Centerpieces!

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

I am so stoked! My centerpieces are almost done. Months of hoarding glass bottles and jars have payed off, and it's one more thing I can erase from the budget. I finally sat down and figured out how many bottles I would need to make my tables look full. On my dining room floor, I taped out the dimensions of my table runner/table so I could visualize better. I brought out some of my jar collection and arranged them as follows. It is going to look great. And the best part about it is that I am only short a few bottles. Nothing that a few weeks of drinking starbucks or making spagetti from a jar won't fix. I won't even need to rent or buy kerr jars like I originally thought. I still need to buy 3 more little antique medicine bottles to use as bud vases but I already have 15!

Like I said, that is way more to check off the budget, since really, all these bottles are free except the antique ones. I also started stockpiling all glass bottles that go through our house (compulsion I think). I plan to recycle them. I did take pictures so you can see my process. I hope you can visualize, like me, how cool this will look when it has pink and ivory wildflowers and candles in the jars.

Anyone else putting something free (or somthing you would have bought anyway) to use at your wedding?

Luckiest Girl in the World

I cannot believe how generous my future in-laws are. I am almost at a loss for words. All I can say is that I am so lucky to know such wonderful people, let alone becoming part of their family.
They are in town for a few days to ski and hang out with 2/4 of their children who live up here. FH and his older brother who just bought a house here. FMIL was way excited to talk about the wedding, which was a blast. I told her the breakdown of all the costs, letting them know we were planning on paying for all of it, even though they had said the would contribute. We were puzzling over the guest list, trying to keep it around 40 people to keep cost down. It was impossible though.
Until... FFIL and FMIL decided to multiply my budget by 2.5. The only string attached was that we invite all the aunts and  uncles, which is just fine since we wanted to be able to invite them anyway.
This takes such a huge weight off my shoulders. I started crying as soon as we got in the car to go home. Poor FH was trying to cheer me up but I wasn't even sad. I wasn't even sure what I was crying about.  I just was so grateful.
So we get to have our perfect wedding. I crunched the numbers last night and no matter how hard I try, I still have a surplus in the budget.

A Huge Relief

I must confess I have been stressing out about the guest list. It has been a major point of contention. FH and I want to have it AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE. But that doesn't seem to happen. I have set the cutoff mark at 42 people. That is for one long table (actually 5 8' banquet tables set end to end). It actually might work. We might get away with it.
My worry was that FH has a large family. His parents both have 2-3 siblings each, and each of them have 2-3 kids, and even some of them have kids. It's tough to decide who goes and who stays, but many of those cousins I have never met. We are really only inviting those that we are close with or have regular contact with.
But our dream of having a small wedding is coming true. It's awesome because this shrinks our budget too! I only have to buy 5 tablecloths at $12 each ($60) from smartyhadaparty.com. I am making my own burlap runners, purchased from save-on-crafts.com. And this means I need way fewer bottles for my centerpieces (hello antique stores). Now that I have less people coming, my world of options has expanded. I only have to make around 30 invitations! And my cost for rentals just went down exponentially. Ah so excited.

My FFIL and FMIL are coming into town this weekend. I am so excited to see them and discuss the wedding. They have both said they would like to contribute so I am hoping to have some rough numbers crunched for them.

How did you whittle down your guest list? Anyone else having a super tiny wedding?

The Bridesmaid dresses

Bridesmaid Dress

MOH Dress

I am so not picky with the way my ladies will look. I want them to be comfortable and enjoy themselves. I also do not want them to spend too much money on my wedding. After all, they are not the ones getting married. One of my bridesmaids, SC just graduated college and is working at a coffee shop and interning at a wedding planning company. Another, my hottie of honor, works full time in California. SL just graduated as well and works as a ski instructor. E is getting married herself and is currently applying to grad school. My point being, none of them are really in the place to be shelling out $100's of dollars for a wedding that they only have a few hours vested in.
I found a website: lightinthebox.com that has a wide variety of basic wedding, bridesmaid and MOB dresses. I will have them all order through this site to ensure that they have the same color/fabric. I was going to have them all pick different dresses but they seem to all have gravitated towards the same one which is fine with me. My MOH will have a longer version of the same dress. It is going to be in a lighter pink than pictured. The dresses are just under $100 a piece. MOH just ordered hers so I am stoked to see what it looks like.

Detail of Bust of dress.

Mrs. Balloons Lovely Ladies

This is the look that I am going for. This is from Mrs. Balloons wedding on weddingbee. Ah I love this wedding so much! She is my wedding twin, same style, almost the same date and my FH is from Vail, Colorado!


Photos from lightinthebox.com and weddingbee.com

To Drink or Not to Drink?

I am trying to decide if we should have a completely dry reception (i.e. No alcohol) or serve beer and wine.
I will now present to you a Ben Franklin List on this issue. (For those of you who don't know, Benjamin Franklin frequently wrote lists of the pros and cons of each decision he made)

To Drink:
- Many of our guests are older and would appreciate a glass of wine with their dinner
- Most guests will expect to have alcohol at a wedding. It's pretty customary.
- *most* of our guests are responsible and would not drink more than their limit to drive, or would have their wife, husband, cousin, friend, drive back to the hotel.
- FH thinks that if we do not offer alcohol then guests will want to leave earlier, thus supporting his argument for a lunchtime reception. (again what am I supposed to do with my gorgeous updo and makeup for the rest of the day? FH says to enjoy being married. But I want to celebrate!)

Not to Drink:
- The road to our ceremony/reception is long and winding. Most of the guests are not familiar with the drive and even if they are, the road is a different beast at night.
- There are a few certain guests who are sure to imbibe too much and make complete fools of themselves
- FH and I do not drink. Just out of personal choice. Also we are gluten free (more on that later, in fact I will do a whole post on this since our wedding is to be gluten free) and alcohol almost always has gluten
- I believe that if guests have to drink to have a good time at our celebration, they really aren't there for the right reasons.
- It will significantly cut costs on our reception so we will have more money for things that matter to us, like having better food, or an upgraded dessert table.

So what do you think? Has anyone else had any experience with this? How did you settle/handle it?

Stationary

Being fairly artistic (I was an art major in college) as well as pretty computer savvy, it only makes sense for me to do my own invitations. As with everything else wedding related, I have been plotting my invitations for waaaaay longer than FH(future hubby) and I have been engaged. But of course, my decisions change with the days of the week. I am going to have some help with my Save-The-Dates, as they will primarily be emailed STD's except for my grandma and other relatives who aren't too hip on the internet yet. I am getting help from my Fiance's Brother's Wife's Mother (did you follow?) who is a graphic designer. The STD's are vintage-y with 5 different pretty fonts. It will be modeled after an STD from weddingpaperdivas.com, one of my favorite sites. Other sites I peruse for stationary ideas are minted.com and crane.com. I'm not too attached to the STD's to be honest.

From http://papermadedesign.com/
Custom Design

I'm more excited about the invitations. I've been in love with the ombre trend so I will try to incorporate ombre watercolor look into them and I found an absolutely fabulous font!

It's called "shipped Goods" from dafont.com. http://www.dafont.com/shipped-goods.font

Unfortunately, it is pretty difficult to read. I can read it fine of course, because I wrote it, but my FH, bridesmaid, and friends at work weren't able to read the first line. I have to get a different font for the pertinent details and do maybe a mismatched font thing.

The invitation itself is pretty simple. Flat 5x7 card with a 3.5x5 RSVP card with a 4 bar envelope, all enclosed in a Lee Bar (5.25x7.25) envelope. I will most likely be getting the paper and envelopes from paper-source.com. They have all the sizes I need and seem to come in really pretty paper.

I'm going to print them at home, I have a pretty nice printer (that I got on black friday for $40!) and can buy good paper. If that doesn't work however, I may go to fedex or staples to have them printed.

Anyone have any luck or misfortune with printing their own invitations? How about with using Fedex or Staples? Any quick tips for either?
Also specifically what is the paper like from paper-source.com? They seem to have lots of different papers but I can't tell the difference on my monitor from the PS paper and the Luxe or Stardream papers.

The Budget

I am taking the approach to budgeting that Miss Boa Constrictor is taking. Zero budget and then finding the cheapest option for each thing I want and making that the budget. Honestly this has been working great for me. I basically stole my dress (for the record, I didn't, but I did only pay 11% the original price), I'm making a ton of stuff (i.e. table runners).

Another way I have found to save money:  buying the table linens from smartyhadaparty.com instead of renting them. The tableclothes will cost $12.50 whether I rent them or  purchase them. BUT, I can sell them afterward, even if I get only 100 for all 12 after it's all over ($8 a piece), I still only spend $4 per tablecloth.

I have expensive floral tastes, but I'm hoping my obsessive internet research will pay off  in the long run. I love the look of peonies. I am so in love with peonies but they are expensive and unfortunatly, they don't bloom during my chosen date (August 4th). I am going instead to uses garden roses which have a similar look to peonies. I am also going to use carnations, no not red white and blue stupid fake walmart carnations, but ruffly, blush carnations. They can look good when mixed in. At farmers market last summer, my Future Mother in Law, bought me a bouquet from one of the stands (she is just a nice lady like that). The stand was called Bee Haven Farms. They had so many gorgeous flowers, and they also do weddings. They do have the option to do your whole wedding but they also have a cool a la carte option. They will do the hard stuff, making the bouquets and boutonnieres, but then they will sell me flowers in my colors by the bucket for my centerpieces. Which will be perfect, since I am doing long tables (one table is 4 8' tables stuck end to end) I am doing long centerpieces of different vintage bottles and bud vases strewn down burlap table runners.

Other DIY things will be the seating chart and menus done on old window panes. This will be fairly easy and since I have been doing calligraphy for years, it should turn out fairly well.

On the subject of centerpieces, my biggest obstacle has been the jars in which to hold my flowers and candles. I love the look of real vintage ball jars, but at $8.50-10 a piece at antique stores, they are way out of my price range (remember I need 12-17 jars each table, and I have 10 tables). I did find a whole basket of 20 little medicine jars for $30, which I will be buying. For the past few months, I've been saving any glass jars we use. Olives, olive oil, mustard, capers, vermouth, etc., you name it, I peel the label off and save it (as you can see, I am a dirty martini fan). I have amassed quite a collection.

My biggest bottle collection, however comes from doing something I do all the time anyway: Drinking Starbucks. Instead of stopping by on my way to work every morning, I buy a pack of the 4 frappachinos from the grocery store, drink one down every morning, wash them, peel the label off and store them away. I have about 40 of the short ones and 20 of the tall ones. They are actually going to be perfect for the look I am going for.

The moral of this story is, you don't nesscarily need to have a budget set in stone, as long as you  have a ballpark. I'm shooting for $2,000 and may actually beat my budget, but doing extensive price comparing.

Anyone else have any super secret saving tips?

photos credit theknot.com, starbucks.com

Wedding Nightmares

The wedding is in 7 months as of yesterday and I have been having wedding nightmares for at least a month now. Most of them I'm in California by a pool in a city on a hot sunny day and it's the day of my wedding (definitely not me). I realize it's not where my wedding is supposed to be. My colors are wrong, all the outfits are wrong and I don't know any of the guests. Then I go to the closet to put on my dress and there are 15 dresses that all look kind of like my dress but have weird beading or are pink or are short and they are all wrong. I dig to the back of the closet but I still dont' find my dress in the sea of tulle and chiffon.

Last night my dream was about the Engagement session we have tomorrow. I spent the entire dream trying to figure out what to wear, nothing looked right and I was stressed out of my mind. I kept trying on ugly outfits and changing and wasnt' able to find the elusive item of clothing. Of course I still don't know what I'll wear tomorrow for the session. I will probably be modeling for my uncooperative FH (future husband) for a few hours tonight.

Yesterday, while perusing wedding blogs and generally obsessing about every detail of weddings (like usual), I saw a post about elopements and it showed a bride and groom sitting in a row boat looking happy as could be. Ah, elopement. That sounds so nice, easy, stylish and CHEAP. I'm so sick of looking at a favor or a centerpiece I would like then realizing I have to mulitply the cost by 70 and then getting disheartented. I had done so much planning for my wedding even before we got engaged that I thought it would be easy to just tie off the loose ends and then relax. I had already rented all the wedding related books from the library over four months ago. I've already read all the etiquette guides, subscribed to the magazines, found my "look". It should be easy now. Instead I find myself to be stressed even more because now that I am actually trying to recreat my vision, the budget isn't fitting. It sucks not having any money because I know I am going to have to wait until the 11th hour to buy wedding things. I'm just spinning my wheels now and driving myself crazy thinking about all the possibilities.

Because I was a wedding planner and have dealt with brides frequently, I sort of knew what I didn't want to be like. So for that my dear bridesmaids should thank me. I work very hard on not discussing the wedding everytime we talk. I try to know what is going on in their lives. My co-workers however, get the full brunt of my bridezilla-ness. I talk about it a lot at work. I rationalize it because people ask me about it all the time at work. I am trying to be a good bride but I am stressed. Of course, it's probably just getting to that time of the month, honestly.

 The biggest thing I am worried about is not being able to just hang out with FH on our wedding day. That's all I want to do. I want to wear my pretty dress and hang out with FH. I really don't care about anything else but I feel as though I should. I'm so scared that the day will fly by and I won't have gotten to enjoy it because I was so worried about getting this picture and that picture and saying hi to this long lost relative and rushing to the next even. I just want to have fun.

With this I am going to attempt to take the weekend off of wedding planning. This is a huge step. I would say month but I know I can't do it. Of course I sound commited now, but Say Yes to the Dress is all new on Friday...

Have you hit walls in  your wedding planning where  you feel like eloping? How did you overcome those? Anyone who is married, were you able to enjoy your wedding day and your husband? Any tips for doing so?
Also any funny wedding nightmares? My married friend said even her fiance (now hubby) had nightmares!

THE Dress

My favorite designer is and always has been Priscilla of Boston. There was a dress called Maeve that I have been lusting after for years. The dress has a sweetheart neckline, made of ivory silk taffeta, a ballgown sillouhette and a big bow on the hip. Part of me believed deep down in my heart that I could rationalize spending $2675 on a wedding dress.

Then in June or so of 2011, they announced that they were closing their doors on December 31st after 65 years of being in business. If you have time at some point, look up Priscilla Kidder, the mother of the company who started it herself when no bank would give a woman a loan. She was one tough cookie, and just another reason why I love this company.

I was so sad because FH (future husband) hadn't proposed yet and now I wouldn't get my chance to have my dream dress, as they had stopped production and were only selling samples. I am on the email list for Priscilla so each time the dresses got discounted I was given a notice. First 30% off, which didn't make much of a dent in the price. Then in October it was discounted 70% to $800. Still expensive but now within reach. It was a few days after FH had proposed so I gave the Denver salon a call. They had sold my Maeve two days before. I thought, "that's it, I've got to buy a dress online or worse at David's Bridal."

Then, the last week of November, I got another email. All dresses from $2000-$3999 were discounted to $299. Holy $#!# , I thought! This was my chance. If there was a sample Maeve still unpurchased in any salon in the country, I was going to buy her. I started with Atlanta (alphabetical order), and they told me they had it! Perfect condition, Ivory, Sample Size 10 Maeve. And they could ship it for only $50.

I was ready to buy it right then and there, as not to risk losing the dress (lucky for me the salon was only open another 13 minutes). But I took a night to think on it and talk with FH. My mom (who I had  been texting like mad about THE dress), said she would like to buy the dress for me. So the next morning on December 1st, I called the salon the minute they opened and bought the dress.

The dress arrived at my work a week later in a giant white box. All the ladies I worked with wanted to see the dress on, so I got to put on my beautiful gown. Since it's a sample size 10 (street size 4-6) and I'm a size 2 and not exactly tall, the dress is about 1 1/2 inches too big around the bust and about 4 inches too long. I have to get it altered but other than that, it is everything I had hoped for. A few little dirty marks here and there, nothing that will show in pictures or that can't be dry cleaned out.

So the moral of this story is: If it is meant to be, it will be. Don't settle for something that won't make you happy just because you think you have to make a decsision RIGHT NOW! Let things happen as they should because more than likely  you will be happy with the result. But on the flipside, don't second guess yourself either. If your dream dress (man, shoes, job opportunity, house) is within reach, don't say no worrying about something better coming along.

I got my dream dress and I couldn't be happier!


Any of you have any great dress stories where  you were able to get your dream dress almost magically? Any one worried about having to settle for a dress?

He Stole my Heart so I'm stealing his last name!

I am not the original author of that title, I stole if from a friend who is getting married to an awesome guy in September 2012.

We are getting married. He proposed on October 13th by slipping the ring on my finger while I was asleep. Tell me that isn't adorable (remember Time Travelers Wife).
We are still undecided on the date but it's going to be soon. We are undecided on the guest list because it seems like we can't trim it down to a necessary number.
I have been waiting to plan this for so long and now that I'm able to I'm totally freaking out. I hoped I would be a calm cool and collected bride but I have no idea where to start.


More to come soon. Including inspiration boards and such.

Ring is personal photo.