Our Wedding by the Sea

I just got back from our cake tasting/rental day.  I feel a huge weight of stress just lifted off my shoulders.  All our major vendors are finally hired.

First we stopped at the rental company place.  We added some stuff, removed some stuff, changed some stuff.  It was a lot easier to talk to them in person than it was on the phone: they always seemed really busy when I called and I feel I got much better service today in person.  AND our bill went down dramatically with our changes.  So yay!

Then we went to the cake tasting.  I'm not going to lie: I was a little put-off.  It was in a kinda not-nice-looking shopping center.  But the minute I tried the cake I was in love.  She obviously uses real butter in her buttercream.  The cake was moist and absolutely delicious and I am so excited that we will be eating it on our wedding night.  It was sweet- but not too sweet- and was just perfect.

She is going to replicate the simple, yet beautiful, cake I fell in love with 18 months ago when I first started looking for wedding ideas.  I am going to try to order some loose flowers from Shaye (who did our wedding flowers) to break up the layers a little bit since it's all white frosting.  We're doing four tiers: chocolate, vanilla, marble, and chocolate chip.

The price was beyond fair and includes delivery from Egg Harbor to Stone Harbor and set-up at our reception AND a complimentary anniversary cake next year.

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

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!