4 Months Left

Wow. I know it has been a while since I last posted, but I took a huge wedding planning break. Now I feel like I'm really, really, far behind and need to scramble to catch up. I looked at my list last night and freaked out a little bit. There are things from March that I haven't done yet!!

One of the reasons for things not getting done, is we are debating on changing our venue now. T's brother has offered us his restaurant. It will save us $800 by not using the winery. We're also getting food and drink at cost, which is less than the caterer. We won't need linens, plates, utensils, chairs, tables, glasses and some of the decor stuff. So I kind of halted.

I needed to get the logistics right in my head before we cancel the winery. I think I finally have it figured out (with the help of my September knotties!) and now I'm ready to move forward. The part that sucks is that I already printed the invitations. I'll need to order more cards and print everything again, but I'm not too concerned. At least I didn't print out the entire invitations sets, that would be crazy! I'd also like to visit the restaurant again to make sure that the floor plan in my head is really going to work out and we need to decided on which foods from their menu we are going to serve. I'd still like to give guests the options on the RSVP card so the restaurant has an idea of what they need to make.


So until we get that done, I'm a bit stuck. Here is the off-the-top-of-my-head list of stuff that still needs to get done.

• Cancel winery in writing.
• Contact all vendors to change location.
• Engagement pictures next weekend.
• Order invitation pieces. 
• Print invitations. 
• Assemble invitations. 
• Find a DJ.
• Pick music.
• Plan ceremony. 
• Answer a huge list of questions from officiant. 
• Have meeting with officiant. 
• Contact baker and see if we are doing a tasting. 
• Find out if the baker has a deposit fee and pay if applicable.
• Order candles and vases for centerpieces. 
• Possibly tell the florist that we'll need more flowers for centerpieces. 
• Finish bridesmaid jewelry.
• Make card-box.
• Find bridal necklace.
• Book honeymoon.
• Visit and book limo, after talking to photographer about logistics.
• Book hotel to get ready. 
• Have hair and make up trial. 
• Finalize food with caterer. 
• Bridesmaids order dresses. 
• Grooms get tuxes.
• Paint We Do letters.
• Decide on if we are having a rehearsal dinner. Plan if necessary. 
• Find free weekend for probable surprise shower.
• Find free weekend for bachelorette party. 

And then all of the other fun stuff like getting a marriage license, making a seating chart/escort cards, fittings for the dress, final hair cuts, etc.

Typing it out makes it worse. Now I'm really anxious. Gah! =(

I'll update again soon!

Cake!

I know, I know, two posts in one day. But I also spoke with a baker this week and I'm really exciting about using her.

She was recommended by my FBIL's girlfriend. She's done 3 cakes for her so far and they're awesome looking cakes for amazing prices. Like think Ace of Cakes style for grocery store prices.

This is the cake she did for FBIL's 30th birthday when his girlfriend surprised him with a trip to Vegas.

Pretty impressive, huh? So obviously I completely trust her to make just about any cake. Wouldn't you?

After lots and lots of searching online, I found a cake that T and I really liked. It was on projectwedding.com. Here it is:

I like how modern it is and how the cake looks like wrapped presents. After much deliberation and help from my knotties, we decided that the cake will remain white, the ribbon will be silver and there will be purple flowers and the stenciling will be the same color as the picture.

We only have 50 guests, so the cake doesn't need to be very large at all. When I had got a quote from another baker, they told me that we could do the bottom layer at 12", the middle at 10" and the top at 8". This baker agreed.

We're still emailing back and forth, so we haven't made any decisions on flavors yet, but I'm pretty much leaving that to T. I'm not a cake person. I like ice cream cake and thats about it.

Oh yeah and the best part....she said the cake would be about $150. YAY! Here is her website in case you're interested in drooling over awesome cakes: amazingcakecreations.com

Meeting with the Caterer

A few weeks ago my fiance told me that his brother's restaurant (our caterer) had fired their head chef. I texted brother's girlfriend (the one who runs everything) to see if she wanted me to start looking at other caterers since it seemed to be a pain to find a new chef and then be like "oh by the way, you know how we don't cater? Well, we are. And in less than 6 months."

I was a bit worried before I started looking because since they were doing it at a discounted price, that's all we had budgeted for and I know that was really low prices compared to Maryland standards.

After searching for about a week with repeatedly being informed that there was no way I could even serve lettuce on my budget, I stumbled upon a small catering company in PA. They have two 5.0 reviews on weddingwire.com, one from this past June and the other from this February. The website looked nice, there was a lot of information, and it even included pricing so I could see if it was worth it to email them or not.

Amazingly enough, they offered the right food for the right prices. So, naturally, I started to think that it was just too good to be true and the food would taste like crap. Regardless, I contacted them the next day and talked on the phone with the guy forever, asking tons and tons of questions. We set up a food tasting for today.

The food was really good. It tasted like homemade cooking and something that you would expect to eat at a dinner party, which is exactly what we were going for. We tried steak, manicotti, and chicken stuffed with crab meat. They were all really good but we both really liked the chicken with crab meat the best.

We went over the contract, asked a few questions and came up with a basic price guessing that half of our guests would choose one entree and the other half would choose the other. Its definitely in our budget and I'm really excited to have this over with.

We have until a week before the wedding to change our minds on the food, but this is what we've decided so far.

Appetizers:
cheese and vegetable display

First Course:
mixed green salad with ranch or italian dressing
rolls with butter

Entree: (choice of)
manicotti
chicken chesapeake with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and corn

Dessert:
wedding cake (not by them)

Drinks:
sodas, water, and premium bar (I need to find out what all is included under this, but its the middle option)


We're doing all of this for about $33 a person. Thats unbelievable! We didn't sign the contract, we wanted to come home and discuss all of it first, but I'm ready to do this now!

If you're curious (and in the area) its legendscatering.net

Invitation Mock Ups

DIY invites have been a bit of a nightmare for me. It started off when I couldn't decide what style of invites I wanted and whether or not I was going to DIY them. Then I started looking at prices of invitations online and quickly realized that it was just asinine not to do them myself.

Next was the great pocketfold debate. I saw them in knottie bios and knew that I really, really wanted to do it, but I couldn't justify the cost. Especially when we cut back the budget. Spending close to $100 on paper was just insanity.

So, considering there is way too much time in an 18 month engagement to continually change your mind and look at the same things over and over again, I finally decided, I don't care. I'm going to have pocketfold invitations. I'll make room for them in the budget somehow and no, I just don't care that the invitations are not really an important part of the wedding because they just get thrown away. Damn it, I want pocketfolds!

When cardsandpockets.com had a sale, I was ecstatic. I read on theknot that its not very often they offer a sale and that everyone who was anywhere near close to needing to order invitations should really take advantage of this awesome deal. Of course, I ordered the invitations that night.

I've always been a bit of a paper geek. Ever since I was a kid, I've always liked school supplies and paper is just another one of those things. When my invites came in, all boxed up and pretty, I took them out of the box and just stared at them for a few minutes. Pretty new paper in pretty colors just waiting for me to print my invites on them.

I finally decided after reading FutureMrsDudley55's bio with instructions on how to emboss invitations that it was the route I was going to go. Ironically, its what I originally wanted but I thought it would be too difficult and couldn't find good directions online. During the last blizzard I ordered my heat tool, embossing powder, embossing ink, and stamp buddy.

After I made the definite decision to emboss the invites, I knew that I wanted to give myself enough time to get them printed out and assembled. Knowing that I only really had the weekends to work on this stuff and the summer is typically a pretty busy time for me, I decided that I wanted to start printing the invites in March.

Since the first I've stared at the calendar and then at the box that holds my invite pieces and hesitated. Yes, I was scared to print out my own invitations. I didn't want to mess them up. I didn't want to take the nice new paper out of its packaging and put it into my cheap printer because there was a slight change that the printer could mangle it to shreds and I would be out lots of money.

This weekend is ugly, cold and rainy. About two hours ago i decided that it was time to print out a mock up invitation, even though I want to include entree choices on the RSVP cards and we don't have that finalized yet. Still scared to actually print the invites that I created months ago, I started googling to make sure that my wording was correct, reading the invite forwards and backwards to make sure that there weren't any typos, and looking at as many versions of pocketfold invites online as humanly possible.

Taking a really deep breath I opened the new pack of pre-cut invitations and loaded it into my printer. I clicked on print, sized everything, crossed my fingers and clicked on Ok while closing my eyes and hoping for the best. No, I'm not just being dramatic for the sake of this blog, I really did do that!

The invite printed out perfectly. So I exhaled that breath I had held for about a minute. Tentatively, I loaded the printer with two sheets of paper this time and tried it again. Success! Then 5 sheets! Then 6 sheets! A few prints later (with 6 extra prints for mistakes), I had printed all of the invitations I needed! Scared that something would happen to them, I immediately went to the kitchen and got two freezer sizes plastic bags and put the printed on and leftover invitations into them.

Now I was excited. I had one part of my invite done and since that was successful, I figured it was as good a time as any to make an actual mock up of the invite. I opened the directions insert and checked carefully for typos before recalculating the route on mapquest and making some changes, since apparently in the last two months they have changed their minds on which is the best way to get to the damn winery thats in the middle of nowhere! Satisfied, I printed the directions insert.

Next is the Information insert. I have the hotels on there with their phone numbers and our wedding website for all other information. This was definitely the easiest. Cutting this insert to size compared to the directions one wasn't that great, so I'm not sure if I'm going to buy a paper cutter or see how much it would be to have it done at Kinko's or Staples.

Next is the RSVP insert. That was also easy to print. I assembled everything into the pocketfold and my OCD self could not stand that there was such a space gap between the height of the Information and RSVP insert. I knew its because these pocketfolds are made for 3 inserts plus the RSVP card and it didn't help that my Directions insert was full size of the insert. So, I decided that regardless of the fact that the winery is in the middle of no where and a map is going to be quite pointless, I needed something to fill that space.

About 45 minutes later, I finally had a decent looking map that I felt proud enough to put in my invites, even though it hardly shows any information because of the winery's location. But whatever, it cured my OCD compulsion to have things equally spaced apart.

Finally, all of the inserts were printed and lined up all nicely in the pocket. I do still need to adjust where the words are for the top of the inserts because they don't line up properly, but I'll do that at another time.

I had a seller on etsy.com create a monogram for me that we could put on the belly bands of the invites. At first I wasn't sure how I waned to seal the invites, but belly bands seemed to be the easiest solution. Hopefully that bit of string and cardstock monogram won't take me over the $0.61 weight. Fingers crossed! I'm going to take it into the office on Monday to double check.

Okay, well after reading all of that I'm sure you're thinking Jeez lady would you just post a damn picture of your invites! So, here you go:

Ignore the wet spots on the pocketfold, I'm the idiot that didn't make sure the counter top was dry before putting the invite on it to take pictures.

I didn't feel like getting out all of the tools to emboss the invites, so I just used the purple ink pad I have and the stamp that will be used for the embossing. The color of the ink and the embossing powder are pretty close so this should be really similar to the actual colors on the invite.

 See how the words Directions, Information, Map and RSVP aren't quite lined up? That will drive me absolutely crazy so I need to fix that and get everything to line up before the actual invites are printed.

I just wanted to show you the pathetic-ness that is the map. See that spot where it looks like a dark blob, well, that's where the winery is located. Smack dab in the middle of absolutely no where. Honestly, there are nothing but other wineries and farms around it.

I'm sure my direction challenged (even with a GPS)) mother is going to have a hell of a time finding it.

And a close up of the monogram. Its printed on a mistake sheet of cardstock (I don't have white cardstock yet) and I used a 1.5" square scallop nesting hole punch to do it. Oh, and advice - if you are going to use one of these, punch upside down so you can see what you want to show up in the square on the underpart of the punch.

The ribbon comes from the Anna Griffin Wedding Studio line. I found it as prepackaged cut ribbon in packs of 20 at AC Moore. They're 3.99 each, but I bought them individually with 40% off coupons on different days to save money. I figured it might be a bit more expensive than buying a spool of ribbon, but they are the right color and width that I want and even though precut they are too large, they are easy to cut to size without fraying.

And now for Stuff that You Might Care to Know:

* I created my invites in Word 2007 and set the paper to the exact size of the invites, by clicking on size and then entering a custom size. I also made all of the margins 0.
* When printing, I set my printer to print on the size of paper that the invite was, custom or not.
*The font for our names is Monterey BT which was emailed to me by another knottie. Let me know if you would like me to send you this font.
*The font for the other wording on the invitation is Copperplate Gothic Light which is standard in Word.
*The font for the names of the inserts is French Vanilla Swirl. This was also emailed to me by another knottie.
*The font for all of the wording on the inserts is Gabriola, which is standard on my Word 07.
*The invitation wording is as follows:

Pebbles Flintstone

and

Bam Bam Rubble

together with their parents

Wilma and Fred Flintstone

Betty and Barney Rubble

invite you to share in their joy

as they unite in marriage 

Friday, the seventeenth of September

two thousand ten

six o'clock in the evening

Ye Old Rock Winery

123 Cobblestone Road

Dinosaur, MD 21162
*The map was created used weddingmapper.com and I followed the directions on there for how to print it.

Asking for money is not okay

There has been an influx of asking for money poems on the knot recently. Apparently these very misguided brides refuse to accept that under no circumstances, there is no polite way to ask for money, so you JUST.DON'T.DO.IT!

Example 1:
We know it's not traditional,
it's not the way its done, 
but instead of a wedding list
we'd like a bit of sun!
Please don't think of us as rude,
Please don't take offense,
We do not want to upset you,
That's not the way its meant!
We've lived together quite a while;
We've got our plates and our pots and pans,
Our plans have all been made. 
So if you'd like to give a gift 
to help us celebrate, 
some money for our honeymoon
we'd sure appreciate. 

Example 2:
For a couple of years we've lived in sin
We have a toaster, a kettle and a stainless steel bin.
Saucepans and towels, we have many,
Corkscrews and flannel, we don't need any.
We just want you with us to celebrate our day, 
But if you insist on a gift anyway,
What we'd really like is the gift of money,
We hope you don't think we're being funny!
We'll put it all together and buy something that's best,
as a reminder of our day and of our wonderful guests!


Honestly, there are just too many posts about this to really include all of the horrendous poems that people come up with to try to justify being rude.

And now for my favorite response, by knottie BecW2B:

I know you want cash, but times are really tough,
you tried to avoid being rude, but the poem was not enough.
So here's my gift to you; a little piece of good advice,
there's not a way to ask for cash that's polite or even nice. 
I do wish you the very best on your honeymoon,
I hope you don't come back knocked up with a tyke, 
While you're away I'll be drinking from the crystal I bought you,
that I thought you wouldn't like! 

I couldn't help it. Really, ladies, just know that you don't want to do this unless you want to receive a poem like Bec's on your RSVP card with DECLINE on the front.

Questions to Ask a Venue

There was a post on the knot today about what questions are good to ask a vendor and I started to respond with "I have a list in my blog" until I realized that I didn't. Apparently I had planned on doing it at some point, but never quite got there. So, here we are.

1. Do you have our date available?
2. What is the rental fee?
3. Is there a separate charge to have the ceremony here?
4. What time can vendors get in?
5. If there is a set number of hours for rentals, is there a per hour price for anything over that?
6. Is there a fee for the set up and breakdown?
7. Is there a coordinator that will work with us?
8. Do you include chairs, tables, linens, etc.?
9. Is there a kitchen on-site?
10. Do you have a preferred vendor list?
11. Are there any other events scheduled for the same day?
    11a. Do you schedule more than one event per day?
12. Are there guidelines and restrictions for noise/music?
13. Do outside vendors need to meet with you first?
14. Do you provide catering on-site?
15. Is there a security deposit? When is it due? Is it refundable?
16. Are there rules for decorations (no open flames, real flower petals, etc.)?
17. How many bathrooms are there?
18. Is there adequate parking?
19. Will any construction or renovations be going on near/on our date?
20. Is there a deposit? When is it due?
21. Is there a cancellation fee? If so, how much?
22. When is the final head count due?
23. Is there a fee to have our rehearsal here?
24. What information do we need to provide you with for our vendors?
25. Is the site wheel chair accessible?
26. Are there any additional costs?
27. Do you have a liquor license?
28. Do we need to purchase liability insurance?
29. Can we bring in our own liquor?
30. Is there a bridal suite?

That should give you the basics, but you can also google and find out a ton of other questions that might be specific to your location.

Some Stuff For Sale

Since we're moving in 2 weeks, I went through the wedding stuff I have (and packed it up) and found some stuff to sell already. Everything is in my knot planning bio which can be found here:
http://www.momentville.com/lovethebeach16/for_sale

Favors - Black Bottom Cupcakes

It was very easy for us to decide on favors. I'm one of those people who won't take a wedding favor unless its edible. I don't have any use for something that has someone elses name on it.

So I knew I wanted to do edible favors. It didn't take me long to realize that T really likes the black bottom cupcakes that I make and it was also slightly significant since that was the first dessert I made for him.

A few weeks ago, I bought Chinese take out boxes from a local knottie who was selling 60 of them for $5. I couldn't beat that price! They are the 1/2 pint size and I wasn't sure if the black bottoms would fit or not. Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I figured it was as good a time as any to test it out.

So, what do you think, are they too crammed? T thinks they are fine. You can easily get your fingers in there to get them out, so I think its okay.

If you are interested in the recipe, click here: black bottom cupcakes

Updated Budget Breakdown

Since we're almost 7 months away and I'm stuck at home again (thank you snow) I figured it was a good time to provide a budget update. Currently, we're under budget which is great because now we can afford to pay our bartender something instead of taking him up on his offer to do it for free.

Oh, and before I start the budget breakdown...we've finally made a decision on the honeymoon. We figured we would go to the Outer Banks in NC, but weren't sure of where to stay. I found a condo in Hatteras yesterday that is $610 for the week, has a pool and is right in the middle of everything so there is tons of shopping, restaurants, and we're super close to take the ferry over to Okracoke (sp?) Island. I haven't booked it yet, because we still need to decide if we are going for one week or two but at least I have a definite place now.

Okay, onto the budget.

Venue $600
Officiant $275
Marriage License $35
Caterer(garnishes and ice) $1060
Alcohol $500
Soda, juice, straws $105
Plates, utensils, drinkware $260
Linens $160
Chairs and tables $140
Cake $200
Serving set/toasting flutes $20
Centerpiece vases and rocks $15
Floating candles $30
Tealights $5
Mirrors $20
Centerpiece flowers $64
We Do Letters, cake table decor $20
Bouquets, bouts and corsages $190
Invitations and inserts $84
Menu and thank you cards $22
DJ $300
Photographer $1113
Ring bearer pillow and flower girl basket $11
Table numbers, card box, guest book, guest book pen, bouquet vases $50
Favors $22
Dress $500
Alterations $100
Shoes $50
Jewelry $50
Grooms attire $50

Total $6051

Which puts us almost $500 under budget. I know its not a lot, but its enough that we can pay the bartender and maybe the DOC as well. Of course the prices still aren't final because we haven't purchased everything yet. I have my spreadsheet set up to subtract the actual cost of things from what we have already purchased and its showing that we've paid for 1/3 of the wedding so far.

Another thing I realized is that we said we didn't want to go over $8000 after including the bridesmaids gifts, honeymoon and wedding bands even though they weren't a real part of the budget. Since my dad paid for the rings, even adding in the honeymoon and the bridesmaids gifts I've purchased and plan to purchase, we're still under $7K. Not bad at all!

Bridesmaids Gifts

I've been seriously slacking on wedding related stuff. With a little more than 7 months to go, I still have a lot to get done. I'm trying to avoid thinking about it because we're moving at the end of the month and I almost feel like its somewhat pointless to get started on a project only to have to stop and pack it up at the end of the month.

So, since a snowmageddon is going on outside (thank you Mother Nature, the state of Maryland must have really screwed you at some point), and I'm stuck in the house, I decided I could start looking at bridesmaids gifts and see if I could come up with any ideas.

I had no idea what in the world to buy. I know that you are supposed to buy gifts for them like you are shopping for their birthday, but thats kind of difficult when you're not birthday gift giving friends. I posted on the knot and got a ton of good suggestions. I also asked where I could find those grocery totes that have different patterns on them and was informed that Forever21.com has them for $1.50. That is an awesome price! They didn't have a huge variety, but I was able to find 3 of them to buy that will work out quite well and even matches the tastes of my bridesmaids.

Then I started looking around on the Forever21 site and found a ton of stuff that would work out as cheap but nice gifts. So I began shopping. I ended up with a pair of slippers, two candles, 3 totes and hair clip for $30. Then I moved onto Bath & Body Works, spending another $30 and getting bubble bath, a sleep mask, and two pairs of those scent infused socks.

Not wanting to give up on gifts just yet, I went to restaurant.com and bought a $50 gift certificate for $15. Usually they are $25 (and half price still isn't bad) but I was able to find a coupon code (ironically it was BRIDAL) to save me the extra $10.

Here is the breakdown of gifts (and intended-to-purchase gifts) with their prices.

Matron of Honor
S is a stay-at-home mom and opening a daycare in her house. I bought the restaurant gift certificate for her because I know she likes seafood, likes the restaurant and definitely could use an excuse to get out of the house for a date night with her husband. I also picked up a pair of the scent infused socks for her since she is usually on her feet all day.
Gift Card: $15
Socks: $6
Total: $21. Since I still have $20 to spend, I think I'll pick up either a picture frame that I know she'll like or some type of a figurine for her house.

Maid of Honor
C is going to become a mommy in May. It turned out that she was the easiest to shop for once I got the idea in my head that a recent mommy is definitely in need of some well-deserved me time. The other pair of socks are for her along with all kinds of other pampering type things.
Socks: $6
Bubble Bath: $12
Candle: $3
Sleep Mask: $5
Slippers: $7
Tote: $1.50
Total: $34.50
I'm not sure if I'll end up picking something else up for her or not. It really depends on if I see something. Maybe a bottle of wine to relax?

Bridesmaid
K is T's sister. I know that she likes to drink, so I thought a tote with different types of alcohol, premixed drinks, glasses, and maybe some snacks would be a neat idea. All I have purchased so far is the $1.50 tote,  but I think I'm going to check out Target to see what type of barware stuff they have.
Tote: $2
Total: $2

Bridesmaid
R is my cousin. She will be almost 21 for the wedding. I wasn't sure what to get her either, but last summer we went to the flea market near my apartment and she bought a really cute knock off coach purse with a matching wallet. Since I looked at them with her and found out we have really similar tastes when it comes to purses, I think I can pick one out on my own. I'm not sure how early I'm going to buy this because they have new styles almost every weekend. If we have a snow free weekend soon, I'll go and check them out to see if there are any really great ones. If not, I'll come back during the summer to get one then.The next time I talk to her mom I'm going to find out what perfume she has in her room and I'll probably pick up a small bottle of that.
Coach purse: $35
Perfume: $15
Total: $50

Bridesmaid
A is my other cousin. Honestly, I have no idea what in the world to get her because she changes her tastes on things all of the time. So I emailed her mom to get some suggestions. I know that probably wasn't the best way to go about it, but we live 3 hours away from each other and usually only see each other for a weekend or so in the summer. I did pick up a candle and tote for her while making the other purchases though.
Tote: $1.50
Candle: $4
Total: $5.50

So far I've spent about $60 and have one gift completed, one almost completed and good ideas on the other two. Not bad at all!

Oh and I completely forgot! They are all also receiving a handmade necklace and bracelet they can wear for the wedding and I picked up silver pashminas for them in case we decide to have the ceremony outside.

How much did you spend on bridesmaids gifts and what did/are you going to get them?