Dear recipient,

Happy holidays to you and yours and maybe even theirs.

Our highlight of 2007 was that in September Zach bought an iPhone we got married (but that should be obvious because of the lack of ethnic, gender, and sexual-deviant jokes herein; complaints to Margaret). We had a wonderful honeymoon, traveling to Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris for two weeks (although our livers left after 10 days). If we met you in Madrid on Sept. 25, do get in touch; we’re curious as to how we made it back to our hotel.

Margaret continues to make the world a better place by being cheery, making delicious rum balls, and killing off species (toodle-oo polar bear). Save rectifying problems with semicolons, Zack didn’t do much to improve mankind’s lot this year. But unlike previous years he didn’t do much to make it worse either (we’re sure you remember his role in the Alexandria beer hall putsch of 2005). And for that Margaret is thankful—and deserves credit.

If we had children, we’d talk about them here. But we don’t, so we’ll continue in our self-indulgent yuppie ways and go on about ourselves. For personal betterment Margaret enrolled in wine-tasting classes this year (spring and fall semesters). She aced Spanish reds and sparkling wines, but only earned a B+ in French whites—a deficiency she’s correcting by drinking studying them nightly. Zac’s biggest achievement in 2007 was basking in the reflected glories of Tom Brady and David Ortiz. Oh, but what reflected glories they were! And as a couple, we’re proud to have earned the title of “regulars” at no less than three restaurants.

We also had good times with our family and friends this year. Margaret fulfilled a lifelong dream when we attended the Kentucky Derby this spring. And Xach now has 67 friends on his MySpace page, which, through a series of coincidence and happenstance, led him to fulfill one of his life goals—meeting Dateline NBC’s Chris Hansen.

As for 2008, after spending the holidays with our collected families, we’ll be recouping in Miami over New Years. And it seems likely that Margaret will have a 45-day temporary assignment in Hawaii this January and February. Yes, Xack will be joining her (someone needs to man the hotel room’s tiki bar). Don’t rob our apartment while we’re gone—unless you’re going to clear out Margaret’s muck.

We wish you good health and fortune for 2008. Your lucky numbers are 3, 7, 12, 22, 33, 41, and 42.

From,

Margaret and Zaq

Yeah, I know, took me long enough.

Anyway, I finally sorted through the almost 1,000 pictures we have from the rehearsal dinner, wedding ceremony, and reception. We were thrilled with the pictures—thanks to our fantastic photographer, Jill Hatzai, as well as my dad and Mr. and Mrs. Anderson who took some great pictures too.

All 969 pictures are accessible via this link to my Flickr account. Feel free to download them and print them too.

We just uploaded 84 pictures from our wedding ceremony:

Flickr: Ceremony

No surprise, most of the pictures are of us. That’ll change in the next update, however, which contains pictures from the reception.

It took us a while to add the captions to 255 pictures, but we finally finished and posted the pictures taken from before the ceremony online:

Flickr: Pregame

Flickr allows for comments, so feel free to add a remark under a photo.

The rest of the wedding pictures will come in two installments: the ceremony and the reception. After that we’ll upload our honeymoon pictures by city. For those guests of ours who do not subscribe to this blog, we will send an e-mail once all of the photographs have been uploaded to Flickr.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Margaret and I had a fantastic time this weekend! Thanks to everyone who made it possible:

• all of our guests
• Margaret’s brothers, John V and James, who provided help—and entertainment
• our readers—Kathy, Dan, Stephanie, Gary, Graham, and Chris
• our wedding party of Mary and Gerrit—your speeches were great
• both sets of parents—we appreciate your advice and support
• Margaret, who played a double role of wedding planner and bride, and nailed them both

Some friends have sent us their pictures from the wedding. I added links to the pics in the top of the left sidebar. If you took photos and posted them online, please let me know and I’ll add them here.

(And if I haven’t gotten around to profiling you yet, submitting pictures is a sure way of jumping to the front of the queue.)

Also, we will post all of the pictures from the wedding photographer after she sends them to us. We own them, so if you want a full-sized image file suitable for printing, please let us know; we’ll be happy to send it to you via e-mail or on a CD.

We also will post pictures from our honeymoon, which has quasi-started: I’m blogging from the Philadelphia airport’s food court whilst we wait for our connection to Madrid (Margaret is getting a manicure).

As for what happens to the site now: Margaret and I will profile all of our guests. And we will continue to blog afterwards. Eventually we’ll change the website’s focus from the wedding to our uneventful lives of wine tasting, Patriots games, and other yuppie endeavors. Of course, the site will include directions to getting to our home so you can visit.

Thanks again!