Our Wedding by the Sea

Houston, we have a contract!  Woohoo!  After months of talking about it, we FINALLY got our contract with our caterer.  We are signed, sealed, and official.  I could cry.  SUCH a HUGE weight off my shoulders... you know, since we have 9 weeks until our wedding and all haha.

Today we are going to meet with our rental company to change a few things, see some things and possibly add them to our list, and put down a deposit.  Then we're off to taste some cake!

Hopefully this bakery will be "the one," and we can sign a contract today.  After the deposit is down at the the rental place and the cake lady is (hopefully) booked, I'll be screaming from the rooftops- but not on Facebook haha- about how ALL of our vendors will have been booked.

Please send positive happy vibes out into the universe that everything goes well and that I can finally relax after today!!

PS- I got some texts yesterday from friends saying they got my invitations already!!  That was SO fast!  We might even get some RSVPs before the mailing week is over!

We are down to double digits-- 99 days!  Holy moly, I can't believe we are SO close.  At this time last year I didn't even have a date solidified, and now I'm down to mostly little details and getting super nervous about paying for all of this and making sure it's going to come together smoothly.

I haven't written in a little while because things are really busy right now between work, planning our wedding, and planning the pre-wedding parties for the wedding we're both in two weeks before ours.  But lots of things are done now and there are still some things I am just itching to scratch off of our "to do" list that I'm obsessed with these days.  I literally have a copy on this website, a copy printed out in my planning binder, mini lists everywhere, and a list of weekly checks in my iPad.  Crossing something off is so satisfying.

So here's what we've recently got done...
-We got our guest book tree in the mail!  I used a free graphic I found online, added our name and wedding date in PhotoShop and bought a Groupon to have it printed on canvas.  It is SO cute and I can't wait to hang it in our future house!
-We also got the picture frame for our sand ceremony.  It's a vase/frame combination that we got online that wasn't marketed for sand ceremonies, so instead of paying $50/60 we paid $9.99 on clearance.  Love!
-Bridesmaid's dresses arrived yesterday!  They are SO pretty.  The colour is amazing!  When we ordered them, we only got to see a small swatch of the colour, so we had to use our imaginations on the rest of the dress.  It is so vibrant and lovely.  We also got the guys their ties and pocket squares in the same colours.
-I figured out my something old/new/borrowed/blue and attached a sixpence to my barefoot sandal.  My old is the promise ring my dad gave my mum when they were teenagers; my new is my new last name (Mrs. undies!), my borrowed is a lady bug brooch that a close friend carried on her own wedding day, and my blue is my crinoline.  Nice to have those little details sorted out!
-I bought serving trays for our seating card display (we're going to fill them with sand and put the seating cards inside).  I painted them white and finished them with an acrylic clear coat, so those are ready to go!
-Started working on wedding cake stuff with my mum.  I think we have our cake!!

On my list for this weekend:
-Call about rentals (so nervous to do this for some reason- probably because I know it will be expensive!)
-Harass our caterer to send us a contract.  This is killing me!
-Call to make a fitting appointment for tuxes (the shop owners were on vacation so we had to wait for this one)
-Call about alterations and set up my first fitting

Hopefully my next update finds that bottom paragraph "checked off!"  One of these days I'm going to post a giant super post with tons of pictures of all the little details that are currently hanging out around our house and at FMIL's house.  Till then, you'll just have to use your imagination <3

We finally met with the restaurant that will potentially be catering at our wedding.

The food was delicious.  We tasted the prime rib, stuffed chicken, grilled chicken breast with red pepper and spinach, and the cheese ravioli with lobster cream sauce.  The sides we tried were sauteed veggies and tri-colour potatoes, as well as Caesar salad with their own homemade dressing.  The food was delicious and if we go with them, we'll probably do the Caesar salad (as opposed to a garden salad).  We really liked the prime rib and the cheese ravioli with lobster cream sauce for the entree choices, and the tri-colour potatoes for the side.

We loved everything and the chef (owner) was super nice and very helpful.  The only thing that makes me nervous is that the person in charge of catering is not very good at communicating and I have a hard time getting her to respond to emails and phone calls.  I'm going to express my concern to her and hopefully we can resolve it so we can book them.  The last thing I want is to be worried a week before my wedding because I'm not sure what's going on with our food.

On another (very exciting) note, I tried on my wedding dress this morning.  We were at my fiance's parent's house (where my dress currently lives) and I couldn't resist.  It's too big!  I can hold a solid fist full of fabric behind me!  All my hard work is paying off- it's super fabulous and I feel fantastic!

Everything is really coming together.  The last big checks we have are catering, rentals, and tuxes.  After that, it's basically just small stuff.  A huuuuuge weight will be off my shoulders soon!!

Good thing, too, because we're creeping ever closer to the Big Day (or Doomsday, as I lovingly refer to it sometimes haha)- only 146 days left!  I can't believe that I was once counting

First thing's first.  We *still* have no caterer.  5 months out and still no food.  Can we say STRESSED!?  However, I've been talking to the catering manager at a restaurant in Ocean City (just north of Stone Harbor) and it looks like we'll probably go with them.  We're trying to schedule a tasting with them- hopefully for this Sunday- and really really hoping it works out so we can sign a contract and let out a HUGE sigh of relief.  Keep your eyes open for more info on that!

Second line of business: Tuxes.  We ordered ties & pocket squares back in March when I ordered the bridesmaid's dresses.  Since my dresses are Alfred Sung (and therefore part of Dessy), ties were available in the exact same colour & fabric as the dresses, so we just ordered at the same time.  However, we have yet to book suit/tux rentals.  Chris and I are both looking for the same thing, so thank goodness we don't have to argue about it.  Honestly though, if he wanted to wear something other than the idea I have in my head, I'd be cool with it.  As it is, we're hoping for tan coloured suits/tuxes.  We have an appointment this coming Tuesday at the first store I went to to try on dresses.  Chris and I are both in a wedding 2 weeks before our own, and the bride got her dress there.  The groom and groomsmen are also getting their tuxes there, so Chris has already interacted with their sales team and stuff when he went to get fitted for that wedding.  He said he found a suit there that he liked for our wedding, so hopefully that will be "the one" and we can sort out tuxes, too.  Then it's just a matter of having the groomsmen & ushers fitted, and Chris' will be free!  Luckily, his best man is the groom from the wedding we're in before ours, so the store already has HIS measurements AND we share a common groomsman who currently lives in Texas, so they have his measurements already, too.  We just need to have the other groomsman (currently living in Georgia) get measured, and have Chris' brothers (our ushers) get measured as well.  We need to find the two of them ties, too.  But at least there's an end in sight!

Finally, invitations.  I have really begun the assembly line.  About 15 envelopes are addressed.  It's labor-intensive and takes a long time, but I'm slowly working through them.  I ordered an address stamper from Vistaprint for the return address, so at least that's going quickly haha.  I'm pretty sure I'll be printing the return address on the RSVP envelopes though.  All of the invitation mats are marked so I know where to mount the invites.  The panel pockets are also nearly all marked so I can mount the mats onto them.  I'll probably start actually gluing the mats to the pockets this weekend.  I haven't printed the invitations yet because a) our printer keeps freezing in the middle of the page every single time I try to print them and b) we want to wait until we have a caterer booked so we can put meal choices on the RSVPs.  Fun fun.  But at least I'm making progress and getting finished with what I can.

Last (but not least), we have confirmed centerpieces!  I don't have my wedding jump drive so I can't post the inspiration picture right now, but I'll post it when I get home from work tonight.  It's going to be 3 cylinder vases with floating candles, the tallest of which will have 1-2 submerged purple calla lilies.  We're going to put either marbles or sand on the bottom of the vases.  I ordered the flowers (30 real touch callas) from Save-On-Crafts yesterday, as well as 36 cylinder vases, 144 votive holders, 36 ivory floating candles, 72 ivory votives, and 72 light blue votives.  They should be here Monday already so I can make some mockups and make sure that the colour on the flowers isn't going to bleed.

149 days to go!  Ahhhh!!!