So I know I haven't written in awhile, but it's not for lack of things to say. I have been SO busy and haven't had much time for anything NWR. When I do have a few precious minutes of not wedding planning or working, I don't want to spend them writing about wedding planning. Haha- I am all planned out!! Now I feel like I can write some stuff, so I'm going to :) On August 5th I had my bridal shower. It was amazing- beyond my expectations. It was a Paris theme and I loved it. There was a great mix of friends and family and I was SO nervous but had no reason to be. My mum, FMIL, and bridesmaids did a great job. We got some great gifts and everyone had a lovely afternoon.   My bridesmaids and I. My MOH was unable to make it because she lives in Georgia and her first day of school (she's a teacher) was the following day.  My beautiful mum & I  My fabulous ribbon hat  Most of the lovely ladies who came out for my shower We've also checked A LOT off our lists. There is still quite a bit to go, but it's definitely do-able. We bought the lanterns for our cocktail hour centerpieces, confirmed the reception set-up with our DJ (and made most of our playlist, just need to confirm a few little details with Fi). We cancelled the Vieques leg of our stay in PR and extended the time in San Juan because of the hassle (ie- ferry times being unreliable, rental cars not being allowed to leave the main island, no full moon = no biobay, etc.). We also went to Lowe's and bought the wood, paint, and nails to make our table numbers, as well as dowels and wood to make the base for our stacked paper lanterns for beside the bar.
Our RSVP deadline was today as well. We are still waiting to hear back from 26 people, but we are officially below our max amount, so I am thrilled. We are giving the mail until the end of the week to come in (we figure there will be a few stragglers) and then we'll start calling around on Monday. If everyone else says yes (and there are a few we're expecting to say no), then we'll have 96 guests. The smaller, the better, I like to say :) We also made our final payment to the WCC today, which feels REALLY good. We are really coming along!! On Thursday we go to apply for our marriage license, which I am SUPER excited for. Mostly because it means we get to go to the beach! We haven't been AT ALL this summer because of work, and we're using all of our time off for the wedding and honeymoon :( Which will be awesome then... but sucks a lot right now. Finally, we took my engagement ring to be re-dipped. I want it to be nice and sparkly for pictures! They should all be back on the 28th, but I won't be wearing my e-ring again until the wedding weekend. We engraved our rings, too. His will say, "Big Spoon" and mine will say, "Little Spoon." I am in love :) 33 DAYS UNTIL I'M CHRIS' MRS.!!
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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... 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 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: 
My mum ordered her dress for the wedding last week and I LOVE it. I can't wait for it to come in!! She ordered it in navy. 
I ordered my girls' dresses today! We went with Dessy D498 in Aquamarine. My celebrant loved the dress, too, so she got one in black. I ordered from ebridalsuperstore.com, which I heard from in Bridal Bargains and has great reviews. Now I just sit and play the waiting game. I also ordered the ties & pocket squares for Chris and the groomsmen. They are the same colour & fabric as the bridesmaid's dresses, and are from Dessy as well so we should get a perfect match. I ordered my barefoot sandals from Etsy last week and they are shipping tomorrow. I'm going to wear them alone on the beach, and add a pair of ivory flip flops for the reception. 
These are the sandals I ordered, but I'll be wearing ivory satin flop flops to keep the more formal feel. Also, she's replacing the large glass bead accents with genuine pearls free of charge.
Also! I finally got in contact with the lady from Vital Statistics in Stone Harbor about having our ceremony on the beach. She told me I needed to send her a letter with our time/date/location on the beach and she'd okay it. Another perk we weren't expecting is that it's free! When we were considering Cape May, it was $50 for a half hour permit (that is, a half-hour to set-up, have your ceremony, and break-down), so we thought it'd be the same in Stone Harbor. She told me it was free, though, so that's super exciting! Another $50 we don't have to come up with :) The letter is on its way to her now.
Today my mum told me she and my step-dad were going to pay for everything I bought at David's the other night. That means they are covering not only my dress, but my slip, "long bra," veil, and dress preservation box/service. I am so beyond thrilled and over-the-top thankful. Now I just need to pay for alterations, and I am so happy to be saving the money.
This week I received my cake topper, garter, and garter charms. I also bought totes for my bridesmaids that were on clearance at Target for $4.24 (marked down from $16.99- sweet), as well as beach-themed potpourri for the bathrooms. I know, that's a kind of pointless purchase, but it'll be a nice touch I think. I am going absolutely crazy with DJ shopping. My top three priorities for our wedding are as follows: 1. It's at the beach (check!) 2. We have a fantastic photographer (check check!) 3. That we & our guests dance all night long That last one seems to be the one I'm having the most problem with. Every DJ I have contacted is either above our price range or leaves me feeling uncomfortable or with a bad taste in my mouth. I am feeling so- blah. I just want the major vendors to be booked so I can relax! This is making me crazy. My co-worker, Carrie, recommended her DJ from her wedding in April and I contacted him yesterday. He has been amazing so far and so communicative. He's from a town very close to mine, but his in-laws live in Stone Harbor so he said there would be no travel fee for him to do our wedding (yay!). I just hope we can stinkin' afford him. We were at Chris' mom's 50th birthday party last night and they had a DJ that everyone kept saying we should book. He wasn't that impressive though, and almost everyone at the party was 50 or over, and the music was definitely their style... NOT mine. So we nodded politely and said, "maybe..." but won't be looking into that one. However, it did get Chris and I talking about how we were willing to adjust the budget and do without some things so we can maybe spend some more money on our DJ. Ahhh! I just want this part over with so I can have fun with little details!! Oh- another interesting part of the party last night is that Lailah, Chris' cousin- was there. She is about 7 or 8 years old and was sending us major signs that she wants to be our flower girl. She kept asking about the wedding. She kept staring at me, pointing at her dress, and walking away. She wore a white dress. Her mother told me she wore a white dress because she knows that's what colour flower girls wear. How am I supposed to tell her/them that we aren't having kids at our wedding?? Now I feel bad, but I am NOT budging on that one... So I just ordered some of the little details online, and wanted to share because I think the little details are probably the most fun part of wedding planning so far.  Our cake topper! Etsy Seller mullishmuse. I might put a blinged out Crafty Eddy "N" behind them if they are too small. We shall see :)  Garters with a dark purple feather detail on the keepsake garter, and purple ribbons on the toss garter. I wanted purple because it's my favorite colour and I won't have it anywhere else in the wedding.  Finally, I plan to use these companion cube earrings as charms on my garter. I'm not sure if I'll put one on each one, one on just the toss, or one on just the keep, but they are super cute & absolutely essential for my geeky Fi. He will love them! They are one of the many surprises I have for him on our wedding day. | Planning Blog
This is my wedding planning blog to chronicle the madness of the 16 months leading up to our wedding. ArchivesSeptember 2012 Easy Access To...
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