'll let you know how the Mona Lisa looks. Small I hear. But we'll have to see.

Hope all is well in America! Au Revoir!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Paris!

Matt & I just looked through our own Iceland pictures last night and there are some really great ones, even though we probably took the least pictures at all. Hopefully once we get our hands on everyone else's pictures we'll be able to post a few more.

But for the moment, we are in Paris! We just got in yesterday and explored our area (we are staying on the Rue Mouffetard) and had dinner. It was really active last night. A few people even asked us for directions -- we must look like real French people! We did manage to give one guy directions on the train even though we hardly knew where we were.

It's morning here, and we're off to have a chocolate croissant for breakfast. Today we plan to explore Montmartre. We will try to remember to take pictures but historically Matt & I are the worst picture takers ever.

But we did take this one last night in the apartment:

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Married!

We just dropped the family off at the airport for their flight back to the States. And Matt and I are staying in Iceland one more night before an early flight to Paris tomorrow for our honeymoon.


Everything went great! The wedding was so fun that when it was over I asked if we could do it again!


Here's some shots from Iceland! Doug, our awesome photographer, will be a little horrified because they haven't been retouched yet, but I just couldn't wait to post a few!



Matt & I at the airport in Los Angeles, ready for adventure!



Family photo with Uncle Donnie's shiny Alfa Romeo, before getting in a less shiny van to the airport in Boston



The Blue Lagoon
After arriving in Iceland, our first real stop was at the The Blue Lagoon.



The Blue Lagoon



Chillin out (warming up?) with the family in the Blue Lagoon



Looking lost in the Lagoon



Matt & Ma having a good time.



Sean enjoying the Lagoon



It's cold outside of the water, put me back in! =)



Doug's self portrait -- with Matt in the way.



Matt & I and a poof of smoke.



Yum!
We had dinner at 3 Frakkar at our first night in Reykjavik. They serve traditional Icelandic cuisine. Some of the brave members of our groups tried offerings like Whale and Puffin. Someone even tried to order the horse but they were out!







Waterfalls!
On our drive to the east side of Iceland, we stopped at the waterfalls Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss.



Me & the Gradys



Since Doug was always taking pictures, here he takes a picture of everyone taking a picture of him! But I only have Doug's pictures at the moment, so you'll have to stay tuned to see the pictures they took.



There are kind of a never ending string of pictures of us being silly.



We are so over beautiful waterfalls.



I don't think it's good to try to eat the bride before the wedding.



Rainbows are good luck!



Hey, check out that pretty hard to miss waterfall over there.



On The Road


Aimee feeding an Icelandic horse. Icelandic horses have long flowy manes.



This is Matt, looking confused, in front of the gas station where we accidentally left him. Don't worry, we came back.



The Grady kids somewhere -- I don't know where -- because I was sleeping in the car when this happened.



Here are the two cars we rented. I'm only showing them to you because Doug decided to shoot them like a car ad.



Guesthouse Hali
We stayed at the Guesthouse Hali which was the nearest to our wedding location. The house has been owned and operated by the same family since the 1800s.



Dinner with our wedding officiant Johanna and her husband.



Dinner cannot stop Matt & I from being silly.



Matt and his brothers after dinner



Matt's back on the ground and the moon is bright.



The Day Of The Wedding!



This outrageously friendly dog befriended Doug & Matt while we were taking pictures.



Matt getting ready.



Me getting ready. Aimee was the best helper ever!



Grammy Grady was looking good and ready to go while we were dragging our heels.



Laurel's reaction when she saw our wedding location.


You want to see it too? Well you have to attend the Reception! We'll premiere the pictures of the wedding there. But we'll put them up on the blog after that =)


If you really want to see the wedding pictures though, you could probably just search the internet. We were the star attraction at the iceberg lagoon (you think the icebergs would be) -- the tourists couldn't stop taking pictures of us!


Anyway, that was a very quick wrap up from the hotel in Keflavik. Hopefully I'll be able to write more soon! We're off to Paris!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Pencils Down!

The Super Shuttle will be arriving any minute now to take us to the airport for our flight to Boston. The feeling is reminiscent of taking the SATs, when the Proctor says "Pencil's Down" and you can no longer change any answers, erase anything, or finish that last problem. What's done is done (and what isn't, isn't!) and now we're going to focus on enjoying ourselves!

We don't know if we'll have internet in Iceland, but if we get the chance we'll let you know how the crazy adventure is unfolding!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

About Us: Glendale!



I'm writing from "the bubble". As you may have seen on the news, there is currently an absurdly large conflagration right above our town. When I woke up the other day I wondered if the house was on fire because it smelled so much like smoke. The smoke makes it very hard to breathe, and we don't have air conditioning to filter the air. So we bought an air purifier and the little machine seems to work well -- my eyes, throats and sinuses have stopped burning -- but it's only for a small room. So I've moved into the bedroom, taking with me the TV, DVR, Computer, Printer and things, and I call it 'the bubble'. I intend to stay here until we leave for Iceland in a few days.




Same city, not on fire


We live in sunny Glendale, California. We've lived in the same little bungalow for almost 5 years now. Our house is very old in California terms, being built around 1920. The bungalow in the back of our row used to be the Mayor of Glendale's House. Because of this we have four really giant palm trees in the front of our house that were a gift to the Mayor almost a century ago.





Another big thing going on in Glendale, is it's where they're going to bury Michael Jackson this week. Originally it was going to be on his birthday last weekend but has been pushed back a couple times for whatever reason. Last I heard it's supposed to be tomorrow, but I kind of hope they keep pushing it till after we're gone, because the cemetery is just a few miles from our house and we have wedding errands to run!

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