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!
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I literally spent the whole day yesterday working on invitations. I printed everything out and cut it down (each invite was 2, 8x10 sheets of paper that had the invite, RSVP card, accommodations card, and directions card- I had to cut down the 8x10 page to get all the little elements). Then I started mounting the invites to the pocket fold, and stuffing the pockets with enclosure cards. That took forever, because I made a different set of directions for each person- to match the state they are coming from.
It feels SO good to be done. I just need to go to the post office on Monday and buy postage. We still need to add stamps to the RSVP envelopes, as well as the mailing envelopes... and then we'll send them off on Tuesday! I hope we start getting some RSVPs this week!! And we have 69 days left, but who's counting? :p For the past several months, I have been holding off on printing my invitations. Not because I wanted to- oh no- but because I *thought* there was a problem with the brand new, supposed-to-be-amazing printer that Chris' parents bought us for Christmas. Every time I tried to print out my beloved documents, there was a series of dots along the sides of the wording. I thought it was smudging from the rollers. I can't even tell you how many times Chris cleaned those stupid rollers.
A friend brought my paper to her workplace and I sent her all her files. I got desperate! My invites go out on July 23rd and they aren't even freakin printed yet!! She printed them and the same stupid dots were on them. Turns out the stupid dots are on the document. I could kick myself. I am SO happy that it was something so small. I just took an erase and removed them from that layer on Photoshop. Thank the lord I didn't merge all my layers!!! So as I write this, I am currently printing the invitations & RSVP cards for all of the parties of two invited to our wedding. Then I'll do parties of one. Then I'll do alllll the directions cards. I had Fi buy new ink last night. I am finishing these invitations THIS weekend. Once and for all. ...wish me luck... 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!!! I ordered the paper for our invitations last week and it should be here on the 6th! Yay! So I've been reevaluating my design, and I realized that I made all my enclosures for the regular pocketfold sizes, instead of the panel pocket (which is what I ended up deciding on). So I completely re-did my invitation suite over the past 2 days. Now I have 2 enclosure cards & an RSVP card and I feel like everything flows so much better & looks a lot better. Here is my inspiration suite: 
What I love about it is that the enclosure cards have graphics on them that align when they are on top of one another. Mine now do this as well and I love them SO much better than what I was doing before.
I LOVE them and can't wait to start assembling! Get here soon, paper!! 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 can't believe there are only 300 days left! I remember when I was counting backward from 455 (and had a different wedding date in mind). It's amazing how much we have finished since then... and how much more we still have to do. Our six-year anniversary is coming up, too, as well as Chris' birthday and Christmas of course, so this month will likely fly by. I graduate on the 16th, so I basically have a lot of free time coming up as well :D So here's the updates & plans for the coming month! First and foremost, I sent out STD's to my OOT guests last week! Only 10 of them, but still! I've been hearing from everyone how they got them yesterday/today, and have been getting lots of compliments on them. It makes it feel so real- we're actually sending mail to tell people that we're getting married! And I checked weddingwire, and our website has had 11 hits!! So exciting!! Also, I went dress shopping with two of my BM's. Morgan (in GA) plans to go on Christmas break to try it on. If she approves, that's the dress we're going to go with. Jen & Britta decided they liked the blue better and I agreed, but Morgan can choose if she wants to wear aquamarine (and match the others) or brownie (and be different) since she's the MOH. Here are some pics of Jen & Britta trying the dresses on. Jen doesn't have the flower accent belt thing on because it was too big for both of them and just looked silly hanging there- the smaller clasp size thing was broken. The style is Alfred Sung D498. It has pockets and is totally re-wearable.  Britta lookin' cute.  Jen lovin' the pockets. Third, we bought our serving set today. I am so excited. I can't wait to start blinging the set up! I am covering it in 16ss light aquamarine & clear rhinestones- it will look fab.  So in December I need to DIY the serving set. I also need to attempt (again!) to block hotel rooms in Stone Harbor for my guests since basically everyone is traveling for our wedding, including us. The hotels I contacted months ago all said they don't "do" blocks. So I'm a little nervous now about not being able to get this together, but I'll keep trying!
I will also be ordering paper for my DIY invites in December and starting to address the envelopes, cutting mats, and adhering them to the panel pocket or pocketfold (still haven't decided which route to go). I don't know how to do choreography, but I plan to print everyone's address in a calligraphy font on printer paper, then use a light table to trace it onto the envelopes. Could take forever, so I want to get started early. Last but definitely NOT least! I graduate from the University of Georgia on December 16th! Finally finally finally!! I am ecstatic and CANNOT wait!! We are traveling to Georgia on the 15th so I can walk and are spending the weekend in Athens to celebrate my graduating and Chris' 25th birthday. I got my cap, gown, and tassel in the mail last week. The cap & tassel are fine, but the gown was messed up (it was sewn wrong) so they are rushing a replacement to me that should be here before December 7th. Now I'm working on decorating my cap and need to figure out what I want to do with it. So I am going to be DIYing our invitations, save the dates, programs, etc. Basically everything paper for the wedding. I had done most of these things, but recently I was just so uninspired by the stuff I had put together. Our save the dates (below) were just so blah and not us. Our invitation suite was boring and again- not us. Our program fans were cute, but didn't really match the feel of the wedding (neither did the save the dates, come to think of it...) So this weekend I put in some serious time re-designing everything. I am so much happier with everything now. I stole the layout/design for our save the dates from Wedding Paper Divas. I took the idea for the invites from Minted, and then used the same motif to make enclosure cards, thank you notes, and programs. I would have done the same for our save the dates, but I don't like when save the dates are too matchy-matchy with everything else. I just had to report because I'm just so much happier with everything now. I also figured out how many invitations I need to send out (64) and decided to make 80 invites- that way we'll have extras in case some get lost in the mail or in case we need to add any last minute extras. Also, we'll have one for our pictures on the wedding day, as well as one to frame for our home. I then figured out what I'll need to order from C&P to start assembling them, and will probably order paper/envelopes in early December so I can start slowly putting things together & addressing my envelopes.  Our old STD's  The back of our old STD's  The front of our new STD's- with random e-pics I found on Google until we can put our own e-pics in.  The back of our new STD's. Simple and classic. Love. Last but not least, I have gathered almost all of the addresses I need to complete our guest list. I still need to get them from Chris' mom, but nearly my whole family and almost all of our friends are finished. Yay!
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