Our Wedding by the Sea

Annnndd we've booked our condo in San Juan!  It's gorgeous, affordable, in the Condado district, and right near everything.  AND right on the beach!  So excited about this check!

I also ordered my paper from C&P for invitations today finally.  Can't wait to start making them!!

I booked our accommodations in Vieques today!  We'll be staying there for 2 nights and we can't wait :)

The condo we were thinking about had a 3 night minimum, which we were originally okay with, but then found a condo in San Juan that we love that has a 4-night minimum, and we'd rather stay there 4 nights than not at all.  So we changed our itinerary a little bit, and are now staying in a casita at a guesthouse instead of a condo.  The place has great reviews and is walking distance to the beach & the Malecon.  So yay!!

Now we only need to book the condo in San Juan (just waiting on the contract from the owners) and we'll be golden!  And flights, of course, but we're still trying to find the best deals/times on those.  Looks like it'll be around $1000 total for airfare (round-trip), so we should probably just book that too since it hasn't been changing.

I have been researching accommodations for the honeymoon like crazy lately.  And I think I'm getting closer!!

We've decided to spend the first three nights of the Puerto Rico leg of our trip in Vieques and the final four in San Juan.  We'll take a day trip to El Yunque to see the rainforest, too.

I've emailed a couple places today and hopefully we'll be putting down deposits soon!  We've been keeping an eye on airfare too- hopefully it'll come down a little bit.  But as of now, this leg of our trip will be very affordable and so worth all this research.  Yay!

As of Friday, I'm down 17.2 pounds!!  SO freaking excited & proud of myself.  I tried on the bridesmaid dress I wore back in May, which is an Alfred Angelo size 8 (street size 6).  This is what it looked like.

Now it's so loose that I can clip quite a bit of material behind me.  I love measurable progress!!!

Keep it coming, strong body!

I went bridesmaid dress shopping for Kyle & Veronica's wedding.  They're getting married two weeks before Chris & I (on the 8th) and both of us are in the wedding.  She wanted each of us to choose a satin Alfred Angelo dress.  She wants black and it can be short, tea length, or cocktail length.  So we went to the store last night & I started to try on dresses.  Most of the samples are 8, 10, or 12.  I wore a size 8 in the wedding I was in in May, and when I tried on an 8 last night it was too big!  So exciting!!  I will probably order my dress in a 6 :)

Then today I went to (finally) get my fingerprints done.  I registered & paid for them back in August.  So today I go and the guy pulls up my registration number and asks me to confirm all the information I had entered.  And I saw that my weight was entered as 160 (!!!)  Let's just say I don't weigh 160 anymore... I've lost almost 20 pounds since then and am still losing :D  Seeing that was just crazy to me... Big success is simply the result of lots of little efforts.

I start training for my half marathon next week and I can't wait.  I took this week off to rest and I really can't wait to be up and running again next week.

Sent out my save the dates on Valentine's Day and I'm getting lots of positive feedback about them, so that's a good happiness too :)

My mum made an appointment to try on the dress she wants to buy for the wedding.  She's going next Wednesday.  I LOVE the dress she picked out and hope she does too when she sees it in person :) She wants it in navy, which I think will be beautiful.

Morgan went to try on her dress in Georgia the other night too and loves it.  That settles it then: that's the dress we're going with.  All the girls like it in aquamarine, too, so I'll have a lovely blue bridal party.

I love how things are just coming along <3

_ So this past weekend, I ran a 5K in Stone Harbor (where we are getting married). Packet pick-up was actually at our reception venue, so Fi & I got to visit it again and see it with people in it. And, my goodness, were we surprised. In fact, I almost had a panic attack. Seeing it occupied by 80-100 people, I suddenly realized it was definitely TOO SMALL for our wedding. Fi tried to calm me down by telling me that the tables and stuff that were in there (set up by the race coordinator for registration, as well as the sponsors and stuff who were giving things away) were making it seem smaller and not to worry- we'd look at specifics when we got home to make sure it'd all work out.

So tonight we decided to take a closer look at the floor plan of our venue. It's a good size... if we only want to do dinner. Dancing in that room is absolutely out of the picture, no matter how we arrange the tables. I felt another panic attack coming on while we tried to find a solution.

We immediately considered moving the wedding to a tent. The venue has a nice-sized parking lot beside it. In fact, every other bride I've seen who has used our venue has actually rented it FOR the lot and set up a tent there; I haven't seen anyone else who actually used the ballroom for their wedding. We were planning to have a tent out there anyway for our cocktail hour and the bar. So I look up tent rentals. I find that we'd need a 30x60 foot tent to accommodate our guests for dinner + a dance floor. Look up the price. And realize that a tent that size will cost us upwards of $1,000... not to mention if it's stifling hot or unseasonably cold (then we'd have to add air conditioning/heat as well).

Let me tell you (in case you were unsure) that I am with the perfect man for me.  While my anxiety seems never-ending, his cool-headed, laid back attitude and reassuring “it will all be okay”'s can really calm me down.  Since he can remain level-headed, he comes up with solutions faster than I can.  “What if we have the dance floor outside?” he recommends.  I instantly brighten- I knew I was marrying him for a reason.

So here's our new plan. We will get married on the beach. After the ceremony, our guests will enjoy cocktails and hors d'ouerves in a tent in the parking lot beside the WCC while we take our pictures. About 15 minutes before our “grand entrance,” the DJ will start telling guests to move into the dining room. We'll have our entrance shortly thereafter and have our first dance in the dining room. Have dinner, toasts, and speeches inside. Then we'll cut the cake (cue old people leaving).

After the cake has been cut & enjoyed, we'll move the party outside to the tent. We'll start off with the father/daughter and mother/son dances and then go right into high-energy dancing for a little less than an hour. Then we'll have the bouquet/garter tosses, dance some more, have our last dance, then have a send-off.

Sound like a plan?? I think we might actually be able to pull this off...

The only problem I see is making smooth transitions. Hopefully people will be able to keep up and understand what's going on. Our DJ will be a huge help for this as well.  There are three sets of French doors in the clubhouse that lead outside to the lot where the tent will be set up, so hopefully that will aid in transitioning the celebration from inside to outside. We'll keep the doors open (we were planning to do that anyway to let in the sea breeze).  We also have to consider adding some seating outside around the dance floor for those who want to watch but don't want to dance.

We just have to adjust our budget to include a dance floor (and perhaps flooring for the rest of the tent too...) and some more decorations for the tent. Luckily, our DJ was already planning to set up both out in the lot AND inside the clubhouse because of our ceremony/cocktail hour set-up, so that won't be a problem. Also, when we booked the venue, we paid a higher amount because we were planning on having a tent for our cocktail hour. So we've already paid the “tent deposit” as well and won't need to add any more money to that side of things.

We were already planning on having our guest book table and seating card tables on the porch outside (for access during cocktail hour), which I think work even better now that we came up with this idea. The gift table will probably be inside, and I think I'll ask one of my bridesmaids or someone if they can check the card box on occasion to move any cards to the room we'll be using to freshen up and keep our stuff just in case any of my friends have seedy dates. Or we could potentially put the gift table outside too, under the tent. We shall see!

I think I actually like this better than the original plan and even if our venue decided to double in size, I'd probably still do it this way because it kind of creates the laid back feel we're aiming for. Also, I LOVE the idea of dancing the night away right beside the sand dunes. Talk about a beachy atmosphere- I'll practically have sand between my toes!

After a mild freak out, I'm more relaxed now than I was before seeing the venue all full. I feel like we have a more solid plan that will lend itself beautifully to our wedding day. Yay!

Save the Dates are officially in the mail!  I sent one to our house, too, to make sure they had the Valentine's Day post-mark that I was aiming for.

Yay!  We're legit. getting married!!  hahaha

One of the many DIY projects on my list is dying my crinoline.  I've been in love with the look for years now (yes, I know, that just goes to show how long I've been fantasizing about this wedding...)

I went back and forth with the "should I?/shouldn't I?" debate in my head for the past few months.  Since I've had my dress, it's been a constant question.

But I've decided: I'm going to do it.

I've been researching the method all morning.  We have a brand-new, front loading, HE dryer that I will NOT be using to dye my crinny.  We also have a pretty nice, plastic shower that will also NOT be the soaking grounds for my ruffled undergarment.

Instead, I'll be using a storage bin.  You know, those giant plastic containers that you use to store your Christmas decorations?  For a few bucks, I'll pick one up at Target and dye that bad boy in the back yard.  I can't wait.  I'll be using this tutorial.

Now I just need to choose a colour.  On the RIT site, they have a bunch of colours listed with the steps you take to achieve them.  First, I was drawn to light blue (because of our wedding colours).  Then I decided that it would probably be too pale and not nearly as much fun as I was hoping for.  Then I saw the aquamarine & "565" colours and they looked perfect.  After doing some Googling, I've found that it turns out to be not quite aqua... more like sea foam.  NOT the colour I'm looking for.  So now I'm looking at some of the darker blues, like "Light Eve Blue" and "176."  Anyone have any suggestions??

I meant to write this post yesterday, but didn't get a chance to do so.  I woke up yesterday morning in a panic.  I had another wedding nightmare that felt so real and was a total train wreck.

Chris' best man (who is getting married 2 weeks before we are) got delayed coming back from his honeymoon.  He & his new wife took a cruise, which they were late to get off of- causing them to miss their flight and get stuck in Miami or whatever.  So they were MIA at the wedding, which really sucked.  It couldn't happen for real though, since their honeymoon will be ending about a week before our wedding, so even if they do miss their flight they'll have almost a week to keep trying to get here haha.  So at least that can/will be avoided.

Then my sister decided to get married the day before us.  Like literally- September 21.  At the same place as us.  She also borrowed my veil.  So I woke up on the morning of my wedding and cleaned up her wedding by myself so I could use the same space for mine.

The venue wasn't the beach, but my effing apartment.  Like where I am currently sitting, typing this out.  It's a nice size apartment, but couldn't host 100 people & dancing.  Also, we didn't bother to clean it, so I was trying to get ready for my wedding while taking out the garbage, touching up the paint on the wall, and trying to sweep the porch.

Which was a futile attempt, because no one came.  I remember looking at the clock every couple minutes because my bridal party & family were nowhere to be found.  My photographer (who is scheduled to arrive at 9am) didn't show up.  I did my own makeup.  I was just all alone and had way too much to do.  The only person who did show up was the cake delivery guy and I was in the middle of juggling my makeup and taking out the trash and realized I was too stressed to tell him where to put it, plus I didn't have any idea where it was supposed to go because my sister's wedding stuff still wasn't completely gone.

Finally, I woke up.  I'm glad the last bit of the dream was about a half hour before the wedding, because had I dreamed all the way through my ceremony I think I would have freaked out.

I woke up and got ready for work as fast as possible, then got online to research DOC's.  I know I can do this myself, and with careful planning and early conversations with everyone involved, I won't even need to be a bridezilla or spend my whole day making sure that things are getting done, etc.  But still, in a panic I contacted a few DOCs and I cannot believe how much freaking money they want to coordinate one day.  I'm not interested in wedding planning or even someone being there to help me book vendors.  I wanted someone to be at the rehearsal & ceremony to tell us when to walk down the aisle.  I wanted someone to make sure the cocktail hour was smoothe, the musicians & DJ knew where to set up, the caterers arrived & set up, the cake guy told where to go, etc.  Just basically making sure things got done so I didn't have to.  They wanted upwards of $1200 for that crap!  I'm not even paying my stinkin' DJ that much!!!  That is insane!!  So I'm glad I found my confidence again because there's no way our budget has enough "wiggle room" to squeeze that craziness in!