Thanks all and sundry for the comments!
tilt: Right - like FireFox and Thunderbird, others... usually they have a visual instruction and an alias of the Applications folder. I'm trying to decide whether to make this longer, or just take that as a "given". Hmmm.
mkolesa: I'm probably more of a typical laptop user than desktop user, with limited screen real estate informing my choices. Having the dock at the bottom uses up (even with hiding) more space than I like... but I may modify that section to remove my own recommendations, just let people know they can put it wherever they like, and leave it at that. AND - yes, a much better idea to launch it, right-click, and choose "Keep in Dock". Many people still have trouble with dragging items to the dock, so I'll make that modification. Good tip!
Ottawaman: It's all open source, man. Use it as you like, wherever it's useful. No credit necessary - this is a group effort
HowEver: Yes... it's true. Fortunately, this is a civil ceremony, so only 1/5 of the pomp and ceremony

But, man, Catholics! Ritual and Rosaries. Wait until the church wedding later this year...
And.. thanks for the sticky. I'm hoping this proves useful to new switchers... one never knows, since speaking from experience sometimes only makes sense to the experienced.

Hopefully some switchers will chime in here with what works / doesn't for them on this list, and we can adjust accordingly.
chewy: Ah-hah... yeah, that might be overkill for newbie switchers! Let's leave that for the "advanced tips" version
All that said - I'm offline for the weekend as of Saturday morning... I'll do updates to this through Friday and then it's going to sit for a day or two...
Thanks all! Keep it up!