Round Knob Lodge

This is where we're getting married! What you're looking at is Round Knob Lodge, so named because it's sitting atop a round "knob." We know it looks a bit like a haunted house now, but it won't look quite so spooky once it's covered in leafy green trees, we promise. We're pretty excited about this place, and this post is meant to tell you why.

Dating from the 1930's, the Lodge was built by the Western Carolina railroad and was a major landmark for train passengers as they traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains on their way to Asheville. Though passenger traffic no longer travels this portion of the railroad, freight trains still pass by the lodge several times a day. Don't worry, we'll make sure it won't happen during the ceremony.

Being on top of a hill as it is, Round Knob Lodge boasts a spectacular view, one that will be even better come September:



It sits on 60 acres of private land, so all you guests will have lots of roaming around room. There's a swimming hole with a dock, two fully stocked trout and catfish ponds and a beautiful trout stream runs through the property:



In addition, it also has a pool and sauna, as well as a romantic gazebo for you lovebirds and a manmade geyser right below the Lodge:



And then there's Stefan's favorite amenity, which is the 84" barbecue smoker that's always there. How cool is that? This means that all the barbecue you'll be eating will be totally fresh and not just trucked in from somewhere. I mean, come on! That's awesome.



But for all that the inside's pretty exciting too! It was built to look like a railroad car with long hallways with rooms coming off each side:



The entire place is filled with railroad memorabilia and stuffed animal heads:



There's even a giant stuffed bear downstairs in a closet awaiting refurbishment. Also, there's a big entertaining room (which is where we'll put our wonderful band, Lo-Fi Breakdown, subject of a future post on this blog), a downstairs game/bar room which has a pool table and foosball, a huge porch overlooking the valley and a big screened-in veranda. The walls are covered in historic photos of the lodge and the surrounding areas. And further tickling Stefan to death, most of the rooms have awesome Bakelite phones. There's even a fully functioning phone booth downstairs.

And that's not all! There's also a ghost. Really. A ghost. And it lives in the room that we're going to be staying in. Seriously, this place is very very exciting for us and it could not be more perfect. We hope this little taste has gotten you as enthusiastic about the location as we are!

The Registry

Hello EPIC Wedding guests! Because some of you have asked, we are now revealing the secrets of our registry. We have registered at a few places online and you can find them all on www.weddingchannel.com – if you go to the site and do a "couple search" at the top of the page, you'll find us. We have also registered with three wonderful charities and would like to tell you a little bit about each.

The first is Bide-A-Wee, which is an animal rescue and adoption center in NYC. It is where we adopted our wonderful friends, Bee and Casper (who can be seen on the wedding poster, down at the bottom). Biz’s sister Helen Michelle and her husband Lex adopted Shoney and Big Boy recently from there, as well as the lovely, late Miss Kitty. It is a wonderful facility and it means a lot to us and our “new family.”

The second charity is The Crisis Center in Birmingham, Alabama. This center is very important to Biz personally. Her family has spent a lot of time volunteering with their various projects and they do really important work. Her Mama (Helen Ellis) also volunteers there weekly, working the crisis hotline which is a truly important job and is something that we admire very much.

The last charity is Physicians for Social Responsibility which is an organization dedicated to ending nuclear proliferation and environmental destruction. This was a charity near and dear to Stefan's grandfather, who passed away this year.

We highly encourage you to check out these worthy charities. Also, if you do decide to purchase anything off the other registries, 3% of the purchase price will go to benefit NOW, the National Organization for Women. So that ain't bad either!

Guess Who's Getting Married?

These guys are! Welcome to our Epic Wedding blog, your source of information for all things Epic Wedding-related. In future posts, we'll be filling you in on all kinds of things – the location, our registry, why it's called something ridiculous like "Epic Wedding" and much, much more. Right now, just know that we're planning a lot of fun things for the wedding and you'll learn about a whole lot of them right here in these pages.

Now, we realize that a lot of you may know one of us but not both of us, so we figured that it would be nice to give you a little introduction to the two of us, how we met, and how this whole wedding shebang came to be a going concern.

The Players

Biz (short for Elizabeth): Originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Biz has been living in New York City for the past 8 years. A trained actress, she came here to get involved in comedy, and get involved she has – she's a member of the all-female sketch comedy group MEAT, which has performed all over the country to no end of critical acclaim. In addition, along with Stefan, she's a producer of Sketchfest NYC, which is this big sketch comedy extravaganza that takes place over the course of three days every year. She's also into comic books, crime procedurals, traveling and Stefan.

Stefan (short for Stefan): Originally from Southern California, Stefan moved to New York City the same year that Biz did, though they didn't meet for another 2 years. He moved to the Big City in order to get into graphic design. He worked for close to six years at a marketing company which worked him to the bone, which explains why he's now a freelancer. His spare time is eaten up by HIS sketch comedy group Elephant Larry. He likes Disneyland history, Tiki drinks, cooking big meals and playing Guitar Hero with his main squeeze, Biz.

The Meeting

We actually met through sketch comedy. Even though both of groups had been performing for a while in the city, we'd never seen each other before a sketch competition called "Sketch Fights" in 2002. We each liked each other's shows and MEAT and Elephant Larry quickly became friends. Though the two of us didn't start dating until 2005, we definitely noticed each other – though one might argue it's hard not to notice somebody dressed in a cardboard costume, wielding a cardboard sword. As an aside, it somehow makes a lot of sense that we met at a competition, since we're both pretty competitive people. Just sayin'.

The Proposal

We've been engaged since January 18, 2008! The picture up at the top of this post was taken just minutes after the blessed event. Stefan had asked Biz out on a date to one of their favorite Park Slope restaurants, Applewood, and had arranged for them to print out a special dessert menu. The very last item on the menu read: "Elizabeth: Will you marry me?" After a few seconds of wondering what was in an "Elizabeth" and if it contained caramel, she cottoned on and said yes. Then there was champagne toasting and much calling of parents and it's been a whirlwind of planning ever since!

If you'd like the full story, you can click here.

And that's it for the intro! Check back again soon for more information and fun tidbits from us.