So today Kristen drove down to Burlington to pick me up and bring me up to the North East Kingdom to help with the wedding preparations.  On our way up we stopped at a grocery store in Stowe to buy the food for the rehearsal dinner.  It's a good thing Kristen brought me - there was so much food that we needed two carts (one for the beer)!   After shopping we drove another hour to her parents house and dropped off the food.  We then headed over to Ben's parents house to pick up the groom.  Kristen and Ben needed to pick up their marriage license and I got to tag along.  This experience seemed pretty typical of much of this week.  We arrived at the Town Clerk's office and Kristen and Ben handed in their application.  The Town Clerk told us she hadn't done "many of these" so she sent us outside while she typed it up.  We sat outside on the grass for about 20 minutes.  In that time we were almost attacked by a pair of geese and had chickens searching for food all around us.  Once the Town Clerk had finished we were on our way back to Ben's house.

The plan at Ben's was to get the favors in order.  Kristen realized that we had brought all the Jelly Belly jellybeans, but had forgotten the boxes they were going into.  We hopped in the car for a half-hour drive (each way) to retrieve the boxes.  Once back at Ben's we took over the TV room with our project.  I folded the boxes and Kristen cut the tissue paper.  We mixed the three types of beans: Lemon Drop, Margarita and Pina Colada (do you see the theme?).

Once each box was filled it was tied with green and yellow ribbons (do you see a color scheme?) and had an adorable little tag attached.  The favors were also doubling as place cards at the reception: when the reception hall gets set up Kristen will place each box at the guests' place settings, so they know where to sit.  Brillant!  They turned out completely adorable!

After all of our hard work we were heartily rewarded: Ben's mom made a homemade pasta dinner!  A little salad, a little wine and a little Sinatra rounded out the evening.  It was nice to relax after our days work, and the Carbonettis were so welcoming! 

After dinner (and cannolis for dessert) Kristen and I headed back to her parents' house to sleep.  This was quite a process in and of itself.  Kristen's siblings were both staying at her parents to help with the wedding preparations. So when we arrived home at about 10, Cormic (Kristen's sister's 1.5 year-old) was already asleep.  We quietly sneeked upstairs and into Kristen's room.  I would estimate that about 65% of the available floor space in Kristen's room was covered in boxes from Macy's, Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  She had not started opening wedding presents yet and the boxes were stacked almost to the ceiling!  Once we got inside and closed the door there was just enough room for one of us to sleep in the single bed and the other to sleep on the cot her dad had left for us.  Nothing like close quarters!  Made me feel like I was in college again: sleeping in a single bed with a roommate (and almost no space)!