Read the article.

Look at the pictures and listen to the audio slideshow. You can also click “captions” to read more about the wedding as you are listening.

My name is Liz Jones-Dilworth and I grew up in Sioux Rapids. I have lived in Austin, Texas for the past seven years but I very much wanted to get married here to show my new family farming life.

My husband Josh and I were amazed at how pleasant it was to do business here. Teresa Steuben, our caterer, made recipes we suggested and cinnamon rolls that my five-year-old nephew called “the best cake I’ve ever eaten.” Patrick at Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits patiently dealt with our beer snobbery and helped us get suitable kegs. Nelson’s shocked us by selling us Josh’s wedding ring for $500 cheaper than the exact same ring in Austin.

When I was looking to rent microphones and speakers, the businesses I called first cheerfully looked up phone numbers and helped me search. When we got to Carey’s, no one tried to convince us to get the most expensive system. Everyone seemed to know instinctively that we were on a budget and helped us stick to it. Ginny at Hy-Vee didn’t balk at our no-frills approach to flowers and helped us get (and spend) exactly what we wanted.

Since my wedding was on a Sunday morning, I assumed I wouldn’t be able to get my hair done. But Heidi at Bella Via in Okoboji came into work at 9:00 A.M. on her day off to do an amazing job, and she was a calm presence during a busy morning. The Shaws of Shaw Paint Glass and Locksmith brought their ice cream truck to our reception, and delighted Josh and I by giving us a ride around the park in the bargain.

It was wonderful to have a reason to spend so much time in Iowa this spring and summer, and to show off the truly special place I grew up.

Thank you!

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Liz is trying to keep the wedding photos organized. On the Jonesworth flickr page, check out “Best Of” to see a shorter set of good photos, “Photo Guestbook” to see who was there (mostly), or “All” to see most of the pictures we’ve got (labeled and in order).

If you’ve got other pictures, see below for instructions on posting them to the website.

First of all, THANK YOU to everyone who took these awesome photos, we’ve got 247 of them up already. If you took photos we’d love it if you added them to our group pool so that we can all view, download and comment on them s a group. Here are the steps:

• First, set up a Flickr account if you don’t already have one. Flickr is free and it is owned by Yahoo! so if you already have a Yahoo! ID or e-mail, it is even easier. This should take you all of :5.
• You can upload your photos one-by-one, but the easiest way is to do it is to download the uploader for Mac or Windows, which allows you to add pics in bulk.
• Once you have uploaded the photos, join the “Jonesworth Wedding” group pool and then drag and drop photos into the pool by clicking on the “Organize” tab.
• Lastly, under your account settings, make sure to change your privacy and permissions to a level at which you feel comfortable. However, we recommend setting “Who can download your stuff?” to “Anyone” so that anyone who was at the wedding can store a local copy of photos that they want to keep.

For those Facebookers among you, it is also possible to link your Flickr and Facebook accounts by going here.

Finally, if you just don’t want to create a Flickr account but still want to post your photos, just let us know and we’ll lend your our login and password. Also, with the free account, you can upload as much as 100MB worth of photos per month, but if for some reason you exceed that limit, our account is the “pro” version and has unlimited uploads and storage so using our login and password would be a good solution in this case too.

Again, many thanks, and enjoy!

For those of you new to the area, here are a few landmark photos that should help you find you way around.  We’ll continue snapping these leading up to the wedding;)

Also, please remember to join this Flickr group so that we can all share our photos jointly after the weekend.

Most of this information is already available on the website (see the tabs above), but for those of you who prefer to print things out:

• Places of interest (attractions, restaurants, shopping) Download
• Wedding schedule Download

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Liz merely wants you to be aware that only a few roads in Iowa go on the diagonal–therefore, there are many alternate routes possible.  It is pretty easy to get oriented in Iowa, so it is possibly worth the trouble to look at an actual map instead of just following directions off of mapquest. At the same time, the Joneses travel these roads frequently and have developed preferences.

Along those lines, if you’re coming from Minneapolis, taking the Highway 86 exit off of I-90 instead of the Highway 71 exit is actually much faster.  Plus it takes you by the wedding site.

On the other hand, it’s arguably more scenic on 71 because you pass several lakes and the river town of Jackson, MN.

Start out on I-35 North.

(As you go North, take a moment to notice Ames, IA, home of the Iowa State Cyclones, alma mater of Liz’s parents, sister, brother, brother-in-law, and countless cousins, aunts, and uncles.)

Take Highway 20 West.

In Fort Dodge, turn north on Highway 169.

Take county road C49 West to avoid towns (and therefore stop signs).

Turn north on Highway 71.

However, Liz says, if you can stand going through a couple of tiny towns, taking Highway 3 instead of C49 would be her preference. There’s a great surprise in Pocahontas–a statue so magnificent, Liz has a poem about it.  Midwestern art at its finest. And you can see it all without even stopping your car.

Here’s a copy of an actual road map (not mapquest) with some important locations marked. You can print this out; also look for the Iowa Welcome Centers which will give you free maps of the WHOLE STATE!!! (And free popcorn at select locations.) Download the PDF here.

I’m Sure That Out-Of-Control Water Skier Will Avoid Our Outdoor Wedding