Our Wedding - October 20th, 2006

Thank you for helping make our wedding such a memorable, intimate day with our family and closest friends. We had such a great weekend with you. Here are some photos courtesy of Brett and Kiri.

It's probably no surprise to you that we'd like you to RSVP online. Please log in and let us know if you'll be able to help us celebrate. We hope you can make it!

Per the invitation, you are welcome and encouraged to arrive at 5:00pm for pre-ceremony drinks and mingling with acoustic guitar entertainment. The ceremony begins at 5:30pm. Immediately after the ceremony we'll serve festive drinks and yummy appetizers by The Hearty Boys followed by an autumnal dinner, spirited dancing and other merriment. Be sure to remember to finalize hotel reservations as soon as possible due to the Chicago marathon. Can't wait to see you!

I met Janna Hicks Devylder and John Devylder at Giant Step. I took this picture of them when the three of us were in San Francisco at the 2003 DUX conference. Janna was pregnant with Gus at the time.

Janna and John, married and living in Oak Park, IL, have two boys Gus and Eli. Janna keeps a entertaining blog called Baby Days. Be sure to check out the "Mama?" posting from October 9th and you'll see what I mean.

John is currently getting his masters degree at The Art Institute on a full-ride scholarship. Yep, folks, he's that good. John also runs a letterpress business literally out of his garage. He letterpressed the invitations that I designed as a wedding gift to us. The orange color in particular was a perfect match, and we loved them!

Meet Miss Renee. Renee has a killer...

1. Sense of humor. In addition to her daily wittisims, Renee has taken classes at Second City. She's a stitch, as they say.

2. Sense of style. For Secret Santa last year, Renee leased me her shopping services at the Aurora Mall. Those of you who have seen my ubiquitous yellow hoodie can thank Renee!

3. Sense of timing. Renee's the kind of girl who innately senses when her friends need her. She's very giving and watches out for everyone else. Renee's a super fun lady who is always there when you need her!

Kris and John Kepler will be joining us from Smug Fran..., I mean, San Francisco :) That's Kris in the middle, with twin sister Kelly on the left and husband of just-over-a-year John on the right.

Kris and I met as Giant Step, a common theme lately in our Guest Spotlights. She started off as a freelancer Experience Planner, joined full-time and transferred in April to the San Francisco office so she and John could get back to the West Coast to be near their families.

John was born in Germany and has lived all over. He's a die-hard foodie, an Apple-connoisseur and all-around conversationalist. He also owns TONS of books which the complete opposite of me and Shane so I get a kick looking through his shelves (and shelves and shelves) of titles.

Kris is extremely loyal, compassionate, insightful, and totally available when you need her. She's the type of friend you have no matter where both of you are living at the time. As well as always being up for fun (and for cocktails), Kris is fiercely competitive in athletics, playing Big Ten tennis at Iowa and with me and Debbie Hawickhorst in beach volleyball.


Kris is a California girl at heart, growing up a stone's throw to the beach in Del Mar. When Shane and I were in town for the Kepler's wedding I wondered what it would have been like for me if my parents had stayed in La Jolla where we lived when my dad taught at University of San Diego. Who knows, maybe Kris and I would have met on the tennis court ...where I'm sure she would have promptly trounced me 1-6, 0-6.

Kris, Amy and I had a really fun weekend this summer together hanging in San Francisco with John and Brenda and in Sonoma. It means a lot to me and Shane that the Keplers will be rockin' out at our wedding!

Mark my words, Alex Pruner will someday be famous.

Alex has an admirably strong sense of self ...especially for such a twentysomething youngster. She wears body glitter when she feels like it. Dons heart-shaped glasses just because. Dances up a storm in bowling alleys. Makes friends with Greg Louganis. Alex is infectiously warm and high-energy. I really can't say it any better than her Hoopafreaks profile:

LEXI: "She will never let your spirits down"
This girl is always on. She is joy. And she is good to people. Lexi’s personality has its own gravitational pull. And we’re not talkin’ minor asteroid pull. We mean red giant star gravitational pull. Lexi makes everything spicier. Watch her hoop, but have a glass of water handy. She's definitely a four-alarm woman.

Likes:
Shakin' it up on the dance floor, Russian tea parties (shots included), Parisian travel, nights in Shanghai with lil' M and Big D, Wallace & Grommit

Dislikes:
Injustice

Brian Jones and I worked together at Giant Step starting 2001-ish when he joined as a copywriter. Through three different office buildings and just as many name changes, Brian and I became friends ...and my unofficial grammar professor. While I miss him now that he's over at the 'enemy', it's been fun meeting him for the occasional lunch and gossip session.

Brian is an accomplished music aficionado and in a former life interviewed rock stars for music magazines. Ask him about his wall-to-wall CD collection on IKEA Billy bookshelves.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Hands down. Shane knows how much I love Halloween so this weekend he's taking me *out* of the land of wedding details and flower selection and cutting stacks of ceremony programs (as well as, uh, the coffee table) to treat me to a Saturday trip to the suburbs to pick apples and get some pumpkins.

Here are the ones we carved last year. Guess which one is mine and which one is Shane's?

God, how I miss Jen Harris. She's back in Texas where she belongs, Austin to be exact, and the Lone Star State is lucky to have her.

I met Jen in Chicago at Giant Step in 2000. She was a project manager and I was a user-centered designer. Jen is fun-loving, super organized, wildly creative, crazy efficient ...yes, those attributes usually aren't found in the same person but Jen's got them as you can see. She has a style all her own and can pretty much take on anything she decides to pursue.

One fun night together was when Shane and I visited Jen in San Francisco. Doodeloo!.

Here is a super short history of my family. I am the youngest of four children. I have one brother, Kevin, who is 10 years older than me. I also have two sisters, Krista and Karin, who I think are 8 and 4 years older than me but I honestly often forget what the exact difference is and never have the motivation to calculate it. My parents Larry and Norma, both Indiana natives and Purdue University graduates, got married in 1959.
They lived in East Lansing, Michigan while my dad was getting his PhD at Michigan State, then moved to North Judson, Indiana and then to Terre Haute where they are today. While they've grown deep roots in Indiana, my parents travel a lot, sometimes so much that I can't keep track of where they are. When we were younger they used to take us on summer roadtrips all over the US such as San Francisco...


Colorado...

Florida...

We used to buy stickers in each state and stick them on the side of our station wagon's trailer. This is where my love of travel came from.

My grandparents have long since passed away and I miss them. My grandma Rebecca and grandpa Nelson lived on a farm in Royal Center, Indiana where we'd spend time at holidays and in the summer, going bowling, playing Bunco and croquet, walking to the 'crick', gardening, listening to silly jokes, visiting the county fair, and drawing pictures in the nap of the fuzzy brown chair with our fingers.

My grandma Beulah and grandpa Charles Beymer lived in Montpelier, Indiana. They're pictured here on the right. Grandma Beulah could make a mean chocolate pie *and* kick your butt in Bid Euchre. I have decent sized extended family that still lives in the Montpelier area.


So that's a super short introduction to my family. Please introduce yourself to them at the wedding!