Welcome!

Thank you stopping by our wedding blog!

We hope to keep you updated on the progress of our wedding as well as provide useful information for those who will be attending. We know that most of our guests will be traveling from out of state so we hope to make your trip to Colorado as easy as possible for you!

Thanks again for stopping by. We are so excited for our upcoming wedding and look forward to sharing it with our friends and family!

You can simply scroll down or follow the links to the right of the page to find information on travel arrangements, hotels, registry and other pertinent information you might need.

Please feel free to leave us comments! We would love to hear from you!

Flight Information...

Airlines:

Frontier Airlines -- http://www.frontierairlines.com/frontier/home.do
~Frontier is based out of Denver and has the most non-stop flights in and out Denver
~ Since Southwest just came to Denver the airfares on Frontier have become very competitive in price
~ Frontier does charge for each piece of baggage (none free)

Southwest Airlines -- http://southwest.com/
~ Southwest just started a non-stop service to Denver and are the most inexpensive option
~ They have some non-stop services to Sacramento but some flights do have layovers
~ Southwest doesn't have any baggage fees

These are the airlines that we fly on the most and the average fare to California is about $180 round trip on either airline.

United Airlines -- http://www.united.com/
~ United Airlines is also based out of Denver and has the most flights in/out everyday

Hotel Information...

Hotel Accommodations --

Just like everything else there are several options for hotel accommodations in Denver.

Our wedding will take place at Hudson Gardens which is in a southern suburb of the city of Denver. There are several hotel options in the Denver Tech Center which is about 10 miles from the wedding venue.

We have set up blocks of rooms at a discounted rate at the following hotels:

The Doubletree Hotel:
Rate of $79/night
For reservations call: 303.779.6161 and reference the Root/Chase wedding for proper rate.

Information from hotel for those staying here:

The Doubletree Hotel Denver Tech is conveniently located in the highly desirable and upscale Denver Tech Center at I-25 and East Orchard Road, one block from the Orchard Road Light Rail Station. Light Rail provides access to Downtown for $6 per person, round trip. Downtown Attractions include the home of the Broncos - Invesco Field, Professional Hockey and Basketball at Pepsi Center and for the young at heart, Elitch Gardens Amusement Park and the Denver Aquarium.
We also offer free shuttle service within a 5 mile radius, providing access to hundreds of shops and restaurants, including the popular Park Meadows Shopping Mall! Park Meadows combines the best of the Colorado outdoors with 160 of the finest retailers and restaurants in America. These top names include Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn Kids, Sundance, Planet Funk, John Atencio, Janie and Jack, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, California Café, and The Cheesecake Factory as well as 12 eateries in the Dining Hall.

The Hilton Garden Inn:

We have a personal website set up with this hotel to make it easier to reserve the rooms at the discount rate. Click here to go to the website.

The Hyatt Place:

The Park Meadows Area is only a 15 minute drive to the wedding site and has a nice mall and restaurants close by. The Hyatt Place is a newer hotel with a rate of $63 per night for Friday and Saturday. Click here to go to the website.

We had intended to offer a downtown Denver hotel option as well but have since realized that the Komen Denver Race for the Cure is the day after our wedding and hotel prices are increased due to the thousands of people coming to the city for the event.

There are hundreds of hotels in the Denver area. Feel free to stay at any hotel you would prefer. To help judge the distance from your hotel to the venue, the address of Hudson Gardens is:

6115 South Santa Fe Drive,
Littleton, Colorado 80120


For more information on the attractions around the Denver Tech Center please visit:
http://www.dtcguide.com/

Registry

We are registered at Target.

and also at

Crate and Barrel

Our Vendors

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am probably the most indecisive person you have ever met. That's why I think everyone was as shocked as I was when I decided on Hudson Gardens Event Center in Littleton, CO. It was the third facility that I looked at and after about a half hour of being there, I knew it was the perfect place for our wedding.

Another decision that came surprisingly easy was choosing the photographer. I have always said that a good photographer is the most important thing to me on our wedding day. After everything is over, all you have are the pictures. I really love candid, photo journalistic pictures and when I came across the website of Adam and Imthiaz Houseman I knew I had to book them! They were exactly the style photographer I was looking for and not to mention all of the things they do to go above and beyond what other photographers offered. We are so excited to have them photograph our wedding! Check out some of their amazing work on their webpage.

We have also chosen Footers Catering as our caterer They came highly recommended from some of our other vendors. My mom and I went to taste their food since Nick is still in Iraq he doesn't get to do all of this stuff with me. :( We were so impressed with their customer service and the quality of their food and services we feel really good about having them cater our wedding.

One of the things that has been difficult for me to decide on is the florist. Since I really feel like getting a good price and also having them understand when I have envisioned is important, I have procrastinated in putting down a deposit and commiting. We met with Alicia from Bella Fiori and she really put me at ease when I really feel likes she knows exactly what I am looking for. She has also come highly recommended to us from a couple of our other vendors so we are going to meet with her next week to finalize the plans!

Photos

I thought I would share a few pictures of us over the past couple of years for those of you who may not have seen us for a while!

Our Engagement

I guess you could say our engagement was anything but typical. Nick had been in Iraq since January and before he left we had been talking a lot about marriage but never anything too serious. He wasn't certain whether he was going to reenlist in the Marine Corps so we knew if he did, we were going to get married later this year because he would most like get stationed somewhere else when he got home. From the time we first started talking about marriage I had secretly been looking at all things wedding on the internet. :) While Nick was gone we were fortunate enough to be able to talk on the phone more than I had hoped and the topic of marriage seemed to come up more and more often. I can recall one conversation where I told Nick that if we were going to get married I had always wanted a fall wedding and although there wouldn't be a lot of planning time for this year, I didn't need it. (I have since eaten those words!) So, after several conversations, including one where he asked me to send him some rings I liked for future reference, I was feeling pretty sure that he was going to pop the question, but how, he was thousands of miles away in Iraq? Well, a month went by, and then another month, and another month and I started to think maybe he was feeling like the time wasn't right. At this point it was May and my family and I were going to the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Denver for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Nick was usually able to call me every day around 12:00 pm right before he left work to say Hi, but he hadn't called me that day and I was really bummed. When we got to the restaurant we all sat down and my mom sat next to me sending e-mails from her blackberry for at least a half hour. I sat there thinking geeze mom can't you pull yourself away from work for one day! Little did I know that she actually wasn't doing work at all. A few minutes later the phone rang and my mom says "Oh Hi Rhonda, (her sister) I am just here with Beth for dinner, can I call you back later?" I thought it was strange because she was there with the whole family why did she single me out? I looked at my sister Annie who was sitting next to me and she was smiling with a weird look on her face. At this point I started to think something strange was going on. My mom says ok, time to open presents, and she tells me that the first ones are from Nick. I automatically teared up because I wasn't expecting to get anything from him in Iraq. There were several boxes all wrapped individually with a card on the top that said "These gifts represent all of the wonderful first gifts you have given me." I opened them up and each was a charm for a bracelet. The last one said "And this one is for the year we spent apart... but also for new firsts" and it was a diamond ring charm. I sat there thinking, well this isn't a very nice joke, and then my mom hands me another present. I opened it and it was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen! All of a sudden I heard Nick's voice, my mom picked up the phone that was sitting on the table next to me the whole time and Nick was listening. That's when the tears really started coming, I was so happy to hear his voice at that moment. After several minutes of being speechless Annie says "Nick don't you have something you want to ask her?" Haha. Then Nick says "Oh yeah! Will you marry me!?" Of course I said yes. It was definitely not the proposal I had always pictured, but that made it so much more special. I would have given anything to see him at that moment, but it's times like those that make us realize how strong our relationship really is. I am so grateful to have such a thoughtful and amazing person to spend the rest of my life with.

Our Story...

For those who don't know our back story, we thought it would be fun to let you in on our life together so far. Here is our love story from my perspective....

It all started in November of ‘06. By that point in my life, I had been through more ups and downs than most would experience in a lifetime. I’d say that I had lost all hope and started to succumb to the fact that I was forever going to live my life as a single bachelor, who would eventually end up living in his parent’s basement by the time he was 40.

In early November, thousands of Marines celebrate their heritage by tipping back a few beverages, eating some birthday cake, and telling the many “ship stories” they’ve acquired through the years. It is customary to bring a date, but not me, I was going stag! For the first time since I was 8, girls had cooties again. As you are probably expecting, that wasn’t a very long lived notion. I spent most of the night hanging out with my friends, drinking beer, and eventually breaking up a few of the typical cat-fights that are commonly associated with any Marine Corps Ball. I’ll say it was quite the uneventful night for me at first, but that was all soon to change….

I was dancing…okay…making a fool of myself on the dance floor, when I looked up and saw everyone flocking out to the lobby just outside of the ballroom, so of course I followed. Two of my friends, Craig and Annie were saying their goodbyes to everyone before heading home for the night so they could put their daughter, Emma Claire to bed. I walked over to say goodbye when I looked up and saw someone standing in the crowd holding Emma. My first reaction wasn’t what you would expect. Honestly, I can’t even explain the flabbergasted look on my face. I couldn’t tell you what was racing through my mind at the time, but I think I saw something just like in a Looney Toons cartoon once or twice when I was a kid. There are parts of this story that I can’t really remember, because I think I was too busy picking my jaw up off of the floor. Maybe it was the beer getting to my head, or maybe it was because I had just stumbled upon the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

She was absolutely stunning. It was complete sensory overload! She was the girl in the movie that stops the whole room when she walks in. Everything started to play in slow-motion, with the exception of my brain which was moving at the speed of light. I remember thinking to myself that it wasn’t polite to stare, but I just couldn’t pull away. Once my legs started working again, I gained my senses and walked up to Craig. I decided Craig and I needed to have a chat, so I pulled him to the side for a little guy-talk. I asked him who she was, and he explained to me she was his sister-in-law. For a lack of better words, I nearly begged him to introduce me to her. Cra ig told me she was in a serious relationship, and on top of that, she was only visiting for the weekend, after which she would return to California. I felt like I had just been hit by a truck. The night didn’t last much longer. I spent the remainder of my time milling about the ballroom trying to forget about the whole situation altogether. How could one person, who I’ve never met before, make me feel so absolutely crazy? That night was the first and last time she ever broke my heart. I will never forget it for as long as I live.

Months later I was sitting at home on my computer when my cell phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up, and glanced at the caller ID. It was Craig. I had no idea what he was calling for. Maybe he needed a favor? After all, he and his family had just moved to California. I answered the phone and we talked for a bit. Craig did in-fact ask me for a favor, but in the end, it was him doing the favor!

He asked me to take his sister in law out on a date. After a short moment of mass confusion, he told me that it was Beth. She was visiting Colorado for the whole summer and didn’t have anyone to hang out with. She was also single, which put a huge smile on my face. Craig told me that Beth and Annie had been talking, and someone had brought up the conversation about “that guy at the Ball”. The ex citement I felt when I got that call from Craig is something that can not be matched. It was one of the most suspenseful moments I’ve ever had. I was going absolutely crazy! After a few minutes of repeatedly thanking Craig, he passed me her email address, and that was that. The next step was just simply asking her out. Trust me…It was easier said than done.

Now it was the big moment. I had typed up a quick email for her so I could give her my number. My mouse hovered over the “send” button for a few seconds, which felt like an eternity. I took a deep breath and… CLICK!!!!! After I managed to calm myself down, I sat at my computer and repeatedly clicked the refresh button to see if she had replied back, and I had my phone in hand ready for her call.

Not but 5 minutes later, my cell phone started ringing. It was her. We set up a date on the phone to go to the movies that Friday, and that was it. That phone conversation marked the beginning of my amazing relationship with the most beautiful woman in the world. I definitely scored BIG TIME!!

Our first dates were the most nerve-racking dates you could ever imagine. Whether it was at the movies, a Rockies game, dinner, or the local shooting range, I was so intensely attracted to her that simple motor skills became a stammering, stuttering, shaky mess. When I talked to her, my voice cracked. When I touched her, my hands shook. At the movies, I felt like a child. I wanted to hold her hand so bad, but I just couldn’t “man-up” and do it like I was supposed to. Instead, I slowly inched my fingers over to her leg. Every time I made contact, my heart would nearly jump out of my chest and I would pull back. Eventually, I decided it was all or nothing and I just went in for it. The moment our hands touched, she looked at me and gave me a smile I will never forget. She gives me that same smile to this day every time I hold her hand.

From that point on, I knew just how amazing she really was. Our relationship grew into something so complete and fulfilling. It can’t ever be compared to anything else in the world. It didn’t take me long to realize how madly in love I was with her, and it didn’t take me long to figure out how badly I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Our relationship has created a foundation that could hold the weight of the world. We have experienced many challenges throughout our relationship that have only made us realize how strong we really are. We’ve learned that we have the ability to get through absolutely anything that life wants to throw in our way. Our time apart from each other has brought us so much closer together. Beth finishing up her last four months of College in California early in our relationship and my recent seven-month deployment to Iraq were difficult, but the strength of our love outweighed the painful feelings of being away from each other. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder.

There are so many small pieces of our journey that fit so perfectly together, and they are pieces to an amazing puzzle that couldn’t have ever been completed if it weren’t for so many people and so many things. To Craig and Annie, you made this happen. If it were not for the both of you, this would never have been possible. To Dave and Debbie, you have raised the most kind-hearted and beautiful angel my eyes have ever seen. It is my promise to you and the rest of your family that I will love and respect her until the day I die. I have fallen in love with the most amazingly beautiful woman in the world. I would want nothing less than to spend the rest of my life with her. There is a long road I have in front of me, and now I get to share it with my best friend. Beth, I love you. I am proud and honored to become your husband.

-Nick