So looking at the handy little counter on the first post I made back in August of last year, it says 17 days. 17! Yikes. Thankfully we have pretty much all of the details ironed out. We were able to get a lot of stuff done when we were back in Victoria two weeks ago for another wedding. One of my bridesmaids (Amy) just had to get married before us...*shakes fist*. J/K. It was a great wedding and we found out that both them and us have the same tastes apparently (intentional or accidental aside). We ended up having the same bubble wands, the same wine, and the same photographer of all things. It was really funny. While they were getting their wedding photos done, Jeff and I were looking at the photographer, and Jeff says to me "I think that is our photographer". I wasn't totally sure so I looked our photographer up on his website on my phone and he certainly looked like a younger version of the person in front of us. When we got a chance we asked Amy what the name of their photographer was (just to confirm) and it was the same guy. So our sneak peak of how he works gives us comfort that we chose a good photographer.
So in addition to this surprise twists at Amy and Trefor's wedding, we were also able to get our flowers squared away, buy decorations for the ceremony and the supplies for the centerpieces. It ended up we could no longer get the centerpieces we originally wanted to order from a company in the states cuz they were no longer shipping internationally. So we improvised on the idea and ended up finding some awesome sales at Michaels such that they ended up costing less than the other ones would have, and now that they have been assembled, setting them up on the tables is a two step process as opposed to the intricate mess that the other ones would have been. Probably a good thing since it will likely be the guys who are setting things up. The less they have to do and the faster it goes the better in my opinion. :)
So the last little details that we have left are trying to put together a possible pre-wedding party (replacing a bachelor/bachelorette party since that type of thing is not our cup of tea), a few more decorations need to be made (not going to do that til we get back to victoria..don't want them to get squished in transport), I have to figure out how I want my hair done as well as my mother's and probably a couple little details that are eluding me right now.
For all you who are going to be there...see you in at most 17 days!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Is that a light at the end of the tunnel?
Oh my, so much has happened in the last 2 months. Specifically most of it in the last month or so actually. First thing, the invites are out. YAY!! What an ordeal that was. We had bought a DIY kit from Michael's which was fairly straight forward. However, apparently my printer does not like to print on card stock paper and therefore we had to figure out a work around. Short of buying a new printer, we knew that we would have to add something to the invite so that we could print on it. So it turned out that we found some nice, regular thickness paper that matches the pattern on the invites pretty well to print out the info on. This meant that the printed out stuff had to be cut and glued to the card stock. Oh my god! If my printer had been able to print on the card stock I probably would have been able to finish assembling the invites in like one weekend. Having to cut and glue all the stuff to the card stock added a weeks worth of work. I did get a new toy though. Its a cool paper cutter that allowed me to cut all these stupid things straight and somewhat consistently. I will stop complaining about the invites though cuz the ended up coming out beautifully. I think the added touches from printing on the paper as opposed to the card stock made them that much better. You will see!
Mailing them was another thing. Before we started the whole paper fiasco, we had gone to the post office to see what kind of postage we need for the invite. Without the fix (cus we didn't know that we needed it at that point) the invites were 29 grams. The threshold for a stamp is 30g. So that was good, but after adding all the glue and paper and such we were afraid that it would be over the 30g. So we went to weigh them again and they were....30g exactly. Score! So hopefully you should all see the invite and the (figurative) blood sweat and tears that we (mostly I, Jeff did help with some assemblage and addressing but nothing that would have warrented blood sweat or tears on his part) put into making them.
So that was one thing. We have also figured out what they guys will be wearing. They will look snazzy I think, but it is hard to tell since you don't actually get to try on the entire tux when you go in for a measurement...heck you don't even get to try on a tux at that point, more just random pants and jackets that they have in store so they can get your measurements. But I think they should look sharp.
That same day we went to the mall and ended up getting both Jeff's ring and the registry set up. Jeff had a lot of fun with the scanner. So we are registered at The Bay, however we are going to get everything sent to the store here rather than ending up with a bunch of large presents in Victoria that we have to lug across the country. Amazingly we already have some presents that have arrived.
We have also just found our officiant and our dj. So check and check. The last things we need to do are reserve the tent and order flowers and centerpieces (we know what we want but we don't know how many we need). And then we have some other details to iron out. But the ball is rolling pretty well now. Hopefully it doesn't roll over us!
Mailing them was another thing. Before we started the whole paper fiasco, we had gone to the post office to see what kind of postage we need for the invite. Without the fix (cus we didn't know that we needed it at that point) the invites were 29 grams. The threshold for a stamp is 30g. So that was good, but after adding all the glue and paper and such we were afraid that it would be over the 30g. So we went to weigh them again and they were....30g exactly. Score! So hopefully you should all see the invite and the (figurative) blood sweat and tears that we (mostly I, Jeff did help with some assemblage and addressing but nothing that would have warrented blood sweat or tears on his part) put into making them.
So that was one thing. We have also figured out what they guys will be wearing. They will look snazzy I think, but it is hard to tell since you don't actually get to try on the entire tux when you go in for a measurement...heck you don't even get to try on a tux at that point, more just random pants and jackets that they have in store so they can get your measurements. But I think they should look sharp.
That same day we went to the mall and ended up getting both Jeff's ring and the registry set up. Jeff had a lot of fun with the scanner. So we are registered at The Bay, however we are going to get everything sent to the store here rather than ending up with a bunch of large presents in Victoria that we have to lug across the country. Amazingly we already have some presents that have arrived.
We have also just found our officiant and our dj. So check and check. The last things we need to do are reserve the tent and order flowers and centerpieces (we know what we want but we don't know how many we need). And then we have some other details to iron out. But the ball is rolling pretty well now. Hopefully it doesn't roll over us!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wedding planning myths
So we have been a little more busy planning wise in the past couple of weeks than we certainly have in the past couple of months. We ended up talking to a different photographer because the first ones kept taking along time to get back to me and this new one has a much better deal than the other ones. More stuff for less money and we are supposed to maintain full legal rights to all our pictures which is a big thing these days. We have also more or less lined up a string duo for the ceremony music. Just have to iron some detail out on the contract and that will be all set. So two things down, how many to go? lol
The thing that I find interesting is that when you start to plan a wedding, if you are like me and don't know the first thing about it, you usually turn to the closest resource available to you for information: Google. Now in perusing the plethora of wedding planning sites out there, you usually will stumble on some version of a wedding time line which breaks down when you should do certain things and such. There are some things on those time lines that I will agree with (i.e. buying the wedding dress 6-8 months beforehand since they will need like 3 months to make it assuming you don't buy off the rack, plus time for alterations and such) but there are some things that I in theory was supposed to do like 3 months ago that I am just getting to now and it seems to be just fine. They seem to make it sound like if you don't book everything 12 months in advance that you are s.o.l. I agree that this is true for the venue, but other things it turns out not so much. So far, for both of the photographers and the musicians that we have contacted, they are all available on the 16th. I was a bit worried that because it is now less than six months that they would all be booked up, but they are not. Of course waiting until the last minute is not conducive to getting the prices/people you want, but you definitely do not have to book it as far in advance as they would like you to believe.
After talking to the second photographer, another thing that seems to be common within the wedding industry is photographers keeping your negatives in order to force you and your family and friends to pay exorbitant prices to get pictures of you. Luckily this person is not like that. They hate that part of the industry and therefore will give us the "negatives" (such a funny term these days since everything is mostly done using digital photography...I guess they give us the photons? lol) and even have reasonable rates for people to get prints or download the files of the pictures they like. So yay!
The thing that I find interesting is that when you start to plan a wedding, if you are like me and don't know the first thing about it, you usually turn to the closest resource available to you for information: Google. Now in perusing the plethora of wedding planning sites out there, you usually will stumble on some version of a wedding time line which breaks down when you should do certain things and such. There are some things on those time lines that I will agree with (i.e. buying the wedding dress 6-8 months beforehand since they will need like 3 months to make it assuming you don't buy off the rack, plus time for alterations and such) but there are some things that I in theory was supposed to do like 3 months ago that I am just getting to now and it seems to be just fine. They seem to make it sound like if you don't book everything 12 months in advance that you are s.o.l. I agree that this is true for the venue, but other things it turns out not so much. So far, for both of the photographers and the musicians that we have contacted, they are all available on the 16th. I was a bit worried that because it is now less than six months that they would all be booked up, but they are not. Of course waiting until the last minute is not conducive to getting the prices/people you want, but you definitely do not have to book it as far in advance as they would like you to believe.
After talking to the second photographer, another thing that seems to be common within the wedding industry is photographers keeping your negatives in order to force you and your family and friends to pay exorbitant prices to get pictures of you. Luckily this person is not like that. They hate that part of the industry and therefore will give us the "negatives" (such a funny term these days since everything is mostly done using digital photography...I guess they give us the photons? lol) and even have reasonable rates for people to get prints or download the files of the pictures they like. So yay!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Dresses, Photos, and Music
Another day, another update...well sorta.
Anyway, I have finally decided on the bridesmaid dresses, with no help from the bridesmaids themselves....love you :P. What I mean by this is that I asked them if they had any preferences (long, short, straps, no straps, etc) and they all came back with some form of response which essentially said "Whatever is fine". Well that really helps to narrow things down.
So I sat down last week and went through the online catalogue at Dessy.com. Holy crap do they have a lot of different styles...Not only do they currently have like 350 different styles, but within each style you can choose different colors for the dress and sometimes some of the details. Talk about an indecision nightmare. I had looked at them a couple months ago and didn't really find anything I really liked, but when I looked again last week, they had their new spring line out so I was able to find one that I like. (If you go to http://www.dessy.com/dresses/bridesmaid/2807/ you can see the dress. To see what it should look like, change the dress color to burgandy and the trim color to white). One interesting thing about the current styles is that they all seemed to have pockets. Yes, pockets in a dress. I am not against pockets in a dress, as long as it is a casual dress. Pockets in a formal dress seem odd. Regardless, I really like this style so I can deal with pockets and will have to make sure my bridesmaids keep their hands out of said pockets *Evil Glare*. That ought to do it. Anyway, so with fingers crossed, I sent a message to my bridesmaids and they all really like it (Phew). So on to the next thing.
I have also found a dress I like for the flower girl (http://www.dessy.com/dresses/flowergirl/fl4009/; White top, burgandy bottom), but I am unsure about sizing and whether it will work for a 2 year old (well 2 years and 3 months by the wedding). I think part of it is that the picture shows a much older girl who is obviously taller. We shall see.
For the photographer, we are currently in email contact with BK Studios (http://www.bullockandkirstein.com/#). They currently have an opening for July 16, and we are trying to see if we can come up with a price/package that we like.
For music, obviously we will have a dj of some sort for the reception, but I kinda like the idea of some sort of live string duo for the ceremony. There seem to be two separate companies that will do this, but I have not looked into prices quite yet. That will be the next thing on the list along with finding an officiant (There was one that I found which will customize everything but they may be a bit expensive...again have not asked for any info yet so will have to do that)
As for other details:
- Jeff has apparently commandeered the responsibility for the cake. Unfortunately we will not be able to go to any sort of tasting so we will be sending Jeff's parents. Lucky them :P.
- As stated in a previous post, I have chosen what kind of flowers I want, but I have yet to find a florist.
- Need to ultimately finalize the guest list and then get addresses for all those on it so we can send invites out in a couple months
- Need to find a DJ
- Need to book our honeymoon (Oahu here we come :) )
- Need to make our registry and make sure that people buy things from there such that we can pick it up at a store here in London since we will not have room to take things back with us (Hint hint to any of you who are reading this...)
- Jeff needs to get the tuxes and such squared away
- Decorations
- Some other things I'm sure I am missing right now
Anyway, I have finally decided on the bridesmaid dresses, with no help from the bridesmaids themselves....love you :P. What I mean by this is that I asked them if they had any preferences (long, short, straps, no straps, etc) and they all came back with some form of response which essentially said "Whatever is fine". Well that really helps to narrow things down.
So I sat down last week and went through the online catalogue at Dessy.com. Holy crap do they have a lot of different styles...Not only do they currently have like 350 different styles, but within each style you can choose different colors for the dress and sometimes some of the details. Talk about an indecision nightmare. I had looked at them a couple months ago and didn't really find anything I really liked, but when I looked again last week, they had their new spring line out so I was able to find one that I like. (If you go to http://www.dessy.com/dresses/bridesmaid/2807/ you can see the dress. To see what it should look like, change the dress color to burgandy and the trim color to white). One interesting thing about the current styles is that they all seemed to have pockets. Yes, pockets in a dress. I am not against pockets in a dress, as long as it is a casual dress. Pockets in a formal dress seem odd. Regardless, I really like this style so I can deal with pockets and will have to make sure my bridesmaids keep their hands out of said pockets *Evil Glare*. That ought to do it. Anyway, so with fingers crossed, I sent a message to my bridesmaids and they all really like it (Phew). So on to the next thing.
I have also found a dress I like for the flower girl (http://www.dessy.com/dresses/flowergirl/fl4009/; White top, burgandy bottom), but I am unsure about sizing and whether it will work for a 2 year old (well 2 years and 3 months by the wedding). I think part of it is that the picture shows a much older girl who is obviously taller. We shall see.
For the photographer, we are currently in email contact with BK Studios (http://www.bullockandkirstein.com/#). They currently have an opening for July 16, and we are trying to see if we can come up with a price/package that we like.
For music, obviously we will have a dj of some sort for the reception, but I kinda like the idea of some sort of live string duo for the ceremony. There seem to be two separate companies that will do this, but I have not looked into prices quite yet. That will be the next thing on the list along with finding an officiant (There was one that I found which will customize everything but they may be a bit expensive...again have not asked for any info yet so will have to do that)
As for other details:
- Jeff has apparently commandeered the responsibility for the cake. Unfortunately we will not be able to go to any sort of tasting so we will be sending Jeff's parents. Lucky them :P.
- As stated in a previous post, I have chosen what kind of flowers I want, but I have yet to find a florist.
- Need to ultimately finalize the guest list and then get addresses for all those on it so we can send invites out in a couple months
- Need to find a DJ
- Need to book our honeymoon (Oahu here we come :) )
- Need to make our registry and make sure that people buy things from there such that we can pick it up at a store here in London since we will not have room to take things back with us (Hint hint to any of you who are reading this...)
- Jeff needs to get the tuxes and such squared away
- Decorations
- Some other things I'm sure I am missing right now
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