Our Wedding by the Sea

After months- literally- of addresing envelopes here and there, I am finally finished!  I did more than half of them this week alone.  I got tired of seeing them laying around and just banged them out.  It feels fabulous.  I still have three that will need to be done later- two of my guests are looking at places and will be moving soon, and I'm still waiting on an address for one person from my FMIL.

I also decided to send invites to the Obama's, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, and JK Rowling.  I know that the first two send regrets, but I'm kind of taking a chance with JK Rowling.  I don't know that she responds at all to wedding invites or fan mail.

So I just realized I never posted pictures of my flowers.  So I've finally posted them below.  I also ordered a locket for my bouquet, which I'll be adding a picture of my Nana on her wedding day to.  I'm considering the locket my "something new," even though a lot of my stuff is new haha.

So somehow 500-something days turned into 4 months and 1 week!!  Where the hell did the time go!?  Starting to get overwhelmed and worried that it's not all going to come together.  I HAVE to call on Thursday about rentals and NEED to nail down details with the caterer.

But at least I have my flowers!  They came on Saturday and are absolutely, 100% PERFECT.  They are so much better than I was expecting and I am so excited.  I love them.  I can't wait to carry my bouquet down the aisle and I can't wait for everyone to see how beautiful they are in general.

We are under 140 days.  I can't believe it.  Things are really starting to come together and now it's mostly small details.  On that note, I've decided I need to seriously start thinking about the table situation.  The way I see it, we have the following tables to think about:

-Guest tables
-Sweetheart table
-Cocktail hour/dance floor tables (will be in the tent with the bar and DJ)
-Appetizer tables
-Bartender's table
-DJ's table
-Gift table
-Guest book table
-Seating card table
-Cake table

Since we haven't sorted out rentals yet (this week!  I swear!) I don't really know what size tables I'll be using for any of these things, so this is all hypothetical.  And for now I'm only thinking about the guest & sweetheart tables... I'll go over the others in a later post :p

Guest Tables
This is where the guests will sit for dinner and toasts and will be located inside the WCC.  We believe we'll need about 9 tables that seat 9, but this is all dependent on how many people give us a positive RSVP.

Chris and I were at a wedding last July that had long oval tables and we really liked those, so that's what we've been planning for for guest tables.

This is what I'm thinking...
-Ivory polyester table cloths and linen napkins (still haven't decided on napkin presentation)

-White resin folding chairs (will be moved from ceremony on the beach to the reception hall)

-Centerpieces will be 3 cylinder vases of varying heights.  The tallest will have 2 plum-coloured calla lilies and an ivory floating candle.  The others will also have ivory floating candles, but we haven't decided what we'll be putting inside them.  We think we're going to do grass in one and maybe petals in another?.  We also bought 144 votives (ivory and light blue) and votive holders to scatter around the tables.

-Bread, butter, salt, and pepper (naturally)
-Basic white dinnerware, simple silverware, simple water and wine glasses.  Nothing special :)
-Seating cards will be on the table after guests come into the room and will add some colour to the room as well.  I'm going to make either the "towels" different patterns OR the umbrellas will be different colours (might be easier that way) based on what entree the guest has chosen to make life easier for the servers.

-We'll be having constellation table numbers, but aren't 100% sure how we're going to be displaying them yet, so stay tuned :)

Sweetheart Table
-We're thinking a half-round table for our sweetheart table, with the two of us sitting on the "flat" side and the "round" side facing our guests.
-An ivory table cloth
-I'll put my bouquet in a vase in the front center of the table, then lay my girls' bouquets around the front of the table as well.

-We won't have a centerpiece like our guests' because I think the bouquets will be enough, but we will have some votive candles spread around
-I'll make "Mr." and "Mrs." banners for the backs of our chairs

-We're going to keep with the theme of constellation table names, but since we're the sweetheart table I'm considering going a different direction with it: We could either pick a meaningful constellation OR we could put our initials in the stars in a similar way to this invitation:

We had our tux appointment this week and confirmed suits.  The guys will all be wearing "Windsor" by Perry Ellis, in the colour latte.  They will be wearing aquamarine ties & pocket squares from Dessy, in the same material as the bridesmaids dresses (I ordered them with the girls' dresses back in March and they should be here in the first week of July).  Fi decided that he will wear brown shoes as well for the reception, and that the ushers will rent brown ties from the tux place.  His suit/shoes are free because he has 5 people renting suits, so that's awesome.  He's also considering wearing an ivory tie instead of an aquamarine one.

I also received my wedding shoes early this week and I LOVE them.  They are SO cute, super comfy, and exactly what I was looking for.  I am so happy with them and beyond thrilled that I found them.

I got my wedding and engagement rings back today from being re-sized.  I also had my e-ring re-dipped.  It looks brand new!  And fits so much better now as well.  I ordered a fake set to wear for the honeymoon and have been wearing that e-ring for the past week and a half or so, and it feels SO good to have my real stuff back!  I missed my e-ring haha.

Today I went to A.C. Moore and picked up three archive quality pens for our guest book tree, as well as the brown and ivory scrapbook paper I'll be using to make our "Mr." and "Mrs." chair back signs for the reception.  I also placed my order for my guest book tree canvas.  I got the digital file for free from Style Unveiled and printed it on a 16x20 wrap-around canvas that's 1.5" deep on the sides with a sweet Groupon that saved me $79.00!!  I can't wait to get it in.  I sent an email to an Etsy seller who prints her trees on canvas to see if she'll just sell me two ink pads, since I can't find the colours I want and don't know what brand to use.  Hopefully she'll come through for me!

We're in the process of booking the caterer we met with last week.  We just want to make sure they'll be communicative (that's been our number one problem with them so far) and want to iron out some small details.  Hopefully we'll be able to check that off our list, since it was on my list of things to get done before September 2011 and STILL isn't checked off!  To anyone getting married down the Jersey shore, make sure you do this FIRST because everyone closes for the winter and you won't be able to get anything done in those months!!

Lastly, we only have one thing left on our to do list for April 22 to May 21!!  We just need to book our stupid rentals!  That's the last big vendor that *we* need to hire.  I only work thirty hours this week, so I'll have time to call during the day on Thursday or Friday to talk to someone and get our stuff sorted out.  Hopefully we'll have everything checked off our list by the end of this week!  Then I can really start working on next month's list :)

140 days left!  We're getting closer and closer... ahhh!  I can't believe how fast time is flying now!