Repondez S'il Vous Plait!

Getting mail is so much fun when you're getting married. :) Having small green notes from your friends and family in your mailbox is much better than bills and junk mail!


If you haven't RSVP'd for the wedding yet, send us an email! Otherwise you may be dining at one of Marshall's fine fast food establishments on the night of the wedding! ;)


P.S. Herbert likes getting mail too.

Christmas Crackers

Christmas crackers are part of the English celebration of Christmas. They are cardboard tubes wrapped in brightly covered paper. To open them, two people twist and pull them like a wish-bone. The crackers are stuffed with a paper crown, candy, a motto, and a party toy. We thought what better way to to celebrate our wedding (Christmas in July) than to have crackers as our party favors.

Danielle and a few of her girl friends setup an assembly line to crank out the crackers.

Here are the empty tubes before being wrapped.

Here are Sarah and Jackie measuring and cutting ribbon for the ends and paper for the tubes.
Next up, Jenny and Elisa are putting the final touches on the crackers. They are wrapping them and sealing the ends.

(Note: You may be wondering didn't we miss a step...what is in the crackers. Well that is a secret and for you to find out you will have to come to the wedding and reception. :-))

Finally, here are the completed crackers...

Boxed up and ready to go!!!

Aunt Vera's Creations

John's Aunt Vera made some gorgeous desserts for our shower. I think these strawberries and cupcakes got as much (if not more!) attention than we did! They were so cute and so yummy! John almost lost a finger when he tried to eat the chocolate tux off my strawberry!




The cupcakes were made of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. We spent a few moments trying to figure out what made the pieces of the bees and flowers. We got M & M's, licorice, gummies...and that's as far as we got. We still have no idea what the bees' wings were made of, but they tasted delicious!



Thanks Aunt Vera for making these adorable edibles for us!

The Neely Shower, Part 2

A small army was commissioned to help set up the Neely shower last Saturday.
It took many hands to battle the elements and set up this party! The wind was out of control before the party started. Luckily it settled down for awhile to give us a few beautiful hours of sunshine.... and ten minutes or so of torrential rain...gotta love Michigan weather!Here are the smallest of our small army. :) In addition to junior bridesmaid and flower girl, John's nieces, Helen and Diana, can now add professional balloon arrangers to their resume'. Our ring bearer, Jon, is on the deck, probably securing the misbehaving table clothes.

The balloons were giving Diana a run for her money!

Everyone enjoying the beautiful weather while it lasted.

These are Rita's friends from her bible study and the infamous "Vita" who is celebrating her 50th (?) wedding anniversary on the 25th of July as well. Congratulations Vita! The 25th must be a good day for marriages to begin!

More church friends and John's high school physics teacher, Mrs. Wood, who is wearing purple on the left. She must have done something right because John has been pretty successful with his engineering career. You can see the wash-cloth and soap party favors on the table too. Good thing we got them all inside before it rained, otherwise Dick and Rita would've had one clean deck.

Like me, these beautiful ladies have all chosen to marry Neely men too! From left to right, we have Stephanie who just married John's cousin a couple of months ago, Aunt Marilyn, Karima, and Aunt Vera. I'm happy to join the "I married a Neely" club with them!
This is a picture of Sandy holding the picture coasters so that we have a picture of the coasters to put in the coasters. Phew! Too funny! We also have a great picture of Lisa and Kellen, but I wasn't sure if I could post it because Kellen is so young, so if anyone from that back table wants it, send me an email! It's really cute!

Thanks again to all that worked to put this together for us!

Love, John & Danielle

The Neely Shower, Part 1

John and I have many things to be thankful for, and this weekend was another reminder of how lucky we are to have so many people in our lives who love and support us. We managed to fend off the rain showers (mostly) to have a beautiful outdoor shower of our own in the Neely's backyard. Rita and Dick have been working so hard to plan this shower, so we are really grateful for them and all they do for us! Also, thanks to those of you who traveled many miles to spend the day with us. We had family come in from Grand Rapids and even all the way from Japan (!) to attend the shower. Thank you, everyone! We are truly grateful for gifts and your love.


We have literally hundreds of pictures to go through (we got a new camera), so we'll post more stories and photos soon! :)